Klimm sinks oyster bag plan (March 30, 2007)
Victory for oyster-bag opponents, defeat for commercial clammers in Osterville.
“They ruin the view.
But, more importantly, Barnstable Town Manager John Klimm decided yesterday, the bottom tackle under the floating oyster bags in West Bay are a potential navigational hazard to recreational boat users and other fishermen who use ”one of the most pristine and scenic waterfront residential areas of the town of Barnstable.”
DoubleClick Sale Could Risk Publisher Exodus
News from ClickZ that DoubleClick is in play and could be sold — something we knew was coming after they were snapped up by a private equity outfit. MSN and Google are mentioned as contenders. Ad serving is the central nervous system of display advertising and integrating the data stream that comes out of an ad server’s cookie logs is crucial to an advertiser like me trying to correctly assign revenue recognition to specific campaigns. Thinking back to the old days of NetGravity at Forbes.com (which was acquired by DoubleClick), to the hell-on-earth known as ad ops at CIO.com (ad ops is the unwanted step-child of online publishing), to the potential of behavioral optimization, dynamic creative, and mid-campaign retrafficking …
The story is right, it’s a “Stale World,” but one I get worked up about after a couple beers.
“The stale world of online ad serving just got interesting again, as a possible acquisition of ad management firm DoubleClick was floated yesterday. According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft or another buyer may grab the ad serving colossus soon. If a deal with Microsoft does become reality, it would boost the firm’s online ad capabilities and make for readymade relationships with advertisers and agencies. However, it could put DoubleClick in hot water with its publisher clients, including AOL, which would be loathe to let the company access user data flowing through DoubleClick’s DART ad serving system, and which compete directly with Microsoft’s MSN for ad dollars. Indeed, AOL could be a potential buyer, some believe.”
BBC NEWS | Business | Web ad spend overtakes newspapers
“Spending on UK internet advertising surged in 2006, overtaking newspaper ads for the first time, a report says.Online advertising expenditure jumped 41.2% to £2.01bn during the year, the report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers said.”
JetBlue knows how to dig out of a hole. I just received this email from them, out of the …blue.
“Thank you for flying with JetBlue Airways on flight #1001 from Boston on March 26, 2007. We apologize that the DIRECTV® programming was inoperable during your flight.
As a gesture of apology and goodwill, we have issued each customer on your flight a $10 JetBlue electronic voucher.”
I didn’t complain. Heck. I don’t even watch the TV but use the time to take a machete to my inbox while listening to the opera (Vox) channel on XM. But, someone did and JetBlue took the time to email everyone else on the flight with a make-good.
Amazing how a little gesture can go so far. Amazon sent me something once, like the first year they were in business. I forget what the gift was, but, ten years later, I can still write about it. Peet’s just sent me a cheap travel mug-thing. I love Peet’s, their French Roast drip grind is my main vice. JetBlue just moved into legendary category with their make-good for a mistake I didn’t know about.
The Long Tail: The Microsoft Memo: Some choose radical transparency, some have it thrust upon them
A good buddy and former journalism colleague called and said, “Dude, check out TechMeme, and look at the b.s. being slung about the Microsoft memo.”
Here’s the elevator summary: Chris Anderson, Wired’s editor, blogs about how Microsoft’s PR firm, Waggener-Edstrom “inadvertently” sent an internal memo discussing how Wired’s reporter, one Fred Vogelstein, was working a story; in fact the current cover story on the new trend towards corporate transparency.
Two points and then I’ll shut up.
1. PR firms are paid to profile reporters, anticipate their questions, know their biases, and study them like E.O. Wilson studies ants. The “oh my” reaction to this practice is complete naivety. This isn’t J. Edgar Microsoft.
2. Coincidence that the company that now personifies corporate transparency because of the ground broken with its corporate blog policy, Channel 9, and the ineffable Mr. Scoble, would happen to be the one “inadvertently” releasing an internal PR memo on that same story? I think not. Look at the buzzfest and I have to send a huge attaboy to whoever came up with the move … I salute you.
Here’s what Mr. Anderson wrote:
“…Yet the old company culture is not gone, as evidenced by an executive briefing memo from Microsoft’s PR firm, Waggener Edstrom, that Vogelstein was inadvertently sent in the body of a scheduling email. At nearly 6,000 words, it’s an amazing document and a telling counterpoint to the laissez-faire spirit of the open blogging initiative. Because it so aptly illustrates the parallel open vs. closed cultures that now exist at Microsoft, as in any big company trying to evolve a command-and-control messaging process to an out-of-control age, we decided to post the whole thing online in the spirit of transparency.
The memo coaches the executives on what to say and what not to say. It talks about Vogelstein’s interviewing style and possible biases (also how he’s “tricky” and “digs for dirt”–the memo cautions the executives to avoid certain paths and to watch out for traps). Here’s an example (emphasis in the original):
“”He is digging for tension where it does not exist. We have to be hard core on this point and communicate in no uncertain terms the level of executive commitment and support for Channel 9 and 10 [Microsoft’s videoblogging efforts]””
On a personal note, it’s kind of freaky to read the memo describe how I was wooed (even manipulated, if you want to think of it that way) into commissioning the piece”
On another note, Fake Steve Jobs is demanding outraged nerds flock to their local newsstand and buy up all the copies of this issue to protest the placement of a nekkid lady on the cover.
Magnosticism
“I will never have as much fun as I did in the PC Week newsroom during the late ’80s and early ’90s. It’s too bad that the leaders of great publications like PC Week and InfoWorld let new competition (CNet), new media (the Web) and a paryalyzing unwillingness to embrace new publishing models pull the rug out from underneath them. The writing was on the wall for print rags like InfoWorld long ago; look for others to follow.”
Amen. I am tempted to disagree with the “never have as much fun” part — Forbes.com in 1995 did that for me. But Rob is dead on, PC Week vs. InfoWorld was a classic war between newspapers.
So says Sam Whitmore at his MediaSurvey [registration required], where the homepage headline says:
“InfoWorld to Fold its Print Edition
Online is now king. The announcement is due Monday.”
No details available, and I’m too lazy to phone Sam to find out on a blustery Sunday, but if true, it’s not a big surprise, nor, does it mean anything especially dire or negative about the ongoing strength of the InfoWorld franchise online. I was at IDG two years ago, I knew its managers and editors, and the plan at IDG was to go hard in the direction of online at all possible velocity. Print is superfluous — only a delivery medium, nothing more — and seeing the cessation of one delivery medium for an emphasis on another is more a nostalgic thing than anything else, but I concede, a big piece of news nevertheless.
Jim Forbes, an ex-InfoWorld reporter and former colleague of mine at PC Week, delivers a great paean to one of the greatest names in tech journalism, home to legends such as John Markoff, former McKinsey-colleague Paul Freiberger, John Dvorak, Stewart Alsop …
“InfoWorld, which is owned by IDG, has a storied history. In its more than 20-year life, this magazine has been the launchpad for several notable computer journalists including Stewart Alsop, Maggie Canon, John Dvorak, Jonathan Sacks, Ziff Brother’s Investment counselor Michael Miller, PBS’ Mark Stephens (who left InfoWorld with the name of the magazine’s fictional field editor and gossip columnist, Robert Cringely) as well as New York Times technology journalists Laurie Flynn and John Markoff.”
In February IDG’s Colin Crawford, who coordinates the company’s online strategy, wrote these prescient words:
“In the US, our online revenue now accounts for over 35% of our total US publishing revenues. Next year, for many brands online revenues will be greater than print revenues, if fact they already are at some of our key brands and by 2009 – approximately 50% of IDG’s US revenues will come from online.
To drive this change and to focus on online revenue we’ve changed the business mission of our organization away from print. Going forward IDG Communications will define itself as a web centric information company complemented by expos, events and print publications.
The brutal reality that we’re facing today is the costly process of dismantling and replacing legacy operations and cultures and business models with ones with new and yet to be fully proven business models. However, we face greater risks if we don’t transform our organization and take some chances.”
3.26 – RTP
3.27 – RTP
3.28 – Connecticut
3.29-4.1 – Cotuit
Sunday morning erg piece was marred by a USB failure between the erg and RowPro — the software I use to log my meters and plan the workouts — so it was a straight up old-school, use-the-erg-monitor piece, but …
My iPod Nano was frozen and wouldn’t play, which meant for 19 minutes and 18.6 seconds I had to listen to the flywheel fan inhale and exhale along with my desperate wheezing. Afraid to get on a scale, but now able to handle over 20 minutes of sub 1:58 pace which is a good thing indeed. My lungs are opening up and my VO2 max is improving judging from my heart rate which is trending down into the high-150s.