Wednesday, July 28, 2004

AirTran Is A Very Poor Airline



AirTran Airways is a “very poor airline” in my opinion, based upon their inability to manage customer expectations and make decisive decisions.

After over nine hours of delays, excuses and three consecutive de-plane and re-boardings, AirTran finally cancelled a 3:14pm flight bound for Philadelphia at 11:15pm last night. “It took AirTran Operations Center over nine hours from their first delay announcement yesterday at 2:45pm until almost midnight to share with its customers the fact that they would indeed cancel this flight,” states Adam Brown, an upset AirTran passenger and author of this blog. “[AirTran] could have made the cancellation decision at around 4:00pm yesterday afternoon, enabling passengers to consider other travel alternatives, but instead they delayed, de-boarded, re-boarded, made excuses and manipulated passengers for an entire day.”

Following is a rundown of yesterday’s timeline, outlining the poor decisions made by the AirTran Operations Center resulting in dozens of passengers sleeping in the airport – since AirTran did not provide hotel or meal vouchers to their inconvenienced customers. AirTran spokespeople claimed that since the delay was “weather-related” and not AirTran’s fault, they were in no position to compensate the weary travelers. “While the inclement weather was not AirTran’s fault, they do not seem to be taking responsibility for their poor decisions and indecisiveness in waiting nine hours to cancel this flight,” claims Brown. “They created this situation by refusing to take the best interests of their customers to heart.”

12:30pm – Adam Brown, passenger on AirTran flight 339 to Philadelphia, arrives at Atlanta airport early for a scheduled 3:19 departure.

2:45 – AirTran gate agents announce some weather in the Philadelphia area, and that boarding might be delayed a bit.

3:30 – AirTran gate agents announce that the weather is Philadelphia is still challenging, but they are going to go ahead and board. Flight 339 boards and pushes back from the gate.

4:00 – AirTran Captain announces that all flights into Philly have been delayed, but that we were going to stay on the taxiway so that we can be the "first to depart" once a slot opens up.

6:00 – AirTran Captain announces that delay is indeterminable and that we are going to return to the gatehouse to wait this one out. Plane returns to gate.

7:13 – AirTran re-boards the plane, announces we have "immediate clearance" to depart to Philly.

7:47 – Plane pushes back from gate, heads towards runway, then abruptly U-turns and returns to gate two minutes later. No one is allowed to deplane. Passengers are waiting on news from the AirTran Captain.

7:58 – AirTran Captain announces that it will be at least 35 minutes before we are allowed to leave the gate. Everyone must remain on board.

8:42 – Plane pushes back and moves to taxiway, where engines are cut off. AirTran Captain announces that it will be at least 50 minutes before we can depart. Drink carts come out, as people are awfully thirsty (and hungry), Passengers begin to realize that we came out to the taxiway for only one reason – not because we were planning on departing for Philly, but because AirTran needed to use our gate for other flights. So, we’re hostage. We have been deceived.

9:39 – One hour later, the AirTran Captain announces that we cannot depart to Philly because of weather both in Philadelphia and Atlanta, so we’re heading back to the gatehouse to await further direction.

9:55 – We’re still not at the gatehouse. You see, there are no available AirTran gates! This makes everyone realize that our pushback at 8:42 was purely to allow another plane to use our gate and that we were deceived and manipulated by AirTran.

10:34 – We arrive at a non-AirTran gate, D4. This is the second-farthest gate from the Hartsfield terminal and an entire concourse away from any AirTran customer service representatives. We’re told to wait in the D4 gatehouse for further direction.

10:56 – We are told to get back in line to re-board the plane (now for the THIRD time), we have been given clearance to depart to Philly. An unhappy, unprofessional and rude AirTran Supervisor decides to re-board the plane row by row, only calling two rows at a time. Travelers who have been patient to this point are now at their breaking point. The AirTran Supervisor starts at the rear of the aircraft and does NOT allow elderly or business class to board first. Not surprisingly, many passengers begin to revolt. It takes 30 minutes to re-board the aircraft for this THIRD time.

11:28 – The AirTran Captain comes on the PA system and announces that AirTran Operations has now cancelled the flight, a full eight hours after planned departure time. After three re-boardings of this plane, multiple excuses and explanations, passengers are understandably upset. They want answers, they want compensation, they want honesty. Sadly, they get none of these.

Postscript – Since AirTran claims that this was a weather delay, they will not provide hotel or food vouchers for the stranded passengers. Seeing that it is past midnight, most passengers are unable to find a hotel, even on their own dime. Additionally, all concessions at the airport closed hours ago.

Travelers waiting for their baggage had to endure almost two more hours of waiting. Baggage did not arrive back at the terminal until 1:30am, according to George Bott, a Houston passenger traveling on the flight. AirTran baggage representatives had mentioned that baggage would take at least an hour to be taken off of the aircraft, upsetting the already weary passengers. An hour came and went, with no bags. Baggage actually took closer to two hours, making an angry crowd that much more upset. AirTrain baggage representatives were indifferent and unapologetic.



Even though my blog is called “GumpRants.com,” I don’t often use it to rant negatively about something. This is an exception. I’ll be sharing this situation (and this Web site) with AirTran Customer Service and asking them to respond. When they do respond, I will post it here.

In the meantime, I encourage all of you to email a link to this article to all of your friends, family and co-workers. While we can’t hold AirTran responsible for the weather, we must help them understand that customer expectation management and decisive decision-making regarding flight cancellations ARE their responsibility, and something they are currently doing very poorly.

This is not my first serious issue with the AirTran airline regarding poor decision making and customer manipulation, I will share my other experience with you in a later blog posting.

-aB

Monday, July 26, 2004

Interesting Seth Godin Interview



Marketing author Seth Godin is interviewed for the Global PR Blog Week and discusses advice for PR professionals on blogging, "brand journalism," and how RSS feeds make Seth's argument for permission marketing. Snippet:


The problem is that this medium is amateur at its best. Amateur which means that bloggers aren't bored, bloggers aren't lazy and bloggers aren't just trying to fill space. The traditional PR approach isn't going to work (at least for now). What works is bringing actual news and actual remarkable stuff to people who care.


Read the full interview of Seth Godin on PR Machine here.

Read more of Seth's comments on blogs, RSS, email marketing and other interesting stuff in Seth Godin's Blog here.

-aB


Great Interview on Blogs and PR



Jay Rosen, Chair of the Journalism School at NYU and Steve Rubel, a speaker at the blogon2004 event held at UC Berkley last week, discuss disintermediation and how PR is changing as consumers discover new ways of getting news. Here's a snippet of Rosen's comments:


I think public relations should first understand that to the extent that its art is a form of "spin"-whether it's reasonable spin, accepted spin, good spin, bad spin, terrible spin - it is selling a service for which there is less and less value, and less mind is paid to it. Spin was possible in the era of few-to-many media, and a small number of gatekeepers who could be spun.

My advice to PR people is to help citizens become more so-- more sovereign over information goods. Spin is not a good. Neither is a brick wall, or a blatantly one-sided story that cleverly coheres because it leaves out every single inconvenient fact. Public relations, if it wants to do good, should stand for real transparency in organizations, and genuine interactivity with publics. Want an issue in corporate PR? Freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of interaction for company bloggers: how do we make it a practical reality?


You can read the full interview on Jay Rosen's blog here. It's great - Jay speaks about his definition of participatory journalism, PR ethics and blogging, the difference in bloggers and credentialed journalists, and how journalism schools are (or are not) responding. This is another must-read for marketing professionals. (Another must-read is this article I wrote, although I am a bit biased.)

The blogon2004 blog itself has some great information and content gleaned from last week's event.

-aB

Monday, July 19, 2004

Gump's Weekly Photography Showcase - Week 3



I'm now into my third week of showcasing some of my photography work that I host over at Smugmug, in my opinion the best photography hosting Web service out there.

The past two weeks have seen me linking to my black and white photography from a trip last year to Jackson Hole, WY, and to a photography workshop I took to Washington State in 2003.

This week, I'm linking to some pictures I took when Melissa and I went to Sedona, AZ and the Grand Canyon. This is one of my smaller galleries in terms of total number of images, but I'm pretty happy with how my black & white prints of Red Rock in Sedona and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon turned out. The picture shown above is of the Chapel of the Holy Cross, a small church that is actually constructed into the side of one of the mountain features there in Sedona. Very cool.
 
Enjoy the pics.
 
-aB

Clear Channel Radio - Less Ads in 2005



Anyone who's listened to radio during the past few years has probably noticed that there are a LOT more radio commercials. In fact, during drive-time (radio station's most profitable listening times) on some stations, the amount of commercials would exceed 20 minutes/hour! Just four or five years ago, eight to ten minutes of advertising per radio hour was considered a high average.
 
Clear Channel, owner of over 1200 stations says that they are going to change that in this New York Times article. Here's a lead paragraph and link: 

Clear Channel Radio plans to announce today that it will begin limiting the number of commercials its more than 1,200 stations can play, in a move that analysts say may ripple through the industry even before it takes effect on Jan. 1.

 
Read the article here.

-aB

Saturday, July 17, 2004

Blogs Flex Muscle In "Viral Marketing"



Earlier this week, I did an interview with Alex Goldfayn, columnist for The Chicago Tribune and author of "The Technology Tailor" technology newsletter.
 
The article, "Blogs Flex Muscle In Viral Marketing" is in today's Saturday edition, and a copy is currently live on the Chicago Tribune Web site. Unfortunately, the site requires online registration to view. If you want to see what I think about required newspaper site registration, scroll down to my Wednesday blog posts or just click here.
 
But, thanks to BugMeNot.com, we have a login and password for you to use at ChicagoTribune.com to read the article
 
Member name: msnerd
Password: mortimer
Here's a brief snippet of my quote: 


"With blogs, consumers wield more power online. They have the opportunity to reach the masses very quickly. And as marketing professionals, we have to acknowledge that," [Adam Brown] said. Which is why eKetchum has been focusing its online public relations strategy on "influencers" (bloggers) maintaining "innovative media" online. The result of all these consumers reading other consumers' thoughts and opinions is known as viral marketing.

I'll link to the easier-to-access story on Alex Goldfayn's site as soon as he puts it up.
 
-aB

Friday, July 16, 2004

PR in 2014

 

John Paluszek, Senior Counselor at Ketchum and very well-respected public relations professional has an interesting article on PR trends and where he sees the industry in 2014.

John discusses the convergence of public relations, science and technology in his article. I'd like to add my thoughts on where our industry is going, and three trends I see:

  • Narrowcasting - people are getting their "news" from more targeted news outlets. In studies, younger people say they get their "news" from outlets like MTV News, for older "conservatives" we've all seen the increase in popularity of FOX News (at the expense of the big 3). "Create Your Own News Program" from different resources/subjects/talent/length is not that far away. Heck, on my standard three years old Comcast digital cable box at home, I can choose to watch different "parts" of CNN news programming when and in what order I want to. (Granted, I don't do it that often, but I'm sure it will be easier to do in 2014).
  • Timeshifting - people get news and information on their schedule, whether it be via the Internet, in their cars, on their wrists (like John mentions) or more selectively packaged with tools like TiVo and personal digital recorders. These trends will continue - making it more difficult for us as PR practitioners to reach our audience with broadcast segments.
  • Participation Journalism - What will a "journalist" be in 2014? Our definition of journalist means classically trained, generally impartial, available resources (and credibility and readership) of a known publication. With laypeople getting into the "news business" with blogs, this is changing. Blogs right now are primarily text and a few images. What's going to happen in a few years when Joe and Jane Consumer can shoot video of a live breaking news event on their video-enabled Cingular wireless phone, provide live commentary of the action and fetch it up onto their own blog (or someone who syndicates "breaking news" from these individuals) in real time?Will these new "pseudo-journalists" (like bloggers today) accept a relationship with PR professionals? Working with traditional journalists today is easier - they know how we PR people work and we know how they work. How will PR practitioners create relationships with these new "pseudo-blogger-journalists?" Like them or not, they're here. About 30-40 bloggers have been given credentials to the DNC and RNC conventions (for the most part, different bloggers at both). It will be interesting to see how other journalists interact with them, if and how consumers interact with their online content and if they provide any insight that traditional journalists don't provide.

Just some thinking I thought that you might be interested in.

-aB


Thursday, July 15, 2004

Most Click-throughs on Pop-Up Ads Are Probably Acccidents



Pop-up ad banner click-throughs are already at deperately low percentages, clearly demonstrating that they don't work as a marketing tool. Web users have gotten pretty good at ignoring anything that has the general shape and placement of a traditional ad banner unit, and intrusive ones like pop-ups (and even pop-unders) annoy surfers.

A report, noted in today's Techdirt.com and pulled from Revolution Magazine shows that it might even be worse that marketers thought. Snippet:

The vast majority of click-throughs on pop-ups are accidental and it is taking users longer to close these ads because of "hidden" close buttons, new research is claiming.


Who's surprised by this? Anyone?

-aB

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Another Negative of Online Site Registration



I'm not a fan of having to register and jump through a dozen hoops just to read an online newspaper. The Atlanta Journal Constitution started a mandatory-registration policy in April and from what I hear, has seen a CONSIDERBLE reduction in site traffic. Waaah. Their "questionnaire" went so far to ask for phone number, salary info and a couple things that I thought were purely ridiculous, especially for a marginal-quality newspaper like the AJC. The New York Times didn't even ask for that private information!

Last month, CNN.com ran a story about Web newspaper registration that explained that I was not alone in my frusturation. The story mentioned Web sites like BugMeNot.com that allow users to use "generic" UserIDs and Passwords to get around registration, a great idea.

But this story from Wired points to another problem for publications with required registration. Their articles aren't showing up in search engine rankings. Registration firewalls means no search spider access. No spider access means no listings, which in turn results in fewer readers.

It also makes it tough for bloggers to link to online articles. Thankfully, The New York Times has created a Link Generator Tool to help bloggers create links to NY Times articles that don't need registration and don't go stale (another issue). Cool tool.

Enough ranting for today. Did I mention how much the AJC sucks? Yes? Good.

-aB

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Canon Announces the XL2



This is BIG news for anyone shooting broadcast-quality miniDV digital video. Canon today announces the new XL2 camera.

About two years ago, Canon updated the XL1 with the XL1S. It wasn't a big change (hence the small name change) and I think the only real big update was the addition of SMPTE color bars (yipeee) and some progressive scan tweaks. At least that's what I thought, since have an XL1 (and love it so).

This product update is a biggie. Read the press release snippet:

The Canon XL2 allows you to capture images closer to the finished product than ever before. Work that previously was limited to post-production can be simply and effectively accomplished in the field, in the camcorder.

An Open Architecture philosophy, performance found only in much more expensive video cameras, Total Image Control and the solid foundation of Genuine Canon Optics, interchangeable lens capability and superb Canon image processing quality are united in the XL2.

The XL2 brings a host of performance and convenience features to this class of video camcorder- benefits that can't be found in this combination on other high-end video cameras. They include: Canon Super Range Optical Image Stabilization in the standard lens; dual aspect ratios; various frame rate capabilities; image gamma and detail controls; skin detail control and convertible LCD display and among others.

Unprecedented image control coordination between two XL2 cameras, remote computer camera control and direct video recording to computer are just a part of the capabilities of the XL2. Never before has so much creative power been put in the hands of the film maker, video artist, and corporate and event videographer.


Read the story at Gizmodo.

Read the announcement from Canon.

-aB

Sony delays the PSX until 2005



Bummer. Sony's PSX, basically a PlayStation 2 and TiVo rolled together, won't be coming out in the US this year as hoped. Japan has had the product for over a year now.

Engadget discusses the delay here.

Maybe it will be a TiVo for me, as I discussed here last week.

-aB

Batman: The Animated Series on DVD



I was always a huge fan of this TV series. Where Warner Brothers could have done something really campy with marginal-quality animation, they instead decided to go with the talented duo of animator Bruce Timm and background artist Eric Radomski.

The look of this TV show was beautiful - dark, edgy animation on backgrounds that used light (or lack thereof) and shadows in visually interesting ways.

The writing and voice casting were top notch, too, as this review on IGN of the DVD Volume 1 states.

-aB

Monday, July 12, 2004

Gump's Weekly Photography Showcase - Week 2



Last week, I linked to some my black & white photography from a trip to Jackson Hole, WY.

This week, I'm linking to some of my photography work from a photography workshop I made to Washington state last year with a few other photographers.

The trip was planned by Scott Bourne and his Olympic Mountain School of Photography. Scott's a great guy, an amazing photographer and a Photoshop wizard.

I've broken my favorite images from the trip into three categories - Interior, Mountains and Coastal.

Washington is beautiful, and I would move to Seattle in a minute if given the chance.

Enjoy the pics.

-aB

Friendster Promotes Fakesters



Friendster is now getting some heat for a marketing concept that I always thought was a great idea, but a little controversial. Two degrees of Friendster separation from Will Ferrell (or Ron Burgundy, the character he plays in Anchorman)? Cool.

Here's a snippet:

Since its inception, the social-networking service Friendster has taken a militant stance against members posting fake profiles of cartoon characters, political figures, celebrities and bogus people. But now, in an about-face, Friendster is promoting profiles of characters from the new movie Anchorman.


Full article in Wired here.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

If Stranded On a Desert Island...



If I was stranded on a desert island and could only take one tool with me, it would be my Dremel.

Without sounding too much like an infomercial, it's one of those tools that you won't know how you lived without. Over the past three weeks, I've used my Dremel on about a half-dozen projects including:

  • Polishing my stainless steel watch (with the polishing kit that includes jewler's rouge);

  • Sanding off protruding nails in my hardwood floor;

  • Cutting sheet metal to install a new exhaust fan in my bathroom;

  • Cutting sheetrock (using the drywall cutting tool) to fix my a/c unit;

  • Sanding down some abrasions on the lower front bumper of my BMW Z4.


That's just in the past two weeks.

This is really a great tool that every gadget-oriented person should have. You'll catch yourself looking for new projects to use the ole' Dremel on. Dremel.com is a pretty good Web site, and includes an Owner's Club and Message Board with a lot of tips to help users out with less-than-traditional projects for the tool.

-aB

Saturday, July 10, 2004

Great Article/Open Letter to Apple's Steve



I don't know what it is about Apple, but there are a lot of "armchair CEOs" out there that love to share their thoughts on how to help Steve Jobs run his company.

You must give Jobs credit for what he's been able to do since taking the company back over in 1997. The iMac, the iPod, iTunes - all Jobs inspirations and all have re-established Apple as a design and technology leader.

This article/open letter in Business Week, however does pose some interesting ideas that Steve might consider.

-aB

Friday, July 09, 2004

RIAA, Are You Reading This?



Now, I am very conservative when it comes to copyright laws. I think that "ripping" music files that you don't pay for is stealing - theft pure and simple. But I am so frustrated with how the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is going about enforcing copyright laws.

Album sales are down. Yeah, file sharing has something to do with it. But perhaps RIAA, it has something to do with album quality. It sucks. The last five CDs I have bought have had mediocre music quality, and the last two albums I purchased would not work in iTunes or on my iPod. Albums I legally purchased, mind you. Penalize the legitimate purchasers - great concept, guys.

Additionally, there is such an opportunity for music labels to do something compelling with the CD form factor. Cool jewel box graphics, an included DVD with video snippets, actual album lyrics. Now the Dance/Trance/House genre gets it, with artists like Paul Van Dyk and Moby including some of these things to "encourage" people to buy the albums in record stores. And they get the cool packaging concept, too - with funky paper jewel boxes and jewel box dust covers/wrappers that give someone an incentive to buy the CD. They realize that the audio information encoded on the CD is "art" as well as the CD packaging. What happened to that thought with mainstream artists? You're buying something tangible here. Product design is still important!

But the mainstream artists are still scratching their heads, wondering why no one is purchasing their fair-quality CDs in cheap plastic jewel boxes with one-sheet cheaply-printed album covers.

So, I buy my mainstream music off of Apple's iTunes Store. Cheaper, iPod-able and I can still print out the album cover and make my own CD jewel box if I want to. Dance/Trance - I'll buy the cool packaging at a record store (at least until they all go out of business). But if it weren't for that, it would be iTunes all the way.

So, back on point. Long rant there. Steve Winwood gets it, as this article in Wired notes today.

-aB

Tom Peters, Boyd Clarke, GE & Nanotechnology



Here's an interesting note about some of General Electric's breakthroughs with nanotechnology, and how Tom Peters Company CEO Boyd Clark thinks that this is big stuff. Snippet:

Boyd Clarke wrote two years ago that there are "four converging technologies that will create exponential growth in white-collar productivity: Wireless communication, nano-technology, databases and intelligent systems."


Read the Tom Peters blog entry here.
Read about GE's breakthrough here.

-aB

All Mice Are Not Created Equal



My old PS2 Logitech trackball finally petered out this week. After about five years of dutiful service (probably longer than that - this baby pre-dates USB), I decided to fork out $49 on a new mouse, the Logitech MX510.

There is a difference in mice. Now, I have the first generation Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse on my main computer, and it's pretty good (although it eats through batteries faster than I had hoped). I initially installed this new mousie on my second computer, but last night it got the call - to move from the minors to the major league. The Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse got sent down and the Logitech got called up.

Playing games (like Unreal 2004 until 1:30 in the morning), this baby rocks. I had underestimated the "stutter" in the wireless mouse for games. As you can see in the image, the Logitech is pretty easy on the eyes - although I would have preferred the blue one over the red (it comes in two colors).

Positive reviews and awards are pouring in for the MX510. Count this as one of them.

-aB

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Want an MP3 With That Latte?



Starbucks is getting in the music business - that we know, since they've been selling CDs for a while and just started their own music label. But this Fast Company article takes the thinking one step further.

Good article. Enjoy. The only thing I want to know is when a Hear Music Coffeehouse is coming to Atlanta.

-aB

Design By Fire Blog

This is a good blog, for designers by designers. In fact, it's authored by a few of the Adobe wizards and interface experts responsible for bringing us tools like Photoshop and Illustrator.

Check it out.

-aB

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

The Wisdom of Blogs



There's a great article on blogs - right here on Blogger.com. The article talks about, among other things, why blogs are a good communication device. Here's a snippet:

1. Diversity of opinion - That's a no-brainer. Bloggers publish hundreds of thousands of posts daily, each one charged with its author's unique opinion.
2. Independence of members - Except for your friends saying "You've got to blog about that!" bloggers are not controlled by anyone else.
3. Decentralization - There is no central authority in the blogosphere; publish your blog anywhere you want with any tool you want.
4. A method for aggregating opinions - Blog feeds make aggregation a snap and there is no shortage of services that take advantage of that fact.


Check out the full article here.

Thinking About a TiVo



Well, I'm thinking about getting a TiVo, and trying to determine if I want to go for renting a DVR from Comcast (that has the recorder but not the cool interactive interface or TiVo show recommendation service) or go for the purchase of a TiVo or Replay box.

This blog has a lot of good information about all of the flavors and varieties of digital recorders from all of the providers.

This Gizmodo article talks about a story in Fortune that paints an interesting business outlook for TiVo and suggests that they might be an acquisition target for ... Apple?

iTivo. Interesting.

Will Ferrell Mocks NY Post Cover Story Flub



Seems as though everyone is lining up to mock the New York Post's own "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline fiasco from yesterday.

Actor Will Ferrell, appearing on the Today show as blow-dried anchorman creation Ron Burgundy, held up the flawed Post and said with yeah-right mockery: "That's the real news. This is an ... excellent journalism periodical."


This is the Post's Editor In Chief Col Allan's third big headline fiasco in four years. Read more about the story from the Post's rival, the New York Daily News here.

-aB

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Ten-disc Matrix Boxed Set Available For Christmas



A special edition DVD boxed set of The Matrix was about as predictable as the sun coming up tomorrow. But in my wildest dreams I never predicted 10 DVDs of Matrix fodder.

This is almost putting the Lord of the Rings box sets to shame.

Here's a rundown of the disk contents from UK's DigitalSpy.

-aB

Great Article on PR and Online Marketing

The convergence of Public Relations and Online Marketing are apparent in this article on SearchEngineWatch.com. Here's a snippet:

Public Relations Via Search Engines
Blending the traditional tools of public relations with innovative search marketing techniques opens a new avenue of promotion for savvy content providers and site owners.

Weekly Gump Photography Showcase



This week, I'm starting a new tradition here on the 'ole GumpRants blog. I'm going to showcase some of my photography work.

This week, I'm linking to my black & white photography from last year's trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jackson is one of my favorite places in the world, and these photographs of Grand Teton are some of my all-time favorites.

Nice way to start a Monday, I think. Take a look.

-aB

Monday, July 05, 2004

Interesting Video Game Industry Factoid



Deloitte & Touche predicts the worldwide number of "game compliant devices" other than PCs - mobile phones, consoles, and handheld computers, for example - will see a six-fold rise by 2010, from 415 million now to 2.6 billion.

Saturday, July 03, 2004

Seth Godin - SEO Not a Good Strategy



Seth Godin has a very interesting article on Search Engine Optimization, and how he doesn't believe that it is a good, sustainable strategy for more Web traffic:

SEOs are not a shortcut to success, at least not for 99% of the companies out there. You won't win by fooling Google into listing you first for a common search term. You will win once you figure out the simple mechanics of turning strangers into friends and friends into customers.


Read the post here.

-aB

Friday, July 02, 2004

News About the New iMac...Delayed



Looks like the new iMac is delayed, and we won't even see an official glimpse of it until Sepember.

Apple Computer Inc. announced on Thursday plans for a next-generation iMac desktop computer, but said it won't ship until September, missing its original internal schedule.


Read the full story here.

-aB

This Can't Be Good for Bill Gates



Don't use Internet Explorer, at least according to the Department of Homeland Security:

The Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team touched off a storm this week when it recommended for security reasons using browsers other than Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer.


Looks like this security hole is a biggie.

Read the full story here.

-aB

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Tom Peters Redoes Web Site, Adds Daily Blog



Author and Smart Guy Tom Peters has redone his Web site and added a daily blog, updated by him and his Tom Peters Company Staff.

I think this blog thing is really catching on...

-aB

iPod + BMW = Cool



Got an iPod? Got a new BMW? Now they can play together:

Connect with music like never before behind the wheel of your BMW 3 Series, and X3 and X5 SAV or Z4 Roadster. With the installation of an integrated adapter developed by Apple and BMW, you can now control your iPod or iPod mini through the existing audio system and multi-function steering wheel. Which means no loss of power. No loss of sound quality. No loss of control.


Too bad my Z4 is a 2003 - no wheel controls = no integration. Bummer.

Read more here.

-aB

Man Tries to Get Rid of Million Pennies



Yep, a guy in L.A. has saved a million pennies, but can't find any bank to allow him to make the "little deposit."

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man is trying to get rid of his pennies - all 1 million of them. Ron England bet his brother 30 years ago that he could save a million pennies in exchange for a dinner in Paris. And he did, eventually stacking up 20,000 rolls that fill 13 boxes in his garage.


That's 3.6 tons of copper, by the way.

Read the story here.

-aB