Week 4

This week I want to talk and discuss some brand Utilities. A perfect definition is that a brand connects with it’s consumers providing some kind of value, instead of the traditional few second of entertainment.

As a Mac user I have a few widgets, turns out some of them seemed to serve a purpose. I have a widget that I got off of The Weather Network website and use it for checking if it’s minus thirty five out still. I use this at work, school and home, perfect for a quick check before you step out with just a shirt on. ESPN tells me how much Ottawa Senator suck this year and my facebook widget informs me when someone has poked me. Wait, I was going somewhere with this that would make these things more useful. Okay, a company has invented a blended use of Google maps with Starbucks coffee, so now you can find all the Starkbucks around the world… this is not helping.

Well it seems there is a lot of useless tools out there we think we need to survive our daily lives. I find I have gotten so accustomed to these tools that I don’t even picture the ones I use to be a product. Google is one for example; searching, email, maps search, blog page, site measurement tools. I use Google’s tools on a daily basis and would never compare it to sneakers or food. It feels to me that there are little that we really need and a shit load of ones we don’t. I decided to find a few that are exactly that, pointless and useless and a couple that are fun as well.

What NOT To Do Widget
Here is a widget of some “what not to do” tips from some guy, who we all don’t know or really care about, who is basing these tips from his own life. Oh and you can also read them on his blog, why did he think anyone would use this as a reliable source of information?

Mobile Me
This clever new little toy from Apple is an online server account that talks to any device that you logged into. The idea is that if you took down a number on your phone or made a date change on your computer the two would communicate to each other and update automatically.

Super Bowl Ad Widget
Did you miss the ads during this years Super Bowl? Well then why not get Hulu’s Super Bowl Ads widget. That’s it, eat up more of your memory and processor.

Brand utility over all is an interesting new medium which can be very useful. There is a lot of daily tasks we humans could use help in, and so instead of spending all this time entertaining ourselves we should take the time and solves these problems. Now if you don’t mind I’m off to check my gmail and facebook for a while.

–RS