Author Archives: Andy Boyer

2 Big Numbers, and How They are Related

Posted by Andy Boyer in Big Businesses, Marketing

$20 Billion.  $16 Billion.  Two relatively large numbers that may be too hard to comprehend.  So here’s a funny comparison. 

According to Valleywag, the entire newspaper industry is now worth $20 Billion.  I suppose that seems right for a 100-150 year old industry with papers everywhere from New York to Wasilia.

But that number seems kind of small when you figure that Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s cofounders, are worth nearly $16 billion each according to Forbes.  So 2 men who have made it easier to search for online versions of newspaper articles, could essentially buy the entire industry they are destroying.   Does that mean personal fortunes are a tad over inflated?

Josh Howard, Mark Cuban, the National Anthem and a Blog – The Perfect Storm

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Social Media

I am unashamed to be a huge Mark Cuban fan.  American success story of a guy who hustles, has worked his rear end off, is always searching for the best opportunity for success, and cognisant of when to get out and start something new.  Now he has more money than he can ever spend and gets to run around thumbing his nose at other NBA owners.    (The only unfortunate thing is that you can probably make a case that David Stern’s officials are under orders to make sure he never wins a title.  See: Wade, Dwayne, 2006 NBA Finals).

Anyway, his blog is always worth reading.  And I was just having a conversation about transparency yesterday which makes this thread on BlogMaverick even more relevant.  The context of my conversation was whether anyone in the U.S. will be able to run for public office in 20 years, if hackers are going to be able to get to emails you sent and received.  

But here are people who use real email addresses to willingly spew stupidity and hate.  I would love to sit next to one of these guys in the office and get his reaction.  Good for Cuban for publicizing these.  Check out the post.

Can You See the International Reality Show Here?

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

From Yahoo:

“A Nigerian Muslim court Monday detained an 84-year-old Islamic preacher with 86 wives after he failed to heed a call by local leaders to divorce all but four of them…..The authorities charged Mohammed Bello with “insulting religious creed” and “unlawful marriages” after local chiefs and Muslim leaders gave him until September 7 to comply with Islamic sharia law, which allows a man to have no more than four wives at a time.”

I see it now – “Elimina-wife.”  82 eliminations to get to the remianing 4.  Endless possibilities on an International stage here….  

 

This Negative Election Has Finally Defeated Me

Posted by Andy Boyer in Politics

Well, it’s happened.  What started as a fantastic 17 person Presidential race, with people sharing new ideas for how to run the country, has turned into a giant mud-slinging session that has left me dis-spirited and ready to move to Croatia to open a coffee stand.

What happnened to this race? We had Bill Richardson’s immigration ideas, Obama’s unifying rallies and Hillary’s messages energizing women.  Giulani and Thompson added star power, Romney was the clean cut businessman with the ability to run the Olympics and a state, while McCain the Maverick was driving the Straight Talk Express.  Even Ron Paul, who people labeled as crazy, at least had an interesting Flat Tax Plan.  Real candidates with real ideas.  

But now, I can’t watch TV or listen to the radio without hearing barking, shrieking, sarcasm and disdain.  No one has any ideas, and everyone has a criticism.  Olberman and Chris Matthews take turns firing shots at Republicans in hopes Obama will dance with them first at the inauguration.  Conservative journalists rail on Obama’s 143 days in US Senate as being unfit to lead.  Media members sitting on the left side of the bench use big words and smarmy sarcasm to imply that anyone who doesn’t agree with them 100% is stupid.  Those on the right  scoff at people and make it clear that anyone who doesn’t know how to climb into the middle class is just useless.

Our whole country is attacking each other and every campaign message is about hate – McCain is too old., Obama too green.  McCain lies, Obama exagerates.  Biden is mean, Palin is crazy.  Then everything that happens must be assigned to someone.  The Financial situation is Bush’s fault, no McCain signed a bill in 1999 that caused this, no Obama’s liberal policies would make it worse, etc…Gas is expensive because we’re in Iraq, no because Democrats won’t let us drill, no because Republicans are beholden to lobbyists in the oil industry….

I’ve been beaten.  The candidates’, pundits’, advisors’ and supporters’  combined message has finally sunk in.  According to what I am hearing from everyone, “Collectively we’re screwed, it’s someone else’s fault, and we’re really going to be screwed worse if you vote for the other guy.”  That’s the message I am getting – please tell me I’m hearing it wrong.  Plus, none of them are explaining to me that they can fix it, they are just explaining to me that the other group can’t.  So I guess that’s the message. Take my money out of the stock market and run.

Oops – too late for that too….Now what?

2 Handy Text Message Tools

Posted by Andy Boyer in Technology

I was down at CTIA in San Francisco last week expecting to be wowed by tons in mobile innovations.  I really thought  I’d be furiously taking notes and have plenty to write about for weeks.  Sadly, I was forced not to publish the trip report I did write and had sent internally to the folks at Spring Creek Group, due to my overall  philosophy of only writing about innovations I like, not complaining about things I don’t get or won’t use.  I figure Techcrunch does enough criticizing for the entire blogosphere, so no reason to be one of the naysayers

So instead of a trip report from the Bay, here are 2 clever text messaging apps that I read about at PCWorld.com and now use fairly regularly

1) Google Calendar SMS Commands  – I use Google Calendar, as part of my slavery to Gootle Mail, Docs, Chat, Analytics and Ad Words.  Instead of having to sync my Blackberry every day, i can simply send a text to GVENT (48368) with the word “day” and I get a full schedule.  If I want tomorrow’s shcedule, I type “nday.”  I immediately receive a text back with my schedule.

2) Diet Watcher – If you’re watching calories, Diet.com can help you keep count. Text any major restaurant chain’s name and menu item to DIET1 (dial 34381) and they’ll send you back the nutrition stats: calories, fat, carbs, and protein.  In case you are curious, a McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger has 440 Calories (23g fat), while a Starbucks Grande Latte has 

Neither of these services are awe-inspiring, but if you want information quickly, they are pretty useful.  And really at the end of the day, “Useful, Easy and Free” beat slick marketing and $60 Million in Series C funding any day of the week.

Go Miniman Go

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Social Media

I bet you didn’t know that the Lego “Mini-man” just had his 30th birthday. Launched August 25, 1978, he’s now been featured in hundreds of Lego products. So how do you announce this across the Social Media spectrum? I think this video does a great job.

Two Useful Chotchkes

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing

 If your company is forced to attend tradeshows, eventually you have to settle on what kind of chotchke you need to hand out.  This conversation usually goes like this:

Boss: What are we giving away?
You: How much do you want to spend?
Boss:  Not much.  I want all our best leads and customers to get something really cool so they’ll remember us, but I don’t want random people to get anything from us for free.
You: So cool, but kid of secret.
Boss: Exactly.  But something they can use over and over when they get back home.  
You: Like a pen, USB key, mouse pad, etc…
Boss: Like that, but different.  This makes sense right?  Ok, let me know what you come up with.

Well, I saw two useful chotckes at CTIA yesterday, and thought I would pass them along.

  1. Laptop screen cleaning cloth thingy –  I never seem to have one of these, so every day from now on I will be thanking vsnax.com for my clean screen.
  2. Pocket size notebook – Thanks to Ontela.com, I was able to ditch my bag and just walk around the show floor with a notebook I could fit in my back pocket, and write down things or companies I wanted to follow up with when I got home.  It kept me from having to grab any collateral 

Geeking Out With Some Google Chrome Commands

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Technology

I found a pretty fun little list over at Lifehacker today, in one of the comment threads.  If you are testing out Google Chrome (and you really should be so you can see how Browser War II is going to play out) then these toolbar commands will give you some things to play with.

  • about:memory
  • about:stats
  • about:network
  • about:internets
  • about:histograms
  • about:dns
  • about:cache
  • about:plugins
  • about:version 

Note:  This is as “techy-nerdy” as this blog will ever get.  But some of the commands are pretty cool. Let me know if you find others. 

ADDITION:  Yardloo.com also has a handy list of normal commands that you can use with Windows: 

  • F5 – Refreshes the page
  • Ctrl + F5 – Super-Refresh where the cache is ignored and a total refresh of the page is done
  • Ctrl + D – Bookmarks the currently open page
  • Ctrl + “+” – Increases the text size in the page
  • Ctrl + “-” – Decreases the text size in the page
  • Ctrl + F – Opens a box with the option of find-in-page where one  search for  keyword in the page.
  • Ctrl + U – Opens the source of the page
  • Ctrl + Shift + N – Opens a new window in incognito mode.
  • Ctrl + Shift + Esc – Opens the task manager for the browser
  • Ctrl + Shift + T – Re-open the last closed tab Maximum of last 10 tabs.
  • Ctrl + N – Opens a new windows for your browser
  • Ctrl + T – Opens a new tab in the same window
  • Ctrl + W – Closes the presently open tab
  • Ctrl + F4 – Closes the presently open tab
  • Alt + F4 – Closes the window
  • Alt + home – Opens the default homepage in Google Chrome
  • Ctrl +1 to Ctrl + 8 – The number you press along with the Ctrl key, move to you that number of Tab.
  • Ctrl +9 – Takes you to the last tab in the multiple number of tabs
  • Ctrl + Tab – Switch to the next tab
  • Ctrl + Shift + Tab – Switch to the previous tab
  • Ctrl + B – Option for toggling the bookmarks bar on/off
  • Ctrl + H – Opens the history page
  • Ctrl + J – Opens the downloads window
  • Ctrl + P – Prints the current page open in the browser