Tech geeks billed Lala as a music rental service, where you could “buy” music for online-only play for 10 cents per song. However, I’ll admit that I only use Lala to access my personal music collection and check out new music – I never made a purchase or rental through Lala.

I am sure there are other services like Lala out there–I do love Pandora for its streaming music, but I’m going to miss having my own music at my finger tips. Guess it is time I resurrect my iPod from its role as an exercise assistance device.

This isn’t the first time Israel has given Apple the cold shoulder–Apple’s iPhone was not allowed in the country until December of last year over similar concerns.

So far 10 iPads have been confiscated and the owners have been given the choice of paying a storage fee until they leave the country or shipping the iPad home on their own dime.

Apple has delayed the international launch of the iPad by one month due to overwhelming demand here in the U.S.  Apple says the international version of the iPad will comply with the lower Wi-Fi standards and are hopeful the iPad will soon proliferate across Israel.

My guess is you’re probably asking “What the heck is SIGGRAPH?” Fair enough. You have to be on a whole new level of nerd/hardcore computer graphics fanaticism to recognize it. I won’t lie, I am! Just check out the picture below of my conference badge and how much stuff is on that thing.

SIGGRAPH is the largest international professional organization “to promote the generation and dissemination of information on computer graphics and interactive techniques.” In other words, it hosts a conference every year in North America (usually in a major city) where thousands and thousands of students, educators, researchers and  professionals get together for a computer animation festival, huge exhibition, art gallery, emerging technologies, classes, behind the scenes amazingness and so much more. Let’s not forget about the parties. Oh, you heard right. Nerds can throw down!

Anywho, they just recently started hosting a conference in Asia halfway through each year, starting in December of 2008 (the original conferences are held in early August). It was a huge transition and a big step forward for the field of computer graphics and Asia, but also came with a lot of struggles such as language barriers. To our surprise, it wasn’t bad at all! There were great reviews and as a student volunteer, I was able to help most  every case that came across my path. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard though. Either way, the blending of cultures into one huge mesh of the most talented artists in the world is one of the most fulfilling experiences I’ve ever had. You literally pass people who helped create the films you watch everyday, the technology you use, the games you play and the amazing visuals that accompany every single aspect of our lives.

That’s most undoubtedly a true statement. In Japan, I was able to talk to owners of animations studios, producers and artists from Pixar, big guns at Lucas Film Animation and even the winner of best in show in the computer animation festival. That alone is worth the trip! Since I could practically write a book on my experiences at SIGGRAPH, I’ll leave you with some pictures of my trip. Some are from the conference and others are around the town of Yokohama. Enjoy!

Unfortunately, most of these programs read like a prenuptial agreement.  Not only does your distance of flight and duration of stay affect the total rewards you earn, but once you get the points, you’re subject to upgrade limits, blackout dates and capacity constraints for members.  Hmm…It’s almost as if they don’t want you to use your hard-earned rewards in the first place.

We say take a page out of Southwest Airlines’ book, guys.  Points are in the single digits, not the 1000′s.  Regardless of whether you’re flying from LA to Vegas or to NYC, you get a point.  When you fly home, you get another point.  If you stop somewhere inbetween (intentionally…not a layover), you get ANOTHER point.  Once you’ve got 16 points, you get a free flight, anywhere.  The end.  

At first glance, it looks like you could pretty easily scam this system by flying between two close cities repeatedly and then flying to the other end of the country on your free flight.  Yep.  You scammed them out of the $200 difference between the two flights.  I’d bet after eight round-trips and not having to build a system to assign point values to flights and costs to redemptions, they saved far more than that.  Plus, now you’re probably pretty loyal to them.

Simplicity helps people see the reality in what you’re offering.  The more chances for confusion, the less people will care to participate.

We’re a interactive marketing firm.  It seems like what some of the other companies in our field forget is that while we’re great at delivering our clients’ messages, we should also remember to have a message of our own.  In fact, xiik has a lot of messages; we have a lot of points that, well, we believe other people (like you) deserve to know about.  That’s why we have this blog.

And we’re excited about it.  Not necessarily excited about typing random thoughts into a website each week.  More excited that even if only a few people check out our blog, those few people may benefit and be more informed by doing so.

We’re just getting started, so things may be a little less sequitor at first – we’ve got a very diverse group of folks working at xiik, across the country.  But, over time, it’ll all come together and hopefully you’ll leave a better person and, maybe, even a little entertained.  Stay tuned and watch us use this convenient forum to do what we do best – inform and educate.  It just makes sense.