URLs Gone Wild

I still kick myself for not following through on an idea for a book I had during the early days of the Dotcom boom. I had been on a business trip to San Francisco - arguably the epicentre of the Internet 'gold rush' - and while I was there I started to notice all the unusual places that URLs were plastered.

Sure, people were promoting 'MyGoofyBusinessIdea.com' on billboards and posters, but creative (or maybe desperate) marketers were also putting their URLs on other, uh, interesting things. Had I been more on the ball at the time, I would have started documenting this phenomenon with my camera.

Even without photographic evidence, I still thought it would be beneficial, even inspirational, to share with you some of the more memorable places I've seen URLs advertised over the years.

• printed onto tiny stickers affixed at eye level above a men's urinal
• stencilled onto highway signs and overpasses (like graffiti) on a busy highway
• printed on the 'fortune' inside a fortune cookie
• carved in ice and used as a dinner table centrepiece
• painted on the entire side of a Volkswagen Beetle
• written in the sky in little 'digital' puffs of smoke by a skywriter plane
• encased in layers of ice on the surface of a hockey rink
• moulded into the top of a chocolate bar
• printed on the side of a hot air balloon
• written into the sand on a public beach before it opened for the day
• temporarily tattooed on a woman's bust (at least I think it was temporary!)

I'd love to hear about the strange places you've seen URLs advertised.

Comments

[James Reeves]

Hey Bill,

Thanks for all of the advice. This is a really great site. I haven't acually seen this but I heard about it. I believe it took place in a U.S. city where there is alot of foot traffic(people walking to work.) A company used temporary sidewalk chalk to draw their advertisement onto the sidewalk. Everyone walking to work saw the advertisements placed in several locations around town. The chalk rinsed off with the first good rain. I thought it was pretty clever.
Thanks again,
James Reeves