slamboard

No, it is just another expensive attempt by McDonald’s to bogart a trend. They did it with pizza. They did it with salad. Now they are bringing the McDonald’s touch to café culture.

There is a new McCafé near me. I walked in to check it out. It is very, very brown. I plan on sampling some of their products soon.

I am curious as to whether they are offering this franchise as an add on for all successful restaurants. My guess would be that they are mostly targeting Starbucks free pockets of the World.

Hold the phone, they have been building McCafes for years. I don’t think I have ever seen one before this nearby one opened up. The top ranking page in a Google search is for the franchises in Ireland. After that come Brazil, New Zealand, Denmark… are you seeing a trend? I am going to try to do some search terms to find out What countries are Starbucks free…

Ireland has 10 Starbucks retail stores. Brazil is not on the scroll down on the Starbucks store locator. New Zealand has 12 stores. Denmark is the same as Brazil.

How many Starbucks are in the USA?

Counter source, Mr. X

The New York Times is reporting that Google has BIG plans to to distribute content from Dow Jones & Co. (DJ), Sony BMG Music Entertainment and other large concerns.

News like this gets reported in a unique sort of way because it involves the media that is reporting it. Dow Jones owns the Times.

I hope that a deal with Sony BMG will make some of my favorite music acts more available online.

Source…

google, sony

Just to be different, I am going to tell this story in chronological order. Infogear applied for the a trademarking of the name iPhone back in 1995. At that time, I had my father-in-laws old Apple II set up at my house. I could print out Garfield banners, process words…um…all kinds of cool stuff.

Infogear didn’t make anything that was particularly cool (sorry guys) and they ended up being bought by Cisco in 2001. By that time, I was on teh internets with a vengeance. On dial-up, I can’t remember if I knew what I was missing.

I did not have a mobile phone until 2005. I simply didn’t need one until then. I think people should still be asking themselves whether or not they need one. Around this time, Apple was already touting the name iPhone as the most likely name for there revolutionary new cell phone.

Cisco knew that their ownership of the iPhone name was pretty fortuitous, they waited until late 2006 to attach it to some actual products. These were Linksys Voip products. I am not a corporate lawyer, but I am guessing that there may be some sort of use it or lose it precedents.

Many observers the dispute would be all about money. They had to wonder when the two companies, rather than fighting in the media and in court, just kept talking and talking.

The word is out now. There is some kind of agreement that involves interoperability. This is interesting given how steadfastly Apple protects its trade secrets.

iPhones are set to ship soon. The word is they ROCK.

Source…

iphone

Roughly 100% of the CEO’s of multinational companies are human beings. Human beings require adequate supplys of fresh air and clean water in order to live.

A corporation is by definition a legal entity that does not have a biological body. It’s really too bad that science fiction movie directors need air and water, they could make one helluva a movie out of this premise.

I hope the blog title isn’t copyrighted by Viacom. Anyway, I am going to blog about trends for the rest of the week.

First post goes to the youth market. This is something that should not be underestimated. For instance in the auot industry in the US there are going to be 4 million first time car buyers per year. You have to cater to that market, and you have to try to do it better than the competition. The Honda Fit is my pick for excellent marketing in this category.

Viacom has signed a deal with an upstart YouTube rival. The creators of Joost are no strangers to success. Have you ever heard of Skype? I have. I hadn’t heard of Joost, but I walked down the hall just now and did a survey. 20% of the people here have already heard of Joost. But have they signed up to beta test?

joost

I avoid watching the Most Viewed videos on YouTube. I prefer to opt for the Most Recent ones instead. It is like the difference between a tv sitcom and a nightclub. Over the last few days I have noticed that videos are taking so long to go live that nearly the entire 15 pages of Most Recent is unviewable. I think this is messed up. I wonder if it somehow on purpose. I also wonder if it is a response to or a consequence of some sort of malice.

It may be that this is an effort to prevent 13 year olds from getting a Most Viewed video simply by putting a misleading image in the middle second of their video.

youtube

Consider buying a Red iPod Nano. $10 of your purchase price will go directly towards the fight against AIDS in Africa.

After you check out the Nano, spend some time looking at this live cam that is trained on a watering hole in Africa.

I just found a useful page about SEO Basics. I got it by clicking the top item on a Google search for SEO basics.

Something I really have to keep in mind is the very last point made on the page which is MODERATION. The logic behind moderation is obvious. Anything that can improve search engine results is going to be exploited in a heavy handed way by the immoral majority. The search engines are constantly looking for ways to thwart these people. If you walk like a duck and talk like a duck, Google is going to make duck soup out of your PR eventually.

seo

New technology is fascinating when it is not driven by need. We did not need a Wii. I still don’t need a Wii. If you can create a demand for any new idea simply through marketing, how do you decide what to create?

I am hoping that a breakthrough in the cost and durability of photovoltaic panels will be some kind of catalyst. The only catch is that sunshine is for the most part an outdoor thing and the Nintendo generation doesn’t tend to go outdoors very much.