Andy Boyer

Got it. What's Next?

Category: Business (Page 15 of 24)

Meanwhile, we think the athletes are real

August 12, 2008 /

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?

Qvisory – “Tools for Life”

August 7, 2008 /

I encourage everyone to take a quick trip over to Qvisory.com,.a extremely socially conscious and responsible project headed up by Eileen Quigley, the former head of RealNetworks’ philanthropic arm, RealImpact.

Dubbed, “Tools for life, ” the site helps young people (and old ones too) achieve their work, money and life goals.  Here’s what they said in a recent email:

Our mission is to help young people build their economic future and
gain more control over their lives. Today’s 18 to 34 year-olds face
significant challenges in our evolving economy. We’re providing them
with information and tools to help manage and meet their money, work,
and health goals. And we’re advocating for change to ensure that their
voice is heard in Washington, DC, in board rooms, and in state capitols.

I have long been an advocate of our school system shifting gears and actually teaching things that people need to know – little things like how credit card companies make money, how to fill out tax forms, why interest only mortgages are a bad idea, what happens if you eat fast food and chips every day, etc….So, I think this is a great project.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

LeBron James Wants to Play in Europe? Why the NBA Should Make it Happen

August 7, 2008 /

The caveat:  I think the NBA is kind of boring these days.  I don’t hate basketball, but the NBA just under-achieves in my book.  Now, if you only speak English and have never traveled outside the US, I can understand why the NBA might seem cool. Similarly, if you’ve never been to a city with more than 200,000 people,  I can see why Appleby’s seems like a real culinary treat.  But I’m not here to bash.  I’m here to push forward a ridiculous notion.

Some background: In European soccer, something called UEFA governs European football. Independent leagues in England, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, etc… participate in two European tourneys – the UEFA Cup and Champions League. – which make dump trucks full of money. So in the middle of their regular seasons, Italy’s best teams also play England’s best teams, etc….  It’s pretty cool – and more importantly it makes huge amounts of cash for the teams and leagues.  Now this works for European soccer because there are 3 dominant leagues, 2 or 3 second-tier leagues and about 20 third tier leagues that sneak someone into the later rounds from time to time. 

The ridiculous notion: You could not replicate this in basketball today, because the NBA teams would win almost every game.  But this kind of International tourney could happen in just a few years if some recognizable US players headed to Europe.  Imagine this scenario:

Your favorite team is the New Orleans Hornets.  Towards the end of last season,  with a playoff birth locked up, you had to keep battling to finish in 4th place, and a birth in next season’s Champions League.  You qualified, so several times next season, instead of hosting the Jazz or Bobcats, you are hosting teams from Greece, Spain, Russia or Italy.   Twice per year, the Hornets head out to Europe for a 3-4 game swing.  As a fan, you may even travel with them to Madrid or Rome.

Now to make this happen, a few stars need to be playing for Olympiakos or Moscow or whoever.  If you are a true basketball junkie, what would be better than players and games that you care about playing across the globe starting at 9am your time?  There could literally be basketball on TV morning, noon and night.

The rivalries could be intense.  And because of the extra games, you’d see more players on your own team playing important minutes.  Teams would really have to ration how many minutes they give their old guys versus how many to give their developing players, the same way Ronaldo and Rooney occasionally have to skip Manchester United games.

So if LeBron wants to go to Europe, as this article implies, I think the NBA needs to gather the international basketball powers that be and figure out how to exploit it.  Prop up the Euro leagues and build an international championship that everyone owns a piece of.   Imagine  Lakers vs Moscow – Kobe vs LeBron – in Paris for the World Championship, with a TV audience of 100 million.   That’s real money. 

Big Move in the Scrabulous vs Hasbro Battle

July 31, 2008 /

So, just when you thought Scrabulous was dead…..when you thought they had no letters left to play, the team of Rajat and Jayant came back with “Quartzite” for a Bingo Triple Word Score.

It seemed like the war was over when the guys behind Scrabulous bowed to the legal pressure from Hasbro and pulled their wildly successful application from Facebook.   I stated that I hoped Hasbro would simply pay the guys what the game was worth and buy the application – and the users – from them.

But instead, the tables have been turned and the guys from Hasbro must have the same look as the Seattle City Council Members who were shocked that Clay Bennett was moving the Sonics.

In a Kasparov-ish type move, the Scrabulous guys have relaunched Scrabulous as “Wordscraper.”  Now at first look, the board and the game sucks.  Then you look at the rules, and you see that in Wordscraper, you have the ability to create your own board.  You can create ANY TYPE of board you want.  Maybe you want 20 Triple word score spots.  Or…….maybe you want the board to look just like a real Scrabble board…….In just a few minutes, if I wanted, I could make a board that looked like a real Scrabble board and use that for every game moving forward.

This my friends, is what it looks like when 2 smart guys take a winnable battle against a board room full of people without a creative thought in their head.  Congrats to the Scrabulous – I mean Wordscraper – guys who just played the death blow in this silly Facebook battle vs Hasbro.

Bonanzle Review – “The Best eBay Alternative We’ve Seen”

July 30, 2008 /

Bonanzle, a young and exciting company we recently started working with, just received a fantastic review from Ecommerce-Guide.com.

An alternative to Craiglist and Ebay, Bonanzle is designed to make it easier for people to buy and sell products online.  Given the state and direction of the economy today, any way to make it easier to move used merchandise is positioned to do well.  Some choice quotes from the article:

“You get Bonanzle
— an eBay alternative that is quite simply, the best I’ve seen in my
four years of reviewing and writing about start-up marketplaces aimed
at taking sellers away from eBay.”

The Bonanzle platform was designed in-house from
the ground up, so not only does the site look very different from other
alternative sites, but this is the reason why the tools and features on
this site are so radically different.

The best way to experience Bonanzle is simply to log
on and try it. What you will find is that Harding and his team of
self-titled “action-minded experts” have managed to offer sellers more
features in this one site than any alternative to date, yet keep the
entire site and selling process simple, compact and super-easy to use.

Check out the whole article, and please Digg it or add it to Delicious if you would be so kind.

Facebook Jails Scrabulous, Worker Productivity Rises 4000%

July 29, 2008 /

One of the most prolific time wasters on Facebook has been sent to Application jail.

In a move that shouldn’t surprise many people, Scrabulous, the blatant rip off of the board game Scrabble, finally suffered the legal ramifications that everyone could see headed its way.  According to the report from Silicon Valley Insider:

“Last week, Hasbro, manufacturer of the board game Scrabble, filed a
lawsuit against developers Rajat and Jayant Agarwall, who founded the
popular Facebook app two weeks ago. SAI’s Michael Learmonth says that a
DMCA takedown notice likely
ended the game’s two-year run. This is the same tactic Viacom used
against Google’s YouTube last year.”

Now, if a bunch of medium sized brains from Hasbro were able to sit in the same room, they would offer the developers the cash it would cost for them to redevelop the game themselves, plus some premium for every install they’ve already generated, and simply add Hasbro branding all over the place.  In my experience, while Scrabble is a tedious, obnoxiously long game for the dining room table, it is perfect for an online asynchronous world where you can take a few weeks to complete a match with a friend from across the country.  So here’s hoping someone makes sense of this whole thing before I find another similar way to waste a few minutes a day, like Chess or Risk.

Geek Out With Cool Sports Technology

July 23, 2008 /

So, this “marketing” web site is about as cool as it gets if you are into sports and technology.

Supporting their Olympic effort, Nike has launched NikeLab.com, a place to see all the latest gizmos and gadgets their athletes will be using at the games.In addition to product specs, you see interviews with the actual product designer.It’s a place you could get lost for a while in, so save your viewing for the evening.

Some technologies you may want to check out include the following:

  • Precool Vest
  • Basketball Uniforms
  • Volleyball Zesti

  • Rowing Omada

Seattle Craigslist Alternative

July 23, 2008 /

Seattle Craigslist is a favorite place for millions of people to buy and sell used items online.  As they say in their tagline, Seattle Craigslist “provides local classifieds and forums for jobs, housing, for sale, personals, services, local community, and events.”

 I’ve recently come across an alternative to Seattle Craigslist, at www.bonanzle.com.  (Full Disclosure – I like their idea so much, I am helping them with some marketing.)

While Seattle Craigslist is simply a text based classifieds section, Bonanzle is built on Ruby on Rails, and offers easy image upload, advanced communications between buyers and sellers, easier ways to create stores, and a host of other useful features.

So if you use Seattle Craigslist, and are looking for an alternative with more bells and whistles, check out Bonanzle, and let me know what you think.

Seattle Craigslist Alternative Bonanzle

Real Life Deal or No Deal for the Blogosphere

July 17, 2008 /

So how much are 2,200 women bloggers worth?   According to NBC, about 5 Million Bucks in Series B investment, which nets out to close to $2300 per blogger.

The deal includes the following:

As part of the arrangement, iVillage, Oxygen.com and BravoTV.com will feature select BlogHer content, while BlogHer’s network is expected to return the favor to varying degrees.

Reaching out to the BlogHer Network has been a common strategy of start-ups who don’t have $5,000, much less $5,000,000 for marketing.  The "Mommy Blogger," which as a term delights and disgusts different people, is an incredibly powerful evangelist for certain product groups.  The process involved digging through the network, finding the right email address, crafting a perfect message, sending an email, and praying. If it works, you get free promotion.  if it doesn’t, you burned a few hours.

But now it will be interesting to see what kind of influence the NBC buy-in will have on this network.  For one thing, I don’t know how much each individual blogger gets from this deal, but I assume it’s a negligble %.  It will also be interesting to see what happens to bloggers in the network if they rip on NBC programming, or promote programming of other networks.

Regardless, it’s a nice acknowledgment that the BlogHer network has become a powerful piece of the social media matrix.   Congrats on the investment.

 

Rossi vs Gregoire Radio Ad War Begins

July 11, 2008 /

I love political season.  Nothing better than a good old fashion radio ad war being waged by people who don’t normally write radio ads.  Today on KJR, I heard what may have been the funniest 20 minutes of political radio the all-sports station has ever run. 

1) At about 8:20am, Steve Sandmeyer interviews Dino Rossi.  In the 10 minute interview, Rossi addresses the issue KJR listeners care about most, mainly the Legislature’s inability to make any kind of decision on the Sonics situation.  Rossi restated his previous positions, that all Gregoire and the Legislature had to do was AUTHORIZE King County to extend the current tax that tourists pay on rental cars, hotels, etc…past 2011 when it currently expires.  They didn’t have to vote to extend the tax, they had to vote to authorize King County to vote for the tax.  Rossi continued by saying that he knew it was a political hot potato, so to make sure Gregoire wouldn’t take a fall, he publicly endorsed it before her. That way she could endorse it without him being able to use it against her.  Then he got a nice jab in by calling Frank Chopp the “pseudo-governor” and that Gregoire is too afraid to do anything without his approval.  Score multiple points for Rossi.

2) Interview ends at 8:30 or so, and in the next commercial break, you get a response ad from Team Gregoire.  Basic text of the ad – “Rossi is like George Bush because he cut back on child protection services, is anti-abortion, votes against gay marriage and cut transportation funding.  See, he’s just like George Bush.  And did we mention he is like George Bush?  So, you obviously don’t want George Bush.  Paid for by friends of Gregoire.”  Gay marriage and abortion rights?  The Sonics have just been ripped from the city, fans blame you for this, and 8 days later you run an ad telling sports fans that Rossi is against abortion rights?  Really?  That’s the most compelling argument you have to make to sports fans feeling pain?

3) 10 minutes later, you hear a Rossi ad that has been playing a while. The ad quotes the Seattle Times, “Gregoire showed the leadership skills of a rookie Point Guard.” The ads also says that when Gregoire had a chance to do something extraordinary, she chose to sit on the bench.  Ouch.  Ouch again.  Score more points for Rossi.

4) As if this wasn’t enough, the Gregoire campaign found it necessary to run the same ineffective ad a second time 10 minutes later.  I guess they really wanted Sonics fans to know that Dino Rossi is anti-abortion.  It’s like walking into Capitol Hill and talking about policy on shipping tariffs.  Or going to the Apple farmers to discuss H1B visas.

The KJR vote is going to Rossi.  So I’m not sure Gregoire’s play here.  She either has to be loud and vocal about pushing through the new stadium legislation this session, or just ignore those voters and spend money somewhere else.  But if I won ana election by 2,000 votes, and an entire segment of people who never vote just learned how to register, I’d be nervous.  

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 Andy Boyer

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑