Archive for March 2008

Revision3 Inks Syndication Deal With Blip.tv

In Technology, Video on Mar-25-2008 with
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Here’s a video match made in Internet heaven. Revision3, basically the video sandbox of Digg founders Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson has announced they are teaming up with Blip.tv to syndicate all of its roster of shows. Those includes Diggnation, the GigaOm Show, PixelPerfect, and my personal favorite The Totally Rad Show.

A number of these shows are already popular, especially Diggnation which is often one of the top 100 post popular podcasts on iTunes. Seems to be a win/win for everybody. Blip.tv gets a roster of professionally created programs. Revision3 gets even wider distribution (although they are already everywhere) and some ad revenue.

When Budget Cuts Strike

In Culture, Stuff, Technology on Mar-25-2008 with
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This is kind of sad. Budget cuts are forcing scientists at NASA to turn off Mars rover Spirit for the winter, with no guarantee that it will be operable again when Martian spring arrives. After passing it’s “90 day mission” 1,400 days ago, Spirit is to be done in by bean counters.

Update: NASA reverses course.

Obama Starts Campaign Raffle Craze

In Marketing, Politics on Mar-25-2008 with
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As an marketing professional I signed up to get e-mails from the campaigns of Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton. Although they don’t seem to care about e-mail fatigue, their frequency is frankly off the chart, there hasn’t really been anything interesting to report. Until today.

On Monday Obama’s campaign announced a raffle or lottery of sorts via email:

Out of this week’s campaign donors, four will be selected at random to attend dinner with the Senator, at his campaign’s expense.

Well by yesterday both his rivals must have thought it was a pretty darn good idea, why not just freaking steal it. McCain was first into my in-box. In an e-mail purportedly to be from McCain—which begins with his by now trademark “My friends” verbal tic—the Senator said:

Next week, I will embark on a “Service to America” tour visiting numerous locations that have played a significant role in shaping who I am today; places where I have had the honor of serving our nation. This tour will take me through Mississippi, Virginia, Florida and my home state of Arizona. I look forward to visiting sites that have left an imprint on my life aboard my campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express.

My campaign has come up with an opportunity for a supporter to join me on the Straight Talk Express for a day of conversation and campaigning. As a token of my appreciation for your financial support, you will be entered to win this seat aboard the Straight Talk Express if you make a contribution before midnight on March 31st. I hope you’ll consider joining me by making a donation today. If you can give $50 or more, not only will you be entered to win a ride on the Straight Talk Express, but you’ll receive a commemorative Straight Talk Express ticket.

But only minutes later, Clinton’s campaign was making basically the exact same pitch. An e-mail with Clinton’s signature outlined:

I’m really looking forward to the solo concert my friend Elton John is throwing in New York to help our campaign—and I would very much like the chance to meet you there.

We’re sending two supporters, along with their guests, to New York with VIP tickets for this very special, one-night-only concert on April 9, and it could be you. We will have a chance to talk just you and I—and you will get to meet Elton John at the party we’re throwing afterwards. It’s going to be a great night.

I am all for people utilizing best practices to improve their marketing efforts. But my gosh. At least what a couple weeks, put some thoughts into the idea to make it your own, and don’t just copy what a direct competitor does. This makes it look like McCain and Clinton are just following the leader, which in a political campaign might not be the best idea.

Washup: Washing Machine & Toilet Combo

In Design on Mar-25-2008 with
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The Washup is a concept design for a “Greener Gadget” contest that combines a washing machine and a toilet. It recycles wash-water that is later used for the toilet, and of course saves a lot of space by absorbing the washing machine’s footprint into the basin.

[Found via Boing Boing]

I’ve Asked Myself This Question More Than Once

In Business on Mar-25-2008 with
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Here is an interesting question posed by Dorothy Sayers in an article titled The Lost Tools of Learning:

Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined? Do you put this down to the mere mechanical fact that the press and the radio and so on have made propaganda much easier to distribute over a wide area? Or do you sometimes have an uneasy suspicion that the product of modern educational methods is less good than he or she might be at disentangling fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible?

I’ve Asked Myself This Question More Than Once

In Business on Mar-25-2008 with
no comments

Here is an interesting question posed by Dorothy Sayers in an article titled The Lost Tools of Learning:

Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard of and unimagined? Do you put this down to the mere mechanical fact that the press and the radio and so on have made propaganda much easier to distribute over a wide area? Or do you sometimes have an uneasy suspicion that the product of modern educational methods is less good than he or she might be at disentangling fact from opinion and the proven from the plausible?

Yahoo! Joins OpenSocial

In Links on Mar-25-2008 with
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A couple weeks ago there were a number of reports that Yahoo! was planning to join Google’s OpenSocial application platform. Well not only has Yahoo! thrown their support behind the platform, they are also, along with Google and MySpace, forming a new non-profit organization called the OpenSocial Foundation. It is modeled after the OpenID Foundation.

This is really good news across the board. Very good news. The press release of this announcement with more details is here.

Links for Mar-24-08

In Links on Mar-24-2008 with
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• Interesting presentation by Paul Isakson’s on The Future of Marketing + Advertising that highlights many of the barriers to success facing advertising agencies in the digital age.
  [Branding, Business, Presentation]
• Today the Justice Department approved Sirius Satellite Radio’s $5 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio, saying the deal was unlikely to hurt competition or consumers. Interesting. When there are only two firms in the world that offer the same service and one buys the other, how can it be said the deal is “unlikely to hurt competition or consumers.” Just curious.
  [Radio, Technology, XM, Sirius]

Essential Web-Based Apps For Any Consultant

In Business, Technology on Mar-24-2008 with
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As a freelance marketing/technology consultant I often get the opportunity to work on fun and interesting projects. That is the glamorous part of the job. But I also have to manage aspects of my job that other people used to handle. Stuff like client relations, new business development, billing, and administrative stuff. Not so much fun.

Luckily there is no shortage of web-based applications to help deal with these painful processes. The following are six applications that are essential to my business:

1. Basecamp: Project management
2. ConceptShare: Design collaboration
3. FreshBooks: Invoicing and expense tracking
4. Campaign Monitor: Powerful electronic newsletters application
5. Wordpress: Blogging and content management system
6. Zoho Meeting: Web conferencing

Obviously there are many others out there, but I’ve found these suit my needs perfectly.

Do Not Adjust Your Set

In Culture, TV, Technology on Mar-23-2008 with
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Andrew Sullivan, who usually contains his writing to the political spectrum, has an interesting article the Sunday Times about the accelerating fusion of the Web and television:

As TV and the Internet converge into something generically known as broadband, the distinctions between the two will soon become nugatory from a consumer point of view. But will this resulting hybrid be more like TV, plus interactivity; or more like the Internet, plus TV? The distinction will be worth billions to whoever gets there first and organizes this mess in a fashion that’s satisfying for consumers. The networks and cable companies, therefore, will need to move quickly to find a way to package the different streams—professional and user-made, broadcast and Internet—into a huge, interactive library, all easily and pleasingly accessible on demand and portable to whatever device people are overpaying for at that moment.