Twitter ramblings for 2009-07-03
- I bought some Oakley glasses after seeing so many PGA Tour players wearing. I tried, but Maui Jim is so much better for glare. MJ's for me. #
- Andy Roddick you just made me proud! Good luck on Sunday morning in Wimbeldon. #
- On a scale of 1-10 green meter, Provo Canyon is an 11! Beautiful. #
- Off to Soldier Hollow. Dying to play the Gold Course. Calling on memories of last summer's round, prob my best play of the year. #
- Yeah, my son connected with me from Costa Vida. He's well. Seen two volcanoes. Having fun. I'm relieved. #
Twitter ramblings for 2009-07-02
- My friends always want me to play golf–during the week, during “work” hours. I’ve never been that flexible in my job. All salespeople. #
- Still find my iPhone 3G w/ 3.0 OS slowing down. Reboot and it’s sluggish within 24 hours moving between apps, typing lags, lookup slow. #
- Gartner report on mobile phone manufacturer and mobile OS market share and growth statistics: http://bit.ly/8ULAx #
- Hills and mountains between Suncrest and Alpine, Utah are so green for this time of year. Looks like May, not July. #
Twitter ramblings for 2009-07-01
- Funny, true story. Bought pizza for dinner. NYPD payment showed up in online banking BEFORE my pizza was ready. #
- What’s the best spell check app for iPhone? Recommendations? #
- now I have to schedule my weekend to track my gadgets RT @peterrojas: Yes, gdgt is live! http://gdgt.com #
- Boy Genius Report nails it on RIM’s imminent demise. Back date 7 years, change comp to PALM and have same story. http://snurl.com/l9gnz #
American Express is Placing Ads on my Billing Page
I was not expecting to see this. An interruption marketing piece. An advertisement on a private web page behind a secure login where I go to review and “pay” my American Express bill (see screenshot below)?
Wow. Does anyone else find this a bit weird? Apparently the marketing executives at American Express have missed the Seth Godin classic, “Permission Marketing”.
I remember the time when online advertising was considered a last resort for a company to make money off a web page. Now it looks like that if there’s a web page that someone will view, and the company can make money from the presentation of pages, it’s acceptable to pocket the money.
Perhaps it was a “budget” meeting where someone said, “Hey, I know how we can make an expense into a revenue model: get people to convert from paper billing and serve up online ads where we can make money.”
Tacky.
Steve Mobs Keynote as a Ringtone for Your iPhone (myPhone)
In case you missed The Simpsons and the fantastic mocumentary of Mapple (a.k.a., Apple, NASDAQ:APPL) and Steve Mobs (a.k.a., Steve Jobs), Hulu now offers the entire episode or small clips.
If you’re an iPhone (myPhone) user looking for a the Steve Mobs in-store keynote converted into a ringtone, look no further. Just click on and download the ringtone below, add file to iTunes, and sync your iPhone. So if you’ve been missing the satire of the “pre-outed” Fake Steve Jobs, Bart Simpson is here to fill the void.
“And now a live announcement from Mapple founder and chief imaginative officer, Steve Mobs.”
“You think you’re cool because you buy a $500 phone with a picture of a fruit on it. Well guess what? They cost $8 bucks to make and I pee on every one!”
“I have made a fortune off you chumps, and I have invested it all in Microsoft. Now my boyfriend, Bill Gates, and I kiss each other on a pile of your money!”
2008 Presidential Election Marketing Spend: Nearly $1 Billion Dollars
Congratulations to President Elect Barack Obama on his amazing marketing and awareness campaign. As a traditional / social / new media follower, I was amazed at the awareness that was created and number of touch points that hit me personally.
Now that the election is complete, I couldn’t help but think about the number of impressions I have seen and heard over the past two years. To be honest, it’s been overwhelming.
One thing for certain, all Americans, including eligible voters over the age of 18, have witnessed the most “expensive marketing campaign” for a public office. Mr. Obama and McCain have raised a marketing war war chest of approximately US$999M (source: www.OpenSecrets.org).
What does this mean from a budgeting perspective?
Using US Census data (July 2007 estimates), there are approximately 306M citizens in the US. Assuming the dollars will split equally, President Elect Obama had $2.18 for every man, woman, and child to create impressions. McCain trailed with $1.18 per US citizen, or only 56% of what Obama raised.
Reality is that the vote is only available for those 18 years and older. Focusing the war chest on the narrower target audience, Obama had $2.81 per man and woman. Mr. McCain again only had a little over half as much money to spend at $1.58.
What’s interesting is that as a category spend of dollars per eligible voter, each of us over the age of 18 has received approximately $4.39 of awareness or issue-education spend.
Question: Should any election should have unlimited marketing spend to get the word out, share the message, or influence the vote?
What are your thoughts? I’d love to know.
Amazing references to Scanners, a cult classic
From one of my Twitter posts …
“Watched Scanners last night. Saw the guy’s head explode–the same referenced in Wayne’s World 2. Very dumb show.”
13 minutes ago from twitterrific
BradBaldwin
—————–
I didn’t realize when I wrote this that there was so much popular culture associated with Scanners. The information below is a copy of what is listed by Wikipedia:
- The 1976-1984 sketch-comedy series SCTV included a recurring sketch titled Farm Film Report in which Big Jim McBob (Joe Flaherty) and Billy Sol Hurok (John Candy) satirized conventional film review programs, using a stereotypical redneck slant. Consistently, their favorite film was Scanners, with all other films compared to it and found wanting. The sketch routinely closed with the salute to the audience: “May the Good Lord watch over you, and blow ya up real soon!”
- In the 1992 movie Wayne’s World, at one point Garth freezes while on TV, prompting an onlooker to comment, “Ever see that scene in Scanners when that dude’s head blew up?”
- In a 1993 episode, 511-”Gunslinger”, of the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000, Dr. Clayton Forrester offers “The Scanner Planner” (which, of course, deals with blowing up people’s heads a la Daryl Revok) as his end of the episode’s “invention exchange”. Dr. Forrester then proceeds to use the lessons taught in “The Scanner Planner” to blow up first Tom Servo’s head, and then (by the end of the episode) TV’s Frank’s head. The cover of the planner features the iconic image of Michael Ironside as Daryl Revok, as he is shown during the film’s climactic “Scanner battle”.
- The Norwegian ambient artist Biosphere used some samples from the movie in the song ‘Decryption’ of the 1994 album Patashnik.
- In the 1995 movie Tommy Boy, Richard (David Spade) states “Did anyone see Scanners?” when he realizes the orders have been cancelled.
- A 1996 episode of Saturday Night Live featured a sketch titled “Jimmy Tango’s Fat Busters”. Jim Carrey poses as “Jimmy Tango”, a formerly obese man who lost weight through the use of crystal meth and a vibrating heat bead suit. Jimmy interviews members of the crowd, some of which have already started using his “program”. One member (played by Will Ferrell) claims to be the devil, at which point Jimmy baits him into fighting with the phrase “talk is cheap, scan me” and the two begin having a scanner battle, ending with Ferrell bleeding from the scalp and begging Jimmy to stop.
- Rapper Phoenix Orion’s 1998 album, Zimulated Experiencez, included a song titled Scanners.
- On “Weird Al” Yankovic’s 2003 Poodle Hat album, the song Couch Potato mentions Scanners by name.
- Scanners was referenced in the The Big Bang Theory episode “The Cooper-Hofstadter Polarization”, whereby the characters of Sheldon and Penny attempt, unsuccessfully, to make people’s heads explode like in the film.
- The English band The Future Sound Of London used some samples from the movie in their songs.
- In the South Park episode called “Canada On Strike“, Tay Zonday’s head exploded just like in this movie.
- The Daily Show frequently uses the exploding head scene to illustrate “mind blowing” news.
- In an episode of Family Guy, Peter Griffin eats half a Popsicle in one bite and his head explodes in the same way as the famous scene.
Michael Arrington: “Nokia and Symbian are Irrelevant”
I’m glad to know that others agree with my point on other mobile device and OSes. I’ve owned all the brands of smart phones, Nokia included. For me, the AppStore and ability to attract developers make Apple the game changer.
From Forbes Magazine:
Eventually the iPhone bigots will get to you, as they did to David Rivas, a Nokia vice president in charge of its smart phone software efforts. “You’re ignoring Japan, you’re ignoring Korea. The statement that somehow the Web has not been mobile until the iPhone is absurd and back to the point about parochialism,” he told a room full of venture capitalists and software developers at a conference in July organized by tech blog impresario Michael Arrington.
“Wake up!” someone heckled from the back of the room as Rivas spoke. Arrington, the Valley’s answer to Judge Judy, wasn’t buying it either. “I believe that Nokia and Symbian [the software that powers its smart phones] are irrelevant companies at this point,” he pronounced from the stage.
Apple’s Swamped: Picture’s worth a 1,000 words
My One-on-One membership is quickly coming to a close. It’s time to try to get in some training on DVD production in Final Cut Studio. Went to the Concierge to book a session at the Apple Store at The Gateway in Salt Lake City. This is what I see when I try to register. 
Since the iPhone 1.0, the dynamic at the Apple store has totally changed. Lot’s of people coming in for help with their devices. The core customers used to be creators. Now that same customer has become a “consumer” of the creative. Maybe Apple needs to open a new store for iPhones and iPods so the computing and software needs for creative types can be addressed without all the people needing a replacement to a faulty device.
Bono, Supposedly, Leaks New Tracks — Ya, Right
So The Sun and torrentfreak.com are reporting that a few new tracks from U2’s forthcoming and likely titled ” No Line On The Horizon” release have been “leaked” to the Internet. Supposedly, an “innocent passer by” recognized Bono’s voice and then recorded (not sure with what), uploaded, and published the tracks to the Internet.
I don’t buy it. This is a publicity stunt designed to create buzz.
U2 and Bono are so connected to the use of buzz marketing, social media, and social networking for me to believe this story. In fact, back in November, Bono hooked up with iLike to “preview” a release of the bonus material that would be included on the re-released Joshua Tree.
About 8 years ago, I worked with a tech guy who really wanted to be a musician — in fact, he played as a backup guitarist for Rage Against the Machine on a couple of recordings. When we went to lunch and debated about the use of Napster and P2P file sharing networks, he proposed a simple solution: upload crappy recordings labeled as the real thing. Give listeners a chance to gain exposure to the artist, recordings, musical style, sounds, etc. When the listener found music he/she liked, he/she could leverage legal download services or old-fashioned CD sales to get the quality recording.
Humm….sounds family.
keep looking »