Andy Boyer

Month: February 2008

  • The Fight to Keep the Sonics – A Hero Emerges

    simmons.jpgThe sad story concerning the absolute theft of the Sonics from Seattle by Oklahoma oilmen has gotten almost no publicity to date.  Considering we are the city that launched Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft, RealNetworks, Cranium and Pearl Jam, you would think collectively we might have the phone number of one PR person in town.

    But amazingly, for the most part, no one outside of Seattle seems to take note of a very simple story:

    1. In 2006, Oklahoma guys buy team that’s been in Seattle for 41 years  A team that plays in a 17,000 seat arena, in the middle of downtown, that was renovated 10 years ago.
    2. New owners demand $500 Million new arena from taxpayers, an arena that would cost more than the 70,000 seat football stadium and 47,000 seat retractable roof baseball stadium.
    3. City tells Oklahoma City guys to stick it.
    4. Oklahoma guys claim they can’t be successful in Seattle and announce they have remarkably found a city willing to take the team – in Oklahoma City.
    5. Local Billionaires who were asleep at the switch in 2006 say they will buy team to keep it in Seattle.
    6. Oklahoma guys, who now have Kevin Durant and six 1st round draft picks in the next 3 years, tell the local Billionaires to stick it.
    7. David Stern looks at Seattle fans, and tells them to stick it.  Then stick it again for good measure.
    8. Everyone acknowldges the only question is whether they leave in 2008 or 2010.

    Thankfully, one national reporter has taken up the cause.  And the amazing thing is, he is the Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, as influential as any writer in sports today.  His letterbag column is a must read, and carries with it the potential that NBA fans from across teh country could tell David Stern, "Hey, this isn’t right.  I support the Pistons, but damn if I’m going to support a league that will let some oil baron rape and plunder a 41 year old legacy."

    So please, read Bill Simmons.  Send an email to thank Bill Simmons.  Join the Bill Simmons Facebook Group.  Send the Bill Simmons column on to your friends.  Blog about Bill Simmons.  Because this Bostonian has emrged as the only sportswriter who seems to care that the Sonics belong in Seattle.  

    Digg the Bill Simmons article here.

  • Sonics Bulls 1996 Game 1 Intros

    Too loud to hear!

  • Dirty Rotten Comcastic Scoundrels

    Net Neutrality is a term that isn’t sexy enough to get the iTunes, MySpace and Facebook crowds excited.  But thankfully, we have a bunch of watchdog technologists keeping a close eye on this.

    In a nutshell, as I understand it, Comcast and other Internet Service Providers want to control how fast certain web sites can deliver content.  Think about Web site content as a car.  Right now, every car has access to every super wide highway, and there are no speed limits.  But if Comcast and its friends get their way, they would get to decide which cars get to drive on super highways, and which ones have to drive on pothole filled dirt roads.  They argue this would allow them to control piracy. 

    But most others argue that its a way for them to effectively shut down blogs and alternative media.  For example, my blog could be stuck on their "dirt road" list and take 2 minutes to load, effectively stopping anyone from reading it.  They could charge millions o fdollars for super highway access, and only the major media outlets and super corporations would be able to deliver content quickly. It would be impossible to launch a small web business, because your site would take much longer than the established ones.

    Since most people don’t follow this too closely, most people don’t really think it’s a big deal.  So here’s evidence that it is INDEED a big deal.  

    How big are the stakes in the so-called network neutrality debate now raging before Congress and federal regulators?

    Consider this: One side in the debate actually went to the trouble of hiring people off the street to pack a Federal Communications Commission meeting yesterday—and effectively keep some of its opponents out of the room.

    Broadband giant Comcast—the subject of the F.C.C. hearing on network neutrality at the Harvard Law School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts—acknowledged that it did exactly that….

    Be sure to read the whole article on Portfolio.com.  Very shady, very corrupt, and an indicator of the lengths Comcast and others will go to  control what web sites you have access to. 

  • A Web Show About Web Celebrities

    A few months ago I was at Blog World Expo in Las Vegas, and I was amazed at the cult icon status some of the influential bloggers had achieved.  It was really quite cool to see these bloggers in person, and to see them interact with their readers.

    So now we see the rise of a new web startup based on this phonomenon.  You have your tech moguls like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.  You have your giants without household name recognition like Larry Ellison, Sergei Brin and Jerry Yang.  And then you have your web celebrities who are really only famous inside the Web 2.0 community.  And darnit, these guys deserve press as well.

    This is the theory behind Pop17.com a webcast dedicated to the semi-stars of Web land.  So if you have your Andy Warhol 15 minutes of tech fame scorecard, you can now add the hosts and writers of this webcast to the list of semi-celebrities who all of us in this alternative world love.  Please someone create, "The making of Pop17.com – Behind the Show."

  • Why You Can’t Predict Viral

    Over at Spring Creek Group, we often get asked by clients if we can build something "viral" that will explode like the treadmill guys or the Diet Coke / Mentos mad scientists.  It’s hard to explain that you can’t make viral happen.  Unless you are so clever, that it looks like you are purposely NOT trying to be viral.   

    I don’t know if this was a direct attempt at mass blog acceptance, but today I point you to Drivl.com, a web site that has seated itself in my bookmarks with armed bodyguards.

    Speciifically, I point you to this article, "Why I’ll Never Make Digg." Well at the time of this writing, she has 7,205 Diggs, tops in the last hours.  So not only did she accomplish everything she said she couldn’t do,she did it so well that it renders the article irrelevant.  Forget Alannis Morisette.  This my friends, is irony.  And great Social Media.

  • Is Obama Starting Primary Speeches Early?

    I have a feeling political marketing is going to dominate AndyBoyer.com for the next few months.  There are a lot of interesting comparisons between business and political marketing.  So please allow me to indulge myself by discussing an issue that I don’t know if anyone else has even noticed.    

    Have you ever asked yourself, on a primary night, how are all the candidates able to be seen live on Cable News Networks? Wouldn’t they all want to go on about 30 minutes before the late news, in order to get their sound bites on, but also have East Coast and West Coast Audiences watch live.  Plus, the networks need to know when they are going on, so they know when to run their commercials.

    So, how do they decide?  How does all this get communicated? Are there simply gentleman’s rules that everyone follows?  Maybe the winners get the choice time slots? But how do you choose if you split the primaries up for grabs that night?

    So for the sake of the rest of this article, let’s assume that every night the Communications Directors talk to each other and decide what time each candidate will go live.  And then they communicate the time and order to the networks.   

    Here’s  the odd thing I’ve noticed, and I don;t know where to place the blame.  The last few weeks, Senator Obama has taken the last slot, usually starting a little before 10:40 ET.  But he is the ONLY candidate I have seen that does not wait for the candidate before him to finish.  Just as the candidate rolls toward his conclusion, Obama comes on his stage across town.  Then the news networks switch over to Obama, and we miss the conclusion.

    So who’s fault is this?  Are the other candidates running long to try to derail Obama?  Or is Obama coming on stage early to derail other candidates?  Or is this just a silly coincidence? Keep a watch next week and let me know what you think. 

  • Is This Ethical Online Political Advertising?

    (Disclosure: I have not publicly supported Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.  This question comes from an unbiased political point of view.)

    A new web site launched today and was mentioned by CNN.com.  The site is called DelegateHub.com. Now, at first glance this site appears to be a neutral, non-partisan site in which questions about the delegate process can be answered.  But if you look at the writing,it is a blatant attempt at the Clinton Campaign to twist your perception of the delegate process.  The site claims to provide "Facts" not "Myths" about the delegate process.  Here are some "facts" it mentions.

    1)  The first fact is fairly tame and may lead you to believe the whole article is unbiased.  "Fact: The Democratic Party chooses its delegates in three ways: 1) through primaries where millions vote; 2) through caucuses where thousands vote; and 3) it gives a role to elected leaders and other party activists in the process."   However, read it carefully and you’ll see specific language was included to strip the caucus process of some of its legitimacy.  "Millions vote in primaries, thousands vote in caucuses." Nowhere does it mention that Obama basically sweeps caucuses.  That line is designed to show you that Caucus delegates are unrepresentative of the election process. 

    2) "FACT: Neither candidate can secure the nomination without automatic delegates."  There are 4,049 total delgates, of which about 3,200 come from state primaries and caucuses.  Obama has 1158 of the 2174 (Clinton has 1016).  So technically, Obama could mathematically sweep 867 out of the remaining 1100 or so.  So, this is unlikey, but not a true fact.  Another werid part of this statement is the claim, "These delegates represent nearly half of the 2,208 delegate votes needed for the nomination." CNN says you need 2,025, not 2,208.  And 2,025 seems to be the right math.

    3) FACT: Automatic delegates are expected to exercise their best judgment in the interests of the nation and the Democratic Party.  This seemes accurate, bu tmeans, "They don’t have to, and shouldn’t, listen to their constituents."

    4) FACT: Florida and Michigan should count, both in the interest of fundamental fairness and honoring the spirit of the Democrats’ 50-state strategy. Now, this is no more a fact than me saying I think it’s going to rain today.  This is like when you are playing kickball and a car drives up, so you yell "Time Out."  But the kicker doesnt hear you and pops it in the air and you catch it.  Then you claim the time out didn’t really count.  This is even more shady.  All the candidates adhered to the Democrats’ wacky decision to punish Florida and Michigan and not seat their delegates.  Now that Clinton "won" those states (no one else was even on the Michigan ballot) her campaign wants to take away the punishment.  Just plain slimy if you ask me. A revote could be fair, but simply counting votes based on a race only one person participated in seems wrong.

    5) "The race is currently a virtual tie, with the campaigns now separated by a small handful of delegates, barely 1% of all the delegates to the Democratic Convention."  Obama today leads  1319 – 1250, a margin of 69 delegates.  True, 40 delegates make up 1% of all delegates.  That is one way to look at the numbers.  Another way to look at the numbers is that Obama has 51.3% of votes between them compared to Clinton’s 48.7%, which is a 2.6% spread.  And another way to look at the numbers is to only count the "Pledged" delegates  – the ones from the primaries and caucses (aka the non-Super Delegates.)  In that race, Obama has 53.3% and Clinton has 46.7%, a spead of 6.6%.

    Why do I care? Because this kind of marketing seems non-genuine.  It feels a lot like a web page Mortgage companies put up in order to generate leads.  Or maybeit reminds me of web sites that sell "How to Get Rich" books.  So I’m curious if I’m over-sensitive, or if this carefully spun web site makes anyone else just a little uncomfortable.  

  • Social Media Event at University of Washington Tonight

    If you are looking for a fun way to spend a Wednesday evening, and especially if you are a Washington alum, come on down to the Douglas Forum at UW for an event focused on Social Media. Here’s the Facebook link.

    I’ll be lucky enough to moderate this great panel:

    – Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz.org
    – Gary Kamikawa, VP Mktg, Mpire.com
    – Justin Marshall, Social Media Architect, Zaaz
    – Jessica Michaels, Group Media Director, Wunderman

    The event runs from 6:00 – 7:30pm and is free.

  • How Much Should I Pay For a Click?

    Yesterday, I forwarded along a commissioned "report" that detailed why marketers shouldn’t care about Clickthroughs anymore.  (In case you couldn’t tell, I was mocking the report and anyone who found it to be credible.) 

    Now, for those of you who aren’t one of the 14 marketers nationwide who said, "Wow that was valuable insight," today we have stats about what you should be paying for the clicks you do get.

    This article comes from Search Engine Watch, based on a report from Efficient Frontier.  Is this what you are paying for clicks in these categories?

    Average Search CPC by Category, January 2008
    Category CPC
    Total finance 2.70
    Credit 2.95
    Mortgage 2.61
    Auto finance 1.68
    Travel 0.65
    Automotive 0.57
    Retail 0.36
    Dating 0.40

     

    However, if you are one of those 14 marketers that think clicks are over-rated, please email me immediately so I can get you in a nice expensive CPM deal.  I’ll even throw in dinner.

  • Online Ad Network Releases Study that Says Clicks Don’t Matter

    Ok, so it doesn’t *exactly* say that, but here are a few bullets from a study commissioned by Media agency Starcom USA, behavioral targeting network Tacoda, and digital consumer insight company comScore.

    • A very small group of consumers who are not representative of the total U.S. online population is accountable for the vast majority of display ad click-through behavior. 
    • Heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks.
    • Heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000 and are more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites.
    • We can’t count on click-through rate as our primary success metric for display ads; Starcom is more reliant on shifts in brand attitude metrics and analytics tying on-line exposure to sales as the true measures of online advertising efficacy.
    • While the click can continue to be a relevant metric for direct response advertising campaigns, this study demonstrates that click performance is the wrong measure for the effectiveness of brand-building campaigns.
    • For many campaigns, the branding effect of the ads is what’s really important and generating clicks is more of an ancillary benefit. Ultimately, judging a campaign’s effectiveness by clicks can be detrimental because it overlooks the importance of branding while simultaneously drawing conclusions from a sub-set of people who may not be representative of the target audience.

    So, why am I writing about this?  Well, reports like this are not written for fun.  No one just says, "I wonder what a haevy clicker looks like."  There was a purpose for this report, and it’s goal is to obvious lay the groundwork for explaining to marketers that they shouldn’t be spooked by the fact that no one clicks on ads anymore.  Here is an ad network simply building a research report so that their sales guys have an answer for the question of, "Why are my clickthroughs so low?"  Now they can say, "Well you don’t need clicks.  In fact, clicks are bad.  You want the impressions, so let’s do some more CPM deals!"

    Now, this of course flies directly in the face of logic.  "But look – we have a real research paper saying clicks don’t matter!"

    It’s a funny report when yout think about it.  When Internet advertising got started, accountability was touted as one of its strengths.  Now that ads don’t get clicked on, they want to throw accountability out of the equation.  Moral of the story – take everything you hear in advertising and marketing with a big grain of salt….