Author Archives: Andy Boyer

If You Make A Mistake, Remember This

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

I really like what Hulu is doing.  If you haven’t checked it out, go to the site and play around one evening.  It really seems to be run by some smart folks.  

So, I’m not picking on them for launching a promotional TV schedule with graphics that display the wrong calendar dates.  It just shows that no one is perfect, so if you are going to launch something on your web site, it’s never a bad idea to have someone review it.  That way your boss doesn’t have the chance receive a snarky email froma “colleague” that asks why the creative team can’t read a calendar.   

 

 

Flight for a Dollar, Do I Hear Two, Yes, Now Three Dollars…

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing

I’ve heard people ask a lot of questions about the byzantine world of airline pricing.   The process is so bizarre, that an entire company (Farecast.com) was built to help consumers decide the best time to purchase.   That company was then bought by Microsoft for millions.

But WCBSTV.com reports that now JetBlue brings us a promotion, that if successful, could break the model.   The airline is auctioning off more than 300 roundtrip flights and six vacation packages this week on eBay, with opening bids set between 5 and 10 cents.   The flights are to more than 20 destinations, including four “mystery” JetBlue Getaways Vacation packages to undisclosed locations.

If implemented on a wider basis, those who want to fly the most will pay the most fot eh ticket.   There would be potentially no ceiling on highly sought after flights – but potentially no floor either.   I think the interesting thing will be to see what amount of “bargain buys” would go unused.   If I can lock down a $40 flight to LA for 3 months from now, I would gladly pay the pittance.   But who knows when November rolls around if I use it or not.   Anytway, this is an interesting promotion to watch.

Metallica Discovers the Whole Interweb Thingy

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing

Remember when Metallica was visiting Napster, trying to get music downloaders fined?  Well apparently even guys with that kind of conviction can be swayed.

Wired reports that the band launched a promotion on YouTube featuring their favorite Metallica cover songs on the site. Drummer Lars Ulrich introduces
their selections.  They have their own channel, called MetallicaTV.

I don’t have too much of a take on this, other than I think it’s always encouraging when stalwart opponents of common sense eventually come around.  I’d love to give my feedback on the site from a social media perspective…..but I can’t get the channel to work in Google Chrome.  It all shows up fine, but no videos wiil play.   Is this common for other people, or just me?

Welcome to Fall, Where The Tech Industry has Forever Changed

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

So i won’t be one of those people who pretends to know how the new Google browser, aka Chrome, will affect the stock prices of Google and Microsoft, or what it means to Mozilla and the Open Source Community.

But I think it’s fair to say that the launch of Chrome fundamentally changes the landscape of the how the tech industry will operate.  I mean, you have to be curious about what the Google Browser will look like, and how they will integrate Docs, Calendar, mail, etc….

Now, contrary to the Open Source guys, I won’t be saying that a Google Browser is a Microsoft killer.  For example, as much as I love Google Docs for collaborating on a shared whiteboard, as an actual device for building a real document, it’s fairly useless.  So while there will be a lot of anti-MSFT sentiment that will put Chrome on a pedestal, I’ll test it out with an objective mind.

But my point is, Chrome will be a game changer on the tech environment one way or the other.  After years of people saying, “Google will kill Microsoft when they release a browser,” they will finally have to deliver.  So mark this date as a critical moment in technology.  Chrome either rocks (like Gmail), is ok (like Docs), or becomes irrelevant (like Froogle).  Test it out and see what you think.

Viewzi – Cool Little Search Engine Toy

Posted by Andy Boyer in Personal

I stumbled across a cool little search engine in beta, called Viewzi.  Now I’m not making this out to be a Google killer or anything, but it’s a kind of fun way to troll through web sites if you are looking for a visual representation of the page.

My favorite of their searching options was the “Web screenshot” view.  Now, my take is that this will be less helpful for certain types of searches than others.  For example, I think it did better with a search on Cristiano Ronaldo (below) than the Georgia-Russia conflict (above).  And the algorithm isn’t perfect.  When I searched on my own name, it at first attached me to the usual places, but then attached me to a bunch of web sites with “Spring Creek” in the name.  So, it was a good effort to look at say, AndyBoyer.com, see a link to SpringCreekGroup.com and make that connection, but then it took it to far when it surmised I also must be part of SpringCreekFishing.net. 

But I’m not here to criticize.  It’s kind of cool to play with, and there are a few target markets I’m sure they are already very popular with.  Check it out at Viewzi.com

Which Olympic Athletes Can you be Facebook Friends With?

Posted by Andy Boyer in Social Media, Sports

So Valleywag reports that you cannot be Facebook friends with Michael Phelps, because has more Facebook “fans”
than Will Smith, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers — 767,885 at last
count! Phelps tells Bob Costas that besides the fans, he’s got about 7,600
pending Facebook friend requests, too. “I can’t accept any more.”

But that makes me curious.  I wonder how many of the thousands of other Olympic athletes you could be friends with.  Sure, the guy who won 8 gold metals is off limits, but how about a 24 year old track and field guy who didn’t qualify for the finals?  What percent of these competitors are happy to communicate with new fans, and what percent think it’s creepy.

I think if I was some obscure archery or triple jump Olympian and got a few requests, I’d think it was cool.  Maybe less so if I was a 14 year old female gymnast.  (that’s 16 in Chinese years).

Let me know if you make Facebook friends with anyone.

A Story About Packaging

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing

Hey, it’s a slow news week since all of the Marketing world is on vacation.  And I’m still tired from a fun weekend in Oregon.  But I know the rules of blogging say I need to post something tout suite…so here’s what you get for this Tuesday’s entry.  To connect it to marketing, let’s call it a story on how every detail on your packaging or direct mail piece is important.

“In 1878 the French had acquired rights to construct a canal across the
Isthmus of Panama. For numerous reasons, the project failed. However, a
young French engineer, Philippe Jean Bunau-Varilla, still believed that
a canal could be built in Panama. Unable to get any action on the
project in France, Bunau-Varilla went to Washington, D.C., to see if he
could interest any congressmen in the venture. There he found that a
bill was pending to build a canal through Nicaragua, not Panama,
especially since the existence of Lake Nicaragua would cut the costs of
construction. “Bunau-Varilla promptly became a one-man lobby. He
obtained several hundred Nicaraguan postage stamps, which showed a
picture of one of the country’s small volcanoes in full eruption.
Bunau-Varilla wrote a brief letter to each congressman, asking, in
effect, if it was really wise to build a canal–at great cost to the
American taxpayers–through a country which was filled with active
volcanoes. With each letter went one of the Nicaraguan stamps. The
congressmen read the letter, looked at the stamp, and decided not to
vote funds for a canal through Nicaragua.” Two years later, in 1904,
Congress approved the canal project for Panama.”

Of course, this story could also be titled, “Apparently U.S. Congressmen are no smarter or dumber than those of 130 years ago.”

Election Watch – Obama and Texting

Posted by Andy Boyer in Uncategorized

I’m starting a new category, covering some interesting tactics the Presidential campaigns are using when it comes to technology or social media marketing.  Here’s the latest email I received from the Obama camp:

People keep asking me if we’re really going to announce Barack’s VP directly to our supporters. 
The answer is yes. 
Let me be very clear. You are the ones who built this campaign, and
Barack wants you to be the first to know who will join him in leading
our movement for change.

So, if you haven’t signed up to receive an email or a text message, sign up now. Or you can text VP to 62262 from your mobile phone. 
Make sure to forward this message to your friends and let them know about this special opportunity.

Thanks,

That’s a pretty neat gimmick.  I don’t know if it means that if you text the campaign, they will call you later to ask for money.  But it’s a neat way to use text messaging to communicate directly to their base.

Meanwhile, we think the athletes are real

Posted by Andy Boyer in Marketing, Media, Politics, Sports

So what have we learned about China so far thanks to year’s Olympics.  Well, let’s start with some nuggets from a British paper, The Times of London, in this article.

Let’s set aside all the pre-Olympics Tom Foolery of throwing out journalists, censoring Internet sites, jailing a Japanese television crew in West China, shutting down factories, and trying to magically make the pollution go away.

But in the first week of this Games, we have:

  • Fake fireworks so the TV audience thinks they are seeing something spectacular
  • Lip-syncing of the opening song by a cute 7-year old Chinese girl, because the 7 year old girl who really sang it wans’t “cute” enough.
  • Oscar-style “seat fillers” who sit and watch the preliminary rounds of events, then leave when the ticket holders show up, so it doesn’t look like there are any no-shows.

I’m not exactly sure this is what drove the spirit of the games more than 100 years ago.  So if the games themselves can be fake and manufactured, tell me again why the athletes aren’t allowed to use drugs that enhance their own performance?  Don’t sterioids seem to fit perfectly into this charade?