Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Why can't I do a screen capture from a DVD on the Mac? The Grab utility insists that screen grabs are unavailable during DVD playback, and tells me I have to close the DVD software. Is this a real software problem (not likely) or just something to make media companies happy?

The other day Chris Shipley of DEMO wrote that location doesn't matter anymore; your tech company can as easily be located in Kansas as in Silicon Valley. That's true enough. The basic necessities are available almost everywhere.

Today Renee Blodgett comments that while location may matter a little less, she's not so sure:

The article points out that "the infrastructure to support technology development – broadband connectivity and plenty of caffeine – is available almost anywhere." While this is true, I think its harder to get Stanford and MIT grads to move to the middle of Kansas......or sophisticated marketing savvy pros to head to rural towns, where the only choice for greens on the menu is iceberg lettuce. There are other considerations of course, including the quality of schools, cultural diversity and airport access.

I currently live and hour west of Toronto, Canada, where I moved when I was affected by the downturn in Massachusetts that Renee mentions. There is a small technology community here co-located with a university with a computer science and engineering program. The companies here build technology products, long on engineering, but short on marketing. But there are no tradeshows here. There are no Mobile Mondays or meetups. All of the real action is happening in Boston or in the Valley, primarily because of the sheer density of talented people, organizations, and infrastructure.

Yes you can build technology anywhere. But location can be a pretty powerful factor.

The FCC now thinks that a la carte cable channel selection and pricing will lower costs for consumers by allowing them to select only those channels that they actually want to watch, as opposed to being forced to buy packages of channels they don't want just to get the one they do.

According to Broadband Reports, televangelists aren't all that happy at the prospect, given the fact that viewers might not be interested in paying for their programming, cutting off a lucrative source of revenue.

When I was a kid all of the cars had dealer nameplates on them, branding the car so to speak. The more elegant cars had embossed nameplates; the cheaper ones had stickers. But either way, the car could fall to pieces before those little emblems fell off.

The idea was one of advertising. As long as that car was on the road people would know where it came from. Of course that was when cars were built to last. People don't seem to keep their cars as long these days, or they just don't last as long. And the sword cuts both ways; if the car is a piece of junk people will know who sold it to you.

These days dealer nameplates more often take the form of rear license plate holders, which are much eaier to remove. These days I guess we prefer to wear our brands on our clothes.

In automobile industry jargon, a nameplate is the name given to a vehicle by its manufacturer. As of May 27, 2004, there were 267 distinct nameplates, or automobile names, in the United States alone. And that doesn't count different body styles.

The Business 2.0 Blog recounts a story by Doug Edwards, former director of consumer marketing and brand management for Google, about a question Sergey Brin asked of him in his interview:

I'm going to give you five minutes," he told me. "When I come back, I want you to explain to me something complicated that I don't already know." He then rolled out of the room toward the snack area. . . . I found out later that he asked almost everyone to do this, so if a candidate wasn't hired, at least it wasn't a total waste of his time.

A very good question. And I have absolutely no idea what I would say, but I'm going to give it some thought. What would you say?

Tip of the hat to Alex Barnett.

Transport Canada is testing an integrated GPS device that compares your speed to the posted limit of the streets you are driving on. The idea is to make sure that you can't exceed that posted limit.

Even in a country where the citizens are subject to so much government control, it seems implausible that people would be happy about giving up control of their gas pedal.

Tip of the hat to Engadget.

I put up my Christmas lights today. We've bought numerous sets of lights over the years, but this year we switched to LED lights for outdoors. They claim to cut energy costs by 80%-95% over the old bulbs, though they use a high value of 12 cents per kilowatt hour to make the numbers look higher.

I bought them solely because they are virtually unbreakable. I can usually be counted on to break one or two bulbs when they hit the interlocking brick driveway, but I was unable to break these ones.

Twenty five years ago I remember playing with light emitting diodes as a kid. I can't believe it took this long to put them to use as an energy saving alternative.

The media may not be interested in promoting the power of blogs as an alternate information service, but they sure have picked up on the danger of them.

CTV, a Canadian television network, is airing a special news segment tonight on employer concerns over blogs, probably related to a recent study that suggested employees waste time reading blogs at work:

Workers in the U.S will this year waste the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs, a study has suggested.

The research by Advertising Age magazine has calculated that some 35 million workers, about one in four of the U.S labour force, will read blogs and visit blog sites during the year.

On average they will spend 3.5 hours, or 9 per cent, of their working week engaged with them.

Time spent in the office on non-work blogs this year will take up the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs, with blog readers essentially taking a daily 40-minute "blog break".

I'm now up to 13 out of 26 on the Web 2.0 Validator.

Tags: web 2.0 validator

I missed this the other day, but The Head Lemur points out a very useful tool for people on the web today - the Web 2.0 Validator:

Who makes the rules?

You do. All the rules of web 2.0 are provided by users of this site. The definition of web 2.0 changes on a daily basis. Now you can keep up with your web 2.0-ness since this site checks randomly against the most recent rules decreed by it's users.

My initial score was 5 out of 25. So I'm going to add the following and see what happens:

I plan to create a Web 2.0 startup that creates mash-ups using metadata, del.icio.us, and the Google Maps API, built with Ruby on Rails. I'm going to be the Flickr of RDF and the Semantic Web.

A few friends have asked how my job search is going, so I'll provide an update.

I live in a town with a small technology industry that is constantly complaining about being unable to find people to hire. So I've found it odd that even with years of relevant experience, a referral to the hiring managers fails to yield even an acknowledgement. Of course I have had people say to me after reading my resume that I would be too expensive for them, without even asking my salary requirements. Personally I'm concerned more with how much somebody will make for me rather that just what I have to pay them, but I've heard this from other folks as well.

I've also been amazed to hear about recent layoffs in what seemed to be a decent technology market, and I know a few people who are now looking as well.

Barbara Ehrenreich has just written a book called Bait and Switch : The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream about the job search process. Her point, and I wholeheartedly agree, if that the whole job search industry is based more on hopes and dreams than facts. There is no shortage of people who will tell you (often for a price) what you have to do to network, to research, to interview, and to get a job, but all of the networking in the world won't get you a job if there aren't jobs available, or they're looking for something else.

Fortunately I've a couple excellent and interesting consulting offers, and I find those very attractive as they allow me to use a much wider range of my skills, something I've rarely been able to do working for a company with more structured roles.

I'll keep you posted.

Peter Applebome at the New York Times highlights the newest thing for Christmas - upside down Christmas trees [TimesSelect subscription required]:

The idea, other than having something your neighbors don't, is (1) you can put more presents under them, (2) they take up less real estate for space-challenged apartment dwellers and (3) you can put more prized ornaments at eye level instead of down near the ground where no one can see them.

I'm just trying to figure how to keep the water in the tree stand.

A Catholic cardinal says that parents shouldn't buy their kids wireless gifts, including iPods (though they aren't wireless):

Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, co-chairman of the Religious Alliance Against Pornography, said iPods, PDAs and video cell phones can easily send and receive pornography, much of it unsolicited.

Surprisingly, the cardinal does not caution against using the internet, which would seem to be a much larger problem from his point of view.

From textually.

No not me. Elisa Camahort feels much better about herself now that she has been validated by a Business Week article that reports that women account for 50% of all technology purchases:

Blame the male geek culture at digital hardware marketers for ignoring women in the past. As recently as early 2003, Samsung Electronics tested its phones, TVs, and home theaters with all-male focus groups. Today, the company makes sure half its reviewers are women. The payoffs: Samsung designed its DuoCam -- the first two-lens digital camera and camcorder -- after women reported they liked to record "life events" both in photographs and video but didn't like to lug around two gadgets. The camera recently became lighter by 40%, again the result of female feedback.

The article also comments on shopping at Radio Shack:

RadioShack Chief Marketing Officer Don Carroll says women behave differently from their first step in the store, based on studying his in-store-motion cameras. "Men look left and right, identify their product, and head towards it, but women really shop the store before reaching their goal," says Carroll. He's changing lighting at the company's 5,000 outlets and making the stores less cluttered, a leading complaint among women and a move that will no doubt make it easier for men to shop as well.

I am also amazed when the salespeople talk to me and ignore my wife to the point that I have to remind them that we are both making the purchasing decision. And yes, I am one of those men that wishes gadgets came in different colors and designs. It kills me that 100 years after the Model T, you can now get a PC in any color you want as long as it is gray and comes in one shape and size.

I've heard the expression "Content is king" for years. But is it really true?

If content is king, why are newspapers and magazines dying? Why is Google, a company that neither owns nor creates content, is growing by leaps and bounds?

Yes blogs may be generating a few dollars for their content, but it seems that the money goes to those companies that find content, virtually aggregate it, or provide a conduit to it. The value of the actual content itself seems to be declining.

For all those readers still using Windows, I'm happy to pass along these helpful hints that I, now a Mac user, can no longer use.

Here are seven ways to speed up and optimize Windows XP.

Jeff Jarvis wants to know when someone is reading his blog:

How about this as a fundamental principle of content and conversation on the internet:

I have a right to know when what I create is read, heard, viewed, or used if I wish to know that.

Now if I understand the concept of Attention correctly, Jeff's readers are "attention owners". That makes Jeff an "attention receiver" I guess. That makes My Yahoo, Google Reader, Pluck, Newsgator Enterprise and other RSS readers "attention brokers".

And just as information gives stock brokers or real estate brokers an advantage, that aggregated attention information gives those attention brokers a powerful advantage as well.

Unlike the stock or real estate world though, even if they share Jeff's information with him as he asks, because of the network effect of all of the users whose information they aggregate, they still hold that advantage.

Cindy Sheehan, having faded from the news, is back at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, likely trying to revive some interest. Seemingly nobody is biting this time around:

In Crawford two rallies were taking place Saturday, one an anti-war protest which Sheehan attended and another by a group opposed to the protestors. Only about a dozen people attended Sheehan's anti-war protest Saturday and far fewer members of the press than when she last held a rally in Washington. In Washington, the reverend Jesse Jackson spoke briefly at Sheehan's rally, but in Crawford Saturday, Sheehan stood alone.

While in Texas Sheehan revealed a memorial to her son and others who were killed in the Iraq war, but few noticed and no celebrities came.

It's cold and there is snow on the ground, but at least you can get candy cane ice cream. And it even has little chunks of chocolate in it.

Elisa Camahort is looking for browser advice for the Mac:

Should I bite the bullet and try Firefox? And if so, is there some utility or extension that will import my bookmarks...much as I hate messing around with stuff like that?

I was using the .8 version of Camino. Has anyone found that the new 1.x version is much more stable?

Is there yet another alternative that I am not thinking of? (And yes, I could try Flock, I suppose...but is that really a full-featured browser...it strikes me as more interesting because of its other features.)

MacGeek advice would be most welcome at this juncture :)

Robert Scoble is again suggesting that companies whose websites do not have RSS feeds should fire their webmasters. But Seth Godin's comments suggest that RSS is used by few of his readers:

This blog has one of the fastest-growing RSS feed lists I know of, but it's still a scary-low percentage of my readership.

While I do agree with commenters on Robert's post when they say "Why wouldn't you provide and RSS feed?", I wonder if it might be a bit premature to fire someone for not implementing an early adopter technology that perhaps few people use? According to a Pew Internet study [PDF], by the end of 2004:

5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online

One example Robert users of companies that don't have RSS is Reva Systems. I'm not sure how much value a company that deals with networked RFID would derive from RSS.

Instead of reporting that there had been a problem with the M&M balloon, which had crashed into a light pole and injured two sisters, NBC showed footage of the balloon from last year's parade. The hosts stuck to the script, dancing around the issue, without mentioning the problem.

Reporting of the event was held back until after the end of the broadcast.

Well we're all ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow. We've got the turkey, stuffing, and cranberries. And we'll be up early getting everything ready to sit down to a nice dinner with friends and family.

Right now, after a spectacular meal at our friends' Chinese restaurant, the kids are in bed and we're sitting back watching Christmas Vacation.

So another great meal and celebration tomorrow, and then on Friday we can go shopping!

I've noticed lately that my blog, which is running on Movable Type 3.17, occasionally displays in a truncated fashion, stopping right in the middle of a post. Rebuilding doesn't help, and the only way I've been able to fix it was to post another entry.

Interestingly, I was also trying to install the newest version and found that the included installation instructions were completely incorrect.

This is my first post from my blog client standalone - outside of the development environment that is. I've also realized that I need to do a bit more error checking.

But at least undo works.

My friends are visiting from Boston. Matt had to do some work while he was visiting, so he brought his entire Vonage setup with him, along with a Thinkpad and a Mac Mini, to augment our already considerable home network. So for the past few days his home phone rings in my office, as does his business phone which also simultaneously rings his cell phone.

The interesting thing is that when people call they have no idea that Matt is in Canada, especially when they are calling his home phone.

And why should they? We have come to accept that when we call somebody's cell phone, they may not be home, and could in fact be anywhere. But when we call their home phone and they answer, we expect them to be home. That may not be the case anymore though. Technology like VoIP means that your formerly tethered home phone can now move with you, provided you have an internet connection.

So you can no longer take for granted that when you call someone at home, that they are in fact there.

Tags: voip location phone

There are occasionally clear signs that the world of retail is changing:

Apple Computer's iTunes music store now sells more music than Tower Records or Borders, according to analyst firm the NPD Group.

The research company tracks downloads from digital music stores, as well as people's purchasing habits at offline retail stores. During the past three months, iTunes made it to the U.S. Top 10 sales list for the first time, NPD said.

To buy that song at Tower I have to get in the car, drive to the store, and buy a whole CD of songs I may not enjoy to get the one that I want, if they aren't sold out of it.

The internet breaks the economics of bricks and mortar stores.

Tip of the hat to Marketing Begins At Home.

Tags: itunes music records

From Seth Godin's post on pricing:

Which leads us to the wisdom of Jeff Bezos. There are two kinds of companies, Jeff says. Companies that work to lower prices (like Amazon, most of the time) and companies that work to raise prices (like the music industry, all of the time).

How does this not constitute racial or gender based discrimination?

From the National Post:

A major [Canadian] federal department has temporarily banned the hiring of able-bodied white men in an unusual move critics say could spark a backlash against the very disadvantaged groups it is meant to help.

Managers in the Public Works department must hire only visible minorities, women, aboriginals and the disabled, except with written permission from their superiors, David Marshall, the deputy minister, ordered in an e-mail circulated yesterday.

Tip of the hat to Daimnation!

Courtesy of Digital Common Sense, this is the funniest thing I've heard this month:

New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you spiritual. It's right above the crack of your ass. And it translates to "beef with broccoli." The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren’t pregnant. You're not spiritual. You're just high.

I've seen a number of comments about Google Base since it went live. Most have been negative.

TechCrunch had this to say:

Google Base Launched. Yuck.

Google Base: None for Me, Thanks

My one liner? "Google Base today is a glimpse of Google 2.0".

Expanded one-liner? "Google Base evolves the core Google Search into a Google Search and Directory service".

That is a big deal. Why? Because this OVER TIME fuses the universal STRUCTURE and utility of a DIRECTORY, with the immediate gratification and user interface of Google Search.

But in the meantime, it lays down the infrastructure to establish a human-powered directory, where users are doing all the work of submitting stuff into it, "user-generated content" or otherwise.

It's a starting point for user-generated categories, which can then be augmented with a more advanced automated tagging taxonomy and algorithms to create a super-tagging directory.

So instead you let users add any kind of content they want to, and let them tell you exactly what it is. Human categorization, which yields two results. If I log in and search for something, my searches can now be made more effective. But secondly, and more importantly, as Google Base gets bigger it can be used to provide more intelligent categorized results.

It can be used to make search smarter.

I've been working on a blogging client for multiplatform use, written in Java. I've been using it to post for a few weeks myself.

So what is the biggest problem I'm having getting it done? Undo. I'm having a hard time getting the Undo/Redo functionality working.

You really notice how many times you use the Undo function when you don't have it.

In every horror movie there is always a secret passageway behind a door that looks like a bookshelf. I always thought that would a cool thing to have in my house. And now I know where to get one - The Hidden Door Company.

I guess the secret passageway market must be pretty big.

Tip of the hat to Jeneane Sessum at ALLIED.

Tags: hidden doors

Apple is once again being pressed to increase prices at the iTunes Music Store:

From a Levy [CEO of EMI Music] press conference:

There is a common understanding that we will have to come to a variable pricing structure. The issue is when. There is a case for superstars to have a higher price.

A superstar makes more money by selling more units. I shouldn't have to pay more for each unit. I don't when I buy the physical CD so I don't see why I should have to when I but the song from iTunes.

Via digg.

Tags: music CD prices iTunes

Seth Godin asks "what's a backup?":

Question: should you be allowed to backup the DVDs you own? If you leave ten on an airplane or lose them in a fire, do you have to buy replacements?

[...]

You can't backup your car or your shoes. You can backup your email and even Excel.

If the media are destroyed, I shouldn't be forced to pay again for the same right to listen to that content that I already paid for. The record company is not providing me any benefit in addition to what I already had.

In fact I'm finding that some DVDs are so fragile that they are beginning to crack after only a few viewings. Cheap product or planned obsolence should not be a reason for me to lose my investment. I should have every right to make archival copies to protect that investment.

Tags: intellectual property backup

Alex Barnett notes that a deal has been reached that leaves the US in control of the internet. As Alex says:

IMHO, quite right. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

In a day and age when Wal-Mart can track a package of razor blades as it moves around the country, how is it possible to have a surprise drop in fuel supplies?

The American Petroleum Institute said crude inventories fell nearly 4 million barrels last week. The U.S. Energy Department had reported a drop of 2.2 million barrels. Motor gasoline inventories were also down.

Does it really take a week to figure this out?

Tags: oil fuel supply fuel costs

Once upon a time there was good television, but little by little that has evaported, leaving little behind worth watching. The big three networks - ABC, CBS, and NBC - wonder why people are leaving in droves for the cable networks. They need look no further than tonight's schedule. At 8 pm we have The Biggest Loser, The 39th Annual CMA Awards, or According to Jim. At 9 pm there's My Name is Earl or Commander in Chief.

There used to be entire nights of Must See TV; now the only thing worth watching is CSI, since they've cancelled Arrested Development anyway. At least there are several CSIs to choose from, and they seem to be on almost 24 hours a day.

I've always been a bit of a TV addict, but even I now find myself occasionally turning the TV off.

Tags: television

That's how much a UN-proposed "bit tax" would raise this year alone if implemented:

One proposal is a BIT tax, described on page 66 of the U.N.'s report as:

a very small tax on the amount of data sent through the Internet. The costs for users would be negligible: sending 100 emails a day, each containing a 10-kilobyte document (a very long one), would raise a tax of just 1 cent. Yet with e-mail booming worldwide, the total would be substantial. In Belgium in 1998, such a tax would have yielded $10 billion.

A study by the National Taxpayers Union describes taxes, censorship and bureaucratic corruption as serious threats to the internet, should the UN manage to wrest control away from the US.

I wonder what the UN would do with 12 trillion dollars - this year alone?

Tags: UN internet control bit tax

Jeff Jarvis doesn't like Google's plan to rent books online because it devalues content:

Thus, they believe that the ideas and thought are worth one tenth the paper, distribution, and retail markup. And, of course, not all that would go to the guy who had the thought; she’d get a fraction left over after publishers, agents, and Google itself. Content is devalued yet further.

It isn't that simple though. The value of an idea bears little relationship to the paper it is printed on, or the aggregate costs of distributing and selling that paper. It would make more sense to say that the value of an idea is a function of the cost of the paper times the number of people who purchase it, yet that is more a measure of popularity than the value of an idea.

When I buy a book I get to keep it forever. By charging 10% of the cover price to rent it to me only one week, Google is actually generating more revenue out of that book than a purchase would have. It also makes that information available to customers who might otherwise never have purchased the book. Google might even do well to adopt the old Blockbuster model and charge late fees.

In much the same way as customers prefer to listen to and pay for a single song that they like from a CD, Google is offering people a chance to do that with books. Though it seems different, this can work with books too, especially reference works. This actually opens a potential new revenue stream where the customers would otherwise have been unable to access the books. Should publishers, and in turn authors, turn down this bonus revenue?

For years Reader's Digest has offered condensations of books in their magazine. Has this devalued the content? More likely it has given readers the added impetus to purchase a book.

At any rate, good ideas are viral. They spread without the book, and their value doesn't depend on a printed volume.

Tags: google book book rental

Louisette Lanteigne of Waterloo, Canada, had concerns about subdivision development, so she created a website to document local problems [she's been slashdotted, but you can see the Google cache here. One of the developers she names is Activa, whose office is about a quarter-mile from my house, didn't appreciate the website so they sued her for $2 million. Activa is claiming libel.

Now I'm sure that Activa thought that this threat would make Ms. Lanteigne go away, but it seems to be having the opposite effect, with everyone picking up the story. So far I've seen Tim Bray, Techdirt, and Macleans magazine mention the story.

Unfortunately Canada has no SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) laws, so Ms. Lanteigne is pretty much on her own, regardless of whether or not she can prove any of here claims, though she doesn't seem to make any specific claims against Activa.

Activa might want to quit while they're ahead, because they only seem to be drawing attention to the website and potential problems, and they have probably already incurred more than $2 million worth of bad publicity, which will likely make local councils tread cautiously where Activa is concerned. And they have done Ms. Lanteigne a huge favor by drawing far more attentions to the problems she lists.

I've never understood the concept of retention pay for executives of financially trouble companies like Delphi. Why would anyone pay extra to keep the same employees that weren't successful before. They failed to achieve the company goals, yet the belief is that they will now be successful? The New York Times notes that this is now happening at Delphi [Times Select subscription required]:

Accompanying the plan was a brief from Delphi's lawyers arguing that the company's managers must be "appropriately incentivized to maximize the financial performance" of the company.

Delphi is proposing worker pay cuts of up to two-thirds. Robert S, Miller, Delphi CEO, has agreed to work for $1. Of course a $3 million signing bonus does soften the blow.

If indeed the problems at Delphi stem from the high cost of the pension plan and healthcare, the eliminating those responsibilities will resolve the problem. Paying the executives more then becomes unnecessary.

Tags: delphi

You've seen them - battered stuffed animals tied to the front grills of tractor trailers, and even some cars. And at Christmas, the occasional wreath there as well. It seems to be a fairly new idea, and today's New York Times examines the phenomenon and tries to understand why people do it:

One prevalent theory among truckers is that chicks dig them.

Robert Marbury, an artist who photographed dozens of Manhattan bumper fauna for a project in 2000 (see urbanbeast.com/faq/strapped.html), said he had once asked a trash hauler why he had a family of three mismatched bears strapped to his rig.

"He said: 'Yo, man, I drive a garbage truck. How am I going to get the ladies to look at me?' " Mr. Marbury recalled.

1. You'll only see porn when you want to. Sick of seeing pornographic pop-ups all over your computer while you're helping your daughter with a research project? Since Firefox blocks pop-ups, you won't get tons of porn in your face when you're least expecting it. On the flip side, since Firefox stops spyware from taking over your computer, there will be nothing to slow you down when you go and look for porn.

2. Your kids will only see porn when they want to. Sorry, buddy... the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Arrested Development, one of the funniest shows I've seen lately, has been cancelled according to the San Jose Mercury News.

The show was brilliant, tying up bits and pieces all together throughout the shows, with excellent running gags. It was a very smart show, and it's too bad more people didn't catch on to it.

My shiny new 12" Powerbook arrived today, and I'm using it as we speak. I've already said goodbye to the Windows world.

As Jackie Huba from the Church of the Customer blog said to me the other day, Mac users are smarter AND cooler. Well I'll take any help I can get.

I really can't remember the last time it was actually fun to use a computer. But it sure is now.

Yesterday Brad Feld ranted a little bit suggesting that marketing is often the weakest link in a startup:

... "Marketing" is vague and non-specific, often poorly executed and measured, and usually a huge waste of money relative to the output. Oh – and while there are plenty of "tried and true" approaches (that any marketing consulting would be happy to charge you plenty of money to explain to you) – the effective approaches have been evolving a lot lately, especially as user-generated content becomes ubiquitious.

Several years ago, I suggested to my portfolio companies that they fire their VP of Marketing and hire a VP of Demand Generation (it could be the same person if the VP of Marketing was willing to accept a quota and meaningful, measurable variable compensation.)

[...]

Try something - for 24 hours, substitute the phrase "lead generation" for "marketing" in every conversation you have and see what happens.

As a marketer, I am certainly willing to commit to driving demand generation through an integrated marketing program. And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is too and take a chunk of my pay as a bonus based on hitting specific lead generation targets.

Well I'm generally a happy Apple customer, but not today. In the summer I purchased a Powerbook for my son. Just after that he heard that there was a deal to get a free iPod mini, or a $225 rebate on the purchase of another iPod. So we went and purchased a new iPod.

We then downloaded the PDF rebate form, and followed the instructions. I scanned the terms and conditions which were far too small to see in print and even on the screen, but nothing jumped out at me anyway. So we cut up the nice Apple boxes to get the UPC codes, and sent everything away.

Today I got a letter from the fulfillment house telling me that I wouldn't be getting the rebate because all of the products had to be purchased at the same time on the same sales receipt to get the rebate. This was not explained anywhere on the website when I purchased the products. I looked at the rebate form with a magnifying glass and sure enough the terms and conditions said that. Obviously Apple expected to be able to reduce the number of rebates they gave out using this little bit of fine print trickery.

So Apple saves $225, even though I purchased the products in good faith (though about a week apart which apparently matters to them) but they make a loyal customer (2 Powerbooks and 3 iPods so far) rethink his purchases, and think twice before accepting any offers from Apple without carefully reading the fine print.

Actually the more I think about it the more incensed I get realizing that I would not have bought a third iPod if I had not been misled by the Apple website. So for $225, just call me a very unhappy Apple customer, because this is what I will remember and tell everyone about, not how much I like my laptop.

Tags: apple fine print

The EFF exposes how in addition to the stealth installation of a DRM rootkit, the Sony End User License Agreement (EULA) removes your rights. My favorite is number 7:

7. If you file for bankruptcy, you have to delete all the music on your computer. Seriously

I'm surprised that nobody has yet created a marketplace for music that connects the musicians directly to the customers, eliminating the middleman. Combined with something like Pandora that would be an excellent way to find and purchase music. Of course there wouldn't be the immense marketing budget used to create star musicians, but perhaps the world would be saved from artists like