Andy Boyer

Category: Media

  • 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.   

     

  • Do You Need Cable Anymore?

    So, like everyone lese in the blogosphere, I wanted to make sure I passed along the news that Joost had finally come out of hiding and was in a public beta.  If you don’t know, Joost is the new venture from the guys who built Kazaa and Skype.  It’s a real attempt at "TV on the Internet."   But, I wanted a different angle, so I’ve been waiting a few days as I figured it out.

    Well, after scratching my brain a while, I believe Joost may be the straw that allows me to ask this question. "Do you need cable TV anymore?" 

    Let’s think about what I would watch on my Cable TV:

    1) News: Realistically, I can read online everything I need to know.  And every story that matters generally has a local or national feed I can watch.

    2) Live Sports: I may not be typical, but I rarely watch sports by myself.  If I care enough about it, it’s generally a social event.  So, it sucks that I can’t host a party for the Seahawks game, but I certainly can find a place to watch it.

    3) SportsCenter:  So far, this is not replicable online.  Score one for Cable TV.

    4) Movies: $4 for a DVD.

    5) Prime Time Shows: Many are now available online the week they air (or the week after). Since my TV Drama and SitCom watching has already shifted from "Live" to "Tivo," waiting a week isn’t a big deal.  

    So now let’s do a dollar for dollar comparison.  For my $70 per month to Comcast, I would probably let the news run about 40 hours in the background, catch 2 or 3 movies, watch about 4-8 hours of Tivo’d material and catch a few episodes of Sportscenter.   Without Cable, I lose out on the background news, am forced to the Video store for movies, have to go to a bar to watch the MLB playoffs, and have my selection of sitcoms and dramas cut down by some percentage, unless I want to buy them from iTunes.  It really probably comes out a wash.

    So is Cable dead? No, of course not.  It’s a wash, not a landslide.  And I’m probably atypical.  But the fact that it’s a wash should be somewhat scary to Cable companies.  Which is why this whole Net Neutrality thing becomes an important issue for us to keep an eye on.  The Cable guys aren’t dumb, and they aren’t going to just let $70/month from 100 million households walk out the door.  But that’s a different topic.

  • Check out Widget Bucks

    I’m going to give a big ol’ plug to my friends over at mpire, and congratulate them on the launch of Widget Bucks.  Here’s the straight skinny from one of their promotional emails:

    Are you earning $2 – $15 CPM on your current ads? Do you wish you had more control over the type of content being displayed on your site? Are CPA ads frustrating because you can’t control if a user actually does make a purchase?

    After years of dealing with ad networks, we saw too many ads that sucked and networks paying too low of CPM’s to effectively monetize people’s sites, we decided to do something about it. We’re proud to announce the launch of WidgetBucks.com a shopping ad network. With our widgets displaying contextual product offers in an engaging format, we’re seeing $3-6+ CPM on thousands of sites.

    Today we have made our beta available for you to try it for yourself and start earning more money. Configuring the widget for your site is quick and easy and you’ll see immediate results.

    I will be playing with Widget Bucks tonight here on AndyBoyer.com, and we’ll also be testing it on MyElectionChoices.com.

  • Targeting the Young (and Single?) Voter

    Young crowds, a charasmatic performer, a lot of hype, affluent people – it has all the makings of an event or concert designed to drive single people to a bar or show. 

    But this is not a bar promotion, it’s a polical event.

    If you believe the New York Daily News, there are more than a few undertones from the Barack Obama campaign team that Obama rallies have become the new *it* scene for young single people tired of the bar scene, office romance or match.com.

    According to the article, "Like-minded city singles are looking to tonight’s Barack Obama fund-raiser as more than just a politically charged soiree: It’ll be a raging pickup scene."

    With a web site featuring social networking (complete with photos), events that seem to purposely weed out the old and stodgy, and a candidate that can almost be described as "hip and cool," it’s hard to think this is an accident.  It seems like the campaign team developed a smart strategy of, "Smart single people don’t have a great outlet for meeting other smart single people.  Let’s have our campaign be their meeting place." 

    If it works, it won’t be the first time someone used sex to sell a product, but it might be the first time it was done for a political campaign.

  • Ripple TV, and the Emergence of Localized Advertising

    So I have to admit being very intrigued by a company called Ripple TV.  You may have seen Ripple at a neighborhood Tully’s.  The concept is pretty straightforward – a typical High Def TV, displaying canned news and sports information from CBS and ESPN.  But the catch is, the screens are designed to run locally targeted ads that small business can create and upload themselves.

    Or to put it another way, the two major pains about advertising are the creative costs and the inability to target effectively.  Ripple TV solves both these problems.  I get to choose which Tully’s my ad runs, and they provide me the tools to create the ad on the fly and upload it.

    "Ripple has partnered with many of the World’s leading retail brands to provide a powerful in-store digital media experience that keeps their customers engaged, entertained and informed. Ripple’s user experience is customized specifically for each distribution partner, providing a truly custom experience that perfectly supports the brand, demographic, geographic and user experience requirements of each partner. Ripple keeps your customers engaged with the very latest news, financial information, sports, weather, traffic, local information and entertainment programming from the World’s leading content brands." 

    So, the only initial limitation, which I’m sure will be solved soon, is that they have relatively few major partners (Tully’s), and so the audience is not very diverse.  But, that’s hardly a criticism.  Instead, I applaud Ripple for landing such a great anchor partner.  That really is quite a coup.

    I don’t this affects agencies at all, because if anything the Ripple system grows the advertising pie, catering to small business owners that agencies didn’t really care about anyway. And the small business owner only needs a rudimentary sense of style and analytical skills to run a test ad for $75 in a neighborhood, so the cost to get started is minimal.

    Fascinating concept, and I hope it does well. 

     

  • MyElectionChoices.com on Air America Tonight

    Quick notice – The founders of MyElectionChoices.com have been invited to spend an hour talking with Air America radio host David Bender tonight, Wednesday, August 8, at (UPDATE AND EDIT) 9 or 930 pm Eastern / 6 or 630 pm Pacific.  (UPDATE AND EDIT)

    As you probably know, Air America is a national radio network focusing on progressive politics.  In Seattle, its broadcast on AM 1090.  You can find out if they have an affiliate in your area at www.AirAmerica.com.

    This opportunity was facilitated by Ian Berman, and we appreciate his help. 

  • 7 Deadly Sins of Brand Marketing

    This was an interesting tidbit coming out of Ad Age.  The whole article itself is interesting.marketing%20sins.jpg

  • The Eventual Death of the Airport Magazine Stand

    Maybe I’m not the average consumer, but I find about 85% of my purchases of magazines and books come during the hour I’m kicking my heels at the airport waiting to get on a plane.  Especially if I know it’s going to be a long flight, I know my laptop will be of limited use, and I won’t have internet anyway. 

    Now, this glaring market inefficiency is being solved by Qantas, and one can only assume it will be the first in a long line of dominos to fall.

    From Slashdot:

    "Australian international airline Qantas has just announced in-flight broadband will be available across all classes in its new fleet of A380s. Also on offer will be laptop power in economy and internet access in the seat-back entertainment system. They are retrofitting existing 747s with elements of the technology, and providing several ports for passengers with more expensive tickets. It would also allow recharging of USB-powered devices. The Ethernet port is for laptops that don’t have wireless, or for people who simply prefer an Ethernet connection over WiFi.

    No word yet on whethere any sites will be deemed "inappropriate" for viewing.  But the ability to plug in and read anything pretty much eliminates your need to buy magazines, portable DVD players, books, or other heavy items that add to your carry-on bag. So, sell your Hudeson News and W.H. Smith stock…