When Action-figure Einstein talks, people listen.

[thebitterguy]

Occasionally, I think I'm the only person that reads the Star's business section. Not religiously, mind you. I don't scan it for updates and stuff. But I flip through it occasionally. And today, friends, today was the greatest WTF moment in history.

Google (no link required) is going to launch a print advertising service, where they will sell ads to newspapers in a convoluted system that will make them billions of dollars and make no one's life better.

The article was fairly dry, as is expected with a business story. What set off my "you so crazy" detectors was the photo include with the story. They did not include, say, a Google logo, or a logo for any of the papers quoted in the story. They did not have a photo of a strapping google executive, or Tom Phillips, the magazine publisher Google hired to develop their print ad departent.

No. They took an action figure of Albert Einstein, put it on a keyboard next to a monitor showing Google's home page in a 'fist pumping in the air' pose, and took a picture of it. The cutline? "Action-figure Einstein, as well as millions of Americans, will sono see newspaper ads sold by online giant Google."

At that point, my brain exploded. Were there no grownups in the office this weekend? Was layout high? Did someone lose a bet? Did a mischevious elf break into 1 Yonge St? How the fuck did this end up as the illustration to a business section story?

Oy. My eyes, they burn. BUURRRN.

Comments

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Grownups in the office are overrated. Action Einstein captions sounds awesome.

You sound surprised...

[absinthe-dot-ca.livejournal.com]

Meh. It's the Star. They're trying to figure out how to compete with the "younger", "hipper" papers, like the Sun and the National Post, so they're trying to be relevant in an "I-don't-care-if-I'm-relevant" kind of way. Unfortunately, they keep looking to see if anyone's watching, which not only spoils the effect, but also spoils the effect, if you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail (Toronto's National Newspaper, as it's known just about anywhere outside of Ontario) is still convinced that this whole "television" thing is a fad, and people will come streaming back to print media any day now. Yep, any day...

Re: You sound surprised...

[thebitterguy]

The post is young and hip? It's just neo-con mumblings wrapped around the FP. And the sun is just a sports section that hasn't been happy since Trudeau let in the blacks.

[the-adzo.livejournal.com]

My eyes! The Goggles, they do nothing!

Re: You sound surprised...

[absinthe-dot-ca.livejournal.com]

Sorry, my bad - it's only the Star that thinks the Post and Sun are younger and hipper (hence the quotation marks). In actuality all four papers are moribund fossils, relics of a time when men were men, women were women, and the fuzzy thing in the back of your fridge was a cure for the common venereal disease.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

My bet? Somebody bet that they could do that and nobody would notice. I bet you're one of five who did.

[thebitterguy]

Oh, I should write a letter! Maybe I'll get a prize.