So as some of you may know, I’m a rather avid Mountain Dew drinker. I’ve been trying to cut back actually, because it’s rather unhealthy for you but it truly is my replacement coffee. And for those of you who still have the myth in mind that Mountain Dew has more caffeine than Coffee, take a reality check for a moment.
I know, I know, most of you think of Mountain Dew drinkers as those kinda creepy guys who have long hair, always dress in black, run Linux, work tech in theater, play Dungeons and Dragons and otherwise avoid every single high-adventure outdoor activity depicted in normal Mountain Dew commercials. Well good news, that’s not me… yet.
Anyway they’ve got this new campaign to have fans pick a new type of Mountain Dew for their line-up. They only just recently started carrying 12 packs and Meijer so I decided to pick one up. Supernova, as it’s called, is pretty good, and shares many taste similarities with the original Mountain Dew but with a bit of a fruity side kick. Seems to match food well, kind of like Code Red.
I decided to go take a look at DewMocracy.com to see how fans have been receiving the drinks and nation-wide it seems most states are pretty similar – Voltage is winning everywhere. Makes me wonder – do most regions in the US have really similar taste preferences?

The idea of voting on a product is nothing new but I still do like the way they’ve implemented it here.
But what’s really fraking cool is that you can mix media to make your own commercial. Anybody can come along and select from collection of pre-made video clips, audio, and effects and make what actually looks like a pretty sweet video-mash up. The interface takes care of all of the issues of timing, clip quality and material gathering, so it lets you be a mini-producer with ease.

Imagine this type of website but on a YouTube scale! Submissions would include all kinds of snippets of user-made video (make it so you can pull it from YouTube), audio (fair use plz???), transitions, and effects filters (the site would have to have an engine for building these, probably best to go with something like what WinAmp does) and users could come along to mix all kinds of cool shit together. I know it’s not that far from what producers can do now but it would help centralize everything and cut out expensive video-sequencing products. It could be an amazing classroom resource to help students become literate in the new media age (writing with video, multimedia, and the web) and wonderful for advertising groups of any capacity and probably a million other applications that I have yet to mention.
So now I just have to quit my PhD so I have time to do it… along with Flour that comes in a big tupperware container and the opening of a Portillos in Champaign-Urbana.