Modeling the exclamation point

Thanks to Threadwatch.org and Gary Stein, a new study which might state the obvious about not being obvious - in other words, surprise...surprise...unexpected and surprising messaging (read: creative) gets your attention

[Researchers] Itti and Baldi work out a way of applying [probabilty] to the data in a video stream, providing a measure of how observing new data will affect the set of beliefs an observer has developed about the world on the basis of data previously received. "Data that does not change your beliefs is not surprising," says itti.

Google's mantra is don't be evil...this takeaway is don't be obvious AKA boring AKA mediocre AKA expected AKA safe AKA you get the picture