Month: February 2010

A little while back, the Miami Herald started asking for donations.  Not fees, but donations.  This led me to ask in this blog, “Is this the future of newspapers?“

Well as an update to that story, that answer appears to be, “No.”  NBCMIAMI.com reports the following (and they have a really clever photo to accompany it, so it’s worth the click):

Just two months after they put out their hand asking for online donations, the Miami Herald has apparently ended its request for voluntary contributions to its Website.

An article under “Breaking Business News” posted this past Saturdaystated that the push for handouts, which began in mid-December, was ending. A story posted Sunday by editor Anders Gyllenhaal said the “experiment with voluntary contributions from Web readers” was ending.

“The project taught us a lot about online reactions, but it’s unlikely to be an important part of our approach going forward,” Gyllenhaal wrote. “We thank the many readers who sent in contributions, suggestions and ideas as a part of this project.”

Any predictions as to what’s next for newspapers?

If you watched the Super Bowl, you may have seen Audi’s “Green Police” ad which basically mocked people who took recycling to the nth degree.  While the good folks of Michigan and Kansas City didn’t have too much of a reaction to the spot, the citizens of the Bay Area and Seattle looked over to their colleagues and wondered, “Are they making fun of us?”

Well, apparently Seattle decided it needed to try to distance from our friends to south itself on the battle of “Who can make the most ridiculous law” and implemented a quickly criticized ban on smoking in parks.

Now, before I had a chance to run to the blog here and announce how silly I think this rule is, Seattle politicians did what they do best – waffled on their decision, created a watered down version of the law, and developed something that is full of ambiguity and makes sense to no one.

First, let’s be clear about something.  I am not a smoker.  However, since I believe the market generally works itself out in these scenarios, this government intrusion annoys me.  In fact, as much as I enjoy going for a pint and not having to deal with smoke, I find that the ban on smoking in bars is unconstitutional and unfair.  I don’t get why one legal vice is allowed, and another legal vice is not.  But that’s not what I want to focus on.

Instead, I have to ask, how on earth can you ban smoking outdoors?  The argument of, “It’s dangerous for kids,” is a pretty slippery slope, so you better be committed before throwing yourself on that sword. For example, when I was 12, I broke my jaw when I was hit by a baseball, so let’s ban baseball too.  5 years ago, I broke my wrist playing soccer, so let’s nix that.  Swings are ridiculously dangerous, and slides get really hot in summer, so let’s nuke those.  And don’t even get me started on dogs.  People are allergic to them, and kids get scared.  Keep them out of our parks.  I mean really, you could even find a reason to not allow people to read certain books, if you are worried about a kid asking what a “Catcher in the Rye” means.

Now, apparently Timothy Gallagher’s boss got an inbox of emails after the Parks and Rec Department tried to sneak through this lunacy.  Maybe someone realized that we had made it impossible for President Obama to ever visit a Seattle Park.  Regardless, Gallagher’s vision on a truly nanny society got curtailed a touch, and the rules got shifted a little.  Now you must be 25 feet from people.  This is still comical.  Imagine if “Joe” takes his blanket out to Greenlake, finds a lonely place away from everyone, sits down with War and Peace, and lights up a smoke.  While he’s enjoying his day, 5 year old Timmy goes running by and stops to look at a leaf.  Does Timmy’s Dad now get to charge Joe with smoking next to a minor?  Suppose a bunch of 16 year old miscreants follow around the smokers to get them busted?  It’s just crazy.

I wasn’t born and raised here, so I’ve never quite figured out why Seattle likes its politicians to have so much control over their lives.  Can we agree now that folks like Gallagher need to get reigned in, and agree we need to start reclaiming control of our own civil liberties?  Or should we wait until Nike shoes are deemed inappropriate.

We’ve all seen this coming, but Facebook’s announcement earlier today that it would allow consumers and advertisers to buy ads and virtual items via PayPal, may be the latest watershed moment for Social Media.

The Wall Street Journal positions this as a move to improve International revenues, so they can “generate advertising revenue from small companies in countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, where credit card use isn’t prominent.”  Now, I’m sure that’s part of the reasoning, but it seems like there is something much bigger in store that the WSJ is missing.

The part of this that the WSJ glosses over is that, “Facebook said it would also allow people to purchase its own “Facebook Credit” currency through PayPal. Currently, users must give Facebook their credit cards to purchase the credits, which they can spend on virtual gifts for other people. They can also spend the credits on items made by businesses that build software for Facebook, such as gaming companies.”

I think this is the big deal here.  Theoretically, there shouldn’t be that much of chasm between using your credit card to make a purchase, and using PayPal.   But there really is.  With this system, now all of a sudden on my Facebook profile, I can say, “I have two Mariners tix, who wants them. Price is $80 total.”  A buyer could update my status and PayPal account simultaneously, and I can email my tickets over to them.  So all of a sudden, Facebook becomes Craigslist, but with trusted friends instead of sketchy strangers.  Sure, up to now I *could have* inserted a bit.ly link or something unnatural to the Facebook environment and allowed my profile to be a marketplace.  But with the PayPal  technology integrated into Facebook, it should be pretty seamless for anyone to sell goods or services from their profile.  

And once we get the credit cards out of the way, we blow open micropayment opportunities.  You may put a small version of a beautiful sunset picture on your Facebook page.  And if I send you $.25 from my PayPal account you’ll email me the high-res version.  It’s not paying your mortgage, but if 10 people do that, then your latte got paid for.  We could imagine possibilities for hours.

The only odd thing is that Facebook wasn’t able to build their own version f PayPal.  But since PayPal is owned by eBay, maybe this is the beginning of a tighter deal between the two companies.  Go ahead and let your brain wander around the concept of an eBay/Facebook merger…

The NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement is up after the 2010-2011 season.  The players, who make unlimited amounts of money and have guaranteed contracts that last forever, are negotiating to expand or at least keep those rights with the owners who have been given billions of dollars of tax subsidies from municipalities across the country.

Meanwhile, no matter how you cook the numbers, anecdotal evidence from sportswriters across the league says attendance is down, corporate sponsorship is down, and ad spending on television is down.  So somehow the NBA will have to make an argument to its TV networks that the league is more popular than ever (in order to get a huge TV contract) but also show the Players’ Union that it needs to change its contract structure (so they don’t bankrupt the league.)

Both sides will have to get public opinion on their side.  So, they’ll try to fool folks into thinking they care about the community.  But remember things like this when you see a “Made for TV” charity event in the future (from ESPN.com):

The sides met Friday, with negotiators for the players fortified by the presence of All-Stars such as LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Garnett, who came to the meeting instead of attending the community service events they were scheduled for.

Well, I’m glad they have their priorities in line.

Let’s pretend for a moment that the Olympics were about pure athleticism, the thrill of amateur athletes pursuing their dreams, and the overwhelming sentiment that we CAN all come together as one world, free of politics or finance.

Well, if that were indeed the case, instead of the reality that the IOC is a profit making money machine intent on protecting it’s global monopoly; well then the image below would actually be an embedded video player, and you’d be able to watch Olympics video from any one of the millions of blogs that would be syndicating it.  Instead, this is merely a screen shot and when you click on it you’ll go to their site, so you can see a Panasonic ad banner along with your videos.  <sigh>

It doesn’t get much more meta than this. As part of a UW student’s project, in which he interviewed folks about Social Media, I got a side question about Social Media for personal brands.

So here I am, on the web site I keep to somewhat maintain my own personal brand, repurposing content from this site,which Derek uses to maintain his own personal brand, talking about why it’s important to have a personal brand.

(And a side note, apparently my personal brand is to have a huge head, tilt it at a 45 degree angle, and make funny faces at the end of videos.)

Thanks to Forbes.com for putting this handy Super Bowl Ad Viewer together.

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