Know me, know my car.
Many of us name our cars. Oh, we’ve had a Skip, a Haakon, and let’s see.., Nalla, Peppy, Dexter, and Declan. And then there was my most recent set of wheels, known only as “The Hated Lexus.” Why, you may ask, was this premium 2005 ES 330 despised so fervently by it’s owner? Basking in the glow reflected off the brand new Caspian Sea-blue 2011 Volvo S-80 T6 All Wheel Drive vehicle which has just replaced the Hated Lexus in my driveway, I’ll tell you.
I bought the car two years ago under duress. The previous car, Nalla, the 1997 Volvo, had swerved after hitting some debris on the Long Island Expressway and made the ultimate sacrifice of itself to keep it’s two passengers safe after smashing into the concrete divider and thankfully not getting hit by oncoming traffic. So you can say, pun intended, that I got the Hated Lexus “by accident.” My rental car while searching for a replacement was a pickup truck. Fun if you’re moving into a new apartment or have dirt bikes I suppose.
This was 2008. The Fall of 2008. The dreaded, horrible, wretched and terrifying Fall of 2008. The car was not the only thing that had crashed. The very last thing on my mind, given the state of the business and the world, was buying a new car. We hurriedly looked around and decided that the Lexus was the best bet – three years old and with about 20,000 miles on it.
Some things I noticed right away. Like the complete absence of places to put your wallet-sunglasses-pens, and other junk you bring into your car. Or the high-buffed overly glossy interior wood trim which made me feel like I should be chewing gum and wearing some gold chains. The slick steering wheel always felt vaguely greasy in my hands. There was a center console located back by my right shoulder. It consisted of a deep storage area, and a very shallow one on top of it – maybe an inch deep. The problem here was that the latch to each compartment was right next to each other so if you wanted to open the top (shallow) compartment and grabbed the wrong latch the top compartment would go vertical….and all your stuff in there would go flying.
The electric windows were overly sensitive – the slightest touch sent the window all the way up or all the way down. To open a window only partially involved a comical up-down-up-down-up progression until I finally zeroed in on what I wanted. I figured it was just a matter of time before I adjusted to it but no. This was in the minor irritation category, like the dashboard readout of time, temp, radio settings etc…. that would disappear when you put on sunglasses.
There were a number of attempts by the car to think for you that I did not enjoy. The headlights always stayed on for 20 seconds after I left the car leaving me to wonder if they would go off by themselves or if I had somehow screwed up. The trunk had no “handle” – you could only open it by pressing the key fob. Doors would automatically lock once you got moving - makes sense to an engineer but how many times do you stop to pick someone up quickly in town and don’t bother putting it in Park? Answer: a lot! And each time I would have to slap my forehead and say Oh right, I have to unlock the doors (that I did not lock)
There was no ipod connection (one year too early). The car was absolutely and inexcusably terrible in snow. There was some sort of oddball airfoil on the trunk that prevented the use of our bike rack. I asked the dealer if he could remove it. Nope. I did not trust the car dealer (who wanted to change my brake and transmission fluids for about $180 each) and they were located about 15 miles away in the other direction from my short commute.
The rain sensor was beyond annoying. Instead of a controllable intermittent wiper setting, you had no choice for intermittent except to let the car do it on it’s own with a rain sensor. At first it didn’t work at all. I even poured a bucket of water on the windshield. No reaction. Of course all the time I was trying to get this to work I was driving in rain with my windshield wipers OFF, very safe, that. I took it to the dealer and they said, oh yes, common problem and they fixed it. But now once it got going, it started going very fast. Or again not at all. It never ever worked. The Volvo has a rain sensor too but you can turn it OFF (which I DO) and use a manually adjustable intermittent wiper setting.
And so, it became The Hated Lexus. Did it drive? Yes? Good power and handling? You bet. I desperately wanted to find some way to get along with this car but it was just far too annoying on a daily basis. The Hated Lexus is no more. And symbolically, so too is the nightmare of the Fall of 2008.
Welcome, the Beloved Volvo.
Latest Assault on Guinness Record Successful
LONDON – AP – The world record for Exclamatory-Remarks-Over-A-Four-Day-Period was shattered last week at Acadia National Park in Maine by a 51-year old man. What started out on the ride north up Route 1 from Brunswick as simple, but repeated comments like “look at that, isn’t that pretty,” soon gave way to incessant hyperbole once the pink granite hills of Mount Desert Island came into view.
The man, Ted Bahr, of Laurel Hollow, NY, apparently did not intend to set a record when he booked a four day trip to America’s 10th-most-visited National Park, accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Peter. But by the second day, it became clear that something was stirring in the air. With the encouragement of his enthusiastic son, the two visitors made the most of their trip, spending mornings traipsing up the coastal mountains to reveal “incredible,” views, also termed “unbelievable,” as each new treeline was crossed and more “amazing,” views came into sight.
Afternoons were spent climbing and scrambling across the coastal cliffs, over giant boulders, up rock walls and engaging in the local sport known as Acadian Parkour. By the third day, record keepers were having trouble keeping up with the stream of declarative adjectives flying out of Mr. Bahr’s mouth. The final tally, aided by an exceptionally crisp and sunny last day of the trip was 378 “fantastic’s,” 490 “incredible’s”, 503 “amazing’s,” 728, “unbelievable’s,” and a staggering 1,381 uses of the word “awesome,” for a grand total of 3,480 utterances, or, 870 per day.
The previous record for a four-day period was held by Buckwheat Stewart of Hound Corner, Alabama, who set the mark of 3,263 before, during, and right after the 2007 Daytona 500, at Daytona International Speedway in central Florida.
The man, Ted Bahr, of Laurel Hollow, NY, apparently did not intend to set a record when he booked a four day trip to America’s 10th-most-visited National Park, accompanied by his 12-year-old son, Peter. But by the second day, it became clear that something was stirring in the air. With the encouragement of his enthusiastic son, the two visitors made the most of their trip, spending mornings traipsing up the coastal mountains to reveal “incredible,” views, also termed “unbelievable,” as each new treeline was crossed and more “amazing,” views came into sight.
Afternoons were spent climbing and scrambling across the coastal cliffs, over giant boulders, up rock walls and engaging in the local sport known as Acadian Parkour. By the third day, record keepers were having trouble keeping up with the stream of declarative adjectives flying out of Mr. Bahr’s mouth. The final tally, aided by an exceptionally crisp and sunny last day of the trip was 378 “fantastic’s,” 490 “incredible’s”, 503 “amazing’s,” 728, “unbelievable’s,” and a staggering 1,381 uses of the word “awesome,” for a grand total of 3,480 utterances, or, 870 per day.
The previous record for a four-day period was held by Buckwheat Stewart of Hound Corner, Alabama, who set the mark of 3,263 before, during, and right after the 2007 Daytona 500, at Daytona International Speedway in central Florida.
Two Tales Of Extreme High-Tech Evil (and yes, one is Google)
In keeping with the name of this blog it is only fitting that I get around to revealing and railing against two of the more irritating business practices in the high-tech world. Unless you are a stockholder of Google or Hewlett-Packard that is!
The first practice concerns Google’s AdSense scheme. This program allows you – as a website owner – to place a small box on your website into which Google dynamically loads text (or now display or video) ads. The ads are context-sensitive, meaning if your website talks about tropical fish, Google will send tropical fish ads to your box. If someone clicks on the ad, they generate money for Google and money for you, depending on what the advertiser has been paying and other algorithms. Ahh…the famous “Google algorithms.”
Unlike virtually any other partnership known to man, Google will not reveal what percentage of the revenue they pay you. You just get a check. You got a problem wit dat, too bad. What are we, the website owners, getting? 30%? 35%, 19%? No idea. And the contract with Google plainly states that they will never ever tell you. So think of this now, you are Google with millions of clients and a month to go in the quarter. Need to increase revenue at a 100% margin? Just change the formula! Last quarter they paid the website owners 30%. This quarter they pay 29%. The math is too painful to do.
Now this is just conjecture, right? Google wouldn’t do this, after all, that would be evil. To that, all I can say is that 5 years ago we got checks in the $600-700 dollar range monthly. More recently that had trickled down to less than $100 despite having tripled our page views served. Recently we decided it wasn’t worth it and took Google AdSense off our sites. You decide.
And another thing……
How about the HP 4480 printer we (my family) bought a year or so ago that tells YOU when to replace the ink cartridges. No, not warns you. The printer demands you replace the ink cartridges NOW or it will not print. WTF?! I’ll decide when the ink is too faded thank you, after all aren’t I the one driving the car? What if I have run out of cartridges and I just need one little copy? What if I don’t care if the magenta is 10% too strong? It’s an outrageous gun-to-the-head move by HP to sell more ink - I mean who even knows how empty these things are. In the old days when HP gave you a warning, (and it was up to you what to do with it), you could get another 20-80 copies out of the cartridge. Not now. Printer won’t let you.
Nice way to juice up revenues but I’m buying a Canon or Epson today. And will never ever ever buy another HP printer again.
Harrumph!
The first practice concerns Google’s AdSense scheme. This program allows you – as a website owner – to place a small box on your website into which Google dynamically loads text (or now display or video) ads. The ads are context-sensitive, meaning if your website talks about tropical fish, Google will send tropical fish ads to your box. If someone clicks on the ad, they generate money for Google and money for you, depending on what the advertiser has been paying and other algorithms. Ahh…the famous “Google algorithms.”
Unlike virtually any other partnership known to man, Google will not reveal what percentage of the revenue they pay you. You just get a check. You got a problem wit dat, too bad. What are we, the website owners, getting? 30%? 35%, 19%? No idea. And the contract with Google plainly states that they will never ever tell you. So think of this now, you are Google with millions of clients and a month to go in the quarter. Need to increase revenue at a 100% margin? Just change the formula! Last quarter they paid the website owners 30%. This quarter they pay 29%. The math is too painful to do.
Now this is just conjecture, right? Google wouldn’t do this, after all, that would be evil. To that, all I can say is that 5 years ago we got checks in the $600-700 dollar range monthly. More recently that had trickled down to less than $100 despite having tripled our page views served. Recently we decided it wasn’t worth it and took Google AdSense off our sites. You decide.
And another thing……
How about the HP 4480 printer we (my family) bought a year or so ago that tells YOU when to replace the ink cartridges. No, not warns you. The printer demands you replace the ink cartridges NOW or it will not print. WTF?! I’ll decide when the ink is too faded thank you, after all aren’t I the one driving the car? What if I have run out of cartridges and I just need one little copy? What if I don’t care if the magenta is 10% too strong? It’s an outrageous gun-to-the-head move by HP to sell more ink - I mean who even knows how empty these things are. In the old days when HP gave you a warning, (and it was up to you what to do with it), you could get another 20-80 copies out of the cartridge. Not now. Printer won’t let you.
Nice way to juice up revenues but I’m buying a Canon or Epson today. And will never ever ever buy another HP printer again.
Harrumph!
Toyota, Lexus Management Woes Continue
TOKYO, Japan - (AP)
In an embarrassing series of events that underscored the problems at the vaunted car Japanese car manufacturer, Ralleye Lexus of Glen Cove NY has apparently botched the kidnapping of a Laurel Hollow man. The owner of a 2005 Lexus ES330, Ted Bahr, 51, brought the vehicle in for a routine 45,000 mile tune-up on Thursday morning, which quickly went array.
The original plot involved Bahr bringing his car into the dealer for a brief, normal service, during which the customer would simply read magazines and attempt to ignore the 56-inch HDTV set while sitting in the waiting room. Once carless, the Lexus dealer planned to keep Bahr waiting with a series of “one-thing-after-another” repairs until he wilted and gave in to their demands (which were not known, at presstime).
Aware of the potential for this, Bahr demanded a loaner vehicle that the dealer, anxious for the plot to remain undercover, then provided. Bahr drove off in a spanking new 2010 RX 450 Hybrid, making sure to transfer anything he might need over the next several weeks into the pristine and environmentally sensitive vehicle.
Demonstrating the lack of competence not to mention utter chaos reigning at Toyota and Lexus dealers, Ralleye Lexus remained oblivious to the fact that Bahr now had a much better car in his possession, and they went ahead the planned series of dispiriting phone calls to the customer with reports of one unpredictable micro-repair after another.
Bahr reported that his mood was actively lightening with each successive call that the dealer had to “wait for another part to arrive,” as a standard wheel alignment was now rumored to be taking at least two weeks. “I’ve got the good car and I’m actually getting used to it - the fools can keep the 330," laughed Bahr as he took off on an unscheduled trip to Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, ME.
In an embarrassing series of events that underscored the problems at the vaunted car Japanese car manufacturer, Ralleye Lexus of Glen Cove NY has apparently botched the kidnapping of a Laurel Hollow man. The owner of a 2005 Lexus ES330, Ted Bahr, 51, brought the vehicle in for a routine 45,000 mile tune-up on Thursday morning, which quickly went array.
The original plot involved Bahr bringing his car into the dealer for a brief, normal service, during which the customer would simply read magazines and attempt to ignore the 56-inch HDTV set while sitting in the waiting room. Once carless, the Lexus dealer planned to keep Bahr waiting with a series of “one-thing-after-another” repairs until he wilted and gave in to their demands (which were not known, at presstime).
Aware of the potential for this, Bahr demanded a loaner vehicle that the dealer, anxious for the plot to remain undercover, then provided. Bahr drove off in a spanking new 2010 RX 450 Hybrid, making sure to transfer anything he might need over the next several weeks into the pristine and environmentally sensitive vehicle.
Demonstrating the lack of competence not to mention utter chaos reigning at Toyota and Lexus dealers, Ralleye Lexus remained oblivious to the fact that Bahr now had a much better car in his possession, and they went ahead the planned series of dispiriting phone calls to the customer with reports of one unpredictable micro-repair after another.
Bahr reported that his mood was actively lightening with each successive call that the dealer had to “wait for another part to arrive,” as a standard wheel alignment was now rumored to be taking at least two weeks. “I’ve got the good car and I’m actually getting used to it - the fools can keep the 330," laughed Bahr as he took off on an unscheduled trip to Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, ME.
Reedtown Massacre Reveals the Future of the Trade Media Business
The trade media business, such as it was, has been ripped apart and largely destroyed by Google. The musical chairs game that Private Equity players have been playing is finally out of seats and many household names have been left holding the bag, trying to hardball the banks into restructuring or just going bankrupt. The “strategic” multi-market players are shedding print assets like pounds in a sauna wearing a rubber suit.
And so, last week’s shocking closure of 23 titles by Reed merely underscores the evolution of our industry back into what it once was, and I will paraphrase Bill Ziff, who said,
“It used to be that our business was run by enthusiastic eccentrics - people who worked and lived day in and day out in their markets and hardly even realized that they were running a ‘business,’ in the classical sense, at all.”
The key observation above is that most trade publishers in the Old Days were single market companies – smaller nimble companies dedicated to their niche industries. The trade conglomerates that grew in the 1980’s and 1990’s benefitted handsomely from ganging printing, fulfillment and the usual assortment of backroom operations to run properties at a much lower cost, as well as the trend toward professionally managed trade shows which coined money for them back in the day.
Over time, the best managers in their market were given additional responsibilities managing other markets or being switched to other divisions ala Jack Welch’s GE. The best salespeople became Publishers. Then Group Publishers and VPs. They were promoted away from their markets, from their customers, from their street-level expertise.
This happened again and again at Reed, Advanstar, Penton, VNU, Cygnus, Miller Freeman, and at their various successor companies. Eventually, the “professional managers” of various market segments became less and less embedded in their industries, spending their days in budget and forecast meetings and battling other execs in different markets for investment and acquisition dollars.
I know the feeling. A lifelong computer and electronics industry publisher, for a time I found myself managing all sorts of alien market groups. I remember the acute embarrassment I felt at being paraded around as a high level executive at the key trade shows for these different markets when I barely has a clue what was going on in these customers’ businesses.
Of course, this alienation and lack of understanding of markets didn’t kill the business – Google and paid search killed it as identified by IDG’s Pat Kenealy 6 years ago. But now that b-to-b publishing is in tatters, a post-apocalyptic vision comes into view: small, nimble, single-market-focused companies, run by people who have labored in their markets for years, getting to know the vendors, the readers, the nuances and intricacies that can allow them to be successful, despite Google.
By shuttering 23 publications, Reed has left the door open for more than a few groups of dedicated market experts to re-colonize and emerge as the trade media companies of the future
And so, last week’s shocking closure of 23 titles by Reed merely underscores the evolution of our industry back into what it once was, and I will paraphrase Bill Ziff, who said,
“It used to be that our business was run by enthusiastic eccentrics - people who worked and lived day in and day out in their markets and hardly even realized that they were running a ‘business,’ in the classical sense, at all.”
The key observation above is that most trade publishers in the Old Days were single market companies – smaller nimble companies dedicated to their niche industries. The trade conglomerates that grew in the 1980’s and 1990’s benefitted handsomely from ganging printing, fulfillment and the usual assortment of backroom operations to run properties at a much lower cost, as well as the trend toward professionally managed trade shows which coined money for them back in the day.
Over time, the best managers in their market were given additional responsibilities managing other markets or being switched to other divisions ala Jack Welch’s GE. The best salespeople became Publishers. Then Group Publishers and VPs. They were promoted away from their markets, from their customers, from their street-level expertise.
This happened again and again at Reed, Advanstar, Penton, VNU, Cygnus, Miller Freeman, and at their various successor companies. Eventually, the “professional managers” of various market segments became less and less embedded in their industries, spending their days in budget and forecast meetings and battling other execs in different markets for investment and acquisition dollars.
I know the feeling. A lifelong computer and electronics industry publisher, for a time I found myself managing all sorts of alien market groups. I remember the acute embarrassment I felt at being paraded around as a high level executive at the key trade shows for these different markets when I barely has a clue what was going on in these customers’ businesses.
Of course, this alienation and lack of understanding of markets didn’t kill the business – Google and paid search killed it as identified by IDG’s Pat Kenealy 6 years ago. But now that b-to-b publishing is in tatters, a post-apocalyptic vision comes into view: small, nimble, single-market-focused companies, run by people who have labored in their markets for years, getting to know the vendors, the readers, the nuances and intricacies that can allow them to be successful, despite Google.
By shuttering 23 publications, Reed has left the door open for more than a few groups of dedicated market experts to re-colonize and emerge as the trade media companies of the future
Gates, Jobs Agree: “Back to Electronics" Movement Going Well
FEBRUARY 14, 2010
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA (AP) --
Technology rivals Bill Gates and Steve Jobs agreed on one thing at the annual TED Conference finishing this weekend in Long Beach, California; that the “back to electronics” movement was making great strides among the nation’s youth and population in general.
“Awareness of electronic devices and the role they play in the Earth’s fragile ecosystem is at an all-time high,” said Microsoft Founder Bill Gates, “and not only that, but people are participating, getting directly involved in technology far beyond the humble PC in their study, and are literally surrounding themselves with wireless and wired devices.”
The grass-roots “Back to Electronics” movement, believed to have started shortly after the introduction of the first generation iPhone, gathered steam as waves of parental resistance to cell phones with unlimited text and data plans gradually buckled under the pressure from the nation’s youth, who can usually be counted on to spearhead such cultural shifts. Evidence of the Movement’s penetration into everyday life were cited at TED2010 with discussions of people barricading themselves inside their house for months at a time to see if they could survive “living off the Internet,” as well as groups of Apple fanatics known collectively as “iPhone-huggers.”
Movement proponents cite the many benefits of getting Back to Electronics, including evading the sun’s harmful rays, recycling of air in closed spaces, allowing animals and plants in the wild to exist without any interference from or the presence of humans, and improved thumb dexterity.
Groups of electronics activists have been camping inside bars and Starbucks coffee houses to form “flashmobs” or to participate in “tweet-ups” based on the popular Twitter platform that allows people everywhere to have instantaneous and detailed information about the status of virtually everyone else. Others have been venturing out to the more remote and desolate edges of the electronic wilderness, living for weeks at a time in virtual worlds like Second Life.
Technology advocate and dreadlock-wearing self-promoter Jaron Lanier has announced plans to take advantage of the movement by holding ChipStock, “An Electronics Exposition, 3 Days of Peace and Technology,” to be held in an empty industrial park off of Lawrence Boulevard in Santa Clara CA, as well as virtually, wherever a WiFi hotspot can be found. Lanier is also rumored to be the head of the more radical group, Electronics First!, which advocates such extreme practices as placing wireless hotspots inside churches and in otherwise pristine natural settings.
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA (AP) --
Technology rivals Bill Gates and Steve Jobs agreed on one thing at the annual TED Conference finishing this weekend in Long Beach, California; that the “back to electronics” movement was making great strides among the nation’s youth and population in general.
“Awareness of electronic devices and the role they play in the Earth’s fragile ecosystem is at an all-time high,” said Microsoft Founder Bill Gates, “and not only that, but people are participating, getting directly involved in technology far beyond the humble PC in their study, and are literally surrounding themselves with wireless and wired devices.”
The grass-roots “Back to Electronics” movement, believed to have started shortly after the introduction of the first generation iPhone, gathered steam as waves of parental resistance to cell phones with unlimited text and data plans gradually buckled under the pressure from the nation’s youth, who can usually be counted on to spearhead such cultural shifts. Evidence of the Movement’s penetration into everyday life were cited at TED2010 with discussions of people barricading themselves inside their house for months at a time to see if they could survive “living off the Internet,” as well as groups of Apple fanatics known collectively as “iPhone-huggers.”
Movement proponents cite the many benefits of getting Back to Electronics, including evading the sun’s harmful rays, recycling of air in closed spaces, allowing animals and plants in the wild to exist without any interference from or the presence of humans, and improved thumb dexterity.
Groups of electronics activists have been camping inside bars and Starbucks coffee houses to form “flashmobs” or to participate in “tweet-ups” based on the popular Twitter platform that allows people everywhere to have instantaneous and detailed information about the status of virtually everyone else. Others have been venturing out to the more remote and desolate edges of the electronic wilderness, living for weeks at a time in virtual worlds like Second Life.
Technology advocate and dreadlock-wearing self-promoter Jaron Lanier has announced plans to take advantage of the movement by holding ChipStock, “An Electronics Exposition, 3 Days of Peace and Technology,” to be held in an empty industrial park off of Lawrence Boulevard in Santa Clara CA, as well as virtually, wherever a WiFi hotspot can be found. Lanier is also rumored to be the head of the more radical group, Electronics First!, which advocates such extreme practices as placing wireless hotspots inside churches and in otherwise pristine natural settings.
Oven, 4, Released from Prison
AP – JANUARY 12, 2010
A wayward kitchen oven was restored to functionality yesterday to the great relief of the Bahr family of Laurel Hollow, NY. The appliance, a DCS 1800, was arrested in June for attempted arson when it refused to turn off and sent smoke billowing into the house. The crafty and rascally device waited until the adults of the family had left, and then dared the children of the house to stop it, a scandalous crime that rocked the Cold Spring Harbor School district and attendees of the annual spring benefit for the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities (SPLIA).
The Oyster Bay-based Atlantic Steamer Company responded quickly and managed to thwart the plot by turning off the circuit breaker and without even having to smash all of the windows in the house. The oven had remained disabled since June, prompting a variety of novel cooking efforts by Rebecca “Martha” Bahr in the interim. Bahr taunted the nearby imprisoned oven and set a U.S. record in early December by baking 22 different types of cookies in a small toaster oven normally restricted to “Eggos,” and the occasional tuna melt.
Ted Bahr, 51, contacted the Appliance Correctional Review Board and asked that a pardon be considered after his wife set plans to cook a whole suckling pig in a crock pot, saying, “Ok, this has gone far enough, we need the damn oven back.” The ACRB released the oven under it’s own recognizance.
Robert MacKay, Executive Director of SPLIA, noted that, “there’s quite a history of ovens committing crimes on Long Island actually – beginning during the Revolutionary War when several ovens used for baking bread in Oyster Bay tried to burn down the homes of known British Loyalists….and then during the War of 1812,…..”
A wayward kitchen oven was restored to functionality yesterday to the great relief of the Bahr family of Laurel Hollow, NY. The appliance, a DCS 1800, was arrested in June for attempted arson when it refused to turn off and sent smoke billowing into the house. The crafty and rascally device waited until the adults of the family had left, and then dared the children of the house to stop it, a scandalous crime that rocked the Cold Spring Harbor School district and attendees of the annual spring benefit for the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities (SPLIA).
The Oyster Bay-based Atlantic Steamer Company responded quickly and managed to thwart the plot by turning off the circuit breaker and without even having to smash all of the windows in the house. The oven had remained disabled since June, prompting a variety of novel cooking efforts by Rebecca “Martha” Bahr in the interim. Bahr taunted the nearby imprisoned oven and set a U.S. record in early December by baking 22 different types of cookies in a small toaster oven normally restricted to “Eggos,” and the occasional tuna melt.
Ted Bahr, 51, contacted the Appliance Correctional Review Board and asked that a pardon be considered after his wife set plans to cook a whole suckling pig in a crock pot, saying, “Ok, this has gone far enough, we need the damn oven back.” The ACRB released the oven under it’s own recognizance.
Robert MacKay, Executive Director of SPLIA, noted that, “there’s quite a history of ovens committing crimes on Long Island actually – beginning during the Revolutionary War when several ovens used for baking bread in Oyster Bay tried to burn down the homes of known British Loyalists….and then during the War of 1812,…..”
Am I Nuts? You Decide.
I’ve been having some fun with Tony Silber, my friend and the Publisher of Folio: Magazine (the magazine about managing magazines). It seems that my blog entry titled, “I’m Not Giving an Inch,” in Folio (titled here as "Call Me Hank Stamper”) required some clarification. Tony called my position (and me) reminiscent of “The Last Samurai,” a movie where the protagonist resists progress and is ultimately crushed by it. Well I feel that is a bit of an extreme characterization of my position (and hopefully my fate), and so I responded. If you’re really bored this Thanksgiving weekend, give it a read.
Here is my original post, on Folio: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/i-m-not-giving-inch
Tony’s comments: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/last-samauri
My response: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/samurai-responds
I like the photo!
Here is my original post, on Folio: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/i-m-not-giving-inch
Tony’s comments: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/last-samauri
My response: http://www.foliomag.com/2009/samurai-responds
I like the photo!
Swine Flu Outbreak Averted on JetBlue Flight
LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK – Alert passengers were lauded late last night when JetBlue Flight 672 from Los Angeles touched down at JFK International where an inflight plane-wide swine flu crisis was avoided.
The trouble began soon after the flight had taken off from Los Angeles International Airport when a man, sitting in seat 11a, coughed slightly. Passengers immediately began screaming, with cries of “run, he’s got the SWINE FLU!” Despite the seat belt light still being lit, virtually all passengers on the left side of the plane began crowding over to the right, causing the pilots to seize manual control of the aircraft to avoid going into a barrel roll.
The man, 51-year-old Ted Bahr, of Laurel Hollow, NY, reportedly jumped up, saying he didn’t have the flu but was on the tail end of a really mild cold, but this did not fool the heavily-warned travelers. According to eyewitness accounts, at that moment a woman screamed, “and,….he’s got a HANDKERCHIEF!” which apparently was the final straw for three rugby players from Ireland who made their move amid the chaos, tackling Bahr and wrestling him to the ground.
The three Dublinites then dragged the man to the back of the plane as he continued to protest and swear that there was no way he had the flu and was not contagious. Bahr was then quarantined for the rest of the flight in one of the rear cabin bathrooms and denied all forms of snacks – even the Terra Blue potato chips - by nervous flight attendants.
Center for Disease Control Director Millard Fillmore praised passengers, saying that this kind of quick thinking and reaction can prevent the epidemic from spreading, saying, “this just proves it’s not a hysteria, just a prudent response.” Eight year-old Chauncey Quinn claimed to have “nailed the guy in the face with a hand sanitizer spray as he went by,” high-fiving his father, Edward Quinn. The rest of the flight was uneventful save the continuous knocking and pleadings from the locked bathroom. At JFK, a hazmat team removed Mr. Bahr from the lavatory following a quick evacuation of all the other passengers.
The H1N1 virus, also known as the swine flu, has killed 1,489 people over the last six months, which, despite being a far lower total than virtually any other flu strain in history, seems to have lodged in the public imagination as the Great Scourge of Our Time.
The trouble began soon after the flight had taken off from Los Angeles International Airport when a man, sitting in seat 11a, coughed slightly. Passengers immediately began screaming, with cries of “run, he’s got the SWINE FLU!” Despite the seat belt light still being lit, virtually all passengers on the left side of the plane began crowding over to the right, causing the pilots to seize manual control of the aircraft to avoid going into a barrel roll.
The man, 51-year-old Ted Bahr, of Laurel Hollow, NY, reportedly jumped up, saying he didn’t have the flu but was on the tail end of a really mild cold, but this did not fool the heavily-warned travelers. According to eyewitness accounts, at that moment a woman screamed, “and,….he’s got a HANDKERCHIEF!” which apparently was the final straw for three rugby players from Ireland who made their move amid the chaos, tackling Bahr and wrestling him to the ground.
The three Dublinites then dragged the man to the back of the plane as he continued to protest and swear that there was no way he had the flu and was not contagious. Bahr was then quarantined for the rest of the flight in one of the rear cabin bathrooms and denied all forms of snacks – even the Terra Blue potato chips - by nervous flight attendants.
Center for Disease Control Director Millard Fillmore praised passengers, saying that this kind of quick thinking and reaction can prevent the epidemic from spreading, saying, “this just proves it’s not a hysteria, just a prudent response.” Eight year-old Chauncey Quinn claimed to have “nailed the guy in the face with a hand sanitizer spray as he went by,” high-fiving his father, Edward Quinn. The rest of the flight was uneventful save the continuous knocking and pleadings from the locked bathroom. At JFK, a hazmat team removed Mr. Bahr from the lavatory following a quick evacuation of all the other passengers.
The H1N1 virus, also known as the swine flu, has killed 1,489 people over the last six months, which, despite being a far lower total than virtually any other flu strain in history, seems to have lodged in the public imagination as the Great Scourge of Our Time.
Call Me Hank Stamper
Did you ever read “Sometimes a Great Notion” by Ken Kesey? Yes, the Ken Kesey with the psychedelic bus. Before the Merry Pranksters and after his successful “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Kesey penned this novel, one of the great works of American fiction, a sprawling tale of the struggles of a northwest logging family, the conflict between brothers, the small independent logging company the family owns and their fights against larger timber interests.
The most recurring metaphor in the book is fighting progress, alluded to in the form of the Stamper family home, which is built right on a bend of a great river that is constantly eroding away the property. Over the years the Stampers have built a crude series of barriers and wired posts and piers to prevent this from happening, but the river is relentless, as rivers will be. Some of the most vivid passages in the book portray the father and older brothers’ attempts to keep the river from destroying the property, typically out in the night in vicious storms, lashing the piers back together, fighting the river of progress, the river of change. The book was made into a film starring Henry Fonda and Paul Newman, with the original title embodying the philosophy of Henry Stamper, “Never Give an Inch.”
Out west last week, I was pitching print advertising (along with our online properties) to marketers who thought I had landed there from another planet. To one, print was so alien that he took a genuine interest in it. It was a novelty. More and more marketers just start conversations by letting you know that they’re not doing print as a matter of fact. Many of my competitors and fellow high-tech publishers have given up, letting the river flow, and you can see the results in the steadily eroding group of high-tech titles still in print. I can’t quite explain why, but like Henry Stamper, I refuse to yield. I refuse to bend to the times, to just accept the advertiser’s misguided notions that print is dead and not even worth talking about. While I’m happy to sell a few white papers at the end of the call, most of the time I’m taking them out to the woodshed to disabuse them of their anti-print bias -- whether they buy it today or not.
It’s up to those of us in the industry to stand up passionately for what we believe in and what we know to be true. The easy days of print as an accepted medium are over. Washed well downstream. But we know people are still reading our publications, and becoming aware of and interested in companies through the print ads. It’s up to us to lash together the arguments and fight. We’re deep into contract season and I’m getting on planes to visit customers. And not giving an inch.
The most recurring metaphor in the book is fighting progress, alluded to in the form of the Stamper family home, which is built right on a bend of a great river that is constantly eroding away the property. Over the years the Stampers have built a crude series of barriers and wired posts and piers to prevent this from happening, but the river is relentless, as rivers will be. Some of the most vivid passages in the book portray the father and older brothers’ attempts to keep the river from destroying the property, typically out in the night in vicious storms, lashing the piers back together, fighting the river of progress, the river of change. The book was made into a film starring Henry Fonda and Paul Newman, with the original title embodying the philosophy of Henry Stamper, “Never Give an Inch.”
Out west last week, I was pitching print advertising (along with our online properties) to marketers who thought I had landed there from another planet. To one, print was so alien that he took a genuine interest in it. It was a novelty. More and more marketers just start conversations by letting you know that they’re not doing print as a matter of fact. Many of my competitors and fellow high-tech publishers have given up, letting the river flow, and you can see the results in the steadily eroding group of high-tech titles still in print. I can’t quite explain why, but like Henry Stamper, I refuse to yield. I refuse to bend to the times, to just accept the advertiser’s misguided notions that print is dead and not even worth talking about. While I’m happy to sell a few white papers at the end of the call, most of the time I’m taking them out to the woodshed to disabuse them of their anti-print bias -- whether they buy it today or not.
It’s up to those of us in the industry to stand up passionately for what we believe in and what we know to be true. The easy days of print as an accepted medium are over. Washed well downstream. But we know people are still reading our publications, and becoming aware of and interested in companies through the print ads. It’s up to us to lash together the arguments and fight. We’re deep into contract season and I’m getting on planes to visit customers. And not giving an inch.
Man, 50, Forgets Sunglasses, Detained at LAX
LOS ANGELES, CA, OCTOBER 26, 2009
In a case of remarkably poor judgment, a 50-year old man was detained while attempting to disembark in Los Angeles without bringing sunglasses or eyeshades of any kind.
The white male, identified as Ted Bahr from Laurel Hollow, NY, was detained by US Homeland Security forces at the Los Angeles International Airport, where the security alert was raised from Yellow to Orange for the rest of the afternoon.
“Look, I’m sorry. That’s what I get for leaving New York early in the morning – it was completely dark outside at the time,” said the man, who pleaded to be allowed through security to shop at one of the four sunglasses shops visible further down the terminal.
“Clearly this individual was either incredibly naïve, or, more likely, planning some sort of terrorist action which would involve operating only at night. I mean, nobody flies into LA without sunglasses,” explained Airport Security Chief Jon Richardson.
Bahr maintained his innocence as he was led away to a strip search, “Look I just forgot, I can’ t possibly be the first one.”
Other passengers on the short hop from Las Vegas were as surprised as airport security, “How completely uncool,” scoffed actor and avid poker player Willie Garson, “he’d never survive in this town. Being taken into custody is probably for the guy’s own good.”
In a case of remarkably poor judgment, a 50-year old man was detained while attempting to disembark in Los Angeles without bringing sunglasses or eyeshades of any kind.
The white male, identified as Ted Bahr from Laurel Hollow, NY, was detained by US Homeland Security forces at the Los Angeles International Airport, where the security alert was raised from Yellow to Orange for the rest of the afternoon.
“Look, I’m sorry. That’s what I get for leaving New York early in the morning – it was completely dark outside at the time,” said the man, who pleaded to be allowed through security to shop at one of the four sunglasses shops visible further down the terminal.
“Clearly this individual was either incredibly naïve, or, more likely, planning some sort of terrorist action which would involve operating only at night. I mean, nobody flies into LA without sunglasses,” explained Airport Security Chief Jon Richardson.
Bahr maintained his innocence as he was led away to a strip search, “Look I just forgot, I can’ t possibly be the first one.”
Other passengers on the short hop from Las Vegas were as surprised as airport security, “How completely uncool,” scoffed actor and avid poker player Willie Garson, “he’d never survive in this town. Being taken into custody is probably for the guy’s own good.”
Playing Newsstand Shuffle
The games we play change over time. I wonder if my favorite magazine game has gone the way of stickball and “kick the can.” When I worked at Ziff-Davis in the 1980’s I was fortunate enough to be placed in a “loop course” type of specialized circulation class taught by the VP of Circulation and one of the industry’s most outrageous old school characters, Larry Sporn. Larry taught us a simple little game called “newsstand shuffle.” Basically, all you had to do was go to a newsstand, browse the magazines, and accidentally place your companies’ titles on top of your competitors’ magazines. The trick was to make sure you didn’t get caught by the newsstand manager but this wasn’t very difficult. It was a cheap thrill.
Where the game really got going though was the classic Mother of All Newsstands, that being the one at the edge of Grand Central Station, in the PanAm building (now MetLife). Here was a newsstand in the hub of The Great Commute – 108,000 people were estimated to be streaming through the building each day according to an article in the NY Times on June 18, 1984. At that point in time, the newsstand stocked more than 2,000 titles and sold 10,000 copies of magazines per week.
But volume was just half the story. This newsstand was smack in the middle of the magazine publishing AND ad agency capital of the world. Beyond just selling copies, it was critical that the hundreds of media buyers streaming by each day saw your title prominently displayed. Since so many magazine professionals walked through the station daily, Newsstand Shuffle here became a very lively game. If you stood and watched closely you could see people casually picking up an issue (or four), casually glance over their shoulder at the counter and then quickly shuffle the magazines to their favor. Sometimes competitors would be in the PanAm at the same time seeing who was willing to take a later train and get the last laugh.
Of course the next day, someone else had either fixed the stack or buried your magazine under Civil War News or something. So to win we had to compete almost every day.
Is anyone still playing?
Virgin America Announces Capital Upgrade Plan
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 21, 2009 -- Maverick airline Virgin America announced a series of capital improvements designed to improve the passenger experience of travelers departing from it’s JFK terminal.
“We’ve selected what we call the “Virgin” segment of the flying audience and decided to maximize their interaction with our brand,” noted Virgin CEO Richard Branson, who was wearing a bra, panties , and a purple wizard’s cape as he parachuted onto the roof of Terminal 4 for an impromtu press conference.
The announcement, involving at least $46,000 of expenditures, highlighted changes in colors, scents, and overall customer ambiance.
“To start, we’ve painted all the seats a deep dark red, just like Apple’s Bono IPod,” began Branson, “and we have instituted a new policy wherein at least two out of three stewardesses will be on board with virtually no experience serving passengers so they can maintain that sexily clumsy look, evoking sympathy from our passengers and taking their mind off the abnormally long flight delays. Really quite entertaining, “ said Branson.
Another exciting development which Mr. Branson was eager to demonstrate was the attachment of small replicas of flies inside the men’s room urinals. “See isn’t this fun? Target practice, “ smiled the diminutive elfin CEO as he candidly relieved himself in front of horrified reporters.
While apparently urged to open some sort of food emporiums that would serve breakfast in Terminal Four by his American project executives, Branson dismissed the need. “One of our larger investments in T4, as we call it, is an aromatherapy device that dispenses pleasing scents throughout the terminal. Our type of flyer is typically wan and starving anyway and will appreciate our catering to his or her sensitivities. And don’t forget the hip purple lighting onboard,” boasted the bearded executive.
When interviewed, exiting passengers seem confused, “don’t asked me how the flight was,” exclaimed an angry Clem Haskins from Covington, Kentucky, “two different flight attendants spilled drinks on me and I could hardly breathe with that there perfumy smell.”
Waiting passenger Toby Babcock was seen trailing a large carry-on bag back and forth from one end of the terminal food, “it took me 2 hours to get to the airport for a 6 hour flight with no food. What the hell are these guys thinking?”
When asked about this, Branson said that in order to project the proper European image, none of the restaurants would open before ten am, known internally at Virgin as the “continental policy.” “No hip European would travel by plane before late morning at the earliest – we’re simply bringing civilization here to JFK.”
“We’ve selected what we call the “Virgin” segment of the flying audience and decided to maximize their interaction with our brand,” noted Virgin CEO Richard Branson, who was wearing a bra, panties , and a purple wizard’s cape as he parachuted onto the roof of Terminal 4 for an impromtu press conference.
The announcement, involving at least $46,000 of expenditures, highlighted changes in colors, scents, and overall customer ambiance.
“To start, we’ve painted all the seats a deep dark red, just like Apple’s Bono IPod,” began Branson, “and we have instituted a new policy wherein at least two out of three stewardesses will be on board with virtually no experience serving passengers so they can maintain that sexily clumsy look, evoking sympathy from our passengers and taking their mind off the abnormally long flight delays. Really quite entertaining, “ said Branson.
Another exciting development which Mr. Branson was eager to demonstrate was the attachment of small replicas of flies inside the men’s room urinals. “See isn’t this fun? Target practice, “ smiled the diminutive elfin CEO as he candidly relieved himself in front of horrified reporters.
While apparently urged to open some sort of food emporiums that would serve breakfast in Terminal Four by his American project executives, Branson dismissed the need. “One of our larger investments in T4, as we call it, is an aromatherapy device that dispenses pleasing scents throughout the terminal. Our type of flyer is typically wan and starving anyway and will appreciate our catering to his or her sensitivities. And don’t forget the hip purple lighting onboard,” boasted the bearded executive.
When interviewed, exiting passengers seem confused, “don’t asked me how the flight was,” exclaimed an angry Clem Haskins from Covington, Kentucky, “two different flight attendants spilled drinks on me and I could hardly breathe with that there perfumy smell.”
Waiting passenger Toby Babcock was seen trailing a large carry-on bag back and forth from one end of the terminal food, “it took me 2 hours to get to the airport for a 6 hour flight with no food. What the hell are these guys thinking?”
When asked about this, Branson said that in order to project the proper European image, none of the restaurants would open before ten am, known internally at Virgin as the “continental policy.” “No hip European would travel by plane before late morning at the earliest – we’re simply bringing civilization here to JFK.”
Bloomberg and Business Week: The Future of Magazines?
Many years ago when I had the good fortune to work for Ziff-Davis, I read a quote from Bill Ziff about how publishing had changed. I’ve lost the quote but it went something like this:
“It used to be that our business was run by enthusiastic eccentrics - people who worked and lived day in and day out in their markets and hardly even realized that they were running a ’business,’ in the classical sense, at all.”
I brought this idea up speaking to a roomful of publishers at the Niche Magazine Conference in April – that the future may be linked to the past and that the magazines of tomorrow need to be published by independent entrepreneurs and smaller, dedicated companies.
Like Inc. Magazine, which was purchased a few years ago by Morningstar founder Joe Mansueto, Business Week under Michael Bloomberg can hopefully enjoy a life beyond the super strict demands of a publicly-held company like McGraw-Hill.
Essentially, Michael Bloomberg and Joe Mansueto can afford to ride the economic ups and downs over time and frankly, can also afford to publish at a loss. Even though someone buys a professional sports team telling themselves that they can make it profitable, we all know the real reason is that they are a fan.
If the long-term future of magazines, the short-term will still be wrenching. All the private equity-held companies are reviewing terms with their lenders realizing that these much smaller businesses cannot support the debt. And the industry sea change toward an online world continues to claim many casualties. Yesterday’s shuttering of the former Commercial Property News by Nielsen brought another shudder: at Miller Freeman this David Nussbaum-created title was one of the biggest revenue producers and year-after-year the #1 most profitable title in a field of 60 in the 1990s.
It looks like time to bring on the enthusiastic eccentrics.
“It used to be that our business was run by enthusiastic eccentrics - people who worked and lived day in and day out in their markets and hardly even realized that they were running a ’business,’ in the classical sense, at all.”
I brought this idea up speaking to a roomful of publishers at the Niche Magazine Conference in April – that the future may be linked to the past and that the magazines of tomorrow need to be published by independent entrepreneurs and smaller, dedicated companies.
Like Inc. Magazine, which was purchased a few years ago by Morningstar founder Joe Mansueto, Business Week under Michael Bloomberg can hopefully enjoy a life beyond the super strict demands of a publicly-held company like McGraw-Hill.
Essentially, Michael Bloomberg and Joe Mansueto can afford to ride the economic ups and downs over time and frankly, can also afford to publish at a loss. Even though someone buys a professional sports team telling themselves that they can make it profitable, we all know the real reason is that they are a fan.
If the long-term future of magazines, the short-term will still be wrenching. All the private equity-held companies are reviewing terms with their lenders realizing that these much smaller businesses cannot support the debt. And the industry sea change toward an online world continues to claim many casualties. Yesterday’s shuttering of the former Commercial Property News by Nielsen brought another shudder: at Miller Freeman this David Nussbaum-created title was one of the biggest revenue producers and year-after-year the #1 most profitable title in a field of 60 in the 1990s.
It looks like time to bring on the enthusiastic eccentrics.
A Trip to the Newsstand
Lunchtime brought me to the newsstand at my local independent bookstore to see firsthand what the magazine landscape was looking like. There were far fewer titles than in past years, this fact poorly masked by stacking survivors directly over themselves in three rows. But some magazines were still going strong.
The latest issue of Brides Magazine topped out at about 496 pages. Now wait a minute – didn’t they…. Something is certainly badly wrong in Conde Nast-ville if they can’t bring expenses in line on this title, which as we all know is all advertising anyway. 500 pages and this is the off-season for bridal titles! Are all those ad pages really going to go into Modern Bride which wasn’t even ON my newsstand? No. Some will go to competitors while others will sadly just vanish.
Hemming Motor News was almost 600 pages. This is getting out of hand. Hemmings is almost all classified advertising for classic cars - the type of product that the Internet was personally hand-crafted to disintermediate entirely? How does this title keep thriving in print?!!
Another magazine bucking the trend was High Times. The venerable how-to guide for stoners was a beefy 138 pages with more growing lights, pipes, scales, soda-can safes, and “Indoor Hydro Superclosets,” than certainly I ever dreamed even existed. I guess there is still a decent market for, er, highly-focused niche titles, including this new one I noticed, “A Bear’s Life,” which is targeted at large, bearded gay men. Now that is a niche magazine!
The latest issue of Brides Magazine topped out at about 496 pages. Now wait a minute – didn’t they…. Something is certainly badly wrong in Conde Nast-ville if they can’t bring expenses in line on this title, which as we all know is all advertising anyway. 500 pages and this is the off-season for bridal titles! Are all those ad pages really going to go into Modern Bride which wasn’t even ON my newsstand? No. Some will go to competitors while others will sadly just vanish.
Hemming Motor News was almost 600 pages. This is getting out of hand. Hemmings is almost all classified advertising for classic cars - the type of product that the Internet was personally hand-crafted to disintermediate entirely? How does this title keep thriving in print?!!
Another magazine bucking the trend was High Times. The venerable how-to guide for stoners was a beefy 138 pages with more growing lights, pipes, scales, soda-can safes, and “Indoor Hydro Superclosets,” than certainly I ever dreamed even existed. I guess there is still a decent market for, er, highly-focused niche titles, including this new one I noticed, “A Bear’s Life,” which is targeted at large, bearded gay men. Now that is a niche magazine!
B-to-B Media: In the Recession’s Winter
It’s very quiet now, as the snow falls across the recessionary landscape. Though it’s only Fall outside, inside the B-to-B media business feels like winter. The private-equity players that got caught when the music ended with no chairs left to sit on or Greater Fools around to buy their roll-ups are sitting in workout meeting after workout meeting with the banks and other lenders trying to scale back their debt and cut their losses.
The CEO’s and top managers of these companies are gamely pulling in the remaining revenues for 2009. The cuts they made probably won’t be the last but the Fall usually brings a few pleasant surprises, a few surplus budgets willing to spend. But they know what’s coming. We all know what’s coming. The turn of the year. Contract time. We all have No Idea What Will Happen. Customers are being coy, playing their hands close, bravely saying they’ll be in next year but…we just don’t know. They see the media businesses are weak, reeling, ready to be taken advantage of. It’s the very quiet elephant in the room. Next year’s business.
Gone is the talk of Second Life, podcasts, video and vertical search and all of the other Next Digital Upsides. Yes we may all be doing some of these things and indeed online revenues are becoming a growing percentage of our businesses – but they’re smaller businesses. It’s quiet, cold and quiet, across the snowfields. We’re hunkered down. Waiting.
My faint hope is that the next 12 months will be the winter of our recession and that Spring begins to emerge for the survivors. But right now, looking to the November and December contract season for 2010 it’s very uncertain. And it gives me shivers to think about.
The CEO’s and top managers of these companies are gamely pulling in the remaining revenues for 2009. The cuts they made probably won’t be the last but the Fall usually brings a few pleasant surprises, a few surplus budgets willing to spend. But they know what’s coming. We all know what’s coming. The turn of the year. Contract time. We all have No Idea What Will Happen. Customers are being coy, playing their hands close, bravely saying they’ll be in next year but…we just don’t know. They see the media businesses are weak, reeling, ready to be taken advantage of. It’s the very quiet elephant in the room. Next year’s business.
Gone is the talk of Second Life, podcasts, video and vertical search and all of the other Next Digital Upsides. Yes we may all be doing some of these things and indeed online revenues are becoming a growing percentage of our businesses – but they’re smaller businesses. It’s quiet, cold and quiet, across the snowfields. We’re hunkered down. Waiting.
My faint hope is that the next 12 months will be the winter of our recession and that Spring begins to emerge for the survivors. But right now, looking to the November and December contract season for 2010 it’s very uncertain. And it gives me shivers to think about.
Street-Level View of the Economy, By Gerry the Tailor
Gerry is not actually my tailor, but a guy I buy suits from at the local high-end men's store. Needless to say, I have not been a recent customer, but there he was, walking down the street and we called to each other by name. I told him why I hadn't been in since last crazy Fall and asked him how his business was doing. So here you go, from the ground floor.
Gerry said their business tanked in the Fall of '08 and the 3-store men's chain laid off 60 people in January - a massive number. Everyone took 20% cuts and they braved it through the winter and thus far 2009 with a target through September that was 30% lower than originally planned. But they made it, he said, finishing at down 24%. He beamed. Their 20% pay cuts were being restored next week.
Nice. Maybe I'll even visit him again in a few months.
Gerry said their business tanked in the Fall of '08 and the 3-store men's chain laid off 60 people in January - a massive number. Everyone took 20% cuts and they braved it through the winter and thus far 2009 with a target through September that was 30% lower than originally planned. But they made it, he said, finishing at down 24%. He beamed. Their 20% pay cuts were being restored next week.
Nice. Maybe I'll even visit him again in a few months.
Google to Increase Revenue for Publishers - What a Crock
The news that Google will now broker display ads much as it does text ads is positioned by the company as being a way for publishers to make more money by selling remnant banner space. Here is a link to the article in the WSJ: http://bit.ly/W5UEJ
I have a few issues. First of all, many vertical niche publishers already have relationships in place with ad networks that suck up and sell all of their remnant space. For example we partner with IDG Technetwork and are generally happy. There are hundreds of other networks like this. But our experience and what I have heard from others is that the revenues from these source just keep on dropping as inventory increases and advertisers demand more services for less cost-per-impression and cost-per-click. As I have said before, the media business is suffering from not so much "dollars into dimes" but "dollars into pennies."
So first, Publishers are NOT going to make any significant money from this. (4 years ago we made $600-700 per month from Google adwords. more recently, it dropped to less than $100 per month. We have removed them from our site).
This experience, which is pretty universal unless your ad page view growth outstrips Google's decreasing returns, means that web publishers like us will tell Google to "take a hike."
I've also heard from customers - advertisers - that they are growing increasingly suspect of their Google adwords investments. As such, I don't even know if the idea will fly for Google. Not everything they do works.
Maybe by placing display ads on the blogs of individuals with day jobs who currently get no revenue for their efforts - maybe they will be satisfied with a few hundred dollars per month versus nothing. But for professional web publishers, for certain, the idea that Google is now going to make us rich is a joke.
I have a few issues. First of all, many vertical niche publishers already have relationships in place with ad networks that suck up and sell all of their remnant space. For example we partner with IDG Technetwork and are generally happy. There are hundreds of other networks like this. But our experience and what I have heard from others is that the revenues from these source just keep on dropping as inventory increases and advertisers demand more services for less cost-per-impression and cost-per-click. As I have said before, the media business is suffering from not so much "dollars into dimes" but "dollars into pennies."
So first, Publishers are NOT going to make any significant money from this. (4 years ago we made $600-700 per month from Google adwords. more recently, it dropped to less than $100 per month. We have removed them from our site).
This experience, which is pretty universal unless your ad page view growth outstrips Google's decreasing returns, means that web publishers like us will tell Google to "take a hike."
I've also heard from customers - advertisers - that they are growing increasingly suspect of their Google adwords investments. As such, I don't even know if the idea will fly for Google. Not everything they do works.
Maybe by placing display ads on the blogs of individuals with day jobs who currently get no revenue for their efforts - maybe they will be satisfied with a few hundred dollars per month versus nothing. But for professional web publishers, for certain, the idea that Google is now going to make us rich is a joke.
End of the Recession – is it just Me?
Is it just me, or was the Sunday Times packed with ads this weekend?
No one can predict the future. But the collective efforts of pundits media-wide generally get it right. In 2008, by April, news media outlets were falling all over themselves trying to use more catastrophic terms for the coming apocalypse - but did we pay attention?
Of course not. We are too wedded to the current trends and since the trends had been up up up at that point, to call the top of the market was just hubris. I wish I had some of that hubris. But here’s my point: it’s human nature to try and read the tea leaves and follow the path that has gone before. Which brings me to the current recession (you remember, the worst since the Great D). Most of you are still thinking things are bad - real bad. And maybe they are (take employment for example).
But the signs that this recession is swinging upward are surrounding us. So the question is….how long will it be before YOU accept this and get on board? One thousand and one studies have shown that aggressive marketers during recessions emerge with greater market share and sales and profits. You’ve been through this before too. You’ve seen it before. How much more time will you wait on the sidelines? When it feels safe, it’s too late. Is it just me?
No one can predict the future. But the collective efforts of pundits media-wide generally get it right. In 2008, by April, news media outlets were falling all over themselves trying to use more catastrophic terms for the coming apocalypse - but did we pay attention?
Of course not. We are too wedded to the current trends and since the trends had been up up up at that point, to call the top of the market was just hubris. I wish I had some of that hubris. But here’s my point: it’s human nature to try and read the tea leaves and follow the path that has gone before. Which brings me to the current recession (you remember, the worst since the Great D). Most of you are still thinking things are bad - real bad. And maybe they are (take employment for example).
But the signs that this recession is swinging upward are surrounding us. So the question is….how long will it be before YOU accept this and get on board? One thousand and one studies have shown that aggressive marketers during recessions emerge with greater market share and sales and profits. You’ve been through this before too. You’ve seen it before. How much more time will you wait on the sidelines? When it feels safe, it’s too late. Is it just me?
Neat Digital Ad
Now THIS is cool. Above is a snapshot of weather.com at about 4:45pm. The ad on the right, for Cuervo Gold Tequila, has sucked out the current temperature and the location I had looked up and put that info IN THE AD. I am sorry, I am impressed.
Of course this ad is running during happy hour too.
Trying to find out who the agency is that is responsible but too much noise on google. Can't wait to show our IT director this one! (you think you have it rough, try to do this!!)
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