…really, who could pass up a title like this?!
I know you’re not supposed to buy yourself gifts while Christmas shopping, but…
Google vs. The News … but it doesn’t have to be that way
After reading more and more nonsense about Rupert Murdoch “threatening” to delist News Corp’s sites from Google, it’s nice to hear the counterpoint straight from the horse’s mouth … in this case, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google…
How Google Can Help Newspapers
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574569570797550520.html
I particularly love this statement:
Google is a great source of promotion. We send online news publishers a billion clicks a month from Google News and more than three billion extra visits from our other services, such as Web Search and iGoogle. That is 100,000 opportunities a minute to win loyal readers and generate revenue—for free.
That’s right – Google is your friend, old man – don’t get all jealous and threaten to hide all of your toys behind a walled garden simply because someone else is making money in a way that you don’t understand. No matter how much you and the other gigantic media conglomerates want it, the vast majority of Internet users will not pay directly for content unless they’re interested in a particular niche – something that traditional newspapers today simply cannot offer. And that’s ok because I don’t have to be a diehard traffic enthusiast to want to read updates about how freeway maintenance in the Tampa area is progressing, but I certainly wouldn’t pay for it, either.
I think ultimately the key is in managing your costs – if you can’t make as much money from online ad revenues, then you’ve got to figure out a way to reduce your overheads to keep the business afloat. Bloggers are doing it every day and some are making a reasonable living – why can’t the same practices be applied in a citizen journalism kind of approach? Sure, it’s probably a cold dose of reality to learn that you can’t keep a huge newsroom and dozens of reporters on staff to only cover a small fraction of stories, but frankly, that should be common sense anyways. Trim it down and figure out a way to continue doing what you love – providing the news – while still making a profit, and you’ll be fine.
Take a gamble by expecting the online community to pay for what it’s grown accustomed to getting for free all these years? Unless you can provide Wall Street Journal-level content to a readership that can’t live without it, you might as well just pass the baton to the next generation and let the bloggers show you how news is going to work on the Internet…
It just wouldn’t be Christmastime…
…without a little holiday spirit – in a box!
http://www.hulu.com/watch/1596
also…
For the love of God, don’t watch Land of the Lost!!! We finally finished trudging our way through it over the weekend so that I could send it back to Netflix and my god, was it horrible. Granted, I never actually watched the TV show, but it was just confusing as all get-out, the plot made no sense, and by the end I was honestly just happy to see the credits. Also, I probably fell asleep about four different times during the movie and had to keep backtracking … Sara said that her count was closer to six (she’d watched it the day before, so she just slept through my viewing).
Final Verdict: If you want to see a movie with a dinosaur in it, rent Journey to the Center of the Earth instead.
Just me and my wife (and our Wii)…
This was a good weekend.
I think it was the first weekend in who knows how long that we both had the entire weekend off and actually just stayed home. No running errands, no theme parks, no trips to the mall or even out to the movies – just a nice, quiet weekend at home together.
And boy was it a nice change of pace! Looking back over the past couple of years, things have always been so busy that any days off we had that coincided always had to be spent doing something, whether it was scouting out vendors for the wedding or vacationing over at Disney or even just going to the mall because one of us needed pants and we wanted to spend the time together by any means necessary. We made it work, but if there was one thing that those times didn’t boast, it was simply time to relax and kick back together, and that got about 1,000x worse during the last six months of Sara’s schooling because her schedule had her working 16-hour days on the weekend to make up for not working during the week. I say, “Uggghhh…” and I didn’t even have to endure it, I only had to observe it and provide emotional support afterwards!
So now that all of the chaos is over, even with the holidays upon us I definitely look forward to more weekends like we just had – the two of us at home, alone, together. I mean, we still did stuff – got the Christmas tree up, as well as a start on the lights outside, made some progress on cleaning up the house, and started organizing our Disney pins from last year – but even more so, we got the chance to just lay around and be lazy, which meant playing a lot of Mario Kart Wii, catching up on some movies, and generally just screwing around. It was nice.
Of course, it’d be easy to focus on the things that didn’t get done – like cleaning the rest of the house or my ever-increasing writing backlog – but we’ll leave working through those ordeals for another day. Sometimes every once in a while you just need to take the time to truly relax.
this year, just keep your bag of rocks…
Today I was reminded of a pet peeve that seems to pop up each year around the holidays … and that pet peeve would be in regards to expectations for holiday tipping.
And I’m not even talking about the folks who work at Subway or Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts who put the tip jar out for doing their jobs, mind you – this time I’m concerned with the even more direct approach taken by our garbage men and mail men and seemingly everyone else who performs a service outside of my house that I’m using not even around to witness. Earlier this afternoon, I walked outside to retrieve our empty garbage can because today was trash day and low and behold, resting at the end of our driveway was the classic “Happy Holidays” card in a small plastic bag held down by rocks, with our garbage man’s home addresses written prominently on the front of the card.
I mean, I completely understand – I actually include our home address printed on the front of our Christmas cards, too … it’s just so that everyone else knows where to send our Christmas card in return, that’s all! I wonder what would happen if I just mailed him an empty Christmas card saying, “Happy Holidays – Sincerely, Your Customers” … would it genuinely be appreciated, or just make him pissed because I didn’t send a tip?
It makes me wonder how many people actually do give these folks extra money around the holidays because just like e-mail spam, they wouldn’t waste the time doing it if nobody responded. Ultimately, I think it just sort of bothers me along the same lines as those Starbucks tip jars because these aren’t waiters who earn a much smaller wage and rely on tips to make up the difference – they earn a full-blown wage from their employer, and in my understanding the mail carriers actually do pretty well. So why am *I* expected to give them extra simply for doing their job … just because it’s the holidays??? If my employer choses to give me a Christmas bonus, then great … but it’s not my fault if their bosses don’t do the same for them! Take it up with Waste Management or Uncle Sam.
Really, I think it’s pushing the lines of the “service” industry farther and farther because frankly, these are people that I wouldn’t normally even tip in the first place. Sure, I might give the girl who cuts my hair a few bucks more than normal or give my waiter 5% extra for the holidays, but if I normally wouldn’t give you a tip anyways?! And in the case of the needy garbage men, it’s even worse because we don’t even pay the bill for garbage collection – the HOA does. Why would I tip you for a service that I don’t even pay for myself?!
I guess at the end of the day, it just seems a little tacky for me that anyone who interacts with consumers seems to feel that tips should be warranted these days, and around the holidays when hands are extended at every turn all the more, a guy just gets tired of everyone asking him for extra money when he certainly isn’t collecting anything more himself. Wait a minute, that’s it! Maybe I should start asking for tips when people read my humor columns … I’ll just leave a small bag of rocks on their keyboard the next morning and I’m sure they’ll be happy to open up their wallets in the spirit of the season! Wouldn’t you?!
This is bad ass.
http://www.legomatrix.com
favorite vacation photo
If I had to pick but one pic from our Disney vacation last week, it would have to be this one:
This is probably the most crisp nighttime photo that I’ve ever taken over there, and especially when there are so many lights involved, I think that says a lot. A few others turned out nice, too – particularly food pics, which I’m going to try to put online next year when I have some time to revisit all of my Disney content in general – but in the meantime, I’ll try to find some time to post a few others, along with those from the cruise sometime in the next couple of days…
Never a dry eye…
…when I stumble back to the videos of Jim Henson’s funeral.
Here’s a new one – this is the last part of a CBS special that aired shortly after Jim’s death as a tribute … very quaint how Kermit is “traveling” for most of the show, then comes in at the last minute to compliment everyone on a job well done. Makes me wonder if Steve Whitmire ever filled in on Kermit when Jim was still alive or if those were his first “official” words as Kermit saying that the show would go on “because that’s the way the boss would want it” (Steve took over both Kermit and Ernie after Jim died in 1990)…
Of course, it doesn’t help that this song is a tear-jerker all by itself anyways … here’s a much earlier performance from The Muppet Show sung by Bernadette Peters (and others) when Robin was talking about running away – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioR28cNX33Y.
Folks I’m Less Than Fond Of…
In the spirit of Erik Deckers (and subsequently Davezilla), here’s my own list of people who perturb me.
Man, was it hard to choose just a few…
- Neighbors who complain that the 25mph speed limit through our subdivision is “too fast” because there might be kids playing in the street. Tell your kids not to play in the street!
- Grocery store customers who try to make use of the self-checkout machines when realistically it’d be much faster for everyone if they would just go through a normal lane.
- The old people from my HOA who stop by the gym at 9:55pm to make sure everyone leaves on-time.
- People who wear their Bluetooth headsets in public … even more so if they also use them in public.
- People who put out tip jars on the counter where they work when their job in no way, shape, or form warrants tipping.
- Marketing douches who act like social media is the solution to every business’s problems.
- Minivan drivers
Thanks for the idea, guys – I can definitely see how this could become a regular thing … unfortunately!