Sunday, December 2, 2007
Will the Suns Keep Shining?
This entry may seem a bit out of place because it’s about sports…but one thing that I love besides fashion, media, technology and pop culture is basketball – but not just any basketball, Phoenix Suns Basketball! (I’m also a devoted University of Arizona Wildcats fan, but that’s a story for another day.)
Innovative Playing Strategies: “:07 Seconds or Less” – need I say more? This is a great book by Sports Illustrated writer Jack McCallum about his experience shadowing the Suns for a whole season. Wouldn’t that be incredible? What I wouldn’t give to see my Suns day in, day out for a whole season! Ok, back to my point, for those of you haven’t read the book, have you ever wondered why most Phoenix Suns games seem to be more fast-paced and higher scoring than most NBA games? Well, this is why – the Suns believe that it only takes :07 seconds to set-up and take a shot. So if the shot clock is set to :24 seconds, why not try your shot in the first :07 seconds rather than waste the first :17 seconds with the potential to miss? Sure, there are some requirements for this strategy to work: 1) The Suns must maintain a high shooting average, 2) they must be very good at rebounding their own missed shots and 3) this strategy works best if the opposing team is a relatively low shooting average (otherwise, there would be more time freed up for the other team to take extra shots).Saturday, December 1, 2007
Get With It with Widgets
Next time you’re in line at Starbucks during the morning rush, you know you’ll be there for a while so entertain yourself by doing a bit of marketing – help educate consumers about an impressive phenomenon known as Widgets. Turn to the person behind you in line and ask them “Do you know what a widget is?” Chances are they’ll say “no.” So seize the opportunity to give them a brief description of a widget and they’ll likely respond with a sudden expression of familiarity and realization that they have, in fact, used a widget before.
Widgets have existed since the beginning of the World Wide Web, but have only recently begun to see their full potential as a strong marketing tool. Many people have downloaded and used widgets assuming the widget is just a helpful tools created by a company to make their user experience more engaging and successful. While this is one of the goals of a widget, what the companies really had in mind is marketing - the opportunity to own prime real estate on the consumer’s desktop.
have even been made. In the future, it’s more likely that the consumer will conduct a quick search on DING! prior to checking any other airline’s website.Strikers See the Green
The writers can start writing once again…the strike is finally over (well, sort of)! It seems the unseen heroes behind the scenes that we know so well have come to an agreement with studios over their contracts. Hallelujah! But what I don’t understand is why the Studios waited so long to come to terms? Were the hashing out the numbers? Ever wonder what the executive conversations sounded like over at Walt Disney, “$34.3Billion minus a small fraction of $130M over 3 years…oh boy, that’s steep. Maybe we should just let our writers go and just run syndicated shows forever. We still have advertising, right?”
The writers had a very valid argument against the studios in asking for revenues for online replays of TV shows so what puzzles me is why this strike didn’t occur last year when replays of online shows were a bigger threat to TiVo than DVR. Especially when advertisers will soon pay more and more for online ads that can’t be skipped and can be more targeted than traditional TV advertising.
Also, there was another strike going on at the same time on Broadway - that strike is also over and the theater district is back in the cash-collections business. With all the revenues lost given the inconvenient timing for this strike, I expect ticket prices to ultimately increase for consumers. Nevertheless, this was the first Broadway strike in the union’s 121 years of existence, so hopefully this is will be the last we ever hear of a Broadway strike…unless, of course, Broadway shows begin to play online, as well. Now there’s an idea!
Are we there yet?
We’ve all seen the films, TV series , books and songs that reference the future. And the future is always depicted as a world where everything is optimized and the world as we know it today seems pre-historic! Well, I’ve been waiting for this future to become the present….so are we there yet?
“2001: A Space Odyssey” (Film & Novel)
A classic Kubrick film from 1968 with a supercomputer named Hal who has a mind of his own – today, we call this artificial intelligence. So, did we accomplish AI in 2001? Not really. But then, this was a sci-fi film and it was Kubrick so I suppose I shouldn’t expect this to come to light for perhaps another century.
2008
“Franchise” (Novel)
A short story written by Isaac Asimov in 1955, set 53 years later in 2008, Asimov’s hopeful thinking was that the US presidency would be selected by a computer program that could automatically select the most “representative citizen”…..well, one can dream, can’t they?
2010“Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows” (Film & Novel) & “Transformers”
Season 1986-1987 (TV Series)Really? So I suppose we should expect wizards walking amongst us – keep an eye on those close friends who always seem to get everything want. Also, be weary of the electronics who may be “more than meets the eye.”
“ Back to the Future II” (Film)
Filmed in 1989, our beloved hero, Marty McFly, travels to October 2015. In this world 26 years in the future for Marty, but just 8 years away for us, the world is unimaginable. Flying cars, “Hoverboards”, holographic people
working in diners, holographic newscasts and tiny frozen pizzas “dehydrated” to create large piping hot dinners in a matter of seconds - do we think this future world is actually just 8 years away? Dehydrated pizzas, ok, fine. “Hoverboards” have been mimicked by AirBoard – a decent attempt, but still not even close and costs $14,500. How about flying cars and holographic people with real jobs completely eliminating the need for people? All this by 2015? Unfortunately, I think we’re a little behind schedule. Another fun prediction worth noting is the prediction that the Chicago Cubs win the World Series in 2015– this hasn’t happened since 1908 so I suppose it’s possible. Afterall, with flying cars, anything seems possible.
2016“Ghostbusters II” (Film)
This infamous movie predicted the end of the world to be February 14, 2016!
Gimp-Addict
