If you are looking to successfully engage with the urban market, you have to consider how to position your brand in such a way that its consumption increases young adults’ status in youth culture. Brands that successfully enhance urban capital have to know not only what to communicate, but how. Knowledge: Don’t dismiss blogs as being the personal ramblings of extroverts. Visit sites like www.coolhunting.com, www.newstoday.com and www.joshspear.com. Full article at TheAge.com

On sneakerplay.com, men outnumber women by eight to one, creating an online fratmosphere thick with testosterone, egos and shoe rubber. Like sneaker peacocks, members from around the world flaunt their footwear in photo galleries and boast an inventory of friends on their personal profiles. Full Article Here

In an effort to reach the “creative class” online, GSD&M, which also handles media, is placing ads on sites such as www.theonion.com, www.gawker.com, www.joshspear.com, www.gothamist.com and www.weblogs.com. GSD&M won the $180 million account in November. Full Article Here

When Josh Spear talks trends, companies pay big bucks to hear what he has to say. Cool just isn't cool anymore. At least according to Josh Spear a 21-year-old college dropout and self-described “brand ambassador.” “Maybe it'll make a comeback in a few years,” Spear said. “For now I've basically eliminated the word from my site.” That Web site, or more specifically blog, is http://joshspear.com and is the product of one of the most pre-eminent trend spotters today. It's being watched closely by some of the biggest names in the business world who have a vested interest in the next big thing. Full Article Here

There’s a nice cover article about me and this site in the Weekend Post today throughout Canada. Last weekend it was Canadian Radio, this week it’s a newspaper– I guess I’m really stepping up my image in the friendly-land. A warm welcome to all my new friends in Canada! Writer Karen Burshtein did a great job covering elements of my site–and work-life that haven’t been touched on much in past press. Thanks to Robert Thoren for the great photos, and all the people who had kind words to share about me in the article. Unfortunately you need to be a subscriber to view it on the National Post website– But you can try this link which seems to work for people without logging in. I’ll have a PDF created for download shortly!

Note: For some reason people, even after clarification, seem to think I worked for Nike. Although I do have friends within the Nike Campus and have been in touch with them about a variety of things, they’ve never been a client of mine. I think it was the Nike iD design contest and invitation to 255 Elizabeth that keeps throwing people off.

Want to hear a quite possibly very entertaining interview with yours truly on the radio? I did an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that’s airing this Saturday on the ‘Definitely Not The Opera‘ show with radio host Sook-Yin Lee between 1 and 2pm EST. There are several ways to listen to it– if you have Sirius Satellite Radio tune into channel 137– if you’re in the frozen land of Canada check out this massive map to find out what frequency it will be broadcasted on– and of course if you’re online you can stream it through Windows Media Player or Ogg Vorbis– just select something in the ‘East’ time zone and you should be all set. If you miss it don’t worry, I’ll get a copy to share.

Update: Well, I don’t remember my repsonses being in that specific order, minus a few wrong ‘facts’ in their intro (Nike a client?), and cutting it down to only a few minutes, it turned out all right! If you missed it you can check out my 5 minutes of fame here: Listen to the MP3

I recently did an interview with Doug Brown from the Denver Post– he turned out to be a really great guy and we spent some time together talking about everything I was up to. He wrote a nice little feature about me in today’s Post on the cover of the Lifestyle section. The feature does a pretty nice job talking about the bigger picture of what I’m up to with Spear Consulting and a peak at how JoshSpear.com works. Thanks for the opportunity Doug!

A special welcome to all the Time Magazine readers visiting my site. If you didn’t see it yet, this weeks Time has a great article on cool hunting and trend spotting in which I’m featured. It’s called “Messengers Of Cool: How new digital networks help hipsters around the globe hunt for the next big thing. ” I was in good company, the article by Jeremy Caplan featured my site along side a few others, like my friend Bill over at The Cool Hunter, and of course Reinier Evers amazing site and excellent resource Trendwatching.com.

”There’s a silent etiquette, I think, where most people in the community look for individual content because there’s probably a huge overlap between readership,” says Josh Spear, 21, of Boulder, Colo., who runs www.JoshSpear.com. ”I always give credit and it brings reciprocal traffic. Our sites attract different people.” Full Article Here

I wanted to personally welcome all the New York Times readers to my site– Rich Meislin gave me a nice mention in his article in the technology section titled Blogs 101. Joshspear.com, dubbed: “the pulse of cool”, was listed with half a dozen other familiar sites under the heading ‘Technology Toys & Cool Things’. I suppose this merits launching a proper press section, which will happen in the very near future! Also, a reminder: Don’t forget I still have a bunch of Bamboosa t-shirts to giveaway, you can sign up for the mailing list to be selected!