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I’ve never been a particularly big fan of the PSP, and I don’t own one myself. Still, partly through its own merits and partly through the efforts of some highly motivated and skilled hackers, the PSP is definitely a cool little toy. It’s got an admittedly extremely good screen, great graphics, a number of very good games, and an incredible homebrew scene. Now, it’s been reported that the latest firmware update, v. 3.30, comes with 6 months of free wifi access through T-mobile hotspots. That is pretty awesome, and definitely a great step toward making up for many of the less-than-friendly things Sony PR has said over the past few years.
Additionally, Gizmodo reports that Sony is developing a system for fans of Arsenal, the British soccer team, to view the game on their PSPs while they are at the stadium. This is pretty cool news - definitely, sometimes a screen will give you a better overview of things than actual seats, depending on where you are sitting. If this expands, it could definitely be a really great feature of the PSP.
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Search Engine Land posted an interesting article today, on B2B search. They report that in Q206 only 59% of B2B marketers used search marketing. This figure is a bit dated, as we are about to start Q207 next week, but it seems fairly reasonable. The agency I work for, Overdrive, has a large B2B focus. Many of our accounts are B2B, where we focus on lead generation and getting new prospects as opposed to directly generating sales, unlike B2C. We’ve been extremely successful with most of our clients, both through PPC marketing and through SEO.
Search marketing is really cool because 1. it targets prospects when they are specifically looking for what you are selling and 2. because it is measurable. Unlike traditional marketing, where you just throw your message out there in places you hope prospects will look, with search marketing the prospects come to you - they are taking the initiative to search for what you are selling, so they are in a more receptive mode for your pitch. Secondly, when you spend $10,000 on a magazine ad, you have no idea if it actually was directly responsible for bringing you more business or not. With search marketing and online forms, you can track with pretty good accuracy where someone came into your website, and you can directly determine your return on investment from your search marketing efforts.
Quoting the end of the article,
Furthermore, the research firm identifies search marketing as a potential “killer app” for B-to-B customer acquisition efforts. Those of us who have been working on business-oriented search marketing programs for years couldn’t agree more. We have the data and case studies to prove that for many companies search marketing is the most cost-effective method of lead generation and customer acquisition they deploy.
I believe that we are at the beginning of a major and long-lasting growth trend. Early adopters move over: B-to-B search marketing is going mainstream!
I couldn’t agree more.
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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-youtube22mar22,0,326504.story
NBC and News Corp. (Aka Fox) in collaboration with Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL are going to create an online video site to rival YouTube.
This is an interesting development… most YouTube competitors are of course doomed to failure from the beginning. But, with so many big name rivals all ganging up together on Google/YouTube, you have to think for a moment that maybe this new site could succeed.
I’m skeptical, though. The main strength of the new site will be their licensed content - stuff from Heroes, the Office, Family Guy, 24, etc. This is all well and good - after all, a large part of YouTube’s popularity is people watching The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, Family Guy, South Park, etc. But, an even larger part of YouTube is random clips from all over the place - including lots of user generated content. Realistically, I don’t see the user community of YouTube switching over to this new thing. So, the only edge the Fox/NBC’s competing service will have is their own programming - which, while great, doesn’t stand up to all the other stuff that is on YouTube that american copyright holders can’t sue over, like clips from foreign TV shows (as we all know, a ton of popular stuff on YouTube is weird Japanese stuff).
I think this new service could definitely be a very viable portal for NBC, Fox, and other partners to put content online - NBC has had enormous success with its putting episodes of Heroes and other shows up for online viewing, which is something I definitely applaud them for. To be a true competitor with YouTube, though, it would have to draw large amounts of user content, and also be somewhat hypocritical in turning a blind eye to copyrighted content that they won’t get sued for… which is something I don’t see happening.
Additional coverage at TechCrunch.
Edit: Update! From TechCrunch:
At launch, full episodes and clips from current hit shows, including Heroes, 24, House, My Name Is Earl, Saturday Night Live, Friday Night Lights, The Riches, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, The Tonight Show, Prison Break, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader and Top Chef, plus hits from the studios’ vast television libraries, will be available free, on an ad-supported basis, within a rich consumer experience featuring personalized video playlists, mashups, online communities and video search. Plus, the extensive programming lineup will include fan favorite films like Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, Devil Wears Prada, The Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy with bonus materials and movie trailers. Post-launch, plans will be considered for acquiring additional content as well as producing and licensing original programming for the new site’s audience.
Now this is interesting. That’s a pretty awesome starting lineup… and I definitely see this is a future as a portal for official online versions of TV and Movie media, especially since many of the potential competitors to such a service are signed up for this. Perhaps this is the beginning of a basic schism in online video: user generated/foreign material from YouTube; official material from whatever this new thing is going to be. I think the success of this new site is going to ride 100% on how smart they are about monetizing it. If they don’t DRM it and have reasonable amounts of advertising, I think it will explode. If they go the route the RIAA and MPAA have been pushing for so long, DRM the hell out of everything, have ads everywhere, and charge for all the best content… well, we’ll see.
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This was just brought to my attention -
From the New York Times (emphasis mine):
Two election workers were convicted of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review. The workers — Jacqueline Maiden, elections coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, and Kathleen Dreamer, a ballot manager — were each convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. They were also convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty. Prosecutors accused Ms. Maiden and Ms. Dreamer of secretly reviewing selected ballots before a public recount on Dec. 16.
This happened in Ohio, which as you may recall was the pivotal state in 2004 that ended in Bush’s re-election and Kerry’s loss.
Somehow, the fact that a recount for a pivotal county in a heavily contested presidential election was proven to be rigged went largely unreported, relegated to small newswire reports and clippings like this in the major news media. The only detailed reporting on this situation available is from very left-wing publications and blogs that many people assign little to no credibility.