Mark Cuban continued his rant against YouTube, yesterday. However, instead of running his mouth in his blog, this time he was running his mouth in front of a group of advertisers in New York.
"They are just breaking the law," he told the crowd. "The only reason they haven't been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue."
Uhm, good point, Mark. Oh, but wait, wasn't there that little issue that YouTube had with posting Saturday Night Live clips. Surely NBC, or its parent company, GE has enough money to sue, right Mark?
Cuban went on to tell the group that advertisers were wasting there money on viral marketing campaigns, but instead, should focus on opporutunites that lie with hi-def TV like his company HDNet.
Good job, Mark, way to promote your own company. But, if I heard you correctly, you just said advertisers shouldn't worry about viral marketing- but isn't self-promotion in front of an audience kind of like viral marketing?
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Why Mark Cuban is Crazy, Part 2
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Holy Screech!
Thanks to TMZ.com, I wasted an entire day at work wondering not if it was true, but how could it possibly be true. Screech Powers (aka Dustin Diamond) - yes, THE Screech Powers, has gone to new lows highs to get off the F D List and onto the A List.
By teaming up with famed porn peddeler, David Hans Schmidt (think Paris Hilton, Colin Farrell), the two distributed leaked a tape with Screech hooking up in a three-way with two co-eds (Yes, they were allegedly women, but verification of this fact should come later).
Also, according to rumors floating around the Web, Screech even pulls off a Dirty Sanchez in said tape. Wow. I'm horrified, but oddly interested. I doubt that I'll ever watch the 'whole thing', but I may take a short peak - you know, just to see what everyone is talking about.
Oh, and if you saw the above picture and discovered the correlation between a Dirty Sanchez and the above goateed Screech, you get a gold star.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Even More Trouble at eBay
As noted in this blog earlier this year, eBay has found itself in a bit of hot water because of their refusal to actively police its site to prevent the listing of counterfeit items. In the past, Tiffany has sued eBay for refusing to take satisfactory action against these miscreant sellers.
Now, LVMH is taking similar action against eBay for essentially the same reason. In an interesting quote from the article:
LVMH says in its lawsuit that of 300,000 Dior-branded items and 150,000
Vuitton bags offered on eBay during the first six months of this year, 90% were
fakes. LVMH declined to comment on the eBay suit.
Hani Durzy, a spokesman for eBay told Business Week that eBay is "disappointed that it has come to this" and that the suit is "without merit". Blah, blah, blah, blah. Basically, it was anything you'd expect to hear out of the mouth of a PR guy from a company who just got sued.
As with the Tiffany case, it should be interesting to see where this one ends up (settled or otherwise). It's worth noting that in the past, eBay got out of this sticky mess by simply agreeing to remove infringing items when they are notified of their existence on its site. However, owing to the fact that this particular brand has identified 405,000 fakes (so far) this year, I think the court system may take more drastic measures this time around.
Bill Clinton Laying the Smack Down
I know that I'm a bit behid the 8-ball on this, but it's too good not to share. In case you didn't hear about it, Bill Clinton was being interviewed by Fox News Correspondent Chris Wallace and, well, see for yourself:
Thursday, September 21, 2006
An Open Letter To the Executives at Yahoo
Dear Yahoo Executives:
Facebook is not worth $1 Billion! Sure, there are a list of reasons why you would want to purchase it. Some of the reasons include:
- Page-views on the site have grown 230% YoY (second behind MySpace, and greater than Google, Craigslist, Yahoo, eBay, et. al).
- It's one of the most highly visited sites on the Web.
- It has a demographic that advertisers would kill for, but is this really worth shelling out a cool Bill?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is only 22 years old! Do you know all the trouble you would be contributing to if you paid a 22 year old $1 Billion?
Also, do you really think that you can seriously challenge MySpace (nevermind the fact that the site is just a advertisement piece of SPAM)? And what happens when college students (especially this generation) quickly tire of the whole social networking fad? What do you do then?
In closing, I really think you need to sleep on it, better yet, take the weekend and think about it. Take a couple days off, have a mocha, listen to some more of Lloyd Braun's brilliant ideas, and just think if this deal is really going to add value to the Yahoo customer experience.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Valleywag: Your Government is Spying on You
Great article today from ValleyWag:
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has a real porn problem. The
Washington Post reported last year that Gonzales
is fighting consensual adult porn, sometimes under the guise of fighting
child porn, sometimes not. Now the country's top cop is pushing -- hard -- for
Congress to force Internet service providers to save their users'
records.
It's a hard movement to fight -- everyone's afraid of being marked
"pro-child-porn" -- but it would give the government, fraudsters, and determined
hackers easy access to every Internet user's history. It's part of Gonzales's
effort to control what anyone can see -- whether it's library patrons using
censored Internet connections or home users unwittingly telling the government
whom they e-mailed, called, or Skyped. It's scary as hell and it's
succeeding.
Honestly, is anyone really surprised by this. Isn't this like finding out "Ice-cream is cold and tastes good in the summer." I really wouldn't be surprised if an FBI Agent sent an email around the office tomorrow with my top 10 favorite searches on the Web.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Why Mark Cuban is Crazy, Part 1
I really don't have much to say about this post, as it pretty much speaks for itself. Basically, Mark blabs about the impending doom of YouTube. For most of you who know of, or read his blog on a regular basis, this really isn't anything new. As we all know, Mark has beef with plenty of companies, including the one I work at.
As a side note, this is part 1 of what I'm sure will be a multi-part series.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Buy It, Sell It, Trademark It!
Apparently, eBay is milking all it can out of its "It" campaign. According to Marketwatch, they are seeking trademark infringement protection from an online auction site called World Auctions Inc.
eBay is alleging that World Auctions blatently copied phrases and colors that were similar to eBay's uses of the word 'It'. eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said "There are numerous features on this site that are strikingly similar to those of our site."
In an effort to capitalize on this, I'm assuming that all users will be charged $0.05 everytime they use the word 'It' in an item description.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Extra, Extra..Bloggers ARE Important!
Pretty good article in yesterday's WSJ (registration required) about how bloggers are becoming viewed by the fashion industry as an important medium to getting the word out about their products.
The big reason for the change in opinion about bloggers and their loyal readers, is just that, the millions of web users who turn to blogs for information. In case you've been living on Pluto (btw, it's no longer a planet), there are now over 50 million blogs being posted on the Web as we speak, and according to most people, that number is only going to grow.
Case in point, the blog SeekingAlpha struck a deal earlier this week with Yahoo! Finance, in which Yahoo! Finance will now carry content from SeekingAlpha with it's associated ticker symbols and other areas of the site.
Why is blogging so important? I think the answer is it puts more of a human face on subjects that have previously been left up to professional writers and journalists to write about in books, magazines, and Web 1.0 media. Now, anybody with access to a PC can give their two-cents about practically anything.
The benefits of this is more information is immediately available to everyone, and people can make better, more informed decisions on any subject they desire.
A drawback of this is now everyone considers himself (or herself) an expert in something - including yours truly. The readers, then, will have the ultimate say on who or who is not and expert, and they will demonstrate this decision by visiting the 'experts' blogs more.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Thanks, Mom...You're the Best!
A mother in Pennsylvania is facing misdemeanor drug charges after she admitted that she smoked pot with her son to reward him for doing his homework.
I say, good for her. Why don't all parents do this? I remember when I was growing up, all we received for a good report card was cash. And, invariably, some of that cash eventually made its way to purchasing drugs and alcohol (come on, like YOU didn't do this).
All she did was simply cut out the middle man, whereas if she just gave him cash, it's just as likely that he would have went out and purchased the drugs himself. And instead of the child buying his weed from a shady drug dealer (who could of laced the drug with X, LSD, or some other scary substance) she went out and probably purchased it from the nice 23 year old who lives down the street.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Did it Really Happen?
I really didn't want to write this. In fact, I wanted to avoid blogging about this at all - which is why earlier I posted that very humorous YouTube clip of Matt Leinart getting Punk'd.
But, I believe the dis-service I would be doing by not posting, would be greater than if I did post, thus I am taking the time to write a couple thoughts about 9/11 and were we are as a country, five years after.
I'll be honest, when 9/11 first happened, I thought it was a joke - at best, a new movie opening up in theaters nationwide soon. At worst, it was someone sick imagination. I was in an Accounting class in school, when I happened to overhear a couple high-level details about what happened that day. The professor came in the class and announce (with little sadness) that "the events in New York are tragic, but we still have a class to go through".
At first, I didn't think it was a big deal - some moron flew their Cessna into the WTC. I had no idea about the Pentagon, or United 93. I thought that Osama bin Laden was dessert dwelling bedouin, who had nothing better to do with his time other than to make empty threats of war against Westerners.
And then I saw the damage. The people jumping 80 floors and more in a hope to avoid their fate. I saw fear. It was the first time in my life that I looked at another citizen in this country and could tell they were scared.
We all know what has happened since then. The saddest thing (and in my opinion, the scariest thing) is that five years later, we are by far no safer today than we were than. Sure, we really don't have to worry about terrorist taking over planes and crashing them into buildings (honestly, Al Qaeda isn't likely to pull that one again, though 'copycats' will surely try). But the fear persists in this country and in others.
Buy why are we here, why are we not safer. That's not an easy question to answer, but I think the answer clearly starts at the top. I understand that in order to move on from tragedy, it's not efficient to sit around pointing fingers, but in this case, I don't think there's anything else we can do.
In the days after 9/11, President Bush seemed like a real leader (it should be noted that in those days, I was a bleeding heart Republican, I digress). He was going to get the people that did this to us. He was going to deliver Osama's head to the American people on a silver platter, if need be. In the words of Senator Orrin Hatch, we were going to get the bastards that did this to us.
Now, five years later, let's measure our results:
- Osama bin Laden still roams free in Pakistan and criss-crosses the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan with relative ease. He and his henchmen frequently release videotapes taunting us of our failure to capture or kill him.
- Al Qaeda is still alive and well. Thanks to the contstant disrespect offered up by this and other countries, it takes little more than a telephone call to a disenfranchised young Muslim to get them to join the group.
-The United States and Britian are heavily involved in an Iraqi Civil War. In 2003, after deposing of Saddam Hussein, the US dropped the ball on how to maintain basic law and order in a country and as a result growing tension between different Muslim sects grew out of control.
- Iran learned that they can mess with the head of top political leaders by threatening them with mythical nuclear weapons. In the past, the US would have simply cut them off, econimically, and the situation would be resolved. However, with Oil at record prices and the military busy babysitting next door, the adminstration has its hands tied.
- Most civil liberties in the United States are essentially gone. The government regularly requests private records of ordinary citizens from the Web Searches to a list of telephone calls the make from phone companies. Cameras are everywhere- on traffic lights, in ATM's, Library entrances, and in police cars. Hell, I don't even trust the camera in my macbook.
I won't go through all of the things that changed, as I believe the list above will suffice. However, I would like to share an article that I came across today in Newsweek. It basically presents a scenario of the world that would have happened had our goverment done what it should have done in a post-9/11 world.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Do You Eat What Britney's Eating?
From MSNBC:
Who says Britney Spears’ star has faded? Someone cares enough about the preggers pop star to pay more than $500 for her allegedly half-eaten egg salad sandwich.
The eBay sale also came with a corn dog that was supposedly mostly eaten by her hubby Kevin Federline — but that Spears also took a chomp out of.
The seller claims that he works part time at a “fancy schmancy” hotel and was serving Spears and Federline during a catered affair where the food ranged from fine gourmet cuisine to deep-fried eats. “As you can see, they weren't eating high class that night,” notes the seller.
Spears ate half her sandwich, claims the seller, then a few bites from the second half. K-Fed ate a few things, “but the only leftover item I managed to pick up from him was this corn dog,” notes the seller. “Later I went to clear their plates with it, and as I was picking up the plate Britney picked [the corn dog] up really quick giggled and said ‘I can't let that go to waste’ and quickly took a big bite off of the stick end of the corn dog. I was still standing there holding the plate, not quite sure what to do because Britney Spears was stealing corn dogs off the plate I was pulling away. She finished her bite and put it back on the plate I was holding and said ‘thanks!’ ”
Realizing the celeb treasures he had in his possession, the waiter took the leftovers home, photographed them, had them vacuum sealed, and put them for sale on Australian eBay.
Forty-three bids were placed before a buyer paid $520 for the goodies. The winning bidder was identified as GoldenPalaceCasino, which in the past has engaged in publicity stunts such as paying a woman to tattoo her forehead with their company logo.
