The Gumball has begun and you can track it all through Gumball Live.

Check it!

Posted by James at 08:57 PM | Permalink

The countdown is on for the Gumball 3000 rally.

8 days, 120 cars, 3 continents, 3000 miles.

I will be tagging along for about 500 miles of it, Salt Lake City to Nevada.

More later, but check out the Official Site and the Blog for more info.

Posted by James at 07:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was unaware of Yahoo! FareChase until today (yes, I am ashamed), but once I saw it I declared it the shiznit.

FareChase is basically an Ajax application that goes out and gets fares from multiple travel sites and aggregates them so you can see them all in one place. Very nice if you are like me and shop Expedia, Travelocity, Orbits and the others before buying a ticket.

And the really cool part is that you can go to Yahoo! search and type something like “flight denver to atlanta,” and when you hit the search button it will bring up the FareChase interface at the top of the search results. This kind of integration will probably make me use Yahoo! to start out all of my flight searches.

Plus the Ajax interface makes it look heckin’ smooth.

Here is an analysis of what Yahoo! FareChase might mean to the travel business from someone named Brian Smith.

Posted by James at 07:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Toyota has paid for front-page placement today on Yahoo.com and this is what they are showing:

I find it amazing that the agency who came up with the ad for the new Yaris decided that the most important feature of the car is the fact that it is “MP3 Compatible.”

Let me ask you this, is being MP3 compatible really so remarkable that you would promote it as the main feature of a car?

I don’t think so.

Posted by James at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I can’t believe I actually read this. I heard something about it on TV, thought I was hallucinating, and moved on with my life. But then I saw this article and it was confirmed – Phillips, the electronic company, has lost its flipping mind.

It seems that their wildly profitable quest to design products that no one would ever use, Phillips has patented technology that makes it impossible to change the channel when a commercial comes on your TV.

No, I’m serious. That is what they patented. Son of a bitch.

It hurts my brain to think that somewhere, someone was thinking, “you know what would be a hit? If we made it so you had to watch commercials.”

I guess my only solace lies in the fact that this “innovation” came out of Eindhoven, in the Netherlands. Maybe the inventor spent too much time in the smartshop munching mushrooms or something. Who knows.

AAARG! I mean, seriously, did someone just invent that? I think my brain is bleeding.

Keep an eye out for the next innovation from Phillips – the TV with just two colors. They are going to call it “White and Black TV.”

I should patent that – it’ll be a hit. Then maybe I can afford to be in the Gumball officially and not just be a tag along…

Posted by James at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday afternoon it was in the upper 70’s and I was wearing shorts and riding my bike around town.

Yesterday evening we had a really big hail storm.

Today, we have this:

That's right folks, a snow storm.

You gotta love this state!

Posted by James at 08:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[That was my longest post title ever]

It seems that Mark Ingall, director of global strategic media and global marketing for Citibank said Thursday that Internet marketing will peak soon. You think with a title like “Director of Global Strategic Media and Global Marketing” he would have a better grasp of where Internet marketing is and where it is going.

So why would he say something like that? Oh, he said it during a keynote at the Advertising Club of New York's annual Magazine Day. I guess he wanted to blow some sunshine up those poor Magazine folk’s backsides.

I would have taken a different approach and just said “things aren’t too good, but at least you are not in the newspaper business.”

Here is the article from Media Daily News.

Posted by James at 08:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tonight I went to the bookstore to do some work and on my way out I wandered past the marketing book section. While there, I noticed two things.

Thing number one, there are an assload of books on branding. I would even say that maybe 1/5 of the books on marketing are branding books. I find this amazing because there are not a whole lot of big brands out there but there are a relatively large amount of people who feel that they are able to write a book about it.

I find that weird.

The second thing I noticed was the one book in the marketing section that was so unremarkable it was remarkable. Ladies and gents, may I present to you:

Marketing Your Service by Jean Withers, Carol Vipperman.

Not only does the book have a wildly boring name as compared to all the other marketing books, but it has a workbook looking boring cover. I am not quite sure if this is marketing genius (being remarkable by being un-remarkable looking) or if it is a byproduct of the authors only knowing how to market a service, not a book.

What do you think?

Posted by James at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

HOLY GOLDEN ARCHES BATMAN! Looks like 2 months and one day later, Bob Langert of the McDonalds Consumer Responsibility Blog has made a response to my February 12th post.

Here is what I have learned about Bob and McDonalds:

1. Bob likes McDonalds


2. Bob plays tennis


3. Bob posts to his blog once a week if he can


4. Bob is a big fan of the company stance that people’s decisions are the problem, not their wildly unhealthy food


5. Bob might want to realize that by making his company’s food more healthy, he could help a lot of people


6. Or Bob should push for free tennis lessons for all McDonald’s eaters – because tennis works for Bob (see #2)


7. Bob is unaware that getting into the blogging game so publicly, and then being so uninvolved in the blogosphere, makes him look like a bit of an ass

Thanks for the comment Bob – better late than never, eh?

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

My girlfriend Kristi and I had Kristi’s parents over for Easter dinner on Sunday. We had a great time and, as usual, I had an enjoyable conversation with her father, Neil.

Neil is a very successful marketing guy who has decided to leave the marketing world and pursue his passion - human sexuality and counseling. A very big change and one that he is enjoying immensely.

The funny thing about Neil is that he is still a marketer at heart, and he can’t help but see the marketing opportunities that abound in his new industry.

Anyway, long story kinda short (and meandering), Neil and I talked about blogs, sites like Flickr, and Seth Godin’s Squidoo. I am very excited about the concept of making the users of your Web site the creators of the content and I think all of these site we discussed leverage the power of users and readers to create content.

So today as luck would have it (and strangely, my luck usually does), I ran across a very appropriate reading material that delves into this topic a bit. The book, Seth Godin’s short e-book “Flipping the Funnel,” is a good starting point for many people who are trying to understand some of the new trends in the online space.

This is the second time I ran across “Flipping the Funnel” but the first time I actually read it – and I am glad I did.

Pay special attention to the idea of Squidoo. I have said it before, I think Seth is on to something.

Posted by James at 07:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Meet Kyle MacDonald.

I would put him in the same category as Alex Tew – the creator, as you may remember, of the Million Dollar Homepage.

Kyle has been making some trades with people. He started with a red paperclip, then traded for a fish shaped pen, then traded that for a smiley faced doorknob, which he traded for a Coleman camping stove. For every trade he made, he took the item and traded it for something else. The trades continued for things like a snowmobile, a vacation to Canada, and a record recording contract.

Now he has traded up to a one-year lease for a duplex in Arizona. Now remember, this is all from making trades from that original red paperclip. Pretty cool, eh?

See the full story here and the ABC news interview here.

Posted by James at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You know, some times I go too fast when explaining things.

I realized today all this talk of blogging, search marketing, etc. might be a bit over your head. So let's get back to basics.

Here is a very good explanation of the difference between the real world and the Internet.

Posted by James at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Too many Evil Overlords blow it. That sucks.

Don’t fail – follow the rules:

How to be A Successful Evil Overlord

Tips like #13 –

All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least several round of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.

I will never employ any device with a digital count-down. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable. I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.

will get you far in the Evil Overlord world.

Thanks to Seth for pointing out the site.

Posted by James at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I enjoyed this article by Sue Zeidler on Yahoo! News. It talks about the world of radio after Howard Stern and where the Stern visitors have gone.

Unsurprisingly, many are staying with terrestrial radio and are moving to other morning shows. For many people, myself included, the process of getting a satellite radio and getting it installed is a bit too much.

Surprisingly, there has been a boost in people listening to NPR. It seems that the Stern audience wasn’t so interested in stripper contests and making fun of drunks – they just liked Howard for his liberal slant.

Huh.

Posted by James at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It was a tough day for many of us, but a very hard day for a good friend of ours. I can’t really say much more, but I found this quote appropriate:

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. – Alan Cohen

Keep your head up Big Fella.

Posted by James at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I worked pretty late tonight to get a big project closer to done, so I don’t have anything wildly insightful to say. Actually, I am a bit brain dead.

And in the spirit of brain deadedness, I give you the Learmousine.

Sad thing is, people will actually ride in this ridiculous beast.

Goddamn.

Posted by James at 08:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recently was telling someone about Berlin’s Loveparade and I ended up looking on the net for some pictures of the party. I went in 2001 and was blown away by the size and scope of the event.

1.5 million people, all of the world’s best DJs, 50 floats with massive sound systems, and a week of partying in one of Europe’s largest cities.

But maybe I should just let the pictures do the talking.

Thanks to these sites for the pics! Site 1, Site 2

Posted by James at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For all of you corporate warriors who go to meetings most of your day.

For all of you who complain about meetings, whine about meetings, and avoid meetings at all costs.

For those of you who feel that you might actually get something done at work if you weren’t in meetings.

May I present to you – Seth Godin’s Mighty Meeting post.

The key here is this sentence from the post – “lot of people get paid to go to meetings.”

I think a lot of people forget they are actually getting paid to go to meetings. And when you forget that, you stop working at meetings. And when you stop working at a meeting, the meeting won’t work.

Also, just got done listening to the “Death By Meeting” book on tape. Takeaway there – meetings should be exciting, strategic, focused, and full of conflict. Well worth a listen or a read.

No if you will excuse me – I am off to a meeting.

Posted by James at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An angry comment from one Gregory Kohs has hit yesterday’s Strumpette post.

Accusations fly. Strumpette is a suer pants and has a penis, etc.

These PR people are a vicious bunch, eh? I guess I would be too if I operated in a business as crazy as theirs.

Here is Gregory the Angry's Blog of Power. Behold and take heed (and enjoy the first comment on his post)

Posted by James at 06:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The new Strumpette blog is causing a lot of buzz in the PR industry. Calling people whores tends to do that.

I will let you read for yourself, here are some of the essential links:

About Strumpette
Main Blog Link
Edelman Attacks

Have fun reading - keep on rockin' Strumpette...

Posted by James at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

To start off, I want to say that I don’t like text messages. I am annoyed every time I get one – mainly because I don’t see why someone wouldn’t just call me if they wanted to tell me something. Also, I have a pretty basic phone plan, so it costs me money to respond to the texts (which I rarely do).

With that said, I am a big fan of market disruption, and a little company called Hotxt is about to start disrupting the market big time.

In this week’s Economist, Hotxt is profiled as the new Skype for the text messaging market.

How does it work? All a user has to do is download the Hotxt software to their handset, sign up for an account, and pay $1.75 per week. Once this is done, Hotxt users can send text messages to other Hotxt users for only about a penny – a lot less than traditional text messaging.

Text messaging accounts for 20% of a typical mobile operators revenues – and texting has margins in excess of 90%. So it will be interesting to see what mobile phone operators will do to keep a hold on the texting market.

The really cool thing with a product like Hotxt is the potential of it going viral. Texting is all about communication and community. If you are able to get enough people using Hotxt to reach the tipping point, the growth of the product will be exponential.

Hotxt is only available in the UK at this point, but the company is looking to expand into other countries soon. I am sure it will find a happy following in the US.

So, will something like Hotxt make me more likely to start texting? I doubt it – but then again, I am not Hotxt’s target market, am I?

Posted by James at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once again I have to admit that I am wrong. I am wrong about my earlier statements that American car companies can pull themselves back from the brink of oblivion by copying successful design of foreign cars.

That was what I thought until I saw the Frankenstein of a car called the Buick Lucerne.

Why is it a Frankenstein? Because it looks like Buick grabbed design elements from BMW, Acura, Mercedes and attached them to the body of a Buick.

I went the Denver Auto Show today and snapped these pictures to prove my point:

First the side view of the Frankenstein –

Now a look at those gills, Lucerne on the left, BMW M3 on the right –

And a look at those tail lights, Lucerne on the left, Acura Integra on the right (photo not from the auto show) –

Next, the rear half of the car, Lucerne left, Mercedes CLS500 –

But don’t worry Buick fans, the Lucerne keeps its wildly ugly Buick nose-

So, do you see what I am talking about?

Very strange…very strange.

Posted by James at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)