The moment the media caught BP’s now former-CEO Tony Hayward relaxing on a yacht, complaining that he wanted his life back while workers struggled to contain millions of gallons of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, everyone started to wonder how much longer Hayward would stay in charge.  After all, he had committed one too many public relations plunders and it seemed like only a matter of time until BP officials chose a replacement.

Fast-forward a month, and that’s exactly what happened, as BP announced on Tuesday, July 27^th that Robert Dudley, a 54-year-old American who had been with BP since 1998, would soon take the reins of the battered company.  It’s a smart move for BP–not only can the company create a fresh start, it can turn the dialogue from the past, from fault, to the future, to responsibility and how BP can move forward.

There is no doubt that BP hopes Dudley will be the company’s shining white knight.  After all, choosing an American, who was raised in Mississippi no less, was strategic.  In the face of this crisis, BP needs a leader who can connect and empathize with Gulf Coast residents—and that’s exactly what Dudley has started to do.

In his Tuesday morning public statement on ABC’s Good Morning America, Dudley appeared calm and confident.  He declared his “special affinity” for the Gulf Coast and not once did he seem impatient, as Hayward so often appeared.  He announced his top priority of sealing the company’s well and restoring the Gulf of Mexico. He also reiterated that BP will certainly work for as long as it takes to meet its commitments in the Gulf.

But Dudley took it one step further.

Too often in crises, companies respond to the incident by merely saying they will fix the problem, ignoring one of the public’s main concern: what they will do differently in the future.  Dudley addressed this concern head-on by proclaiming that BP will learn a lot from this “terribly tragic accident” and in “no question change” as a result of it.

Certainly Dudley’s announcement has momentarily given the American public hope that BP is committed to cleaning up the spill, but it will take more than a few carefully chosen words to truly clean up the mess BP has made.  Now that he’s validated concern, it’s time to show action. Good luck, Mr. Dudley, you sure have your work cut out for you.

Online fashion shopping has become a growing trend—and with sites like Gilt, Rue La La, and ideeli offering top brands and styles at extreme discounts (some as high as 80%), it’s tough not take a peek.

Last year, Gilt.com generated $170 million in revenue, up from $25 million the previous year. While these web boutiques are flourishing with women shoppers, they’ve got their sights set on reeling in a relatively untapped market: men.

Yesterday’s WSJ.com article “Wanted: Guy Shoppers for Fashion Sites,” pointed to the sites’ recent push to grow the male demographic, one that is proving to be somewhat of a challenge.  Last year, a survey found that only 27.6% of adult male respondents said they regularly purchase products online. They also spend 19% less time shopping online compared to their female counterparts.  And when it comes to the quick deal, men are a third less likely to go on a shopping spree. The stats reaffirm one notion—when it comes to retail, men just shop differently.

So why bother with the boys?  Well, it all comes down to the dollar.  Women may buy more, but the men who are shopping tend to spend more. These companies are also trying to cater to men’s affinity for the ease and speed of online shopping.

And the competitive twist doesn’t hurt either.

From sports gear sales to “men-only” separate sites, the shopping boutiques are firing away any and all ideas to see what sticks. Will it be through courting fashion niches or appealing to a wide range of men?  Will customer service be a targeted effort?  What roadblocks will arise—perhaps the back and forth of shipping, or lack of instant gratification attained at a brick and mortar?  While the successful mix remains to be seen, it will undoubtedly be one that piques curiosity, makes the task fast and easy and creates pull. The competition is on and it will be a race to see which marketing attempt (if any) will come out on top.

Newspapers have been in trouble for some time.  The surge in free online news sources put a strain on all print media, especially newspapers.  Jokes have been made on sites like The Onion where they “reported” that The Boston Globe had tailored its print edition to its three remaining subscribers.  Due to the vicious cycle of low subscriber bases and lower ad rates, newspapers across the country—and even the world—have been laboring to stay afloat.

While many solutions have been posited including forcing very frequent readers of online news to pay a fee or integrating online and print advertisements, no one has found the solution to arguably the newspaper industry’s largest threat ever. Earlier this month,  The Times decided to place a “paywall” on their site after having had enough with providing premium content to readers free of charge. The Times’ paywall works very simply.  When one logs onto the site, it appears as it did in the past.  The top stories of the day grace the opening screen along with categories to go into the “paper” and an average amount of advertising.  As soon as any story, category, picture, video etc is clicked on, an interstitial pops up informing the reader that this site is now available only by subscription.

This type of window is usually dismissed as simple nuisance of online advertising, but in this case, it is no joke.  If the window is closed, the user is returned to the homepage with no hope of finishing that story about the Sri Lankan cricket player or the Prime Minister David Cameron’s latest policy.

By being the first major newspaper in the world to enact such a system, they may have given the rest of the online newspaper community an example of one way not to solve their monetization problem.  After only three weeks, metrics taken by Experian Hitwise show that readership has dropped by an astonishing 90% since February.  (This was all reported in an article in The Guardian, which did not cost a pent to view).  Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who owns The Times, believes that if the new business model takes off, it could prove to be much more lucrative than the advertising model that most online news sites currently run on.

While it remains to be seen what the newspaper industry will do to keep itself alive, it looks, at this early stage at least, like a paywall for any and all information on a newspaper website is a better way to keep people away than attract them.

“Hey you – yeah, you. How would you like to have hot coffee spilled all over your fingers and toes? Why don’t you try catching your breath after being thrown at the bottom of a bag and have junk piled high –right, smack on top of you?  Sounds pretty terrible, eh? You wouldn’t do it to yourself, but you do it daily to your technology. Feel pretty guilty? Well you should.  Luckily, it isn’t too late to make amends! Office Depot is providing you with an easy remedy to show your digital devices that you DO care after all, and will vow to protect us from here on out.”

Pretty funny huh?  These are the first words you read when you check out Office Depot’s new microsite, technologyapology.com, dedicated to teaching consumers how to treat there technology devices with care and concern.  Office Depot recently launched a CARAVAN® survey conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for Office Depot (NYSE:ODP), which found that “one in three working Americans is often required to carry tech items while traveling or on the go. However, forty-five percent of Americans have damaged or totally broken a number of their technology items including mobile phones (29%), ear buds or headsets (22%), PDAs or Smartphones (10%) and laptops (10%).”

In response to this recklessness in technological device care, Home Depot has launched the “Technology Apology Contest,” where professionals can formally apologize to the technology that they have mistreated in the past and vow to protect it going forward with a 100-300 word apology. 

This microsite is peppered with humorous videos, and a fact sheet about how to protect your technological advices. What’s interesting is that none of these suggestions are really that innovative—they tell you things like keep your hot coffee away from the computer and don’t let pets get near these devices. And if you look a little closer, you will see that the prize for the contest is a messenger bag for your laptop designed to protect all your technological devices. So really, this is all a marketing tactic to get you to buy their bags—and it kind of works.

This microsite is essentially a page out of the PR 101 handbook and it’s not a shabby effort!  All of a sudden Home Depot is positioning itself as a thought leader in the technology protection industry—breaking out from the walls of the home building industry to provide specific products to protect our prized laptops, cell phones and iPads.   They’ve even gone so far as to launch a survey proving technological device neglect, identifying a crisis they are helping to solve further, solidifying their role as an emerging voice in the technology protection conversation. Great job Home Depot—your microsite is funny and interesting! And in the increasingly wired world we’re living in (as I look at the cracked cell phone sitting on my desk), you’re now a place I may look to for more than just a can of house paint.