Elle Magazine’s ellegirl.com today launched a “virtual buddy” that “delivers information about beauty, fashion, celebs, and more!” (their exclamation point!) From the folks at Active Buddy, the folks behind my favorite virtual buddy, smarterchild. Just add “ellegirlbuddy” or “smarterchild” to your buddy list and peer into the future of fake friends.

Jack Guynn, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (which covers a big chunk of the southeast), spoke at Nashville’s Downtown Rotary Club at noon. Not only do I agree with his take on the economy (see quote, below), I am pleased to say he can speak plainly. No Greenspanian obtuseness.

Quote:

As for where all this takes us, I think the economy’s going to return to sustained positive growth by the third quarter of the year. The recovery, though, is likely to be more moderate than we’re accustomed to seeing. That’s because consumer spending and housing are not likely to provide the usual kick we’ve seen coming out of previous recessions and because there’s still considerable uncertainty surrounding investment spending.

Advertising Age follows-up with an analysis of last week’s release of second-half 2001 magazine circulation report.

Am I just noticing a feature for the first time, or is the ability to search for phone numbers via google new? Just type in a name and city. You can remove your phone number if you want. I did. Indeed, there are lots of cool special search features on Google. My prediction: Within in a short time, look for a Goggle IM feature.

Interesting article in today’s Wall Street Journal regarding Clear Channel’s use of “voice tracking” and other means to give the illusion to listeners that a DJ is live and local despite the show being taped thousands of miles away.

Quote:

Mr. Michaels says that he himself usually can’t tell when a show is voice-tracked from another city and when it’s live. “I don’t think it’s at all wrong or deceptive to put together terrific programs that reflect local communities and sometimes use talent who may physically be somewhere else,” he says. He compares the radio shows to films, which wouldn’t be “nearly as much fun if the camera kept turning around to show you it was just a set. I don’t know that the radio experience would be as good if we said every five minutes, ‘By the way, I’m not really here and I taped this 20 minutes ago.’ But that’s all part of the magic of creating entertainment.”

Why does one need to deceive? It seems to me the highest rated programs on the air these days are syndicated, in which no effort is made to be local: Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, etc. When it’s not the national feeds from NPR, I listen nearly exclusively to a local station that plays lots of non-mainstream local music, but the vast majority of radio listeners are tuning into cookie-cutter music from look-alike, sound-alike pop artists, so what do they care if something is local or not?

Sad, but true.