Archive - May, 2006

Comment Of The Year

May 5, 2006 in Miscellaneous with 4 Comments

It isn’t often that a comment is so good, that it actually needs to be brought to light in its own post, but something that just came in from “Bryan” was too good to not share. It seems that any time I post something about TV (America’s Next Top Model for instance), that the comments get heated and passionate real quick. This comment came attached to a very dull and boring post about the UPN and WB merger.

CAN YOU ADD SOME OF MY FAVORITES THE CW ABC AND FOX AND NBC CAN YOU PUT THE OC ON MON ON THE 7TH HEAVEN TIME SLOT AND BONES ON TUESDAY GIMORE GIRLS TIMEON SLOT ON WEDNESDAY WHAT ABOUT BRIAN ON ONE TREE HILL TIME SLOT PEPPER DENNIS ON RIGHT AFTER BONES MODERN MEN RIGHT AFTER WHAT ABOUT BRIAN ON THURSDAY SMALLVILLE AND AQUAMAN RIGHT AFTER SMALLVILL ON FRIDAY SHE SAID HE ON WHAT I LIKE AOUT YOU TIME HOPE AND FAITH REBA FREDDIE ON SATURDAY SUPERNATURAL WINDFALL VERONICA MARS ON SUNDAYS LIVING WITH FRAN ON CHARMED TOME SLOT BEDFORD DIARIES

I think what is so fascinating, is that although this comment just reeks of crazy, and is in all caps comprising one long run on “sentence”…that this person has very very specific plans as to how the entire programming schedule would best be laid out. On one hand, I want to mock this person’s nuttiness, and on the other, I want to commend their attention to detail when it comes to meticulously scheduling un-watchable shows on a defunct network.

All caps, all one sentence, all crazy. As Bill Simmons would say, “these are my readers”.

Subversive MySpace Advertising, Part 2

May 5, 2006 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

Simple. Here is how to do it.

  1. Create fake profile, and use hot chick photo as profile photo.
  2. Amass small friends list, using something like myfriendbot.
  3. Come up with moderately believable messages like the one below.
  4. Collect $1-$2 per sign-up that occurs on the landing page.


(click image to enlarge)

So simple, but kind of clever. As someone who is in the on-line ad industry, this was an easy scam to spot. Hell, if you have used the Internet before, this is an easy scam to spot. However, with 75,000,000 horny people on MySpace, and with little or no cost beyond some man hours to get something like this going…it makes sense. And money.

Failed Dot-Com’s

May 5, 2006 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

In my recent travels to places like Webmaster World, and AD:Tech, as well as in just some every day conversations with others that work within the on-line space, I seem to have had a lot of conversations of late regarding the build-up, boom, bust, and re-building of the on-line space. Most of this talk is likely due to discussions of a “new bubble” centered around the “web 2.0″ phenomenon, and the discussions usually involve terms and phrases like “re-birth”, “stronger model’s”, and “shaken out”, as in “this re-birth is filled with companies that have much stronger models than those that rode the first bubble. The weak companies and ideas were all shaken out during the boom and bust five years ago…”. Whether this is true or not, who knows. I mean, it still seems to me that 90% of the Ajax driven “web 2.0″ companies have no discernible business model or revenue stream. And no, hoping to have Yahoo buy you, is NOT a viable business model.

ANYWAYS, all of this talk had me waxing nostalgic for the good old days when you could start Toothpaste.com, with the idea of selling toothpaste on-line, and immediately secure $30 million in investment capital. From there, you would burn $24 million on lavish parties, Superbowl commercials, Aeron chairs, catered everything’s, and then when you were flat broke and realized that people didn’t want to buy toothpaste on-line, you would promptly close up shop, by posting a farewell and thank you message on your Toothpaste.com home page.

Like many, I was in the thick of it back 6 years ago with a company called GreenZebras.com. Started and staffed by MIT Sloan grads turned landscapers (or the other way around, I can’t recall), GreenZebras had the brilliant idea of selling landscaping equipment on-line. Because we all know, that in 2001, high school drop-out landscapers, were just dying to buy heavy machinery, sight unseen, on-line. How could we go wrong??

Shockingly, the company flamed up and fizzled out in less than 6 months, laying us all off days after Christmas.

No real point to any of this, except that it is fun to look back and think how viable everyone thought these companies were, and how hair-brained some of these ideas REALLY were when you look back at them now. Businesses, that at the time, seemed like fantastic ideas, are now thought of as completely idiotic. You can’t help but wonder, “shake out” and “re-birth” aside, if that 5 years from now, we will be telling stories of Zillow, YouTube, Rollyo, and others…laughing about the second burst bubble that happened in 2007.

Here are some good related links:

CNet Top 10 Dot Com Flops
WikiPedia Dot Com Bubble
Failed Dot Com Farewell Pages

Shave Everywhere

May 2, 2006 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Best product mini site ever. Shaveeverywhere.com

Shave Everywhere

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