As much as I think Chile can be world class in some areas, its web sites are usually a parody of bad mid-90's layouts and broken code. Exhibit A: popular starting page chile.com (competitor sitios.cl isn't much better). However, a few people stand out and clearly know what they're doing. Not only is Skybox running geo-targeted ads in Facebook, they're also combining geo-targeting with seasonal themes and quite likely, content targeting too. Exhibit B: lingerie ad on Adrants. The landing page could have been better customized to the ad unit, but as far as internet marketing savvy goes, I'm nitpicking and these guys are a decade ahead of most businesses in the country. Seeing an Axe skyscraper in Spanish on Facebook that mirrors the outdoors ads currently displayed here in Reñaca was similarly impressive.

We have several products from Canon and we usually like their stuff, but what they're doing with their IP5300 inkjet printer makes me think it was the last product I bought from this brand. Here's the deal: they put little chips on their ink tanks to be all smart about it and tell the printer when they're going to be empty. First problem is, I have a tank complaining that it's empty even though it's more than half full. Second problem is, the damn printer driver won't let me print even *in greyscale* (which uses a separate black ink tank) because of that supposedly empty tank. Third problem is, the bypass they're telling me to use to force the print doesn't work most of the time. This system is supposed to be smarter and it's just plain dumb instead.

Given that a) I have no time to deal with that kind of shit and b) ink is an order of magnitude more expensive than champagne, I'm concluding that this is a deliberate scam to sell more ink. Or an extremely incompetent way to write printer drivers. Either way, if you're considering buying Canon printers, you've been warned. I understand that the inkjet printer business model is razor and blades on steroids, but this is too much.

One of the things we've been working on lately is our new site MarketingCharts.com. We are still getting rid of some kinks and have some UI improvements coming, but the site should already be quite useful as it is. Need fresh, updated marketing metrics (about online and offline stuff)? Drop by, check the data out and download the stuff you need for your next presentation, it's in Excel format for your convenience.

Right now the online charts are in gif format. We'll probably add some Flash-based online charting component at some point but we wanted to get the ball rolling and see what kind of data users would value most. Anyway if you let a new site manage its release, it will nag you constantly with its squeaky voice: "but I'm not ready, you need to fix me here and improve me there and test me some more." Hey baby new site, get out in the world already and learn by getting bruises on your knees!