You know that Kellogg’s TV commercial …

You know that Kellogg’s TV commercial with the guy who collects uniquely shaped Frosted Flakes cereal flakes? Right towards the end of the commercial, Tony the Tiger rides a bike past the window in the background of the shot. I wonder if we’re going to start seeing more “Easter eggs” like this show up in mainstream advertising? [Several readers noted that Tony riding a bicycle appears in almost every Frosted Flakes commercial.]

Ben sent me this link to a site that catalogs Easter eggs in software, movies, TV, and book.

Universal service used to mean that everybody had access to a telephone in case of emergencies. Now some FCC staffers think that everyone’s entitled to a high-speed Internet connection. In a few years, communications companies may owe everyone a cheap Palm Pilot.

Buy.com has redesigned. It looks like the tab navigation concept is here to stay. First it was the C|Net yellow sidebar (circa 1996-1997) navigation that took over the web, now it’s tabs. And I see they’ve abandoned people using 640×480 monitors and WebTV users. Their Customer Service center is a javascript pop-up site that only barely works. If I were a customer having trouble with their site and I wanted to contact them, do you think I’d be comfortable using such a convoluted Customer Service web site?

I see that Outpost.com has also redesigned since I last visited. When you go to www.outpost.com, it immediately redirects you to a BroadVision URL that contains session management. This renders your browser’s back button useless. For instance, if you wanted to go to the site you were at immediately before visiting Outpost.com, you would not be able to do so because of the way they’ve implemented their session management.

Rob Krieger from ICE has written a superb piece called Interface Engineering that approaches GUI design and usability from a software point-of-view. Web designers can learn a lot from seasoned veterans of software GUI design. Don’t stop there, though. There’s a whole boatload of useful info in ICE’s site.

John Halcyon Styn from Prehensile.com sent in his own link about bad banner advertising. Funny stuff.

When I’m ready to shave my head, I’m going to do it with style. [Now that’s a great example of a niche market.]

Posted by Cameron Barrett at January 13, 2000 04:38 PM

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