Alex Reid

Today is Earth Day: a religious holiday for corporate social responsibility.

So this is [Earth Day].
And what have you done ?
Another year over
and a new one just begun.

Well, IKEA is doing away with their plastic bags (in July 2009) and from then on you’ll have to buy their “blue bags” for one dollar. Whether you re-use them or not doesn’t matter to IKEA. At one dollar? Really.

If you bring a travel mug to any Starbucks coffee shop, they’ll give you a certain kind of free coffee. Walmart is highlighting 10 environmentally friendly products under $10 all month to respect the “day” while McDonald’s celebrated Earth Day by announcing that its global headquarters building in Illinois has been awarded the LEED Platinum certification. Sony’s PlayStation Store will donate $1 for each of the first 10,000 movies and TV shows purchased through the PlayStation Network on Earth Day to some environmental group.

The lobby to remind us about the ecological issues has gone beyond the “one day”. In the shadow of the green movement, lazy leaders use the “day” to capitalize on how they are so great and responsible. Get with the program guys, just be yourself and celebrate that. Cuddling up to a theme for a day just makes you look cheap.

Oprah will begin to Tweet tomorrow (Friday) as she talks to actor Ashton Kutcher about his race with CNN to become the first twitter user to pass one million followers. Of course as this article points out Oprah may surpass them both soon.

She currently has 52,000 followers at 10pm CST. She will probably have half a million in four days.

Yet another top level domain (TLD) is being rolled out: .tel.

The purpose of the .tel domain is an “unified contact directory services as text-based alternative to fragmented communications solutions” or in other words an one-shop-stop of all your web sites, phone numbers and other contact information. No private hosting is required for the .tel domain as the usage of the domain name is simply a one-page information portal.

No photos, no html, no web stats, no design options and no associated email – however what is interesting is that clicking on a phone number will activate a “click to call” feature.

The .tel domain name may challenge directory services as it intent is for companies and individuals to offer a compilation of their contact info when they want as they want, while most telcos only update their directory listings once a year as their data is tied into the annual printings of their paper directories. The .tel template is also designed to appear on mobile devices like Blackberry and iPhone.

The TLD will launch on December 3, 2008, when domains will be available only to trademark owners costing a few hundred dollars per domain. On February 3, .tel will be more widely available, sold at premium prices for minimum three year terms. After March 24, they will be available to the general public for a regular price and a one year term.

Propelled by Internet, Barack Obama Wins Presidency.

’nuff said.

Mere days before the election, US Presidential candidate Barack Obama aired a 30-minute “informercial” on the major networks last night (all except ABC because they were holding out) and the ratings outperformed the usual Wednesday night fare drawing 33.5 million viewers according to Nielsen.

NBC was the most-viewed and highest-rated network for its presentation of Obama’s ad, pulling in 9.8 million viewers while CBS got 8.6 million and Fox had 7.9 million.

In 1992, Ross Perot aired 15 telecasts drew an average audience of 11.6 million viewers and his one simulcast, carried on ABC and CBS the day before the election, attracted 26 million viewers alone.

The Obama ad is a coup for the Democratic campaign and for network television.