Should Google buy Clear Channel?

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Article in AdAge briefly explores that question. The phrase that jumped out of the story at me was, “automated sale of remnant ads.”

“Right now, through Google’s year-ago acquisition of dMarc, a radio systems company, it has been able to create an automated way to sell what is mostly remnant radio inventory, which remains unsold until the last minute. But, noted Mr. Bank, Google Audio is making several high-profile hires in the radio sales field in major radio markets. Now why, if Google Audio’s selling of remnant ad time is so automated, would there need to be so many high-priced radio ad sales folks.”

I’m pretty sure a big chunk of my salary for the past 20 years has come from acquiring and selling “remnant radio inventory.” Should companies that trade services for commercials on radio stations (we call it barter) be concerned about this? My guess is most station managers would rather have cash for his unsold commercials.

The Google-Clear Channel idea is an interesting one. CC has lot of stations and Google has figured some things out about advertising.

Scott Adams: Electronic Voting Machines

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“…there’s a 100% chance that the voting machines will get hacked and all future elections will be rigged. But that doesn’t mean we’ll get a worse government. It probably means that the choice of the next American president will be taken out of the hands of deep-pocket, autofellating, corporate shitbags and put it into the hands of some teenager in Finland. How is that not an improvement?”

“Statistically speaking, any hacker who is skilled enough to rig the elections will also be smart enough to select politicians that believe in… oh, let’s say for example, science. Compare that to the current method where big money interests buy political ads that confuse snake-dancing simpletons until they vote for the guy who scares them the least.”

When your company screws up, don’t hide it. Blog it.

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In one of Clyde Lear’s early blog posts, he talks about a mistake our company made some years ago. No weasly words, just “we shouldn’t have done that.”

I flashed on Clyde’s post as I read this article by David H. Freedman at Inc.com:

Many corporate blogs are sanitized, public-relations-oriented affairs intended to create bonds with existing and potential customers. Others serve as internal message boards to keep employees up to date. But I’m proposing something else: a blog that encourages employees and managers to tell their peers what they themselves have done wrong. It’s an easy step that could quickly effect a large, positive change in your corporate culture.

Real Lawyers Have Blogs

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That’s the name of Kevin O’Keefe’s blog. He chatted with me today about blogging and lawyers and I could kick myself for not asking how he came up with “Real Lawyers Have Blogs.”

The blog is part of LexBlog, a consulting company that helps lawyers with Internet marketing and business development puts a strong emphasis on blogging.

Kevin was a trial lawyer for 17 years but stopped practicing in 1999 and founded an “online law community” called Prairielaw.com (which was later acquired by LexisNexis).

Kevin is my kind of blogger. He thinks every business should be blogging and says all lawyers will have blogs by the end of the decade (even though less than 1% of attorneys currently have blogs).

LexBlog has created some really nice looking blogs for their clients. These are some of the best looking websites I’ve seen and they got all the blog tools and features.

Kevin pooh-poohed my suggestion that blogging was difficult for some people. They either hadn’t found the right tools or weren’t ready to blog (yet). He’s right of course.

(audio no longer available)

After listening to Kevin for a few minutes and looking at and reading the blogs of some of his clients… I can’t imagine why every lawyer isn’t blogging. I guess the real ones are.

iPods replacing huge 3-ring binders?

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Kevin O’Keefe (Real Lawyers Have Blogs) points to an interesting article about benefit managers putting content, such as benefits and wellness updates and bonus guidelines, online without always going through IT. The benefits department can easily become a news publisher of compensation and benefits information.

Pleased to say that we’ve been doing that at Learfield for some time now.

Kevin also reports at least one of his clients giving iPods to employees so as to keep employees abreast of company human resources matters and training materials. The iPods come preloaded with relevant content with updates streamed to employees via the net.

Now, that is a wired company.