AllThingsD » Chuck Norris

Still Looking for Gift Ideas? Wal-Mart Recommends a Box for Men.

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:27:18 +0000

Still don’t know what to get your loved one for the holidays?

Well, you better decide fast. For many sites, today is the final day that orders can be placed to get guaranteed delivery by Christmas.

If you are having a hard time coming up with ideas, there are plenty of Facebook applications that will offer recommendations based on a gift recipient’s interests.

Late last month, Wal-Mart launched an application called Shopycat, which does just that.

To be helpful, I got a list of Shopycat’s 20 most-recommended gifts. At the very top of the list was an unexpected item called a “personalized keepsake box” for men. The box, which costs $24.76, is designed to hold a man’s watch, jewelry, money clip and/or other items.

It’s not clear what a person’s interests would have been for this to surface at the top of so many lists (maybe the popularity of the holiday-themed Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg music video “Dick in a Box” had something to do with it?) After all, many of the other items on the list are clearly based on someone’s favorite TV shows, movies or videogames. For instance, other fun items that made the list were action figures for “The Big Lebowski,” an Angry Birds beanie and “Star Wars” bathrobes.

As for the man box, it is sold out, so clearly some people agreed with Wal-Mart that it made for a good gift.

Not all of the items are recommendations for items sold on the Wal-Mart site. It also refers shoppers to other sites, such as ThinkGeek.com, Barnes & Noble, CBSstore.com and RedEnvelope.

Wal-Mart did not say how many people have used the app since it went live last month, but given that Wal-Mart has 11 million Facebook fans, it could represent big numbers.

Here is the entire list of most-recommended gifts for 2011:

"Brusli?" No. Chuck Norris

Gordon Fairclough and Leos Rousek — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 20:57:54 +0000

Action-movie hero Chuck Norris has a holiday hit on his hands–in the Czech Republic.

The 70-year-old martial artist-made famous by tough-guy roles in 1980s films such as “Forced Vengeance” and “Missing in Action”–is starring in a series of TV commercials here for T-Mobile and its satellite-TV service.

The ads, featuring Mr. Norris in humorous encounters with Czech Christmas customs, have turned into a pop-culture phenomenon, which is starting to spread outside of the Czech Republic into Central Europe.

One of the spots–all produced by the Prague office of Saatchi & Saatchi–shows Mr. Norris in the kitchen of a Czech family preparing a traditional Christmas Eve dinner of fresh carp. His hostess asks Mr. Norris to kill the still flapping fish with a wooden mallet. “You’re the master,” she says.

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Shocking Bieber Upset: Oil Spill Tops Twitter's 2010 Trends

Liz Gannes — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:00:33 +0000

Although World Cup tweeting caused record high volume and infrastructure demands on Twitter, the most-discussed topic on Twitter in 2010 was actually the Gulf oil spill, said the San Francisco-based company tonight. The South Africa-hosted World Cup came in at No. 2.

(Of course, Twitter hasn’t revealed the secret formulas that helped it aggregate, tabulate and rank these topics.)

In the Twitterverse, after the BP oil spill and soccer, the next most popular topic of conversation in 2010 was the movie “Inception,” followed by the Haiti earthquake and the vuvuzela. The iPad, Android, Justin Bieber, Harry Potter and Pulpo Paul round out the top 10. It’s an odd list, indeed.

The person most discussed on Twitter in 2010 was obviously he of the dedicated servers, Mr. Bieber. (It’s somewhat shocking that world events and tech gadgets were able to keep the teen phenom out of the overall top spot.) Beating out her royal highness Lady Gaga, the No. 2 person on Twitter was Brazilian president-elect Dilma Rousseff (pictured).

Here’s the full 2010 list, courtesy of Twitter, followed by 2009′s list for comparison.

2010 Twitter Trends

Overall Top Trends:
1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

News Events:
1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. Haiti Earthquake
3. Pakistan Floods
4. Koreas Conflict
5. Chilean Miners Rescue

People:
1. Justin Bieber
2. Dilma Rousseff
3. Lady Gaga
4. Julian Assange
5. Mel Gibson

Movies:
1. Inception
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
3. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
4. Despicable Me
5. Karate Kid

Television:
1. MTV Video Music Awards
2. Pretty Little Liars
3. True Blood
4. Walking Dead
5. Grammy Awards

Technology:
1. Apple iPad
2. Google Android
3. Apple iOS
4. Apple iPhone
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops

World Cup:
1. FIFA World Cup
2. Vuvuzela
3. Pulpo Paul
4. Dunga
5. Diego Maradona

Sports:
1. LeBron James
2. Wimbledon
3. Manchester United
4. Brock Lesnar
5. Celtics

Hash Tags:
1. #rememberwhen
2. #slapyourself
3. #confessiontime (hash tag started by Usher)
4. #thingsimiss
5. #ohjustlikeme

2009 Twitter Trends

News Events:
1. #iranelection
2. Swine Flu
3. Gaza
4. Iran
5. Tehran
6. #swineflu
7. AIG
8. #uksnow
9. Earth Hour
10. #inaug09

People:
1. Michael Jackson
2. Susan Boyle
3. Adam Lambert
4. Kobe (Bryant)
5. Chris Brown
6. Chuck Norris
7. Joe Wilson
8. Tiger Woods
9. Christian Bale
10. A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez)

Movies:
1. Harry Potter
2. New Moon
3. District 9
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Star Trek
6. True Blood
7. Transformers 2
8. Watchmen
9. Slumdog Millionaire
10. G.I. Joe

TV Shows:
1. American Idol
2. Glee
3. Teen Choice Awards
4. SNL (Saturday Night Live)
5. Dollhouse
6. Grey’s Anatomy
7. VMAS (Video Music Awards)
8. #bsg (Battlestar Galatica)
9. BET Awards
10. Lost

Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues):
1. Super Bowl
2. Lakers
3. Wimbledon
4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers)
5. Superbowl
6. Chelsea
7. NFL
8. UFC 100
9. Yankees
10. Liverpool

Technology:
1. Google Wave
2. Snow Leopard
3. Tweetdeck
4. Windows 7
5. CES
6. Palm Pre
7. Google Latitude
8. #E3
9. #amazonfail
10. Macworld

Hash Tags:
1. #musicmonday
2. #iranelection
3. #sxsw
4. #swineflu
5. #nevertrust
6. #mm
7. #rememberwhen
8. #3drunkwords
9. #unacceptable
10. #iwish

Kenya Launches Country's First Viral Music Video

Cassandra Vinograd — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:00:49 +0000

Boy group Just-a-Band have sparked what many are calling Kenya’s first viral sensation.

Conjuring up references to 1970s cult classics like “Shaft,” Just-a-Band’s latest video, “Ha-He,” introduces the fictional Makmende sporting shades, chains, an Afro pick and what appears to be polyester. Directed by Jim Chuchu and Mbithi Masya, the clip is a tribute to “ass-kicking” of days past–even the name “Makmende” is a throwback to a word used in mid-1990s Nairobi to connote a know-it-all or local hero (and bully.)

The video–with “Big-G,” “Godfrey and the Laydayz,” “Black Sahara” and others backing up Makmende–has drawn more than 24,300 hits in the week since its release and the success doesn’t end there. Kenyan bloggers and Tweeters have seized on the video and launched a campaign for the man they’re calling Kenya’s very own Chuck Norris–complete with one liners about Makmende’s superhero skills and prowess. Makmende on Facebook has already collected 19,200 fans–with more joining by the minute.

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Google: When Good Isn’t Good Enough

John Paczkowski — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:10:59 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

College Humor Dudes' Newest Product: An Amazon.com Prank

Peter Kafka — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:27:23 +0000

The smarter-than-they-look guys at CollegeHumor.com attract some seven million unique visitors a month, are making smart strides in Web video and have their own show on MTV. And when they’re not doing that, they monkey with Amazon.

That’s why this fine Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt, available for as little as $9.78, became one of the online retailer’s most popular items in the last week. Prompted by a link at the IAC (IACI)-owned site, CollegeHumor readers bought up scads of the shirts, and filled Amazon (AMZN) with glowing reviews like these:

Unfortunately I already had this exact picture tattooed on my chest, but this shirt is very useful in colder weather…

This is the only t-shirt Chuck Norris wears. Wolves howl at the moon, and the moon howls at Chuck…

…So I’m looking for threads that say, “Hey baby…I’m real boss!” when I stumble upon this epic creation. The wolves spoke to me in a language all their own; it was like German, Mongol, and Bitchin all mixed together. I mean, one wolf howlin at the moon is major…but three???

Why bother? If you have to ask, you’re probably never going to get the joke. More info via the Washington Post, including the most pertinent detail: As clever as the CollegeHumor dudes are, they neglected to actually figure out how to profit from the stunt themselves.

YouTube's Hulu Jr. Act: Chuck Norris, Yul Brynner Movies Coming to Google's Video Site

Peter Kafka — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:45:25 +0000

YouTube became the world’s biggest video site (and one of the world’s biggest Web sites, period) by giving people unlimited access to anything they wanted to see–as long as it was a few minutes long. But that hasn’t made much money for Google (GOOG) because advertisers are wary of sticking their brands next to any video Web watchers want to see.

New tack, which YouTube has slowly been adopting: Run longer stuff that will theoretically appeal to advertisers. Like, say, indie movies. Or shows from CBS (CBS). And now, a handful of movies from the MGM library, starring the likes of Chuck Norris (“Bulletproof Monk”) and Yul Brynner (“The Magnificent Seven”).

So far, YouTube’s catalog of studio-sanctioned movies and TV shows pales in comparison to those offered at Hulu. But that’s going to change sooner than later: At some point in the not-so-distant future, all of the Web video sites will have the same access to the same catalogs. Video industry executives predict that even NBC and Fox, the JV partners in Hulu, will end up distributing their stuff widely once the video site’s exclusive ends next year.

Trickier question: Just because these sites have long-form video, will there be enough eyeballs, and advertising dollars, to make a real business out of showing them?

Hulu, for instance, is supposed to be the gold standard for Hollywood-approved Web sites. But as Rafat Ali at PaidContent points out, it’s unclear exactly how much money Hulu is actually making.

The site’s boosters never fail to point out that 100 percent of its inventory is advertiser-friendly (as opposed to a small fraction at YouTube). But that doesn’t mean that 100 percent of views have been sold to advertisers, despite frequent reference to inventory being “sold out”: Watch Hulu for any length of time and you’ll quickly start seeing freebie public service ads–the kind you don’t see on TV until the middle of the night.

Something doesn’t add up right now. When will it?