February 2007 - French | West

Penguin Publishing has launched the world's first community written book. A Million Penguins is a wikinovel experiment where anyone can write and edit a novel-in-progress. www.amillionpenguins.com was launched last week, and the novel is already beginning to take shape.
While the U.S. is slow to adopt e-books, Finland is the latest to unveil a novel with a tech twist. Told entirely via text message, The Last Message follows a fictitious IT-executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives through text messages. The novel is comprised of his messages and roughly 1,000 replies listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel.
As newspapers begin to think of themselves in digital terms, they're increasingly looking to social Websites like MySpace as role models. The Newspaper Association of America's annual marketing conference described several fledgling social-networking efforts they said are adding value to their websites by increasing reader engagement. The Roanoke Times, for example is rolling out "Big Lick University," a MySpace-styled effort designed to engage college students in southwest Virginia. Set up like a campus, a dining hall section features student restaurant and bar recommendations while a residence hall lets students leave messages for one another on their room's white board.

The trend of using illegal substance names to sell more products continues in the beverage industry. First came Cocaine, the controversial, ultra-caffeinated energy drink that claimed to make drinkers feel "high" (October Trend Center). The latest entry into the category is Meth Coffee. It doesn't actually contain methamphetamines, but does consist of ultra-caffeinated arabica coffee beans and energy-boosting yerba mate. The product is aimed at coffee drinkers looking for that extra "rush" in the morning.
The movement known as "freeganism" is growing in popularity in urban centers across the country. Taken from the words "free" and "vegan," freegans are committed to living cruelty-free, anti-consumerist lives, using alternative means to get food. Methods include, dumpster diving, foraging, shoplifting and bartering. In larger cities, young people meet up to scavenge for food together, then have dinner parties made entirely of their findings.

Organic cotton has long lead the way in green fashion, but bamboo is now emerging as an environmentally-friendly alternative. Bamboo is anti-bacterial, twice as absorbent as cotton, breathable, drapable, ultra soft, and blends well with other fibers. Because of these advantages and the fact that it's a natural, sustainable fiber, a growing number of fashion forward brands are beginning to utilize bamboo.

The Wall Street Journal is on the verge of offering scented, "scratch and sniff" print ads that will appear on the regular pages of the paper. The scented ads won't be the first ever to appear in a newspaper, but until now, scents have only been conveyed through glossy inserts with scent strip flaps. The paper is still working out the final details. USA Today is hot on their heels, however, preparing to test similar scented ads very soon.
The garbage truck has become the latest advertising vehicle. Ads on New York City. garbage trucks have worked so well for the marketers of Glad trash bags - boosting the brand's market share by two percentage points in the city through December - that they're now looking to try the tactic in other cities. The New York City Department of Sanitation has since turned down sponsors that want to put ads on trash collectors' uniforms, but feels another commercial partnership on the trucks is a real possibility

Washintonpost.com is in talks with Comedy Central to collaborate with The Daily Show to cover the 2008 presidential campaign, in hopes that Jon Stewart's irreverence will draw younger readers to the site. The Daily Show's coverage of the last presidential campaign was a huge hit with the 25 to 34-year old demographic. Many viewers chose to watch Stewart's campaign coverage, over traditional evening news or cable news programs, because they found him much more "entertaining."
Bauer Publishing, home to In Touch Weekly and Life & Style Weekly, is getting ready to introduce a new weekly lifestyle aimed at women in their 20s. Cocktail Weekly, slated to launch in September with a $2.49 cover price, will be a mix of celebrity news, relationship advice, health coverage, fashion and beauty.
Later this spring, Sundance Channel will launch Sundance Channel Green, a weekly primetime destination block focusing on environmental topics and sustainability. Consisting of three hours of hosted programming, Sundance Channel Green will present original series and documentaries about the concept of "green" living. With Sundance Channel Green, Sundance Channel becomes the first television network in the U.S. to establish a significant, regularly-scheduled programming destination dedicated entirely to the environment.

Ken Baker, Us Weekly's West Coast executive editor, has been named editorial director of Usmagazine.com, a newly created position. He will oversee Us' digital content, and will also be responsible for the magazine's new "Celebrity Channel," which will offer branded video content culled from celeb parties, events, news, and staff features.
Laurie Cohen, a senior writer recruited from The Wall Street Journal to write for Portfolio, leaves her new job to head back to The WSJ.