Always connected

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Sitting in the Coffee Zone, slurping some Rocket Fuel, connected to the world. The way it was meant to be. In all fairness, I rarely lugged my Thinkpad around. Just too heavy. Not IBM’s (at the time) fault. I bought one of the heaviest models they offered. No idea why. But on the few occasions I took the thing on the road and attempted to connect wirelessly, it was usually something of a chore. Again, probably not the fault of Microsoft or IBM. I just never took the time to learn how to make it all work. It was too much trouble.

This morning I fired up the new Mac…it saw the open hotspots…I picked one…and here we are. All things in life should be so easy. Why wouldn’t a boy just keep his laptop with him all the time? Stay tuned.

One in five say web ads most effective

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More than one in five U. S. adults, or 22 percent, say the Internet is the most effective way to grab their attention about a product or service, according to a report released this week by Burst Media. The report, based on a March survey of 3,700 adult Web users, also found that magazines, newspapers and radio lagged behind both the Internet and TV, with 12 percent, 10 percent, and 6 percent, respectively. [Online Media Daily]

I guess I’m more disturbed by radio’s ranking than the overall validty of the research. The part I have no trouble buying is 57 percent of respondents saying that the Net is where they turn first to research products they might purchase. Absolutely.

Now that I’m thinking about ads, here’s something I wish I had time to try: record all of the commercials on one of our local radio stations between say, 6am and 9am. Then just mash ’em up in a montage of 10-15 seconds per spot. Just to get a gestalt of the commercial messages. Maybe I’ll do an hour. Somebody remind me.

Everyman Journalism

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In a recent interview by Rocketboom, Dave Winer talked about making an introductory course in journalism a requirement for college students.

“Journalism is the new practice for Everyman, it’s what we all will be doing all the time in this new century. As the professional media pulls back, the citizens, you and me, need to fill in and replace every pro with 100 of us, to cover every school board meeting, every planning commission, defense contractor, civic organization. It’s like the Second Amendment for information and ideas. We need a well-informed electorate to make the tough decisions n our future.”

I’m not sure why professional meda would “pull back,” but I like this idea and see no reason why those of us that didn’t go to J-School can’t help cover some events that would otherwise go unreported. During my dozen years at KBOA, I covered every kind of event. Took my little cassette recorder, interviewed folks. Edited the audio. Wrote a little story. Put it on the radio. Could my reports have been more “professional.” Sure. But the listeners to our little station were just happy someone covered the event and reported it.

For my money, we could drop the Algebra requirement and replace it with Journalism 101.

Christmas Morning Plus Two

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I’m up and running on the Mac but it hardly seems worth mentioning. I commented on the “Mac Lust” post that I will –by popular demand– file progress reports from time to time. First observation: There are enough presents under this Christmas tree to (further) cut into my blogging. Right now I’m opening up the train set and playing with that for a few minutes…then ripping open the Erector Set and spreading the pieces out on the floor… and then… well, you get the idea. Got me a book that Henry assures me will make the Windows-to-Mac transition easier. I keep insisting that I will maintain dual citizenship (Windows AND Mac). Be interesting to see what my at-home computing habits are 6 months from now.

Blended media

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“What if the notion of a single medium doesn’t exist anymore? When media buyers start thinking more about audiences and less about distribution channels – as they are definitely doing now – the advantage will go to the media that leverage their content across platforms. This places a premium on content – that is, it will be expensive and worth it. And it means that there will be two kinds of radio broadcasters: Those who are in the content business and those who are only in the radio business. The value will flow to the former. It’s not about the “device” – it’s not about ownership of the pipes. In the media business, those days are ending fast.”

— Jim Nail on the blending of media

Mark Cuban says bring back live commercials

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Dallas Mavricks owner Mark Cuban says bring back the live commercial so neither the viewer (nor the advertiser) will know what to expect until it happens. Calling them Reality Commercials, Cuban claims implementing such a thing would not be a technical challenge or a creative one but it would entail a whole lot more work. I don’t watch TV ads now but I just might watch a few if they were live. Could we make this work in our network newscasts? Doubtful. Our clients probably woudn’t like it. Our sales reps wouldn’t like it. Our anchors wouldn’t like it. But our listeners might. [via AdRants]

My first Mac

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Steve's First Mac

The deed is done. Henry drove us to the Apple store in his space car and we were in and out in 30 minutes with a brand new MacBook Pro. My first time off the PC reservation. It’s still in the box, seal unbroken. I don’t plan to post much about my Adventures in Mac Land. PC users don’t want to hear it… and Mac users have heard it all. How about this? I’ll tell you if I return it.

Crossing the Rubicon

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Here’s the plan. Tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. I meet Henry and we head for St. Louis where I purchase my first Mac. I really think he is more excited about this Moment than I. This could be the let-down of all time but for a peek in my head, pop Sergeant York into the DVD and FFWD to the scene where a drunken Gary Cooper gets knocked off his mule by a bolt of lightening and stumbles into Walter Brennan’s church, where they’re singing “Give Me That Old Time Religion.”

If they guys at the West County Apple Store could pipe that song over the sound system as I walk up to the counter, we’d have us pretty good TV spot. My plan is to see if I can wait a few days before I crack the seal on the new toy. Just to fuck with the Mac users a little bit.

Thank You for Smoking

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Saw Thank You for Smoking and was disappointed. Spend the 90 minutes reading Christopher Buckley’s novel, if you haven’t. Giving Nick Naylor a son was lame-to-sappy. Deadwood fans will spot Kim Dickens (Joanie Stubbs) as Naylor’s wife.

And for the record, The Weather Man (Nicholas Cage) is not a comedy. Had I taken the time to check out the IMDB description (“A Chicago weather man, separated from his wife and children, debates whether professional and personal success are mutually exclusive.”) we could have skipped this wrist-slitter. But Hollywood loves Cage. He has half a dozen movies in post-production or on-deck.

Hotmail starting to suck

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I moved the link to my email address. It was just under the masthead on the right. I moved it down to the My Stuff area on the sidebar. And I switched from my Hotmail account to my Gmail account. Hotmail just aint getting it any more. More and more sites won’t accept email from Hotmail users because it’s eat up with spam. This has always been my throw-away account and I’m about to throw it away. I’ll keep it for now, just because it’s difficult to get your name (SteveMays@anything.com) anymore. If you want to reach me you can use the Gmail accsount or just post a comment and mark it personal. But know that I won’t be checking the Hotmail account very often.