More World Cup

No matter what you do during June, you'll be inundated with sights and sounds of the World Cup. This massive event influences not only the media, but the other areas of our daily lives, e.g., the stock market -- such as a TV advertiser's stock price going up or down depending on whether their spots appear during scheduled games. TV viewer figures are hitting over 61% when the Japan team is playing, and even when other national teams are playing, ratings are still around 23%, which is pretty high. Some companies are reportedly thinking about changing their commercials featuring new players other than those from the French National Team -- which has already been knocked out of the competition.
In other news, the song used for the Nike TV commercial, "A Little Less Conversation" by Elvis vs JXL has hit Number 1 on the UK music charts. Also, the Ministry of Education has apparently given approval to their workers to watch the soccer games during work time. And for those who are supposed to still be working, clearly streaming video connections are an alternative point of access -- which appears to be slowing down the Japanese segment of the Web, crashing servers, etc. The World Cup is a global festival and such problems will be with us for another 3 weeks -- enjoy!