Parrotheader.com

I was sitting here working on my computer with Media Center running a TV show in the background when an iPhone commercial came on. Apple seems to have purchased the maximum ad inventory allowable on the Discovery Channel because I haven't seen a commercial break yet during the last 1.5 hours where there hasn't been an iPhone commercial.

By this point I've pretty much seen them all and wouldn't ordinarily pay attention, but it's amazing how your mind remembers certain images and something about this particular spot caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. I quickly shifted my gaze over to the commercial, but by this point the familiar image was already gone. I quickly rewound and discovered I was right. A site I had once worked extensively on (Kapalua resort in Maui) was one of the focal points for the commercial.

It's actually been a couple years since I've had anything to do with the site (although from the commercial I noticed that some of the copy I'd once worked with seems largely unchanged . . . probably because it works ;) ) but I still remember it well. It was my first in a series of well over a dozen Hawaii-based clients.

What's even more ironic is that I'd just used the site earlier this week as a case study in a pitch to a prospective client. It was the first time I'd actually thought about that particular project in many months and now it's bubbled to the surface twice in one week - the latter instance in obviously a very unexpected way.

This still isn't going to make me switch to AT&T just so I can have an iPhone. ;) But I thought it was cool nevertheless.

I live a sort of unique life as a Windows user. While Windows is still by far the dominant operating system of choice, I live in a world dominated by Macs. Out of a department of 10 people, I'm the only person using a Windows-based system (I'm not counting you Doug; you AT&T half-breed.) Out of an ad agency of 120+ people, maybe 50% use Windows-based systems. Out of the hundreds of websites and news-oriented blogs I frequent, the vast majority of those are written or managed by Mac users. My brothers uses a Mac. My cousin uses a Mac. Several of my friends use Macs. So why am I not on a Mac?

It's hard to pin down to any one thing really. While I like to joke about the cult-like following Apple products often seem to engender, I honestly have nothing against the systems themselves. Apple seems to make very high quality products in most of the markets they enter. I often recommend Macs to people whenever they ask me questions about buying a new computer. I probably could have even received a Macbook Pro during the last round of system upgrades at our office had I really pushed for it. But I just couldn't see the need. I'm not a developer and don't have any software needs that are Mac-specific like most of my co-workers. My Thinkpad suits my needs just fine and has never given me any major problems. Plus I'm not sure if I could give up the Thinkpad's keyboard and trackpoint now; if you're a touch-typist like I am these features are the embodiment of perfection.

At home I've been using Windows-based systems ever since the 386 days. However up until recently, the last store-bought system I purchased was during my sophomore year of college. Ever since then I've built my own systems, all of them running various flavors of Windows (with the occasional jaunt into Linux.) For the most part, Windows has never given me any major problems. With the exception of ME, I've run every flavor of the OS and think they really turned a major corner with Windows 2000 (still probably my favorite version to-date; it was light, fast and stable.) With XP automatic updates improved security dramatically. You rarely hear about widespread virus outbreaks these days like you did 5-6 years ago. The biggest threats now come via sophisticated spyware and social engineering (the latter of which is platform agnostic.)

I've obviously had numerous opportunities to use a Mac over the years. But when it came to paying for one out of my own pocket when I knew I could build my own reasonably-powerful system for dirt cheap it always just seemed so hard to justify the price. Now that the price gap has narrowed it's growing a bit easier to justify. In fact, I recently bought my first desktop system for the first time in over a decade. But it wasn't a Mac, it was an HP. To get a comparably-equipped iMac would've cost me over $1,000. I was able to pick up the HP for $470 (yes, it was on sale - it was usually $650.) Since I'm used to building systems for even less than that, that was a big enough transition for me.

Which brings me to Vista. The HP was the first experience I'd had with Vista. By now we've all heard about it. "Vista sucks" has been repeated so often it's now considered conventional wisdom. And I can understand the cause for alarm. It is different - easily the most significant change in the underpinnings since Windows 2000 (and undoubtedly the biggest user interface change since Windows 95.) And just like every previous release of a new version of Windows, there have been a lot of driver and compatibility issues during the first year. Much of the time, these problems are actually the fault of software and hardware developers. But since Windows is the face for the user's interaction, it's only natural for it to garner the majority of the blame. In fact, one of the reasons I chose to go with an HP instead of building my own system was my desire to avoid any driver issues. Even a longtime Windows user like myself was wary.

But once I had a chance to tinker with Vista, it really started to grow on me. There were a lot of little touches built into the system which left me pleasantly surprised. It wasn't a resource hog like I'd been conditioned to expect (the HP only had 1GB of RAM so I was worried about that.) It wasn't slow. The user account control feature wasn't annoying. It didn't have any compatibility issues with the wide range of programs I installed. In short, it worked. It even got to the point where I actually didn't like going back toXP due to some missing features I'd grown accustomed to in Vista.

This led me to my second experience with Vista. While the HP is supposed to be "Holly's computer" the other desktop in the house is most definitely all mine. Residing in my basement "man room" it serves as my gaming machine/file server for the rest of the house. This is my primary testbed for tinkering so I figured it was time to give Vista a try on my main frankencomputer. Having recently installed XP and Ubuntu Linux on a different system I was expecting an install involving a number of reboots and hours of downloading updates. But instead it was the smoothest install I've ever experienced. I was shocked. I had several non-standard components in this system (two different type TV tuner cards, a USB remote, an old webcam ) so I expected some headaches. Instead the system installed in about 20 minutes, automatically downloaded a few small updates, rebooted once and was ready to roll. My software works, my hardware works and my gaming is stable and fast (a major concern given how graphics drivers are usually the root cause of many many MANY problems.) It wasn't supposed to be like this was it?

Granted, I'm not the average user. Different people have different needs. And for the vast majority of people out there, they don't react well to change. So it'll be interesting to see how Vista fares as the natural upgrade cycle eventually forces the issue. Despite some pretty dramatic changes, the core familiarity should still be there for most people. My mother is now using it on her new laptop and seems to be getting around reasonably well (although I did have to uninstall some bloatware from her machine - most notably Google Desktop.) But unlike 6 years ago when Windows XP launched there are now a number of viable alternatives for mainstream users. Macs are of course the most obvious alternative choice, but even some of the various Linux flavors are becoming surprisingly user-friendly (so long as you just want to stick to basics like web surfing, email, office apps, etc.) Quite honestly, I don't see a whole lot of differentiation between the main systems \these days from an average user's perspective. In the grand scheme of things, the operating system market has evolved so much that the distinguishing factors have been relegated to small, individual features - which in turn are ironically trumpeted as major advancements since they're really the only way to market what are essentially just slightly different platforms.

Still, the perception of a greater difference is there. And I guess for the foreseeable future I'll most likely continue to be in the ironic position of a Windows user in a world full of Macs. So just like the affable PC guy in the commercials, I just wanted to say peace out to all my Mac homies.

My little girls have been oozing mucus like a leaky faucet over the last month. At one point even Holly fell prey to the bug, but she recovered fairly quickly. Now the girls seem to finally be getting over the worst of it. So naturally after miraculously avoiding the bug for close to a month it's my turn to be sick.

And the timing couldn't be better. It's not like I have a busy week ahead. Just two (possibly three) new business presentations during the first half of the week, a new client campaign that has to be launched ASAP and the usual start-of-the-month onslaught of monthly reports to top it all off. Yay!

I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw the following two articles juxtaposed on Techmeme just a few minutes ago (each in a separate thread.)

The Web 2.0 World is Skunk Drunk on Its Own Kool-Aid

Even though I enjoy many of these developments as a user, I'm increasingly agreeing with that sentiment from a business perspective. And as if to validate this point I then see this little gem just below it . . .

Cookie tracking: How Facebook could be worth $100 billion?

Wow! Cookie tracking. Brilliant! I can't believe this hasn't been thought of before! As an advertiser I'd actually welcome with open arms a robust platform with strong support outside the walls of Facebook. But let's not concern ourselves with details like total online ad spending is only expected to be a little over $20 billion this year with roughly 40% of that (and growing) already going to Google. And nevermind that Facebook (for all its traffic and hype) still only has ad revenue in the very low hundred millions versus many billions for companies like Google and Yahoo. It's the web 2.0 winter wonderland baby!

I'll be curious to see how this whole Hulu venture pans out. The media companies are throwing a whole lot of different business models at the wall right now to see what sticks. This one sounds like it might actually have potential if they play their cards right.

Hulu is NBC and Fox's supposed "YouTube" killer - even though it doesn't actually include user-generated content (if anything it might eventually be more directly in competition with other premium content providers like Itunes rather than YouTube.) A lot of articles I've read today have slighted Hulu on the omission of user-generated video. But I think that's entirely the point. User-generated content has its place and is definitely here to stay. But long-form, quality content from studios and media companies isn't going anywhere either and still has broader appeal. They can choose to try to fight it out on YouTube side-by-side with people hand-farting the Flintstones themesong. Or they can take their content (and ad revenue) and try to setup their own shop. If content is king, they may be making the correct choice.

The Hulu site itself is still in beta and will likely remain that way for awhile. But its content is already starting to pop-up on partner sites like Yahoo, AOL, MySpace, etc. Pretty much all the usual suspects except Google/YouTube.

I'm still hoping we'll eventually get to the point where we can get ad-supported content for download to portable devices. But nobody seems quite ready to make that jump yet. I'm also eager to see if they can develop a Media Center plugin for this content. It would seem an ideal match.

The power went down at our office early this morning and even though it's back up, apparently it did something to the A/C (which is blowing but not cooling.) When I arrived it was 77 degrees in my office, 5 degrees warmer than normal but tolerable. Within an hour it was 84 degrees in my office and steadily rising. If I had a job where I had to physically be in one location to perform my duties I would gladly wait it out. Fortunately, I can do my job from just about anywhere so I checked in with my boss and then took off. I'm now seated at McDonald's where I'd guestimate it's closing in on absolute zero.

But at least I have wifi.

A lot of times I'll just fire off a post without giving it too much thought. Something pops into my head and I just try to get it out as I'm typing. But maybe I was actually onto something in my last post.

As I was browsing through my rss feeds today, a thread on Techmeme caught my eye and led me to this New York Times article on how some ads can actually be seen as a form of entertainment and are actively sought out by viewers.

Their take on things was a little different. They were focused more on the details of new dedicated and social content sites. But the general concept (that people will actually stop or seek out known, entertaining ads) is similar to what I was talking about. For the record, I think most of those sites mentioned will likely fail, but it's always nice to see your thoughts validated by someone else to the point where the form entirely new businesses dedicated to that concept.

On an entirely different subject, my two most recent posts have made me realize I really need to do an overhaul of my site so I can have more room for my blogging related to my work (since I do a ton of reading and have a lot of thoughts in that area - some of which might not always be a good fit for my company blog.) I actually tinkered with the new release of Movable Type the other day (pretty slick) and might also give the more well-established Wordpress a thorough look as well.

Even though I work mostly in the online end of things, I'm still in marketing and work for a large, well-respected ad agency. And while I am an evangelist for the effectiveness of online marketing, I'm not as quick to assault older forms of advertising as others in my profession. Despite the diminishing effectiveness of TV advertising in the face of Tivos/DVRs, I still think it's a very potent medium. TV still has massive reach and gives people a common point of reference that the segmentation of the online world just can't touch.

"Did you see that episode of 24 last night?"

"I can't believe that dude on Man vs Wild drank water from elephant dung!"

"That catch was amazing!"

So TV still plays a major role. But what messages actually cut through the clutter? And which ads do people actually stop to watch, or even, seek out? Yes, they do exist. Just jump on YouTube and do a search for any random national commercial you like and odds are somebody's probably already uploaded it to be viewed by several tens of thousands of people (who also actively seeked it out.) I did the same thing last night and ended up viewing various commercials for longer than I'd care to admit.

Over the course of my browsing I came across many classic, older commercials and it occurred to me . . . why don't companies dust off some of their classic, proven advertising messages and re-run them? When a major band tours, they don't just play stuff off the current album. They also play their tried and true hits. Advertisers should do the same. Many of the more generic branding messages (without references to specific products, etc.) could be run pretty much as-is. I think it could carry a lot of positive nostalgia and help messages stand out.

Folgers still re-runs their old 'Peter' commercial around the holidays each year. And even though it might at first seem at odds with one of my company's core functions, I wish more companies would experiment with this on a limited scale. Here's some other old ads I stumbled across which I'd love to see resurrected.

So I'm sitting here working in my office with the door closed. I closed the door because I'm dog tired and I'm genuinely afraid I'll pass out with the door wide open for every person in the hall to see. Now I've never been one to need a ton of sleep, but a month of going to bed at 2:00a.m. and being awoken at ~6:00a.m. is starting to catch up with me. Even though Holly handles the morning feedings I still have a hard time going back to sleep (and it's never that deep, restful sleep.)

As I was typoing away I suddenly see a couple pieces of mail being passed under the door (they'll do that sometimes rather than disturb you by knocking.) One of the mail items was a quarterly newsletter from a company promoting employee physical and mental health. The headline of this edition?

Sleep: More Important Than You Think!

No $#*%!

I'm no fan of Jason Calicanis. Actually that's not really true. I respect the heck out of the guy as an entrepreneur and a self-promoter. He has a cocky, somewhat abrasive demeanor (at least online) that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. But I admire the way he riles up certain people (SEOs) while simultaneously setting up a site whose entire business model is based on SEO. Oscar Wilde would be proud.

But on this particular opinion, I'm increasingly in agreement. And unlike Jason, I'm not even using Facebook all that much nor aggressively seeking friends. Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see the point. It's a great site for what it is. It's clean and functional. I understand the potential for all the apps (even though most of them are throwaways.) I get the groups. I realize a lot of people love it. But is it REALLY that different in the grand scheme of things?

And it's not just Facebook. There's so many social networks popping up now it's impossible to keep track of them all, much less participate in them. There's a slowly growing movement now towards trying to consolidate the functionality (Facebook's aiming for that as will Google and Yahoo with their upcoming networks.) And I welcome that.

But how many of these connections are really unique? One of Facebook's big hooks is that it supposedly minimizes the veil of online anonymity. It's supposed to be more of a real world reflection of yourself and actual friends/acquaintances. But even then, is leaving a quick comment on someone's 'wall' or adding a newsreader app that you could get at any of a dozen other sites that big a deal? I don't mean to sound like a curmudgeon and I'm not knocking casual or online interaction (far from it - it's what makes the net great.) But at some point we spend so much time going through the motions of managing proper social netiquette in all its various flavors that we run out of time and lose touch with reality.

I don't mean to rant. And unlike Jason I'll probably continue to use Facebook (if nothing else so I can see what's going on - since it is a walled garden.)

I have to go now. My baby here in the real world is crying. Somebody send her a Facebook gift to cheer her up.

There's only one place in my office building where you don't want to be when the power goes out. Actually, I guess there's two places if you count the elevator. But the other place you don't want to find yourself in is the bathroom.

For some reason our bathrooms don't have emergency lights. So if the lights go out, you're instantly plunged into a world of total blackness that you can only find if you're a regular spelunker. Needless to say, this can be quite the predicament, especially for guys as we sometimes need visual contact with the target depending upon the task at hand. Your eyes can't adjust, so what to do?

Just whip out the other object in your pocket of course - your cell phone. Mine's a flip phone so simply opening it will create an instant source of light (just be careful if you have to flip it open with one hand though; if you drop that your situation will go from bad to worse.) And pressing a button brings an even brighter beam of light, more than enough to get the job done and navigate the confines of the bathroom.

This is all just handy 'what if' advice of course. Yep. I've never had to this. Nope. Not me.

Yahoo created a bit of a stir last month when they announced they were closing down Yahoo Photos to try to consolidate all their efforts into Flickr. It was a good move in my opinion, even though Yahoo Photos technically had more users. The services were too redundant and in a stock market where mind-share equals market-share, Flickr is the clear leader in the photo community and the best chance for Yahoo to maintain that position against other competitors. Search engine guru Danny Sullivan has even commented on how Google employees prefer Flickr over their own Picasa Web Albums (which is actually very nice; and the Picasa software is fantastic.)

But lost in the headlines of that announcement was another passing line which didn't seem to get much attention - Flickr will soon be adding video services to their repertoire (very last line of the story.)

It'll be interesting to see how this is received. I have no doubts that some in the Flickr community will immediately complain and speak of how Flickr has jumped the shark. But it seems like it was an inevitable progression, in fact I'm surprised it has taken this long. Even two of Flickr's strongest competitors (Photobucket and Picasa Web Albums) now allow for online video hosting.

The biggest thing to watch will be how they handle the issue of copyrighted materials. Given Flickr's prominence (Flickr is often considered the YouTube of photos and vice versa) there will certainly be the possibility that Yahoo (or even Flickr users) could try to utilize the site as a YouTube competitor. And that could be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view and how they might actually implement it. But Yahoo's also aware of the mountain of lawsuits that come with that territory (YouTube wasn't sued until Google and its deep pockets bought them.) It would definitely be a big gamble.

I for one have been hoping for this service for quite some time. I have no doubts Flickr will implement the actual design, mechanics and formatting with the same touches that have made their photo hosting so popular. And while other video sites like Blip.tv and Vimeo have positioned themselves as great Flickr-like alternatives for video, nothing would beat having the same community that already exists in Flickr. Any site can host video, and put together a nice interface these days. It's the community and user-base which drive the sites. And with so many options for social networks these days I'd actually welcome a little consolidation for some of these core areas rather than spreading things so thin. I love competition and all these tech toys as much as anyone. But after awhile, it gets too time consuming to try to pick up and rebuild the same thing over and over and over again.

I think I may not be alone in that sentiment either. Even though there's increasing interoperability between networks, this is one of the reasons why AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo continue to dominate the instant messaging world while Google (for all its success in other areas) is having a harder time making headway. It might also explain why MySpace continues to grow in spite of Facebook's success and critical acclaim.

There will always be strong vertical and niche networks. And for certain areas (or people) it's easier to maintain a number of similar networks. But it'll be interesting to see if we soon start to see a gradual reversal or slowdown in the current Web 2.0 trend of ever-increasing specialized networks. There's only 24 hours in the day and the ties that define a social network are also the ones that make them the toughest to break.

Since I recently upgraded and reformatted my system, I was trying to install a fresh copy of Half-Life 2 tonight. But I started running into a very troubling error. About halfway through the 5-CD install (I bought the game when it first came out before they had a DVD version available) one of the installation files kept generating an error. I don't know if it was just a flaky CD or something else, but I re-ran the install several times and still ran into the same issue. As a result, I was unable to install the game.

I was VERY frustrated. Here was a great game I'd paid good money for that I suddenly couldn't play just because there was apparently something wrong with one of the install CDs that I'd bought a few years ago. Fortunately, I now have to eat a little crow about a system I've complained about in the past.

Valve (the makers of the game) have an online platform for distribution, DRM and multiplayer management called Steam. My main source of contact with Steam in the past (and this was mostly a couple years ago) has been with its DRM functionality. Basically, to play any Valve game you had to first login through Steam and have them validate your copy before you're allowed to play. Back then it was extremely annoying as it did this every time, even for single-player games. There was also the issue of Valve forcing/pushing upgrades to Steam or your games, regardless of whether you wanted them or not. And if an update was scheduled or in progress you couldn't play the game. With servers that were often overloaded and the Steam software unstable on the user's end it made for a very frustrating experience and highlighted the potential weaknesses to this type of system.

But Valve has apparently got most of the bugs sorted out over the last couple years. In fact my confidence in the system improved enough that I actually bought a unique little game called The Ship through Steam last summer. The experience was flawless. But tonight Steam's paying its biggest dividends yet.

After my frustrating CD experience, I installed Steam (via their website) logged into my account and it showed a list of all "My games." Half-Life 2 was included on this list. So I simply highlighted it and clicked Install. It's now downloading a copy of the latest version of the game at over 525 KB/s. Granted, I'll have to wait about 1.5 hours for the 3+ GB download. But I could care less. I'm just thrilled that I still have access to my game.

I realize I'm well behind the curve on this when it comes to hardcore gamers who've been more openly embracing this style system for the last couple years. But I'm not a hardcore gamer and I liked the feeling of security of having a local, physical copy of my property (for what little good that did me in this instance.) There's still weaknesses to a centralized system like this. And there's certain types of data I'd still rather not have stored remotely on a prime, known target like that. But this experience also displays the potential strengths of this type of system when managed well.

I’ve recently been shopping around comparing online ad serving platforms for our clients at work. I’ve worked with a couple of these systems before and most of them are generally the same with very little differentiation when it comes to the underlying feature sets that the vast majority of customers will actually use. Yet the price differences between these platforms is immense.

Basic, no frills ad serving platforms like Mojo Adserver go for a fraction of the cost of the two industry giants (DART from Doubleclick and Atlas from Aquantive.) And Mojo itself isn’t exactly dirt cheap. I recently had a conversation by phone with a Doublclick sales rep and she basically ended up laughing at me when we started talking about price. Even though her 401k likely quintupled in the wake of Google’s acquisition of her company, I still feel a bit vindicated knowing that their platform (with pricing starting in 5-figures) will now likely be given away for free.

But back to my original point. Why are DART and Atlas so much more expensive than a similar product like Mojo AdServer? Because they’re pretty. That’s actually over-simplifying it a bit, but it doesn’t really miss the mark either. DART is basically the industry gold standard and because of that they can charge a premium. With all that extra income they can then turn around and make nicer-looking reports that basically tell you the same thing a more basic chart or spreadsheet could convey. Atlas (which Microsoft just bought) takes that slick look to an even higher level with eye-popping reports that are sure to impress executives and professional marketers alike.

Why am I boring you with this post? Who knows. Perhaps this is a test to see who’s still reading. But I know what prompted it and that’s probably the real reason why I’m writing anyway.

I was at Publix earlier tonight doing our family’s grocery shopping (yes, yes, I know - what a rocking way to spend a Saturday night.) As I was in the produce section trying to figure out what exactly constitutes a good plumb tomato I witnessed one of the many small things that keeps me coming back to that store. I heard a rumble of thunder and suddenly a spray of water began misting the lettuce and other leafy greens.

Ahhhhhhhhh. So calming. So satisfying. So reassuring. I could stay here and listen to this forever (especially since we’ve forgotten what rain looks like.) But it’s basically just window-dressing for a simple maintenance operation. Yet in this instance, I appreciate the cheesy show and consider it some sort of bizarre added value to my overall shopping experience. And it’s one of the many little things that makes me willing to pay a premium by shopping at Publix instead of less-expensive grocery stores (although a lot of cheaper grocery stores now have these systems as well.)

As with all things, I suppose it just varies depending upon your priorities. When it comes to grocery shopping, I'm willing to pay a premium for a pleasant shopping experience. When it comes to ad servers, I don't see the need (and thanks to Google and Microsoft's posturing I may no longer have to.)

I know I've posted on this previously, but as I said before, the topic fascinates me. And I enjoyed the irony of seeing an article on the mob mentality at social news sites pop-up on my RSS feed for Digg.

I still frequent Digg because it's such a big, fascinating place. And I really do find the occasional interesting story there (if nothing else due to sheer volume.) But at the same time, I continue to be leery of what the 'social' behavior on it portends for the future of the web and our culture as a whole.

As far as other 'social' and 'Web 2.0' style services of the Digg-ilk that I more thoroughly enjoy:

Del.icio.us = A social bookmarking site. The fact that it's less about news (although there's still plenty of that as well) and more about actual bookmarking and categorizing pages in some semi-meaningful manner makes it overall goals somewhat more lofty and useful than news-oriented sites like Digg.

StumbleUpon = At the other end of the spectrum, for sheer random browsing I'm loving this service. Granted, it requires a small toolbar. But it's so small I tucked it up in the corner next to the address bar and it's fine. Basically you choose your interests and whenever you feel like seeing a random site related to something in those areas you click on your 'Stumble' button and a site that other people in that interest area liked is loaded into your active window. You can give these sites (or any site you come across during your own browsing) a Tivo-like thumbs-up or thumbs-down. There's other social networking aspects as well, but I've yet to use any of those. It's just fun for random browsing.

I need to follow my instincts more and start grazing on a regular basis so I can save a few bucks.

Most of my department likes to go to lunch a little early - around 11:30 (actually 11:30 on the dot most days) so they can beat the peak of the lunchtime crowds. I'll go sometimes so I can get a chance to hang out with everybody. But I usually don't get really hungry until closer to 12:30-1:00 (plus I prefer having a short afternoon when I come back from lunch.) So I'll often just stay in and wait until my stomach says it's ready. And I've discovered a nice little trend in doing so.

It's almost like clockwork. Everyday around 12:30-1:00 one or more working lunch meetings will be getting out of one of our conference rooms. And invariably those meetings will have ordered WAY too much food. The leftovers will quickly make their way to one of our break rooms where the food (assuming it's something desirable) is soon devoured by the rest of the office as they inadvertently discover the prize on their way to get something to drink.

You can even tell the difference between the food for an internal meeting v/s a client meeting too. A client meeting will usually have more upscale lunch cuisine - gourmet deli sandwiches, fancy pasta plates, pastries, etc. An internal meeting usually features more utilitarian grub - pizza, BBQ, chicken fingers, cookies, etc. Sometimes less formal client meetings will also get the internal meeting fare too depending upon the client. I personally prefer the internal meeting food more, but I won't knock the alternative if it's free.

Nothing's more frustrating though than paying for a nice lunch and then coming back to find an even better (and free) lunch waiting at the office. Today I had to run some errands and picked up a grilled shrimp po-boy to bring back to the office. I walked into the kitchen to grab a drink (we get free sodas) and found a buffet of Dreamland BBQ just begging to be eaten. *sigh* Now I usually LOVE a great shrimp po-boy, but good BBQ is just tough to pass up. I grabbed a little to accompany the lunch I'd already paid too much for (note to readers: the new City Diner in Vestavia is nice, but not a cheap place for lunch.) Oh well, live and learn.

On the plus side, one of the two lunch meetings today apparently had a ton of leftover beer so I was at least able to enhance the shrimp po-boy experience a little more than I'd previously planned.

As I was perusing my work-related RSS feeds I came across an entry on the blog for the superstar of the search engine marketing field (well a geeky superstar anyway), Danny Sullivan. It was a rare item with an image embedded in the RSS feed so I just had to click it. The post was for a flash game called Search Engine Smackdown. I played around with it a few times and got as high as #2 thanks to a couple questions I'd already answered previously and one lucky guess. Yay me.

By the time I post this I'm sure I'll no doubt be knocked down out of the top 10. But it was a funny game, at least for those of us in the SEO field. Most other people could care less no doubt. For everyone else might I recommend the tried and true classic . . . .

Spear Toss

A lot of people have multiple free accounts from sites like Google and Yahoo. Most people in this situation typically seem to have just a couple, one for their primary login and one for registrations that might generate potential spam. I too have accounts for these purposes.

But that thinking doesn't always work well and is too simplistic as the offerings from the modern Google and Yahoo go far beyond just email. The whole idea of a user ID now is to serve as a passport allowing you to float seamlessly from subproperty-to-subproperty of these mega portals. I was thinking it through and these are just some of the services that I regularly use at these two giants:

GOOGLE: Blogger, Gmail, YouTube, Groups, Pages, Mini/Enterprise, Adwords, Analytics, Webmaster Central; software - Picasa, Urchin, Toolbar

YAHOO: Mail, Flickr, MyYahoo, Delicious, News/Sports, Local, Answers, Launchcast, TV, Pipes, Yahoo SEM, Site Explorer; software - Widgets, Messenger

For the average person, a single ID should get you around most of these properties just fine. But for somebody managing advertising, analytics, site feeds, etc. for multiple sites it can quickly grow unwieldy. I can consolidate management of some services (such as multiple AdWords accounts) under the umbrella of larger Client Manager account. And whenever possible we try to utilize similar functionality for other services such as Google Analytics and Webmaster Central. But in instances where the client wants direct login access to a particular tool we sometimes have to use a separate login for that account in order to keep the data of our other clients confidential.

Then there's the whole divide between professional and personal accounts. I'm currently logged into my personal Google account so I can post this blog entry. But most of the time I'm logged into my primary professional Google account for work purposes. Anytime I wanted to post a blog entry or check my personal email I have to logout of my work Google account and then log back into my personal Google account. I finally just made my work Google account a contributor to this blog so I can post to it without having to change logins. If I used Google Docs and Bookmarks I don't know what I'd do.

THEN there's the issue of multiple people with Google/Yahoo IDs sharing the same computer. I set my wife up with Gmail for her primary personal email and (out of kindness to her) I leave her permanently logged in our main system so she can see when she has new email. I realize I could just use a separate Windows login to run my own profile where my account is also permanently logged-in. But my geeky side is more a control freak so I like for us to both keep our content/programs organized under one interface.

I'm a big fan of both of these sites and will continue to use their offerings. I just hope they can develop a more robust user account management system so their heaviest users (like me) don't have to maintain a laundry list of account IDs and passwords for their day-to-day usage.

While I love the weekly Diggnation podcast from Digg.com founder Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht, I'm still sometimes wary of what Digg portends for the web as a whole.

As a web marketer and fellow geek I know I should theoretically embrace the idea of social media and the whole nebulous Web 2.0 concept. It's a self-powered force that drives tons of traffic and creates new, interesting content. But at the same time, the mob mentality that seems to prevail at Digg (and is indeed, the very driving force behind Digg) is definitely something that can be more than a little unsettling.

To be fair, Digg is hardly unique in this respect. Many other social bookmarking and news sites feature the same behavior to varying degrees. Digg just happens to be the most visible site at the moment where this phenomenon is so vividly on display. I keep thinking at some point the site will reach a critical mass where a broader cross-section of users will create more effective self-policing similar to what we find on other social sites such as Flickr and (to a lesser extent) YouTube. But thus far that doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps one of the myriad of new Digg clones from services with broader audiences such as Netscape, Yahoo, or (I can't believe I'm saying this) MySpace will be more effective in this regard.

. . . I have a nice long post on this just aching to get out. It would talk about things like:

• the phenomenon of fanboys.
• the irony of enabling everyone with the power to create/drive content could also be potentially be seen (or at least exploited by a few) as the system's biggest weakness where unconfirmed rumors and extreme opinion gain traction and credibility while more mundane reality is often ignored.
  
• how the impact of this content could even sway supposedly impartial arbitrators such as search engine ranking algorithms given their heavy dependence on linking.
  
• how it ties into the underpinnings of our culture in regard to democracy (and the important distinction between it and our actual form or government - a representative republic.)
  

Perhaps I'll soon sit down, edit this entry and flesh out these abstract ideas into a more coherent post. Even though I sometimes find segments of these developments unsettling it's still an extremely fascinating topic. But at the moment I'm just too tired. In the meantime, there's a myriad of interesting stories already out there on the topic that echo some of these points.

Why the Wisdom of Crowds Fails on Digg
Digg and the Mob Mentality
GroupThink at Digg
The Wisdom of Crowds

Has any company ever gotten more (pardon the pun) mileage out of a commercial's creative than Enterprise Rent-A-Car and that quick shot of the packaged car at the end?

How long have they been using that shot now? I think it's been since at least the mid-90s, if not earlier. That clearly looks like a Chevy Lumina, Corsica or some other fleet vehicle of that era.

Besides the staleness of that one shot though, my biggest pet peeve about that commercial is the fact that it's now 2006 (almost 2007) and the guy's still saying "Class of '94, here I come" in reference to his high school reunion. Now I'm a '94 grad too. But I must have missed the invite to my 12 and 13-year reunions. I also wonder how the girls who are so vain as to be impressed by his Cadillac somehow missed the big green Enterprise Rent-A-Car sticker that would no doubt be hanging off his pimp rental.

I know I'm giving it too much thought. It's just a 15-second commercial. And I actually find the guy who plays Moose likable and funny (most notably in the Capital One spots.) But after you see the spot for the 20,000th time you can't help but nitpick the details and notice that the very dialog epitomizes a company that doesn't seem to care that it's advertising and overall image is stale. Enterprise, update your ad. Please. And while you're at it, gift wrap a car from this era.