Andy Boyer

Author: Andy Boyer

  • Technology Finally Slows Down the Rockies

    Well, they’ve won something like 23 of 24 games, so other teams can’t stop them.  But the Colorado Rockies finally found a nemesis they cound’t vanquish.

    According to reports, "on Monday, there were 8.5 million attempts to connect with the computers in the first 90 minutes after sales started, and only several hundred tickets had been sold before the system had to be shut down."

    One has to assume many of these 8.5 million attempts are from the automated robots now being used by ticket brokers and resellers.  This indicates the technologies that have been so useful in selling tickets have now become an impediment to getting them to the real fans. 

    In fact, the Denver Post reports on the issue, including this section.  "The bots pose a significant challenge to companies such as Ticketmaster, which won an injunction Monday blocking a Pittsburgh software company – RMG Technologies Inc. – from making and distributing such programs.

    "We will not allow others to illegally divert tickets away from fans," said Ticketmaster chief executive Sean Moriarty in a statement.

    The flooding process has also come under fire from parents trying to purchase "Hannah Montana" concert tickets for their kids, only to learn tickets are sold out minutes after going on sale."

     

  • Feeling Justified About My Taste in Music

    I finally found a band that I liked before Apple did. Here’s one of my favorites, The Fratellis, starring in the latest iPod ad.

  • U.S. Search Engines Have New Pot Hole in Dance With China

    When you have a few billion potential customers living inside your country, and a totalitarian monopoly on who gets to sell to them, you wield quite a bit of power on the global business climate.

    Such is the case this week as the government of China is now redirecting searches from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft search engines, and sending them to the China based Baidu.com.

    The fact that this action comes about 3 minutes after the Dali Lama received a Congressional Medal of Honor is at best, "sketchy."   

    This kind of activity puts American companies in a tough spot.  From everything I know, supporting the Dali Lama is the *right* thing to do.  China is effectively pushing American companies to try to convince the U.S. government to change their chance.  This will not be the last time a U.S. firm is going to have decide on whether they are beholden to shareholder value or global ethics.  Redirecting IP packets is simply the easiest thing China could do.  It will be interesting to see what comes next.   

  • Ad Club Seattle Covers Social Media

    Seattle’s Ad Club brought Social Media to the forefront today, as Eric Weaver, Principle of Brand Dialogue, and Laura Porto Stockwell, VP and Director of Interactive at Publicis, "explored this new(ish) medium and (taught us) how it affects your brand and you personally."

    The house was packed and just about everyone stayed until the end, indicating agencies and professional marketers are at least interested in figuring out how to wrap their arms around this giant mixture of bees and butterflies called Social Media.   Look for more events like this in Social Media, and Spring Creek Group will be at many of them.

  • Stephen Colbert Op-Ed Piece in New York Times

    Maureen Dowd of the New York Times dared Stephen Colbert to write an Op-Ed piece this week.  Funny Stuff.

  • Don Imus is Coming Back

    According to Drudge (can’t link to it because it’s not a permanent link yet):

    "THE RESURRECTION OF IMUS: RETURNS ON NATION'S TOP TALK STATION
    Mon Oct 15 2007 07:52:30 ET

    In a dramatic and dazzling career rebound, controversial radio host Don Imus has secured a deal returning him to the airwaves on December 3 -- this time on the nation's most listened to talk station, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned!

    "Imus In The Morning" will make a high-impact resurrection on WABC in New York City, top sources reveal.

    "We'll have him on a standard 40-second delay," a studio source explains. "Don is rested, humbled, and ready for war!"

    Specific terms of the deal will not be released, but the host, who was fired by CBS and MSNBC after making disparaging comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team, has inked a eight-figure, multiyear contract with WABC parent company, CITADEL BROADCASTING."
     

    Now, I don’t want to claim to be a soothsayer or anything, but here’s what I said a few months ago. 

    Key sentence: "So Imus gets punished – but watch how the market reacts in the coming months.  If the one thing this country believes in, it’s second chances – and grabbing the opportunities to invest in them."

  • “Heck, That’s Alternative to Alternative”

    Remember the old Todd Snider song about the band who moved to Seattle and became a Grunge band that went on stage and refused to play any songs? Well if Social Media is the alternative grunge band, here are the guys who aren’t playing a note, yet.

    This article from Wired discusses how a few folks have built a Social Media Marketing campaign around a TV show called Alive.  Here’s the alternative alternative part – The show doesn’t exist.

    That’s right.  Here are a bunch of creative guys who built a marketing plan BEFORE they built the product.  In fact, they built the marketing plan to seed the market and raise the money to build the show.  The funny part is that it’s the exact opposite of a stealth launch, where a company goes into a basement, builds the technology, then comes out and tries to convince VC’s that someone wants to buy it.  It would be interesting for someone to launch a Web site for something, start taking orders, then call a VC and say, "We have 100,000 customers who want to by our thingamajiggers for $50 each.  Now we need $2 Million to make them."  

    I’ll let you enjoy the whole article, because it’s quite interesting.   

     

  • Social Media 101

    So, it’s hard to explain Social Media.  Someone writes a blog post, other people comment on it, and it really doesn’t matter, right?

    Well, let me introduce you to a man apparently ignorant in the ways of Social Media, or a fictional character that has brought satirical humor and joy to thousands of TechCrunch readers. 

    The short version of the story: Richard Figueroa, a little nobody hack photographer in Alabama tries to threaten Michael Arrington, Founder of Techcrunch, with a frivolous lawsuit.  Arrington, as he has previously done in cases like this, posts the letter on his Web site where his hundreds of thousands of readers per day could laugh at it.  What follows is a back and forth banter in the comments section that proves some man named "Richard" to be an incompetent, illiterate dunce. 

    Or perhaps, a competitor of Richard’s in Alabama has brilliantly used Social Media to sabotage poor Mr. Figueroa.

    Or even, this could be a comedy routine in which some Valleywag guy wants to make Alabama residents look like idiots, and has elaborately created some bumpkin named Richard Figueroa.

    Whatever it is, it proves that Social Media and strong communities have loud voices.  Undertsand this medium, before you are trying to defend your mistakes.  

    Check out this story, and see what lessons are to be learned. 

  • Is Google trying to Affect Politics?

    So, here’s an issue that only matters when you are a company serving 40% of the ads on the Internet.

    According to an article written by someone named Robert Cox, founder of the Media Bloggers Association, Google is not allowing a Republican senator to run ads that denounce MoveOn.org. 

    According to the article, the banned advertisements said, “Susan Collins is MoveOn’s primary target. Learn how you can help” and “Help Susan Collins stand up to the MoveOn.org money machine.” The ads linked to Collins’ campaign Web site with a headline reading “MoveOn.org has made Susan Collins their #1 target.” The Collins Web site claims that MoveOn has contributed $250,000 to her likely Democratic opponent and has run onine ads against her costing nearly $1 million. The Web site also displays MoveOn.org’s controversial “General Betray Us” ad.

    So, is this paranoia?  One one hand, a company should be able to run whatever ads it wants.  But on the other, if you are the ad serving technology running ads on millions of blogs and web sites, doesn’t the line get blurry if you are banning ads you may not agree with?

    Google uses the argument of, "You don’t have right’s to MoveOn’s Trademark so you can’t use it in an ad."   But that’s a pretty slippery slope, and I’d be shocked if every other ad in Google Ad Sense avoids using an unlicensed trademark.  In fact, the article states, "Google routinely permits the unauthorized use of company names such as Exxon, Wal-Mart, Cargill and Microsoft in advocacy ads. An anti-war ad currently running on Google asks “Keep Blackwater in Iraq?” and links to an article titled “Bastards at Blackwater — Should Blackwater Security be held accountable for the deaths of its employees?”"

    If Google’s not careful, long term these kind of issues could turn into a reason for the DOJ to start looking into whether Google is a monopoly that needs to be broken up, using the same logic they used on Microsoft a few years back.  Exept this time it’s not a piece of software Google isn’t allowing to be distrubuted, it’s censorship of speech. If a single entity that controls 40% of the online ads decides to censor those ads to affect public policy, even the non-paranoid might get a little spooked.

  • C’mon, Someone Thought This Was a Good Idea?

    (Note: Correspondent Garrett Galbreath contributed to this article)

    This actually made me add a new category to the blogroll, one for "Dumb Ideas."

    In an apparent attempt at global expansion no matter how little common sense the idea involves, Taco Bell will be entering Mexico.  However, the company must change some of its marketing.

    First, they will not be selling Mexican food.   In fact, an ad reads, "It is a new fast-food alternative that does not pretend to be Mexican food."  Instead their brand will be, ""Taco Bell is something else."  Hmm, it’s lunch time, I feel like ordering "something else."  

    Second, there will be some unusual items, with a menu that projects a more "American" fast-food image by adding French fries — some topped with cheese, cream, ground meat and tomatoes.  So basically, nachos, but using fries instead of chips.

    And third, no tacos – the hard-shelled items sold as "tacos" in the U.S. have been renamed "tacostadas."

    Why all the changes?  Let’s ask the executive in charge.   "Taco Bell wants to take advantage of the perception that if something comes from the United States, it tastes better, that a country that has been Americanized is willing to Americanize food that is central to its cuisine," Monsiváis said. "It is an absurd idea, and given that it’s so absurd, it may just be successful in upper-class areas."

    In case you are wondering, YUM shares are struggling.  Perhaps it’s because people are walking into the CEO’s office, announcing they have an "absurd idea" and having that idea greenlighted. 

    Now you might be saying, "Andy, you’re being way too hard on these guys.  Why not try something, and if it doesn’t work, put it in the scrap heap and forget it ever happened, just don’t do it again."  Well, I agree.  So for a kicker – "Taco Bell failed with a highly publicized launch in Mexico City in 1992, when it opened a few outlets next to KFC restaurants."