If you don’t spend any time reading publications out of England, you really are robbing yourself of visceral candy. Besides providing a more global perspective of current events, and poetically explaining why Americans are generally a bunch of wankers, every once in a while you get an outstanding little gem like this.
I mean, if you can’t get excited by reading about a 15 pound boby-builder, I don’t know what you are reading the paper for.
Something must have been in the air this weekend. Because as Barack Obama was sweeping through the caucuses, two UW MBA Teams were busy shouting "Yes We Can" as well.
Down in California, the UW VCIC Team brought pride back to the program with a win in the Regional Championship. The team now preps for the International Competition in Chapel Hill, NC. The UW has won this event twice, back in 2004 and of course in the "dynasty" year of 2006 🙂
A mere 3000 miles away in Winston-Salem, NC, the UW won the Wake Forest Marketing Case Competition. This was the first win for the school, after a 2nd place finish in 2006 and 3rd place in 2007.
Aside from the pride and satisfaction these wins bring, the students also win cash, so now’s the time to hit them up for the bar tab. But more importantly, what is now a 5th year of success in VCIC and a 3rd year at Wake Forest, proves to be real proof that a foundation for success has been effectively laid. These aren’t "flash in the pan" single wins. The school is now establishing constant success at these regional and national events. And that is something the faculty, alumni, the Seattle community and current students can really take joint credit in.
Congratulations, all.
In the very early days of PC Casual games, you had to buy everything you wanted to try. But once the internet hit, and you could try out demo versions of the games for free, the market absolutely exploded.
Well, I think we’ve finally reached that moment in Mobile Games, thanks to our friends at Movaya. Here is their latest release:
The Movaya team is excited to announce the beta release of Movaya TryNBuy: the first off-deck, cross-carrier try-before-you-buy system for mobile game sales in the US.
Movaya TryNBuy is a patent pending licensing system that allows consumers to download games over-the-air to their mobile devices and try games on their handset. Upon purchase, the games are unlocked.
Try-before-you-buy was a major driver in the huge growth of casual games on the desktop and now Movaya is bringing this to the mobile marketplace.
Movaya TryNBuy is configurable on multiple levels including length of play, and number of plays.
Movaya TryNBuy is now available online at www.bustedthumbs.com and will be rolled out to Movaya’s publisher and merchant network over the coming weeks.
To get more information on Movaya TryNBuy, please visit our website.
So, I posted a few boring pics of University of Phoenix Stadium a few days before Super Bowl 42. You can see just how out in the middle of nowhere the stadium really is…
Here’s the link to where they are hosted on Flickr.
So, I would love to go into detail about the NFL Experience, a giant travelling tradeshow attached to Super Bowl 42. And so I slogged out the 30 miles to God forsaken Glendale to file a report at 1:00pm on Friday.
However, much to my chagrin, the NFL didn’t have an experience for the public from 1:00 to 3:00pm. During those hour, it’s only experience is for season ticket holders and special guests. Since I had already burned a half day and $10 in parking, I gamely decided to see what else the NFL had for me.
Unfortunately, the only experience I was allowed, was Westgate Center.
Now I need to properly frame Glendale Stadium. And I think the best way to do this is to weave in a popular conspiracy theory. You see, 10 years ago there was this giant expanse of desert wasteland far west of Phoenix. The conspiracy theory is that a bunch of rich guys bought up this worthless property. Then, for some unexplained reason, a highway was built through this wasteland, a giant loop that ran around Phoenix, from I-10, all the way around the city and back to I-10 on the other side. Shortly thereafter, legislators decided all this open land with this convenient highway would be an ideal place for a new sports stadium. And since the stadium was so far removed from ANYTHING, the natural solution was to build a hockey arena as well, and build up the property around the stadium with hotels, bars, restaurants, condos and shops.So if you google Glendale, what you will see is 2 huge stadiums, a shopping mall, and then acres of empty land in all directions. Desert wasteland which is now worth a fortune.
But I digress.
Now I’m out amongst the cacti and my only option is to go hang out by the shopping mall and hope for the best. To be fair, Westgate is pretty cool if you are looking for a place to grab food and drink before a game. All the standard chain bars are there (Margaritaville, Bar Louie, Fox Sports, etc….)
But this really re-iterated the point that at Super Bowl Weekend, you need VIP or Insider Status if you want to do anything cool. Sure, they have parkinglot exhibits and stuff liek that, but without any kind of priority access, you are really getting about 10% of the total experience. That’s not a lament or complaint, just a realization. And now that I think about it, I kind of remember things like the NBA and MLB All-Star Game being the same way (but I had the access then, so I didn’t care…)
So, no great report from NFL Experience. I heard secondhand stories that it was crowded, there was no food and the exhibits were so so. So, i probably lucked out.
So, the weekend has officially begun here in Phoenix.
Last night Old Town Scottsdale took on a somewhat bizarre and surreal transformation. In the middle of town square, the ESPN studio is set up. (You have to wonder why ESPN chose a place 30 miles from the stadium to set up their Phoenix Studio. Perhaps no one at ESPN wanted to spend any time in Glendale. I don’t know.)
Certainly no celebrities wanted to spend any time in Glendale, and as I documented yesterday, all the mega-parties were being thrown in Old Town. For comparison’s sake, imagine if a giant shiny new stadium was built up north of Everett for the Super Bowl. And yet ESPN set up shop and all the celebrities threw parties in Belltown. Just kind of bizarre.
Thus, the normal “see and be seen nightclubs” were closed for private events (or pay $200+). Ordinary bars that normally cater to the 30-something set charged $25 cover. And the college bars were dead.
I guess this is what happens when you schedule the biggest sporting event in the world, on the same weekend as the biggest sporting event in Phoenix, and also split the Super Bowl scene into two areas about 40 minutes apart. Word on the street was that while Scottsdale bars were filled with tourists, Phoenicians themselves were up at the FBR Open Thursday night, and planning to return Friday and Saturday as well. In fact, rumors are that few people from this area are going to the game at all, preferring to spend Sunday afternoon at TPC before heading home to turn on the game at 4:20.
But back to Marketing. Coolest thing – or stupidest depending on your mood – are the walking TV sets. How can I describe this? There’s a guy walking. And he has a harness on his back. And rising up from this harness to a height of about 8-9 feet, is a flatscreen. And that flatscreen has commercials. So if he walks right at you, you would look up a few feet and watch the ad. These guys are all over the place. Walking TV Billboards. They kind of look like Hammerhead from the Cantina on Tatooine. I’ll try to snap a picture later today.
Now this question came up for debate yesterday. Suppose a non Super Bowl sponsor, especially a competitor of a Super Bowl sponsor, somehow came up with 500 tickets to the game. And they ran a contest for fans to get those free tickets. And those fans had to wear clothing from the sponsor inside the stadium. Could they be refused entry? Let’s pretend it’s Burger King. McDonald’s is a sponsor, so Burger King gets 500 tickets and puts people (maybe even rewards top employees) in BK shirts all over the place. Maybe they have to walk around Super Bowl events all weekend. Now, could they also wear “King” masks? Or does that step over the line? Can they hand out business cards with coupons on them? Is it Freedom of Speech? Or do corporate rights trump the Constitution? Just random thoughts…
Funniest and dumbest thing we saw yesterday. A couple of guys walk in with about seven 21 year old blond girls, all dressed in a different color of the same mini-dress. You can’t NOT notice when something like that enters the room. And all the guys in the bar are asking each other, “Are those dudes rolling with hookers? Could they be anymore obvious about it?” And then we heard a girl say, “I think they are promoting jewelry, because they all have necklaces with a similar design.” We never really figured it out.
I’m trekking out to Glendale today to see what the scene is like out there. I expect this is where most of the corporate guys will be staying, especially those who don’t know Phoenix. Probably a little different atmosphere.