If u cn rred ths, u cn gt a hgh schl dyplma

From time to time I run across a really bad ad that I cannot help but to comment upon. The following banner ad appeared on MySpace. At first blush, it’s readable. Look again and it’s filled with spelling errors, spacing problems and more! Chances are high that you did not notice the errors at first.


Click on the ad for a larger view

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Sometimes it misses words entirely …

Count the number of “F”s in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE
RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC
STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

How many did you count? The answer is at the bottom of this blog post.

Finally, here’s a clever ad on a Guiness coaster that you might need to be a bit drunk to read. It will be reflected in the glass when it’s full.



The answer is six.

IS THE BUBBLE BACK??

There is no question that ad money is now chasing consumers who have turned to the Net over traditional media. This past year has seen a spate of acquisitions by Google, AOL, Microsoft as well as agency holding companies. WPP, for example, appears to be gobbling up interactive/digital shops at a fast pace. The independent digital shop is fast going the way of the dinosaur.

Add to this mini-frenzy the desperation of old-line media companies worried that their businesses are losing traction, moving quickly forward to absorb high traffic content sites …. blogs, social networks, wireless and niche initiatives, often without a roadmap, and you have the ingredients for runaway valuations in these subcategory companies.

Some of the valuations are running away with themselves. Facebook valued at $16 Billion having yet to find a business model that works!? Google with a “conservative” market cap ($224 Billion) almost seven times that of Yahoo!

It appears many of these subcategory valuations have been ramping up to the late 90’s levels. Underperformance by companies like Facebook or MySpace will likely happen. When it does, history will repeat with a significant correction.

A GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE

As a holiday gift to our readers, I am providing free and complete access to over 1800 Massachusetts Institute of Technology course offerings.

In reality, MIT, committed to advancing education and discovery through knowledge open to everyone, allows open access to its course curriculums under an initiative they are calling OPENCOURSEWARE (OCW).

There are no requirements and the courses, over 1800 of them spanning MIT’s entire curriculum along with thousands of course notes and assignments, are free to all.
Of particular interest to my readers are the offerings under the Sloan School of Management.

This dream and amazing gift has been in the works since 2001, launched with just 50 courses and accessed by over 35 million individuals worldwide. MIT expects to add 200 additional courses in 2008. Materials are published under an open license that encourages reuse, redistribution and modification for non-commercial purposes.

As for me, I’m off to the Global Entreprenuership Lab.