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.
News from ESPN comes that Don King (yes that Don King) was able to got a front row seat at Pope Benedict XVI’s general audience Wednesday. (yes, that Pope.)
According to the report, "the Vatican visit was arranged through a boxer King represents — Italian super welterweight champion Luca Messi, whose brother Alessandro is a Catholic priest." So yes, even if you go go to church ever day and live the holiest of lives, Don King is about 4 clicks closer to the pope than you are.
My favorite sentence from the report: "King, who spent four years in prison for manslaughter, had hoped for a personal meeting with Benedict."
A few places have picked up the story that Movaya launched a service to make it equally easy for large retailers or small web sites (like this one) to add Mobile games for sale.
A lot of talk has been generated about the "You Tube Effect" on the U.S. Presidential election in 2008. I think the most interesting aspect is the total lack of control that the campaigns will have over their suporters. We are going to see "campaign extremists" completely convolute the message and intentions of the high paid campaign managers.
Here could be the first salvo between the supporters of the two main Dem candidates. In one corner, a slickly produced anti-Hllary video based on the Apple commercial 1984. This is nicely done, and by all accounts, the Obama campaign had nothing to do with it. In response, a Hillary supporter hacks together a low budget retaliation that well, just looks dumb. How will the candidates keep their supporters under control? Check out both videos.
I’m not sure why I’m so late to the game on Prosper.com, a web site designed so that people who need loans can receive funds from ordinary people who are looking to make a return on their reserve cash.
The concept is pretty simple, people with money become parts of "mutual fund-like" loans to individuals who can’t or don’t want to go through a bank. There is research that people are more likely to repay loans when they know there is a human behind it, and they know who those humans are. The lenders get good returns – 10-25% and their money is spread among a bunch of different loans so the risks are mitigated.
My initial thought was that there is an issue where people who need the loans may not have the broadband or even Internet connection to take part, but that’s probably a subtle qualifying factor. If you can’t find a broadband internet connection these days, I probably don’t want to loan money to you.
Summarized: John Cornwell graduated from Duke University last year, and built a refrigerator that can toss a can of beer to his couch with the click of a remote control. It took about 150 hours and $400 in parts to modify a mini-fridge common to many college dorm rooms into the beer-tossing machine, which can launch 10 cans of beer from its magazine before needing a reload. With a click of the remote, fashioned from a car’s keyless entry device, a small elevator inside the refrigerator lifts a beer can through a hole and loads it into the fridge’s catapult arm. A second click fires the device, tossing the beer up to 20 feet — "far enough to get to the couch," he said. In developing his beer catapult, Cornwell said he dented a few walls and came close to accidentally throwing a can through his television. He’s since fine-tuned the machine to land a beer where he usually sits at home, on what he called "a right-angle couch system." For now, the machine throws only cans, although Cornwell has thought about making a version that can throw a bottle. The most beer he has run through the machine was at a party, when he launched a couple of 24-can cases. A video featuring the device is a hit on the Internet, where more than 600,000 people have watched it at metacafe.com, earning Cornwell more than $3,000 from the Web site.
I love it. Guy builds a totally usueless contraption. Films himself using it. Posts it online – makes $3k for his troubles. Also, talk about something that doesn’t make any sense – a guy too lazy to walk 10 feet for about 15 seconds of travel time, spends the equivalent of a week building a solution to the problem. And they say American ingenuity is dead…
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: 