Marc Ecko: "Skill Sets to Take to the Bank"

The NY Times has a great little business autobiography from Marc Ecko.

Some gems:
"Sometimes kids are interested in stuff like video games that are seen as a pastime, but those pastimes generally have industry behind them. If you look under the hood, you can probably find skill sets to take to the bank..."

"The first five years were like a baptism by fire, to the tune of about $6.5 million in debt. Trying to get back out of that debt and turn the business around was something I couldn’t do today. I don’t have the pain threshold..."

"I have A.D.D., and rather than take drugs to curb it, I just build my world to adapt around it. That’s partly why we’ve branched out into so many different things: clothing, video games, a magazine and other projects..."

"I don’t do it alone. If we went up to the fifth floor of our offices and walked through that bullpen of 40 designers, those are the guys doing the heavy lifting. I look at myself as providing air coverage for the guys on the ground."

Marc Ecko Donates Barry Bonds' Home Run Ball

Barry Bonds' 756th home run ball is headed to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown but marked with an asterisk as per the people's demand!

Related ProHipHop Coverage:
Tell Marc Ecko What to do With Barry Bonds Home Run Ball

Tell Marc Ecko What to do With Barry Bonds Home Run Ball

On Saturday Marc Ecko snagged Barry Bonds historical home run ball for $752,467 at a Sotheby's/SCP auction.

In a rather cool gesture Ecko is asking fans to decide what to do with this special ball.

Marc Ecko Video Interview at CIT: Behind the Business

Andrew Shapiro Interviews Marc Ecko for CIT, Pt. 1

Conde Nast recently launched Portfolio, a business magazine and website.  Interestingly enough, the site is currently running an advertisement for a videotaped Marc Ecko interview provided by CIT, a financial services company.

CIT: Behind the Business provides over 20 minutes of interview footage with Marc Ecko broken down into segments on such topics as the Power of Networks and Corporate Creativity.  The complete interview is also available as a free downloadable video podcast.

A link to a CIT: Behind the Business branded Eckolog leads to a blog like series of entries from Mark Ecko that will be "updated three times weekly" for an indeterminate period of time.

The Eckolog is hosted at condenet.com so this isn't simply an ad leading offsite but also represents some level of service from Conde Nast.  Sadly, the Eckolog is poorly designed and unlikely to attract readers in its current form, so that's a bad sign for somebody.

Marc Ecko is also described as a client of CIT so this appears to be a really nice example, except for the Eckolog's implementation, of creating content for marketing purposes by featuring an interesting client.

Marc Ecko & Nissan Announce Cross Promotion: SHIFT_unltd.

The *ecko unltd. Nissan Pathfinder

At today's MAGIC apparel trade show Marc Ecko and Nissan announced a promotional partnership featuring two Nissan vehicles custom designed by Ecko and a related website in a collaboration "tagged SHIFT_unltd."

The Cut & Sew Nissan Armada

From the release:
Mr. Ecko will also create limited edition, co-branded hooded jackets, woven button-downs, t-shirts, leather key chains and other items that will be given away at events and sold online through http://www.nissan.eckounltd.com/. Proceeds from these sales will benefit Sweat Equity Enterprises, a nonprofit organization that empowers young people to learn professional design and technology skills while working behind the scenes in leading design companies. . .

Following the announcement at MAGIC, there will also be three in-market events in New York, Chicago and Atlanta. In addition to unveiling the customized Nissan vehicles at the New York event, each invite-only affair will feature a Nissan and Marc Ecko fashion show and provide consumers with an urban, red carpet experience.

Seems like a smart move for Nissan that should result in decent press coverage.

And Ecko has certainly shown via the wide range of promotional activities for his videogame, Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, that he and his people know how to do interesting, fun events.

It's also a smart idea on Ecko's part to name each of the unique vehicles in relationship to his own *ecko_unltd. and Cut & Sew brands.

As the SHIFT_unltd. splash page currently attributes to Marc Ecko:

It's not a mash-up.  It's a double-label, Nissan and Marc Ecko.  That's the direction we took, like what you'd see in sneaker culture but elevated to the automobile.  It's cooler than what other automakers might do.

Ecko on Branding:
Here's a brief 2005 interview with Marc Ecko in which he responds to the question, "What's the next big thing?"

Convergence. Blurring lines. Brands existing dynamically in real time in multiple places. And being more purposeful and meaningful than just being a commodity. . . In order for a brand to exist and survive and be relevant you must exist in multiple space. It doesn't mean that you still don't have to have a core competency. You have to really truly be a lifestyle brand. You have to exist in our culture on all levels. Music, movies, video games, cellphones, clothing.

Complete List Of Nominees For MTV's Video Music Awards

MTV has released the complete list of nominees for the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards.

It's a long list in all sorts of categories but I had forgotten that they've added video game categories including Best Video Game Soundtrack for which Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure is in competition.

BEST VIDEO GAME SOUNDTRACK

Final Night Round 3 (Electronic Arts)
Burnout Revenge (Electronic Arts)
NBA 2K6 (2K Games)
Driver: Parallel Lines (Atari)
Marc Ecko's Getting Up (Atari)

Related:
MTV Overdrive to Broadcast Live Behind the Scenes Feed of the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards

BBDO West Anti-tagging Campaign Plus More Marc Ecko

I found an interesting followup to my earlier post on Marc Ecko at the quite wonderful Wooster Collective site.  They have more shots of this anti-tagging campaign created by BBDO West.

One thing I didn't point out on the Ecko post, partly because the interview I reference is so short that I would have pretty much run the whole thing at that point, was his explanation that writing on property without permission, i.e. most forms of tagging, was vandalism.  At first, I took it as a disengenous statement but I'm realizing that he's simply playing both sides of the street.  A statement like that backs off outsider critics while offering a wink and a nudge to his insider target audience.

Marc Ecko On Advocating For The Needs Of One's Market

In a brief interview for Wired, Marc Ecko discusses his support of a "suit to quash NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to make it illegal for anyone under 21 to carry broad-tipped markers and aerosol spray paint."

[Wired] Given that both your clothing line and videogame celebrate graffiti culture, some might see your crusade as self-serving.

[Ecko] It’s completely self-serving. There’s nothing hidden about it. Why is it OK for Procter & Gamble, which owns the Pampers brand, to advocate for all things family and baby? I have commercial interests, too. Nike funds an after-school sports program. Is that self-serving?

[Wired] Of course it is.

[Ecko] But it’s also the culture that represents them. It upholds their values, and this upholds mine.

Droga5 Wins Award For Marc Ecko/Air Force One Tagging Video

In all the excitement regarding Marc Ecko's Air Force One tagging video promo, I never heard it was anything other than Marc Ecko putting some money into a nutty idea that blew up.  David Kiley writes that they shared the "top cyber marketing award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival" with that Helga chick Crispin Porter + Bogusky spawned.

'boards has more on the Droga5 story.

Glad to see Droga5 getting that credit.  I had mixed feelings about the campaign but could not deny its effectiveness for putting Ecko in the news.  I have no idea what it did for sales of Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure and I'm not sure how you could decide given the wide range of activities Ecko had going for his game.  But, hey, it won an award and that's what matters!

I'll admit I never checked out any of Helga's online presence that includes both the test drive site Kiley mentions that shared the award and a MySpace page.  She's just not my type.

You can check ProHipHop's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure coverage in the M. Ecko category.

Here's the ad that I think introduced Helga to the world.  As I mentioned at Altered Television, I love this ad for a variety of reasons but feel it's relationship to hip hop is tangential at best.

Marc Ecko Saves Rhinos, Lupe Fiasco Blogs

Marc Ecko has another Save The Rhinos benefit concert coming up (is this the 2nd?).  I think it's one of the cooler branding moves he's made especially since it actually is a benefit for the International Rhino Foundation.

By the way, the Hypebeast post linked above mentioned that Lupe Fiasco has a Hypebeast blog!  Nothing earth shattering but if he makes it and keeps blogging, that could be a very cool thing.

Marc Ecko Wins in New York

Marc Ecko got a legal victory in his fight over NY graffiti laws when "Federal Judge George B. Daniels issued an order blocking the enforcement of the amendments."

Marc Ecko T-shirt: Blame Video Games

The latest Marc Ecko marketing twist is a t-shirt stating Blame Video Games that has appeared on at least one gaming blog already.

Now, who was that talking about idea exhaustion?

Marc Ecko to Sue New York

Marc Ecko will be filing a lawsuit against the Mayor, the City of New York plus assorted other official types.  Similar to his Denver suit, the lawsuit will challenge legal restrictions against the ownership of paint cans and large markers by those under age 21.

Now THAT's serious branding action!

Update: The suit was filed on Tuesday by seven artists with Ecko's backing.

Bloggers on Marc Ecko/Air Force One Promo

Marc Ecko and his Air Force One promo flick are a topic of discussion across the blogosphere.

Search Engine Lowdown presents:
Ecko CEO Graffitis Air Force One: Viral Linkbait Genius

A variety of interesting comments have been posted at the Wooster Collective blog regarding the Air Force One tagging.

Kotaku interviews Marc Ecko about Getting Up and his future plans for more games.

Search IceRocket for more bloggers on Marc Ecko.

Update: Game Politics provides "more".

Hammer of Truth says: Fake but Fantastic

Earlier at ProHipHop:
Marc Ecko/Air Force One Hoax Goes Mainstream
Marc Ecko's Tagging Hoax Sign of Idea Exhaustion

Marc Ecko/Air Force One Hoax Goes Mainstream

I'll try to get another link for this AP report cause it will be gone in a couple of weeks.  [Update: alternate link]

The Marc Ecko video hoax, which I think was called first by Game Politics, has hit the mass media and apparently gained much more credibility than I was willing to concede:

A startling Internet video that shows someone spraying graffiti on President Bush's jet looked so authentic that the Air Force wasn't immediately certain whether the plane had been targeted. . . . The pranksters responsible for the grainy, two-minute Web video — employed by a New York fashion company — revealed Friday how they pulled it off: a rented 747 in California painted to look almost exactly like Air Force One.

Marc Ecko stated:
I wanted to do something culturally significant, wanted to create a real pop-culture moment . . . It's this completely irreverent, over-the-top thing that could really never happen: this five-dollar can of paint putting a pimple on this Goliath.

Apparently the online appearance of the video that included circulation at stayfree.com and at youtube.com got the attention of the U.S. Air Force:
"We're looking at it, too," said Lt. Col. Bruce Alexander, a spokesman for the Air Mobility Command's 89th Airlift Wing, which operates Air Force One. "It looks very real."

Today Ecko revealed that:
his company had rented a 747 cargo jet at San Bernardino's airport and covertly painted one side to look like Air Force One. Employees signed secrecy agreements and worked inside a giant hangar until the night the video was made. Ecko declined to say how much the stunt cost.

"It's not cheap," he said. "You have to be rich."

Despite my criticisms and due to my critics, I'm appreciating this whole thing more and more.  But I have a greater appreciation for Ecko's other marketing efforts and will do a follow up on the quite significant achievenents of Ecko's Getting Up campaign.

Related coverage:
Marc Ecko's Tagging Hoax Sign of Idea Exhaustion

Search video at YouTube.

Marc Ecko's Tagging Hoax Sign of Idea Exhaustion

Marc Ecko caught the attention of Game Politics recently for an obviously fake pair of videos in which Marc Ecko tags Air Force One and then discusses why he tagged Air Force One.  GP does a nice job of pointing out the downside of this bit of silliness with the headline "Marc Ecko Vandalizes Own Credibility".  Currently both are the featured videos at StillFree.com, an extra promo site for Ecko's Getting Up graffiti game.

As Game Politics notes, the video hoax was taken at face value by aeronautics geeks who missed the forest for all those trees.

Although I can certainly be taken in at times, I'd like to think that I wouldn't have been fooled by this little attempt at publicity.  As both the Game Politics blogger and his commenters point out, security is a bit tight in such circumstances so how would Ecko have stayed free on the real?

Given that I went in with the assumption that it was a hoax, I have to say I couldn't really watch both short videos all the way through.  They were kind of boring and Ecko talking about freedom of speech and censorship and whatnot related to tagging is rather hard to take seriously under the best of circumstances.

This rather lackluster attempt to stir up excitement suggests that my earlier analysis that Marc Ecko's Getting Up campaign peaked too early seems more on target than ever.  It also suggests an exhaustion of ideas within Ecko's pr camp.

By the way, I just went back and read the comments following the Game Politics post.  Talk about brutalizing a brand.  But I think these people mostly disliked Ecko already.

Update: On the other hand, I think Ecko's pending lawsuit against the City of Denver over criminalizing paint cans and markers in the hands of kids is both a legitimate legal action regarding an overly broad city ordinance as well as a meaningful publicity maneuver directly related to the events Ecko puts together as part of his ongoing marketing.

Did Ecko's Getting Up Campaign Succeed or Backfire?

I've been hearing so much about the game Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure that I feel I've already played all the levels and even spray painted the torch on the Statue of Liberty, or whatever they get to do when they reach the end.  But when I saw the press release announcing the actual release of the game by Atari to multiple platforms, I was totally unclear on whether or not this was the first retail appearance or not.

Now, I'm often confused when I read something like this, especially if it involves an area which I only observe, such as games.  Normally, feeling that confusion and wanting to look like Mr. Know-It-All and then some, I spend a lot of time checking things out, going back to earlier coverage, etc.  Obviously that's not typical for bloggers, if there is such a thing as typical blogging behavior, but it fits what I'm trying to do at ProHipHop and my own tendencies to want to fully understand what I'm writing about before I write about it.

But I haven't done any of that with this post and am taking it as an opportunity to discuss the issue of oversaturation in marketing using my own experience as an example.  I've been following the news about the game since it was first announced, due to writing ProHipHop.  I cringed when I saw Shepard Fairey prominently mentioned because I've considered him a clown ever since Andre had a posse (but a good marketer, nonetheless).  I found out much more about Marc Ecko than I'd known before and started to develop respect for him.  I had the mobile version, which has been out for a while, demoed one on one by a guy from Glu at a conference in San Francisco (very impressive).  I checked out the Getting Up presence at G.A.M.E., also in SF, though the still-in-beta version had already crashed by early morning.  And so on.

None of this makes me an expert on Getting Up or anything special but it does make me somebody outside of gaming, the kind of person Ecko says gaming companies should reach, who's heard a lot about the game and paid attention to the news as it came out.

Yet, I've been so thoroughly satured with Getting Up marketing that when I saw the press release it didn't read like big news.  My initial impression was confusion as to whether or not they were announcing a release on a specific platform and it felt like the game was already out somewhere, but I couldn't remember the details.  And I didn't even register the fact that they're also releasing a soundtrack at the same time, though that's also real news.

Sitting here thinking about how I got oversaturated, I can't really say if it's a byproduct of ProHipHop and following news obsessively or the fact that to reach a mass market in a media glutted environment takes crazy levels of marketing activity or the fact that I'm not a gamer.  But I do feel that the incredible range of appearances by Marc Ecko and related events announcing the game's future arrival seemed like too much too soon.

So what do you think?  Has the Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure campaign to date been a brilliant example of marketing to a mass audience or a form of oversaturation that ultimately undermines the actual release of the product?

PS - I just checked the M. Ecko category to get one of the above links and realized that he gave his keynote at a major gaming conference, an event that I think of as the beginning of the campaign, about a year ago.  That's a long campaign!

To check out highlights of this campaign your can see ProHipHop's M. Ecko category as well as even more press releases on Ecko at Hip Hop Press (that reveal my sadly incomplete coverage.

Branding Marc Ecko

Rob Walker has a piece in the NY Times Magazine looking at Marc Ecko's career and trying to put it into some kind of perspective. Some of his comparisons fall a bit flat, especially as he tries to contrast Ecko's more suburban background with the assumptions regarding hip hop fashion as urban and coining the term "cul-de-sac cred" to contrast with the standard "street cred," since he ultimately positions Ecko as someone who crosses such boundaries.

Though Ecko "grew up in Lakewood, N.J., about an hour and a half south of Manhattan" with parents who were real estate agents, he attended public schools that are described as "ethnically and culturally diverse . . . where there were as many black and Latino students as whites." His developing interest in hip hop culture meant that "at extended family get-togethers, it was a source of amusement that young Marc was into this exotic thing called break-dancing," i.e., he doesn't fit the suburban image raised by the notion of "cul-de-sac cred."

But overall Walker acknowledges that thinking about pop culture and fashion in "sweeping strokes that assume there is still one mass market" doesn't do justice to the fact that "real life is messier" and more complex.

For me, the freshest aspects of this narrative are the discussions of branding. Walker quotes Ecko's thoughts on "successful logo icons":
''It's like something sublime . . . When something is aesthetically beautiful, people react. And when you can assign a meaning and value to something and summarize or capture all of that instantly, that's something that I think human nature just gloms onto.''

Although I'm a little unclear on how Ecko's rhino icon is "aesthetically beautiful", the following makes a lot more sense to me:
"In retrospect, Ecko says that using a visual symbol that had no connective tissue to hip-hop and leaving it open to interpretation were crucial. It looked cool as a graphic, was backed by marketing that played up individuality and achievement rather than you'll-never-be-this-cool exclusivity and yet was unspecific enough that it made sense on rappers like RZA and Fat Joe, but also on A.J. Soprano, an archetype of the smirky teen suburbs."

Agenda Inc.'s Lucian James "points out that the rhino also referenced the symbol language most familiar to the emerging youth culture: the language of the Polo pony and the Lacoste crocodile. The rhino participates in this language of brands and subtly satirizes it."

As Walker helps reveal, Marc Ecko's Cut & Sew didn't do so well as a branding maneuver because Ecko's name was not strong enough on its own and the shears that replaced the rhino just don't seem to fit any of the above statements about branding. However, whatever the fate of the shears, recent news coverage suggests that Ecko is on a serious campaign to establish his own name as a solid brand that doesn't need a rhino for support.

Marc Ecko: Getting Up Game/Fest, Save The Rhinos, Fashion Targets Breast Cancer

Marc Ecko continues his extended publicity campaign for the September PS2 (plus PC and Xbox) debut of his graffiti game Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, dubbing it a combination of Style Wars and Star Wars.  Ecko's also organizing the Getting Up Festival (hey, same name as the game!) in Toronto in August.  The Festival will feature Kanye West, Ludacris, NAS, Lil Jon, Busta Rhymes, Swollen Members and Kardinal Offishall.

Ecko recently put together a successful Save the Rhinos benefit in Central Park that featured the Roots, De La Soul, Mos Def, MF Doom and the Boot Camp Clik and also helped organize an Ebay auction to support Fashion Targets Breast Cancer.

Hip Hop Games and the Electronic Entertainment Expo

This year's coverage of last week's Electronic Entertainment Expo aka E3 hasn't really grabbed my attention but it has led me to some new sources of news, including Netjak, a group blog whose posts included a Worst of E3 2005 award to Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure and an encounter with the And 1 Crew.

Actually, I was hoping for more coverage of the upcoming Marc Ecko and 50 Cent games. But the best I've found so far of Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure is the pre-E3 coverage at IGN.com. A useful Business Week piece includes Ecko's game as an element of Atari's survival plan. Sadly, it seemed that the high point of coverage related to 50 Cent's Bulletproof ended up being the press release.

More general coverage with a business focus is available at GameDAILY BIZ and, since sex sells, the dyme factor can be pursued via the booth babe galleries at GameDAILY and 1UP.COM.

Other interesting features include an NPR roundtable that covers a variety of topics such as opportunities for black people in the games industry and a NY Times piece on the growing market for game peripherals.

In related news, last month the first Advertising in Games Forum was held in NYC and late last week Best Buy announced stricter id policies related to the sales of mature videogames.

Today's edition of Steve Hunt's Komply fashion column considers Marc Ecko's and 50 Cent's games in relationship to the response of hip hop consumers to t-shirt designs.

Fashion: Ecko, Komply, Baby Phat, Gothic/Lolita

To follow up on my attack on hip hop fashion, I got another look at the March issue of GQ and noticed that Marc Ecko's getting into some nice work with colors, though his Ecko Unltd. website doesn't communicate that. Partly I'm still playing catchup with what's happening with fashion so it will continue to be hit or miss. I'm just not that interested in the primary color trends I'm seeing in a lot of hip hip fashions as well as over at Izod. Plus, I have absolutely no desire to see preppy fashions make a comeback.

I did get a response to my feedback request from Komply who didn't have much to say about my concerns but wanted me to know that they'd just gone live with their website featuring an interesting hip hop relevant t-shirt line. Although they're UK based and getting shirts to the States is currently rather expensive, they are looking to connect with a U.S. printer and that should bring pricing down over here.

You know, Ecko got his start with t-shirts and has definitely run with the ball since then. I'm looking at getting into t-shirts myself but it's a long ways off and may not be hip hop related. I'm even thinking of attending this workshop with Liz TerboLizard.

In related fashion news, Russell Simmons (reg req) states that the "ideas that come from the streets are the ones that pay the bills in Paris," but what if Paris starts looking at different streets? While it's true that hip hop has created numerous trends in fashion, Simmons assertion that when "we choose something, we choose it for the world" is a dangerous assumption in the always fluctuating world of fashion.

Recent Baby Phat runways shows included a rad handbag (reg req) designed by Shana Kent-Kincaid. The bag is described as resembling a boombox at first glance and was a response to a Baby Phat "theme [that] was said to be based on James Bond, and Kent-Kincaid says she spent considerable time looking at Bond photos."

The article continues:
"The biggest challenge, she says, is the pressure to come up with something different at a time when everybody is seeing the same movies, street culture, exhibitions and other trends. The boxes were urban, modern, fresh and sleek enough not to compete with the clothes."

In loosely related news, The New York Times recently reported on Gwen Stefani's appropriation of Japanes Gothic/Lolita fashions that has caused great controversy in the communities from which the styles originated.

Fashion: Ecko, State Property, Reebok, Indian Careers

Corina Zappia has a tight interview with Marc Ecko in the Voice.

Prison style is a feature of Beanie Sigel's fashion line State Property but not everybody feels that labeling oneself a prisoner is a good thing. In fact, some prisoners offer clothing lines designed to give back, including encouragement to avoid a similar fate.

Last week Reebok announced one of their largest campaigns in 10 years to feature such notables as Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Allen Iverson and Lucy Liu.

Debanjana Chaudhury takes an interesting look at fashion career opportunities in India.

Mobile Partner for Ecko Graffiti Game

Atari announced yesterday that Sorrent Inc. will create mobile content based on Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. The mobile content will be released in September when the first version of the game becomes available.

Official site: Getting Up

Marc Ecko Addresses the Game Industry

An excellent report from IGN.com's Hilary Goldstein regarding Marc Ecko's opening presentation at DICE 2005 in which Ecko discusses how he thinks the game industry can move beyond hardcore gamers and bring in the masses. Ecko's career has been built on hip hop fashion and he is currently working on a graffiti game with Atari called Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.

Goldstein includes a brief explanation of Ecko's five influential trends to consider:
Popstalgia
Instant Gratification
Marketing of the Apocalypse
Customization
Democratization of Design

It's well worth checking out his description of these concepts, even if you're not interested in games. Goldstein points out that Ecko is worth listening to because he's an outsider and said that about half the industry audience seemed to be visibly rejecting his statement while the other half was as "attentive" as anything he'd seen at the conference. Goldstein also rightfully points out that the bottom line will be execution. What he doesn't point out is that, if one looks at the history of outsiders who started in rap music and then went on to success in other areas, one sees entrepreneurs who understood how to take what an industry deemed to be a niche and mainstream it. They don't always succeed, but they sure don't go away just because of an initial failure.

GameSpy's Dave Kosak brings in a bit more about Ecko's background in his take on Ecko's presentation (I'm not faulting Goldstein, his piece is clear and focused). Regarding Ecko, Kosak says,
"He's used to being the outsider. When he was trying to sell his tee-shirts to chain stores, fashion industry executives rankled or told him he didn't know the business and didn't know what he was doing."

I've read so many variations on that story about people who now eat multiple lunches at the tables reserved for slow moving corporate execs, it's not even funny. Kosak says that the talk generated a lot of discussion among GameSpy editors and Goldstein described half the crowd as attentive, so it sounds like he will be listened to, at least for the moment, no matter how well his first game does.

Speaking of failures, because I'm running Mac OS with Internet Explorer, I'm greeted at the IGN.com site with a popup window that tells me that there are "known problems" with using the site while running this combination. Fine, thanks for telling me. I've made my choice. But don't pop up a window with the same statement every time I go to a new page. My browser is set to accept cookies. Set one and leave me alone. It makes you look like amateurs. And I'll be spending more time over at GameSpy.com, thank you very much. Well, except when I'm looking for Goldstein's byline.