Andy Boyer

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Category: Marketing (Page 14 of 25)

But What is his High Score on iPhone Bowling?

October 3, 2008 /

Adotas brings us word that Barack Obama is bringing his presidential campaign to the coolest phone (and presumably most influential trendsetters) on the planet,  releasing an iPhone app that will enable supporters to easily reach out to friends and remind them to vote for their favorite candidate.

According ot the story, the app,  “Call Friends,” organizes the user’s phonebook by state and gives each contact a status (called or not called).  You can also use the app to find out where he stands on issues – and of course – enables people to donate to the campaign. 

I will tell you one thing.  I wouldn’t  trust a lot of politicians to run a company’s mail room, but if Obama doesn’t become President, he would certainly be a heck of a CMO.   

2 Big Numbers, and How They are Related

September 22, 2008 /

$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

September 19, 2008 /

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.

Go Miniman Go

September 12, 2008 /

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

September 11, 2008 /

 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

September 9, 2008 /

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

 

 

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

September 8, 2008 /

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.

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