Altyrian View

First, the prank:

I found this on the YouTube home page, and I assumed that it was a featured video. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the vid was placed where ads normally sit. In other words, this is actually a paid advertisement for OfficeMax.

This is extremely clever, and I watched the entire 1:17 vid waiting to see what happened. Now, while I think this is cool, I can imagine that OfficeMax will get plenty of people who want to pay with pennies.

I don’t want to ruin the ad for you, but there is an excellent marketing message here.

That’s my Altyrian View.

My good friend Jesse reads news from across the pond and sent me this interesting piece from the Times. It seems that UK bookstores are getting these giant printers that can be used to print books on demand. Think about it: You visit a bookstore and browse for books. You don’t find the one that you are looking for so you go to the back desk. They don’t have a copy of the book in stock, but in less than 10 minutes, they can print you one. The possibilities are endless.

Let’s face it, the Internet and electronic readers are not going to kill printed books. The biggest problem with books in my opinion is they can be painful to get. With the Internet, I can get any information that I need in a few clicks. Sure, I can find any book, but I have to wait a few days to get it in the mail. And that assumes, of course, that the book is still in print. And visiting the bookstore might not yield any results because of the physical limitations to having as many books as online retailers offer. We are to much of a “now” culture to wait for books.

Now, books that are in print, out of print, rare, popular are available to me in less than 10 minutes. What’s more, authors can sell books without printing the first copy. We are about to see another explosion of self-publishing mayhem. It’s my prediction that if these on demand publishers hit the states, we will see a complete shift in the bookstore business model.

And that’s my Altyrian View.

As we truck toward November, the political season is really heating up for some. Many candidates this year have chosen to embrace social media, and I think that it’s great that they have chosen these venues to promote their positions on important issues and to help the American people to make informed choices in these elections.

As a North Carolinian, I was excited that our senator turned presidential candidate was grabbing social media with both hands. In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a John Edwards supporter, but I did admire his use of non-traditional outlets to spread his messages. That was, of course, until he conceded the Democratic nomination for president. Although there are a few examples, let look at Twitter:

To the best of my knowledge, Edwards was first on Twitter, and how cool it was! The posts looked like they were coming right from John Edwards’s Blackberry. Here’s one example:

On my way to the 27th stop of our bus tour through Iowa. Can’t believe we only have 1 day left. Elizabeth, the kids and I are having a blast.

Note the use of first person. Now, I think that Edwards had a staffer writing these messages, and so what if he did. They appeared to be from him, and they certainly generated some excitement about the campaign from the more than 5,500 people following him (there might have been more; that is of today).

Then Edwards dropped out of the race. I could be wrong, but he has not dropped out of politics, just this particular race. He could be running for vice president (very doubtful) or even for president in four years. BUT EDWARDS DROPPED THE BALL. Edwards just stopped posting on Twitter. Instead of giving his followers a short farewell, he just stops posting.

If the candidates are going to use social media, they have to be sincere in its use.

That’s my Altyrian View.

There have been rumblings all over the blogger communities: Blog entries are producing fewer and fewer comments. Are blogs dying?

This blog, as an example, has never been heavily commented. Most posts go without comment, but as time has gone on, more and more people are reading this blog and listening to the podcast. Some podcast episodes have been downloaded 5,000 or more times. About 1,000 people read these posts each month. Sure, there are blogs that have many, many more readers, but I’m pretty pleased to share my thoughts with as many followers. And amazingly, my readership is increasing.

I think that people are using blogs differently than they were a short year ago. Instead of using blogs as a place to start conversations, most are following far too many blogs to comment on each one. They are using blogs to keep up with news in their industry or their areas of interest. The posts that generate the most comments are those that are highly controversial or lend themselves to comments (virtual polls for example).

What worries me about the future of blogging is not the lack of comments, but impact that the lack of comments will have on bloggers. Many blog for that feedback and community. Although the community still exists, it is not providing the feedback. Will some bloggers choose not to blog because they aren’t getting the feedback that they desire?

Ever want to know the secrets of media buying? John has a sit-down with a former media sales rep. VIDEO VERSION
Watch part one here, and then visit YouTube for part 2.

Ever want to know the secrets of media buying? John has a sit-down with a former media sales rep. AUDIO VERSION

As always, we want your feedback. You can send audio comments or email comments to our feedback email.

No, this is not a post about ths Apple iPhone much loved app store. Although it is amazingly nice to use, there are plenty of articles that extoll it’s wonderful features and applications (one such application, the Wordpress app, is being used to write this post).

This post is about one small application - a game - that points to things to come: iPint.

iPint is a cute little game where you tilt your iPhone to get a beer from one end of the bar to another. Nothing new here. What makes this wothy of a marketing blog post is that along the way you pass coaster and signs for Carling beer, the brewer that manufactured the game.

Product placement in video games is not new. My kids raced the king on a Burger King xbox game. This is exciting because just as companies are scambling to get their marketing messages on cell phones, Carling might have uncovered one that will mean more product related games on cell phones.

So, in the spirit of fun, here are some games that might be next:

- iLiner: Land the airplane on the runway. Sponsored by Southwest. You get bonus miles if you land on time.

- iTwitter: Tap as fast as you can to keep the servers running. If the servers crash, the whale gets you.

- iWindows: Help PC crush that annoying Mac guy.

The following is a blog post from Altyris intern Eunhee Lee. As part of the internship, we have set up a blog at interns.altyrianview.com. I shamelessly stole her post because more people should be able to read it. Well done, Eunhee!

I recently read an article about the court’s decision on FCC’s charge on CBS for “indecent exposure” during Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s halftime performance during the 2004 Super Bowl. The court overruled 2-to-1 the fines and charges made by the FCC on the basis that Jackson and Timberlake are not CBS employees but independent contractors and certain “fleeting” incidents are hard to prevent no matter what measures are taken, especially on live programming like the Super Bowl. And while I believe that the FCC has good intentions and several of their regulations are beneficial, I have to agree with the court and side with the broadcasters. Couple reasons for this:

1) Some things can’t be controlled. Let’s be real. CBS could have done everything within their powers to prevent incidents, but in a live program where they don’t have authority over the people on air, Janet’s exposure couldn’t be censored.

2) If the FCC won the case and starts charging broadcasters for “fleeting” incidents, who knows what they’ll try to control next. Again, I agree with some of their regulations like disallowing targeting tobacco products to minors and no underage persons on alcohol advertisments. I even agree with regulations against targeting very young children (fast-food companies shouldn’t lure toddlers in with toys. Childhood obesity in America is a growing problem and if I had children, I wouldn’t want them watching Elmo or Pokemon trying to sell them a 1,000-calorie kid’s meal). But what if eventually a beach vacation ad isn’t allowed to show a family in swimsuits (which if you really think about it, swimsuits are like quick-drying underwear) because young audiences don’t need to see “half-naked” people on ads? Hanes, Jockee, Fruit of the Loom and any other underwear manufacturer will have to find new strategies for promoting their “intimate apparel.” What if you couldn’t find out about Wendy’s dollar menu because companies aren’t allowed to promote anything that doesn’t follow the food pyramid? Admittedly, this is a bit of a stretch, but the point is that censorship has its limits.

We wouldn’t be America without freedom of speech (though I suppose we wouldn’t be America without people wanting to regulate and challenge our freedoms either). Television broadcasters don’t put up programs that people don’t want to watch; they put up programs that people do. And while I don’t think children should be exposed to vulgar languages and images on television or anywhere else, I believe it’s up to parents to regulate what their children watch.