Monkeyserver.com

Hey all, here is a few videos and sites that I love. They are from quite a while back, but they are good none-the-less.

Channel 101

There are a slew of off the wall “shows” that I used to watch on Channel101.com. All of these shows are somewhat of a parody of modern tv shows - weak plots, worse scripts, and overdone special effects. In the fashion of TV, each month the creators whip up a new ‘episode’ of their show. The shows are screened and the top 5 are carried on, while all others are cancelled. I don’t suggest checking these out if you are easily offended.

• The ‘Bu - As mentioned in a recent blog post, was my first introduction to The Lonely Island crew and (sometimes) features Elliot from Scrubs. Episode 1 is a good intro to this strip, I suggest going straight through, but if you are rushed for time then skip right to episode 8, the month where they “didn’t make an episode”. CLAP - CLAP
  WPvideo 1.10

  (download)
  WPvideo 1.10

  (download)
• House of Cosbys - HoC to those in the know. If you lived through the 80’s and remember Jello, Picture Pages, and of course the Cosby Show, then this is the show for you. It had a great first few episodes but started to slide into the obscene, luckily it was saved from implosion by an unruly Cease and Desist.
  WPvideo 1.10

  (download)
• There are many more: Yacht Rock, Most Extraordinary Space Investigations (often featuring Sarah Silverman), and so many more.
  WPvideo 1.10

  (download)

Homestar Runner

Ok, this is definitely an oldy, and you shouldn’t need me to introduce you to this, but if you haven’t heard of Homestar Runner, or perhaps his more well known buddy - Strongbad, then please check it out right now. Below I’ve picked out a few of my all time favorites, but there are hundreds of fantastic videos on that site, you can lose days there. One of the best things about these videos is the easter eggs, you can find out more about them on the Homestar Wiki.
The intro to the site is available below (sorry about the bad audio), one of my favorite strong bad emails is anything. The side shows are pretty hot too, like Teen Girl Squad and many others!

I’ve been using twitter for a bit over a week now and it’s quite nice. I am still trying to find the right cadence for my tweets (posts to your bloggers). I’m not the “Getting a short, skinny, hazelnut, cappuccino at starbucks”, “Just got up, hope it’s a great day!” kind of person. I try to pass along a bit more value with each tweet. To each his own.

With my short time using twitter I’ve found that they’ve done a good job with the interface, so I decided to do a bit of a review. Check it out, let me know if you agree.

It’s my first foray into this type of post, but I really liked doing it, I think you’ll be seeing more of it.

Building brand loyalty is something that companies spend billions on. Well globally it’s something that the world econimies see Trillions spent on. Some people think loyalty is something you can’t buy. Well, let me tell you Brand Loyalty is certainly something you can buy. And cute webpages can help do the trick. But there’s more to it than cute webpages; you do need follow-through. Having good retail stores, good corporate policies, and a snazzy email newsletter can all help.
Starbucks has done a good job at this. Their employees are almost always happy and this helps a lot. Case in point see this post I just found at, funny enough, the brand builder blog. They catch a lot of crap from people for having completely permeated america, you really can’t go too far in any city worth its grit without running into a few of these places. But you can also trust that if you go into one you’ll get a good cup of joe, or latte, or whatever else you fancy. To top it off they have cool promos like this Make it your drink promo. It’s fun, and it’s just the thing that keeps you liking starbucks. Good Job.

Of course, being an email junkie, I have to get in on that side of things too. I am currently reading The Quiet Revolution in Email Marketing by Bill Nussey (CEO of SilverPop). So far it hasn’t been terribly enlightening, but it’s a good read. Bill has talked quite a bit about the amount of damage (or benefit) you can do to your brand via email. It’s something that is often perceived as being simple and meaningless, but email communication is often the most direct communication you have with your customer, and it can be seen as the most personal. If you screw that up you can just throw out all the hard work you’ve done and the Trillions of dollars that have been spent.

I fancy myself an amature photographer; I don’t think I’m very good, but I like to attempt to find nice shots. I’ve come up with a few here and there (truly needs updating). I can’t hold a flame to these shots from world press photos, which was described on BoingBoing as “the most prestigious photojournalism competition in the world”. Some of these are very intense.