Other potential headlines:

Blog, blog, blog, Budget.

RIP: the press release

In a lightly branded online/offline game, Budget rental car has launched the first blue-chip online/offline treasure hunt, Upyourbudget.com, conceived by a blogger BL Ochman, illustrated by a blogger Hugh MacLeod, run on blog software Movable Type, advertised exclusively on blogs, and first reported by blogs like Adrants and MarketingVox.

More details from Adrants and MarketingVox. MarketingVox quotes Ochman: there’s no press release for the game. It’s all blog, baby.

We went to the state fair Wednesday night. The air was a balmy, buzzing black pillow splashed with whirling pink and orange neons. The grinning carnies took money joyfully from kids and adults alike, $2 a ball toss, $2 to race a car for 45 seconds, $2 to pull a coke bottle upright. We spotted the fine print (“an outstanding illusion!”) and missed the snake lady. The bumper cars were the only trickless joy.

Last night, 100 kids playing Bach and Twinkle. Stunning to see what kids achieve.

Driving into work this morning I stumbled into this sad Sarajevo retrospective. I was in Budapest then and regret my inaction.

We sometimes get requests from potential advertisers who need help creating compelling blogads. So we’re going to link to some folks who are able to help. Here are some cool examples from Jay Ballenger.

I should also mention that I’d recommend Charles Fincher’s cartoons as a unique hook into the blogosphere’s psyche.

Now appearing on a number of music blogs. Here’s the ad and a short analysis.

I’ve just lost 10 IQ points while posting this. Thanks Mom!

Brian Clark, auteur of blogad campaigns for Audi, Levis and Sharp TV, has started running Blogads on an indie movie blog community he’s organized, IndieWire.

Today Brian published an illustrated page with six great tips on How to Write a Killer Blogad.

Thank you dude! (I’m going to send you a Reemco gift certificate shortly.)

I’ve been arguing that anyone who thinks the “old media” model is a gonner should stop theorizing and just short newspaper stocks.

“Newspaper” is an oxymoron. Nowadays, anything on paper is either history or a novel. Though newspaper companies are buying and building online extensions, the revenue gains will never offset the scale of losses coming as subscribers and advertisers defect to cheaper, faster tools AND as individual papers lose their monopoly pricing leverage in their respective markets.

Another idea: the more I see of big ad agencies, the more I understand that they are a siamese twin of mass media, each a command and control hierarchy built to achieve economies of scale at the cost of human voice and intimacy. In a mass market environment, the model works wonderfully. Will it stand up in the age of DIY and p2p and conversational markets?

My bet: 1000 smart people in a line are not smarter than 10 smart people in a circle.

Anyway, here are two big agencies to consider shorting to test this hypothesis:
Omnicom (OMC) today at $79, a P/E of 19
WPP (WPPGY) today at $49, a P/E of 27

At Fox, Greg Simmons writes about this week’s Godblogcon at Biola University in California. Greg kindly turns to me for the cliched-but-essential “Huge Revolution” comments. In an industry that is always looking for trends and firsts, Greg’s article, the first in major corporate media about the event, also articulates a key new ripple that will become a tide. While conservatives might have seen past Boston-based Bloggercons as liberally situated and this year’s Blogher was certainly gender-sorted, Godblogcon is the first overtly ideological blogger convention. Certainly not the last.

The tape from our session at the API last week. Participants:
Fernando Espuelas, Chairman & CEO, Voy
John Bell, Senior Vice President & Creative Director, Ogilvy PR
Rich Skrenta, CEO & Founder, Topix.net
Henry Copeland, Founder, BlogAds
Moderator: Steve Rubel, Blogger, Micro Persuasion

At the risk of recursiveness, I’ll quote something Blogad buyer Craig Peters posted on his own blog after we added his testimonial to the Blogads site:

Henry Copeland and crew have a good thing going over there: a great service, coupled with great customer service. My only complaint is that there isn’t a much larger selection of blogs to choose from.

I’ve got a few other complaints of my own, but that’s definitely one. Thank you again Craig.