Ahoy! It's talk like a pirate day!

Why talk like a pirate? How: the five As.

The world's best hotels on a budget

Article on the Times about book "Secret hotels" by Erik Torkell.

If you like travelling in style without breaking the bank, this book looks like a must have.

Healthcare companies / eMarketer not web 2.0 ready

In a report titled "Pharmaceutical Marketing Online: Stuck in Web 1.5" eMarketer senior analyst Lisa Phillips said "Pharma's slow adoption of Web 2.0 strategies like blogs, social networks and broadband video can be attributed to its conservative approach to advertising in general and to government restrictions".

Most pharma companies still build "Web 1.0" brochureware websites with limited user information. I agree that the regulatory framework doesn't help.

However, Lisa Phillips names some exceptions such as Rozerem where visitors to the website can see a "video featuring the characters from its TV spots--Abraham Lincoln, a talking beaver and a sleep-deprived young man--with each imploring users to click on his individual section to learn more about the drug".

It's abit more creative but really, how web 2.0 is that??? It's just a layer on a brochureware website...

From Online Media Daily EMarketer report is there.

Facebook costing firms over £130m a day

233 million hours are wasted by employees every month according to employment law firm Peninsula. BBC article. There must be some gains... for some employees somehow...

Wacky Japanese Fanta TV commercials

Happy birthday Malaysia!

50 years since independence. Truely Asia. BBC story.

Free asian anime, music and drama on Crunchyroll

Cool.... Crunchyroll is free but users that pay $6 a month get higher quality and ad free videos. Via Techcrunch who focusses on copyright infringing content found on the site. Why spoil the fun?

nvestment group pays £50m cash for Hirst's diamond skull

When it comes to reconciling art and money, Damien Hirst is the King of cash.
Article on Evening Standard.

Only 5% of UK corporations use blogs on a regular basis,

They are not alone, "less than 6% of the Fortune 500 and 2% of the Forbes 200 Best Small Companies blogged in April and June 2006". Article on eMarketer.

Where do chinese people eat out in london?

Great post on Dim Sum (read the comments too). My regular haunts are:

- Young Cheng (Shaftsbury avenue) for quick lunch
- China China in Chinatown for mixed meat takeaways when I feel lazy and skint
- Royal China (Bayswater or Baker Street branch)
- Four Seasons in Bayswater for duck noodles
- The Hare & Tortoise on High Street Kensington for their soft shell crabs
- Pearl Liang (hidden gem in Paddington for posher meals - lobster noodles is recommended)
- Kiasu on Bayswater for authentic Singaporean fares

World's strangest laws: In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation...

The Times Online showcases the world's 25 strangest laws. My favourites (apart from the one above):

• "It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down".
• "In France, it is forbidden to call a pig Napoleon."
• "In Ohio, it is against state law to get a fish drunk"
• "In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on Sundays can be jailed."
• "In Chester, Welshmen are banned from entering the city before sunrise and from staying after sunset."
• "In the city of York, it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow."

How to Make Skype Portable via USB

Mark O'Neill explains how to carry your Skype around on Read/WriteWeb. I am summarising it here.

1. Create a folder and copy the file "skype.exe" into it.
2. Create another folder inside your folder and call it "data". Inside, create a text file called "skype.bat" with the following text: skype.exe /datapath:"Data" /removable.
3. Copy to your USB key. Done.
   

Wired: Advertisers waste millions in Second Life

Wired has an article on how corporations jumped in Second Life without really understanding what they were getting into. The end result: millions of dollars spent on virtual headquarters or "brand experience"than no one visits and plenty of marketers with nothing to show for their money but for learning how to create an avatar and stroll around. I came to a similar conclusion earlier this year: unless brands provide something of real value to SL users (which is NOT glorified advertising), why should they bother?

A periodic table of visualisation methods

How cool is that?

Via El Blogador.

TheFunded.com, when entrepreneurs rate venture capitalists

TheFunded.com

5 stars for the idea.

Battle at Kruger, one of the most popular video on Youtube

Amazing stuff.

Food branded McDonald's just taste better. Ask the kids.

Fascinating study from Stanford and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation showing the power of advertising. 63 children age 3 to 5 get to taste burgers, fries, chicken nuggets, juices and carrots bought from Mc Donalds. Some are presented in their original packaging, some in non branded packs. The results:

• "almost 77 percent said the labeled fries tasted best while only 13 percent preferred the others".
• "54% percent preferred McDonald's-wrapped carrots versus 23 percent who liked the plain-wrapped sample".
• "29 kids chose McDonald's-wrapped burgers and 22 chose the unmarked ones" (not clear cut).
• "Fewer than one-fourth of the children said both samples of all foods tasted the same".

As a marketer, this is a great study to argue about why companies should invest in building brands. As a human being and citizen, this pavlovian conditioning is so sad and terrifying that I am now considering raising my children in Bhutan.

Article on CNN

Steven Wright

Witty. Emailed to me by El Blogador.

1- I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2- Borrow money from pessimists - they don't expect it back.
3- Half the people you know are below average.
4- 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5- 42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
6- A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7- A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
8- If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
9- All those who believe in psycho-kinesis, raise my hand.
10- The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
11- I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
12- OK, so what's the speed of dark?
13- How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
14- If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
15- Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
16- When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
17- Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
18- Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now.
19- I intend to live forever - so far, so good.
20- If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
21- Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
22- What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
23- My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
24- Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
25- If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
26- A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
27- Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
28- The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
29- To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
30- The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
31- The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
32- The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
33- Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film!

Useful sites for those considering buying a property in the UK

Property Snake shows how much a property's asking price has dropped in your area.

House Price Crash has been warning of an impeding crash for a while (called a "slowdown" or "soft landing" by property agents, surveyors, lenders and builders). I reproduced it above as it is such a powerful message.

Sony is blogging

Sony's blog.

Thanks to the Divine Miss N for the tip.