Will.i.am On The Lamb?
We’ve taken a couple of critical looks at Intel’s “partnership” with will.i.am, including his idiotic rant on Ad Age last month. Our doubts that Intel will see even a quarter of its investment returned were strengthened last week when Intel announced the launch of an investment fund.
Apparently not getting any momentum from will.i.am, Intel will launch an “AppUp” (seriously?) Fund, taking $100 million of its hard-earned cash and investing it in mobile-related start-ups. Intel did not say whether or not it had asked will.i.am to pony up any money. For God’s sake, the least he could do is mention Intel’s name every now and then in his lively Twitter stream.
Son of Walmart?
Meanwhile, a company you’d least expect to invest in 21st century technology (except that we did with our 2010 predictions), Walmart, is moving as aggressively as we expected with the output of its @walmartlabs skunkish works.
Walmart launched its first iPhone app in time for the holidays, complete with barcode scanners, coupons, shopping lists and a budgeting tool. It also announced a beta version of an app to map your way to the location of a chosen item in whatever Walmart store you happen to find yourself in.
So, here’s another Walmart prediction: good results for holiday 2011.
Oh Dear, Stuart. Oh, Dear Stuart.
The SAME EXACT DAY that we posted our takedown of The New York Times advertising “columnist,” Stuart Elliott, we spotted this little non sequitur in one of his patented introductions:
“Between now and New Year’s Eve, food marketers are hoping their products become the soup, frosting, snacks, candy, gravy, cereal and stuffing as dreams are made on.”
As? As??? As dreams are made on?????? Must be a line from an old Broadway show…
The Economic Conspiracy Theory
Anti-government conspiracists are up in arms at this morning’s jobs report – how could adding the same amount of jobs this month as every month prior drop the unemployment rate by FOUR tenths of a percent?!?!?
The always excellent Dan Gross of Yahoo! Finance explains it here. No one at the White House is fudging the data. It’s because the denominator keeps getting smaller, as more and more of the long-term unemployed say “f&ck it.”
“Black” Friday is going to take on a new meaning one day soon.
