Congratulations OldSpice Guy. Apparently you won The Game.

Well I’ve noticed a few brands increasing their reach by upping their “cool factor”.

A great example is the rad new look that Disney characters have: “Disney has been really good about expanding their brand to include things that would appeal to hipsters of all ages. For the last decade or more everything from their films to their toys, their couture jewelry and collectibles have included modern artsy versions in addition to the classic ones. The latest are their new soft plush toys that were inspired by the urban vinyl toy culture. The modern looking 12″ tall toys called Pook-A-Looz (okay, so the name sucks) were designed to capture the personalities of iconic Disney characters in an edgy, offbeat way.”

Chiquita Banana also updated their image not long ago.  I personally love the new look and can see people wanting to collect all the new “characters.”

Whether it’s the packaging or the actual product or service, widening the appeal is always a great way to approach a “makeover.”  There are definitely people in every age bracket who “think age has nothing to do with how I act or feel.”

But no, seriously. I’m glad they’ve figured out a way to cope with high school that lets them be themselves; Having people around you, especially in high school, that share the same passions for things like this is great, even though I’m sure their Vampires will forever sparkle in the daylight and their Werewolves will always be homeless underwear models.

We’ve seen plans for rooftop parks smack dab in the middle of San Francisco, vertical gardens brightening drab architecture, and now a brand new step in the world of biotecture; Lifewall

Lifewall essentially breaks down like this: It’s a modular tile system that can outfitted with any type of plant that will fit onto it. This allows for easy application and customization. When used in conjunction with another product called ‘Bionictile,’ made by the same company, the Lifewall tiles are able to suck pollution out of the air. Tests show that if just 200 buildings were coated with the Lifewall system, within a year, the equivalent amount of air 400,000 people breathe would be free of pollution from vehicles and industries.

The first of two things I’d like to talk about is something I’m sure I’ve ran into the ground, in a coffin and with a wooden stake. Yes, the Twilight boom has certainly exploded; causing three TV series about Vampires to burst into production, countless books resurfacing onto the end caps of Barnes & Noble and of course the jump the shark/nuke the fridge moment; when they appear in commercials.

If you missed Verizon’s vampire ad, it’s pretty much a scene from twilight except the hot vampire leaves the Debby Downer girl because she has bad coverage, and the werewolf sweeps in. Then you have the Bing commercial of the vampire that drags a girl into his room to eat her, which clearly isn’t creepy at all. And of course the most recent was the American Idol commercial for Ford where they did a confusing rendition of The Bravery, all decked out as vampires.

And now, the newest cue that apparently screams Gen Y market money is Ke$ha. If you don’t know who or what a Ke$ha is, it’s a singer. A girl that sings about waking up in random peoples homes from partying too much, brushing her teeth in whiskey and getting drunk for the party that night so it repeats itself. Not the most likely Grammy candidate but it’s sold like wildfire on iTunes, and now it’s invading commercials.

Well, not just commercials. The first real cue was during Fox Rocks week, where they recreated The Simpsons intro and featured Lisa singing her drunk anthem “Tik Tok”.This immediately sent the internet in one of two rages, one of the show officially being over because they’re using something aimed at teenagers and pushing it out of Lisa, a character who considers 90% of everything in that song blasphemy. The rage was how The Simpsons should be more like this, more relevant. And as expected, this voice was cried out on Youtube and Twitter, the perfect echo of a Gen Y group who already has the song on their iPod.

But more recently, it’s appeared in another bizarre place; the trailer for the movie Marmaduke. How a movie about a giant goofy dog relates to “errrybody gettin’ crunk crunk” I’m not sure; but throw it into a movie based on a comic no one from this generation knows and people will look up at the screen just to see what’s playing the song.

However, all this being said, relevance is still relevance, I mean after all I am talking about it right now, so they did their job. But, it’s not memorable. I think the same effect, but on a polar opposite view is the Betty White push. When Betty White, in all her awesomeness(I’m not biased at all am I?) was in that Snickers commercial, everyone got Betty fever, and soon people wanted to see her everywhere.

What’s the difference? You have Betty White appearing in original situations where you’d never imagine someone who’s 88 years old. It’s still a forced fad, but it’s one that people can appreciate, because it still holds a breath of originality. And if you’re going to force something without being original, you’ll get the hits, but what are they worth if nobody really cares?

Apparently the students were asked to give up all media for 24 hours. This meant no social media of any kind (text messaging, mobile media, phones, Facebook, Myspace etc). Some of the students said that they felt they had been severed completely from their family and friends. Hard to believe that just fifteen years ago the extent of “social media” was chat rooms on AOL, dial up and ICQ. “IMing” had just entered the public vernacular and dial-up internet was the norm.

Many of the kids experienced cravings and anxiety because of their tech black out. They mentioned texting and IM-ing giving them “a constant feeling of comfort.” One guy said that the suspension of social media made him feel “alone and secluded” from his own life.

Other interesting things to note are that they watch very little, if any television, do not read newspapers and have problems differentiating between news and general information (which to me sounds like about 70% of all Twitter, Facebook and Myspace users. No, I don’t care that your dog just barked out the window, and no, I don’t need to know that your baby just pooped.)

So how far off are we from cyberpunk style neural-arrays and netjacks on the backs of our heads? This step forward in medicinal wetware could be the ‘gateway drug’ of our long awaited era of biotechnology. The potential for integrated hardware is huge, considering we’ve already seen Microsoft’s ‘Skinput’ and the first prosthetic hand connected directly to nerve endings.

Imagine a world with Augmented Reality navigation embedded on a retina lens. Companies are just now catching up to social media- how long before they’re having to catch up to integrated social media? Gesture based interfaces for the next-gen Facebook, skinput smart phones and cybernetics controlled through silk-based neural matrixes- This is our future, and what companies will have to strive for. Whoever gets the big break out for personalized biotech hardware will make millions, and it will take at least 5 years for corporations to recognize this as a viable market (post introduction of technology). There are still companies that laugh at the internet and CEOs that can’t use email, let alone imagine a world where you can access text message via your forearm. Pair this with the surge in so called ‘Garage Science’ and the DiYBio movement, and the public is poised to create an entirely new tech-based counterculture in the next few decades.

Starling builds on the emergent trend of “co-viewing,” which generates active social media chatter when fans of a show gather online (See Ustream). It connects fans with other fans of the show, and friends to what their friends are watching. Users engage each other around the shows they already enjoy, and discover new shows through the social graph.

This is interactive TV folks. Finally, it’s here. People able to discuss what’s going on, with the show, around the show, on a common platform through shared media and technology. This also gives companies an opportunity to see real time reactions to their work and watch as discussions develop around their products and programming. This, to an extent, would also give audiences a greater foothold in controlling what they see and influencing decisions made around broadcast entertainment.

Because the truth is, today’s grandparents are every bit as sweet, loving and full of elderly wisdom, they just happen to skydive, Facebook and run marathons. In Japan, senior citizens have become such a target market that entire shopping complexes have been built focused on products that would interest them.

Looking stateside, senior citizens are still primarily viewed as “Ma & Pa”, of the Greatest Generation. Thier kids, the Boomers, have been in the spotlight several times for reinventing thier age bracket. But Boomers aren’t the only ones letting go of “acting thier age”. A new reality show is set to premiere on WE called “Sunset Daze” and focuses on the lives of residents of a retirement community.

The trailer shows everything from skeet shooting to tennis and heated conversation, all the staples of reality TV and what makes Jersey Shore well… Jersey Shore. It’s essentially the same crazy antics and “captivating drama” you’d expect from a house of college students, except they’re all senior citizens.

What I wonder is why the push for “extreme Boomerism” (yep, made up a word there) when we’ve been preached that “70 is the new 50″ and “40 is the new 20″ over and over. We get it, just because you’re an age doesn’t mean you’re limited to what you can do.

Aging up and aging down are rapidly becoming key behavior points in our culture. But, have we hit a point in culture where we’re all just trying to prove to each other that age has no boundaries? If so, then what’s the difference between a senior acting 40, a Boomer acting thirty and a teenager acting twenty? Two are told they have youthful spirit, and one is told they’re not old enough. Why is it we’re willing to push to be younger, but restrict when children yearn to act older?

$8.25 gets you ten minutes of amazing, mind blowing, filthy………..gaming. With a girl.

The service is only for the Xbox 360 at the moment, so anyone want to take bets on how long it is before someone sets up achievements for this thing?

To me this seems like exactly what Jesse Schell at GDC 2010 was talking about. He fears for our culture because it sounds (and even feels like, in my humble opinion) that we’re hurtling towards a Brave New World scenario, one where our lives begin to be dictated by the scores and achievements set by corporations and companies. “The 21st century will be a war of attention,” he says.

“We will have to choose sides.”

UPDATE: Apparently the demand has been so high for this borderline prostitution that plays on the social insecurities and stereotypical desperation that gamers have been working so hard to rid themselves of that the service is currently unavailable.