19 of the Best Super Bowl Commercials, Plus 1 That Won't Even Air

Brendan Collins — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:40:24 -0500

Everyone knows that if your team isn't in the Super Bowl, the biggest (perhaps only) reason to watch are the commercials. Some companies have decided to leak their own Super Bowl spots online so ad geeks have something to drool over before Sunday night. Fast Company has just about all of the currently available spots right here. Keep in mind, each of these commercials cost their companies $3 million to run.

SoBe

Fast Company featured this video yesterday, which features three enormous NFL players pirouetting and dancing with lizards.

Burger King Offers Free Whopper For Ditching Facebook Friends

Brendan Collins — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:47:59 -0500

Would you de-friend ten of your Facebook friends in order to get a free Whopper? Burger King thinks you will. Released on Jan. 1, the Whopper Sacrifice facebook app asks users that very question. The app, from the offbeat advertising gurus at Crispin Porter + Bogusky (profiled in the June issue of Fast Company), is the most aggressive online venture that Burger King has yet undertaken.

Has Google Become "Teh Evil"?

Brendan Collins — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:28:17 -0500

Google is losing consumer confidence. It recently dropped below the top 20 of companies that consumers feel do the best job at safeguarding personal information.

No Capitol Gains: eBay Bans Sales of Inauguration Tickets

Brendan Collins — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:42:05 -0500

This week, eBay is getting some positive feedback from Capitol Hill. The online auction giant recently agreed to ban the sales of tickets to President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony in January, in cooperation with California Senator Dianne Feinstein (D). Sen. Feinstein is drafting legislation to make the scalping a crime, so eBay is putting their foot down on peddling the free tickets (available through your local member of Congress). This comes after some tickets -- which have yet to be distributed -- were selling for as much as $40,000 a pop.

Mark Cuban Charged with Insider Trading

Brendan Collins — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:14:53 -0500

Mark Cuban, occasional bad-boy owner of the Dallas Mavericks and dot-com billionaire, has been ~~indicted~~ accused of insider training by the SEC. The charges, filed today in Texas federal court, allege that Cuban sold his shares of Mamma.com after receiving classified information from the company's CEO about an upcoming IPO. The SEC says that "despite agreeing in June 2004 to keep material, non-public information about an impending stock offering by Mamma.com Inc.

Robert Scoble Interviews ClearContext Founder Deva Hazarika

Brendan Collins — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:09:41 -0400

ClearContext is a software company that makes email more useful. Here founder and CEO, Deva Hazarika, talks to Robert Scoble about why email is so hated inside corporations and how people can dramatically make it easier to deal with.

http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/get-a-handle-your-email-with-clearcontex...

Join in a live video chat after the show at: http://kyte.tv/workfasttv.

Sad Money: The Backlash Against Jim Cramer

Brendan Collins — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:42:08 -0400

"Mad Money" host Jim Cramer, that chrome-domed hero of trashy TV addicts and armchair-finance junkies alike, has fallen on hard times. He appeared on “The Today Show” on October 6th, imploring viewers: "Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market. Right now." To say this statement fanned the flames of the Wall Street crisis is an understatement. A more apt analogy would be to say that Cramer dumped rocket fuel on a tire fire.

Yankee Stadium and Baseball's Business of Nostalgia

Brendan Collins — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:42:09 -0400

London Calling: Why the 2012 Summer Games Must Restore Consumer Confidence in the Olympics

Brendan Collins — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:30:20 -0400

The controversial issues surrounding the Beijing Olympics have received more coverage than Jerry Rice in the backfield. The damage is done – the falsified passports, the oppressive smog, and enough overdubbing and fake performances to make Milli Vanilli blush.

Tropic Thunder is a Lightning Rod of Controversy

Brendan Collins — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:54:56 -0400

The storm of controversy surrounding faux-Vietnam War film, Tropic Thunder, emerged late last week when disability advocacy groups began protesting the comedy's portrayal of the intellectually disabled. But the movie's premise, about a group of actors shooting a Vietnam War film – poorly – when the director decides to drop the cast into the middle of an actual war in Southeast Asia, capturing it all on film, is not exactly what raised the ire of these advocacy groups. Instead, one of the film's subplots has caused the uproar.