Connecting the dots ...
Southern Comfort dumps old media, and pours (pun intended) their entire $8 million media budget on the Net. Let’s hope they’ll spend it smarter then they did on this ad four years ago.
What’s wrong with this banner? Nothing – unless you place it in context. It appeared just days after Hurricane Katrina almost wiped out New Orleans… which gives the words “where anything can happen” a special meaning. And if you think it was just an innocent mistake, read the details here.
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Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale has been a classic favorite of generations … no, I’m not that old, it was considered a golden oldie even as I grew up. That said this song brings many fond memories…
Too bad they had to go to court.. apparently Matthew Fisher who created the song’s organ solo had been excluded from receiving royalties – while I am no legal expert, I can attest A Whiter Shade of Pale would be a lot .. hm.. more Pale without the distinctive organ music, so I am glad the House of Lords sided with him now.
And now, Procol Harum, 41 years later:
<rant>
Virtual Worlds, such as World of Warcraft, Entropia Universe, Habbo Hotel, Club Penguin and Second Life grew 39% in the second quarter of 2009 to an estimated 579 million members, reports The Guardian.
A good chunk of these virtual worlds is owning virtual goods, that cost no-virtual, but real money: GigaOM reports that the virtual goods market is estimated to reach $1.8 billion this year.
“About one in 10 Americans reached into their wallets last year and spent an average of $30 on virtual goods, those pixelated swords, outfits and other non-real items used in online games such as Habbo and Club Penguin” – quotes the LA Times, using the same research report.
So why am I ranting about this? Let me put it very simply:
We’re wasting our brain on stupid things instead of being productive, while sending real money to Chinese entrepreneurs who laugh their *** off while running their sweatshops producing these digital goodies.
And you wonder why the US is declining while China prospers.
</rant>
There, I said it … now I feel better. Now, for a refreshing and decidedly more intelligent view on China, US..etc read this piece by former wunderkind (may still be wunder but no longer kid) Ben Casnocha: Rising Tide Lifts All (Nation-State) Boats.
(Cross-posted @ CloudAve. For the latest and greatest -well, dunno, but definitely more intelligent posts than this- on Cloud Computing, Web Apps, Business and the like grab the CloudAve feed here.)
I’ve just received a most serious acquisition offer. Given their domain, I can’t help but wonder about the strategic fit 🙂
Hi,
We are interested in possibly acquiring your website, www.zoliblog.com, as it
would be a good strategic fit for our web portfolio.
If you’re interested in discussing further please let me know.A little about us - we are representing a small and privately owned company
with a $5 million fund for investing in websites.
They are headquartered in Denver with offices in Philippines and India and a
workforce of around 100 people between all offices. Please also note that our
due diligence process is painless – all we care about is *traffic* so when the
time comes we will need to see your Google Analytics
and then can submit a firm bid to you. We pay all cash — no "earn-outs" and
other gimmicks.I hope to hear from you soon.
Thanks,
………..
Strategic Acquisitions Group
name@wankmedia.com
Recently I wrote about PaaS by Amazon – an no, as much as we like thinking of Amazon as the the key Cloud Computing infrastructure provider, it wasn’t about Platform as a Service. It was about Pasta as a Service. Yes, I am buying Al Dente Carba-Nada as a subscription.
After all, before it become the uber-cloud-provider, Amazon started in retail – actually, as the company that revolutionized retail forever.
Do you know how many product search / comparison engines there are today? I don’t. A few years ago if I wanted to find something online, I probably used those comparison engines – then a funny thing happened. I noticed that I would end up @ Amazon – direct or via a Marketplace vendor – anyway. Might as well stop wasting time… nowadays I will still research major electronics, but for less than $100 purchases I will simply jump to Amazon. They do not always have the best price, but often enough, and the convenience of shopping from a trusted source, safe delivery and excellent service (no-questions-asked refund when my netbook developed a problem) makes it a no-brainer.
We’re also converting our real-world shopping to Amazon: would you spend a few hours driving around looking for a stupid little spare part, or just order it online, even if shipping makes it a few bucks more expensive? (i.e. is two hours of your time worth $5?) I’m clearly not the only one: the UPS truck, formerly rarely seen in residential areas makes its stops in my street every day now. But back to Amazon, here’s a trick to save on shipping: a lot of products are eligible for Free Super Saver shipping when you spent $25. How many times did you search for a penny-item to buy when your total came to $24.19? Add the non-immediate purchases to your “shopping list”, then bundle them with a larger purchase next time.
Another option to get free delivery and shave off an additional 15%: Subscribe and Save. Who would have thought one day we’d be subscribing to groceries? But it makes sense when it comes to regularly consumed items. I have subscriptions for tea, sunscreen and several other products that are not easy to find in regular stores, I am using regularly, and the subscription price is favorable @ Amazon. Subscription does not mean hard commitment: you can adjust the frequency of delivery, skip individual shipments, request immediate shipment and even cancel without any penalty (phone companies better pay attention!).
In short, Amazon has become my default vendor by good price and convenience. With a few exceptions, and shoes were on of them – until today. Zappos is (has been?) arguably the world’s best online source to buy shoes.
But it’s not primarily a shoe-seller. It’s the Ultimate Customer Service company. Shopping at Zappos means a few things:
In other words not only they have the largest inventory of shoes (the choice is actually overwhelming) they invented the formula for risk free, convenient shopping – why even get in the car and go to shoe stores?
Well, now it’s all part of Amazon in a transaction just shy of $1 Billion. Zappos CEO Toni Hsieh assured his employees and customers he would continue to run Zappos as it is. I believe him – for now, since once again, Zappos is all about service. They have a better model than Amazon, and would quickly lose customers if Amazon fully integrated them, applying their own (otherwise outstanding, just not Zappos-level) return policies. And it’s not like there’s nowhere else to run: my personal favorite has been ShoeBuy, which may be a Zappos copy-cat, but it perfected the art: same service principles, and often slightly lower prices.
If Zappos blinks and becomes too Amazon-ized, ShoeBuy will thrive. Otherwise they better watch out. And oh..hm… I don’t want to be in the shoes (pun intended) of many current shoe-sellers on Amazon.
Related posts:
(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)
Lenovo, home of the (formerly IBM) Thinkpad’s is not exactly known as a price leader: those Thinkpads have a great reputation and a matching price-tag. But times are changing, and Lenovo is becoming budget-friendly: the recently announced Ideapad U series, the G550, and the all-in-one Ideacentre are all “cool” computers with an attractive price. For all my love of Netbooks I admit I got tempted to get my hands on a new Ideapad U350 – basically somewhere in between a superslim notebook and a netbook, for $599 – not a bad price.
And of course getting the free Windows 7 upgrade put me at ease that I won’t be stuck in Vista prison for long… but wait! How will I install the upgrade? Lenovo says:
Each upgrade kit will be mailed separately and contain:
- Windows 7 Certificate of Authenticity
- Windows 7 OS Upgrade DVD
- Lenovo Drivers / Apps DVD1
- Instructions on how to upgrade the operating system
But there’s a small problem: this unit does not have an optical drive at all – which is all fine with me, in fact I’ve removed it from another, heavier laptop: all I need is a lightweight, portable productivity tool, won’t be watching DVD’s. Still, the prospect of installing DVD-based software without a DVD-drive is not that heart-warming, so I fired up this email inquiry to Lenovo (after some struggle to find an address):
To: websales@lenovo.com
Date: 07/18/09 10:04
Subject: Windows 7 upgrade for Ideapad U350
I’m considering a U350, but wonder how the upgrade to Win7 will take place since these units don’t have an optical drive. If the upgrade is done via download, does that mean Vista has to remain operational and I can’t get a a ‘clean’ Win7 install?
Thanks a lot,
Zoli
Today I received the following non-response:
Dear Zoli,
Thank you for contacting Lenovo, the makers of ThinkPad and ThinkCentre products.
I understand that you want to know if you can place an order for a U350 and want to know about the Windows 7 upgrade. You also want to know how to upgrade since these computers does not have an optical drive. I request you to please contact our Sales Department to get accurate information about the upgrade and to get help in placing an order,
If you have further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at 866-42-THINK (84465) option number 2. We will be happy to assist at that time.
Once again, thank you for contacting Lenovo.
What load of crap! Why should I call Sales Department? Doesn’t his email address read Websales? Customer Service 101: respond at the channel you were contacted at. And it’s not like I am asking for a very difficult, individualized answer: in fact my question is so obvious it should have been answered as part of the Win& FAQ @ Lenovo’s website.
Serious loss of credibility… what kind of support can I expect when I have real problems?
(Cross-posted from CloudAve)
Fiber One has a risky tagline: Cardboard no. Delicious yes.
Why risky? Because ..well, cardboard is indeed the first word that comes to mind when I taste it. Oh, well, my Dad likes it. Lucky for him, since he needs it for health: it’s hard to find this much fiber in half a cup of breakfast cereal elsewhere. I assume that’s the reason for this product’s popularity, not taste…but wait, building on the base product’s success, there is now a whole range of Fiber One products, cereals, breakfast bars..etc.
They went mainstream. Translation: sweet, tasty, sugary, less healthy. From 57% of your recommended daily fiber intake down to 20% in some cases. But wait.. there’s one cereal likely a lot tastier and not that far from the original fiber content:
Forget the standard industry trick that the new box contains only 14.25 ounces instead of the original 16.2 for the same price… it’s almost as healthy and likely tastes better. Let’s check the small print:
At first glance the two products are close: 14g vs. 13g fiber. But how come the tastier version is listed with 42g Carbs while the original had only 25? And 160 Calories vs. 60?
Oh, there’s the trick: the ingredients are listed as per serving. However, the original serving size was half a cup, while the tastier Honey Clusters’ serving size is 1 cup. I repeat:
General Mills, makers of Fiber One is using (almost) double the serving size to compare fiber content. The true comparison would be on the same serving basis, which would show a drop from 51% fiber content to roughly 25%.
This is an outrage: while technically correct, it gives false impression, especially since these products are typically placed right next to each other on supermarket shelves – and on the company’s website, for that matter.
Shame on you, General Mills for treating us as if we were stupid.
Update:
To the idiot spammer who shows up here with different email addresses and URL’s: you know, there is this concept of an IP address… it gives you away as one and the same spammer, no matter how many different names you use.
As for your question about the two forecasts contradicting each other, well, here’s another concept you may not have heard of: Fahrenheit and Celsius. Go Google it. 🙂
Would you believe pubsubhubbub is a name of a real service by none other than Google? Here’s the skinny… and all I can add is yaba daba do.
TGIF. 🙂
Bing is gaining on Google. Do you know why? Check these Google image search results for the keyword Bing. My friend Chris Yeh could come up with all sorts of theories on why she is winning, but I’ll skip the details.
On a serious note (and it’s not even tomorrow) here’s an easy way to experiment yourself: either use Bing vs. Google online, or better yet, add it as a search provider to your browser and observe the results for a few days.
Publisher / Editor of CloudAve and Enterprise Irregulars.
I do most of my business blogging there, with occasional asides here. More...
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