Pour your heart out-new red Field Notes notebook released.

Samsung “Out of the Box” learning guide.

Is the Priceline Negotiator really gone?

10 Essential Features of Every Good Business Website

St. Paul makes it on the cracked.com list of Real Places Plucked Straight Out of Fairy Tales

Redbox and Verizon team up to challenge Netflix

The Super Bowl means many different things for many different people. For marketing folks it means the biggest night for advertising.

Before this year’s scrutiny, take a look at a few underdog spots that came from behind to be big winners from Super Bowls of the past. Enjoy!

Taco Bell to start serving breakfast, or “First Meal.”

Wendy’s is testing its new Bacon Portabella and Spicy Santa Fe burgers in Wichita.

McDonald’s Twitter Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong.

I’ll take a Venti Merlot, please.

Girl saves mothers life by slapping her with a piece of pizza.

Sr. Executive Designer, Art Director, Jr. Design Designerer, Intern, blah blah blah. A MoCo, Inc. designer/front end developer is driven by beautiful design and pixel perfect execution. Any great designer feels that way and you don’t need a beefy title to prove it. At MoCo you are what you make of it.

At MoCo, Inc. it’s our goal to be the best place to work. Our employees have access to a fully stocked fridge, flexible hours, creative and inspiring environment, free parking, and we bring in lunch every Wednesday.

So what do we require from you? You’re a self starting individual who won’t settle for less than making the best products possible. You are inspired by, as well as inspire, fellow team members with great ideas and solutions to problems. You also have a general desire to just figure things out, and don’t require hand holding.

Think you are a good fit for this? Then you probably…

• Have been a designer/front end dev for a few years
• Think about usability and know what to say when someone asks “What happens if you click here”
• Like projects that you can completely own by yourself, or work with a team to produce
• Know what responsive web design is and use media queries in your code
• Create perfect HTML/CSS markup
• Break and fix your own stuff
• Are familiar with jQuery

This would be a BIG plus…

• PHP knowledge
• Have a great sense of humor
• Can write your own jQuery plugin
• macrumors.com is your homepage
• Desire and willingness to learn new technologies
• New music for our DJ station
• Gamer

MoCo, Inc. offers a competitive salary and has a great benefits package, Medical/Dental, 401K match, PTO, free parking, etc.

Want to be considered? Impress us.

Please send resume and online portfolio here

If you’ve already given up on flaunting that beach body, there’s still hope. The New Year has got plenty yet to offer.  Ditch the winter blues, and give 2012 a chance. Here’s a sample of what we MoConians are looking forward to:

5. Welcome Back Cotter Draper

During a recent Podcast, a loose-lipped show star Jon Hamm revealed a March 25 start-date for the upcoming 5^th season of AMC’s critically/creatively acclaimed Mad Men.  After more than a yearlong hiatus, everyone’s favorite creative Casanova returns to the small screen. With flower children and Charlie on the horizon, there’s no telling what creator Matthew Weiner has in store for our beloved cast of agency alter egos.

4. MySpace TV

Facebook frustrations ablaze, social networkers may finally give their forgotten friend, Myspace, another chance. Announced January 10 by co-owner Justin Timberlake, the neglected network will shortly re-emerge as “MySpace TV.” Updates have been vague at best, but Timberlake and his cronies promise a community-driven, real-time TV and music-based “experience where people can connect to what they’re passionate about and connect with each other based on that shared love.” (Want to be part of the limited beta test? Head over to the Myspace TV announcement page and request an invite.)

3. London 2012: The Summer Olympics

Put down those little smokies, forget the pigskin, and behold the power of the Olympic games.  Promising an international draw that goes beyond the reach of any multi-million dollar Superbowl spot, this summer’s series is actually a two-fer: For the first time ever, the Olympics and Paralympics are teaming up as one unified event. We right-brains love a good identity crisis. Let the re-branding begin.

2. iPad 3

Though an official date has yet to be leaked, experts are betting on March or April for the next major Apple release: the iPad 3. In what would seem a tribute to their fallen leader, speculation indicates that Apple is pulling all the stops, releasing a machine nothing less than drool-worthy.  Amidst flourishing rumors suggesting a bigger, more beautiful display, enhanced processor, and better battery life, MoCo is in agreement: we can’t wait to get our hands on the next generation.

1. 2013
Whether it’s the Mayan calendar, asteroids astray, or planetary rotation reversal fueling your doomsday fears, NASA has put together a webpage devoted to debunking those pesky apocalyptic 2012 rumors. (See it here: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html) Claiming that our planet Earth “has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years,” credible scientists insist that the only real danger 2012 has dished up is the potential for another New Year’s Eve hangover.

Results of the Wednesday internet “blackout” protest against anti-piracy bills.

Volkswagen releases Super Bowl teaser ad featuring dogs and Star Wars.

Three years after being diagnosed, Paula Deen announces she has Type 2 Diabetes.

New check-in service, GetGlue, receives $12 million in new financing.

MoCo welcomes designer Justin Tvete to the team! As the new guy, we thought it only fair to thoroughly embarrass Justin by having him answer some personal questions about himself. He didn’t even put up a fuss.

How long have you been in the industry?
I graduated from Moorhead State with my BFA in December 2010, so I am just over a year out of school.

What agency/company did you come from?
I worked as a designer with the Minnesota Timberwolves/Lynx last season and did some freelance work before I started here at MoCo.

What brought you to MoCo?
I had a list of companies in “Minneapolis” that I respected their work and wanted to work for and MoCo is one of those companies.

What is your favorite ad campaign?
Hmmm, the first thing that comes to mind is the creative McDonalds Ads that I have been seeing over the last year or so.

Which do you prefer, St. Paul or Minneapolis?
Minneapolis

Do you have a favorite sport? If so, which one?
I enjoy playing baseball.

The best and worst thing on your iPod?
Best: P.O.S. – Never Better   Worst: I guess I would say Best of DMX

Cake or cupcakes?
Cupcakes

If you could meet a celebrity (living or dead) who would it be and why?
Dave Chappelle, He just seems like a real fun guy.

Motorcycle or bicycle?
Bike

Favorite thing to do in the summer?
Go camping

Favorite way to beat the winter blues?
Play video games

One thing that would shock us about you:
I can lick my own elbow.

Popular Mechanics picks the top gadgets of CES 2012

Google search and Google+ merge to create Social Media “juggernaut”

5 ways brands can use Pinterest to boost customer engagement

Music moguls Beyonce and Jay-Z announce birth of baby Blue Ivy Carter

Hostess files for bankruptcy

Infomercial host Vince Offer in another “Schticky” situation

The new Crash Corsage app—all you need to become the ultimate wedding crasher

Swearing and nudity on network TV? Supreme Court to hold hearing this year

Educators and history buffs are starting to jump on the social media bandwagon to connect a younger audience with the past. They are using social media to share stories about people and events in history.

Facebook

Donnelyn Curtis is the director of Special Collections at the University of Nevada. Curtis saw a problem in the fact that young people were not accessing the library’s historical texts and she set out to fix it. Gathering information from the University’s libraries, she developed Facebook profiles for alumni Joe McDonald and Leola Lewis-who in real life went on to marry each other after graduation. She began to create lives for the two that were interesting and historically accurate-posting about finals Joe and Leola had, uploading photos from the school and filling in hobbies and interests.

The profiles have been removed (likely because they violated Facebook ‘s registration protocols) but not before introducing the story of Joe and Leola to thousands of “friends.”

Twitter

Last August, former history student Alwyn Collinson created the Twitter account @RealTimeWWII. Since then, he has been posting news events from the war in real-time. Followers receive “breaking news” as it happened 72 years ago to the day. Strung together, the tweets form a story that people want to read and, at 140 characters or less, that they find easy to read.

Collinson plans to continue the account through spring (spoiler alert: the invasion of France) and hopes to continue for the next six years to cover the entire war.

Google Doodles

A Google Doodle is one of the best ways to get people interested in an organization, an important figure or an historical event. When a person clicks on the Doodle, they are redirected to a related web search, which often leads them to more informative articles on the subject. For the top results, the increased traffic is incredible. When Google celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day last year, the Wikipedia page for King saw 2,800 visitors in one day. This is compared to the average 6,000 visitors it usually receives in an entire month. See More Google Doodles.

Modern Day Storytelling

It is becoming increasingly easy to share stories from the past and the same can be said about sharing stories from the present. Through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and personal blogs, our every thought can be documented and shared with ease. There are a few key differences between social media and the old way of documenting thoughts or stories on paper.

Sharing

For most people, their written word is only ever seen by a handful of people. If a piece isn’t mass-produced it’s only visible to people within a few feet of it. With computers and smart phones, we can now share with anyone across the globe at anytime.

Ease

Printing and distributing takes time and resources and so unless the content is of value, it doesn’t get shared on paper. Now, with social media, thousands of people can learn about your most mundane thoughts or news instantly through posts, tweets and vlogs.

Permanence

Paper gets lost and destroyed. For every document we have from history, there are hundreds more that are gone. But we know that, whether good or bad, nothing dies on the internet.

The sharing capabilities, ease and permanence of modern day storytelling has made us obsessed with documenting our lives. It may also be making us a little narcissistic. We are focused on us, right now in this instant. It’s important to remember that we can also utilize these tools to share lessons and stories from the past. We need to embrace new technology as a way to push these lessons and stories into our current lives.

We saw change in our social media with the new Google+ and the overhaul of both Twitter and Facebook.

We saw new relationships forming, first between Prince William and Kate Middleton, then Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, and then Siri and her fans.

We also said good-bye to some of our favorite icons-from Steve Jobs passing to The Oprah Winfrey Show finale to the final space shuttle flight.

Take a quick look back at what just happened in 2011.