Archive - June, 2005

FLORIDA! It’s….Really Not That Great

June 30, 2005 in Miscellaneous with 9 Comments

I’ve had it. Go to Florida. Enjoy yourself. Move to Del Boca Vista Phase Three. High five. Revel in the cookie cutter housing developments, the swampland, the strip malls, the humidity and the old people. Send me a postcard.

I am sick of having conversations with people about their impending moves to the sunshine state. I am sick of defending places like Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and explaining that the reason Florida is so cheap, is because it is a complete pile of humid, gator infested, crap. I am done. This is the last gasp of a person quickly losing interest in this conversation. There are two good things about Florida. Disney World, and the fact that it is 1,300 miles away from Boston.

Yes, I understand that Boston is expensive. I know that it is one of the top five cities in terms of cost of living. That is because people want to live here. Whenever I ask people why they are moving to Florida (and this happens fairly frequently), the conversation is inevitably the same. It goes something like this:

Me: So why are you guys moving to Florida?
Them: It’s cheaper than living around here (followed by a deflated shoulder shrug)

Never once has it ever gone like this:

Me: So why are you guys moving to Florida?
Them: Because it is the awesomest place ever! I can’t WAIT to go to Florida!

I will never understand this mentality. Why move to a place that you don’t want to live, only to get a crappy made-to-order house for crappy made-to-order house prices? “So you can OWN something stupid!“. Spare me. Explain again why I should put down $15,000 on a $150,000 “home” and pay an $800/month mortgage to stare out the window at other construction and people like this, all in hopes to be able to sell this house for $155,000 10 years down the road. Maybe I am in the minority, but I would much rather pump out $1500/month in rent to be in or around a major metropolis and reap the benefits of a city like Boston. Great bars, restaurants, sports teams, culture, history, people, economy.

And another thing, the “I can’t wait to get out of this weather” line isn’t flying either. Have you been to Florida? The weather isn’t nice there. When you aren’t busy ply-wooding up your new pre-fab estate to protect it from the hurricane du-jour, you are spending your time sprinting between air-conditioned buildings to avoid the uncomfortable ball-dampness that comes with 87% humidity. San Diego has nice weather. Florida has weather similar to a disaster avoidance race run in a sauna.

As Jerry once said to Kramer, after Kramer was caught in the condo clubhouse for not wearing sandals…”Kramer, these people work and wait their whole lives to move down here, sit in the heat, pretend it’s not hot, and enforce these rules.“.

Sounds great. Go Devil Rays.

Subversively Advertising On MySpace

June 28, 2005 in Uncategorized with 6 Comments

I guess it was only a matter of time. Wherever there are people (of which MySpace has roughly 18 million) and there is the ability to connect with said people in a free and simple way (which is what MySpace is all about), companies and advertisers will flock like Michael Jackson to the local kindercare.

The question is, should these companies and advertisers be forced to head down the proper channels to reach this audience, or given that MySpace has provided the tools and the built in audience for free, should companies and advertisers be allowed to cleverly use MySpace’s toolsets to cut MySpace completely out of the transaction?

Case in point, Threadless.com. I love Threadless, and I think their whole model is extremely neat in that users create clothing and other users vote on the coolness of the clothing. The cooler the clothes, the higher the score…and the high scoring items are sold on the site. Their whole model is built on their leveraging a free and willing community to turn a profit for thier business, so naturally it is not surprising that they have spun off a MySpace profile that they are using to push the hell out of their shirts, and to build a little interactive community around their product.

Perfect product for the perfect audience…and without paying a dime to MySpace for the real estate.

Now being an employee of the company that owns MySpace, I have some vested interest here…but moreover, this was just an interesting use of a MySpace profile that I wanted to point out, and a question I wanted to ponder aloud. Frankly…I am surprised that it has taken this long for companies like Threadless to use the system in such a way.

GoogleAdSense + GoogleWallet

June 28, 2005 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

googlewallet

So the big news lately is the upcoming payment system from Google, called Google Wallet which stands to pose a very serious threat to eBay and Paypal and also opens up a whole bunch of “How could they integrate GoogleWallet into…” discussions. Speculation is running rampant, and everyone has a thought or two on how Google should flex their muscles with this product, including one from Pete Caputa which revolves simply around closing the loop and retaining more customers for a longer time.

Imagine all of the people that are both buying ads through Adwords and selling their inventory through Adsense. Imagine if Google could keep a little of that cash a little longer. Say a few billion a few extra days. (more…)

My thought is similar, in that Google is likely going to work this into their Adsense and Adwords programs hardcore, as it is the most obvious place to start. But what I would most imagine them doing, is using GoogleWallet to create an extension of Adsense that allows publishers the ability to sell ad space within their Adsense strips, using Google and GoogleWallet to handle the transaction…a la AdBrite. To me, this would be a brilliant evolution of the Adsense product and would also present a serious problem for Adbrite, who’s only advantage over Adsense, is in fact this self-service ad selling piece.

Only time will tell for sure…

Wendy’s Wants You To F*ck Their Sandwiches

June 26, 2005 in Uncategorized with 3 Comments

wendysad

Ok, so I thought McDonald’s just blew it (pun intended) with their ad campaign encouraging un-natural relations with a double cheeseburger, but apparently this sandwich-humping ad craze is catching on. Wendy’s, not to be outdone by the golden arches, has a new print campaign which asks customers to “Do a spicy chicken sandwich.”

Aside from the requisite double-entendre, the ad also features a man with soaked shirt drinking from a lawn sprinkler. I would imagine that if the gentleman in the photo had actually “done” a spicy chicken sandwich, he would likely want to redirect that cold water slightly south.

Burger King, your move.

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