American Madness

Speech codes are rare in the industrialized, Western democracies, but curiously there is a strong taboo against suggesting anything in opposition to the view that man-made carbon emissions drive global warming. Intimidation, isolation, ad homonym attacks, and now lawsuits are all used to stifle opposing views.

A recent article by Alex Beam titled “MIT’s inconvenient scientist,” points out that these speech codes create a hostile environment for opposing views and honest scientific inquiry on the subject of global warming.

Some interesting links from opposing views in the one sided global warming debate:
No Consensus on IPCC’s level of ignorance by John Christy
Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change
The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850
The Satanic Gases by Dr. Patrick Michaels
Antarctic Ice: The Cold Truth by Dr. Patrick Michaels
Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Politicians, Science and the Media
A Skeptic’s Guide to An Inconvenient Truth
Scientists who disagree with the global warming “consensus.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy
Richard Lindzen’s commentary in the Wall Street Journal
Website of Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist
The Geologic Record and Climate Change by Tim Patterson
Research of Sallie Baliunas and William Soon.

Interesting viral marketing attempt by Lakewood Lakehead University in Northern Ontario. It got picked up by the BBC, but its influence on the University’s reputation is questionable.

The text reads, “Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn’t necessarily mean you’re smart. If you agree click here.”

Probably not the best positioning. Afterall, it’s not like just any privileged billionaire can become president. You’ve got to have something going on upstairs and you have to relate to the common man. Appealing to the common American is what the Bush shtick is about. He is meant to appear guiless and without alterier motive. That’s not stupid.

The bottom line for democrats is that when you underestimate your opponent you lose.

There is nothing like the madness of a good old anti-Semitic theocratic dictatorship to remind us that America is only slightly nuts. Sanity is often something measured by degrees and something one can only judge by observing the actions of those more crazed than oneself.

Courtesy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a ripe lunatic to be sure, we now have the Holocaust International Cartoon Contest.

The exhibition is intended to expose what some here see as Western hypocrisy for invoking freedom of expression regarding the publication of cartoons that lampooned the Prophet Muhammad while condemning President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran for questioning the Holocaust.

We’re used to rabid Jew bashing in the western world, so I don’t think that this expo is going to have the effect that Ahmadinejad was hoping for. Don’t expect riots and destruction of Iranian or Arab embassies.

Even Iranians were confused about the purpose of the show in a place where these views are already so pervasive in the state run press.

“Look, these cartoons are the reflections of U.S. and Israelis’ deeds, but wouldn’t it have been better if they were put on display in the U.S. or even in Israel?” said Ali Eezadi, 70, a retired industrial engineer who visited the gallery Thursday afternoon.

I think it is wonderful to see this government sanctioned anti-Semitic, anti-American, anti-western art show. Let’s not beat around the bush any more with veiled remarks and subtle hints. If you think that the Holocaust didn’t happen, or was funny, or if you think that Israel should be wiped off the map and all Jews should be driven out of the Arab world, or better yet exterminated, then let your true colors fly!

Sunlight is the best antiseptic, and maybe we can prevent WWIII by opening up this insanity for debate. I seriously doubt that this art show represents the views of most Muslims, and if it does, then I’d like to know that too.

There has been a bit of talk today about reputation. What makes it, changes it, defines it? Seth thinks about why Snakes On A Plane tanked at the box office despite buzz and press attention over the past few months. Robert wonders why Microsoft retains its bad rep despite recent efforts to open up and start having real conversations with customers.

I like Seth’s conclusion that SOAP basically failed because the product sucked. “I’m afraid we come back to something that marketers have been struggling with for a really long time–the best way to succeed is to have a really great product.” It’s a movie made by committee, so it was bound to suck. This reputation was cemented in my brain before the marketing even started. I was hoping that SOAP would fail, so that I would not be subjected to a storm of promotions for even worse copycats.

Robert’s point is a little different, but still gets back to the fact that it is the products that define a company. The problem for Microsoft is that reputations take a very very long time to build, and Microsoft has only recently started opening up and conversing with customers. The products resulting from those conversations are just beginning to come to market.

I switched to Mac when they went Linux, and since then I had never felt the desire to use a Microsoft product until I saw Live Writer. Live Writer is something different that leads the market by integrating word processing and web publishing in a simple user friendly fashion. If Microsoft puts out a few more products like this, their reputation will eventually change.

In the end, the quality of the products is the thing that defines a companies reputation. Conversations help make better products, they help market products, but conversations don’t make products. Conversations, are full of arm chair philosophers who love to pontificate, but making a great product requires a team of highly focused obsessive individuals, who sometimes listen to and sometimes ignore the general consensus.

It is time for the reasonable voices in this world to rise up and be heard. It’s time for people like Akbar Ganji to take center stage. I encourage you to read the Washington Post profile of him.

Ganji has spent the last 6 years in prison, often in soletary confinement. While in prison, he engaged in multiple hunger strikes in protest of his incarceration with the longest hunger strike lasting 73-days.

He speaks as an individual, a rare quality these days, and often finds himself in opposition, not only to the authoritarian Iranian regime, but also to the democratic reform movement for their timidness and willingness to compromise with Iran’s theocratic dictatorship. He also opposes the Bush administration policies, which have undermined democratic movements throughout the Middle East.

The people of the earth, the silent majority, have a right and a responsibility to make their voices heard, as Ganji does. We need to find means and courage to peacefully overthrow the many oppressive and violent regimes throughout the world. We need to find means to effectively oppose the insane policies of our own government witout resorting to the entrenched ideology of powerful political parties and special interest groups.

The time has come for a world conversation, but the question remains. How do we shut the lunatics out? They have run the asylum for much too long. Despite claims to the contrary, it seems that the Internet is empowering the psychotics and allowing them to rally popular support like never before.

Media savvy dictators, religious fanatics, and all those who wish to make the world bend to there wishes have found the Internet an exceptional tool for shaping public opinion, and the rational voices are beginning to get drowned out. Please pass the mic to people like Ganji.

I’ve been frustrated for a longtime by websites that continue to throw irrelevant ads at me in increasingly large quantities. It is well known that major media companies have been actively tracking and trying to make sense of user activity on their websites since the dawn of the Internet. So why am I rarely interested in the ads that I see? You’d think that all those PhDs in Silicon Valley would have figured me out by now, but as far as I’m concerned, they don’t know me from Adam:) Yeah, I’ve heard that one too many times to count.

Last week I came up with what I think is a better way to deliver advertising, and for that matter content in general. I feel that it should be possible to select my areas of interest in a universal profile that I own and control, and have this little profile follow me around the Internet, so that websites can tailor their content and advertisements to me. That would make me really happy. I’d have a great browsing experience, advertisements would actually be informative, and I might even buy something based on those ads.

When I told my friend Eric about this concept last night he immediately gave it some more practical tech teeth by suggesting that I use microformats to create the universal profile. Then he introduced me to the Pinko Marketing discussion group and posted the idea there for discussion. I was surprised to see that 4 people already commented on Eric’s post and gave him excellent suggestions and links. Thanks Pinkos! I’ve joined the fold, so you’ll be hearing from me soon.

We’re tentatively calling this microformat hInterest. There are a number of issues that need to be solved to make hInterest viable, but I think that with some work we can give users more relevant content, more control over their information, and a better online experience. My next post will deal directly with the technical issues that were brought up in regards to the implementing of hInterest. I really appreciate everyone’s input.

There is a story out there that has been told again and again by the big Internet companies. It goes something like this, “We track your searches, scan your emails, and store every click you make on our site, to deliver you the best user experience possible.”

I’ve rarely seen any improvements in my user experience brought about by storing anything except my login information and the data that I specifically asked to have stored.

Most instances of personal data being used to deliver a “better user experience,” revolve around advertising, and the incredibly large premium that advertisers will pay for a well targeted ad versus and untargeted ad. Storing user data has very little to do with delivering you a better online experience and everything to do with delivering you to advertisers at a higher price. It’s not about user experience, it is about user segmentation.

This is why I was so happy to see Jason Calcanisis suggest that AOL should simply trash its log files immediately.

Frankly, I want us to NOT KEEP LOGS of our search data. Yep, you heard that right… we shouldn’t even keep this data. I know that’s crazy, but I learned this week that Wikipedia turned off their log files. They did this for tech reasons, but they now are keeping them off and not looking to solve the problem because of the huge upside of users knowing their searches on wikipedia DON’T EVEN EXIST!

I think we should use this as a way to brand AOL Search: We don’t record your searches!

After reading Jason’s post my second thought was that the entire community of net billionaires was going to crucify him for saying this, which is why it isn’t a surprise that he announced a blogging vacation yesterday.

I think I’m gonna take the rest of the week off from blogging as a “cool down” period. I don’t want to say something I regret, and I don’t want to become the spokesperson for the entire company–that’s not my job and it’s not my desire. I just want to build cool stuff with cool people I respect.

Did some AOL higher-ups get to him and suggest a short break before he cut the heart out of the Internet’s tried and tested model for sensational profitability (delivering you to the advertisers)?

I think that the idea of ditching all user data except that which we ask companies to store is a brilliant idea. Advertisers are not really going to understand what a person wants by looking at this data gathered on the sly. It just doesn’t tell enough of the story. Even the NY Times article on Searcher No. 4417749 doesn’t tell you who Thelma Arnold really is. If you want to know who someone is and what they want just ask them.

I know this is crazy talk to technophiles, who think human beings can be reduced to numbers, but asking Thelma what ads she wants to see is, well, the fastest way to determine what ads Thelma wants to see. Don’t try to be omniscient. Advertisers always get it wrong when they do this. Just ask.

We the readers understand that advertising based media companies will always require that we see their stupid ads, but if they really care about us as they often profess, then they will let us chose the types of ads that we see. Give us a choice of ad channels and we’ll tell you the best ads to serve. Give us a universal advertising profile that we can customize to defend ourselves against all the stupid ads that we don’t want to see, and you will always know exactly what we want. It’s a relatively simple idea to put the ranking and streaming of ads in users hands, but more difficult to put into practice. I’m interested to learn about any organizations that are actively engaged in this type of project.

Take a look at the vlog Alive in Baghdad. It is much more interesting than the standard news coverage. Some videos are hard to take. (iTunes feed, RSS video feed).

Marketing Sherpa recently released their Business Technology and Benchmark Guide for 2006. It is based on surveys of 1,900 marketers, 633 business executive that buy technology, and an evaluation of 161 websites. Here’s a summary of some of the findings and practical tips.

1) Best lead generation tools in order of effectiveness: Free trial demo, Webcast/Webinar, White paper, Blog, Podcasts (podcasts were not highly rated by marketers). It is funny how a blog and a whitepaper are lumped together as equals in the survey. A blog is a tool that can be used to publish and announce everything else on this list.

2) Base ad strategy on size of prospect organizations. Banner ads on general business websites and white papers work well for targeting large institutions. Search ads and banners on industry specific websites work best if you are targeting medium size businesses. Ads in 3rd party newsletters and email lists have the best response from small organizations.

3) Large companies are terrible at search marketing. The data shows a very clear inverse relationship between the size of the business and the percentage of the marketing budget spent online: Solo practitioners spent 58%, Small organizations spent 37%, Medium organizations - 25%, Large organizations - 7%. The statistic for large organizations is the real wow factor here. One result of this lack of online spending seems to be that large companies are terrible at search marketing with only 44% appearing in the top 3 natural search listings for key terms in their industry.
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