no one likes a smart ass

a change in name

2009-06-01T08:25:00.001-07:00

hi all,

i've decided that my alter-ego of 'nightterror' isn't reflective of where i want to go with this blog. as such, i've decided to shed that moniker and just use my own name from here on in.

from now on, this address will no longer be used for my postings. instead, please head on over to this link for all my latest musings.

sorry for any inconvenience. i think i've updated everywhere to the new place and my feed should be as well. let me know of any problems either here or there.

nightterror

swept up in the wave

2009-05-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

what captivated me most in the last week was google's announcement of wave, their new communication and collaboration tool/platform (bing not even close). yes, i may be a little late to the blogosphere in talking about this, but a) i like to read a lot about something i'm posting and b) i'm not a breaking news blog, so i have no imperative in that regard.

i don't fawn over new software/platforms/apps/what-have-you much, but wave was different, it really struck a chord. it is just so radical, unexpected and a shift from the known and norm that it gripped me like darth vader's force choke.

you need to watch this video to get the full jist of what wave is all about. it's a big time investment, but you really get why it's a game changer. you'll really think about just how flawed our current communication tools are and question why we continue to use them.

i love everything about wave and what it supposes as the future of communicating and collaborating. but what is most interesting to me is that this is the dashboard to your life. this is the single source console to manage all your communication streams that i have been wanting for some time. i love all the different tools out there that are ideal for their special area, but i don't like managing so many accounts and tending to each one in a different interface or sharing each in different ways.

wave solves this, and solves it well. the most exciting part, though, is yet to come. now that it is in the hands of 3rd party developers, they are the ones who will truly make wave shine. but the promise of the framework is disruptive enough.

with my marketing hat on, within wave, there was talk of robots, and there is a lot of promise there. tech blog mashable had a great overview feature that talked a bit about robots. this is the social embedding & conversation embedding that i think everyone was promised, but hasn't happened yet. this is a really powerful proposition.

let me throw out a few examples to illustrate. say i'm organizing a trip to the cottage. within the wave is talk of supplies. any of the companies who make those supplies or retailers who sell them can access that and provide anything from suggestions, to price points, to locations, to coupons, to did-you-also-think-of messages. another easy one is travel companies and airlines embedding into a conversation about an upcoming trip providing all the necessary information for you to plan collaboratively. there's a lot more opportunities for a lot more advertisers.

to marketers, robots will be the new iphone application.

surfing commercials

2009-05-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

this was something i wanted to write about last week, but got caught up in my 3 part series. a company called ShortTail Media is introducing a new online video format called D30, which stands for digital 30. that's right, a :30 sec online video unit, and one that completely interrupts your surfing from one page to another.

from the first time i saw this, i was, for lack of a better word, queasy. for a number of reasons, this didn't sit right with me.

1) that it is a :30 sec spot is alone reason enough for this to be considered bad. that length of commercial should not exist online unless it is opt-in. the online world is about bite-sized chunks of information and consuming lots of them. this flies in the face of that. most of the time people don't even spend 30 seconds on a page to begin with so the time spent ratio is of. same as a :30 sec pre-roll ad in front of a short video clip, doesn't quite equate.

2) the flow is off. from page to page with video in between seems weird. it's mixing types of content. in tv it's all video, so it's expected. not true here.

3) i'm sure they downplay it, but what's the load time on a full-screen piece of video with a 30 second runtime? i'm sure it's not short and i'm sure there's plenty of room for delays in downloading that will only further detract from the whole experience.

4) then there's the company's flippant disregard for user experience which is arrogant. yes, we should be pursuing 'bigger, bolder creative' as the ceo puts it, but tempered with the user in mind, not disregarding them as he goes on to say in that we should 'be less sensitive to user experience.'

i think television is a great user experience. there's of course the screen size and often times communal nature of the experience and the commercial breaks add some tension, anticipation, a break to reality to have human interaction (you may have other reasons). it could be improved with shorter breaks of course. just because the tv model is good, doesn't mean it should be taken online and applied in the same manner. it's not the same medium.

i get the reasoning behind taking this tact and largely agree:
- it's easy to ignore standard online ads
- are small and typically in the margins of the page
- they don't interrupt the flow of content (as happens in other media)
- smaller size may lead to less branding opportunities

however, this is the wrong solution to these problems and the problems with current online video experiences. i am in complete agreement, we do need different ad formats online with better breakthrough potential. i want to answer these questions and come up with solutions (ie. actual value in reading this), but don't know the answer yet. if i did, i'd probably have a lot more money. i just know that this isn't it.

i think the sites who will support these ads will do a quick about-face once they see their visitors drop-off. this will be a short-lived venture.

the social media effect - part 3: tying it all together

2009-05-21T05:16:00.000-07:00

in part 1 and part 2, i purposely looked at interruptive/disruptive media (i/d) and social media separately. the point being for this third part to tie them together and arrive at how the two work synchronously. not how one will displace the other or how shortcomings are the detriment of using. as i hope to have established already, the two serve different purposes, and both are important for marketing success and will continue to be.

the old question (numbers vary) of what would you rather have, 1 million low engagement impressions or 1,000 high engagement interactions? isn't valid anymore. never was, really. there's no trade-off, you can have both. you should have both.

if social media is inhabited by interest, then it is i/d media that generates that initial interest. realistically, no one is going to find your place or seek it out in the social space unless they know of your brand, company or campaign. how will they know to go and engage if they don't know who you are or what you're doing? social media's success and growth needs i/d media.

this not only goes for getting new people into our communities, but also to bring them back. the i/d media informs consumers as to what to talk about, where to talk and when to talk. obviously social media does this job too, arguably better, only to a smaller set.

let's face it, not everyone goes to a brand website, not everyone goes to our social destinations and not everyone wants to actively participate. we still need to expose consumers to our brand and i/d media accomplishes that. yes, it is a somewhat shallow exposure, no denying that. so enters social media. i/d media does well to expose and social does exceptionally well to solidify the relationship and maximize what we get out of consumers.

there's always new market share to be had, and the tandem approach of i/d and social media is the recipe for success. not one or the other, we need to let them know our brand or company should be considered through i/d media and then use the social tools to seal the deal.

so that's my view. a holistic one where all channels are used in conjunction with one another. my goal was to stop the discussions about social media taking over the world and killing other media. that's just not the case. it's a game changer to be sure and a space i'm a huge proponent of. but i'm also tasked to see the bigger picture and every other tool at our disposal. sometimes we can be a little to narrow viewed and jump to too many conclusions.

so this isn't an admonishment of social media or making it out to be weak. on the contrary. it's to clearly show it's strengths and the role it can play in the whole of the plan. same for i/d media. it has its strengths and faults. it's how each makes up for where the other lacks.

the social media effect - part 2: social media's place

2009-05-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

as i alluded to in part 1, social media is just a new tool at the disposal of marketers. i don't want to belittle the importance though in saying that. social media is a powerful tool that dramatically changes the landscape and interactions amongst people and with brands. not saying anything new, just re-affirming in case you thought i had jumped to the other side.

the main shortcoming of social media right now is that it is a pretty small universe that a brand can speak to. i'll qualify this by saying 'directly.' including social sharing muddies the waters some. although it is one of the cornerstones of social media, and the technology makes this easier than ever, it always existed (the water cooler). to say this is all at the behest of a company is erroneous. it has always wrested with the consumer, regardless of ease and a company's influence.

the masses are social, but social media isn't mass.

the first part of that statement is easy. people have flocked to social media sites and applications in droves, and it's still growing. facebook has 200 million members, myspace isn't that far behind. twitter is approaching 10 million and is on fire. there's no denying it, social media has hit the masses.

it's the second part where the mass equation falters. these are strictly opt-in environments and access to brands is limited by interest. again, not a bad thing, just not a breadth thing. while the platforms are open to the larger ecosystem, any one community is only comprised of brand enthusiasts.

this is demonstrated by the 'Fans' or 'Followers' metric. granted, this is pretty shallow and doesn't show all who happen upon the community, but it is the best way to enumerate who is most deeply engaged with the brand or company. if that's the brand's audience, i wouldn't call that mass. yes, there's still growth to be had of these communities, but how high can they really go? certainly not the totality of your market.

here's a rough diagram of what i mean. the enthusiasts are your audience in the social media world. the casuals come by less frequently and don't do as much. then there's the whole rest of the potential audience that you're not talking to in social media.

if all this holds water, then social media efforts are geared at the brand's community, not a mass approach. you could go so far as to say social media is a CRM tool. of course, they already are your customers because they opted in and have shown passion for the brand. so social media seems more the retention side of things in entering an ongoing dialog with your consumers. that seems fair, no?

now i'm not trying to take anything away from the power of social media here, that's not my intention. i'm just a realist and pragmatist who is looking at the whole picture and seeing where all the pieces fit.

right now, the numbers and opt-in nature of social media tells me the place for it is on the retention side. and i see it staying this way, indefinitely. certainly there are tactics that engage and reach beyond those enthusiasts, but for the most part, the efforts are against the core of existing customers.

it works beautifully to engage a community and strengthen bonds with our consumers. i just don't like putting on it any more than is due. that's how the tools were designed, to enhance an affinity. but to go so far as to say it's the killer app and always be able to do a job it wasn't made for is faulty.

there are purposely some holes here and in part 3, i'll wrap this all up into a cohesive framework directly linking interruptive/disruptive and social media. i'm hoping to show a sustainable situation where they coexist, work together and each has a role in the mix. put each in its place as it were.

the social media effect - part 1: interruptive & disruptive media

2009-05-19T05:45:00.000-07:00

much has been made in the last while about how social media is the future of marketing (spoiler: it's a part of the future, but not the sole inhabitor of it). how it will shift the consumer and brand relationship (indeed it will in some aspects). how it will banish other media to obsolescence and there will soon be no more interruptive/disruptive brand messging, it will all be opt-in. and that's when i get off the train.

i don't believe this is going to be the case, not for a long while, if ever. there's no denying what potential social media holds or the shift in b2c, c2c, c2b interactions is powerful. what i can deny is how it will obliterate other forms of advertising.

interruptive/disruptive (i/d from here on in) media still has a role and will for some time. how long? who knows. it's not the point. the point is that i/d media is still very powerful (there's a lot of argument around it diminishing - a later blog perhaps), yet just another tool in a marketers box. just like social media is just another tool.

the chief reason why i/d media gets such a bad rap and seen as evil boils down to one main factor that is currently mostly absent -> relevance. it's a simple concept, but makes all the difference. you don't tune out or get outraged if it's a message you actually care to see. i also want to mention value here. it is a subset of relevance, but bears mentioning. if it's relevant, it's probably valuable.

i see relevance as having three components: appeal - informative - need state.

appeal -> simply that the brand or product fills an emotional or physical gap and makes you feel good when consuming.

informative -> the content of the message instructs your or informs you of how the brand or product will be good for you.

need state -> this is mostly timing. that the messge is received when most receptive because it's required (whether that's a true need or a want need)

relevance will find permanance through technology. it's almost here. soon will exist ways of formerly mass media to become much more targeted, and singular in nature. and thus relevance will follow.

a minority report or tek war (yeah, i'm throwing that reference out, watch it) type future of hyper targeted to the individual advertising is upon us. some examples: IP TV, the fridge that catlogs and reminds you what you need and of course, google adwords.

what's necessary to make this happen is the consumer and their opting in. from my perspective, it's a no brainer. who wouldn't want to? if i can now go through my life without having to hear or see tampons, birth control or hair products, then yes, i'm in (though that could be someone else's ideal). if i have to see something (and right now, you do), it might as well be meaningful to me.

this year's cmdc conference did well to extrapolate on this kind of future. in the final session of the day, three groups were taksed to give their vision of media in the year 2020. all three came up with a variant on the same basic premise; that of a device, carried with you everywhere, that identifies you, your demographic makeup, preferences, and product usage, amongst other leverageable by marketers data points. this then ties into everything surrounding you so as to serve you specific content or ads. and thus solving the relevancy issue.

and that's the cloud, right? the semantic web of interconnectedness and personally identifiable data. at least one extension of it.

part of understanding and accepting that i/d media will still be employed and be valuable to marketers is breaking our notions of what form it will take. the :30 sec tv spot isn't it, but is still what we use as our example of how that kind of media works. there's a lot of problems with holding that as our best form of i/d media. that in itself is a post for another day but to list them quickly: 1) length of spot, 2) long commercial breaks, 3) less informative ads 4) not interactive amongst others.

the future of i/d media is in it getting smarter and more sophisticated. we'll find more impactful, less invasive, more integrated and generally better ways of approaching i/d media. these will extend the life of these marketing channels and continue to make them valuable tools.

that's my take on interruptive/disruptive media. it's not going anywhere, anytime soon. that still doesn't fully address the social media implications or the whole notion of opt-in only advertising. well it does, in part. that's opting-in to see ads, not opting-in to certain brands.

that's part 2 coming in a few days. where social media fits in with the whole marketers toolbox. you probably also noticed that i haven't stated exactly how much i/d media there will be and the exact role it will play with the rest of the tools. that too is coming in part 3.

the marketing hourglass

2009-05-03T18:30:00.000-07:00

i got to thinking about the marketing funnel while writing another post and it occurred to me that there was something missing. that it didn't exactly capture the new reality of the new web 2.0 world.

the marketing funnel succinctly describes two interrealted continuums - from just a consumer to a customer and also the media used to get them there from broadcast to narrowcast. while this funnel is all nice and good, it leaves out one critical element - the consumer/customer. they should never be left out of the equation, especially now when they have so many tools at their disposal to impact brands and other people.

so i offer the marketing hourglass. maybe someone has thought this way already, but i haven't seen it. so i apologize if i'm just being a hack here, it was a new thought to me.

in this, the top half remains the same with whatever in-between stages you want to assign (i've seen many variations). what i thought was missing is the bottom part, the part that accounts for the consumer's active involvement in the process. what they initiate in the marketing of a product vs. that which the brand begats. this being both messaging points and conversion tactics.

i think it's fair to say that much of these social tools feed into the left side of the top funnel above, or were thought to reside there. that consumers are using these resources in determining how a brand fits a particular point in their need state. but i think it's important to call this out now because of the increasingly important role it is playing.

this version distinguishes the control of the process that is shifting to the consumers. one of the main reasons to separate it is that the new web 2.0 world is often standalone. consumers are discovering and buying into brands without ever having seen corporate initiated marketing efforts. and that will only increase in prevalence.

the bottom funnel is much smaller than it's northern counterpart. that's because the process by which consumers market to each other is far shorter and also has access to fewer people. in this age of distrust with large companies, there is a lot more steps involved in overcoming the rather larger negative of monolithic corporations hungry for your money. but with consumers in charge, it's all about trust and influence. consumers have this, companies don't. so the words and actions of consumers carry far greater weight and leads others to adopt a brand quicker.

you'll see how the consumer funnel is both distributive and procurative. it represents that this end of things simultaneously pushes out messages, but also serves the function of collecting consumers. the top funnel is all about the collection. the advertising and media served to move people through the consideration set. in the new model, consumers are making the messages to contribute to a community, to express themselves, and to serve their fellow man (or woman). this has the effect of also garnering new customers into the brand.

so what's the point, what's the take-away? what does it mean? mainly to spell it out, to crystalize the thought and show the value and importance of social media. to make the distinctions with the intent of having the full picture in decision making. it's also about showing the need for relevance with consumers. both ways into customerdom are valid, but this aims to exhibit how to form strategies to get them there and how to allocate resources.

Dapper vs. Google

2009-04-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

today google announced intentions to go after the online display market, a break from it's core business in search. as the link indicates, google analyzed it's content network and found it to be more cost effective than search, though still a smaller component to overall revenue and searches. where this data leads google is to say that the content network holds a lot of potential for more than returning just textual, search ads.

meet dapper, a tech that contextually delivers advertising based on page contents and inner-site searches and other data based content. much like google, dapper scans the page for relevant keywords and determines the context, then serves ads based on that.

at last, a marriage of the highly effective, and cost efficient search world with brand building image ads. but does it deliver?

immediately, i love the notion of an ad being more relevant to the environment. as a planner, the context is probably my biggest input in site selection and media placement. to add another layer of that is a real sweet spot. it makes the placement a beacon for consumer engagement and interaction.

this holds tremendous potential for a number of advertisers and industries. dapper's video shows some real easy examples of how to dynamically push ads. as with search, the primary benefactors are e-commerce companies. what about true brand advertisers?

where i'd like to see it go is graphical ads where images can be pulled from a library into preset animations with text generated all from input from the contents of the page? doable? hard to say. maybe. will it look good and just how many iterations can really be made? i don't have answers, but it's exciting to see where it goes and how far it can be pushed.

don't get down in a down economy

2009-04-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

it's getting pretty repetitious seeing all the doom and gloom of the economy in the media everyday. it's a reality, but it's also pretty tiresome. in my particular industry, it is being felt just as much, but thankfully not much of the doom (as of yet), just a lot of gloom.

but i'm not letting it stop me or the work of my clients. reading in between the lines of this downturn, i see opportunity. here's my take for the advertising world.

innovation
now's the time to push the envelope. publishers and suppliers are hungry for any revenue and are likely more open to different approaches that break from the norm. or at least they should be if they like income. on the client side, it may be a little harder to justify trying something new and perhaps unproven when every dollar counts so much more. but it is those leaps that can propel a brand when all around them are stagnant. think crazy, think big. challenge the standard and staid.

pricing
in a similar vein, hungry media companies will work in other areas as well to make it attractive for advertisers. it's not bullying, but good deals can be struck. when faced with a lower cost of the media and heavy bonusing or no revenue at all, the choice is clear. and it saves them the erosion on their own brand perceptions of a thin book, lots of house ads or worst of all, ugly credit ads. we should always be innovating and not using the economy as an excuse to postpone.

social media
as this is a relatively lower cost space to play in, social media could take precedence in the marketing mix. when times are tough, it's your core consumers that will keep you in the game and this is the right channel to build that out.

don't stop spending
there's a lot out there to say that curtailing spending on your brands in a recession is harmful to brand growth (or even maintenance) in the long term. the short term impact of putting back to the bottom line is faulty long term. i know this is the hardest to adhere to, but most significant because it is the whole of the brand at stake.

it's too easy to get down in the dumps about a recession. it's the same as with a personal brand as it is with a corporate brand. i read that people have a tendency to go into the doldrums in these times and that is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. people should be even more active to prove their worth and stand out above the others to continue their growth and keep their jobs. brands should be no different. rise above it and do your bes not to stall.

social media won't kill tv

2009-04-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

today i had the good fortune of being on a panel at mesh conference for the 'managing your ad buy' session. during the session i made the above claim. i thought it warranted more context and explanation than the short panel allowed for.

i can't recall how this came up, but i do believe the truth in it. i also can't remember if i did mention a :30 second spot specifically, because that i do not believe. the :30 second spot is becoming a dinosaur and will likely die off. how soon, i don't know. i just know our attention to and desire to watch that length of advertising is waning. shorter length tv ads is the future of that medium. but this change won't be because of social media. it's just changing consumer preference and control over their experiences and time.

the greater context here is in traditional media vs. social media and if the latter will eliminate the former. while i don't think this will ever happen, if it does, it won't be soon. some media will definitely die, no question. i'm looking at you printed media. at least not in their current format. magazines or newspapers may well survive, they will just be digital devices and not pages. that is if publishers ever decide to change before their brands stubbornly perish because they won't adapt. i digress.

tv will no doubt evolve and the advertising model will no doubt as well. but that screen will remain or some form of it to view video content for a while. the main reason is that tv is too far ingrained with our culture - yes, even youth culture. as long as there are viable audiences, it can be monetized with ads in some way. it's going to take far more time than even just one generation for tv to expire.

i would also venture that social media is the best thing for tv. social media is about conversations and conversations around content (ie. tv shows, music, movies, sports, etc) are part of the fabric of the space and society as a whole. social media is just a better version of the water cooler. that content just needs to be good enough to warrant conversations. so in that sense, it's fuelling it, not killing it.

there's no doubt people are spending a huge amount of time with social media. it's diminishing tv's importance and the time spent with it. or is it? somewhat, but the proliferation of two-screen activity is such that both are alive and well and used at the same time.

i'd be remiss if i didn't also inject online video into the mix. while not social media, if anything could kill tv in the digital space, it's online video, not social media. but even this is a long way off as the online video experience pales in comparison to that of tv. and computers and tv are going to converge even further so that online video (or on-demand video in general) could end up back on the tv anyway.

tv is on the cusp of a rebirth not death. technology is coming down the pipe that will really rejuvenate the medium and make it more powerful. all the great things about the web and social media are coming to tv and it will change the experience for advertisers, broadcasters and most importantly, consumers.

twitter for tv

2009-03-31T19:03:00.000-07:00

as i'm known to do (not widely albeit, mostly by myself) on a monday night, i watched 24 with a laptop, following along to the #24 hashtag on twitter search. it occurred to me just what twitter could mean to the broadcast world. what a boon for the industry twitter possesses.

tv programs have always been a point of socialization. it's just been the days following the airing at the water cooler and limited to your social network. twitter holds a future of mass socialization in real time around tv programs. an enhanced experience that truly elevates the overall product. something everyone can participate in together, at once.

the opportunity for networks is in making appointment viewing again. to make an event that brings the audience and consequently the advertising dollars. to make the tv broadcast more meaningful again. to embrace a richer experience that can't be had on-demand, neither online nor through pvr. and to prove to advertisers a deeply engaged audience.

networks take notice; there is a place for you on twitter beyond just touting your programming. granted there's no socializing around bad content (at least in a positive way), so make it talk worthy and share worthy. stop cutting back.

so what can the broadcasters do?

inject the stream with more content elements that build a better and more detailed story arc
involve the actors/stars/hosts/contestants past and present
provide a director's commentary type context to the program
behind the scenes content
answer questions
build more suspense, intrigue, interest or anticipation in current and future episodes
fill in story gaps
incorporate real time tweets or tweet polls (hastagged yes or no) into live programs

i'm sure there's many more options, but that's a fairly robust menu of options to make for a greater experience. there's countless ways to facilitate this too from network specific twitter clients filtering the stream and adding other audio/video content beside to incorporating it into the broadcast itself. all i'm saying is there is vast opportunity to be capitalized on.

the facebookizing of twitter

2009-03-29T08:48:00.000-07:00

after the last post where i gave my thoughts on the twitterizing of facebook i started thinking about how to facebookize twitter a little. i do love that twitter is so very simple and uncluttered, but i do believe they could be a bit more social. certainly not going so far as to diverge from the core of what makes twitter so great and loved, but to add a few features to enhance the overall experience.

here's some things i think could make twitter better:

more profile information
as twitter becomes more and more the virtual presence of people on the web (at least one of them), i think we could have the ability to feature more information on the person behind the @. it's pretty limited right now where you only have a 160 characters for your bio and a website link that gets cut off. i often see people trying to get around this by making a background picture with a lot of the info, but it doesn't always work. so just building it in makes sense.

more customization
i don't mean to the extent that myspace allows you to create such an ugly profile, but allowing users to make the profile more their own. could be as easy as simple blog type features to incorporate a few widgets or pull in rss feeds. just more personalization.

who's following who
as it is now, there's no easy way to know what new people the people you're following are now following. you could go to each of the people you're following and see if there's anyone new, but that's a bit cumbersome isn't it? especially if you are following more than say 50 people. it makes sense as your social network expands, and as the twitter user community grows, to continue finding those interesting people, that those you find interesting, also find interesting.

message threading
not only for the main stream, but dm's as well. especially dm's because right now, they are just a jumble without the ability to sort, group, file, etc. in the stream, some lessons from friendfeed in how conversations appear could go a long way.

groups
similar to how you can sort your news-feed in facebook and similar to how you can set up groups in tweetdeck. simply an easier way to manage your stream, prioritize people and separate like content.

a few thoughts. nothing i think strays from the core functionality of twitter and nothing i think detracts from the experience. maybe adding these features is a revenue route. charge a small fee to allow you to add these features to your profile.

the twitterizing of facebook

2009-03-19T15:42:00.000-07:00

the internet is in uproar about the latest facebook redesign. i wanted to wait until i was able to use it for a while before i weighed in. well, i'm not alone in disliking it as a poll application on facebook has tallied 94% 'thumbs down.'

my issue with the change is how facebook is attempting to be more twitter-like. forget about how they're so openly scared of what twitter could do to their business, it's about moving away from what made them so successful and ingrained with people's lives in the first place.

the new redesign puts increased emphasis on the status update, attempting to match the tweet as a real-time lifestreaming tool. but it's been done to the detriment of everything else facebook is used for. i think this is too narrow for facebook users.

see, tweets were always far more reaching than "what are you doing now" as twitter purports to be the question driving what people do in the community. instead it's part 'what am i doing now', part sharing, part dialogue, part breaking news, part mobilizing people and part self promotion. facebook status was never that and would say still isn't except for those people who direct import their tweets as their status.

one thing facebook did add was the ability to comment on a status or 'like' it. great addition and one that i use heavily. it's great for conversation threads around a particular topic/status. where they fell short is that comments, which are the conversation and the power of social media, are not propagated in the message stream. no one knows you commented unless they happened to see the original update. a bit of a miss.

back on track. the part of the change that bothers me is that everything other than status updates and wall posts are in the news-feed. everything else is shunted into the never read right-side column. to me, this is a terrible move. facebook is so much more than a status update and yet that's all that matters now.

facebook was great because it was multi-functional. it allowed people to share so much of themselves and had great utility across all the interest points of social media. photos, link sharing, messaging, events, video, applications, notes, gifts, and chat amongst others. apparently these don't matter as much anymore. facebook long sold that they were the largest photo sharing site on the internet and now you're not alerted as well that people are posting them. you can still get at them and all that other stuff, it's just a lot less obvious.

my point in all this is why make for another twitter when you already have something unique and good already? other twitter clones have failed (pownce, jaiku) so why try to be somehting you're not? to alienate your user base? because that's what you're doing. if facebook users wanted twitter, they'd go to twitter. or maybe they think because they are so big now, they can force this on people and instantly create a viable twitter competitor where the others failed.

it makes even less sense when you factor in that facebook is a walled-garden. users can't get at the breadth of streams they can in an open environment like twitter. you can't hear from news sources, personalities, companies, celebrities, or non-friends in your profession on facebook as you can on twitter. yes, the new fan pages open up message streams, but generally people don't have that many fan pages (we ad types do because we're seeing what's going out there). certainly no one has fanned the number of people twitterers tend to follow.

it seems pretty unanimous that facebook should revert to what it was and leave twitter to their niche. facebook is so much more than twitter and that's a competitive advantage. what is wrong with the existing ability to integrate twitter into your status? just because the update didn't originate with facebook doesn't diminish it. the coming months should be interesting as twitter continues to explode.

in the end it boils down to how people will use facebook status. will they start using it like a tweet? will it ever become the twitter equivalent of all the reasons why people use twitter now? my guess is no. at least not in the immediate future because it's not how they've used facebook and, again, if they wanted to do twitter-like posting, they'd just go to twitter.

thinking visually

2009-03-10T17:47:00.000-07:00

how do you think? visually i hope.

unknowingly, i started doing this last august when at work, i devised a few visuals to illustrate some key strategic points. only after that did i come across a gentleman who is a master at this art. his name is david armano and not only does he have a knack for coming up with great new ideas, but visually representing them. once i saw his work, i was converted.

here's armano's syllabus on thinking visually:

Thinking Visually

View more presentations from David Armano. (tags: storytelling presentation)

i'm writing this because the last 3 weeks of my job has been consumed with one project, that at every chance, i tried to apply visual thinking. i'd like to believe that the work was better and the points were made more effectively because of it.

thinking visually is all about communicating an idea not entirely through words, but with images diagrams, art, photos or line art. it's weaving these elements into a clear, cohesive and meaningful representation of a thought or idea. it captures the idea and all the context into a concise snapshot that people can easily recall. think of it as a packed box - everything goes into the box but simply looking at it with 'kitchen' written on it tells the entire story.

there's no official rulebook to thinking visually, but here are a few considerations that i came up with:

words can't always be replaced, but use them sparingly
save it for the big ideas so they stay powerful
it's not just putting a picture on the page
aesthetics complete the sale
distill them, make them unconfusing and focused
use words as tags and let the visual explain
they don't always stand on their own - add context

armano has the gift of being a good designer and artist, which makes his visuals pop. unfortunately, i don't have those gifts. my tool of choice is a powerpoint. the latest version has some great tools embedded that will take you far in thinking and expressing visually.

i think this is a powerful way of applying yourself that makes what you have to say more compelling. it's more than just impressing people with creating eye candy, but conveying the idea in an interesting, thought provoking way. people will take more notice to your ideas, not because it looks pretty, but because the idea has been presented in such a way that is intuitive and more impactful than just words. from a guy who knows little brevity, visually thinking is a great way to condense what normally takes me a hundred words to do.

here are a couple of resources from armano himself that will start you off down the right path:

facebook's missed revenue

2009-03-04T15:10:00.000-08:00

today facebook revamped their fan pages, the promise being they will be more socially integrated. when fist launched, the fan pages were promised to be social and bring companies and brands more into the fold of people's networks where the sponsored groups stood outside. well that didn't really happen and they are evolving again to try and fulfill that promise.

this time they got it right. but their approach is foolish and will likely end up ruining the space.

this move, while a great opportunity for brands and companies, is another in a string of missteps and bad plays by facebook. let's set it up. facebook, while experiencing tremendous growth, is struggling to make money. a recent lawsuit against them revealed that their valuation has been significantly downgraded from what was previously thought and what microsoft bought a 1% stake in. bill and ballmer can't be very happy. facebook's struggles are around monetizing the ecosystem they've created and the economy is aggravating the situation as advertisers are vacillating to spend advertising dollars.

so what's the problem with the new fan pages? well, facebook again missed a huge opportunity to add revenue streams and make their business viable as a free, ad-supported platform. this isn't the first time they've stumbled in actually bringing in money and not just bleeding it.

remember applications? yeah, no one really uses them anymore. the opportunity they blew then was not charging developers and companies a fee for developing and listing them. instead, they opened it up to everyone and that lead to their demise. they became trite spam engines that people stopped using after their initial glow wore off. after the last site design overhaul, they were relegated to a place of far diminished presence and importance. i don't lay blame on the developers for creating crappy apps, but facebook for opening the floodgates and allowing crappy apps to proliferate. they needed to be the gatekeepers to ensure quality control and real value was there for users. without a vested interest (ie. revenue stream) they had no reason to protect the space and as such it was ruined.

then there's the ads themselves, the only revenue stream they have. they aren't making any strides to make those much more compelling or interesting. i mean, it's a tiny static picture and 135 characters. not very interesting or compelling. they were okay when they were in the news-feed, but are now relegated off to the side where they can be ignored much easier. they would argue their engagement ads are the answer, but those still live in a place not many people care about. want proof, look at declining CTR and CPMs. also the ads that appear on your profile page and elsewhere are very often of poor quality and carry messages that are little more than spam companies.

facebook connect could probably be a pay model as well, but they missed out on that too. and while we're on missteps, let's also mention their most recent debacle around their terms of service.

that brings us to the new facebook fan pages. what facebook has done is make these look and act exactly like a person's profile. a fan page can now do all the things we do and have those actions be visible to the fans in their news-feed. that's a powerful proposition. brands and companies now fully integrated into their fans social network.

it's ripe for abuse. brands need to be very conscious of how they use these new communication tools. it'll be very easy to over-use them and spam the fans. and it's open to everyone again to do as much as they want.

how could this be averted so the entire facebook ecosystem doesn't become infested with overzealous brands turning people off from even logging on? well a pay model of course. this would have the side effect of actually bringing in money to the company.

i'm thinking first a pay to play system where there is a yearly fee for companies to create fan pages. something in the neighborhood of $50K to $100K. this is fairly nominal for any company to enter the space which provides them with such a robust offering to communicate with their consumers and most ardent followers. it also serves to weed out those who would likely abuse it.

second, to protect the space from over-use and ensure that the people who are there aren't spammed by the brands and companies they are fans of. the revenue model is a pay-per-interaction fee. so every post, or photo added, or comment made, anything really, comes at some kind of fee so companies are smarter about using them.

we could try and pass on the operating expense to the users and make it a pay model, but we've all been trained to expect to use facebook for free. so it will be hard to make that change. so it falls on an ad supported model or more precisely an advertiser supported model.

i'm just fascinated that facebook can continue to stumble through their operations like this. mark zuckerberg is a smart guy, but he is not a smart businessman. he's not proving to be good at making smart moves to make his company viable. i'll be waiting to see how companies use this new space and how facebook could have to backtrack because of abuse.

your credit sucks

2009-02-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

apparently, you need to know your credit score - desperately. so a few pages browsed on the web in recent weeks would make you believe given the recent preponderance of credit score ads. that's only part of the problem. it seems we've taken a time warp back to 1995 when crappy online ads with flashy line art, blinking incessantly and generally looking like a 4th grader's attempt at making an ad for their daddy's company ruled the world. everything old is new again, and shoddy online ads have made a comeback.

here's a colossal collage of credit crap:

i guess i can't fault sites for accepting these ads. they are there to sell banner space and usually that's on a first come first serve basis. the credit score people were the first to the table, or maybe the only ones. you'd think that was untrue as the web was the one advertising vehicle everyone thought would weather this financial storm better than the rest, but the sheer volume of these ads has a different story to tell (something to be argued when numbers are available).

making a buck is one thing so you can be around when the dust settles on the recession/depression, but building a brand is quite another. i'm just going to put it out there: sites that accept these ads are destroying the advertising potential for everyone. and i mean for both sides of the ad game.

for advertisers, this just makes online ads even more of a turn-off for a site's audience and potential consumers. the few ruin it for the rest. ads become wallpaper even more and their impact lessens considerably. even their strength as branding vehicles erodes.

on the other side, the site itself, which is actually a brand that needs to be cultivated as any other. slowly these websites are compromising the quality of their brand and product. they are make it known that they have low standards and are in this for the revenue - value to consumers isn't a factor. that's a big miss. and it makes your site look ridiculous.

dare i say, websites have a responsibility to both their audience and advertisers - neither the site can survive without - to weed these types of ads out. it's not benefiting either. here's a handful of solutions to keep your sites at a high standard and not with a 'sell-out' plaque on it.'

offer discounts to higher grade advertisers to encourage them back in the market
reduce the number of ad units on the page. then each ad has more impact, position and effect. that and your site isn't junked up with meaningless ads
run house ads instead
bonus key clients more impressions
just run nothing, at least it will be cleaner

defending a-rod

2009-02-10T16:38:00.000-08:00

alex rodriguez came clean yesterday on the allegations of steroid use. the right move for a bad decision. but does it matter? can he ever escape this? is his career tarnished forever?

i'll admit, when the mitchell report came out, or even before when bonds was under constant scrutiny for steroid use, i thought a-rod was exempt. i felt that he was one player who was above performance enhancing drugs. he's a pure talent, and still is. i guess jose canseco got it right a while back when he implicated rodriguez, but there was no evidence and no further scrutiny. i dismissed that as just more of canseco's wild accusations to cling to what little fame he had left. sorry i doubted you jose. you gave me no reason to, ever.

i'm in the camp to say that 3 years of performance enhancing drug use does not tarnish rodriguez's career. he is a natural talent. he was productive and a star before he took p.e.d.'s and was the same afterwards. look at his stats and he was just as productive prior to and after his steroid years. you could argue that without them he would have been just as effective. it's negligible. doesn't make it right that he took them, albeit under a cloud of non-policy by mlb, just that he shouldn't be forever villainized for his actions. if you want, when his career is done, wipe those 3 years from the record and he is still hall of fame worthy, and rightly considered one of the best ever.

the way rodriguez has played this out is that right way. he's admitting his actions, incurring the wrath, and seeking forgiveness from the court of public opinion. this is something no other player has done. not mcgwire, who refused to talk about it. not bonds, who says he never knowingly took them. not clemens or palmeiro who fervently deny it. he is trying to make it right. he's admitted fault, he's accepted his errors, and he will live with how he is going to be perceived. that shows a lot of strength of chracter. not just to come clean, but to have stopped using when he did.

i genuinely believe he is sorry for his actions and regrets them (some will say regret getting caught). he is human, and exercised poor judgement. rodriguez was sincere, and made himself accountable. he should be forgiven. if not forgiven, then not have his entire career diminished for it.

still there's three issues with all this which don't sit right with me.
1) not for public knowledge
the drug tests that led to this outing were supposed to be anonymous, sealed by court order. how did these test results get out, especially when the tests themselves and the players names were never supposed to be linked and lived in separate databases? i'm not trying to justify the actions of any of those 104 players, but they had a right to have this information protected.

the point is, steroid use was rampant and mlb was trying to stop it. the testing survey was done to gauge just how pervasive it is in order to establish rules and disciplinary actions. it was accepted practice and rodriguez, along with scores of others, were part of it because no rules were in place to govern it. good judgement and morality aside, that was the era these players were in and it was common practice. with all the influences (manager, trainers, owners, agents, etc) it was not hard to play the game.

the effect all this is having is to sling more shit at baseball and generally increase the ire around the sport. i don't think that's needed. mlb needs to reconcile with it's fans and people in general and this is a step backwards form that. i'm not saying brush it under the carpet, but the lessons have been learned, the course is correcting, let's move forward.

2) the faultless mlb
mlb has, and rightly so, only been praised for cleaning up the sport, while not being accountable or admonished for their role in the 'steroid era.' it was their inaction, non-policy, and general state of denial that led to an atmosphere where performance enhancing drugs were able to be as epidemic as they were. don't just tear the players down when you can't look in the mirror and accept your role in this situation, mlb. they too easily throw their players, their product mind you, under the bus while throwing their hands up and saying 'don't look at me.'

superbowl ads - fading away

2009-02-02T17:06:00.000-08:00

is the superbowl still the cultural beacon for advertising anymore? i vote no.

because i live in canada, we don't get the privilege of seeing the real superbowl ads as they happen. i mean we broadcast the superbowl and try to parade our ads on it, but there isn't the fanfare, novelty and expense associated in doing so. thankfully the internet has made this cultural fascination more accessible. and therein lies why i don't think the superbowl is much more than the game itself anymore. we as marketers are losing the one day where advertising is elevated to a cultural phenomenon, spectacle and curiosity for all the masses to stand up and take notice of our great work. the day where everyday folk put aside their trite statements of "i don't pay attention to ads" and embrace the brandsell as entertainment.

so the day after the superbowl i mosey over to whatever site is making a big stink about the superbowl ads so that i can see for myself. but ever since the first media rumblings of the superbowl bubbled up in the media this year and last, it nagged at me that it's just not the same anymore. the game has changed.

not the destination it was
no longer do we accept content channels making destination viewing. a fixed time and channel for content doesn't hold the viewing audience hostage with the emergence of pvr's, torrents, online video and quicker to market dvd's. the new distribution systems make it so that we are not subject to someone else's schedule, network or otherwise.

we're not beholden to one day of the year anymore to see great work. it's out there, everywhere. brand produced or user generated. hours after the superbowl (or sooner), every ad was already circulating around the internet. by the following day, every media outlet and every joe with a recording device and the ability to encode it as online video has uploaded all the commercials and everyone else has watched them online.

so it doesn't need the big day. if advertisers created great ads and used non-broadcast distribution methods, the pickup is the same. with greater access it becomes less forced on the consumer and more in keeping with their preference to view as they choose. consumers can be more selective and an ad in the superbowl may not be that place anymore. advertisers lose the passive 'push' messaging, but in online get a more valuable engaged audience.

heightened expectations
even more of a factor than a populace consuming on their own terms is the content of the ads themselves. the superbowl used to be the meeting place where the best, funniest, most creative, wacky, random, highly entertaining and cool ads came to show off. that is a bygone time. television, even the superbowl, has been relegated to second fiddle in an internet video era where it is not only the channel of choice, but the new bastion of all that is great in video, ads or otherwise.

with access to the long tail of video content, consumer appetite has changed in what is truly breakthrough and salient with them. they still want the polish of it all, but have a very altered notion of what makes a great 30 second ad. they have been trained to want edgier, more interesting, more entertaining, more emotive, less branded and sell-y type ads. they have gravitated toward the subversive, where the brand is minimized, but the impact is amplified.

when we can take to the web and watch great work from every corner of the world, a tv spot faces greater obstacles to relevance and effect on the consumer. a place where broadcast standards don't apply and the risk/reward ratio is not as severe.

social currency
we still think of superbowl ads as something to be placed on a mantle and revered. truth is, they don't carry the same social currency as before. the ads within are brand messages, directed at viewers en masse, that through media investment, word of mouth can be engineered. the tectonic plates of consumer discussion have shifted though with the emergence of efficient and open distribution methods, and the democratization of content production. consumers are now in control of engineering what breaks through the din of all the brand messages in the media world.

only difference has been that somehow we equated a spot in the superbowl to mean it's going to be a great ad. that's lazy marketing because not all superbowl ads are great and not all superbowl viewers are your intended audience. these spots got attention because they were in the superbowl, not necessarily by virtue of their greatness. with the rise of alternative ways of viewing and a wider assortment of stuff to consume, truly great creative shines and becomes culturally significant because it's not being pushed on us, but because it talk worthy.

there is also how we share these ads and bring them into our own social fold. before we could only talk about them around a water cooler, having seen it just the one time. with the internet, we can go back to it, we can physically share it, we can comment on it, we can elevate it or diminish it in many places. it takes on a life of its own because it lives on, not dying after its lone airing.

the cost equation
every second of advertising in the superbowl costs $100,000. add to that the cost of making the ad, which often comes at a premium because of the special occasion and creative types pulling out the big guns. that's a lot to pay for something that has every chance to be a big success as it does to be a colossal failure. it also runs the risk of just being mediocre and lost in the shuffle. and quite often, that spot airs just the once, making it a pricey one-off.

compare that to online distribution methods. the likelihood of breaking out and having a real impact are just as strong and for 100% less the cost of a superbowl ad. i won't pretend that you can get it for $0, but technically you could. so for significantly less in cost you can put it in the consumer's hand, who always had the final say in just how far an ad proliferated the cultural consciousness.

the timing of it all
as i elaborated already on the distribution side of things, we are at a point where we don't need the big event anymore to debut a new spot. things move faster now and we can constantly innovate our approaches and iterate our creative faster. we can access our consumers quicker and take the great thing we built and release it to the world for accelerated return on our efforts. we can be more nimble in responding to successes and failures. the internet is as big a seeding ground for our efforts on an ongoing basis than any one day or game. the potential for groundswell and expansion on a continual basis is enormous.

of course this won't be the last year of a big commotion being made of the superbowl ads. but i think it will slowly erode and in the not too distant future almost cease to be a talking point anymore. it will be broadcast, it will have ads, but won't have the same fuss about it.

begrudging biz books

2009-01-27T18:34:00.000-08:00

i've been on a bit of a business book binge (also thought leadership books, but that would ruin the alliteration) for the last little bit and one thing has become abundantly clear - they all drown themselves in case studies. so much so, i was able to power through the books at speed because i was just glossing over the painful articulation of one microcosm of an example.

i get why a case study can be good, i do. it's a real world example of one's premise or idea in action. it's there to lend credibility to what is being put forth. this is more about fewer case studies than getting rid of them altogether. then again, i wouldn't be mourning their altogether elimination.

you see, someone else's success story (or failure for that matter) is their own. each case study is comprised of a completely unique set of circumstances and personalities. there is only so much of that which lends itself to any of the reader's situation. it's great to hear about people applying the ideas postulated but copying it does not a success make. there's nothing to say that a similar application of the idea has bearing on any other situation. so where exactly is the value?

some will point to credibility. that the idea has needs to prove itself, right or wrong, to have validity. i don't totally buy that. the reason being because the idea gains its credibility by way of the author.

the book exists because of a singular, powerful, unique thought from a leader in the field who has a vision to share. they are being published because they are respected, their opinion carries weight and their notion is truly original, innovative or inspiring. shouldn't that be enough? are they so insecure with their premise that they need to find examples up the wazoo to verify it is correct or exists at all? is it publisher imposed? does the audience really clamor for them that much? is that their own insecurity in adopting an idea that they can't tread where others haven't forged a path already?

i say, if the idea is powerful, then put it out there and the world will decide. it seems ingenuine that someone will do something not because they believe what they are reading, but because someone else has done it. if it's right, or makes sense, or is logical then it should be pursued. right isn't someone else's version of right. making sense isn't how someone else made sense of the idea and brought it to life. and well, not everyone follows the same logic.

all said, the books are theories. they convey an abstract idea that isn't proved in any one way. the practical side of the equation is too unique for each acting upon it. as a marketer of beer, my reading a case study about a shoe marketer has little application to me. i'm glad they did well, but how they did it was of no value to me because i live in a different universe. (i'm not sure if that last part was a case study to prove my point thus making me a hypocrite. it's too meta to think about)

so authors, focus on writing your ideas and sharing them, not on showing they can be right. unless you get paid by the word, then i vote for putting the idea out there and saving some time (and precious trees) for people to actually take that idea and run with it.

when to not say yes to the vet

2009-01-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

this weekend has been a tough one for us. one of our rabbits fell seriously ill with fluid in his chest and an abscess in his stomach. he's doing much better now (not quite out of the woods though) after some great care by 3 different vets. but it got me thinking about the dollars and cents of veterinary care.

we don't have pet insurance, virtually no one does. i read a stat that only 0.4% of all cats and dogs in the u.s. are insured by their owners. that is amazingly low. i thought it was maybe between 5% and 10%. compare that to human insurance in the u.s. which is around 82% (it's the only fair comparison given our universl health care in canada - the point being that if we didn't have socialized healthcare here, the percentages would likely be similar). so how much do we really love our pet companions? what is the price tag we have on them? apparently it's around $576 before euthanization becomes a much more viable option to further treatment according to caa.

pet insurance aside, what of company benefits. do any of them include pets? i seriously doubt it (mine doesn't), even though they are a part of the family and the rest of them get coverage. my pets wellbeing weighs on me as my people family would and that affects my work life and my financial life that the rest of my benefits are there to assuage in the event of health issues.

why can't they be included? there's a lot of crap in benefit packages we don't ever use. $500 in massage that i'll never use i'd rather have available to put toward vet bills. i won't go through it line by line, but there's lot sof things i don't need or won't use that would easily make up for what i'd spend or use in pet insurance. not to take this post of track, but i'd love to see an openness and flexibility in benfit packages that a person could tailor to themselves and their situation, especially as it pertains to pets.

more than anything, i struggle with the dynamic people and their pets, especially when it comes down to medical care and the associated costs. on one side, i can see how there's a point where people can decide that the equaion doesn't balance and it doesn't make sense. it's a very real possibility some times. or that they simply don't have the money to give their pet that care. on the flip side, pets are just as much a part of people's lives and there is deep love people have for them. we wouldn't question it were a person on the operating table, so why do we for a pet?

i'll openly grant that it's easier to let a pet go than it is to do the same for a person. people are of a peer level and a love bond based on more levels than an animal is capable of. but that doesn't make them disposable. i hope not. that's a little shameful, though, isn't it? to think that we love animals less or in another way that somehow isn't equal. why are animals more replaceable than humans?

it's morality vs. economic. in the state of our world, we know that those two have a lot of difficulty co-existing in a positively genuine way. it's not easy.

did we consider euthanization? no, we didn't. he was still treatable and as long as that's the case, with a good outlook post-treatment, then i'm all for it. it's just money, right? so i have a little debt. so i work part time for 2-3 months to pay it off. it's worth it for me. he brings a lot of joy in my life and $3,000 is worth it for him to still be around for the rest of his life to live, be a happy rabbit and me to have his companionship.

i'm not saying i'm a saint here. sure, i looked at the cost and had my brief doubts on whether it was worth it. i felt ashamed for doing so, but it happened. that's the dilemma with all this - why did i question it? i wasn't ready to say goodbye. there will be a time when i am more ready and feel that it is his time. when he won't be able to live a quality life, when he doesn't have a good chance of making it through, when he's lived for a long time, and when i can put my own selfishness of wanting him around aside for his own well being and stem any suffering.

how easily we forgot about our own selfishness in this whole mater. and it's on both sides. selfishness for our money and the impact a drain will have on our lives. then selfishness of wanting to keep them around for ourselves. how do we resolve this?

i know i'm not being as clear as i'd like. it's hard to express such esoteric quandires where emotion is so heavily involved. i am having a hard time reconciling this all myself.

weighing in on the death of newspapers

2009-01-11T12:38:00.000-08:00

in today's weekly blog reading catch-up, i perused numerous stories on the death of newspapers and thought i'd weigh-in myself as it's something i've been conceptualizing since college when i wrote a thesis paper on their death, or evolution as it really should be. i thought it was a good time to revisit it and update with some of the new information.

do i want newspapers to die? yes, in their current incarnation i do, but not entirely. why not entirely? well it's simple, journalism in that form still has a very important place in the fabric of society. citizen journalists (ie. bloggers) are one thing, but the world still needs, as atlantic magazine puts it:

... there’s no online substitute for institutions that can marshal years of well-developed sourcing and reporting experience—not to mention the resources to, say, send journalists leapfrogging between Mumbai and Islamabad to decode the complexities of the India-Pakistan conflict.

newspapers have arrived at this point solely by virtue of intense hubris in their value and business model, which hasn't changed in 100 years. while keeping their core printed versions status quo, they simply layered on website versions with little apparent thought to changing the costlier side of the business, that was really in danger.

to distill it down, the business model of newspapers is in disseminating information to the masses. what i'm about to say isn't new, but important to the discussion to elaborate later. the main problem with the printed business model is the old 24 hour news cycle which doesn't exist anymore. news is a constant stream now and expected to be by the viewing public. immediacy is key and that doesn't happen with a product that has to lock in their news the previous afternoon, get printed and shipped in the wee hours of the morning. newspaper people need to get over that, and should have a decade ago.

while immediacy is paramount in the news business, the quality of journalism is what should continue to be the hallmark and still has a place in society and media today. it's melding the two into a new product which better meets consumer needs that is their future.

so what did i posit in 2000 as a possible and viable solution? i needn't look much further than my geek side and star trek: the next generation. no, not phasers to wipe out the arrogant old guard newspaper barons, but the data padds (yes, i'm spelling it right).

i'm not saying this is a revolutionary thought, but back then i did think it was forward thinking, but now well outside of the dream phase.

already we have the amazon kindle and a host of other reading devices. some papers even have editions available for it like the new york times. it's a step, but why did they wait for someone else to do it? why did they make their content fit someone else's platform rather than creating their own? newspapers have always created the vehicle for their content delivery, right?

beyond the kindle, here's a couple other emerging technologies that are options as well. forbes took the leap with this new e-ink as a disposable version, so certainly there is a reusable option.

granted, it's easy in hindsight, with the benefit of seeing where technology took us, to see what newspapers could have done. but that's the point, right? these things didn't happen over night, and with a little foresight, could have been tapped into earlier. there are smarter people than myself and if it occurred to me nearly 10 years ago, surely it must have for someone else too.

we are just seeing this technology emerge now because scientists are developing it to find applications for it. had newspapers stepped in to lend some of their considerable resources (although greatly diminished as of late, but there was money years ago) for development with a specific purpose, it's quite likely that it would have come faster. they could already be in market with some derivation of this and we wouldn't be having all these conversations about their demise.

now it's 2009 and we have iphones, other smartphones, kindles, and other personal digital devices. it's infinitely more difficult now to break into the handheld space and it becomes harder to ask consumers to adopt yet another device. if they were leaders though, there wouldn't be this added hurdle. although, with a quality, low cost device, there is still plenty of room for consumer uptake.

what of cost? i would think it'd have to be free, but as this technology continues to come down in price, it becomes much more fiscally prudent. especially if you can lock people into subscriptions to pay the device costs over time. it works for cell phones.

then there's what makes the whole newspaper world go round, advertising. that's right editors, it's not the purity of news reporting, it's the dirty world of selling things. sorry. here lies a tremendous amount of opportunity for marketers to capitalize on that printed publicaitons fall on their face. how so? glad you asked:

interactivity - the ads in the space would no longer be static and thus more engaging
measurement - being able to directly and far more precisely understand the audience and actual readership
linkable - simply being able to click through to an advertiser is a huge boon
current - messages no longer have to be expensively developed and locked in far in advance
lower cost - newspapers are notoriously high in cost because the printing and distribution is passed on to the advertiser, not the reader, and this is a far less expensive delivery system

it probably sounds like i'm oversimplifying this, but it doesn't seem that far of a stretch to me. pretty logical, really. anything's better than death, right? for all their smarts in delivering a superior information product, they certainly are myopic of their own predicament.

i feel compelled to lastly address people's long standing adherence to the notion that the tactile nature of newspapers (and any printed medium) is of benefit to people and something they are willing to give up. i guess it's true so long as people like, cumbersome sized pages, low quality paper, rub-off ink and lower production quality imagery (ie. blurry or just b&w). this is just another old school belief. newspapers are failing because young people are not adopting due to their needs not being met by newspapers. that attitude doesn't resonate with them. they have more important things to worry about than feeling newsprint between their fingers.

update: here's an article that makes it pretty clear this model could succeed.

the more commercial guitar hero

2009-01-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

i picked up the guitar hero world tour set for our wii over the holidays. great addition to the series, but one that was clearly marked with it's commercial success. of course i'm talking about all the advertising that is very visible throughout.

the first instance is as soon as you open the case, a coupon from kfc.

then throughout the gameplay you're peppered with a number of other placements like the coke and kfc bucket below.

as someone in advertising, these efforts are all good in my book. video games have emerged as a mainstream vehicle, whose viability as a new medium is very clear. i say all this with one caveat of course, and that's relevance. there's a place for everything and marketers have to find the right ones or else it's wasted money and consumer dissonance.

the examples above are well suited, in my mind, to the environment you find them in. kudos to those companies, they did a good job. but then there's the flops. also featured in the game is a prominent sign for at&t (i wish i could get a picture to show you, but there's not a still frame to take something of quality). i don't see what place it has in a video game about rock and roll. there's a disconnect, and it's not integrated within the game or story as the others.

it's our responsibility as marketers and agencies to find appropriate venues for our products to be placed. just because it is a hot game, on an emerging platform doesn't mean we should get involved blindly because on paper i makes sense to form some, even loose association. sure there's eyeballs, but what's the quality of your implementation?

i see three main guardrails we all should adhere to so we don't ruin the space and make our efforts just more wallpaper.

relevance: does the product or service have a legitimate place within the theme or story of the game? does it fit environmentally?
value: does it enhance the the user's experience and give them something they might actually want?
integration: is the product or service inserted in a way that is thoughtful and not just slapped on?

there's so much opportunity in video games that has yet to be realized, but just jumping to it without thinking hard about how we do it isn't a recipe for success. it is a highly immersive and interactive medium and that is where success lies. by it's very nature, the audience is ripe, but only if it's handled with care because it's also very personal.

auto bailout bust

2008-12-15T16:49:00.000-08:00

so the auto industry bailout didn't get through congress. finally a little restraint from washington. although $14 billion in restraint is really nothing compared to $700 billion in non-restraint. though i would have liked the bill to have failed on lacking fiscal responsibility, i know it was pro-union backers that caused it to fail. the message i wished this sent was letting everyone know that the government is not here for handouts and the populace is not the benefactors of troubled companies.

the one part of the auto bailout that i supported was in saving the hundreds of thousands of direct jobs (and million indirect jobs) from being lost because of a few irresponsible executives. much like the financial bailout, the part of that i supported was not putting people out because of questionable actions by senior management. the many should not have to suffer for the sins of the few and such en masse failings are problematic. i have no problem with people losing their mortgages or jobs in the normal course of things, but when it happens instantaneously in such large quantities, then that impact is more than a ripple in the ocean.

what would have been a better option is not putting money back into businesses with inferior products, faulty decision making and legacy systems/contracts/obligations rather set aside a fund for the employees when the big three eventual file for bankruptcy. in all likelihood, the big three will, in some form, live on post-bankruptcy and those jobs will be available again. the bailout should be to support those unfortunate folks put out by incompetent companies and not prop up those companies.

yes it's socialist and i wouldn't call myself as such, but it's more logical than giving it to bad companies who've shown little responsibility in a storm brewing for decades. the fund would be run by some kind of trust designed to support auto worker families, providing them a stable and reasonable income (ie. not to the excessive levels of union wages) until the company they worked for is back up and running. the key is that in this eventuality, there are guarantees and the companies work toward operations again with the same employees in mind.

i liken the whole situation to a junkie. a bailout is just enabling them further. junkies need to hit rock bottom and staving off death with free money doesn't allow you to hit rock bottom, it's just another hit. junkies won't change until there is no other option and detroit won't change either if they are allowed to continue with their ways.

to me, bankruptcy is the only option. a controlled, assured bankruptcy (if there is one) is the only future that will make real change. this will allow them to shed management who have led these companies to their current state, foster more innovation, collapse the crippling unions, and repair their ailing bank accounts. sure, i make it sound simple, and i know it's not. but drastic measures, that doesn't include the term bailout, is just realism.

will this rejection force the bankruptcy issue or will it spur on a diametric shift in their thinking to turn it around? i don't know, but it needs to be extreme.

canadian undemocracy

2008-12-02T05:29:00.000-08:00

what i've born witness to in the past few days on parliament hill amounts to an all out assault on democracy. that's right, i said it. aren't the people supposed to decide the fate of a government in a democracy and not the government officials themselves? the powerplay that stephane dion, jack layton and whoever the leader of the irrelevant bloc quebecois party is, should be admonished for their actions.

in the last sham of an election, the people made a decision. there is no right or wrong one when it comes to government, it is simply the will of the populace. in it, they elected a conservative minority government, helmed by stephen harper. canadians made it very clear where the likes of the liberals, ndp and bloc quebecois stood, and it wasn't in power. the three musketeers are now telling all canadians that they were wrong in how they voted and it's their responsibility to make the right decision for them. there's something wrong in that.

i'm not siding with any party on this issue. i'm not saying who or what party or parties will be a better leadership for this country. i'm siding with the people and democracy. the people who spoke with their vote and are now facing that vote being overturned. with democracy that strictly lets the people decide the fate of our government. this is a coup d'etat thinly veiled behind a democratic banner. one where power hungry politicians are trying to use the system for their own gain and for their own perceptions of what is better for the country when it wasn't their place to decide.

if this was always their intention, which it seems it was, then they should have been upfront with voters during the election. now they are cheating those voters and subversing the democratic process we have in this country. i liken this whole situation to a child throwing a tantrum because they didn't get what they wanted. only it's three children in this case.

if the governor general has the final say in this matter, hopefully she has enough sense about her to dismiss this coalition. this is bad for the country and bad for democracy.

shiny new object syndrome in marketing

2008-11-24T19:31:00.000-08:00

there's a phrase that has come to rise in the last while that goes like this: shiny new object syndrome. i don't know who coined it, but the saying started in tech circles, most notably the journalism side of things where writers rapidly move from covering one new thing to the next. they shower adoration upon a new gadget, or application and as quickly as they vociferously touted it, they would put it aside to bolster whatever was new, never really exploring in depth what any one thing in particular was capable of (features) or why people should use it (benefits).

shiny new object syndrome.

for the most part, SNOS has exhibited itself on the application front, specifically on the social media front. there's too many to count or keep track of that have fallen victim to this plague. the cycle goes that they launch, get a lot of media attention, there's some consumer uptake, and as quickly as they came to rise they seem to escape the popular consciousness. both media and consumers.

as of late, i'm seeing this model of adopting and disposing of things enter into the marketing world. of course it's due to the barrage of new media opportunities, web based or hardware based, that have entered the market in the last few years. and the malaise parallels that of the media coverage; we find them, we activate them, then we drop them.

all of us are to blame for this, myself included. we try to lead our consumers, or at least keep pace with them, so we jump to whatever they jump to. we as agencies make the recommendations and marketers themselves demand it. we keep aiming to be innovative and so we move on.

but there's one thing we forget - users don't stop what they started doing. they invest a lot of time and effort into their presence there. people haven't stopped using facebook, or myspace for that matter despite slowed growth and and plateaued usage. and think of how many people still have and use a hotmail account because that's the place they started. none of these are new anymore, but used just the same. in that regard, these are just as valuable places as all the shiny new ones. in fact, they may warrant more of our attention because they are proven (by still being alive) and our investment here would likely stand up. there's at least less risk our investment will be for not.

sure, there's the flash in the pan. we come charging out of the gate with that gets us noticed and some groundswell in our favor. but we have to also think of the longer life of the brand in these spaces. think about all the investment and all the equity you build into a property only to abandon it. consumers flock to us because of the value we provide. when we leave it fallow, we risk some consumer dissonance and in this powerful social age, it is too great a risk.

yes, there are temporary efforts that aren't sustainable. some efforts are in and out, but those need be efforts that are becoming of such an approach. but as it relates to the social media world and communities, there's no good reason why discontinuing efforts in this area is a good idea.

i'm not saying don't experiment. absolutely we should. it's about not abandoning what we start. seeing it through to it's real end. what that end is and when, i don't know. it just requires some thought about it rather than just dumping it. there's lots of great new things out there and there's room to give them a try, but where there is uptake and significance, keeping it up. we need to persevere to fully realize the potential of our presence in these spaces and get from our consumers what we desire.

p&g not sure about marketers in social media

2008-11-18T20:12:00.000-08:00

in today's AdAge, the general manager-interactive marketing at p&g, scott mcconnell, pontificated that brands don't belong in social media, pointing to the difficulty these sites have had in monetizing their spaces. a couple of his points i took objection to and thought that mcconnell was off on his basis.

the easiest way for me to assess this is to go through the article top to bottom.

what in heaven's name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?...
... they were trying to talk to somebody. so it just seems a bit arrogant. ... we hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.

the basic premise that this space is for consumers to have conversations (namely breaking up with their girlfriend - which is dubious to start with) and that brands don't have a place in that kind of environment is erroneous. consumers are having conversations about brands, branded content (ie. commercials), and how brands fit in their lives. granted, this probably doesn't happen as much as we'd like, but gentle pushes and good reasons to want to talk about our brands i don't see as problematic. yes, the main thing about facebook is for consumers to interact with each other (talking, sharing, etc), but it's certainly not exclusionary to brands.

to say that we hijack their conversations is completely unfounded. in no way do brands become associated with the personal dialogue of people on facebook. the only conversations our presence and our media become associated with are those of the community doing something with the brand itself and that is completely legitimate to want to capitalize on and promote. and the news-feed stories those propagate do not take over user conversations, just add new ones.

so the targeting is fantastic. you can do really amazing things. but i'm not so sure i want to be targeted like that. ... i don't think everything every consumer says to someone else and writes down is somehow monetizable by the media industry.

it is folly to say that he doesn't want to see highly targeted ads and thusly imply that other consumers don't want to as well. increasing ad relevance is a much better scenario for consumers and one that i think they'd actually appreciate. why do i want to see feminine hygiene products as it's completely irrelevant to me? i will ignore it and be left with a negative feeling about a brand or media channel.

however, if an ad appeared that met a certain specific needs, or was of high interest to me, consumers would pay attention, be more likely to respond and have a better feeling about the brand as it fulfilled something missing in my life. at the end of the day, there is consumer acceptance to seeing the ads there because they get that in order for the space to be a free service, it has to be ad supported. so if they have to see something, it might as well be appropriate.

as for our right as marketers to tap into consumer conversations and interests to target ads, i would bet that p&g puts money in search. that more or less taps into people's interests to target ads to them or in gmail tapping into keywords within to serve relevant ads. what's the difference there than in facebook or other social media spaces.

mcconell went on to say that marketers should not abandon the space entirely, and that there are potentially valuable vehicles for advertisers such as applications. this is a somewhat outdated viewpoint as facebook has severely curtailed their visibility. you have to have something really powerful to break through the wall Facebook has put them behind (literally and figuratively). it's a huge challenge that only very few brands could hope to accomplish.

they held promise when they were launched and facebook took the wrong approach and that ruined applications. facebook let anyone and everyone make their own applications and didn't vet any of them or put a pay model in place to launch them. this completely ruined the space as it was flooded with useless and invasive applications and they had to correct it. that correction was the redesign and it devalued them significantly. so to believe that applications are the promised land is a hard pill to swallow.

all in all, i find the article and his viewpoints showed a lack of understanding about the value of the social media space and how brands in fact DO belong there. it's a fine line and marketers have to approach cautiously. but it's rich and valuable territory if they can get it right.

twittersquatting

2008-11-08T19:50:00.000-08:00

remember in the early days of the web (crica 1995) opportunistic schemers would buy up url's in the hopes to cash in on other people's trademarks only to have a short boon before it got litigious and not worthwhile? looks like there are still some who think this model is viable to this day, just in different shapes.

when i was recently setting up my slingbox, i ran into some tech issues. having looked at their website and not finding a solution, i sought other channels, one being twitter. i followed a thought that since dell and comcast had a few customer service reps on twitter, maybe more companies were following suit.

so i searched twitter for 'slingbox' and came across this:

now people are squatting on twitter names, much like they did domain names. did no one learn? one nuance though to the whole thing that will prove this to be not as easy a task to ameliorate: twitter is a free service. the trail is a lot easier to follow when someone pays like they did with domains. it could also be argued that twitter assumes people's 'handles' or 'nicknames' which may not be seen as a trademark for the companies like a domain would be.

there's also the matter of whether companies care. twitter is still very small, and only has a cult following right now. no one knows how mainstream it will get. do companies feel that twitter is a valuable signpost that they need to defend their brands in? if so, where does it end? How many variations of their namesakes can they snatch up so others don't? i believe companies should protect their trademarks, but only up to a point. twitter is never going to be the destination point that a url would be. i believe twitter could be a valuable asset to a company, but there's many who likely don't feel that way.

i wish there was a simple reporting feature to twitter as this afront to intellectual property and branding sickened me. i hope twitter can suss these hacks out, and all like them. i did a few other searches to see what other companies are going to have to trot out their lawyers and slap these hacks with some kind of cease and desist order or shutdown their accounts.

here's a few examples of companies who are likely being squatted on (a random sampling of brand names i find as i peer around my immediate surroundings):
probable squatting
canon, linksys, chrysler, microsoft, adobe, apple, mcdonalds, warnermusic, ebay, coca cola, nike, budweiser, ikea, google, xm radio, vonage

definite squatting
playstation, xbox, samsung

tech splurge

2008-10-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

i've been on a bit of tech splurge lately. doled out some cash, spending a lot of time setting these devices up and trying to figure out how they will all fit into my life. here's a rundown of the recent acquisitions. this is by no means a review at any level of comprehensiveness, just how technology is enabling me.

netbook - acer aspire one

quick specs: intel atom running @ 1.6GHz, 512mb ram, 8 gig ssd hard drive, 8.9" screen, runs on linux lite, wi-fi enabled, 3 usb, 2 sd card readers, 3 hr battery life, webcam and loaded with all the open source productivity software you need.

i really fell in love with this device from the first time i saw it. super portable, yet fully functional. it's right in the middle of my smartphone and a laptop. i can't be that productive on the smartphone given the screen size and slower typing and navigation, but at the same time, the laptop was still a bit cumbersome and more intensive than a casual situation warranted. with the netbook, i feel at ease going to a cafe to drink and surf, or take on the subway for a little pre-work work.

where does it fit: right now it's opening up more situations that i want screen time, but before was always a pain to do with the laptop. now i can go to bed with my wife and catch up on my google reader without a bulky laptop on my chest or a huge screen shining in her face.

slingbox tv tuner

as if i needed to watch more tv. i first saw this device about 2 years ago when i previewed it at a digital conference. my initial thoughts were this is great for ex-pats who want a taste of the tv they're missing back home or heavy travellers to watch programming they're used to. neither situation terribly applicable to me so i kind of dismissed it. then i got one as a gift and took an about-face.

what i've come to love most about this is the ability to share it with all my friends. for nothing, i can point people to a piece of software to install and give them my profile info. from there, they too can enjoy live tv on their computer from anywhere.

where does it fit: mainly as background right now, especially for low involvement programming and the great company that tv provides. though i have a laptop, i still prefer to be desk based and the orientation of my laptop at the desk is not facing the tv. so this allows me to have the tv still in the background but without all the constant head craning.

linksys WRT610N wireless router with storagelink

now having a wireless router is nothing new to me, but i had to get this one in particular to help me build an inexpensive network. the key to this router for me is the storagelink. it allows you to plug in a usb hard drive, creating a network drive that all your computers can access. so now all my music, movies, pictures, files, etc sits on this hard drive (and not slowing down my computer) and accessible anywhere. and by anywhere, i mean i can access it over the internet to so i have all my stuff, where ever i am, on any computer.

sure i could have bought a server for a few thousand, but this cost me $170 for the router and $100 for a 500gb usb drive and i still would have had to by the router with the server to get wi-fi. yes, it's also super fast operating at 5ghz for all kinds of multi-media activity without stuttering.

where it fits: mostly already said it above, i'm trying to go completely digital, and completely accessible. this delivers on that really well and really inexpensively.

smartphone - samsung blackjack II

gone is the relic of a flip phone that used to have. in it's place a glorious and robust little smartphone i call jack. using windows mobile, this has a suite of programs to be all kinds of productive, manage my time and contacts, and even play some games. oh, the internet access on a reasonably sized screen isn't too bad either.

where it fits: obviously texting is a key component as i do a lot of that. so a full qwerty keypad makes that a lot easier. with a very small data plan i can access facebook and twitter anywhere to keep in touch. but the biggest reason for me is to have an easy way of jotting down notes, ideas, compiling lists, and genrally keeping track of data snippets.

so it's probably pretty apparent at this point that i'm a media junkie. the sum of all these parts is i'm taking in more information than ever. while all this technology allows me unequivocal access and unlimited data, it's the humanity of knowing when to stop, both in discovering new stuff and generally when to have other things in life.

olympic attitudes

2008-08-20T05:36:00.000-07:00

in the sporadic viewing and news reading on the olympics (can i write that? do i have the rights to?), it's become pretty clear to me the differences in the national pride exhibited by the nemesis nations of america and china that have emerged. it's subtle, but important.

china is a country on the brink. they've been shrouded in mystery for centuries and
they are trying to shed the negative images of communism, being a backward nation, oppression, poverty, and human rights abuses.

the u.s.a. is a nation built on pride. how they became a country, their unique democracy, their fight for autonomy, their treatsies on what it means to be an american and even a human, their personalities, and so much more has instilled within the country, and all it's citizenry, a national pride that is currently unmatched.

specifically on the olympics, it's pretty clear to me both nations approach.

china is trying to show the world up. they seem to be doing it less for the purity and power of sport and the excellence of themselves, but rather to show everyone that they are a power. to show that they can do everything any other country can, and better. that it isn't the athletes competing, it's china competing. the athletes are secondary to china exerting a kind of dominance, proving that the country belongs on every world stage.

the americans aren't doing it to establish their nation, they've already arrived. but even before they arrived, it wasn't about that. it was about themselves. not showing the world their greatness, but reinforcing in themselves they are great. american athletes do it for their country, and the people to bolster their own sense of pride. natuarlly this comes off as egotistical, but it's unintentional outward boastfulness. they do it for themselves, and sometimes that comes across as conceited to the world.

respect plays a large part in it. china appears to be demanding the respect while the u.s. is, and has always gone the route of earning it. athletes in both countries work just as hard but the impetus and goals are different. to china, it is a tool for them to exhibit perfection as one example of the country's ability to be THE world power. to the u.s., it harkens back to their roots. they wanted respect and fought hard for it, proved they deserved it (ie. american revolution).

i've definitely gotten the sense that to china, losing is not an option. imperfection is not an option. no one likes to lose or fail, but we are human and as alexander pope said "to err is human." although the athletes are the focus, but it's also everything else surrounding the olympics which china has controlled and contrived as a way of telling the world they belong. for me, having the mentality of using the olympics as an outlet for a superiority complex is a little misguided. in a way it's saber rattling. i'd go so far as to say they are like a baby throwing a tantrum in a pay-attention-to-me way.

how long is a piece of string?

2008-08-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

i'm reminded about a quote a college instructor of mine used with some regularity. she would say "how long is a piece of string?" when discussing research and information gathering. it's stuck with me through the years. lately it's come to mind with regularity as i've been reading a lot of blogs and other site feeds (around 50 or so regularly) these days.

what i've found with blog reading is just how long that piece of string can be. the goal of this post is encourage you to follow that piece of string. wherever it leads, and however far off the original topic you were reading.

blogs are inherently social (duh) and in having that quality creates a richer experience for readers. social not only in the sense of who reads, shares, and contributes (formally or commenting) but also in how it incorporates other locales and information sources on the internet, and points to them.

traditional media sources, web 1.0 sites included, don't have this quality. with them, it's generally read article and you're done. it goes against their models to include links, that would only take people away from their site. besides, they are the only news source for you, right? you don't need to go anywhere else. it's not in their interest to send you away and it robs you of a deeper understanding of the information you seek.

so what's following the piece of string? well, here's a typical saturday morning where i set out to do some reading online. i open up my google reader and pick one of the blogs, and an article i want to read. then i click on all the links in that article that i want to go deeper in and open them as new tabs in the browser. then on each of those pages, i open up links found there. wash, rinse, repeat for as long as i want to follow that piece of string.

in the end, you end up with not just a deeper understanding of your original interest, but likely quite a bit more on many related topics. not to sound corny, but it can be an interesting and rewarding journey. your eyes could be opened to something new.

keep the gas prices high

2008-07-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

i'm going to go on record here and say that the rising gas prices are a good thing. of course not on our wallets, but as it pertains to the environment. what these high gas prices should be teaching us is to be more environmentally conscious not just in the interest of saving a buck.

here's a few positive areas where a high gas price is beneficial:
1) the immediate scaling back of gasoline usage
2) the increased pressure to find alternative power sources
3) greater composition of more fuel efficient cars on the road
of course, the one downside is the cost, but there's a positive spin there. it will only train people to be smarter about their consumption and will hopefully translate to better usage habits in the future for themselves and their children as they learn from their parents.

another outcome should be a correction in the supply/demand curve, or so economists would have us believe. meaning a temporary hard time where we push down demand but pay a high price should result in lowered prices as supply catches up. provided that we continue on with our ways that allowed this shift to happen, the prices of goods and services derived of and delivered by oil products will eventually fall. but can we as humans learn those lessons and keep on course?

in the spirit of full disclosure, i only use the car to play golf on weekends and pick up groceries here and there. so yes, it's easier for me to take this pov, but i can also look at it objectively. if i did drive more, i can guarantee that i would be much more conscientious about my driving. for one, i'm a cheap ass, so it would suit me to cut down.

i realize it's not a popular position to take, but everyone has to make sacrifices to turn this around. sure we'd like to put the onus on those with the financial means to do so, but change has to come from everywhere and everyone. to only force the wealthy to make sacrifices is a) not the largest cross section of the population therefore change will only go so far and b) we all are responsible so we all need to contribute to the solution. i understand it hits the poorest hardest, but if they get smarter too, then we all win.

i read an article recently in macleans talking about the woes of the airline industry, primarily as a result of rising gas prices. while i hate the notion of the impact the changes airlines are making and their impact if i wanted to travel, they are all necessary and smart means to achieve an environmental end.

similarly, we've already seen the impact on the auto industry, namely in the sales plummeting of larger vehicles. sadly it took up to this year for people to finally break and say $1.30/litre is too much and give up their gas chugging suv's and stop buying new ones. sure, i don't like people losing their jobs, but to turn the environmental ship around, it means we might have to go through some hard times. no one said it would be easy.

there is one flaw in all this, and that is the intent to save the environment is missing in most people. it's just a happy byproduct, if they even realize that. in respect of gas prices, people are out to save money first. that's the next step, getting people to realize that the behaviors that they will have to adopt to save money on gas are behaviors that they should use to save the environment.

cigarette companies are advertising again

2008-07-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

in 1997, the tobacco act was passed in canada, regulating, in part, the 'promotion' of cigarettes through media vehicles. in section 22, the act stipulates guidelines by which tobacco companies can promote their products:

in publications delivered directly to an identified adult through the mail, or that have known adult readership of not less than 85%
in places where young people aren't permitted by law, such as bars
by highlighting actual brand characteristics or by providing factual information about the characteristics, availability or price of the product

it also stipulates what tobacco companies can not do in their promotion:

use lifestyle advertising featuring glamor, recreation, excitement, vitality, risk or daring, or other associations that might appeal to young persons
depict (in whole or in part) any tobacco product, or it's package or brand - or even any imagery that might evoke a product or brand
sponsor youth oriented activities or events
include the name of a tobacco product or manufacturer as part of the name of a permanent sports or cultural facility

so contrary to popular belief (i thought so as well), cigarette advertising isn't banned or illegal, just very difficult to do. but eleven years from this statue being enacted, cigarette companies have started to become active in advertising again.

i'd first seen these ads a few months ago, but wrote them off as anti-smoking ads by the government or some other agency dedicated to their elimination. you see, the ads were very simplistic and stripped down, nothing like the glory days of the marlboro man or joe camel. also, the ads seemed too generic and with such minimal branding, it looked to me like whoever was making the anti-smoking ads made the brand up because i don't know any of the cigarette brands featured (maybe because they aren't advertised and i don't smoke).

however, upon closer inspection, they are indeed cigarette ads. so far, i've noticed the ads in two magazines, and i feel the need to point out who they are: toronto life and time magazine. the reason i think they need pointing out (and if there were others, i'd point those out too) is a failing to their readership, and to their editorial dignity.

advertisements serve two purposes: 1)a revenue stream and 2)service and inform readers with appropriate and relevant ads. publications who run cigarette ads have failed their readers by doing so. they have sullied their pages to make money at the expense of their readership's health. their corporate citizenship is now staked on the irresponsibility of running advertisements for harmful products. in a time when pr means more than ever, magazines pandering to cigarette companies is a mistake waiting to be apologized for.

just because tobacco advertising isn't illegal, doesn't mean a magazine has to now run them. the law heavily restricted them in the first place with good reason. it was something everyone but cigarette manufacturers were behind and though we can advertise them, doesn't mean the underlying impetus behind it is lost or any less of a problem. a conscientious decision should be made factoring in all the negativity involved with no upside beyond revenue. but what does that translate to in your brand's perception?

shame on toronto life and other magazines who have accepted these ads to run. where is their moral compass pointing? are the readers better serviced because they can see cigarette ads? does this enhance their magazine and make it a better product? on the contrary. it points out that they are clearly on the side of making money above integrity, regardless of the source. are they that hard-up for money? they've survived for years without the tobacco revenue stream.

in the specific case of toronto life, who is supposed to be representative of this fair city and its denizens (albeit the upper class ones mainly), advertising cigarettes is in no way reflective of the community which has taken such severe measures to ban smoking to the level it has.

both magazines adhere to the 85% adult readership rule. still 15% (and likely higher) are kids and underage people who are going to be influenced by these ads. even if one started as a result, isn't that one too many? similarly with lapsed smokers, this doesn't help them stay smoke free. it only makes smoking seem more acceptable or legitimate since it's being advertised.

i realize the debate will always exist as to why cigarette ads are any different than say alcohol ads or fast food ones. it's a semi-valid stance if you ask me. while both those have their negative effects, they aren't unto themselves deadly (save for the few but very extreme cases where both used in such quantity and duration as to wreak havoc close to that of cigarettes). moderate intake of alcoholic beverages (namely wine, but beer as well) have proven to be beneficial and reasonable consumption of fast food is easily mitigated by activity and balanced diet otherwise. there is no mitigating cigarettes.

i don't want to lose sight that tobacco companies are any less in the wrong. after all, it was them who decided they wanted to start advertising again and whose money is fueling the morally inept decisions to run their ads. let us not forget the other culprit in this matter, the canadian government and provincial governments. for it is doing by not wholly banning cigarette advertising or cigarettes in general. again, money is at play as billions (nearly $7.1 billion in gov't fiscal year ending '06) are put into the government coffers from tobacco taxes. that's pretty substantial and i don't know how we would compensate for that otherwise, but the future medical needs of these people will certainly drain the government of more than the taxes levied on tobacco brought in. it's about making the tough and unpopular choices i guess.

i get that businesses exist to make money and magazines are no different. so where do we draw the line? is cigarettes that line? there is no upside to cigarettes. we wouldn't advertise and sell a cereal made of glass shards would we? i'd think a magazine would have a problem running that ad. what's the difference with cigarettes?

so what say you? have i taken an extreme moral high ground? is this not an issue?

no iPhones for you rogers

2008-07-08T17:19:00.000-07:00

a techcrunch article came across my twitter feed today with breaking news that apple is pulling the new 3g iPhones from their canadian stores because of rogers' (the sole canadian carrier) outlandish data plans. good on you apple.

not only is apple the leading innovator in technology but now has assumed the role of policeman, fighting against inaccessible wireless bytes. someone has to do it, especially here in canada where our data packages are worse than 3rd world countries. i knew it was bad, but that's appalling.

to give my own perspective and why i care so much is i'm paying $11/month for 2 lousy megabytes of data transfer with rogers. this effectively leaves me with little to do outside of the few sites that have a mobile version that is low bandwidth intensive. and god forbid i go over my measly amount for the wrath of incremental bandwidth will leave my bank account in a sorry state.

there's a few good stories coming out of this whole situation.

1) that companies listen to consumers and take impactful action in response. apple listened to all the people who petitioned for lower wireless rates to make buying an iphone actually be worthwhile for the functionality your purchasing and not have to sell your first born to do so.

2) this should cause wireless rates, especially data ones, to go down significantly. rogers lost a huge opportunity to build a lot of goodwill and cache in the market by being the sole iPhone carrier. so one of to possible scenarios will hopefully happen: rogers will have to lower their rates to get the iPhone back which will cause the other carriers to lower their rates to compete or one of the other carriers gets the iPhone and the rates they will charge to accommodate apple will result in industry-wide rate decreases.

3) deregulation? will this spur the crtc to eliminate the current 3 company oligarchy and open up the industry for the sake of competition and fair prices for consumers? let's hope so.

i'm still dumbfounded by how profoundly rogers bungled this launch. the opportunity they lost was tremendous. someone is surely going to get fired for this. someone should anyway. while they've suffered a pr nightmare and the brand has some serious repair work to do, if they can reconcile with apple, there won't be much in the way financial repercussions. why? because apple devotees will take their product wherever they can get it, however soon they can get it so they will still flock to rogers. if they ever do get to launch it. maybe the only outcome is their exclusivity won't be a long, but they'll still have lots of iPhoners locked in by then.

as readers of this blog (are there any?) know, i'm no apple fan boy. i do respect the company for what they have carved out as product makers, innovators and marketers, but i'm not going to line up for their wares. probably won't ever buy any of them (i do own an ipod but it was a gift). that they have the power and clout to affect major industry players in other countries is impressive though.

update - july 9th, 2008
rogers succumbs to customer pressure and lowers their data rates. but in a half-assed way. it's only a promotion offered to those who sign up before august 31st. this gets you 6 gigs a month for $30 where before $30 got you only 300 megs.

i still call bullshit because it doesn't solve the problem apple was really trying to get at, that of standard rates being astronomical. it's a band-aid solution so rogers can save face. what about those who buy an iPhone after that date? they get royally screwed.

gadget glut

2008-07-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

my intense anticipation for the new batman flick made me think how we're all becoming a little like batman. in what way, you ask? well, batman is known for his arsenal of crime fighting gadgets he totes around on his bat belt.

we too are becoming batman, only our growing array of gadgets are productivity, entertainment and communication ones. will the bat belt soon become a fashion necessity? the look has already started with the blackberry holsters so prevalent.

first off we have the gadgets themselves.

we have the phone, digital camera, ipod, earphones, video camera, usb key and sd memory card.

add to this the standard accouterments carried by all.

wallet, keys, change, sunglasses amongst other sundries.

all said, that's a lot of crap. for the most part this isn't a problem for women because they have their purses. and the purses in style these days being of luggage proportions can accommodate any number of devices and accessories without issue. but what options are available to us guys? short of a bat belt, how will all this be carried? fanny packs, man purse, cargo pants/shorts, shoulder bag, attache?

not all those options are either professional or very manly and some aren't practical. technology is supposed to make our lives easier, not more cumbersome.

as much as we've pushed technology forward to give us an all-in-one device (ie. smartphone) we still prefer the devices that service their niche area. not only that, smartphones are not within everyone's grasp. the camera on a smartphone doesn't offer us the same features and quality a regular digital camera does. while a smartphone can play music, our mp3 player gives us a better experience in sound, navigation and playability. smartphones are good, but not as good as we're accustomed to so they haven't fully replaced anything yet.

how do you carry your glut of gadgets? my vote is the shoulder bag, but a size larger that it can't be construed as a man purse. my general rule is that if it can hold legal paper, it isn't a purse. but that solves the problems on weekdays when i have a reason to lug that around. i don't have a good solution on weekends when i'm just out and about. i guess i just cram my pockets, but i feel a little to clunky when i do.

no more celebrity political endoresements

2008-06-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

a rash of celebrities have, in the past weeks, lent their names to the assumed candidates of the u.s. presidential election. the issue boils down to whether a celebrity has a responsibility to be politically active given their stature, or is their endorsement an abuse of their star power. i stand here today to lodge my objection to this practice as i don't think it's good for the voting public.

What first got me thinking about this was a quote from tom hanks:

i want barack obama to be the next president of our country. as an official celebrity, i know my endorsement has just made your mind up for you.

now, that's a pretty pompous statement to make. i wondered where he got the notion that he is that important to america and the american political scene? unfortunately, this is the sad reality of our celebrity crazed society. celebrities can make these statements and the underlying truth is not lost.

to this, i also read a more grounded approach from pete sampras:

i don't personally (get involved in politics). it's not my place to tell you whom to vote for, to take and political stand, to tell you what religion to believe in. i'm an athlete. i can influence certain things, but when i see other athletes and celebrities telling you whom to vote for, i actually get a bit offended.

it's not his place, nor is it tom hanks' place to tell you which way you should vote. endorsements are part of the political game, only they should be left to the politicians. they're best qualified to make judgments on other politicians, because it's their field. it's not a celebrity's.

sure, some celebs have more credibility than others (george clooney) and others have even gone on to enter the political theatre (reagan, ah-nold). then their are people who have none whatsoever (jessica simpson). in either case, these people can't truly understand the ins and outs of the political game because they aren't in it. so they have little qualification to direct people which way to vote.

where celebrities should be involved with politics is simply to use their influence, appeal, and ability in commanding an audience to move people not toward any particular politician, but simply toward the democratic process and to vote. celebrities need to remain politically neutral and use their position to encourage involvement in the system, to push them to seek out for themselves the knowledge to make a decision and to vote their own way. not the way the celebrity sees it. celebrities are an awareness medium, not an influential one. that's right, celebrities are a medium.

using your star power to promote education is far more productive to the political realm of society than promoting who you want to vote for. incite intelligent discourse and information gathering rather than stifling it by presenting one option, theirs.

i wish it weren't so that celebrities wielded so much power and influence over the populace. it's sad commentary on our society and culture that they do. if only that power could be channeled for something that serves us and the process all better.

the problem is information and it's two fold: 1) too many people are uninformed or misinformed and 2) there is too much information out there in our media-centric world and digital age. both may very well lead to the conclusion that it is simply easier to rely on a celebrity to choose for you.

how does liking someone as a celebrity equate to you sharing the same political ideals as them, so far as to cast a vote inline with them? how can celebrities feel good about leveraging their influence this way? and how can we as people feel good about not thinking for ourselves? of all the people you align yourself with, surely celebrities, with all their wealth, fame, entitlement and stature are the furthest from our own perspective having none of those things in the quantities they do.

blogging just to be creative

2008-06-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

chris brogan wrote a blog post today encouraging bloggers, podcasters, videographers, whatever that they should approach their content from the audience's mindset; namely, "what's in it for me?"

while i can accept that from a certain standpoint, i don't think it is universal. for many, the blog is a form of expression, much like an artist's painting, a musician's song or a director's movie. depending on your blog's objectives, the audience's role is different. the blog as art (a stretch?) is simply an outlet for the author's creative energy. the audience is secondary to simply expressing themselves.

painter's didn't paint for others (unless they were commissioned of course), but because there was a burning desire within them to do so. that was their talent, their skill, their passion, their outlet. same with creatives of all kinds. it's human to want to express ourselves, for ourselves.

the audience still gets something out of it, it's just not what drives the content. they get enjoyment, maybe some information or a viewpoint and conversations can happen around the piece, but the function is less about directly giving the audience something or making special efforts to accommodate that.

not that we should never give something back to the audience, but to make all our postings with that ideal doesn't seem entirely right. at the heart of blogging are people who are communicating their interests and passions, the audience comes later. so there is inherently something selfish about it. being creative seems like an okay kind of selfishness.

as chris himself states "we're wired to think as humans" with a "what's in it for me" attitude. the same must hold true for the producers as it is for the readers as we're all human.

the audience ultimately decides if there is something in it for them by choosing to return. there doesn't always need to be a key takeaway or a lesson learned or thought starter. there could be just a subjective, emotional response (ie. love it or hate it). both give the audience something, but different in its overtness and intent. especially if creativity was the impetus.

so i sign off with a question. do we as bloggers write to find an audience or do we write to an audience? do we write at an audience or for one?

time to cash in on your house?

2008-06-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

tonight we took a stroll around our neighborhood with a waffle bowl of dairy queen. all along our path was 'for sale sign' after 'for sale' sign. people are still speculating as to what state the real estate market is in. i take this as a clear indicator.

what i extrapolate in all these 'for sale' signs is people seeing the market go into decline very shortly and are getting out at a high point. maybe not the highest point, but definitely before all the profits they've passed up in the last couple of years evaporate. a lot of this might be the particular neighborhood or the types of houses, but directionally, it's pointing to something.

many of the houses that had a 'for sale' sign where older bungalows. houses, that for a good deal, could be torn down to make way for a bigger house and greater return on the property itself. there were other types of houses as well, but i think that goes to show it's not just one type of seller looking to get out. that it is a trend everyone is trying to capitalize on.

so whether the market is actually in decline or if this is going to perpetuate the decline, the way i'm seeing it is on the way down. i like it that way. i can't stand to see such an over-inflated market, that is highly unsustainable, and will leave a lot of people with huge losses on their homes. i don't like a reality of having to pay prices it's going to be difficult to re-coop in the future when you sell. i'll take my property at a lower cost so that i can easily get my money back, even in a market valley.

try some retention

2008-06-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

i'm not denying the importance of acquiring new customers as that equates to a higher baseline revenue stream for a company, but i've not understood why more efforts are not put against retaining existing customers. never are we made to feel more special to a company as the day we enter into their fold. after that, we're relegated to second class citizens, despite being the ones who fuel their ongoing revenues.

i will assume that there is some formula out there that asserts a new customer is more valuable than an existing one at the point of renewal. perhaps it's just as simple an equation for companies to say that we already got the existing customer's money, they're already invested in us and likely won't switch anyway, so who cares.

when you think about it, a new customer comes in and signs a contract much like an existing one would renew a contract. dollar value of the contract being equal, why is the importance on the acquisition and why is more effort made to seal that deal? take the case of the wireless category that spurred this post to life. in a situation where both a new and existing customer are signing up for the same three year contract, the plan fees and prospective monthly revenue to the company is identical. so why is it that the new customer gets their pick of all the phones, at significant discounts and other incentives to their monthly fees, yet the existing customer doesn't get all those phones to choose from and certainly not the discounts on them either, nor on the plan fees themselves?

we live in a what's-in-it-for-me society where incentives reign supreme. there isn't a lot of that on the side of customers renewing. however, continuing to be a new customer doesn't make a lot of sense either. sure there are some who wouldn't mind having a new phone number every 3 years, but for most, it's not a great option. same goes for other industries and services.

a company's approach to customers is universal; acquire them, and over the course of their term with you, maximize the revenue you can garner from each individual one. with this in mind, the customer should have the upper hand but you wouldn't know it. especially if the company has not yet recouped what they spent to acquire you. while it's not impossible to get comparable incentives to the new customer, you have to raise a stink to get it. this leaves the relationship contentious and opens the door to dissatisfaction and another company luring you away.

companies need to do more to keep their customers than send a direct mail piece every now and then, which ends up in the garbage anyway. we need to feel that we are valued by companies and for right or wrong, that often times comes down to when we're renewing. at that point when we have the opportunity to get out, it's not always apparent that a company wants us to stay. it's not enough to just thank us for the business as we hold our decision to stay in the same light as our decision to come to a company and that equation is heavily imbalanced.

multi-post #5: ken griffey jr, hillary clinton, jon lajoie

2008-06-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

ken griffey jr. joins the 600 club

i will join in the chorus of merited applause and congratulations, for one of the most deserved athletes in reaching such a hallowed achievement in the game of baseball, to you ken griffey jr.

i like so many others having been waiting for griffey to reach this milestone for far too long. it wasn't that long ago that grif was ahead of hank aaron's pace for breaking the home run record, but then real tragedy struck in the form of a string of injuries that only merciless baseball gods could inflict on one of their brightest stars ever. i hated watching kgj's career getting derailed by injuries for over three years straight. it pained me to watch such a talent be sidelined by seemingly freak injuries. i hated watching a star, who was still in his prime, become forgotten and irrelevant. that he has been able to return to the game and still produce is a testament to his prowess.

griffey sits 163 homers shy of owning the home run record, something that at age 38 seems too far out of his grasp. bonds hit 149 in the 5 years after he was 38 and aaron hit 82, playing another 4 years after his 38th. with those benchmarks and griffey's already ravaged body and declining production, reclaiming the hr record for the side of dignity and honesty is a pipe dream.

i'm reminded of an article on the onion sometime last year entitled "... we wish it were you hitting 756 home runs." while it is a satire site, the sentiment is abundantly clear. i can't think of anyone better that baseball or the public in general (me especially) would rather have as their home run king. someone who has remained a pure talent and never once linked to steroids or cheating of any kind in his career.

hillary's presedential prophecy

now that hillary clinton has officially given up her bid for president, i'm reminded of a small bit, from a small show that a small part of me wanted to see the irony of it coming true. the show was TekWar anyone remember that one? it was william shatner's brainchild that lasted 3 seasons ('94-'96), focused around a crime unit that was trying to rid the world of an extremely addictive drug called tek. you see, there was a little bit in the background of one episode where a tv report was mentioning something about "... president hillary clinton..."

meant to be just a slight against the then first lady and her domineering way, who would have thought it could actually be a reality. but when you so poorly run a election campaign and drive it into the ground from such a dominating start, the irony of it all can't catch up to you. i don't know why that little bit of inconsequentia has stayed with me for about 14 years, but it was so outlandish, that it did. and now it's just as outlandish as it was before hillary clinton ran for office.

jon lajoie - canada's hidden comedic gem

i don't know how i stumbled upon jon lajoie, but am happy i did. i don't rave about too many people so effusively, but in this case, i was so smitten by jon lajoie's comedic mind that i had to. i think it's because he does what i am unable to do. i love to write extremely crass songs and sing them for people, but my ditties so pale to the genius of jon lajoie it's embarrassing.

case in point, this is the song that sold it for me. its' sublimely funny, clever and creepy. do yourself a big favor and hop on over to youtube to see his body of work. there are no misses.

a call for clemency to us duffers

2008-05-31T11:32:00.000-07:00

i think us average joe duffers are a little too hard on ourselves. we don't shoot the score we want, we miss some putts, we don't hit the fairways, and we can't seem to stick our approach shots on the green. skill level or a factor of where we have to play? a combination of the two in my mind. i offer a modicum of relief we can all take to ease some of the pain in our shortcomings as golfers.

what i'm positing is that we don't have the luxuries pros do. sure, they have the problem of total yardage to worry about, but they have so much more terrain for forgiveness. look at what we usually have to play on. courses where the fairways are about as wide as a hallway and greens that have the diameter of a wading pool. contrast that with the broad expanses of a six lane highway for fairways and the lake sized span of greens the pga tour features.

okay, i exaggerate for effect, but it's pretty obvious. they have a lot more real estate to play on than we usually do. we are certainly not granted any forgiveness for even the slightest mishit to the left or right. not only is there more real estate to play on, but often times the way the golf course is laid out into the plot of land it has poses some interesting if not abnormal approaches.

not only just the width of the fairways or size of the greens, but general course conditions overall we unwittingly tolerate. i mean tee areas so hacked up you can't find even a small patch of grass for your tee. fairways that have been scorched by the sun so that they more closely resemble the cart path. greens that are a patchwork of barren areas and unrepaired divots. throw in the mix the usual proximity to a well-traveled road or train tracks to subvert our concentration and we falter more. let's not forget the caliber and nature of the other golfers we have to play alongside too. people who don't repair ball marks, cut huge swaths of turf out of the fairway, suddenly forget the word 'fore', and the bane of my particular existence, slow players and/or overcrowding.

this is no knock on any course in particular or the state of a lot of courses out there. a number of factors are at play, but primarily it's simple economics. your local course either didn't have that much land available to them or in order to service a certain part of the golfing population, kept the land smaller for less costs to pass along (land tax, maintenance, etc).

when we mis-hit a shot and it goes astray, we pay a far greater penalty than the pros. if we don't hit the fairway, we don't have a nice second cut of rough, it's right into the fescue or deep rough we contend with. no favors there to help us recover. if we non-pros hit a somewhat errant tee-shot, would that land us on the edges of a tour fairway as opposed to the rugged shoulders of the courses we normally play? does that approach shot land on the fringe or is it just a green in regulation on a tour stop with a long putt to follow?

let's also not forget that the pros have about 50 marshals and countless members of the gallery on every hole to help them find an errant shot or. i think most of us would appreciate even one person, other than our companions, who can be down the fairway watching every ball struck to locate its position. sometimes you think you know where it is, but mystifyingly it disappears.

i guess we could shell out the extra bucks for some much more well manicured courses that have more terrain, but golf is expensive enough and we all can't play at the top courses. some of us just like getting out there to hit a few balls or are more cost conscious. in some respects, it's as if you're paying for some measure of leniency from the golf gods when you play these swankier courses.

i think all this makes us better golfers though. forces us to play a tighter game. teaches us greater precision. instills in us a measure of humility. emboldens perseverance. golf is a game of momentum and confidence. how can we build either when we stand in the face of conditions that hold us back? rather than practicing good golf play, we are practicing our save shots or hitting a ball 8 inches above our feet. doesn't promote anything but frustration does it?

it frustrates us to no end that we are more acutely punished for the courses our lot in life grants us access to. the sport is frustrating enough as it is. that we can't always take the kinds of chances we want because the penalty is too high. i understand the game of golf is about penalizing us for the errors we make. but comparatively, the punishment is seemingly more severe for those who need the greatest alleviation and mercy from it.

i'd like to challenge the pros to take a shot at some of the local courses we play on and see how they fare. they may tear the course up, but they may also stumble on some of the idiosyncrasies of a course we blithely submit to every time we lace up the spikes. those drives that go a little astray and fringe-bound on the tour, are now in the woods. the approaches that are 30 feet from the pin are now a wedge shot for an up and down to the pros. i think it would be interesting, at least in a prove-me-wrong sense.

by no means am i saying that the pros have it easy. it's a career to them and they have a lot more at stake and a lot more that they have to put in to remain competitive. but that's not us weekenders. it's not our livelihood. we can't put in the time and money to play at that level, we have day jobs. i just think there is a big gap in what our skill level affords us and that required to play the courses we do.

so golfers, don't be so hard on yourselves. look at the conditions you have to play on, you're bound to err. take a deeper perspective of your golf game and say to yourself "yeah, i'm playing pretty good all things considered."

happy anniversary designated hitter

2008-04-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

today marks the 35th anniversary of the dh rule in the american league. not an anniversary i particularly am pleased exists as i'm ardently against the the dh. this article over at si (itself and excerpt from the book 'change up: an oral history of 8 key events that shaped modern baseball) documents how it came about and the key players in the dh's inception. truth be told, i thought the dh as much older than 35 years and defined the difference between the american and national leagues a lot longer.

straight-up, without my own personal biases, i now understand how and why the dh came about. while i still don't agree with it, i know the purpose it did serve. i don't believe that purpose still exists, but the position (if you want to call it that) is too entrenched in the american league to go back now. you have teams that have for years based their whole system on the dh rule and they're just not going to relent on the matter.

to condense the history down, 1973 was a year dominated by pitching and the owners needed to make a change to balance the game more. and don't think it was purely about the sport being balanced either, their ledgers needed to balanced as well. see a pitching dominated league was less interesting than an offense dominated league, so revenues ebbed downward as people came to the ballparks less because it wasn't as exciting to watch. so the owners got together and instituted the dh, though not an original thought. the notion had been around since the early 1900's. and so on april 6th 1973, ron bloomberg (pictured above) of the yankees became a footnote in the annals of baseball as the first designated hitter.

my biggest beef with the dh is one of athleticism, both in symmetry and versatility. a baseball team should consist of 9 players who on the defensive end, take to the field to collect three outs and then offensively take turns batting. there is a completeness and tradition of players and teams who do this. in terms fo value to the team, a specialized player who can only bat really detracts from a team in a lot of situations where other skills are required. essentially, a dh takes the spot of a player who can provide more value to the team in situations outside of just hitting.

in reading this article, i found it interesting how the dh role has evolved over time. it started as a way to generate more offense and make the games more interesting. of course, this was still at a time where the fundamentalist approach of the game was still in fashion. that being get men on base, move them over and bring them home. that compared to the power game of today which has players thinking the long ball. so the dh of old would have been something i could be on board with. they were athletic type guys who drove in runs, got on base themselves, hit for a high average, and otherwise put up all-around decent numbers.

fast forward to today where designated hitters are all about power, with home runs being the key stat to mark a decent dh of today. that's only one facet of the game, and outside of fan excitement, one that has less on-field value than other stats. homers are still rarities (in perspective to other types of hits) so banking on that one long shot every so often isn't as good a return as a solid hitter, who when not clearing the bases those few times is contributing in other ways, like getting on base himself or moving other runners over.

as i will always do, there are points to support the dh, which i will share. it extends a players career, provided that they were a good batter. look at george brett or paul molitor, they got a couple extra years by moving over to dh. now tis point is only reserved for those players that can continue to perform at a high level at the plate. no one should extend a career if it is out of vanity or ego or something else if they aren't performing, so becoming a dh to extend your career better be for the right reasons.

proponents will also say it alleviates the demands on the pitcher as they are the only ones on the field who do as much constant and tiresome work. i'll give em that, but today's pitchers are a lot more coddled than in the past when they did have to bat. so perhaps they could toughen up some. besides, no one expects the pitcher to really do anything at the plate anyway, so get in there and take a couple swings.

to quote the movie bull durham, kevin costner's character says: "there should be a constitutional amendment outlawing astroturf and the designated hitter." i couldn't agree more. it's a hack rule that further babies half the pitchers.

multi-post #4: shortest story, earth hour

2008-03-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

the shortest story

sometime in the 1920's, ernest hemingway bet some of his contemporaries that he could write a short story in just six words. he did so, and collected his proceeds from them. he considered it his best work. having read it, was truly impressed at just how much he was able to convey in so few words. that he did in fact tell an entire story, evoked emotion, words ebbed and flowed and took the reader on journey in the most mcluhanist way. here it is, unabridged:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

how i found out about this was through a recent article on wired where they approached 30 writers and 5 designers with the same task. the results mixed in my opinion. none really achieving the same essence as hemingway. while all good efforts and did capture each writer's own persona, they fell short in comparison.

here's my equally as feeble attempts at this exercise. i encourage anyone reading this to add their own in the comments for all to read.

"all computers gone. how to communicate?"
"brought a knife to gun fight"
"should've had sex before getting married"
"screeched to a halt. too late."

earth hour is upon us

today at 8pm-9pm, the world is to shut off the power. a noble pursuit, no doubt, and one that i support for whatever small difference it makes. it's more about the world banding together than it is about the small effect of turning off your lights will have. please don't get me wrong in the words below, i'm not belittling this effort, I just think it could have been executed better or sent a stronger message.

the first issue is that this is being done on the weekend. granted, at least it IS being done, but for a greater impact, it should have been done on a weekday when more electricity is being consumed. i understand it's about getting the everyday citizen involved, but isn't it the corporations that are really driving global warming? also from the perspective of corporate involvement, it says a lot more to shut down operations and offices during the weekday than on the weekend.

secondly, don't limit it just to the lights. turn everything off. hell, i may just turn all the breakers off at the source, but at the very least, i won't limit myself to a few lights. i know a lot of people will go above and beyond, but in our minimal involvement society, people will do just that and still feel good about themselves.

third, government support needs to be escalated. citizens can do all they want but climate change is a largely political issue. it's about the government stepping in and enforcing regulations that will put a halt to these negative environmental shifts. the ontario government, who is supporting earth hour, and all other levels of government need to do more than this symbolic gesture of preserving our planet. i'll give credit to them for taking the step, but it needs to go further to actual legislation.

i'd also like to see more corporate involvement and more vocal support for earth hour. my friends at molson have gone the extra mile and declared that they will be shutting down all operations for the hour in a number of their facilities. very commendable and an example of taking this effort to heart and going above and beyond. i hope that more corporations are doing the same, but i'm skeptical that they will be. and if they are, that it is genuine and not just a pr play.

i guess baby steps is the m.o. on this one. we haven't been able to radically change people's perceptions or habits in this matter, so i guess we need to start small and build from there. here's to a happy earth hour, and to it being bigger in the future.

multi-post #3: rem, scaling the schedule, 10,000 bc,

2008-03-11T18:11:00.000-07:00

r.e.m. is superserious about new music distribution

in an effort to maintain relevance and youngster cool, rem announced they will be releasing their next album, accelerate, on iLike six days before the official release date of april 1st. fans will be able to embed the band's tune's on their facebook, myspace and bebo pages through the ilike application (aka widget).

i don't mean to dog rem because i'm a big fan. but many claim them to be dinosaurs, no longer relevant to the mass music scene and past their prime, the best music behind them. i don't agree with all that, but the band is no longer on their top rung anymore. and who cares. i have a new perspective on the band having just completed their semi-authorized biography entitled fiction. it tells of a band interested in the art of music, not the celebrity of it. and however cliche it sounds, each album being an exploration into art and music that changes and never becomes homogeneous. and in that regard, they have been a success story, despite their waning sales and perceived misses. they make music they want to hear, not what the masses dictate.

back to the release of their new album, i do think the iLike effort is a ploy for more youth relevance. but i also believe that it is something rem want to explore. we're talking about a band who have been making music for nearly 30 years together, have witnessed and explored everything along the way from there. this technology is just one of the latest stops that curiosity has brought them to. this experiment follows in the footsteps of their seemingly successful dabbling with youtube and their website to give fans access to video content so they can make their own music video. see the gallery here.

the first single is a winner in my books. a great return to the hard edged rock and roll that made them famous. here's the video for supernatural superserious:

scaling the schedule

read an interesting article that seemed obvious, but teams are only now starting to realize it an implement it. for years the notion of 'scaling the house' has been in play. that the 'house' (ie. stadium, arena, park, stage, field, grounds, venue, etc.) charges different prices for seats depending on where they were. the closer, the more expensive. what is starting to take hold is the idea of not only doing that but also scaling the ticket pricing depending on who the opponent is.

inherently some of any given team's opponents are going to be bigger attractions than others. that is unless you are the yankees or red sox, in which case, you are the biggest attractions. those games are likely going to have a greater attendance, so why not charge more for them, thus increasing your revenue. people are going to see them even if the tickets cost a little more. why should those yankees and sox be the only one to capitalize on their fan base and status? conversely, cheaper tickets for lesser teams might encourage greater attendance, and thus greater revenues.

being an ardent baseball fan and regular attendee of the blue jays games, i see this every year when the yanks or sox come to town. it's almost guaranteed that attendance will be double. in many cases their fans outnumber the home team's. as an owner, i'd love that revenue increase. it could do wonders for the team in better players or better fan experience (or just likely the bottom line). my gut tells me that people are willing to pay the premium and will do so because, well, they're fans and they want to see who they like. living in the most expensive hockey city, i see all the time people will to pay top dollar to see their mediocre team play anyone else.

some independent firm analyzed the numbers and came to the conclusion that there is a windfall to be had in doing this. i'd gladly take a greater sum of money from all the new yorkers who cross the border to come watch their precious yankees and use it against them by way of better players. i think it will help sports become more competitive and smaller market teams be able to thrive.

10,000 bc (big crappy)

i had the good fortune of seeing 10,000 bc last week at an advanced screening. i say good fortune only in the sense that the tickets were free and that the movie was only an hour and a half. otherwise, misfortune abounded. i went in thinking "oh this might be an okay movie. see some dudes battle saber-tooth tigers, kill mammoths and fight over territory in an epic, prehistoric way." what i got was puzzling.

it's a love story! that's right, a love story. the entire movie is about a man chasing after a kidnapped woman. there's not even a good battle scene. most startling of all is the complete and utter neglection of historical fact. i'm all for being entertained, but there are some things i just can't overlook. sure, with sci-fi i can chalk up any disbelief to the fact it's science fiction and that is license to do what you want. but a period piece, you can't ignore the facts and history. let me recount the most grievous liberties they took:

1) complex language - the people spoke english, and good english at that. i'll give that up to making it accessible and english representing whatever language they did speak. but wait, was language around then, or was it grunts and gestures? i can't easily answer that, but can't assume that there was that much of a language around at that time. even more, the vocabulary they used was sizable. if they had words, there weren't that many.
2) forged weapons - the dominant race/tribe in the movie who did all the pilaging brandished swords. i can say with most certainty, that humans were incapable of fashioning weapons like this at that time. in a similar wein, these poeple also tamed horses which i think is quite the stretch too
3) building technology - the aforementioned dominant race/tribe was building a friggin pyramid. that is easily 7,000 years prior to the pyramids that actually exist in egypt. they also used technology and means of creating them that we are still speculating if the egyptians even had so many years later.

the movie could have been so much more, so much better. instead it was a colossal failure. there's a formula for these types of moveis, and the producers didn't bother following it. that may sound like propogating the same aold crap, but it's not. each retelling of a similar storyline has new twists. in this case, it's the prehistoric setting and the cool beasts that lived at the time.

tax time again

2008-03-02T13:21:00.000-08:00

as always this time of year, filing your taxes. wish it could be simpler? it could be. as i started my preparation, i remembered an article i read about a flat tax that the fraser institute had put a news release out on. by no means is this a new idea, i just wasn't aware of it until now. but it seemed pretty compelling.

the reader's digest condensed recap of all this is we are currently operating under a progressive tax system where different income levels are taxed at different rates. with this of course are all the shelters, loopholes, deductions, and exemptions that make actual payment of taxes perhaps less mandatory. a flat tax is exactly that, an equalized tax that applies to everyone regardless of their income level. there's a lot more to the theory and to the practice of flat tax, but i'll leave that to wikipedia.

what the fraser institute proposed was a 15% tax across the board with an exemption altogether for the lowest income earners. the tax form itself would be the size of a postcard and have about 10 inputs. that's it. no complicated forms, no receipts, no h&r block, fuss whatsoever. quite an appealing proposition for the layman. beyond the new ease of filing, they also mention a savings of roughly $30 billion in costs to maintain the current tax system and cite the economic benefits seem to be a huge boon as well. to quote the fraser release:

One of the most significant changes under the proposed flat tax is the full exemption of savings and investment from taxation. Income put back into the economy in the form of savings or investments would not be taxed under the flat tax, which would encourage more savings and investment and lead to a more vibrant and wealthier economy. The changes would also make Canada much more attractive and competitive internationally.

the greatest appeal for me is that under this system, the government will make the same amount of money, but in a much less complicated way. the other big appeal is that my tax rate would lessen from what it is now. and as the fraser institute states, more money for me to spend and put back into the economy. but aside from myself, i like that the people who traditionally weasel out of paying taxes, the highest income earners, no longer can avoid paying what they should. so no longer does the middle class bear the burden of funding this country, we all do equally.

the next question is, will this come to fruition? will someone in parliament or yet to be elected take this to the house? i can't imagine a mass populace will not want this to be a reality. if we live in a democracy and we are all supposed to be equals, at least on one level, a flat tax will make us all equals.

multi-post #2: nader, weiner circle, kfc, kimmel's f'ing ben affleck

2008-02-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

ralph nader opts to run for president... again

today ralph nader announced that he would again run for president as an independent. i commend ralphy for continuing on with his quest even though he must know to himself that it is futile. he is a serious candidate who really wants to make a difference and embraces democracy and the idea that there should be other alternatives to the stagnation of a two party system. but ultimately it is a fools errand.

this will mark nader's fifth attempt at the white house, and i would guess his last. the guy is 74 after all. his most memorable run would surely have been in 200 where he is widely regarded as tipping the scales in favor of george w. bush against al gore. nader's 2.74% of the popular vote would largely have gone to gore this ensuring his election. but alas, that was not to be.

of course the next 8 years of running the country into the ground could not have been fully seen at the time. nader was simply exercising his rights as a citizen. there is nothing wrong with that. at least there was some real political intent as opposed to all the other pseud-candidates who clutter up the ballot every year with no real desire for the job. i don't know yet (nor does anyone i imagine) exactly what role nader will have this year. with the party battles still so up in the air, it's hard to tell what impact he will have. i will venture to say though that the presidential election won't be as close as it was 8 years ago so nader's paltry number of votes likely won't swing it either way.

wiener circle hamburgers

just read an article in macleans about a new burger joint called the weiner circle in chicago. an interesting concept to say the least. basically go in and get berated by the staff while you wait for your order. sure you can jab back, but, it's literally these people's jobs, so prepare to be taken down. i can see why it's a tourist attraction, it looks like a real experience. it's admirable for the people behind this counter to be able to take it like they do. especially with all the shitheads out there who take this too far. but when you open the door to this type of activity, you will bring out the worst in people, without fail. the people who filmed this shouldn't have blurred out the faces of the more ignorant and offensive idiots who take what is supposed to be meant as fun and turn it into something vicious and derogatory. they should be exposed like those rv riding jackasses in borat. if you say it, especially when there's cameras around, you should be held accountable for it.

kentucky fried salmonella

while w're on the subject of questionable service, let me tell you the story of what is now my last experience at kfc (not a lifetime ban, but indefinitely for sure). a friend and i opted to hit the kfc for a quick bite. i opted for the big crunch as it is much less nauseating than getting a couple pieces of original recipe. you feel bad, but not as bad. we both asked for no mayo. as we stood by the counter witnessing the exceptionally slow service, we watched as the assembler bring out the large 'mayo dispenser' (ie caulking gun) and splurt out a generous dollup of mayo on each of our sandwiches. so as the slid the tray to us, we slid it back noting the non-absence of mayo and prepared to wait another eon.

of course they didn't have more than one already pre-made in a warmer, so my friend who ordered first got his while i continued to wait, assured that it would be 6 minutes. as the rest of my food got cold, i waited. finally the new sandwich was put in my hands and i walked to the table. i took a bite, chewed, swallowed, none the wiser. as i looked down to take the next bite, the sight of raw chicken confronted me.

now angrier, i marched ot the counter and threw down sandwich and launched into a tirade making sure eveyrone heard me. some highlights include:
- "this is fucking raw."
- "i want my money back, i'm not paying for this shit."
- "are you trying to fucking kill me?"

none of them would make eye contact and each puttered about trying feabily to rectify the situation. with the combo costing $6.99 + tax, i was only given $7 back but was so flabbergasted, that i didn't debate it. the hardest part was keeping a straight face as i could hear my friend laughing loudly at the scene i was creating. they offered to also replace my meal at no charge as if i still wanted to eat anything else they peddled. i walked back to my seat to finish the rest of my meal.

then someone brought me my replacement and made another insinscere apology. i said to my friend "i bet this has mayo on it." sure enough, as i opened it, mayo was everywhere. now completely incensed, i ate my remaining fries, picked up the sandwich and on my way out the door, pitched the mayo-laden thing against the wall where we were sitting, completely fed up.

now, everyone has a job to do, some more difficult than others. there is a reason that fast food joint employees make what they do, because it isn't rocket science. they have one task, to cook food properly. stick it in a fryer for the perscribed amount of time and serve it. simple, right? one key difference is when I screw up in my job, i don't make people violently ill or kill them. if i screwed up in my job, i'd get fired, but not these chumps. it likely won't even be remembered a week from now. fortunately i didn't get ill, but i won't be back there anytime soon.

jimmy kimmel gets back at his girlfriend

if you haven'te seen these already, you really should. there is actually some good stuff on late night tv. shocking i know.

here's the first from sarah silverman. i wasn't a fan of her show. i thought it was kinda dumb and unfunny. her standup was okay, but nothing impressive. but this is comedic gold.

and here's jimmy's response. while he directly rips off silverman, his execution was on a much grander scale and that is where this is comedic gold as well. i hope there is an unedited version of this somewhere, because there's a lot of bleeps

multi-post #1: castro, shreddies, hitman hangers & mario paint

2008-02-20T09:34:00.000-08:00

in an effort to blog a bit more, i'm going to introduce a new style that is less long form and more a couple of things that i encounter, pique my interest or have a relatively strong bent toward writing about but none that warrant a full post unto itself. so i give you the multi-post blog. i'll still do the dedicated posts, but i find those harder to compose regularly.

fidel castro steps down
upon hearing that castro was stepping down as the leader of cuba, and reading some stories about it, i was immediately confused. i heard words like parlaiment, and legislature. we are talking about the same dictatorial, communist regime right? a quick stroll through the cuban government section on wikipedia confirms an enigmatic political structure that seems nothing more than a thin coat of pseudo-democratic paint over tyranny.

but man can castro rock the hell out of a track suit at political functions

diamond shreddies... for real?

has everyone seen the new ad campaign for diamond shreddies? the word audacity comes to mind. i'm well aware that post has their tongue planted firmly in their cheek on this one, but it does take some gall to invest that much money in a piece of faux news and to splash it across that many advertising channels. while it's kind of scratch-your-head funny, the risk to me is consumer perception of the brand veering toward "this is stupid." vs. "ha ha ha, that's kinda funny and clever."

better endings

on the weekend we saw another tale of hitmen called 'in bruges', the week prior having seen 'no country for old men.' while both were okay movies, both suffered from an unsatisfying ending. i won't spoil either, but they were sopranos-like in that there was no finality to either picture. i don't get this style of film making where the audience is left wanting more and will never get it. neither will have a sequel, and neither warrant one. so why can't the movie makers give us an actual ending that, as movie-goers, we require to complete our experience? and "in the sake of art" isn't a good enough excuse. movies are meant to give you a story and stories have endings. otherwise it's just an unformed thought and negates the existance of the picture altogether. why tell a story with no outcome?

mario paint mixer

anyone remember mario paint on the snes? probably not. not many people had it much less played it. i did though. it was a really basic proagram where you could draw 8 bit pictures that could have vitually no detail, make animations of no more than 8 frames and make music of 100 beats or less using the sounds from the mario games to date. well apparently there is a bit of renaissance around the music maker. i came across a number of youtube videos of people making popular songs using it. someone ported it to the pc and made a little program out of it that you can find here. as with any extremely limited and archaic form of production, i commend those who are able to recreate any semblence of the real thing with these bits of computer generated sound.

not really a contest slam dunk contest

2008-02-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

can a man win the dunk contest when he doesn't actually dunk? it would seem so. this dunk was nothing special, save for the outfit, but that's just a gimmick. it was impressive though to see superman here literally throw the ball through the hoop from about 2-3 feet from the rim. this wasn't even his best dunk on the night. that was his tap off the glass alley-oop for a power slam. but he could have done anything and still won this competition. the other no name, second stringers didn't stand a chance with their uninventive dunks. there hasn't been such a rout of the other contestants since vince carter strung together the single greatest line-up of dunks ever in 2000.

three card poking

2008-02-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

ah the three card poker. the current mainstay of my time in a casino. it's quite a simple game for those that don't know it (basic game play here and here) and pretty fun to play. it's not as serious as poker tables have become and not quite the work that blackjack has evolved to.

let me explain a bit of the gameplay so i can relate my experience at the table. there are three ways to play. the first is pairs plus where you only get paid when you hit a pair or higher hand (see table below). the second is ante & play where you ante-up before seeing the cards and pay an equivalent amount after seeing your cards to continue playing them. the third way is to play both obviously.

Pair Plus Payout

Hand	Payout	Likelihood
Straight Flush	40-1	0.22%
3 of a kind	25-1	0.24%
Straight	6-1	3.26%
Flush	4-1	4.96%
Pair	1-1	16.94%

there's no doubt that the money is to be had by playing pairs plus. i can't debate that. there could be some big payouts in there. but it is also the place where you can lose the most money. if you're just playing the ante & play route, then your payout is 1-1 on both the ante and play bets if you beat the dealer and 1-1 on just the ante bet if the dealer doesn't play. there's no big money in there. not immediately anyway.

when i sat down at the table, my tactic was to just do the ante & play route. take the long road, or be the tortoise as it were. the minute i sat down and only put a bet on the ante and not pairs plus everyone at the table and the dealer questioned it out loud to me. this happened each of the 5 times i sat down to play. it's funny that they're all trained to do this because it's the biggest cash grab.

the dealer knows the casino makes tons of money on pairs plus losses so is more or less encouraging me to do it. and the other players are blinded by the potential for that one big payout that's bound to happen and would kick themselves if they weren't playing for it and it did. just look at the probabilities of you actually hitting a pairs plus hand. it's crazy to continue to throw money at the pairs plus for that faint chance of chasing a high hand. does it happen? of course it does, randomness always comes around to hit the most improbable. but what is the cost to get there? i think it would be interesting to track a players pairs plus losses compared to the wins to illustrate this, but i'm almost certain of which side it favors.

so each time i was asked, i responded with "i have a system" and quietly went about my business. while my stack shrunk and grew like the rest of the players (mostly the latter when it's all said and done because it is a casino after all), it went down in half the time. i happily forewent playing the pairs plus (except on a few hands where i felt lucky and sometimes it paid out) thus eliminating a whole bet while all the other players made twice as many bets each hand. the payouts they did get only served to make the time the chips were theirs a little less than half the time i had my chips.

i guess though there are a couple schools of thought on how to approach gambling:
1) as entertainment
2) as a dream (the big payout)
3) to make money
4) as a rite
5) as an addiction

my own personal approach is as entertainment. the way i see it, i want to be there for a while, soak up the experience, talk to people, ride the highs and lows and generally have a good time. if i lose, so what. i compare it to a night out on the town where i could easily spend just as much for little more in return. i'm also a bit of a #3 as i'm competitive and want to win. anyone walking tot he table with a 'system' wants to, or even expects to come away on top.

but you see all of the first 4 and hope not to see a fiver. i saw people who continued to throw money at the table hoping for that one hand which would (in their mind anyway) erase all the money they've thrown at it before. then there were those #4's who just put money down hand after hand, and big sums each bet. it wasn't a far cry to see $75 down on pairs plus and another $75 down on the ante every hand. these people were just betting for the sake of betting for when they won, there was no emotion or satisfaction. they kept getting wiped out and forked over more notes for chips.

so the question is, did i win? i did win, then came back to lose. my first trip i walked in with $100 and left with $300 in about 30 minutes of work. not a bad take. should have stopped there. but that's what gambling is good at, bringing you back. and so i did. the next visit i lost the $100 i took in. still up $100 overall. next visit i walked out $50 richer. up $150 overall. next visit i blew the $150 in winnings accumulated to that point. so now i was even. then in the final visit i lost $100, thus finishing me off in the red.

i expected to lose money going in. it's acceptable. i'm there for the experience. it was a good ratio of experience for money. why didn't i stop after my first visit? who would? you have free money at that point to gamble with. the allure of more riches from money you earned gambling that if you lose doesn't mean you actually lost anything you had coming in. yes, knowing when to stop is important, but it's your expectations and knowing when to stop to match those.

picture a day - thoughts so far

2008-02-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

if i haven't already shamelessly told you about and asked you to read it, i'm doing a photo of the day blog for 2008. that's right, one picture for each of the 365 days. wait, a sec, it's a leap year, i've made it harder on myself. now that i've been doing it for a month, i wanted to share some of the thoughts i've had on it so far. don't worry, i won't be doing this monthly. maybe just one more post on the matter at the end of the year.

what has become acutely clear is just how routine life is. yes we all know this, but doing a picture a day really crystallizes it. when you visit the same places nearly every day, follow the same routes to those places, and are as sedentary as i am, then finding something worthy of taking a picture, within that rote of daily life, becomes very difficult.

that brings me to my next point. i hadn't really thought of making this (quite literally) a snapshot of my life, nor did i think to make it otherwise. i knew i didn't want this to be pictures of what i did on a certain day and some commentary explaining it. that would likely (and that term is a gross understatement to the fact) be quite boring. but not to exclude that either if it was truly the most interesting occurrence of that day. what has been the general theme is whatever is the most interesting subject i encountered on a given day.

by far the biggest challenge has been finding that most interesting subject matter. the inspiration for doing this was encountering someone, something, or someplace that i said to myself 'that would make an interesting picture.' what i've realized in doing this project is that those moments were not as frequent as maybe i thought. certainly not every day. what i don't want to do is just take a picture of every little thing in my house or office or wherever just for the sake of taking a picture. that would defeat the purpose and surely evaporate my own interest in continuing to do this if i approached it with this defeatist attitude.

my hope is that i can capture something that is even somewhat interesting, if not just to me, then to others. i wouldn't want to keep reading it every day if there wasn't something that i found to be of interest every so often. are all the pictures winners? no, of course not. i can admit that. but each picture has something to it. some small shred of interest, to what extent of interesting is not equal though.

what has emerged as one of the most enjoyable parts of this project is the commentary. it gives me a forum for my own particular brand of whimsy. not only that, but it gives me a place to say why i think the picture was interesting and give it some context. but mostly because i enjoy making fun of things and often what i find interesting is something that i can poke fun at.

what's also a good feeling is the days you just know when you have the picture. where you see the subject and you see the story and your work for the day is done. it sure beats those days where you're struggling to find it. to relate a story; one day it was 11:30 at night and i was finished getting groceries, but didn't have a picture to post yet. so i had to drive around the neighborhood for 10 minutes just to find something, anything as i hadn't to that point. i hate those days because it's a struggle for something that should be easy (pointing and shooting), but for the sake of integrity, it's hard.

in doing this for a month, i haven't had to adjust life to much to accommodate a daily update. but it's winter and i'm less active outside of my usual routine. but i know the future holds some trips, or some long days or periods without access to a computer and i hope i can maintain the daily posting. it sounds lame, but i want to keep the integrity of the project and actually do it every day.

overall, it hasn't been too cumbersome. but again, we're only a month in. i'm looking forward to completing it though. i like the challenge. i don't know if rewarding is the right word because i don't know what reward i'd get. it's just something different and fun, and i've enjoyed it so far.

there is a lot i've not explored for subject matter or techniques. and that will help keeping it exciting. i still havn't staged shots, haven't gone for the true beauty shot, haven't done the picturesque scenery shot, no color adjusted shots yet, and there's still some other sourcing avenues i wanted to use as well. stay tuned.

thoughts on the wii so far

2008-01-26T19:24:00.000-08:00

if nintendo or some game studio doesn't have this guy working for them yet, then they're idiots. what this guy here demonstrates is the promise i purchased this console on. he performs a number of other cool wii tricks in other videos found in the related videos section of this one.

now that i've had the wii for 2 months now, i wanted to lend my perspective. i'll set it up at the beginning to say i'm in no way a big gamer. this is the first system i've ever bought myself or wanted to buy. why? because it represented a big shift in gaming that was intuitive, more interactive and more interesting style of playing. note that i'm not hating on the system, i'm just a little disappointed with what's been delivered so far. granted, it's very early in the life cycle and it takes some time for developers to fully exploit what you can do. but the guy in the video has done it at this point, so why can't they?

my main beef with the gameplay being offered so far is that it is often meaningless. by this i mean in the use of the wii-mote and nunchuck's ability to recognize movement both on screen and in-hand. it's great that you can bowl, play golf, or swing swords by mimicking the motion of the real version, but it's somewhat falsified. take for instance pitching a baseball. there is no functional difference to me making a full swing a-la the real thing or just half heartedly flicking my wrist. the ball will go just as fast and in the same direction. to me that defeats the purpose of the system - to get you actively engaged with a semi-realistic version of the real thing. there is no reward or dependency for becoming more immersed and playing like you really would. i think that's wrong.

as another example, my most recent pick-up was the lego star wars game. aside from the game being to focused around picking up stupid lego blocks, it's lacking in the lightsaber wielding department. any shake of the wii-mote results in the exact same slice of the saber. most certainly the system can recognize how i'm holding the lightsaber (angle, direction, etc) and in what fashion i am swinging it, but it doesn't. a swing, is a swing, is a swing. now i can accept that this isn't the best example because the gameplay isn't centered around the lightsaber (rather picking up damned blocks at all costs) so building this in would be extraneous. but not in tmnt. the exact same holds true and leonardo's sword just swings in the same fashion with every shake of the wii-mote.

the second beef, and this is a huge one, is the lack of online support. there is no excuse why nintendo is so far behind in this respect. the developers are to blame for this too as they're not incorporating it into the games. there is no reason why the games in the sports pack that came with the wii are not playable online. these are simple games that would be vastly more playable and enjoyable if i could play my friend miles away.

on the plus side, rayman's raving rabbids was a big win in my books. the gameplay was smart, the game was fun and funny, the characters were cute and deranged at the same time, and the game took into account the effort you put into it. and that's only the first one. i heard the second was even better.

i have to believe that these changes are coming, that it's just a matter of time. now that developers have rushed to capitalize on the hottness of the console and rushing games to market to fill the demand, they can take a step back and make concerted efforts to build the type of games the system can really shine with.

strategic voting

2008-01-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

now that primary season is in full swing, i've been following as much as i can. i recently read a macleans article that caught my attention. more specifically, a quote from a citizen and how he was going to cast his vote was what struck me. he tells the magazine:

"my reservation is that in the general election, he (obama) won't get enough support because of his race. and i really don't want a republican in the white house." but sandin was worried that clinton is too loathed by republicans to get elected, or get anything done (author). "i don't see how she could bring the country together if half the country hates her. i don't think they hate obama the way they hate hillary."

understand that the primaries are meant as a sort of litmus test for the parties to help them select their candidate for the november election. with the party above all else, they want to put the person most likely to be elected in the general election. so parties turn to the populace to see who is the most electable, thus the primaries. it's truly an impressive system were the people have a huge amount of power in all stages of the process. however convoluted the electoral system is (ie. how does gore win the popular vote, but still not get elected?), it does make for one that has a lot of democracy built into it.

to lay a point of comparison, here in canada, the parties themselves select their leader in a party convention. the same happens in america. the difference being that in canada, the selection is done without the involvement of the citizens. in fact the whole electoral year here passes in what seems like a matter of weeks. the election is called, there's like a month of campaigning, a vote, and boom, it's over. where in the u.s. takes the better part of a year and a half to get from the start of campaigning, through to election day. that's besides the point.

what was my point is how the primaries can make people vote. when you think voting, you understand that as casting a vote for who you want to be the leader. the person you think most fits your personal set of beliefs and would represent the path you want the country to follow. but what about more strategic voting?

what mr.sandin 's quote above suggested to me was voting, not for who you really want, but the lesser of two evils. putting the democratic party above his own candidate, he threw his support behind obama rather than clinton (who it sounded like he wanted to vote for) based on either of them against any republican for president rather than each against each other for the democratic nomination. is this right? is this fair?

i wasn't sure how i felt about this. it certainly presented a new facet to voting that hadn't occurred to me, and one i believe isn't a consideration in every election. this year's election being an extremely important one (not that every election isn't important, just that the 2008 one is an election for the ages coming out of the second bush administration with a country that has a lot of recovery to do internally and externally) i think it comes into play in a big way. the next presidential term is about change (as trite a saying as that has become this campaign) and truly an important one where there is no candidate really apart and ahead from the others. that was a mantle for clinton, but much has changed.

on one side of the coin, doing this belies the point of the primaries. it is thinking ahead in the process to the final showdown in november rather than the part of the process at hand of selecting the party representative. if a lot of people act this way, that undermines the process. had all those people properly communicated to the pollsters their real intentions instead of acting on a perception, it might have meant someone else would have gotten elected. perhaps even the person they really wanted. but because of a perceived shortcoming (or whatever) they channeled their vote elsewhere to simply draw party lines.

on the other side, it is truly the prerogative and freedom of the american people to do so. right or wrong. it is a power given to them by the parties that they have the liberty to act as they want. if america has nothing else going for it, they have a strong democratic process, and this is just an element of the game. like a board game, this is a strategy to employ in order to gain an outcome they want. even if that outcome isn't their preferred candidate, but their party.

one conclusion i have come to in this election year is with so many strong candidates, party lines don't seem to be as important. i can see myself voting for the democrats (who i normally align with) or the republicans. there are a lot of candidates who have a lot of good ideas and strengths. i'm not so much interested in making sure a democrat is in the white house. i believe all candidates on both sides know the importance of change after this president and to me it is who is most fit to institute that change and right the ship that so sorely needs to be done. so if i had to make a call on this, i'd be voting for who i want in office, not which party.

done deal - rolen for glaus

2008-01-13T20:09:00.000-08:00

i heard rumblings of this trade a month or two back. i liked it then and i like it now even more. it's a great trade for the jays on paper and i hope that translates onto the field. there's many differing opinions on this trade, much of it centering around the health and durability of the two players. both have nagging injuries and have missed a lot of games in the last two years. at least their equals on that measure. anyone who doesn't see this as a win for both clubs is deluded. while i think the cardinals got the shorter end of this stick (i'm not saying much shorter, but shorter still), it's still good for both clubs. that's not up for debate, both come out in good shape.

here's the career lines on the two players

in every offensive category except home runs (where he is not very far behind anyway) rolen is a better player and easily has glaus beat on defense in the minds of all observers. rolen has two big edges in my mind - he hits for far better average and drives in a heck of a lot more runs. if there's two things the jays need are more men on base and more people to knock them in. well, who doesn't need that, but i'm saying the jays do more than a lot of teams(like the red sox for instance have absolutely no issues in this respect). how many times did their offense lose a gem of a game for halladay (there were a couple complete or near complete games he pitched where the offense didn't support him) due to a lack of run support.

back to the injury which everyone is harping on. not to dismiss it, it is a big issue, but rolen has taken quite a bit of time off to recoop the injury. i and the rest of the blue jays fans hope this means the return of the once pre-eminent third baseman in baseball. i'd like to believe that the team doctors have carefully evaluated this and set riccardi's mind at ease (same with the st.louis gm) that rolen will return to his past playing form or close to it. at the very least we're getting a better injured player than we have. glaus is no slouch, but if both are at the same level of injury proneness, i'll take rolen. we often times see a player who is injured or having difficulty in the clubhouse (or in this case both) flourish in a new setting and i eagerly await that happening here. best of luck to you glaus, you're a solid player, but i'm siding with rolen here.

and in parting, a passing shot at the leafs. it's refreshing to see a gm in toronto actually make moves to improve their team.

traffic officers are just doing their job, but we hate them for it

2008-01-13T08:45:00.000-08:00

today i was watching the new a&e show parking wars. what i found most interesting was how people react. not their actual reaction (although it's still funny to watch people get written up and flip out), but the subject of it. the anger comes from now having to pay an extra $20 bucks or so to the city but it's who it's direct toward. of course not upon themselves for either blatantly overlooking the laws, ignorance to them, or simple tardiness but rather on the person (or department when the actual officer isn't immediately available) issuing the ticket.

it's preposterous to blame someone else for your own error, but everyone does it. admit it, it's okay. it's never our fault. one malcontent likened them to the gestapo, while others berated the meter maids as they passed tossing out potty-mouthed tirades at them. but our displeasure remains constant. as if we're entitled to park wherever the hell we want. that it's our god-given (insert whatever higher being you blindly devote yourself to) right to leave our car in whatever empty space we want, at whatever time without regard to posted statutes.

i bet if you asked 100 people, each and every one of them would list parking officers in their top 5 of most hated occupations. right up there with telemarketers, door-to-door salesmen, tax auditors (or anyone in the irs/cra for that matter) and politicians. is the system perfect? no. are the officers perfect? no. they're still assholes, but by the same token so are we for getting irate at them. i'm fairly certain, way more often than not, we are at fault.

kickoff to the '08 U.S. presidential election race

2008-01-03T17:17:00.000-08:00

today marks the official kickoff (not official-official as candidates have been campaigning for months) of the presidential race across the border. but it is the first major electoral event in an election year, that being the iowa caucus.

i won't spend a lot of time explaining what a caucus is. if that's of interest, the collaborative minds at wikipedia have a thorough yet succinct overview of the caucus taking place as i write this. it is fascinating to understand this process and to watch people take part in democracy. while convoluted (there is a different way for both democrats and republicans) and probably even archaic in how the caucus is conducted, it is exciting to see democracy in action beyond just pulling a lever once a year.

the most important outcome of the caucus is to actually get some voting brought into the mix. for up until now it has only been polls, which can very often prove to be misleading or altogether irrelevant. that's not to say that the iowa caucus is flawless , accurate to the rest of the country or significantly more relevant. but it is people making a statement in public as to their intentions in the upcoming election as opposed to random questioning of people on the street who they might support. what this translates to is many candidates using this to determine whether they should stay in the race or throw their support for another candidate and drop out.

it goes without saying that i'm always very interested in an election year. a presidential race is always very exciting (much, much more than in canada) and i try to stay up to speed as much as i can. you can expect many more posts throughout the year as the race progresses with the milestones and news as it unfolds. i've not made up my mind on who i would vote for this year. i'm not even sure what party i would vote for. normally i'd say democrat, but there are republicans that i could see putting my vote behind. and yes, i can vote in the election. it's probably easier to wait until there are only 2 candidates (one democrat and one republican) to make up my mind, rather than wading through the varying stances on all the issues. but narrowing it down is all part of the process. whoever remains, it will be interesting.

happy 2008

2008-01-02T17:24:00.000-08:00

this being the first post of the new year, there are two things (as my friend the verve so aptly put) you'd expect to be written: reflecting on the year past or speculate/set goals for the year ahead. as i'm not one to dwell on the past (in part because i don't dedicate the headspace to remembering everything) nor one to set resolutions i'm stuck how to set up the next 363 days.

my anti-resolution stance is more a principle than anything. i don't need an event (like the start of a new year) to take a stance on something. if i'm going to do something, it's because i want to and not because a certain day tells me to. in much the same way i don't need a holiday like valentine's day to express my love, i'll do it as i see fit. besides, resolutions are always half-baked, fraught with forgetting and mostly hollow.

the year ahead is a blank canvas. goals and aspirations are always changing. sure, there are things that i'd like to do and accomplish for the year, but i don't want to feel guilt for not accomplishing something. okay, i wouldn't feel guilty, but that's my point. why set out resolutions if there's no consequence for inevitably breaking them? so i will resolve to do nothing specific, but simply make the most of the coming year.

the year in lists

2007-12-28T12:10:00.000-08:00

it's nearing the end of the year and every site out there puts out some list of some kind to wrap up the year that was. i don't agree with most lists, but who other than the editors fully agree with what's on it. that said, i won't comment or say what i agree or disagree with.

while i was searching for lists when i came across a list of lists, so that makes my job easier. but there are a few lists not on that which i'll include here.

fimoculous.com list of lists

the wild and wacky from baseball
dumbest political quotes of 2007
top 10 celebrity douchebags
comedy wire's top losers list
top 10 web celebrities

tetley tea's sham

2007-12-19T06:07:00.000-08:00

the folks over at tetley would like us to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. and not because their tea makes you feel that way, but because they are a big charitable organization (queue the oohs and ahhs). a special issue of their white tea, flavored with raspberry is in support of the canadian breast cancer foundation.

a whole $0.15 from the sale of each specially marked canister is donated to the foundation. how noble of tetley. a truly honorable deed. but not at the expense of their profits. see the picture below? what do you notice?

try looking at the number of bags in each canister. that's right the normal canister has 24, but the special edition one only has 20. that's odd. both retail for the same price of around $4.00, so why am i getting less? how about some simple math. divide $4 by the number of tea bags in the regular canister (24) and you get about $0.16 each bag. now do the same for the 'special' one. that's $0.20 per bag. that means $0.15 goes to charity and an additional $0.65 into the pockets of the tea maker. nice little scam you got going there.

so not only is tetley cheating the consumer, their ivory tower intentions of actually giving to charity is a load of shit. they are covering the cost of the donation and keeping a tidy profit on each unit sold on top of their normal profit. that my friends is real sacrifice and corporate generosity. kudos to you tetley for making us feel like we've made a difference and a job well done on appeasing your own corporate conscience while still filling your coffers even fuller.

the 'mitchell report'

2007-12-14T19:46:00.000-08:00

what is one to think when a 400+ page report is compiled naming and detailing some 80+ players allegedly taking performance enhancing drugs? oh wait a second, i seem to have been too fair in assessing an 'allegedly' in there. because george mitchell and the media certainly weren't so fair in what hit the front pages in the last couple days. mitchell for taking the testimony at face value and presenting it aas fact and the media for being so definitive in their accusations and shakedown of the players. particularly roger clemens. i've waited a couple days so i can include some appraisals and admissions in here as well.

i'm not saying this is all a complete load of shit. i do believe there is steroid use, and believe it was quite rampant. what i don't believe is in tarnishing a players name on hersey and saying a player took steroids without hard facts to back that claim up. the article that most closely mirrors my own thoughts on the matter belong to that of jayson stark over at espn.com. the emphasis of his article is to elaborate on the single most glaring omission in this whole debacle - that what was in the mitchell report is mostly devoid of actual fact and credibility.

i'm personally on the fence about whether this whole exercise needed to be conducted in the first place. i don't know if drudging up the past does any particular good. there's certainly a lot of information missing and even if it was to be unearthed, the players can't be punished retroactively anyway. especially for an offence that wasn't technically against the rules anyway. so all this serves is to destroy the names of a number of truly great players and the game as a whole. but i think it was an important illustration of just how pervasive performance enhancers were and the blind eye turned by all sides within baseball. a starting off point for which to change going forward. but we all knew that anyway.

please don't confuse what i'm saying here. i'm not defending steroid users in any way. i think taking steroids is wrong and those who do take them are cheaters. all i want is complete information, and that will never happen. many of these players are heroes to a lot of people and to call them out without hard evidence is unfair to them. i believe that's the definition of slander.

in this situation, there is a big gap in knowledge of what we hear in the media. a lot of people don't know the whole story, all we get is the sensational headlines. yes, steroids are bad, but for instance, human growth hormone is lumped in with them. it's assumed hgh is in the same camp because we don't hear about what these substances are. hgh is not a steroid, nor is it illegal. does anyone hear that? andy pettite came forward and admitted to use of hgh but not steroids. in his statement pettite asserted that he "wasn't looking for an edge, he was looking to heal." that's what hgh does, but to the greater populace, this point gets lost or is understood. they're all just cheaters.

i'm a big fan of baseball and i hope this report works to clean the sport up and bring integrity back to america's pastime. to me the names aren't tarnished because i don't know the whole truth or maybe even any of it. no one does but the players themselves. the game is tarnished and everyone involved at all levels of the game are to blame. the owners, the players, the trainers, the coaches, everyone. they all let this get to the point it is today and are paying the price. i hope the sport can recover and steps are taken to ensure the integrity of the sport is recovered and maintained going forward.

the lost star wars action figures

2007-12-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

it's christmas time and who doesn't have a fond childhood memory of finding some action figures under the tree. i stumbled across some star wars action figures that didn't quite make the official catalog back in 1977.

who wouldn't want to recreate the scene where luke returns to find the smoldering remains of his aunt's body. you can't have star wars without the force, so this pack can get you that. and i know many people who think the only good ewok is a dead one.

this product serves to exemplify the ruthlessness of the empire in tarkin's orders to still obliterate alderaan despite leia's revealing of the rebel base, how could it not get made.

this inspired me to make my own theme pack of action figues - a collection of famous body parts thorughout the series.

there's luke's hand from the scene it's revealed that darth vader is actually luke's father. then there's jango fett's head. a pivotal scene in which the bounty hunter's head becomes disassociated with his body by the lpurple lightsaber of mace windu in the geonosis arena. now you can play along with a young boba finding his father's head. and finally, the innards of a tauntaun reminding us of one of the biggest gaffe's in the franchise's history. a non force sensitive can't weild a lightsaber, c'mon now.

flip video

2007-12-10T20:54:00.000-08:00

today the fine folks at google sent me quite the nifty little gadget for a holiday gift. yes it's that time of year where the graft pours in, much of which is shite and useless, but there's usually a gem in there. last year it was the ipod nano, and so far this is the front runner.

the gadget in question is the flip video ultra from pure digital technologies. what we have here is an extremely easy to use video/audio capture device (full specs here) that has 30 mins of record time, that you just plug into your comp with it's usb arm or line-out to your tv. it's got a good sized lcd screen, zoom, runs on two AA's and comes with some quick and easy software to make simple edits and easily upload to youtube and can even take frame captures to make into photos.

it sure beats the hell out of the crap quality of a cell phone and is much less worrisome than carrying around your digital camera. it's really a fantastic little device. all for the very reasonable price of $150 bones. i'm ashamed to say it, but i have to side with oprah in her throwing her considerable weight behind the product (consumerly and physically speaking).

i wanted to post a video filmed with said device, but unfortunately my boring-ass life doesn't accommodate me having anything of interest to film and post here. and my rabbits are not ones for on-demand performances so their equally boring-ass lives were not adequate subject material. but now that i'll carry this on me at all times, hopefully i can capture that one moment of gold and share it here.

3 minutes of TSO fuelled goodness on a house

2007-12-05T05:45:00.000-08:00

video link for those who can't see it
this may be old to some, heck i first watched it maybe 4 years ago. but it is still awesome to this day. i can watch it repeatedly. they say this little 3 minute piece of pure joy took two months to set up, 25,000 lights and $10,000.

if you didn't know, the soundtrack is the trans-siberian orchestra. if you don't know who that is, do yourself a favor and check it out. it will fundamentally change the way you think of christmas music. no more of that burl ives shit or 50's crooners nonsense.

get me some wiid

2007-11-30T08:43:00.000-08:00

as of late, i've been campaigning my wife to buy a wii. i really think she'll like it as it isn't the video game system she knows and doesn't really dig. so i've had to find ways to finance the purchase in non-traditional ways. for instance, using the proceeds of a recent competition i won or selling off my junk. since it's been at the top of my mind, i've mentioned it to people saying "i'm trying to get some wii action". more than one person has interpreted this to mean 'scoring some weed.' responses i've got are "yeah, i've got a huge bag of it at home myself" or "i didn't take you for that type" or "i hear you, it's been a long week, i could use some myself."

the mind hears what it wants. i offer my new advertising campaign in light of this. a couple variations on the copy could be:
"wii would like to get high"
"wii would like to play stoned"
"wii would like to satisfy his munchies"
"wii would like to hit the bong"
"wii would like to roll a fatty"

i could go on, but won't. i do think the two can go hand-in-hand. they are certainly a compliment.

hello, i'm a mac and i'm a hipster wanker

2007-11-26T19:30:00.000-08:00

finally someone has taken the piss out of the mac vs. pc tv spots. wait, i'm not british, nor do i particularly like them, why did i use that expression, or wanker in the title? back on topic, it's about time someone from the pc camp has shot back. and not in a hack way like some college-attending, so-hip-it-hurts, iMovie-making dweeb, who makes their own mac-fellating versions of these ads, but actually something quite clever.

don't get me wrong, i like the mac commercials. as a piece of advertising they deliver all a strong tv spot should these days. they are bang on strategically, they are low cost to produce so a whole library can be created, they drive home a competitive difference, they are made to the product's specific target effectively, they are interesting and have a viral element that every brand dreams of. no mac, i don't want to blow you.

i can appreciate what apple offers but i'm not one of their fan-boys. i don't want to give s. jobs a b-job like the other mac elitists. their products are sure stylish and have qualities that are maybe better than a pc. so what. they don't do everything, and nor does a pc. i'm not going to debate the finer points of either platform here, so back to the site.

what laurie mcguiness has done is something that microsoft has failed to do, defend themselves. and she makes some good points too in pc's favor. and not the simplistic 'i can make a movie better' claims apple does. but on the other hand, they probably don't need to. apple can spend all the money they want to fight for the few small fractions of percentage points in market share their selfish little one button mouses can grab each year. watch them and judge for yourself. they are interesting counterpoints why pc is still the most popular choice (maybe price is the first place to look on that) and mac can continue their petty attempts to convert pc users, or at least continue to speak to the already converted mac blowhards.

brady defends running up the score, or as i call it, playing the game

2007-11-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

in an interview a couple days ago, tom brady (qb for the patriots and reigning golden boy of the nfl) made the following comments:
"We're still trying to make improvements and we're trying to play extremely well. We're not trying to win 42-28, we're trying to kill teams, we're trying to blow them out if we can. You want to build momentum for each week, you don't want to be up, 42-7 or 35-7, and all of a sudden you look up and it's 35-21. We don't want to be part of that, you don't want to go into next week realizing that for the last 18 minutes of the game your team didn't play well, or didn't play up to its capabilities. You gave other teams momentum for the next time they play you, or you gave another team a reason not to be intimidated."

it's about time an athlete addressed this. i commend him for his comments. they're the words of a winner, someone who doesn't lay down and take it easy when the road ahead looks smooth and easy. does that sound like i want to blow him? i hope not. i just think this is exactly the right attitude athletes should have. hell, anyone should have. why should you let up?

but there is no such thing as running up the score. not in any sport. if you are playing alone, then maybe. but you're always competing against someone and they have a role to play in how well you do. running up the score has less to do with a team's actual ability as it does the opposition's inability. the team allegedly running up the score is just continuing to compete at a high level. that should make the other team be more inclined to compete, not roll over.

there's no logical reason for a team to ever stop competing. i make this point for both the team supposedly running up the score and the team being trounced. the team who is running away with the game has no reason to stop playing as hard as they can. you never know when dropping your guard will let the other team back in and turn the tables. and the same goes for the team on the losing end, you never know what's going to happen and you could crawl back into contention.

writer's strike - another bullshit union move

2007-11-21T14:53:00.000-08:00

now i'm not against what the writers are standing up against, i just despise unions. sadly all this hoopla surrounds something as superfluous as tv. oh my god, the masses can't be fed their culture! but back to the unions.

here's my main beefs with unions:
1) counter-productive
2) anti-progress
3) protectionist
4) self-serving
5) power grubbing

to extrapolate a little further:

1) movements like striking don't work for anyone. the writers don't get paid, they just get their union due payments which is their money anyway. but beyond the union workers' suffering, think off all the other non-unionized people who also suffer. when a union stops working, so does everyone else in the organization (ie. the actors, lighting people, gaffers, etc in the silly example of the writer's strike) and the general public suffers from being deprived of something.

2) i suppose that unions promote fairness and that's a good thing. but at what cost of progress? the unions are a huge part of why north american auto companies are struggling. when a company can't do what's best for itself because a union stands in the way, there's a problem. i'll illustrate this with the automaker's example. the union fights to keep as much human labor as possible on the lines when the process could be automated much more. do we need someone there getting paid $30/hr to screw in lug-nuts (i say this without knowing if that job is in-fact automated, but it's for illustration only)? surely that money could be better spent in say cheaper transportation, or perhaps r&d to develop alternate fuel sources, or other environmental concerns. it's sad if lots of people lose their jobs, but that's life. as technology progresses, we shouldn't be held back. those people need to adapt. but they can't because they've gone to long with what they know and the union has coddled them throughout so they can't develop other skill sets.

3) unions are a great place for underachievers and constant fuck-ups. they protect their own regardless of what they do. i could crash my ttc bus with 20 people on it and i won't lose my job, i'll just be moved to another one within the organization. there's something wrong there. back to point #2, what do people care about progress when they can continue on without fear of losing their job and work as shoddily as they want?

4) the unions ultimately only serve themselves. they fight for above market fair wages only to collect those wages back in union dues. that's convenient. and what for? i guess power. but really, they collect dues to run an organization that doesn't need to be there, for the purpose of maybe making a power-play (ie. strike) and to pay out members in the event of said strike. otherwise, where does the money go? i'm asking, i don't know. maybe there is something more, but i don't see it. really, it just exists to create an imposing force that stands in opposition to a company moving forward, and you're paying to create that facade.

5) i think i covered most of their power-grubbing nature in point #4.

every worker faces hardship, everyone has struggles, everyone feels they aren't getting paid enough. does that mean the world should be unionized? no, it just means people deal with it because it's the norm. that's what companies do, get the most out of their employees. i'd like to work out the differences, but there's productive ways of doing that. why can't they work out their differences while still working like the rest of us? because they're just as greedy as the people they're striking against. and unfortunately they have a power position and make a big stink about it in public. they exploit the workers no different.

here's a scenario with the most powerful union in north america, the UAW. they constantly fight to save a human workforce and have them paid ridiculous wages. all this does is put more nails in the auto companies coffins as they can't compete because they have to pass on their labor force costs to the consumer. when they can't compete, the companies go tits-up and everyone loses their jobs. the workers and the people whose sole function is in the union, whom without the workers, are nothing. how's that working for you?

phil jackson's brokeback mountain

2007-11-15T19:24:00.000-08:00

in a postgame interview, laker's coach phil jackson offered the following commentary: "We call this a 'Brokeback Mountain' game, because there's so much penetration and kickouts." where he came up with it and why he decided to use it is besides the point, it's goddam funny. i'm not sure what he meant by kickouts, especially as it pertains to brokeback mountain or gay sex. maybe phil knows something that urban dictionary doesn't, because they don't have a definition for what a kickout could mean. maybe he can fill that in for us. back on point, he could have easily called it a 'porno game' or an 'orgy game' but would that have been as newsworthy? nope, not until you disparage the gays.

it didn't stop there though. his heartfelt apology read as such: "If I've offended any horses, texans, cowboys or gays, I apologize." yes, it was the horses that took the most offense. it think he just wanted to crack a brokeback joke, but probably could have done a better job. he tried though and it was still funny.

so here's to more 'Brokeback Mountain' games for the lakers. filled with even more penetrations, kickouts, dribblers, bricks, reaching fouls, lay-ups, give-and-go's, pump fakes, dunking, stuffing, rims, reaching in, and back-doors.

two from henry rollins

2007-11-14T15:54:00.000-08:00

henry rollins takes us on a quick diatribe on electronic music and the state of rock. i don't have anything to add here as mr. black flagg sums up my feelings quite eloquently. i am in complete agreement on all accounts. and i too just want to fuck on the floor and break shit.

i was so impressed, i thought i would give you one more of rollins. i don't know if he does stand-up or if it's just some kind of public speaking, but it's entertaining. he's like the musical dennis miller.

time's inventions of the year

2007-11-08T18:51:00.000-08:00

in this coming week's time, the featured article is their picks for the inventions of the year. their choice is the iPhone from Apple. Their claim is based on five principles:
1) it's pretty (take time for aesthetics other companies don't)
2) it's touchy-feely (the touchscreen interface)
3) it will make other phones better (self explanatory)
4) it's not a phone, it's a platform (a true handheld computer)
5) it is but the ghost of iPhones to come

i don't particularly agree with their choice or their reasons for it. they're too flaky (for lack of a better word) in my opinion. granted, it is a really novel device, truly innovative and a great gadget. maybe that's enough, but maybe i prefer something that has substance. the iPhone just seems superficial. no one actually needs it.

browsing through the other inventions they cover, there are a many really compelling and thought-provoking inventions. i think what separates these from the iPhone comes down to marketing and adoption. the iPhone was an easy selection because everyone can relate to it or has heard about it and it isn't out of reach for many people. it's multi-purpose and fits with a widely accepted lifestyle.

many of the other inventions just won't gain that much traction or be as in your face as the iPhone but many could make real differences in the world were they to reach the awareness and mass adoption the iPhone has/can. there are numerous inventions that could help curb the current environmental crisis but this small blip in the media is probably all the awareness they'll get. they'll just remain unheralded.

a few of my personal favorites were the glo pillow (huge fan of waking up naturally), erasable paper, the city car, fly-ash bricks, and the flexible displays.

new look facebook

2007-11-06T19:12:00.000-08:00

today at around 3pm, mark zuckerberg finished unveiling his plans for the next phase in facebook's life, and in his words, the next phase in communication. to much anticipation, the ceo of facebook made three key announcements that will change how people and companies will interact and communicate on the site with themselves and each other.

the three big changes are: social ads, project beacon, and insight marketing. i won't go into detail on what each entails, but in essence, it is the maturation of facebook and their big foray into leveraging the vast amounts of incredibly powerful data inherent to the site and intimate relationship users have with it.

there will be a lot of people crying foul on this as it really pushes the boundaries of privacy. but i for one welcome it, both as a consumer, and a marketer. as a consumer, i have longed to eliminate unnecessary messages and information from my life because there are just too many that are not relevant to me in the least. so, naturally, ignore them. now there is a way that i might only see something that i'm interested in (because i've put it on my profile), well i just might be more likely to pay attention because you're catering to me. and as a marketer, well this is surely xanadu. to only have to pay for the people i actually want to speak to and not be paying for all the other people i don't care about, it's a no-brainer.

there's probably also the concern that facebook has sold out with these moves. that they're becoming myspace. i'll disagree with that too. mark z is smarter than that. he knows what he's got and isn't going to ruin that. he's seen what happened with myspace and if he couldn't learn that simple lesson, then he deserves to fail. i do believe him in his belief that he wants to keep the site very pure and consumer focused. he's calculated in what he brings to life on the site and these moves i think are for the betterment of the site and the people who use it. oh and let's not forget the companies who now have an exciting, new playground with which to play where they can be very smart and effective with their efforts.

pavor nocturnus

2007-11-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

i thought it was time to explain why my online handle is night terror. well i suffer from night terrors. before you gasp and feel sorrow/pity/concern, don't. i actually think it's funny. mind you, my wife does not. i write this as i had one just last night, so it's fresh in my memory.

so to give you a brief synopsis of night terrors, it is an episode that happens prior to r.e.m. sleep whereby the person feels a pervasive sense of panic, anxiety, and/or fear accompanied by screaming, moaning, or gasping. other effects include an extremely high heart rate and movement, be it thrashing, shaking or a seizure.

now i don't have nearly that severe of night terrors, but they're disconcerting nonetheless. typically (so i'm told), i moan loudly (once i moaned/mumbled 'help me'), become very restless, and my heart races like a mofo. like everyone else, i can't be woken up at this time - or rescued as it were, and am vaguely aware that it is happening, but helpless to stop it. the only time i was ever able to influence a night terror is when i had a dream that i was having a night terror and i could lucidly confront and change the outcome. yes, i dream about night terrors, as if it isn't enough to just have them.

i'll leave this entry on one of the more humorous night terrors i have ever had. i guess the only really humorous one. and it happens to be the first i can recall. going back over 10 years now, when i was first courting my now wife, i brought her home one night and saw her to bed. we were lying there together, on her bed, talking as we both drifted off to sleep. not long in, i began to scream and thrash about. needless to say, holly freaked out and began yelling at me. mind you, it was in the wee hours of the morning, in her bed, with her parents in their room, directly next door, and i'd only known her a couple of months, so she probably had just cause. i didn't know then that these episodes would be an ongoing event, but i guess logic states that i have her to blame.

adios sideburns

2007-11-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

in memoriam of the loss of my sideburns, i offer this retrospective:

i can't say how i stack up against these fine facial follicles, but i liked my burns. they distinguished me. they kept a small part of my face warm in the winter. they helped me not look like a 12 year old when i had short hair. but most importantly, they were my link to 70's porn, where my moustache just wouldn't cut it.

ontario speeding to profits

2007-10-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

globeandmail.com ran a story today on the new speeding law in ontario. a month into this law and over 1,000 people have been charged. i say kudos to this. not because it helps keep excessive speeding at bay - which clearly it doesn't if this many people got caught - but that we might as well capitalize on people's immense capacity for stupidity.

no one really needs to go 150 kph or faster. hell, how is that even possible these days with traffic jams being constant at almost all hours of the day. it must be all the country bumpkins who have open roads with which to burn some rubber.

they want to put the funds toward educational campaigns. i say boo to that. not when ignorance and stupidity can be so profitable. i think getting tagged with a $10,000 fine is education enough. When asked, Fantino wished he set it at 130. I don't agree with it being that low, mostly because i've been known to frequent that speed on an open 404 early on a sunday morning. but 140 seems reasonable and i bet that would almost double that 1,000 they've already nabbed.

24 / 7 - coming soon

2007-10-26T20:54:00.000-07:00

fox just released the trailer for season 7 of 24:

yes, there have been a couple sub-standard seasons, but this looks not to be one of them. they've broken the molds that have kept the format a little static for a few seasons now. for starters, they've ditched CTU and have gotten the hell out of los angeles. bringing back tony almeida looks a little sketchy, but we'll have to see how it pans out.

i think that they could have gone a step or two further and shed all characters except for jack bauer. to be completely honest, they should have gotten rid of jack bauer a couple seasons ago. why? to keep it fresh, original, and semi-realistic. i mean, c'mon, how many 24 hour days of that intensity can one person have. granted the success of the series is largely due to the character, but the format might flourish without jack. it just opens up so many new avenues to explore. it's not like there's a lot of time for character development and characterization. we've only grown attached to jack because it's been so many seasons.

despite all that, 24 remains one of the select few absolute must-see programs out there today. it's riveting, action packed, high production values, anticipation and constantly moving story means you can't miss an episode or you have to wait until the dvd comes out.

goodbye cd's

2007-10-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

i just recently completed digitizing all my cd’s, boxed up the cases and discs and banished them to the basement. forever relegated to a back-up if my hard drive ever gets wiped.

i can say that i’ve not bought a cd for myself in many a year (i have for my wife though). mostly that’s apathy as there isn’t much new music coming out that interests me. and what does, isn’t a whole album’s worth.

musicians should be happy. they have to do less now in the studio. which, btw, should make them happy since most of their money is made on tours and merch anyway. forget producing whole albums, they just have to put out singles. i think this could be a good thing. focus on that which is the best, pour more effort into it, and forget the also-ran musical chaff that you had to include to round out an album so consumers felt like they were getting their money’s worth out of the excessive prices cd’s were being sold for.

i was reading an article not too long ago (where i can’t say, even though i know that’s the point of a blog to share links and resources, i would if i could remember) that proclaimed the album dead. when music was first recorded (i’m talking in a viable, mass producable and stable medium here - not wax rolls), it was very much a singles market. elvis would go into the studio, record a track and that was the record. the concept of the album only evolved out of necessity. the cost to produce and market one song was disproportionate to a whole album, so by fitting more on one record, the labels could make more dough and the audience also benefited as they got more music. with the emergence of digital media an ADD audience, a singles market is returning because that’s all anyone is interested in paying for - that one song they like.

does that mean albums won’t be made, no. some bands cry foul in the name of artistic integrity of an album and not selling a piece of art piecemeal. i’m sure the labels will continue to make the whole album available, but delivering them to the market won’t be the same. nor will the marketing. but i think people will be more than happy to pay 99 cents for what they like and forfeit doling out the other $15 to $20 to maybe stumble upon somehting they like.

the postseason

2007-10-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

tonight is the start of the 2007 mlb playoffs. many of you aren’t baseball fans and don’t think that playoff baseball is any different. but it is. everything changes once the first 162 games are finished.

as an avid baseball fan, i can admit that there can be slow games, maybe even boring ones. not in the playoffs. something magical happens. the baseball gods sprinkle a healthy dose of excitement and energy down on the 8 diamonds fortunate enough to make in. i find moreso than in any other pro sport, the games enhances so much more come playoff time.

take for example the one game playoff between the rockies and padres monday night. two teams fighting for their playoff lives. the game had everything you could dream of: controversy, grand slams, extra innings, blown saves, back and forth lead changes, stolen season records, blown calls, late rallies, defensive blunders and when it was all said and done, you were riveted for 4 hours and 40 minutes and didn’t even know it.

this year’s crop of teams all look to be a gritty bunch who will be battling hard. you have the improbable rockies who had to win 13 of their last 14 games just to get into a tie-breaker situation, the yankess who battled back from 14 games down in the division to almost taking it (and i hate to say anything nice about the yanks), the phillies who hung in and toppled the mets (that was equally the mets fault, but philly still capitalized), the d-backs who seemingly came out of left field (pun intended) and the sweet lou’s cubs who turned it around from 2006 and scrapped with milwaukee all season for their division.

and here’s to a national league team winning it all

hello blog world

2007-10-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

well, i'm here to share my thoughts with the world like everyone else who thinks what they say matters or that people are interested or really care.