Online Sunshine

It’s rainy cats and dogs here in NYC, a perfect day for a little casual web surfing. Frankly, its something I don’t do enough of and have found it thoroughly entertaining and enlightening.

My stops included about 20 different blogs including Noah’s sister’s (she’s blogging about blogs for her college thesis–oh those Briers!) and a Belgian site called BuzzingBee that posted a very funny Volkswagen ad that features a singing dog. Adverblog encouraged a visit to this “hearing test” from the Norwegian Red Cross, one of the cleverest appeals I’ve seen in a long time. They manage to get their message across in an entirely unexpected way–wonder if anyone will find it annoying–I can’t say more without ruining the experience for you.

Speaking of Brier’s, Noah’s recent post on the new Modernista site is going to get a lot of agency heads thinking about their more conventional “who we are & what we do” sites. This one certainly shows they understand the Web 2.0 world. I just wonder if any prospective clients will find what they’re looking for–after about 5 minutes of trying, I couldn’t find one example of their work. Of course, this could be irrelevant since the cool factor probably tells the whole story. (20 minutes later) Realizing I probably overlooked something, I went back and found more navigational options in the upper left hand corner. There I located their mission statement, which I absolutely love:

We believe brands are like people. They have hopes. Dreams. Personalities. Insecurities. But ultimately, brands want love, happiness and a long life just like the rest of us.

And, not surprisingly, they develop relationships just like we do. In our experience, people fall in love with brands that know who they are, that have a clear point of view and aren’t afraid to express themselves.

Our most fulfilling relationships are with ambitious brands who are enthusiastic and optimistic about the world they live in. Our mission is to make these brands matter.

From there, I found myself on Laura Ries’ blog reading her thorough commentary on the Starbucks’ closing and her article called “By the numbers or by the brand.” Looking for a way to comment on her story, I ended up joining Newsvine and posted an extensive comment which begs the question, if a comment is posted in the blogosphere and no one is there to read it does that comment really exist? Gotta go walk the dog while you contemplate that one…