Weekend in Review

My Broncos lost a squeaker to the Bears special teams...I mean come on it sure as hell wasn't their anemic offense!  I think Jay Cutler has real talent, and if you take that idiot Sauerbrun out of the picture (he should haver to wear an "I Kick To Hester" t-shirt) we would have won, for sure. 

In other sports news, my trip to the Garden for the Cornell-Boston University hockey game was a little disappointing0 ended in a 6-3 defeat for the Big Red.  Given that MSG holds about 5 times the fans as Lynah Rink, it was pretty spectacular to hear thousands of Cornell fans yelling "RED" in the middle of the national anthem, and all of our other mob behavior is still way entertaining. 

Watching football this Sunday, I was treated to an ad for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I look forward to seeing in 08.  However, if it continues the post-T2 decline of the franchise, I imagine I'll ultimately be disappointed.

The other thing I discovered was in those Toyota Tundra ads, the guy who drives up in the Tundra with the line "Get in" is none other than Eric Allan Kramer of Robin Hood, Men In Tights fame.  Go get 'em, little John!

 

Google's Huge, Risky Wireless Plan Could Crush Cash Flow?

With SprintNextel's announcement that the company no longer plans to invest $4 billion is WiMAX to build a nationwide wireless 4G network, Google's plans seem all the more audacious.  However, I consider this a gutsy move, probably with better ROI possibilities than the telecoms.  If there is one thing GOOG knows how to do, it's monetize monetize monetize. 

So, Good luck, Google, and godspeed.

 


Link: Google's Huge, Risky Wireless Plan Could Crush Cash Flow (via Silicon Alley Insider)

Bronfman: Fool me once...

This is almost encourageing-to hear  a major old media executive admit a serious strategic blunder over the direction his company/imndustry chose to follow.  He rightly describes the anti-piracy and anti-digital battles as "wars" with consumers.  In case anyone was wondering: market power, when it decreases features alienates aware consumers, even if it doesn't immediately ruin your revenues.   That took about 7 years.
The power of the net and the digitization of music consumption is that it freed everyone from the anti-competitive power of big music; it amde devils of thre labels and angels of Apple, KaZaa, Limewire and Napster.

So, maybe the studios are listening, or even watching.  Maybe it's time to offer an insanely great version of your product in the digital space, and end the war on content consumption.

MacUser: News: Music boss: we were wrong to go to war with consumers.

"We used to fool ourselves,' he said. "We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won."

Sketch performance tomorrow

My group, The Stuff, has a small slot in a show tomorrow night at
Rififi.  You will get a shot of free booze at the end of the show
courtesy of whoever sponsors the show (I think last time I checked it
was Jameson).  And then you can buy me and my group drinks! .

The show is part of "Slightly Known People is Seeing Other People"
Saturday, Nov. 10, 8pm
Cover: $5
RiFiFi
332 East 11th Street
Between First and Second Aves

Destination unknown? I miss my MacBook

This mornign my work laptop died while I was giving a presentation.  The battery life has slowly degraded over the last 5 or 6 months, until this morning it lasted barely 40 minutes.  Meanwhile my MacBook Pro at home has no problem working for 3 hours...which I used to think wasn't very good.

And here is how bad things have gotten:
Destination_unknown
It doesn't even recognize the battery!  AAARGH!!!!!

UPDATE: Switched out the battery- we seem to be golden, now.

Late to the party- MacOS X Trojan

Is Gadi Evron right that "It's Mac season. The next two years will be interesting"? 

Saw this from Darren Herman's Ramblings page.  As a Mac user, I can't tell you how many false or useless codecs I've probably downloaded  since I started using MacOS X  in 2002, just to TRY to play the same media as Windows users could.  There is still no way to play Intel Indeo video on a Mac running OSX -  not that OS9 is an option. 

Mac users like me live in a world where things are improving (the Flip4Mac extensions for Quicktime which extend Quicktime player have been great), it can be frustrating.  Plus, if the vulnerability requires you to type the administrator password...well you have to do that pretty much when installing anything. 

So, the risk is probably real, but it won't be Klez or Blaster or anything like that, in its current form.  The day we get ActiveX on my Mac, I'll worry then.

 


Link: New Apple Trojan Means Mac Hunting Season Is Open.

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The End of the Diversified Media Company?

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How valuable is is to have assets over a variety of businesses?  Do economies of scale and especially scope really exist?  I think it is interesting what is happening this week.

Previously I blogged about IAC breaking up- essentially this is a vote for "yes" and a vote for "no" because the breakup into five separate companies suggests that the value of the parts individually is higher than the value of the whole.  Barry Diller also said that IAC

needed [the transactional businesses like Ticketmaster] earnings to allow us to invest in emerging Internet businesses. Now that we have real scale in the pure Internet units, it makes nothing but sense to me to reorganize the whole.

So essentially, having TV, internet, real estate, and retail assets all together under one roof wasn't maximizing shareholder value after all.


CnbcNbccom What are other firms doing?  Try GE. General Electric's NBC Universal unveiled a sweeping campaign last night during the Sunday Night Football broadcast of the Eagles-Cowboys game aimed at  "entertaining, informing and empowering Americans to lead greener lives."  But was anyone watching?

I would be surprised if this was not one of the top games in ratings this season.  The campaign, NBC Green is Universal, will turn the NBC logo on virtually all of its TV channels (cable and broadcast) Internet properties(excluding MSNBC),  green for one week to coincide with eco-awareness programming.  I don;t know what Matt Lauer was doing near the arctic circle, but apparently the earth is getting warmer :)  It's "Green Week" at Claire's high school on Heroes. 

The models on Deal or No Deal will be  wearing recycled parachutes.  Jay Leno shows you how to clean a green sink in an eco-friendly way.  Even as CNBC was reporting that Citigroup stock was probably headed lower, there was Eco-Awareness brought to you by NBCU. GE announced this on October 23, apparently.

It's going to be hard to avoid all of this, as NBC is everywhere, but I think the only thing this proves is unified campaign launches across platforms can be done well, with the added benefit that we decide to tell all our bosses to buy that $2,000,000 GE HVAC unit for the office park because it's 20% more efficient and uses 16% renewable resources (i made those figures up- all of them).  GE  named Ann Klee Vice President for Environmental Programs today!  All this seems more to be happening for corporate PR value and brand equity than any DR/commerce advertising.

Times are just as challenging for other large media companies.  The AOL/TW merger never produced the kinds of scale and scope ecomies and leverage promised to investors. Viacom spun off CBS radio in an apparent loss of faith  in the radio business's  fit with its other assets. 

Maybe all of these are examples of businesses with strong positions but weak strategic frameworks.  Are software/tech companies like Microsoft and Google doing this better than others?  In some sense, it seems like their model isn;t much different- using a cash cow (Windows OS/office software for Microsoft, search for Google) to lever into other lines of business.  Time will tell.

BuzzMachine >> The new British class sytem: Facebook

No wonder we needed a rebellion.

In today’s Telegraph (and this month’s Vogue), Conde Nast UK head Nicholas Coleridge admits that he’s trapped in the new British class system: Facebook.

I know people – adults, that is, busy people with jobs – who spend two or three hours every single day tending their virtual roster of acquaintances, “poking” people, adding applications, trawling friends’ lists of friends to find new ones to poach, or approaching complete strangers to boost their score.

The second half of 2007 has seen the renaissance in England of social competitiveness. Who has more friends on Facebook, me or you? Or, more pressing, who has the most glamorous friends on Facebook? We have turned into a nation of social-stamp collectors.

Link: BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » The new British class sytem: Facebook.

Study Examines Suicide Tourism in New York City - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog

So, other than being critical of the linkbait headline "suicide tourism" I have this to point out- it is now official: there is someone studying everything. 

Out-of-towners traveling to New York City specifically to commit suicide have accounted for 5.3 percent of city suicides and more than 10 percent of all Manhattan suicides since 1990, according to a new research study. The two highest concentrations of such suicides took place near the George Washington Bridge, in Upper Manhattan, and in the Midtown tourism district, which includes Times Square, the Empire State Building and other skyscrapers, and most of the city’s major hotels.

Link: Study Examines Suicide Tourism in New York City - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog.

As if Fox wasn't idiotic enough

"Fox Super Bowl inventory 90% sold" says MediaWeek [mediaweek.com]

I hope Joe Buck isn't calling the Superbowl, because Fox is going retarded with its pregame show (which I am announcing right now, I will not watch.  I would rather watch "Requiem For A Dream" while inhaling jalapenos)

  Why?

Fox will also create a Red Carpet arrival area for celebrities attending the Super Bowl that will be hosted during the pre-game telecast by American Idol’s Ryan Seacrest. Movie companies buying in-game Super Bowl spots, as a value added by Fox, will be able to parade its stars of upcoming movies on the Red Carpet and be asked a question about the movie by Seacrest.

VOMIT NOW.

The End of "Corporate Communications: U-Verse"

ATT taking a page from the TiVo support strategy and having its TSRs (at least it looks like they are tech support folk) patrol the user forums.  The site as a whole boasts " 31611 Posts in 3567 Topics by 9154 Members."  If members are complaining about your service, GO THERE!  Also, Kudos for the ATT forum "UTalk" which also seems like a nice implementation, if official.


Link: AT&T U-verse TV Hit by Nationwide Outages - 10/22/2007 10:54:00 AM - Multichannel News.

In online forums at AT&T’s own Web site and on UverseUsers.com, subscribers reported receiving error messages informing them they were not subscribed to certain channels.

Amazon MP3's Buzz-Building Plan: Pay Affiliates 4X What Apple Does

Apple is not in the business to make money selling digital music.  Amazon can afford to lose money, but by all accounts, Apple loses money on some of its 99 cent songs anyway. 

This does not change the fundamental truth that people do not pay for music.  So, have fun, Amazon. 

Link: Amazon MP3's Buzz-Building Plan: Pay Affiliates 4X What Apple Does - Silicon Alley Insider.

One of Amazon's biggest potential weapons as it takes on Apple's market-dominating iTunes music store: a huge cadre of affiliates which it pays commissions to refer sales. In an email sent to affiliates this morning, Amazon said it would pay a 20% retail commission for MP3 sales through Dec. 31, and a 10% rate thereafter. Apple, meanwhile, offers a 5% commission -- which we don't see changing anytime soon. By linking visitors to Amazon's store, affiliates make about 18 cents per 89-cent download referral, while they would make about 5 cents for referring a sale to iTunes.

America's Most Impressionable Shoppers Easiest to Annoy

This is just delicious.  A story by eMakreter  about Mobile Users Easy To Annoy? includes a citation to a study by Maritz research, that of 1,062  people surveyed, most were opposed to subscribing to  text ads on their cell phone.  Not surprising.  But is it representative?  Guess where they found their sample?  "Adults whop shopped at one of the following stores: Abercrombie and Fitch, American Eagle Outfiutters, Aeropostale, Express, or Gap".