"Ok, so this doesn't actually dispense cars, but it does pop-out small canisters containing brochures for the cars along with sheets of stickers showing the various colour options. Also, as we would expect for the highly connected Japanese market, the literature directs users to the Smart website, playsmart.jp, not via a written URL, but via a QR code, which when photographed with a mobile phone camera, links through to the digital portal." (If you understand this last part, e-mail me. I want to learn.)

"Once on the website, visitors can then 'play smart' - an addictive application which allows you create your own smart car with a variety of funky paint jobs and graphics, before racing it around a series of 3D circuits. As you progress through the levels, your interactivity is rewarded with more customisable options for your car. Once you are satisfied with your level of 'pimp', you can then submit your design along with a user name and in doing so, add your creation to the colourful swarm of Smart Cars on the home page. However (and this is where it gets really good), to finish things off, you can then print out a colour net of your vehicle, to construct a proper miniature 3D model!"

It works on so many levels: it maps to the audience, connects with cultural trends, leverages current (at least in Japanese standards) technology, and engages consumers both on and offline. And yet it's pretty simple too. I haven't seen anything quite like it in the U.S.

- Jen Maxwell-Muir

- Jen Maxwell-Muir

I consider myself pretty in the loop on social marketing trends, so you can imagine my surprise just now when I received TotSpot.com friend requests from my own children. They're two years and four months old.

Yup. About the same age as my youngest, TotSpot is apparently the Myspace of the diaper brigade and my two boys are now (by way of their early-adopter dad) "networking" away with cousins and friends. Heavy on privacy (phew) and light on detailed profile information (another phew), TotSpot seems to be hurtling the wee ones into the center of social networking culture.

Not sure how I feel being a "friend" of my kids, but so far the site seems like a safe, fun forum to keep friends and family members up to date on the lives of little ones.

- Erica

- Jen Scott

Ran across this art in Utne Reader today and was mesmorized. A Korean artist is bringing children's drawings to life and then photographing the vignettes. There's something magical, creepy and endearing about it, all at the same time.