"The Asian Art Museum today announced that its 'lost' Chinese terracotta warrior, reported missing and wandering the Bay Area, has been found."

Thus concluded one of the more memorable, unconventional recent attempts by a museum to promote an exhibition. The "lost" warrior—an exquisitely made-up and costumed actor—is meant to draw attention to San Francisco's recently rebranded Asian Art Museum show of antiquities from China's famous Xian Terracotta Army (Feb. 22–May 27).

We spoke with the museum about the ins and outs of the unique campaign and how they introduced the idea to their Chinese partners. Continue reading...

It's been a tough ride for the United States Postal Service. Never mind the rain, snow, sleet, or hail working conditions — as the Wall Street Journal reports it's under tremendous pressure to turn around its financials and create a new business model:

Its use plummeted amid the rise of e-mail. In recent months, it has defaulted on two payments to the U.S. Treasury for a total of $11.1 billion for future retiree health benefits. USPS has been seeking legislation to cut costs by eliminating Saturday mail delivery and reducing its annual health-benefits payments. And now there’s this.

"This" refers to the USPS name being dragged through the mud, along with what's left of Lance Armstrong's sports legacy, during last week's anti-doping report in which the cyclist's former allies in cycling. For a time, however, back in the very late '90s and early 2000s, USPS workers were associated with a winner, when the USPS-sponsored cycling team, with Armstrong at the helm, brought home its first Tour de France victory in 1999 and just kept on winning for seven straight years. Now the Postal Service is hoping to get back on a winning streak itself.Continue reading...

“UNIQLO Lucky Cube with Maru” (you know — Maru, Japan's Garfield turned YouTube and web sensation) is one of the ways UNIQLO USA is celebrating the fall openings of new stores in San Francisco and New Jersey.

The brand’s first West Coast flagship store, 111 Powell Street in San Francisco's Union Square, opens on October 5th. “San Francisco has always been a place of creativity, diversity, and social innovation,” stated UNIQLO USA’s COO Yasunobu Kyogoku. “In this same spirit, UNIQLO takes pride in developing innovative technology to create high-quality casual basics that are not only functional, but also affordable.”

Fans in the Bay Area can win blimp rides, merchandise and other prizes by playing with the You Tube Japanese cat sensation and the game is available now through October 14th on UNIQLO’s website, and via Facebook and Twitter.Continue reading...

Air France plans to streamline operations and reduce staff.

AOL surprised by teen startup squatter.

Butterfinger launches mock conspiracy-hunting mobile tour.

Dish Network squares off with TV programmers over ad-skipping DVR.

Facebook impresses with photo app, while Mark Zuckerberg makes the cover of People and investors hope for refunds as legal challenges to IPO loom.

Ferrari deaths fuel anti-foreigner sentiment in Singapore.

FIFA tests goal line technology.

Jersey Shore's Snooki embroiled in $100M battle with merchandising firm.Continue reading...

Ford's new "Go Further" tagline was introduced in January, and it's now being promoted with a new 60-second commercial (above), a pop-up gallery in San Francisco (more on that below), and on social media, including via the Twitter hashtag #gofurther.

No puppets, no testimonials, no Ford name or even a blue oval logo to identify itself, just a simple pitch: "What does it mean to Go Further? For a car company it means offering vehicles with innovative technologies, plug-in hybrids and EcoBoost® engines that combine power and efficiency. If you were offering a new car in today's crowded market, you'd do all this to go further. Learn more at http://www.gofurther.com"

Ford's social hub elaborates on why it's pushing out "Go Further":Continue reading...

Walmart has just released Shopycat, a standalone Facebook app to make shopping, holiday and everyday, smarter and stress-free (hopefully). Shopycat mines social data to recommend items from Walmart.com, Walmart stores and other partner sites including RedEnvelope, Barnes & Noble, NBC Universal and ThinkGeek.

“We’ve been working on how to add a social layer on top of e-commerce. One of the key areas where we thought we could make a difference is in gift-giving … we thought if we could take a person’s interests and ‘likes,’ that are expressed on Facebook, and tie those with a vast product catalog, then we could make gift-giving much more enjoyable,” commented Anand Rajaraman, head of WalmartLabs, to Venture Beat.

Shopycat currently passes users to other websites for purchase, but by this time next year, shopping will be done directly on Facebook, as Ravi Raj, VP of product for WalmartLabs told VB.Continue reading...

If you want to get an American enraged, get them talking about health insurance. Whether they have or they don’t, they tend to have a story somewhere in there, often not buried very far, about some kind of insurance situation gone awry or another.

As health care becomes more and more a political battling point, Blue Shield of California is looking to try and help make things a little clearer to consumers and has taken the bold step of opening a store in San Francisco to aid that effort.

The non-profit organization isn’t afraid to go bold when it wants to make a point. In 2008 it hosted had an exhibition of 40 nude statues in “vulnerable positions” to showcase the large number of uninsured Californians. It also made headlines last month when it was announced it was returning money to its customers, making good on a pledge "to help policyholders cope with rising healthcare costs by making good on a pledge to return money when its net income exceeds 2% of its revenue."

Now it's reaching out directly to customers (current and potential) with a 500-square-foot store that will open Nov. 7 within a Lucky supermarket store in San Francisco.Continue reading...

Gap promised that its new global branding campaign would bring an extra treat to U.S. fans — food trucks serving tacos in a handful of markets.

The event marketing, dubbed Pico de Gap, kicked off Monday in Los Angeles with chef Marcel Vigneron from Bravo's Top Chef (and now SyFy), with celeb guests including Jennifer Love Hewitt, Nikki Reed and Sarah Silverman.

Starting Friday, three other vintage food trucks will be popping up in downtown neighborhoods, music festivals and other gatherings in San Francisco (with another Top Chef alum, Ryan Scott, on-board), New York (food writer Katie Lee, another Top Chef vet as host of the first season of Top Chef Masters) and Chicago (chef Rick Gresh).Continue reading...