March 2008 - French | West

TrackMyShipments is a free service that tracks all of a customer's shipped packages in one place. Standard "Your Order Has Shipped" e-mails, sent out by companies when a package leaves their warehouse, require multiple steps each time a customer wants to track the package’s progress – finding the e-mail in your inbox, cutting and pasting tracking numbers to respective shippers’ websites, etc. With TrackMyShipments, customers forward “Your Order Has Shipped” e-mails to track@trackmyshipments.com as they arrive. The system keeps track of all shipments in one place and then updates the customer via e-mail or text message as to each shipment's location, status and any delays. The site currently supports FedEx, UPS, the U.S. Postal Service and DHL.

Social networking site Greenopolis was created to help its members live in a more earth-friendly manner. After registering, visitors complete an online survey that determines how green their lifestyle is. Based on the results, users receive a colored badge that shows how earth-friendly they are. Orange badge holders need to clean up their environmental act, and solid green badge holders are on the right track. By participating on the site, users are awarded points. More points correspond to changes in badge color and show that users are becoming more environmentally responsible. The site is currently in beta form, but when it officially launches, points can be used to receive discounts on sustainable products.

The United States recently replaced Spain as the world’s second-largest wind power producer, after Germany. Texas ranks number one in the nation with installed wind power measuring 4,356 megawatts - enough to power one million homes. California is a distant second with 2,439 megawatts, followed by Minnesota and Iowa with 1,300 megawatts each. Installed wind capacity in the United States grew 45 percent last year, making up 1 percent of all electricity produced and powering the equivalent of 4.5 million homes. Environmental advocates project the US could eventually provide 20 percent of all electricity produced through wind power.

Visit Florida, Florida's official tourism marketing corporation, has launched a new nationwide campaign featuring online media outreach. The "Sunshine" campaign features 10 bloggers who each write about a specific Florida activity, including fishing, golfing, boating, shopping, nightlife, arts and culture. As part of the effort, the bloggers are traveling via RV around the state shooting videos, which will be posted on both the Web site and various social networking sites.

The latest bar entertainment trend is “YouTube Request Nights,” where patrons request their favorite viral video, music video or share a video they’ve made and watch them on a large projection screen.

∑ The newest entry into the bottled water market, and the $40 billion pet industry, is Fortifido. Described as the "first-ever fortified water for pets with real functional benefits,” the water comes in vitamin-enhanced formulas to promote healthy bones, healthy skin, fresh breath and healthy joints. Fortifido will be sold in supermarkets, major pet chains and pet boutiques.

Following the huge summer success of "Transformers," and with "G.I. Joe" currently in production, Hasbro is again headed to the big screen. The toy maker is embarking on a six-year, four-picture deal with Universal Pictures based on its top-selling board games Monopoly, Candy Land, Clue, Ouija and Battleship. Under the terms of the deal, Universal will release a board-game derived movie in 2010 or 2011, with the studio committing to release at least one film a year every year after.

Norma Kamali will create an exclusive collection for Wal-Mart this fall. The eponymous lifestyle brand will encompass categories such as women's wear, children's clothing, accessories, footwear and home (Wal-Mart's first designer home brand). The collection will bow at 350 stores and is expected to reflect Kamali’s interest in "wellness concepts."

HBO has joined forces with the U.S. Postal Service to promote its upcoming miniseries "John Adams," which premieres March 16th. The in-store and online campaign called "Power of the Letter," was inspired by the former president's famous appreciation for writing his wife Abigail. A quote from Adams, "Let us dare to read, think, speak and write," is featured on sales receipts issued by the Postal Service and also appears on pieces of mail with cancellation marks, forwarding notices, etc.

Video game advertising is set to grow over the next five years into a $1 billion industry, with the majority of growth occurring in casual, online games. According to a new report, $502 million was spent last year on video game advertising of various forms, including ads which appear within games (i.e. in-game ads) and advergames (games built around a specific brand or product). Console games, played on Sony's PlayStation, Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo's Wii, are expected to see advertising growth of 91 percent over the next five years.

Outside Magazine has stopped including subscription insert cards in all of its subscription copies, starting with this month's "green" issue. According to estimates from Outside, the initiative will eliminate the printing of 20 million subscription cards and save an estimated 1,500 trees. Subscription cards will still be included, however, in all Outside copies sold on newsstands.

NewsClipper compiles news video clips from NBC, ABC, CBS, BBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox News and MSNBC into one convenient site. The aggregated content is much easier to navigate than the respective sites' own pages, and clips can be sorted by network, category, date or number of viewers.