Lots of people at uni carry a Moleskine. Be it a diary, sketchbook or notepad they are truly ubiquitous. Hell, even I have one... Make that four. But what makes them so desirable?

Maria Sebregondi is the brand equity and communication person over at Moleskine headquarters. She says it has something to do with the fact that "Moleskines [are] also a ‘book yet to be written’ and the notebook’s owner is the person writing it."

She says a lot more about the little black books in an interview with the Lovemarks website. She has a few interesting insights but nothing you wouldn't expect the brand equity manager to reel out after a long day in the office.

That's where blogging makes it's entrance. Moleskinerie is a blog run up until recently by a guy by the name of Armand B. Frasco. It's full of insights into the brand from a totally grassroots level. Effectively generating a constant stream of product research and testing, without Moleskine having to do anything. Well I think they grasped this fact last December when the owners of Moleskine, Kikkerland, decided to buy Moleskinerie from Armand Frasco. Let this be a motivation to all the bloggers reading this, you can make money from blogging!

To get back to the point, I found an interesting link on Moleskinerie to a Queenslander's blog who had some interesting and humorous insights to share about Moleskines and writing in general. He makes the candid point that, "do you really think Van Gogh, a dude who had to scum money off his brother so he could afford to eat, would fork out the equivelant of $32 for a notebook? Of course he wouldn't!"

And here I was reading Hemingway with the sounds of Coltrane in the background, staring at my Moleskine on the bench and thinking the damn breakthrough novel would write itself. Pshhh! I know where I'm going for inspiration now. And it's not within the pages of a Moleskine.