Captain Digital

Random musings on politics, society, and pop culture from the Internet's marketing curmudgeon.

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Marketing, Advertising & Branding

Is Tinder Hot?

IMG_0521My daughter recently talked me into signing up for “Tinder.” If you’re not familiar, it’s an iPhone app that’s designed to help you meet people. Apparently, it’s evolved from being something created for “hookups” (read: “meaningless sexual encounters”) into an app that facilitates meeting people for actually dating.

What makes this interesting is that it’s all based on Facebook, and the pictures you post here.

There’s a lot of different dating sites out there, each one slightly different in their approach. eHarmony makes you go through a long and laborious process before you even get to chat directly with someone in whom you might be interested. [Read more…] about Is Tinder Hot?

(In)Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Packaging Design

I am a creature of habit. I freely admit this, as it’s something I have in common with most people. Don’t believe me? Okay, riddle me this, Batman, when you go shopping at your local grocery emporium/supermarket/superstore, and you’re looking for a particular brand, what do you look for? If you’re like me (and millions of other homo sapiens), you’ll look for the color, general shape, and size of a package, in order to locate it quickly. This helps me find things and avoid a lengthy search. Now most things are (usually) pretty easy to find at my local Kroger or Walmart. But there are certain items that defy definition of what part of the store they should be found. Instant mashed potatoes, for instance. Some stores put ’em with the 3 minute rice. Some don’t. But as long as I can spot the big red box of Hungry Jack, I’m a happy camper. But my visual shorthand system has come under fire lately, from an unexpected source: marketers.  [Read more…] about (In)Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Packaging Design

Teen Teachable Moments in (Louisiana) History.

Well, we (my 14-year-old daughter) and I just got back from Lake Charles, LA, where she competed in the Louisiana State Social Studies Fair. Well, “competed” isn’t exactly the right word. She entered. She did her best. She excelled. And she did not win. But for her to have “competed” would have required that they actually stage a competition, which, sadly, they did not. What they did do bears some explanation – and analysis. [Read more…] about Teen Teachable Moments in (Louisiana) History.

Where do you get your ideas?

If I’ve heard that once, I’ve heard it a thousand times. And there’s no single – or right – answer to the question. Not trying to be difficult. I just really can’t tell you, because I don’t know. In this, I’m not alone. Most creative people have the same dilemma. But I divide ideas into two categories in my own work – revolutionary and evolutionary. I’ll use a recent project to explain what I mean.  [Read more…] about Where do you get your ideas?

R.I.P. Thomas Kincaid, 1957-2012

I just heard that Thomas Kincaid died suddenly today. It’s estimated that one in every twenty homes in America have one of his mass-produced masterpieces in it. Not ring a bell? Okay, how about this: Go to virtually any mall in America and look for the shop that sells paintings. Odds are the sign outside the door reads “Thomas Kincaid, Painter of Light.” Ahhhh. Now you get the connection. Now being an artist myself, you might think I’m all about mocking Kincaid. But I come not to bury him, but to praise him.  [Read more…] about R.I.P. Thomas Kincaid, 1957-2012

The UN-candidate.

Gov. Palin: You say Goodbye...I say Hello!
Gov. Palin: You say "Goodbye"...I say "Hello!"

We are all, at one level or another, creatures of habit. That’s a good thing, most of the time. I mean, if we woke up to a world everyday where we had to figure out how to feed and clothe ourselves, with no idea of what would come next, none of us would leave very productive lives. But there’s a dark side to habit – that being the phenomena whereby we attempt to pigeonhole everything that happens, so we can process it, understand it (in terms of previous experiences) and move on. This system of shorthand evaluations doesn’t work at all, however, when you run smack dab up against something new. New is…different. It doesn’t fit the mold. It doesn’t lend itself to snap analyzes, or fitting into patterns. But “new” is where innovation comes from. It’s where solutions come from. And it’s where our future lies.

Consider (soon-to-be former) Gov. Sarah Palin. [Read more…] about The UN-candidate.

4…3…2…1…We have (iPhone) liftoff…

Believe it or not (and I’m not sure I do, yet) I’m now the proud owner of a brand-new 32GB iPhone 3G s.

Pause with me for a nanosecond, whilst I let that sink in.

In one fell swoop, I can retire my Wagon Queen Family Truckster® (a.k.a.: “Windows Mobile/Sprint HTC Mogul”) crapalicious excuse for a cell phone. Being a card-carrying propellerhead, I’m still in the process of exploring what all my new phone can do (i.e.: jacking with all the configuration options, configuring ringtones, et cetera). It may be a couple of days before I’m ready to stop jacking with it, and allowing it to become the business tool I need. But I’ll enjoy working on it in the meantime. [Read more…] about 4…3…2…1…We have (iPhone) liftoff…

Updating our Look & Feel

It’s been a while, but I’ve finally gotten around to updating the site’s look. A little. When I first created the “Captain Digital” persona, I wanted to evoke a 1940’s style cartoon look. While that worked well as far as the goal, the reality was that working with the color halftone pattern was a major pain. Add to that a desire to remake Captain Digital’s image into something just a wee bit more modern and hip, and you have a need for a image refresh. Problem was, I really didn’t have time to work on it. I tried an intermediate step of using a modernized cartoon version of the original, but there were some things I wanted to fix – in particular, I felt like losing the helmet would be a good idea. So As of today, we’ve got a new version of Captain Digital. The old ones will be retired, as I can get to it.

Let me know what you think.