Marketing

Why?

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would anyone name a drink Pimp Jiuce? Apparently because of a song.
The ingredient list looks better then many competitive products but the price is $2.00 (US) a can and the potential audience for something with this name is somewhat small. So, it has been on the market for 6 month, has anyone seen it in a store?
Via drink me.

Jenny’s Phone Number

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I’ve noticed comment on this at several sites already and as the bids keep increasing I’m sure it will attract more interest.
Someone is selling Jenny’s phone number on Ebay. The current bid 2:16 PM Eastern is $80,700.
From Urban Legends:

In “Jenny,” a young man laments not having the courage to dial a number found scribbled on a wall but finds some comfort in the notion that he can someday call this girl and sweep her off her feet. Though not explicitly stated in the lyrics, it’s strongly implied the name and number were harvested from a bathroom wall, which also implies “Jenny” is a gal of easy virtue and is to be had for the price of a phone call.
“Jenny (867-5309)” caused nothing but grief for telephone customers unlucky enough to have that combination of numbers as their own….
An adjunct to this legend is the rumor that due to the overwhelming number of prank calls now made to 867-5309, that phone number is permanently non-assigned for every area code in North America. That isn’t the case � although 867-5309 is unassigned in many area codes, we have verified that it is still a valid working number in some of them. The putative owner of the 867-5309 phone number in New York (area code 212) recently put it up for auction on eBay.

So, how much will this initial sale reduce the value of the number in other exchanges? Will local phone companies offer it up in the areas where it is currently unassigned?
Update (5:12 PM Eastern): The Ebay auction linked to above has disappeared. Someone, though, alleges to have Jenny’s only West coast number available. Starting price $5,000 with no bids yet.
Update (11:24 PM EST): Alex at A List A Day details some of the 867-5309 tagalongs that have cropped up.

Search Wars

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Buried deep in this NYT article is this:

And Google has embarked on an ambitious secret effort known as Project Ocean, according to a person involved with the operation. With the cooperation of Stanford University, the company now plans to digitize the entire collection of the vast Stanford Library published before 1923, which is no longer limited by copyright restrictions. The project could add millions of digitized books that would be available exclusively via Google.

This is really good stuff but, since copyright protection has lapsed on these books, I wonder why they would be available exclusievely via Google.
Will Wilkenson is ‘jacked’ about this and also notes that:

This is, by the way, what Microsoft is really good for. It puts the fear of Jesus in the Googles of the world, and makes ’em hustle to make us happy. So what I’m really hoping for is that Microsoft comes close in the search war, and succeeds in creating a superfast integrated search in Windows that allows me to search my own measly 30gb hard drive at something close to the speed that Google manages to search the whole goddam internet, but falls short in the end because of all the glorious innovations the Google geniuses lay at our feet in order to keep us from straying.

Things should be pretty exciting in this space over the next several years.
Via Tyler Cowan at Marginal Revolution.