Words are limited to a maximum of 23 characters (sorry my German friends) and creation of new words is allowed and encouraged.

Appropriately, Wordr has even created their own buzzword to describe their product , monoblogging!

Well, I personally can’t see the point in droning on and on about a service that is based on the idea of using a minimal amount of words to express oneself, so check it out for yourself here.

Mashable is suitably impressed by the whole she-bang saying: “the content is arguably more accessible, applicable, and helpful than typical holiday-themed television segments or shows.”

As someone who has my own YouTube channel to share my personal exploits and videos with my friends and family, the concept of a professionally branded channel has always been a no brainer to me.  It’s kind of like an audiovisual extension on Twitter-style brand/customer communication.  Oh, you’re not on Twitter yet? Ahhh… yeah… Never mind then.

Vague literary references or jokes about “wild boys” aside, this buzzing QSR was first created as

“a mobile food van travelling to different festivals specializing in fries topped with international sauces. After being asked time and again by patrons at festivals, “Where can we get your fries during the week?” We chose to open our first store on the corner of Flinders and Elizabeth Street – right on the doorstep to Melbourne’s CBD.”

Fries are definitely the Lord of the menu.  They only recently added burgers …that are treated like a side option!

“We turn up the expectations:  Finally a fry that was NOT drowned in beef tallow and juiced up with gluten; NOT cooked in the cheapest oil money can buy; NOT smothered in watered down tomato sauce and sitting in a bain-marie since the beginning of time.
100% Vegan and Many Gluten Free options.
It was the beginning of a fast food revolution. The people rejoice!”

Their home-made sauces are all inspired by flavours found across the globe.  My workmates will attest I’m known as “The Condiment Queen” so this is my favourite thing about LOTF.  My personal choice is African (euro-mayo, ketchup, oinions) but sometimes you can’t go past Poutine – the Canadian standard of cheese melted by brown gravy… YUM!!!!

So when it comes to fries in this city there is only one choice… the only question is “what part of the globe do want to dollop on top?”

For those of us in the business industry, we are all well aware of the importance of personal branding and self promotion. We know that social networks can be a valuable way of achieving success, but with the number of social networks out there, knowing which to use and how to manage a few at a time can be exhausting and frustrating. This creates a Choice Choke™ atmosphere, and we realize that we don’t need more choices, just help choosing.

Dan Schawbel, author of Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, addresses the headache of choosing and managing various social networks using web tools and tips via a posting on Mashable.

In his article, Schawbel stresses the importance of continuously updating your profiles through the use of tools that will simplify and help maintain consistency throughout all your profiles, including Tubemogul, Twitterfeed, Gravatar, Ping.fm, and FriendFeed. These tools focus on features such as uploading the same video, maintaining the same avatar, name, and status updates across all your sites.

In a world full of unlimited choices on everything and anything, the internet is no exception. Our choices become even more numerous and overwhelming, leaving us dissatisfied and less willing to participate. Those willing to help us manage the information overload, however, will find a cozy place in amongst consumers across the internet.

Attention all men out there, this website is just for you, but ultimately for your girl. The shopping malls are overcrowded, the internet is overwhelming. We understand that when it comes to shopping for your girl, your mother, your sister, or your daughter, it is tough and almost intimidating. (Believe me, as a woman writing this blog, we know). Jean Vouté Pratt understands too, and found the urgency for help so strong; she founded her business on it. Pratt’s online website GiftGirl.com helps men find the perfect gifts for their female loved ones. Now these already exist out there, and almost every retailer will suggest a gift on its site with tags like, “Ideal for Anniversary!” or “Your Girl will love it!” Such promotion lines are enough to give anyone a headache when trying to decide on anything. And that’s where Gift Girl differs: By removing the myriad of choices out there and asking you two things:

1. What the gift is for.

2. Who the girl is.

It’s that simple. “Tell me about the girl, I’ll tell you what to get her,” quotes Jean Pratt on her homepage. In addition, she’ll let you know exactly where you can purchase the gift as well. If you’re worried about the damage a gift might do to your pocket book, you can choose how much money you’re willing to spend as well. Letting her site do the work of drowning in endless gift ideas, she helps you get the right gifts by filtering through them FOR you. Now that’s remedying a Choice Choke™ otherwise generally known as ‘shopping’.

Let’s face it, with two working parents to provide for a family these days, and during these tough times, its little wonder that some parents actually spending less time with the baby or toddlers than do the babysitter or daycares. Unfortunately, that means missing out on a lot of things, like baby’s first steps, funny gestures, and plenty of embarrassing Kodak moments. Expecting a babysitter or daycare provider to let you in all of these things when they happen is just not practical either. Can you imagine writing a checklist out for them every single day or night? And expecting a full report there after? Nah,your kidding yourself if you think as a parent you won’t be missing out on something. The expectation alone is overwhelming. So to ease your anxiety, tiny-tales comes to your rescue. Coming in a variety of templates, the sites offers notes that can either work as instructions for you sitter in easy fill out steps, and/or as a template for your sitter to fill out at the end of the shift. The notes are meant to chronicle your little’s activities and adventures, so that you can safe keep your memories like a diary, a practical one for every busy parent making the sacrifice for baby’s future.  

It’s all about putting your money where your mouth is. It’s no surprise to us that a survey conducted by Arbitron found that customers at grocery stores were more apt to buying a product if they had had a free sample first. It’s like those food courts at shopping malls where there’s a fellow giving away teriyaki chicken samples on tooth picks right in front of the restuarant. Gets me everytime. Arbitron reports that “more than one-third (35%) of customers who tried a sample bought the product during the same shopping trip, per the poll of 1,857 respondents conducted earlier this year via the phone. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed reported they would buy a product again after trying it”. Its not rocket science guys, who doesn’t want to know upfront whether they’re really getting the bang for their buck? Just walking down the medicine aisle for cough syrup is enough for a headache. There are a myriad different versions and labels for products all claiming to be “the best cold medicine”.  So let’s keep it simple, if your product’s so great, then let me try it first and we can seal the deal.  Better yet, I’ll be more liable to buy that same product I tried again as supposed to the others that I haven’t because human beings, we’re habitual creatures, how about that.

If you want to know whether some new gizmo is any good, you try to find out what others think. The problem with that these days is that by the time you’ve sifted through all the reviews and comments, an electronic item could be outdated and replaced  by some new toy. To help you with this quandary, some software geniuses have come up with a new bit of fluff that does this for you, a start-up called Pluribo.com. Their software culls through the pages of comments and reviews on Amazon and summarizes the gist of them, often in a pithy saying, or perhaps only a word or two.

One of the interesting things about this is that no matter how blown up by the popular culture an item might be,  the cumulative response by those who have purchased and lived with the item might be a ho-hum or even a thumbs down.

This software at present only works as a Firefox extension which ‘magically’ pops up when you are interested in an item and is focused on electronics, though they plan to expand into other consumer goods areas. I, for one, am ready for anything that cuts through all the BS and lets me know what the real world experience is without reading through 50 pages of feedback.

Beverage Giant Coke is currently busy testing a next generation soda fountain that would be capable of dispensing close to a hundred different flavors. I can’t even name a hundred different flavors, can you?

A press release from Coke says…

The new dispenser, which fits in about the same space as a current eight-valve machine, uses high-concentrate ingredients to store more beverages. Adding a new brand is “about as easy as changing a print cartridge,”

This feat is made possible through the use of highly concentrated ingredients.

Of course every retailer wants to give their customers what they want but, the simple fact of the matter is that most people have enough trouble deciding what to eat for lunch if you then give them a list of over one hundred beverages to choose from their poor little head is likely to explode.

If the Machine does make it to market I will be heading straight for the bottled beverages. There is no way I am going to patiently wait for the lady in front of me to painfully decide between the kiwi-strawberry-lime or the diet chocolate cherry vanilla.