UK: 'it's cool to drool' ad campaign launched UK 'Turn on... tune in... drool out.'  Website Drool-UK.com launched this week for an ad campaign to persuade UK citizens to buy  Sony's latest mobile phone, the T300. In addition, Sony hired hundreds of hound dogs for dogvert billboards. The 'mobile phone giant is also using postcards, flyers and a viral email campaign to direct people to its website at www.drool-uk.com...' [Ananova.com] Related: Dogvertising is the latest brainwave 'The idea is that when you see the phone the obvious reaction is to start drooling because it's so beautiful... to teenagers, something is the more they like it...' [The Guardian, UK] (say what? Viral email campaign?... guerrilla marketing tactics are ruining the web now... with spam, spy adware and annoying popups.  Add viral email to the mix... yeah, that's cool... )

Journalist nominates Barney for Understudy-in-Chief DC David Montgomery, a journalist at the Washington Post, suggests Barney, the White House dog, be considered as an ideal candidate for Understudy-in-Chief...   [Washington Post]

Dogs rule at Bloghop Did you know that dogs run the daily operations at Bloghop? They may be stressed out from fixing bugs... (according to the official staff web page), 'but they are dedicated.'

Heroic army dog awarded posthumous medal UK 'Sam, a German shepherd, is being posthumously awarded the Dickin Medal , after also holding back a baying mob, bent on attacking ethnic Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina.' His heroism probably saved many lives, according to the Royal Army Veterinary Corps Dog Unit. The medal, the animal's equivalent of the Victorian Cross, has not been awarded an army dog since 1944. Other animals to receive the award, established by an animal charity in 1943,  include 32 pigeons, 19 dogs, three horses and a ship's cat... [BBC News]