I was going to post my opinion about the anti-Sicko Michael Moore post someone at Google posted a couple days back but now they recanted and I just read a perfect summary and report from MA at TechCrunch.
The movie, Turner said, “fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care.†More than a few people disagree with that statement, and were immediately turned off by Turner’s comments. Particularly since there was a clear profit motive to the post – getting more advertising dollars.
Knowing how rampant blogging is over at Google it’s just crazy to see there are no policies in order to censer the employees. Censoring has some very negative connotations but without it for corporate blogging a single person that gravely misrepresent an entire company with thousands of employees.
I really try not to fall into the hype of the iPhone but with all of it’s failings (no 3G or GPS support) its innovations are what’s going to make it standout. Who knows it could be a bust, yeah right.
Just look at the video after the break. It’s the browser that I want. I know a lot of tablet’s are out right now but non are doing it like this. And then there’s the UI.
I’m just glad their actually showing how awesome the UI is rather than doing some dumb “Hi I’m a BlackBerry” ad. Because showing off the UI should be their main point for the iPhone. The same goes for OS X but maybe they’re going to finally start advertising the UI in Leopard.
I only wish it was either $300 or just an iPod with WiFi. Who knows it could be $300 and sport a 60gb drive in just another year.
I went ahead and sold myself to write a post about a site I never would have posted about or have visited. I have mixed feelings about this whole deal because I hate the idea of whoring posts but at least ReviewMe (owned by MediaWhiz who does TLA) does a few things right. Because the review guidelines are simple,
We like to keep the guidelines loose, so bloggers can write in a way that makes sense for their unique niche and audience. We do require that all reviews are at least 200 words long, and that the review post is disclosed as being sponsored in some fashion.
and the advertisers are told
We do not allow advertisers to require a positive review.
So that’s the good part. I can be objective and as honest as I want. I also can post about a site tailored to you or simply whatever I want. In my first review I talked about the site itself rather then the material. I’m not sure if that will fly, since I don’t know if I get rated on my review which might lead to me getting passed to a true sell out. Either way, I’m being honest. It’s just I’m being paid ( a lot) to look at a site and write a few words.
And honestly I hate the idea of paid posts but I see this a little different. I see it as a paid link and I’m going to do my best to keep these ‘posts’ away from my real posts. My plan is to make these posts hidden and unnoticeable for you (my regulars) and my visitors. How:
How else can I make these “hidden”? Is this enough? I was thinking of making them pages and then hiding them that way, which would solve everything but I rather not fill that space up with these posts. Or maybe I should, that way I can easily go back and manage/prune them if need to.
I’ve started selling links on my own as well as on Text Link Ads because I could both give a better deal to the buyer and not worry about that 50% cut they’re taking. All-in-all I’m making some good money off TLA, I just hope it keeps up since it’s paying for my hosting and a tech toy each month. Which is great since I’ve made more in the month of November then I ever have with these stupid text ads through Yahoo!; which I’m probably going to take out soon, maybe after I meet the quota in order to get paid.
Thanks to all my sponsors and more importantly thanks to all my readers, subscribers and plugin/theme users for making it happen.
In preparation for the release of SoftCE I’ve redone the site and I’m really pleased with what was accomplished with this wonderful script that I talked about earlier.
I’ve also started the payment system through PayPal which was surprisingly easy to setup even though I need to have recurring charges and a 6 week trial period. I just need to make sure it works properly and create a system for me to roll out accounts as fast as possible. I’d love to create a script that automatically creates the subdomain and account info but I’m not expecting that many users. So I’ll have to do it all manually.
I still have to make some flyers and I’ve been emailing some people to help with spreading the word and haven’t heard anything. Next resort is having Sara mail out 5-10 flyers a day to all the hospitals around CA.
I’ve already setup an adwords account but I really don’t think I’m going to get a lot of potential clients through adwords compared to word of mouth and advertising at these CE conferences around CA and US.
I was just contact by the local newspaper (star) about Blogging and it’s effects on Business
The main questions were,
“[do you] feel that having the blog gives you an
edge in finding clients/customers and others. Does it build contacts? Trust?
My response was yes, yes and yes.
What I said,
Finding clients:
Blogging is probably the best tool that you can use to find clients or promote a business.
Contacts and trust:
…I could see that people reading my blog and seeing something personal could attract them…but some posts can be taken out of context or even be blatantly upsetting or disturbing to a potential client.
I never really thought this out before today, but I really think blogging is the best thing to promote business, yours or someone elses.
Marc gives me the craziest emails sometimes. I normally wouldn’t spread this around but you have to see this.
READ THE STORY FIRST, THEN WATCH THE VIDEO….
Strange but interesting. This is a car advertisement from Great Britain.
When they finished filming the ad, the film editor noticed something moving along the side of the car, like a ghostly white mist. The ad was never put on TV because of the unexplained ghostly phenomenon. Watch the front end of the car as it clears the trees in the middle of the screen and you’ll see the white mist crossing in front of the car then following it along the road. If you listen close, you will also notice a strange sound. Spooky!
Is it a ghost, or is it simply mist? You decide.
Originally found in this long list of comments:
Apple will be releasing a phone with motorola soon that will incorporate iTunes within it. For all the iPod/PMP3P user out there that want an mp3 player/phone will most likely go this route. iTunes is still the best music service and if it syncs with it, I can’t see anyone not want to go with this phone. Branding goes a long way with Apple.
Apple has been specualted for releasing their own phone. Something feature rich, but only specualtion.
Why did you bring Microsoft into it? As Jared said they most likely will not go into this type of thing since they are motivated for office use. Windows Mobile is very clucky and not easy to use, as Jared said its Pocket Pc for a phone and the only reason they have sold any is because origianlly those phones were the only phones to sync with their own exchange server. Exchange rulls the corporate world and I would assume that microsoft say the need for cell users to sync there data with thier phone, that is why we see the smart phone, not because people wanted a phone and a PocketPC in one. how could I speculate this? because the ealry smart phones advertised this to the extreme and they didn’t have querty keypads or touch screens to enter data. Although recently this has changed with Microsoft exchange allowing the Treo 650 to sync with the exchange server 2003, I don’t know who or how they got that going but they, I think, are the only phones that sync nativily (out of the box) with exchange.
I will not tell you how popular exchange is or what it even does you will have to look that up. But alsmot every large company uses it, at least of what I have been exposed to.
So, to make it short. Microsoft will not have a simple MP3/phone, never, they do not have the need to do so. 1. They fasion to the business folks not the hipsters 2. They dont have the drive to do so either since they no longer have a music service (that is noticable).
Apple will release a MP3/phone, this year. It will sell to the hipsters and be a good cool gadget that will sell but will not revolutionize shi…crap.
In the next two years there will most likely be three types of phones/devices.
1. Treo/Smart Phone
2. small little phone that does nothing except call and recieve; small like the iPod shuffle
3. The hybrid. A good camera/phone. A good mp3 player/phone. A good handheld gaming device/phone. I do not think anyone will pull off the ultimate phone that does all of this in one, not saying noone will try but it will flop just like every other all in one out there to date.
This is really starting to get on my nerves. So much so that I’ve considered going back to Gmail. Of course, then there’s another problem, which is how Gmail deals with mails.
Binary Bonsai » Archive » .Mac vs. Gmail
So I commented:
The best solution for all my email problems is M$ Exchange. I can’t believe I am saying it either but it is the best solution around.
I pay $7 a month, similar to .mac, through 1and1. I hate 1and1 support for hosting but with the exchange account you won’t need any support, I haven’t had any problems at all. And you might be able to find another hosting provider for less.
The good things:
mail.app works perfect. Before Tiger I used Entourage ‘04 but since I started up mail.app on Tiger I love it. Granted mail.app doesn’t sync my contacts or calender, but that is what I have a treo 650 for. You can view your calendar appointments and such and save them to iCal but it is a pain; no sync automatically.
My treo 650 syncs with my exchange server as well, contacts, calender, and email (only main folder)
I also use outlook 2003 on my PC and as you might expect it works perfect.
At work I use the web interface through IE and it is just like using the outlook 2003 app.
If I was on Safari I could access my exchange through the web but with limited visuals, nothing productivity wise lost at all.
The exchange server also supports iMAP and POPThis does seem like an advertisment but I really like the capabilities and ease I have with having all my contacts, calendar, tasks, public folders and email in one place and I can get to it from anywhere with everything I have.
Sitting here with my new Treo just amazed at Cingular. Good and bad. The good being they updated their data plans and instead of an outrageous $30 for 10 megs it’s now $25 for unlimited so I can now surf all the Internet I want and even get my laptop hooked up via bluetooth and surf the Internet when I don’t have a WiFi connection and I won’t have to worry about the costs or my limits.
The bad, the main reason for me to call, is a $18 promotional fee that showed up on the bill. According to them when you see an ad on their site for a free phone or a phone on sale you have to pay them for the promotion. So, the buyer pays their advertising cost, scandalous. Crazy, I could see a lawsuit coming from this very soon. If your a lawyer give me a call. Cingular rebutted all my complaints with, you agreed to the terms posted on the site. Stryker maybe this could be your complaint letter. I am not as pissed as I could be since I knew there was the charge but I originally thought it was the activation fee.
At least I have unlimited transfers, for $5 less then I was going to pay for a crappy 10 megs.
