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Beginning next month, SmartBike DC will make 120 bicycles available for rent at 10 spots in central locations in the Washington, D.C., area.
The District of Columbia has teamed up with Clear Channel Outdoor to make the program possible, the New York Times reports (via Environmental Leader). Clear Channel will have exclusive advertising rights in the city’s bus shelters. The company has reached a similar deal with San Francisco. Chicago and Portland, Ore., are also considering proposals from advertisers.
For a $40 annual membership fee, SmartBike D.C. users can check out bicycles for three hours at a time. Subscribers who keep bicycles longer than the three-hour limit will receive demerits and could eventually lose renting privileges.
Bike-sharing has become a “public service subsidized by advertising,” said Bernard Parisot, the president and co-chief executive officer of JCDecaux North America, an outdoor advertiser that made a proposal to bring bike-sharing to Chicago.
As recently as October 2007 Portland issued a request for proposals for a bicycle fleet for rent to the public. An April 28, 2008, BikePortland.org headline read, “Washington wins bike-sharing race; is Portland far behind?”
Paris launched a bicycle service last year with more than 10,600 bikes available at 750 stations all over the city. But the success of these programs is debatable. Last December, Toronto’s six-year-old bike sharing program ended because it ran out of money.
Vending machines filled with a “synthetic blood nourishment beverage” called Tru Blood have sold out - but vampire fans can get more of the bloody refreshment at events across the country promoting a new HBO drama.
The series True Blood,…
Total magazine rate-card-reported advertising revenue for the first half of 2008 closed at $11,554,569,406, down 3.1 percent compared with the first half of 2007, according to Publishers Information Bureau (PIB), Magazine Publishers of America reported (via MarketingCharts).
Ad pages during the first…
Internet coupons have become of increasing interest to consumers, with 11 percent of households now obtaining coupons via the internet - an increase of 83 percent since 2005 - according to (pdf) a recent analysis by Scarborough Research, reports MarketingCharts.
However, the…
AMC’s Mad Men snared 16 Emmy nominations, including best drama - the first time a basic cable series was nominated in the best-series category.
The show received the most nominations of all dramatic TV series. FX’s Damages also received a…
Vogue will follow the lives of three young women as they enter the world of top modeling, pulling video together for a web-based reality series called Model.Live. Clothing retailer Express LLC paid in the low seven figures to be the…
Antiperspirant manufacturer Mitchum is launching a promotion, kicked off in the Pacific Northwest this month, that offers consumers $1 coupons attached to hangers that come from dry cleaners.
This is the third time Mitchum has partnered with EcoHangers - a company…
