So for those of you who love all things Apple, like myself, I hope you are ready for the “exciting new product” that Apple is preparing to announce tomorrow.

The rumor for a while has been that the Apple Tablet is coming and apparently it is! McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw who has had a long partnership Apple, confirmed that the Tablet is coming and it will have a similar Operating System to the iPhone. Meaning Apps can possibly be transferred onto this new gadget.

I can’t wait!

In my opinion, and I’ve had this opinion for a while, all those who say they are “Urban Marketers” or that companies and brands need to attract an “Urban Market” need to be slowly  burned with matchsticks. If they think throwing in a fake rapper or having a street dance sequence is a sure way of attracting “urban” aka black and latino inner-city youth, then you clearly have no clue as to what is happening in America.

So here’s McDonalds with their new series of commercials. They teamed up with this site Dollar Van Demos where people record music demos in NYC’s famous dollar vans.  They’re featuring rappers and singers performing a song about the McDonalds Dollar Menu. The first ad features a rapper/singer/violinist of sorts named Joya Bravo.

I’m pretty sure Burrell Communications is behind this one. Doesn’t look like McDonald’s has come very far from the rapping chicken nuggets.

Some people know how to turn off an audience with their attempt to attract a younger and “cooler” audience. Disney has the babies locked down but they realize they can benefit from a bit of an older crowd being interested in their projects, mainly additional ticket sales at movie theaters. Everyone’s looking to grab on to the 18-34 year old audience, the easily influenced and highly influential only when targeted properly.

The Disney/Pixar movie UP! was a highly successful movie. I don’t know how many of hose ticket sales were attributed to adults, but it was all the rage in the world of Social Media. Part of this excitement may be due to this awesome video created by video remixing virtuoso Pogo.

According to Pogo the track is “composed using chords, bass notes and vocal samples” all directly from the film. Excellent stuff. Enjoy.

I love creative thinking in regards to marketing. A Minneapolis-based furniture design company Blu Dot launched an out-of-the-box marketing experiment in New York that capitalized on our obsession with bringing one man’s furniture trash into our home to complement the current decor.

Blu Dot is leaving 25 of its iconic “Real Good” metal chairs around the city in random locations. The designers hope that each one will be taken to a “real good” home. Most of the chairs have been embedded with GPS chips so their adventure can be traced. and one of them has a Twitter account. Its pretty interesting reading coming from a chair. Also check our their adventures on flickr.

Its a compelling enough campaign to generate buzz for the company and well…if the chair is good, I’d buy a few.

So Jordan has spent years building his empire with Nike with the launch of the Jordan brand of sneakers and clothing. So what would you expect his son Marcus to to wear on their feet? Well, Adidas of course. Especially since his school signed a deal with Adidas for $3 million for the whole basketball team at the University of Central Florida, which he plays for, to wear Adidas kicks until 2015.

But what did son do, he wore some Air Jordans in a winning game against St. Leo University on Thursday night. So now Adidas has pulled out of the deal. And apparently Marcus planned on rocking the Jordans to the game so this wasn’t a case of “I forgot to switch sneakers”; he was determined to be a rebel. Well, this one bratty ass kid just lost the school millions of dollars in funding. Is dad going to replace that? Will Nike…probably not. Ask Kid Cudi…after he pulled that stunt with Reebok, I don’t see Jordan coming to his rescue.

Gaming is getting older. The average gamer is now in his 30’s and those dudes who used to be in the arcades all day now have regular jobs, so game companies have realized that they now need to expand. In an attempt to reach a more youthful audience, gaming companies have been reaching out to the popular streetwear brands to create collaborations.

We saw the clever Triumvir and Street Fighter collabo, we saw the Halo Wars and XLarge collabo that just looked like some epromos.com creations, and the Ecko and Halo 3 collabo hoodie. Now we see the Crooks & Castles and Assaassin’s Creed collabo hoodie.

So at one point I thought these were pretty cool ideas, but now I just wonder who is helping who. The audience for “streetwear” is now about 30 something themselves and the young ones aren’t gamers. Then the gamers don’t care about streetwear brands if they prefer to put on clothes at all while they play Modern Warfare 2 in their underwear all day. But even then, the pieces aren’t innovative…well besides the Ecko hoodie, but who wants to walk around looking like a Master Chief (or wear an Ecko hoodie?).

Today the prestigious Carnegie Hall opened up its concert doors to the young and wealthy music lovers of NYC to give them a bit of insight into the world of music and gaming as they enjoy their second marriage.

Game On! is a yearly event put on by Carnegie Hall for their 20 and 30 something members called the Notables. It’s a panel discussion about the collaboration between music and video games and this year was moderated by Fall Out Boy Pete Wentz, and the panelists were Grandmaster Flash who is featured in DJ Hero, Alex Rigopulos who is co-founder and CEO of Harmonix, Christopher Tin who is a video game and film composer, and a couple more.

They discussed music and technology, what the past told, what the future holds, and that music games will be around for a while this time, not like the times of Funkmaster Flex’s Digital Hitz and Get On Da Mic.They actually brought a crew of 7 on stage to play “Here Comes the Sun” on Beatles Rockband. I can say with the whole harmonies thing, I was pretty impressed. Motown Rockband is seeming so much more realistic to me now.

After the event, they held an afterparty at the Nintendo World store. Free drinks and Wiis everywhere? I was in heaven.

So Jimmy Iovine has been the man behind the success of many of the artists at Interscope. But even he notices that there is money to be made off of music, but it has nothing to do with album sales.

Jimmy has been known to step in as manager sometimes when it comes to making business deals with his artists. Dr. Dre has the name but Jimmy is the business man behind Beats by Dre. He recently inked a deal with HP to create the HP Envy Laptop which uses the Beats Electronics technology. But he’s also announced recently that he is working on an online music distribution venture using the codename “Timberland”.

Jimmy said in an interview with Paid Content “I can say that it’s tied to the tremendous interest we’re seeing from people that want to mix their own tracks and playlists. Games like DJ Hero are coming out that tap into it; people are talking about creating their own tracks in forums and on social networks—and so we want to give them a place where they can do things like that legally. Timbaland [another blockbuster producer] is helping us work on it; it’s code-named after him for now.”

He’s also launching a Music Video Site called Vevo. “I can’t give you specifics; I can say it will be a platform though, not a game,” said Jimmy. “It’s similar in vision to Vevo—which for the first time, will give labels the ability to push out our product without having to go through radio or TV stations. Before, we had to make it, ship it and pray for a hit. Now, with Vevo, we can create the content, sell the ads, and even use the data to market new music to people alongside things they already like. When Vevo launches in December, it will be a giant step forward for the industry. And Interscope is trying to create something similar with our Timberland project.”

Jimmy is running the music world right now it seems. With Diddy now calling Interscope home, will Jimmy single-handedly be music’s savior through his marketing genius?

Do you know what doesn’t work? 100-calorie snack packs…but you know whats worse…

Coca-Cola is rolling out a new 90-calorie can. In this world of counting calories, everyone’s making mini versions of their products so that people can get a healthier portion of crap. But you know what’s going to end up happening? You drink one cute mini can with your first spoon of rice…then with the second dipping you’re already opening up another can. You know why? Because you’re still thirsty!

Most eat to be filled, or drink to quench thirsts. If you give me 5 cookies because they’re only 100 calories…I’m going to want more cookies because i need more to eat. But Nabisco and Coca-Cola are just marketing their original products to a “healthier” America. People are so misguidedly health conscious that they get fooled by anything that calls out a supposed “healthy” number of calories, ignoring the “per serving” notes, or any other hidden language.

These mini cans are starting in DC and NYC and will also be adopted by the other Coca-Cola brands Sprite, Fanta Orange, Cherry Coca-Cola and Barq’s Root Beer.

So what do you buy that man in your life that loves the outdoors, fast cars, lighting up the BBQ grill, or just sitting at home on the couch watching the Giants kick ass as he drinks a Dos Equis?

You buy him Candles!

The Mandle Company (Man + Candles = Mandles…Genius!) has made candles exclusively for the manliest of men. But they are not the only mandle company in the market. Mandles are the new craze, not to be confused with mandals.

You can choose from a number of scents from The Mandle Company like Skunk, Rawhide, Slabs of Meat, Pizza, etc. Other companies have scents like Fart, Football, and Bacon. Just what a man wants to come home to after a long day. I can’t wait until they make a New Kicks candle. In the mean time I’ll be buying this Jim, Jack, and Johnny candle… You know…for the man in my life.