It’s that time of year again, the time of year it’s perfectly acceptable to do a bit of drinking in honor of the saint that drove the snakes out of Ireland, in honor of luck or lack thereof, in honor of the Emerald Isle most of us have only seen in pictures but have vowed to travel to one day whether we have relatives there or not.
Goolge St. Patricks Day 2008 Logo
(Photo Credit: Google)
Whatever your reason for buying into the generally-accepted mythos, cheers! May you cross the gates of Heaven before the Devil knows you’re dead.
I have a theory that the Irish invented sarcasm, that the subtle little jokes helped to make a harsh life more bearable. It never rains in Ireland, they say, as they stand in a puddle and brush off their shoulders. That same sense is afforded to the famous luck, which, if you look at history for the past 1,000 years, seems relatively nonexistent in Erin. It’s the spirit, then, that we love and embrace, not the gloomy, rainy realities helping to bring that spirit forward and make it that much greener for the grander contrast.
So sit back and have a beer and appreciate that delicious irony as we examine what’s lucky in ebusiness, what’s not so lucky, and what is sadly funny or funnily sad, which ever you prefer.
First, a moment of Zen from a sponsored search ad, offering more Braille products than you’ve ever, um, seen.
The bad news for Eric Schmidt is that either his face always looks like that or Reuters and other outlets like the BBC like capturing him right as he is mouthing a complicated word. Call it the John Mayer/Dave Matthews facial contortion school. The good news for Schmidt is that he gets to make a nice grand show about how bad for the Internet a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo would be.
Consequently, it also might be a problem for Google. Oh well, nice doodle though.
Meanwhile, as two-thirds of the market-controlling Google complained about potentially steep competition, Microsoft opened up its heart to Adobe, by licensing Flash Lite for use on future Windows Mobile phones. All that iPhone attention has no doubt made Microsoft a bit, well, green.
The rain falling in Ireland reaches China, too, as Tibet erupts into riots. China, always sensitive to the oppressed and/or marginalized, did what any country that close to Myanmar would do. They blocked access to YouTube. What happens in Tibet stays in Tibet, at least that’s the way the State would prefer it.
And finally, a rainbow, perhaps even with that pot-o-gold you and a small friend have been looking for. Search marketing experts are saying that, as the US falls into a rather undeniable recession, search marketing is virtually “recession-proof.” Marketers are usually the among the first to get the ax as companies cut back and cut spending on expensive marketing efforts. Greg Jarboe reports that what’s bad for branding is good for more direct marketing via search.
Let’s hope he’s right, eh?
And with that, lads and lasses, I leave you. I’ll not dash your fanciful spirit with suggestions that it was the Ice Age and not St. Patrick who ran out the snakes, or that Leprechauns and Faeries may have been real, but not magical, pygmy peoples now long gone from Europe. No, no, we’ll leave it at a jolly toast and a prayer:
May those who love us, love us;
and those who don’t love us,
may God turn their hearts;
and if He doesn’t turn their hearts,
may he turn their ankles
so we’ll know them by their limping.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Just don’t forget you have to work tomorrow.
