Apple will have the most advanced media metrics ever devised.

So I was thinking about my Iphone and I realized that soon, very soon, Apple will be able to target me with marketing at a level never realized before. Because of the Iphone, they know where I go, where I shop, what online stores I go to, when I'm awake, whos emailing me, and where I stand at a given instant. If none of this data is being mined comprehensively by Apples marketing department, I'd be shocked.

It would be the holy grail for anyone planning a camapaign. Therefore, I'm thinking that Apple marketshare will be increasing steadily over the next year or so. It has to. That or the apple peeps are going to be firing a big chunk of their marketing team as of next year....

Talula Does the Hula....

This article from CNN has got to be read...

Apparently someone in New Zealand has named their daughter "Talula does the hula from Hawaii". To make it even better, her friends inexplicably know her as "K". Explain that!

I have to give credit to any parents that do things like this. It takes a lot of balls and creativity at the same time to pull that off. Pretty BA if you ask me.

I want every song to have it's own image.

Though I was raised in the era of cassettes, and caught the tail end of vinyl, my interest in music really started at the dawn of the CD era. Back in the early days of CD's they came in boxes that were the same height as a record sleeve so that record owners could use the bins they had vinyl albums in...smart. What was great about these boxes was that - like vinyl - there was enough real estate for graphics to enable an album to look badass. Then, tho fill up the other empty real estate in the packaging they included copious amounts of graphics, lyric books, and photography. I can only assume landing an album graphic design gig paid an artist quite a bit. And with all of this, we ended up getting some extremely iconic art. Yes, album covers were the artistic canvases that spoke to a generation, several in fact.



So where do we stand now? We're in the process of leaving the concept of a physical album behind. Soon you will have some arbitrary graphic that's called an "album cover" for new albums. Really, it's just an icon. And if that's the case, I'd like to have a graphic - or icon - for every song.

And why on earth not? Like I pointed out earlier, albums used to have tons of graphics provided. None of that is needed anymore. Certainly not an album cover as people really aren't into albums anymore. What they are into is songs.

You want to sell more songs? Package 'em. Give them each their own icon. Let us ditch "cover flow" and embrace "song flow". And give some artists a chance at a new canvas for a new generation.

You don't know, Dick.

"In two days, the price of oil rose $16," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., at a joint hearing of two Senate panels on oil speculation Tuesday. "Did I miss something, was there some war in the Middle East?"

Um...are you serious? Yes.

Read Full Article >>

I can has download?

Does anyone else wonder how many illegally downloaded songs reside on the computers of professional recording artists? My bet, probably more than reside on the computers of the grandma's the RIAA is suing.

Same with movie studios. I have the feeling that when a new release comes out and some rival studio has a board meeting to discuss it, they download it. I really can't see the whole board going on a field trip to the theater, or going through the hassle of going through channels to obtain a legal copy.

Industry people would bound to be the worst offenders as they have the most to gain.

Just a thought.

Carson Pics...

New pictures of Carson at CarsonEmery.com. Oh yes...it's the swimsuit edition.

Airing Dirty Laundry

Consolidating Blogs - Orginally posted: 8/15/07

As a marketing guy, I know that the best time to spin your bad news is when other people are spinning theirs - and especially when theirs is worse.

I have the feeling that what we're seeing in the markets right now is a result of companies coming clean on a bunch of dirt that they've been hiding in the books for a while now. However, now these companies have an excuse - the market - for which to blame. The result of course is that projections which had been falsely rosey a week ago, will now come tumbling down.

The good news is that I have the feeling that once this hidden laundry has been unearthed, we'll have a resurgence in the market. But we need all the shoes to drop before that can happen.

Bring Made in USA back...

Consolidating Blogs - Orginally posted: 8/15/07

Recently, I read an article in Wired that detailed the different countries that were involved in making a single product (computer or car? I can't remember). The article showcased a nice graphic of the world with pushpins showing all of the countries that shipped different parts. The point of the article was that it takes a planet to raise a product.

Point taken. I get it. Manufacturing is cheap elsewhere. Because of the cheapness, more people get products that they want. Product designers get bigger budgets for R&D with less money being tied to the manufacturing process. Awesome. I just was able to buy an incredible LCD TV that would have cost 10 times as much was there not a world factory.

I would love to be the guy that is cool with not having the latest and greatest. The guy that buys Zenith TV's and shops at Farm and Fleet for American products. That guy isn't even in my world. He's the guy with a Buick (Yuck!) and 20 year old electronics. He probably likes Jeff Foxworthy and votes Republican.

But I am the guy that wants the latest and greatest. I am an early adopter. I convince people to buy the same crap that I do. And it's all made overseas. This is the problem.

Most importantly, how do we rebuild our manufacturing base so that America can build great products in our borders?

• First step, get rid of unions.
• Second step, revise patent law.
• Third step, utilize cheaper marketing platforms to cut marketing costs.
• Finally, do we even need all of this crap?

I'd say one thing that needs to happen fast is for import taxes to increase, and apply those dollars to SMALL business manufacturing concerns and loans for new companies.

Why small businesses? Because our top manufacturers are the ones that are outsourcing everything and already have the deeply entrenched world wide pipelines. They are never going to shift unless smaller companies - local ones - that are more agile become a threat.

A few years ago I read about a manufacturing plant in Mexico where they were making XBOX's. They could shift this plant on the fly to be reconfigured for different products. These are the sorts of plants that we need in the US. Or, we need to annex Mexico as the 51st state and get back all of the plants we built through the ever wonderful NAFTA plan. (Ross Perot, how right you were...)

Enough ranting. I'll be using this blog to detail Manufacturers that are looking to bring production back to the US, as well as to vilify companies that continue to produce over seas.

Please contribute. To get these ideas exposed to those that have a chance of doing anything we'll need to be loud. Thank you.

Is a Spell Checker another name for a Wizard?

So spell checking. Can anyone tell me why this isn't done natively in the operating system as you type. Think about it. Whenever you type on your computer - the operating system - not the application - should natively spell check what you write. Why have all of this redundancy in applications that spell check within the application? My operating system should simply be checking everything as I go....

Someone tell Microsoft and Apple for me.

Ace