Far be it from me to suggest conspiracy theories, but Yelp can be easily manipulated by stores that crave good reviews.  This isn’t a new concept, but it still makes me question the motivation of most posters.  It’s hard enough to form one’s own opinion on a restaurant’s food, atmosphere and service without secretly wondering if this place has been recommended to you by the restaurant manager posing as Suzie Q.

Ah, and the ranking system.  Any time you go from 1-5, one would expect rankings to reflect the following logic when ranking a restaurant:

1: Terrible service, terrible location, food was almost inedible.
2: Food was actually okay, but rest of experience was lacking
3: Everything was mediocre
4: Decent service, food was great
5: Already thinking about returning

I had a LOT of problems writing number 2. Why aren’t there four stars? Let’s look at some reviews and try and determine the metric for a 2 star rating.

“Yeah.. I know I will get crap for this.. and I know it’s a very unChicago thing to say… but I find corn bread crust yucky. I hate cornbread, so don’t make a pizza out of it…The ingredients were fresh and tasty. I also didn’t think that the “large” pizza warranted the large moniker. It was more like a medium. For more than 2 people, I’d definitely recommend more than 1 pizza.”

Laura does not like corn bread crust, so the establishment immediately loses some stars. But is every pizza made with cornbread crust? Also, why apologize for your opinion when writing an opinion-based review? The ingredients were fresh and tasty, but the pies were too small. I’m not sure I get it. Is a two star review always so muddled and confusing? Based on the content of the review, I would’ve given the place a 3-star rating. But let’s see some other 2-star gems. Dave S. similarly complains about the size of Pizano’s pizzas:

“The were probably the smallest and most overpriced large pizzas that I have ever had. They were not even that good. I paid nearly $90 for four pizzas that were supposed to be large but were more like mediums in the real world. Come on with the toppings guys, these pizzas were very, very bare. I was not really impressed with them at all.”

Uh, woof. Notice his comment about “real world medium pizzas.” What does that even really mean? What is the gold standard size-wise for a large pizza? Are we talking deep-dish or thin crust? This is all getting very confusing. Let’s confuse things even more by adding Dave S.’s reasoning behind his two-star rating:

Crust = very good

Toppings = very skimpy

Quick Delivery = Nope, very slow

Friendly Service = “Leave the attitudes at home, I am paying you good money here”

Price = Not worth it at all

So he hates the price, the service, the delivery time and the toppings. And he only likes the crust of the pizza? This looks like a 1-star rating to me.

Also, I’ll also add that the whole, “I’m paying you GOOD MONEY, so ACT like it,” bit. If you write that in a review, you’re asking to be treated like a jerk.  Yes, you have paid these people to offer you a service, but don’t act like you paid their future kids college education off.  This pizza delivery person is  a human being.  You tip them 15-20% and shut the door in their faces.  What more do you want?

Perhaps Christina S. will be more honest with her ranking?

“I picked Pizano’s because it’s close to the Contemporary Art Museum and had a four-star rating. Yelp, you’ve done me wrong…Our deep-dish pizza was thin, watery, and undercooked, and my fettuccine dish was totally unappetizing. The nail in the coffin was the smoking policy, though. No smoking within 15 feet of the bar. Well, my friends, the bar runs along one side of the dining room and the building itself is no more than 20 feet wide. What a joke.”

Alright, now we’re talking! Food that is awful and looks awful! A watery deep-dish pizza is a blasphemous thing indeed, and a critique of the establishment’s smoking policy which is now rendered moot by Illinois’s smoking ban in restaurants and bars helps lower the bar. The location is lauded as well, making this a solid two-star rating.

Using a small sample size has shown us some small truths about Yelp, namely that you can’t really trust a rating.  People have different levels of taste and shifting palates, and Phil’s 2 star rating could be Janet’s 5 star meal-gasm.

I plan to further delve into my conspiracy theory that half of every restaurant’s positive reviews are written by employees.  If you have any first-hand accounts of any such heinous acts of deception, you can email me at hugedays@gmail.com.

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While the US economy seems to be on the rebound, many folks are still trying to make their dollars go as far as they can.  How do I know this?  Because that is the only reasonable explanation why people continue to take junk food and turn it into something they call “fancy.”  As first chronicled here, the site Fancy Fast Food takes fast food and tries to turn it into good looking dishes via their “extreme makeovers.”   Their most recent switcheroo: Carlbonade Flamande c/o Carl’s Jr.  Yuck. 

Now, along comes another effort, this time with food you can find in a vending machine, or offices in general.  Called Office Snack Gourmet, the post names “recipes designed to turn even the most disgusting of office snacks into delicious gourmet meals.”  Charming.  How about these delicacies: Twinkie Napoleon?  Truffled Berry Praline Purses?  3 Cheese Chilequiles? (above)  Gag.

Am I off base?  Judge, and test, for yourself.

H/t to Eat Me Daily for the tip.

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The website features an image of a big bucket of the new Kentucky Grilled Chicken with a button that says “Try it Free April 27. Click for Coupon.” But when you click the button for the free coupon, instead of taking you to a page to get a free coupon, it instead gives you this message:

LOL indeed! Oh KFC. You are the living end!

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I should point out, that while the concept of Lukas’s post is exactly the same as So Good’s Meat Madness, the presentation and execution are a bit different. For one thing, he started with 64 meats – something I considered but ultimately tossed out because the voting would have taken ages.  Second main difference? He goes through and picks his winners of the meat bracket from start to finish. So essentially the bracket is introduced, every match-up is resolved, and a winner is chosen by the end of the column. Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the audience participation?

So who made the final four for Paul Lukas?  Bacon, standing rib roast, bratwurst and chicken tails. Weird. That definitely won’t be the outcome of the Meat Madness bracket here at So Good, I can tell you that much.  In the finals of his bracket? Standing rib roast defeated bacon in the final match-up. Interesting.

Still several weeks to go before a champion is crowned in So Good’s Meat Madness – should be a great tournament.

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As of January 5, 2009, you can now buy the Angry Whopper at Burger King until March 30.  So what is the Angry Whopper? It’s a Whopper with spicy crispy onions, jalapeños, pepper jack cheese, bacon, tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, and spicy Angry Sauce. Yum. As I’ve said before, jalapeños and a little spice makes almost anything better, although I’m skeptical as to what exactly a “spicy crispy onion” is.  Also, is the bacon really necessary? Wouldn’t this be just as good without it?

The new commercial for the Angry Whopper has to be one of my favorite Burger King commercials of late, featuring onions “born from fertile soil…but raised on anger” by, who else, a sadistic farmer.

To promote it, Burger King has also created an Angry-Gram website, where you can fill out an “Angry-Gram” letting people know they annoy the hell out of you:

Impulsive Buy has already reviewed the Angry Whopper, giving it a 7 out of 10 and calling it “damn tasty.” However, they note it wasn’t as spicy as they hoped:

The only anger I get from the Angry Whopper is the anger I feel for it not being spicy enough. The red Angry Sauce was more peppery than spicy, the onion rings tasted normal, and the pepper jack cheese produced jack shit in terms of spiciness. The pickled jalapeno was the only ingredient that produced any spicy heat.

On an angry scale of one to ten, with ten being Naomi Campbell beating your ass with a cell phone for not ensuring her Starbucks order was at her desired temperature of 63 degrees Celcius and one being an even-toned “I’m disappointed in you” from your laid back parents who don’t really believe in discipline, the Angry Whopper was a three, or a quick Three Stooges-esque slap to the head.

I haven’t eaten a Whopper (or any fast food burgers for that matter) in ages, but I can’t wait to try one.

Photo and info via Business Wire & Adrants.

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The site is collecting and live-aggregating tweets using the words “Obama” and “McCain” and other words that appear frequently on Twitter.  It also shows a bunch of lines connecting different key words – The bluer it is, the closer-aligned the keyword is with Obama; the more red, the more it’s McCain. There are also black lines connecting terms which show you which words are used together most. You an also embed it on your site. Pretty cool, and pretty insanely in-depth and high-tech. Check it out below:

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The three flavors being offered (from left to right) are:

Voltage (Raspberry Citrus)

Revolution (Wild Berry Fruit)

Supernova (Strawberry Melon)

Continue reading for my reviews as well as some interesting state-by-state voting trends.

I tasted the Voltage first. On first glance, it looked like a lightly colored anti-freeze. The taste was sweet and syrupy, but ultimately quite satisfying. A couple people I was tasting it with suggested it tasted like a flavor-ice, which made sense, but didn’t feel 100% accurate. Then it hit me: Slush Puppys. The blue raspberry flavoring used by Mountain Dew tasted just like the bottom of a blue Slush Puppy. Yummy.

Next I moved on to the Revolution. Also blue, it was lighter in flavor than the Voltage and less syrupy. It kind of tasted like club soda with flavoring in it, or a sweeter, stronger seltzer water.

Supernova was the third one I hit up. While a couple of the women I was sampling with enjoyed this one the best, I just thought it was so-so. It smelled like tropical fruit Skittles. It was light, crisp and refreshing. The strawberry flavor was noticeable but mild, as was the hint of melon.

Revolution (Wild Berry) bored me. Supernova (strawberry) was good, but not great. Ultimately, Voltage, had the most full, robust, and enjoyable flavor.

It turns out, my opinion is being echoed by thousands of other Americans. How do I know? Because the Dewmocracy website is set up like a CNN real-time election results board. One look at the map shows a swath of dark blue, indicating that Voltage (blue raspberry) has a stranglehold on the electoral college, running in first place in every single state! C’mon Supernova and Revolution! Pathetic! Even Walter Mondale won at least one state!

Even more interesting, you can click on any state and check out the real-time voting results. For example, in my home state of Vermont, Voltage holds a healthy 11% lead over Revolution, and they are both destroying Supernova.

So why all the hate for the strawberry melon Revolution? Well, don’t be fooled. There appear to be some interesting regional taste preferences. I can’t discern the national trend, but the strawberry seems to be running ahead of the wild berry in large parts of the Southwest, Midwest and Southeast. For example, in California, it’s running a tight second place, with 39% to blue raspberry’s 44%.

Meanwhile, the Northeast seems to hate the strawberry melon, with the soda finishing a distant third in New York and nearly every New England state. Interesting.

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A day later a version with some people speaking English appeared:

Two users, bobtel08 and benzin513, both of whom joined YouTube on May 28th, have now posted several different videos of people popping popcorn with a cell phone, some in French, some in English.

For the past few days, people have been speculating if the videos are a fake and if cellphones can really pop corn. They’ve debated if cellphones emit enough radiation to do so, if their is a hotplate under the table etc. This is not a discussion worth continuing. The videos are clearly fake, as several bloggers have pointed out. Their is no hotpad involved, and the popcorn on the table is not actually popping. It is purely an editing and camera trick, as you can see the kernels popping on to the camera from the bottom of the screen, and the other kernels next to the “popping corn” magically don’t move and are undisturbed by kernels popping next to them. Also, the people in the videos are also definitely actors.

This is a viral marketing campaign, plain and simple. Judging by the views on the videos (over 3 million views so far) it’s a highly successful one. But the question remains, who is behind it and what are they selling? If you are selling a cell phone, would you want to give people the impression that your product emits enough energy to pop a popcorn kernel? Perhaps this is a bizarre way to advertise for a new low-radiation cell phone? Seems questionable. Of course the possibility remains that these videos are only being used to get attention, and whoever is behind them is going to drop a video promoting something totally unrelated to the original clips.

This question has been driving me crazy all morning, so I’m going to throw out a few theories of who is behind these videos. Click below to read on about a few shot-in-the-dark guesses about who could be behind this.

1. Apple: The timing oddly matches up with the announcement about the new iPhone, with the videos first being leaked online a little more than a week before the announcement of the iPhone 2. There were rumors in March that an ad had appeared on Craigslist looking for “regular people” actors for an iPhone 2 commercial. The ad was quickly pulled from Craigslist and scrubbed from the AppleInsider site. Perhaps this ad was from Apple’s ad agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day? Interestingly, on the Macrumors site, one individual leaves a post titled: “iPhone 2 Short Film/Ad – It’s True” in which he writes that he thinks TBWA was working with video producing firm Smuggler to create an “Apple Short”:

I work in TBWA\Chiat\Day’s mailroom and I overheard Laurie Coots talking to some guys from Smuggler about “the Apple short”. We normally only handle production through big guns like Partizan, so the fact that Smuggler was in the office got me kinda suspicious. There is definitely something in the works.

There were also reports in April, that Apple’s ad agency was seeking “Asian men who speak Mandarin; Hasidic males fluent in Hebrew; a French-speaking cab driver; a pair of Jamaican (or West Indian) women who can ’speak with a thick patois accent’ and others.” We have seen versions of these popcorn cellphone videos in French and English, but no other languages – yet.

The use of popcorn could also be an angle in which to remind people you can watch movies on your iPhone.

Downsides of the iPhone 2 guess: First off, this isn’t really Apple’s style, they have a strong enough brand name they don’t need to generate buzz with viral campaigns. Second, I contacted Smuggler to ask if they were behind the cellphone popcorn ads – he denied they are behind these ads and I have no reason to assume he wasn’t truthful. Doesn’t mean they weren’t made by/for Apple, but if they were, it wasn’t by Smuggler – perhaps TBWA enlisted someone else to make these videos?

2. Net10: This cell phone company has already made the foray into videos of hazardous uses of cell phones, having posted a video of a cell phone being put into a microwave. A demon then climbs out of the cell phone and you are urged to visit the site no-evil.net. The site features other videos with titles such as “Is your cell phone company supporting deadly bacteria?” and “Is your cell phone company taking advantage of homeless dogs?” It sounds like this is the kind of company willing to make a risky video like the cellphone popcorn ones….maybe a play on the “your phone is evil” theme?

So could these popcorn videos be a part of their viral video campaign? The YouTube user who posted the cell phone microwave video just added one of the cellphone popcorn videos to his profile about 5 hours ago.

On the flip side, Smuggler confirmed to me that they DID produce this video (the microwave one), so they would have had to admit to making this one but not fess up to the cellphone popcorn ones.

3. A popcorn company. It just doesn’t make sense that a cell phone company would scare people about the harmful effects of cell phones with these videos. So why not a new kind of popcorn coming out? But from who?

Is it Orville Redenbacher? Act II? Is it Pop Secret trying to promote their Pop Secret Films? Maybe it’s the popcorn board? If I was forced to guess, I’d say Dale & Thomas – they probably don’t have the budget to do TV advertising, but they could afford something like this. If we find out in the next day or two that it was Dale & Thomas, it will coincide perfectly with their attempts to push sales of their gourmet popcorn for Fathers Day this weekend.

4. Florida Orange Juice. Isn’t it kind of odd that in one of the videos they are all drinking orange juice? Who eats popcorn with orange juice? And who serves orange juice in an open top pitcher like that?

5. Beer. In one of the videos with some French guys, one of the dudes is holding what appears to be a beer.

6. A company totally unrelated to popcorn or cellphones that is going to find a way to utilize all the attention from this to put out a final video promoting something totally irrelevant to these videos.

So those are some possibilities. Lets hope one of them is right, because theoretically there are hundreds of thousands of companies that could be behind it – guessing it right with just a handful of guesses out of hundreds of thousands wouldn’t be bad.

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The site’s approach to life is:

“We believe in spicy modern living and embracing all of its quirky nuances. We know eating well and living actively are essential, but understand that sometimes chilling out and letting ourselves detox just to retox is equally as important.”

As such, there are some interesting food related/posts e-mails they have with some frequency. Every Friday, they have posts called “The Happiest Hour” which provides some interesting food related information, advice or recipes. Yesterday’s post had a yummy and healthy recipe for a Spicy Rice and Bean Skillet. I also particular enjoyed their dissection of sugar free Red Bull.

If this sounds like the type of site or e-mail newsletter that is your cup of tea, check it out at BeThree.com.

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However, unlike most modern bands, White Gold features a hilariously self-absorbed front man who acts like he came straight from Spinal Tap. The band/campaign is just starting to draw attention in the blogosphere, but with the originality of the concept, I expect online buzz to grow even stronger. Their first six 30-second ads were released yesterday, including the one below:

White Gold’s YouTube channel features the two full length music videos they have put out so far, as well as five additional 30-second ads. The YouTube video for their fist “single” is titled One Gallon Axe. The song has already drawn more than 350,000 views in its first three weeks online. Click below the fold to view the video and read my concluding thoughts on this campaign.

Spoof bands done right are hilarious, and the genre has by no means been exhausted. The internet is littered with failed online marketing campaigns, but White Gold seems to have found a perfect balance of a funny concept, amusing TV ads, and high quality production value for its online components. Goodby Silverstein seems to have hit the nail on the head with this one, as White Gold feels like a winner.

(Disclosure: The company I work for is helping to promote White Gold, although I am not personally involved in this campaign or client)

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“Chester Cheetah here. What gives people? No one wants to be part of the Orange Underground? Come on folks, it ain’t easy being cheesy. Ayyayyayya.”

A search of Technorati on blogs with at least “a little authority”, reveals only 17 results for “Orange Underground” AND Cheetos. TOTAL. Yikes. The campaign launched more than a month ago and it has only been mentioned 17 times by bloggers? Check out the Technorati chart showing the sparseness of day-to-day mentions in the past month:

A search for “Orange Underground” on Google Trends reveals the following message:

Hmmm….not good. The first few bloggers to post about Orange Underground received semi-cryptic comments from someone named “Cheet01″, encouraging them to join the Orange Underground and commit acts of RAoC (Random Acts of Cheetos). In addition to adding a comment to the post I wrote about Orange Underground, Cheet01 also commented on blogs HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Obviously someone is being paid to post comments as Cheet01 and help gin up interest and intrigue in the blogosphere. The only problem is, Cheet01 doesn’t seem to have anywhere to leave comments. A Google search reveals that since the campaign has started, Cheet01 has only posted a total of six comments, all of which I linked to above.

Given the creative nature of this campaign, Goodby Silverstein most likely assumed there would be a high(er) level of discussion in the blogosphere. Cheet01 was probably designed to be their unique method to engage and interact with bloggers. However, with almost no one talking about the campaign, the actual person behind “Cheet01″ must have a pretty boring workday – repeatedly doing Google Blog searches for “Orange Underground” and turning up nothing.

In addition to a lack of coverage in the blogosphere, no one seems to be committing these RAoC’s (Random Acts of Cheetos) that the campaign is encouraging people to do. A post from February 4th on the Orange Underground blog is titled, “Remarkable New RAoC’s Clog the Intertubes.” The post directs people to the Orange Underground YouTube Channel where they are told they can “witness the full glory of the latest round of Random Acts of Cheetos.”

However, the YouTube channel has so far identified 20 videos as “favorites.” These range from weird YouTube videos about Cheetos from a full year ago, to clips posted by the user orangeunderground himself. So far there have been ZERO user generated videos submitted showing any RAoC’s.

So what happened? I’m not really sure. The creators probably assumed a campaign with this level of creativity would go viral right away. Clearly it didn’t, and it hasn’t. The campaign may be a little too strange for people to “get it.” I mean did they really expect people to start pulling crazy pranks with Cheetos? Who in their right mind is actually going to go out and buy 20 bags of Cheetos to pull pranks with?

The concept was unique, but the opportunities for continued consumer engagement aren’t prevalent. Ultimately there just wasn’t enough “there there” for this to be the type of campaign which excites people enough to blog about it or e-mail it to their friends.

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So what is a pickle sickle? Dill pickles are pressed to extract as much of their juice as possible, then that juice is put in a plastic tube, much like flavor ice. The product is shipped unfrozen, but it is expected that once you get it, you will pop it in your freezer.

Although people have been eating pickle juice in various forms for a long time (including turning it into an energy drink for athletes), this product’s birth was a year ago, when a Texas family began selling the pickle pops at their roller skating rink and arcade. People loved them so much they decided to take the pickle pops to a bigger audience.

The product is being pitched to school cafeteria’s as well as consumers. Not a bad idea. Pickle juice doesn’t give you any calories, so this can be seen as a tasty frozen treat that even a diabetic could enjoy.

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