What's really amazing about this, besides the great content, is that Trey and Matt (we are that close) were able to get all the complex legal and business model issues worked out with Viacom and put the show online. No other content creator has even come close to getting their full catalouge on the web, especially not for content that remains current and popular. Of course fans can watch any content they want online using various web and P2P sites, but this is the first time creators have launched a site that really competes with the free alternatives.

I hate using canned quotes but this one, direct from the press release, is on the money:

When asked about the launch of the new site, Stone and Parker said, "We got really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time so we gave ourselves a legal alternative."

To date, the web's premier, and only, source of full length episodes of South Park has been AllSP.com, which mysteriously went dark earlier this week. A message posted on the site says

The administrator for AllSP.com did not respond to numerous emails but I'm going to go ahead and assume that the reason they are down is because some savvy lawyers over at Comedy Central got in touch with AllSP.com's host and started causing trouble. Be sure to check out the similarities between AllSP.com and SouthParkStudios.com, it cant be a coincidence.

For a last couple of weeks I've been playing with Aviary, a new online image editor, in the hopes of adding more realistic wings to my headless profile picture. Alas, after two weeks of intermittent experimentation I've met with next to no success. It appears that putting a complex image editing application online does not in fact make it any easier to use.

Created by the folks at Worth 1000 LLC, instigators of reality bending contest like Mate Angelina Jolie, Evil Twins, Semi-precious Moments and Gender Bending, I expected something a bit more fun to use. I will either have to relearn my old Photoshop skills (which were marginal) or pay someone in Poland to do the work for me, because Aviary does nothing to make image editing easier. I know thats not how its being billed but it is what I was hoping for.

As someone who watches for trends in technology one of the many sites I frequent is Trendwatching.com. They offer a bevy of free research reports on global Trends with pithy insightful commentary and links. If your not getting their free reports or buying the paid stuff, then your missing out. Their most recent Trend Briefing is by far the best I've read so far. They pulled out all the stops for this, their 5th anniversary issue, covering 5 of the hottest trends that are happening right now.

The first is the growth and expansion of Gen Z. This demo / psychographic is a marketers wet dream, a group so large and influential that it makes both Gen X and Gen Y seem like Baby-boomers. Here's a quote:

Consider this research nugget: a Swiss study has found that when sufficiently exposed to child-friendly brand jingles, tunes and spoken messages during pregnancy, up to 77% of all newborns not only recognize these brand markers, but develop a brand preference that could last until puberty, and probably into adulthood (final results are not yet available as the project only started two years ago).

Now thats brand loyalty and its only the first trend the Briefing covers. The second is even more intriguing a trend which I have personally noticed in many companies. They call it Blandtastic and define it as the "search for unsurprising, unpretentious, unremarkable locales and products". They have found that this trend is sweeping the US, EU and parts of Asia-Pacific. While Central and South America are lagging behind they are expected to catch-up in the very near future led the somewhat Blandtastic countries of Honduras and Panama.

By far the most disturbing trend the folks at Trendwatching have identified is the growing Eco-fatigue in US consumers. The rage marketing savvy consumers feel against the increasingly corporate green movement is resulting in a collective cry of “Enough already!” As consumer backlash increases and mega brands, always slow to adapt, continue to push a corporate green message "expect many more blue chip brands to bend over and take the fun out of robust, honest products, further alienating consumers who are yearning for authenticity."

Do you have a pet? If so, you are probably among the growing number of pet owners tired of feeding and caring for the increasingly overweight and over-pampered animals. Pet-passe is what this trend has been dubbed, and it highlights what has to be one of the most important shifts in consumer behavior to come along in many years. Again Trendwatching.com put it best:

From BusinessWeek’s Pet Economy special to CNN’s Luxury Pet Hotels piece, the pet industry certainly seems to be flying high. But as always, what goes up, must come down. In pet capitals like Sao Paulo and Perth, the word is that pets are, well, passé. And interestingly enough, it’s the same people who propelled the pet trend to untold heights that are now deflating it: older baby boomers and 30-something singles, who for years have embraced pets as surrogate partners and children.

It’s these households of one that are discovering that to be truly independent and free, to really focus on 'Me, Myself and I', it doesn’t help to have an animal around, needing 24/7 care and attention. Not to mention the cost of having to provide food, medical care and so on; money that is obviously better spent on travel, dinners or spa treatments.

I think these are some of the most important trends to be watching out for as you build your online or offline business. The impact Gen Z and Blandtastic will have on the marketing of any new product or service will be profound and lasting. While, reversing the negative impact of corporate greening of the environmental movement is going to be critical to keeping consumers involved and active in the fight against global warming.

For months Pandora has been changing the look and feel of the station page that surrounds its player to match the look of the ads it runs. Some advertisers have even been sophisticated enough to embed controls directly in their ads that allow users to pick the theme of the page. However outside of a fleeting cool factor, the value seems limited. No one I know that uses Pandora spends time on the site looking at anything, especially not the ads.

However the ad that caught my eye, didnt change the theme of the station page it did something completely different. It presented a list of alternate stations tied to the advertisers product (this ones an OK new show on NBC). The show, a modern day version of Mrs. Columbo, is about a reporter that jumps back and fourth in time solving mysteries. On Pandora however the ads for the show included, stations like "Hits from 1987 - 1992" (the time period the main character jumps to) and "Hits Time Travel". The stations attempted to tie your activity on Pandora with the show while providing you another way to explore music. Brilliant! Advertising as a service! Imagine the coordination and conversations between Pandora and the Ad agency that this required.

The sheer brilliance of this form of advertising, call it advertising as service, struck me. Sure folks have been talking about advertising 2.0 for years but this particular execution really brings it home. Connecting your users activity with advertisers message in a seamless, and more importantly, useful manner is the future of advertising.

For some reason folks are acting all shocked that sales of digital music seem to go up when you dont cripple it with DRM. In a piece thats all over the net right now (here, here, here and here) Bloomberg (the news service not the recently independent, non-presidential candidate) is reporting that sales of DRM-free tracks released by EMI are showing significant increases. Again not sure why this would surprise anyone not paid directly by the DRM developers or the RIAA. Its an interesting story that is only going to get bigger as folks like Apple and Amazon push for less restricted music. Of course the P2P side will still dwarf them all but that is a debate for another time.