The U.S. found a new tool in how to communicate on a one to many way in times of crisis today. On this national day of sorrow and disbelief, Facebook.com proved that the world of social networking extends past sharing pictures and music tastes.
One LA Times Article includes the following paragraph. "University of Southern California sophomore Charlotte Korchak received a call from her mother in Maryland — Virginia Tech, she learned, was a death scene. Rather than tie up the cellphones of friends who attend the school, the 19-year-old history major checked their pages on Facebook, the social-networking site. ‘I was able to immediately find out who was OK,’ she said. ‘Without Facebook I have no idea how I would have found that out.’"
The site has also become a place for people to share support. One group has over 1,300 members. This condolences group contains over 2,600. Here’s a prayer group with 2,100.
In real time yesterday, Bryce’s Journal was a source of up to the minute information, which led to an interesting moral argument. The CBC TV network posted to his blog comments section asking him to call and provide his account on the air in addition to the blog. This became a source of hostility for the blog readers, who felt that their reading the accounts was not voyeurism, but that a major TV network relaying those accounts would be exploitation. Bryce’s Journal continues to be a source of pretty startling emotional writing.
There’s little doubt that this tragedy could have been avoided if news of the first shooting, and warnings to get off campus, could have been conveyed in a more efficient manner. I think we can look at social networking, especially in the mobile space, as something to considered for emergency response.
So Don Imus is fired. After meeting with Jese Jackson and Al Sharpton, CBS President Les Mooves fired his top rated radio host. Many people cheer this. The villain was vanquished, the evil doer thwarted, the racist cast back to the cave from where he belongs.
And the rest of us will get to watch a first hand example of how capitalism works, how market forces behave and how money and opportunity trump all.
First, you’ll have the legal settlement from CBS. It’ll be done quietly, but you don’t dismiss a formerly beloved radio personality with millions of dollars on his contract remaining, and not have to send any more checks his way. Plus, you have to pay him to stay OFF the air, because WCBS is not the only station in New York. And there are lots of stations with call letters you have never heard of that would be happy to take a little heat for giving Imus a "Second Chance.’
But it’s not just traditional radio. Tell me Mark Cuban isn’t already sitting in Imus living room saying, "You’ll be on HDNet, podcasting as well, and your first guests will be the Duke Lacrosse team, and your topic can be about how the media goes in for the kill. Or we’ll do a show – The News accoring to Dan (Rather) and Don (Imus). Plus I haven’t annoyed David Stern for a while so we’ll let you do some play by play for the Mavericks as well."
And sitting next to Cuban on that same couch are the CEO’s of Sirius and XM radio, one guy saying, "Compete against Howard again" and the other guy saying, "Back to back Howard and Imus – you can say anything you want on our network."
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.
Here’s what happens with highly paid people with big egos and small imaginations make decisions – They solve problems that don’t exist.
Amazon.com, rightful owner of Alexa.com data, shut down the very helpful Statsaholic.com Web service. Statsaholic only exists because the people at Alexa weren’t building all the features that people wanted to use. Now Amazon has blocked Statsaholic, and are copying those features into Alexa.com.
In a MBA Case Study (especially a Harvard one), this is probably the smart response. And in 2 years, will anyone really care? But we start losing innovation when the "Microsoft problem" permeates across other companies. When people think, ‘Well it’s useless to do something new because someone big will just steal it from me later anyway," the whole web economy takes a step backward. Out of all the challenges Amazon can go solve, I don’t get why "Screwing Statsaholic" should be at the top of the list. Plus, marketing guru Seth Godin is somehow associated with Statsaholic, so I’m not sure why you would want to make an enemy of him.
In the meantime, there’s a Mozilla hack that gets Statsaholic working again. Check it out here.
Ah, remember when having the world’s largest selection of merchandise was a good thing? Well apparently Amazon.com’s decision to offer magaiznes catering to the Cock Fighting crowd has – in what will be the most overused pun in a decade – ruffled some feathers.
The Register UK and Computerworld report the Humane Society has slapped Amazon.com with a lawsuit. The action specifically concerns "The Underground Pitbull Breeders Association, StreetHeatDVD.com, and the publishers of The Gamecock and The Feathered Warrior. Also targeted are the DVDs Unleashed: The Realest Pitbull Action Caught on Tape and Hood Fights Vol. 2, The Art of the Pit, both "depicting illegal dogfighting".
According to the Humane Society, "At issue in the case are four items which the HSUS has repeatedly asked Amazon.com to drop from its sales list because they depict and promote cruel dogfighting and cockfighting events in violation of federal law. Amazon.com is the sole retailer of subscriptions to the animal fighting magazines and the only outlet for animal fighters to obtain subscriptions over the internet. Similarly, Amazon.com is one of only three sellers of the dogfighting DVD and the easiest seller to locate on the web. A Humane Society review of the last 12 months of The Gamecock and The Feathered Warrior found that more than 90 per cent of the magazines’ advertisements are nothing more than a solicitation to commit a crime…and uncovered evidence that such magazines are published for the express purpose of promoting unlawful animal fighting and are found at more than 75 per cent of the animal fighting operations that have been raided by law enforcement officers."
So in one corner, you have the Humane Society using a legal argument to try to quell a market that by all terms of human decency, shouldn’t even exist. In the other corner you have Amazon.com, standing behind a 1st Amendment argument of, "Hey we sell everything." Now as easy as this decision might seem, its likely they are sticking to this argument so one day they can’t get forced into a corner either by the religious right or liberal left over whether or not to sell, "How to Fix your Gay Friend" or "Jesus was a Sex Addict." Saying, "We Sell Everything" when it comes to literature on cock-fighting gets you about as far down the reprehensible spectrum as you can go.
And let’s not forget, Amazon doesn’t create the marketplace for this material. Someone is writing the articles, someone is publishing the magazine, someone else is selling the ads, someone else is buying the ads and still someone else buys the magazine. So as awful as it sounds, this isn’t all Amazon’s fault.
Now the marketing side of this is a little grayer. It’s a fallacy for Amazon to say, "We Sell Everything." "24 Ways to Attack Paris Hilton" would not be listed amongst their catalog. Amazon is grown up enough that they need to come out and be strong, and say, "This sport isn’t right. It’s so off the radar in terms of social acceptance, that this is not a 1st Amendment issue. There are bounds of good taste, and while we do not believe that we should be the arbitrator of good taste, we have enough common sense to know this does not live up to the standards of the 1.6 Billion other products we offer."
Looking for that special brithday gift? Looks like Amazon.com has exactly what you’re looking for. According to the description: "The JL421 Badonkadonk is a completely unique, extremely rare land vehicle and battle tank. Designed with versatility in mind, the Donk can transport cargo or a crew of five internally or on the roof, and can be piloted from within the armored shell or from an exposed standing position through the hatch, thanks to special one-way steel mesh armor windows and a control stick that pivots up and down to allow piloting from the standing or seated positions. The interior is fully carpeted and cozy, with accent lighting and room for up to five people."
In case you’re curious, people who bought this item also bought: Roger von Oech’s Ball of Whacks: A Creativity Tool for Innovators by Roger Von Oech America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It by Mark Steyn
Unfortunately, it doesn’t qualify for free shipping under Amazon Prime – but you CAN add it to your wedding registry….
I’m imagining being the marketing guy at Microsoft charged with increasing the amount of time a user spends on their computer each day, lets call it Director of PCMPD (PC Minutes per Day). Being Microsoft, I probably have a staff member for each segment – 6-10 years old, 11-15, 16-19, 20-29, 30-39, etc….plus a dotted line over to the enterprise PCMPD Director which is split into vertical segments, as well as a weekly meet-up with the XBOXMPD, ZuneMPD, MobileMPD and other MPD directors.
Now my boss’ boss’ boss’ boss’ boss’ boss, Mr Bill Gates himelf, comes out and says he and his wife Melinda decided to set a limit on their daughter of 45 minutes a day of total screen time for games and an hour a day on weekends, plus what time she needs for homework. "Up to some age, to be determined, it’s very appropriate for a parent to get a sense of what they’re seeing out there and be able to have conversations about it," he said.
I think I just heard the head of the world’s largest software company say that kids should not spend all day in front of a screen….
Looking for that special brithday gift? Looks like Amazon.com has exactly what you’re looking for. According to the description: 