I ran across a post from Seth Godin about telemarketing “Human Battering Rams.” Sadly, many companies still think it is ok to unleash script monkeys who, as Seth points out, are “willing to ignore social convention” when selling a product.

I know it is hard to find good sales people out there, but if you are still sending people out there with nothing but a script and list of phone numbers you are not doing your company any favors.

It reminds me of a great scene in the film Boiler Room (a personal favorite since I was a broker in a boiler room during the .com boom). In the scene Seth, the young stockbroker, gets a call from a newspaper salesman who gives him a scripted sales pitch. When Seth says he is not interested, the newspaper salesman thanks Seth for his time and starts to hang up. Seth stops the salesman and asks him if that is his entire sales pitch. When the salesman says it is, Seth proceeds to give him a fast lesson in selling. I can’t do it much justice here, but let me tell you it’s a great scene if you have ever been in sales.

With that, I must admit that I am very glad to not be selling things as a career these days. As a bonus, now I get a lot of sales calls from people who are trying to sell me things. Come to think of it, I am not sure if that is really a bonus, but I do find it educational and at times amusing.

So, based only on the sales calls I received today, let me give you a list of tips if you are selling things over the phone for a living:

• If I tell you my first name is James, do not call me Mr. James


• Learn a bit about my company before you call me, it is your job


• Never tell me that your product will get me the number one result in Google, MSN and Yahoo for a low monthly fee


• If I ask you if the product mentioned above requires a download, do not respond by saying “come to my Web site and I will show you how it works”


• If I know more about your product than you do, you will not be selling me anything


• If you make facts up, you are going to get caught


• If your product costs $10,000 and I tell you it is worth $100 to my company, thank me for my time and move on


• If I tell you to send over a sample contract, send a sample contract, not an email that says “we do not have a contract, you can cancel anytime!”


• If the conversation starts with 5 minutes of you talking and I do not make any noise at all, I have the phone on mute and I am either doing something else or laughing at you


• If your sales pitch sounds like you are trying to convince yourself your product is good, I am never going to think it is good


• If your innovative product is a touch tone phone menu and a phone dialer, I suggest you spend more time on Monster.com

So good luck to all of you phone jocks out there. I have been there. I feel your pain.

Posted by James at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We all like to know that we have valuable skills. Like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, and computer hacking skills...girls only want boyfriends who have great skills (thank you Mr. Dynamite).

Anyway, I found this article on the Internet Retailer site that talks about the difficulty employers are having finding people who have search engine marketing skills.

I can understand why this would be. If you are really good at SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or PPC Pay-Per-Click), and you are confident that you can make a go of it on your own, you are not going to be working for a company, unless that company has great stock options or very big salaries. So finding good, experienced talent for an in-house position is always going to be tough.

Then there are your in-house SEM (Search Engine Marketing) people like me. I had the chance to meet both Doug Sundahl (from Overstock.com) and Chris Seahorn (from eBags) at different Yahoo outings. Both of them are quoted in the Internet Retailer article. The are both great guys who know their stuff but like me, they are still working in-house. Why? I think we all work for companies that we like, we all are in our first few years in the business, we all like the security of a salary, and we all may have some upside when it comes to company stock – and there is nothing wrong with that.

I remember when I was speaking to Doug Sundahl in Palm Springs and he told me that after being in the SEM business for 6 months, all of that time at Overstock, he was already getting solicitations from other companies to take over their SEM departments. Now if that isn’t a sellers market, I do not know what is.

So what is a company to do when they are looking for talent in the SEM department? Well, the first thing I would recommend is beware of “experienced” SEMs overselling themselves. I know for a fact that there are a lot of people out there that consider themselves SEM experts because they put up some banner ads and ranked for terms like “auto warranties for my child Sam’s car on a winter eve.” The last thing you want to do is waste time and money on a person who could potentially make moves to tarnish your online image or, even worse, get your million-dollar domain banned.

If you can’t find an experienced person to hire, there is always outsourcing your SEM, but chances are that if you are looking to have an in-house team, you have ruled out outsourcing. Which can be understandable, since there are a lot of shady SEM companies out there. Also, you could be making a large financial investment in a SEM company and there is a chance that you would never make any money off of it.

So what to do, what to do…

Well, there is no easy answer. But if anything, I would recommend trying to hire from within or looking for young, talented people who have the desire to learn and the potential so succeed in SEM. It will take time for your person to develop, which can be frustrating, but I think SEM can be taught to the right kind of person. And the best part is, if you find the right kind of person they will love it.

One thing I can tell you from experience is that I am grateful that my company took a chance on me and gave me the time and support to learn about SEM…and I love it.

Posted by James at 10:28 AM | Permalink

My name is James and I am a Google Analytiholic.

Google has become my informational crack dealer. I check to see if my Marketing Punk stats have updated about 10 times a day. And usually, they haven’t.

Word is, due to the overwhelming demand for Google Analytics; Google has had to throw a lot more hardware at the product. So until they get everything up and running, Analytics users are forced to wait a day or two for their numbers to update, which is fine with me, because so far Google Crack ™ (as I like to call it) is free.

I know that some people are concerned that Google is collecting all of this data for their eventual world takeover and indexing, but whatever, I like the pretty graphs. And if Google really wants to mine data from MarketingPunk.com, have at it.

So what feature do I like the most about Google Analytics? It would have to be the MarketingPunk.com World Domination Map.

You can see from the orange circles that I have had visitors from across the world over the last couple of weeks, so my minions are growing….muhahahahahahahaha. Ok, seriously though, it is pretty cool to know that I am getting visits from places like Oslo, London, Santa Domingo, and Richmond, Australia.

Sadly, if you haven’t already signed up for Google Analytics you will have to wait until Google upgrades its capacity (hopefully soon). But when you can sign up, you should (unless you are afraid of Google somehow plotting to use your information against you in the future, then I would suggest one of the fine medicines listed here.)

Posted by James at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hitwise, a competitive intelligence company, has an interesting blog that uses their search data to plot different trends found in online queries. In general, the trends that they are looking at may not be earth shattering, but it is kind of fun to see how people search based on the time of year, current events, or societal trends.

The thing that I find most interesting about this kind of analysis is that search data has become a barometer of the thoughts and feelings of people today. It really represents what we are thinking about, worried about, and what we are discussing as a society.

Some of the recent reports Hitwise has generated are:

• Travel vendors set to benefit from World Cup Germany searches


• Xbox 360 Gets Short Shrift From UK Consumers


• Heating with Wood Stoves

One amusing trend they found was the inverse relationship between searches for Thanksgiving recipes and visits to dieting sites.

Anyway, add the XML feed to your feed reader, check in from time to time, and enjoy!

Posted by James at 02:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wow! I just found the Xoogler blog by Doug Edwards, the ex-Director of Consumer Marketing and Brand Management for Google, and now presumably rich, full time dad. The blog is filled with stories from his time at Google from 1999 to 2005.

There are great pictures of the early Google office, with the saw horse and door desks, and fascinating accounts of the interviewing process with Sergey Brin back in the day.

Throw this blog on your RSS reader, I have a feeling there are many great posts to come.

Posted by James at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Save the turkey. Eat Tofurky!

Posted by James at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dave Taylor, the fella who taught me how to blog, and the author over at the Intuitive Life Business Blog, has a fantastic article about a recent post on the GM Fastlane blog.

If you want to see an example of a business blog gone bad, this is a classic one. The sad part is that the Fastlane blog was considered a decent example of well done business blog.

I do not think I can really do much justice to Dave's post by summarizing it - so please take a minute and read it.

Anyway, GM needs to get a damn clue. Your reputation is bad. Your products are boring. Your auto designs are sad. And now, your blog sucks. That is the final straw. :)

Funny...Roger & Me (Michael Moore before he lost it) is on right now. Isn't that ironic?

Posted by James at 09:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ok, so I am sick. I blame Las Vegas. Something about the Vegas schedule of little sleep and a lot of fun makes you pay at the end. Whatever, totally worth it.

I only bring this up because it got me thinking about corporate “immune systems” in values based organizations. If you are not familiar with the concept, here we go.

First, the values based organization. The concept is something that is attributed, I think, to Ken Blanchard who wrote the book Managing By Values. In a nutshell, all of your organization’s decisions are dictated by a strong set of core values that fit the personality of your company.

Now for the “corporate immune system.” Basically, your corporate immune system is the process that will naturally remove employees (meaning they quit) who do not fit into your values system. This happens because they do not feel a part of the corporate culture and they know that the organization is not a good fit.

So this makes sense to me. If I get a cold, I know that my body will almost always be able to fight off the illness, and after some bad days, things will be good and back to normal again. Similarly, I have witnessed companies that have employees that are “bad seeds” who leave because they do not fit well into a company’s values system.

So I am on board, sign me up for the values, and let the people who don’t fit fall out. Totally cool.

But then I started thinking a bit more…

Right now, I have a cold. It’s pretty easy to identify. I have a runny nose, sore through and I am congested. But what if, God forbid, I have cancer. I might not have any major symptoms at all and, without help, I am not going to be able to fight it off with my immune system.

Scary, eh?

Ok, so what if your company has cancer? What if there is someone in your company who is going to kill the whole operation and is immune to your immune system? What if you have a feeling that the cancer is there but you do nothing to stop it from spreading and taking over?

The longer you wait, the more you are screwed.

This is your fate unless you admit that your corporate immune system is not strong enough to deal with the cancer that is killing you. Oh yeah, it might take a few years, but there is a point of no return and once you pass it, no matter what you do, you will die.

So what would I do if I had cancer? Personally, I would get whatever treatment was necessary to try to live and beat the cancer. I don’t really care how painful the treatment might be for the short or medium term, I would want to live for the long term.

Now think of your company. If you have a hunch that there is a person in the organization who is cancerous, are you going to cross your fingers and hope that the cancer goes away? No, you are going to take action and do what is necessary to take care of the issue.

Ok, so you are a person who is in charge of the hiring/firing of employees in a company. Maybe you like the cancerous person even though they are bringing down the organization with their work performance. I understand if it is difficult to let a friend go. You still have to take the short term pain and choose life for your company. As a manager, it is your job to take the pain for the good of everyone else.

What if you are not the person who has any control over hiring and firing of the cancerous person? Sorry, you are not off the hook. You have a responsibility to everyone else in your organization to point out symptoms when you see them. And if the managers don’t listen and the symptoms are getting worse, tell them again. Managers may have the power to make the diagnosis, but it is easier to make a diagnosis when you have collected all of the facts.

Alright, I think I am done. Time to sip some Nyquil and go to bed.

Until next time…

Posted by James at 09:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greg Boser over at WebGuerilla has a great post regarding some research he did into the drop of an ex-client's Web site. Turns out the ex-client had joined a little link farm called GotLinks.

I will let you read the post, but all I will say is after joining GotLinks the site is history...

Posted by James at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Looks like TiVo is smartly jumping on the iPod video and PSP portable video bandwagon by coming out with a way to transfer your TiVo recorded programs over to your portable player. See the Reuter's story here.

Hopefully the cable and dish companies will be able to follow suit. If they can do it at a reasonable price the demand for portable video devices will go through the roof.

I will probably still hold onto my money until I get one for free :)

Posted by James at 07:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

No, SpiderBan is not the newest superhero; it is what those crazy guys over at Webmaster World are doing to all the search engine’s spiders – BANNING them.

Here is the scoop from Danny Sullivan.

Good luck Webmaster World. I will be interested to see how long you keep up the ban.

Posted by James at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The $100 laptop that was developed by MIT to be given to the world's poorest children has been unveiled in Tunisia. See the full story here.

Posted by James at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

John Battelle, the man who wrote the popular book "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Reinvented Business and Transformed Our Culture," has a great OP-ED piece in the New York Times about how the new boom in the internet business is not a bubble.

Some of his main points are:

• The successful Internet companies of today are operating in a Web 2.0 mindset


• Technology can be scaled much easier and much more inexpensively


• Companies are able to leverage almost a decades worth of technology


• Financiers are not driving the new Internet boom, entrepreneurs and geeks are


• Vast improvements in search technology and the use of PPC ads versus banner ads


• Innovative companies are being purchased by larger companies, not going public

Posted by James at 11:44 AM | Permalink

Releton Web is a cool new AJAX based search engine that lets you compare Yahoo and Google results by moving around a slider. It is fun to mess around with and compare results. Enjoy!

Posted by James at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So if you are not already in love with your TiVo for recording your favorite shows and deciding that you are a sixty something year old housewife when you are twenty something fella, here is one more reason to feel the love...

A recent article in AdWeek (citing an American Advertising Federation survey) found that the so called "TiVo Effect" on television viewing is causing companies to move funding out of television adverts and over to other marketing channels.

The biggest benefactor in this shift is the online marketing vertical, with survey respondents saying they would be increasing their online ad spend by 33% in 2006. That would account for 19% of their total ad budget.

So it looks like ad agencies are going to be pushed into the Internet marketing space whether they like it or not. It is exciting to see that the drivers for this change will be technology and consumer demand, rather than agencies finding a profit center and exploiting it.

Hopefully, in the end, this will mean good things for the online community.

Posted by James at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I saw the title of the book "Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market--And How to Successfully Transform Them" and had a good laugh.

I'm sure there are many people out there who are working for organizations who tout their "built to last" principals; but the "built to last" mentality, taken the wrong way, can be the undoing of a good company. This is even more pronounced in the Internet space where constant positive change and development does not guarantee success, but is required just to stay on the playing field.

I think some people tend to draw a literal interpretation of the words “built to last,” and see it as the need to over plan, over design, and over build in order to not ever have to change a product once it is “done.” And many times this approach will take so long that if you ever do get to “done” you are already behind in your market.

I have seen "built to last" go the wrong direction when employees understand the principal as having to build a Web site, application, product, etc. that will never need to change and will always stand the test of time. It is like putting an end date on your product's development - like saying "on December 4th our product will be done." If you take this attitude into your business you never achieve the full potential.

So here is my challenge to those of you who manage in a “built to last” environment. Make sure your employees know what that this means "building to last." Make sure they know that your product will never be perfect and it is their role to make continuous improvements to it. Make sure that they know that there is no end date for innovation and improvement in your business.

When your employees know these things, they will approach their job in a more innovative and proactive way and help drive your organization to its full potential – and full potential is good.

Posted by James at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I made it.

Webmaster World Pub Con 10 is over and I am sitting at McCarran Airport (with free WiFi!) waiting for my flight back to Denver.

While the conference was good, the real value in it for me was the opportunity to hang with three great guys who just happen to be some of the most driven people I have ever had the chance to be around. It was good to talk shop, share war stories and have an all around great time in an amazing place like Las Vegas.

Josh, Rob and Greg, thanks for the great couple of days.

I hope everyone gets home safe and gets some well deserved rest.

Posted by James at 06:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you happened to find a MarketingPunk.com card at somewhere in Vegas, or if you met me and I gave you a card, please leave a comment and let me know you have stopped by the site.

I am curious to see if business cards left in random places is an effective way to get people to a blog.

Thanks for visiting!

Marketing Punk

Posted by James at 03:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I am heading off to the Webmaster World PubCon in Las Vegas for some fear and loathing. I am hoping to be able to have some time to blog on the trip, but if not, I will be back on Friday.

Posted by James at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After yesterday's post on the future of product marketing, I thought this Q&A from the Fortune Innovation Blog was appropriate.

The interview is with Scott Allen and it focuses on the benefits of big companies joining the "online conversation."

Posted by James at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am sure it is not a surprise to a lot of folks that the real growth in media spending is on the Internet. I ran across a post on Chris Anderson's blog that does a good job of summing up the trends in media spending. Here are his findings:

Media Trending Downward:

* Box Office - down by 7% this year (tickets sales per capita have fallen every year since 2001).
* Newspapers - circulation is declining faster than ever and is down another 2.6% so far this year.
* Music - sales are down another 5.7% this year; although digital downloads (still just 6% of the business) are building nicely.
* Radio - down 4% this year alone and is predictably continuing a multi-decade decline.
* Books - decreased by 7% in 2004

Mixed Trends:

* DVDs - sales growth slowing dramatically going from 29% last year to single digits this year.
* TV - total viewership is still rising, but as the numbers of channels increase, the audience fragments and the ratings of the average program continue to decline.
* Magazines - Ad revenues are up a bit but the number of ad pages is flat and the price per page is up. Circulation is flat and newsstand sales are at an all-time low.
* Videogames - keep in mind it is the final few months of the current generation of consoles, so better times are ahead with the launch of Xbox 360 (X-Mas). With that in mind, sales were down 20% in Sept.

Media Trending Upward:

* Internet advertising - Banners were up 10% this year and PPC continues to grow. Google's revenue was up 96%. Advertisers are still waiting for a thank you note.

I am interested to what it will take for many big advertisers and ad agencies to bite the bullet and really get involved with the online community. I definitely see some big advertisers buying their front page banner ads on Yahoo, but I am not sure if they are looking for ways to promote beyond that. I know for sure that ad agencies are still having issues monetizing online marketing, so until they figure that out they are going to pretend that online isn’t all that important to a company.

As the Internet becomes more and more accessible through mobile technology, wireless access other innovations, we will incorporate the information that is accessible on the Web with more and more of our purchasing decisions. When this happens, your product needs more than a Web site, it is going to need a web presence in the places where consumers will be going online to research products. Given simplified Internet access and product comparison tools, consumers will become smarter than ever before.

So how should big companies build their presence in the right places on the Web?

The bad news for them (and the good news for consumers) is that they will not be able to buy their way in. Oh, I am sure that many will try, and some will succeed for a short time. But once consumers start to figure out the difference between real information and what is cleverly disguised paid advertising, the paid stuff will be harder and harder to execute.

So the true path for successful online promotion in the future will have nothing to do with buying banners or being able to pay the most for clicks to your super fantastic Flash site. The companies that earn the informed consumer’s dollars will be the ones that are able to produce the best, most loved products that disrupt the market and get people talking.

I know this is not a new concept. I know that there are companies that are built on a foundation of producing products that people love. I think we all understand why these companies tend to be ultra-successful.

By realizing that smart consumers will be looking to other consumers for guidance when it comes to buying decisions, companies and ad execs can start planning now to produce the right product to fit into the consumer driven market. Those who do will be the ones who find the most success in the technology driven days to come.

(As I was writing this I was reminded of a recent story in Fast Company about Naked Communications, an ad agency that is setting itself apart by being a more than an ad agency. They may be one of the few ad agencies that are already stepping into the consumer satisfaction business.)

Posted by James at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Looks like two of the very colorful characters of the "Black Hat" SEO world are part of the Blogosphere. That's right, Dave Naylor and Greg Boser (WebGuerilla) are bloggers.

If you are in the search marketing biz, these are two blogs to keep an eye on. I have a feeling they are both going to give insights into the SEO world that you won't find anywhere else.

Posted by James at 04:15 PM | Permalink

Special Olympics Volunteer

Today my girlfriend and I had the honor of watching encouraging participants in the Colorado Special Olympics Bowling competition. We were blessed to have met the seven athletes that were competing on our lanes and truly amazed by their abilities.

It is great to see the excitement of all of the athletes and be a part of a day that showcases their athletic skills. No matter what physical or mental issue they may have, the athletes were there to compete and have fun, and they accomplished what they came for.

I really want to thank Russell, Jesse, Doug, John, Ron, Tanya and George for showing me the amazing abilities of those who are less able.

I encourage anyone who wants to volunteer to a good cause to consider giving time to the Special Olympics. I promise that you will get a lot more out of the experience than you put in.

Posted by James at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Matt Cutts posted yesterday that the never-ending Jagger update is finally winding down. He says that Jagger 1 and 2 should be fully visible on all data centers and Jagger 3 can be seen at 66.102.9.104.

Hopefully everyone made it through OK. Thankfully I have not seen any "My site lost ranking and now I want to kill myself" posts on the Search Engine Watch forums.

Have a great day!

Posted by James at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Another post from Seth Godin on getting to "Big Max." Something I really liked was this -

"... you can take the cash and the momentum you get from being at Local Max and invest a fraction of it to let a new team, a smaller team, a team without traditional constraints to go ahead and launch something new."

Call it R&D, call it your Business Development Team, call it whatever. The point is this - if your whole company is not focused on innovation and disruption of your market, you sure as hell better let your best and brightest get together and innovate and disrupt. Without this, you might as well polish up your resume.

Over and out.

Posted by James at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Seth Godin has a great post on his blog talking about taking your business from “Local Max,” the point at which your company is comfortably profitable, to “Big Max” the ultra-profitable place you get through innovation.

The thing that really hit it home for me is that you have to go through a scary, unfamiliar territory to make it from “local” to “big.” (point C on the chart). There will not be successful innovation without insecurity and risk.

Enjoy the post. Innovate your way to “Big Max.” But at all cost, avoid “Super Max.”

Posted by James at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can’t vouch for the validity of this site or their findings but I do think they have an interesting take on the changes from Google’s Jagger update. Basically, they say that reciprocal linking, for SEO purposes, is dead.

Why do I have a strange feeling that I will still be a getting reciprocal link requests?

Posted by James at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is your site Web 2.0ed? Find out with the Web 2.0 Validator! :)

Posted by James at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of months back I read something about how MIT is in the process of designing a $100 laptop that will be distributed to children in less developed countries. I was reminded of this today while having a conversation about bringing e-commerce to countries in Africa with a Ugandan friend of mine.

One thing I found very intriguing about Africa while I was there at the beginning of this year was the widespread use of cell phones by people in Ghana. Cell phones gave many entrepreneurial-minded Ghanaians the ability to open their own business with just a phone and a small wooden stand. These business, usually called "Space to Space" were on almost every corner of Accra and seemed to get regular use by those not fortunate enough to own their own phone.

The really great part about cell phone adoption in Africa is that it requires a lot less investment in infrastructure than landlines, so the proliferation of the technology was not limited by hard to build/fund infrastructure.

Bringing this methodology to Internet connectivity, it is easy to see how Africa's connection to the Internet in the future will likely be something more along the lines of the Verizon wireless broadband network rather than cable internet or dial-up.

From talking with children and teenagers in Ghana, I discovered that many of them had an interest in computers. Even more interestingly, many kids had aspirations of being programmers or computer repairmen or women – even if they had never used a computer at all. This demonstrates to me that young people in urban Africa feel that computer will somehow improve their lives and take them places – an important thing in a land of little socioeconomic opportunity.

So the seed is planted with the youth - computers are something that they want and want to be involved with.

And this brings me back to $100 computers. If the millions of children in Africa are going to be raised with laptops, it is not hard to see that demand for Internet access will be growing in the years to come.

So the question of the day is - Who will take a chance on Africa and lay the foundations for African e-commerce?

Posted by James at 06:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

People who really flourish in the business world are all innovators in one way or another. Since flourishing is kinda my thing, I am always on the lookout for good innovation information...

From the FORTUNE Business Innovation Blog - a fella named "Don the Idea Guy" speaks with Jim Canterucci, author of Personal Brilliance. While the name of the guy's book is a bit touchy feely for my taste, the interview is good and I am sure the book has its merits too.

Enjoy!

Posted by James at 05:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is some buzz going around about the “Kayak Buzz” – a cool web application that uses Google maps and the Kayak travel service to map the best fares the most searched for destinations. I am sure I am not the only one who has always hoped for this kind of application from an online travel service.

All you need to do is type in your city and Kayak Buzz will give you airfare for multiple locations and map out the routes to give you a visual representation of the flights. I checked fares from Denver there are definitely some good prices out there.

Way to go Kayak!

Posted by James at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a report sure to make the Bregar a happy man, the BBC reports that in the US 14.1% of all internet users are using Firefox as their browser of choice. The global average is 11.5% and, interestingly, the UK only has 4.9% Firefox usage. I guess the Brits still like to get their fox fix with funny outfits and hounds...

Posted by James at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The "Scobleizer" has a very interesting post on why Yahoo's new mapping service and the Microsoft Virtual Earth are both doomed. Scobleizer, a Microsoft employee, explains why Google Maps is going to kick MSFT and YHOO's butts for a long time to come - as long as the two companies do not make some fundamental changes to the way they do business.

The post is a good commentary on the difference between companies that accept Web 2.0 concepts and those who do not.

See the blog post here.

Posted by James at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I enjoy watching auto racing but not all auto racing. In the United States, NASCAR has become what the population thinks of when they think auto racing. I personally dislike that NASCAR is marketed as a "white trash" auto sport and I think that a bunch of cars driving in a circle, well, leaves something to be desired.

A few months back I happened upon the World Rally Championship Monaco Rally on the Speed Network and was immediately hooked.

Rally racing uses high powered all-wheel drive cars that are souped-up versions of actual production models (the most recognizable in the US is the Subaru WRX STi). The cars compete on various road courses that are either gravel, tarmac, or snow. The competition is timed, and split into stages that can take drivers around 20 to 45 minutes to complete. The rallies are multiple day events and usually have around 15 timed stages.

The stages are amazingly challenging and the only thing between the drivers and serious injury or even death is their skill and the co-drivers who guide them through the course using their pace notes. Spectacular crashes and near misses are a common site on a rally - which does add some extra excitement - but I find the most amazing thing about rally racing is the fact that most drivers manage to stay on the road at all. I usually find myself sitting slack jawed in front of my TV watching the rally drivers navigate some of the most treacherous roads I have ever seen at top speed.

Each rally is wrapped up into a very slick hour and a half television summary that is shown on the Speed Channel on the Sunday night after the race. The production values of the WRC shows are top notch and there are many impressive camera view from inside the rally cars so you can really appreciate the skill of the drivers.

The rally season will be coming to an end at the Telstra Australia Rally on November 11th through the 13th. If you have any interest in automotive racing, make it a point to catch the recap on Speed in the 13th.

Posted by James at 09:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, so they are trendy. And yes, their "history" is suspect. But I LOVE MY MOLESKINE NOTEBOOKS.

I bought my first Moleskine at a Barnes and Noble a few months ago, and then I bought another, and another, and another. Now I have five of them. They are like an addiction. I find excuses to buy them. You should buy them too.

I dig the graph paper kind but there are ruled ones, blank ones, and ones made for sketching. They all have a cool built in pocket and bookmark and they have a handy elastic strap that keeps them closed.

Turns out I am not the only Moleskine lover. Fast Company called them the Anti-PDA. There is an even an online Moleskine community.

So join the cool kids club and buy a Moleskine :P

Posted by James at 07:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)