I blame Preparation H.

[Quote:]

The notion of somehow convincing consumers to proactively “opt-in” to ads rather than avoiding them has intrigued media planners for years. Out of frustration, or perhaps necessity, a group of leading consumer experts this week suggested the ad industy might simply begin paying people to look at its advertising.

At least, that was the advice of J. Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich Partners, when he appeared at Wednesday’s Media magazine Forecast 2005 conference at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Manhattan. Isntead of bristling at Walker’s suggestion, his fellow panelists concurred and even noted that, in some ways, the ad industry is already doing this.

“We have to figure out ways in which we can better engage consumers,” Smith said. “The thing is that [consumers] want some sort of reciprocity. Pretty soon, we’re going to get to the point where we’re going to have to pay people to watch our ads. And I do mean cash money.”

As the other panelists sharing the stage with Smith noted that “the existing ad model is broken” in terms of maintaining relevancy to consumers, Smith insisted he wasn’t being facetious.

“New technology is not the problem,” he said. “If we use the new technologies in the same way we use the old technologies, we’re just abusing our relationship with consumers in a brand new way. We have research that says 37 percent of consumers give up one hour of sleep a day in order to get more time back in their lives. Do you think that the hour they get back will want to be spent with advertising and marketing?

“And 69 percent of the consumers we interviewed don’t say that they’re getting new technologies so that they can have a better relationship with marketers, they’re trying to opt-out, block, and skip advertising,” Smith added. “We have to find a way to combat that.”

While some in the audience seemed to regard the prospect of a monetary bribe as a somewhat dubious marketing practice, when questioned them about the considerable attention General Motors’ Pontiac received when Oprah gave away 276 GM cars on her show, Jana O’Brien, director of strategic research for GM Planworks, noted that Pontiac was ranked as one of Google’s most-frequently cited search terms in months.

But O’Brien cautioned advertisers that such things aren’t cheap and that half-measures are costly and can turn consumers off.

“When the Pontiac giveaway was first mentioned, some people asked, well, couldn’t we just do half that amount?” O’Brien said. “If you’re going to do it, you have to go all the way or not do it at all.”

I’m game. I’ll start watching commercials again – my rates are very competitive, just $10 per commercial. Advertisers can start paying here:

So much for Bloom County.

Ack! Phhhht!

A duck swims in one of the ponds in central St. Petersburg, September 29, 2004. REUTERS/Alexander Demianchuk

What is the first picture people take with their new camera’s?

Other fun searches: DSCF0001 and IMG_0001

Michigan absentee ballot…which arrow is for Kerry, and which is for Bush?

[Quote:]

From Brad Wittman in the Michigan Secretary of State’s office:

Thanks for the sites. The ballot printing error is confined to a single precinct in the City of Alma. Approximately 69 ballots containing the error were released to voters on Monday, September 27. On Tuesday, September 28, a voter called the clerk to alert her to the error. Arrangements have been made to send the 69 voters replacement ballots. The clerk expects to receive corrected ballots on Monday, October 4.

In the meantime, a voter who received one of the misprinted ballots posted a scan of the ballot on the web. This has created far more interest (an outrage) than what is warranted.

[Quote:]

As of 8:42 this morning, the top headline on Google News was a blog. That’s a first as far as I know.

The algorithms have spoken, and the most relevant source of news on the 2004 Presidental debate isn’t a “news organization,” it’s a guy with a brain and a text editor. Looks like Dave Winer might win his bet.

[Quote:]

Dat het rotten van de vis inmiddels de staart heeft bereikt, is een werkelijkheid die zich dag in dag uit aan ons opdringt.

De fraude en corruptie-schandalen rijgen zich aaneen. Het aantal banen daalt nog steeds. De werkloosheid is structureler dan de meeste mensen hopen (verborgen, want we zijn met de VUT, WAO of prepensioen…). Er zijn in Nederland vrijhavens waar wetteloosheid heersen; gevolg van jarenlang linksig gedoogbeleid. Lekken en verkopen van informatie is een bezigheid die tot binnen de AIVD wordt beoefend.

Blijkbaar wordt er nog niet genoeg verdiend aan zwart werken. Nederlanders beschouwen de zwarte economie waarschijnlijk helemaal niet als illegaal, maar als gedoogde bijverdienste. Het rechtsbesef is totaal scheefgegroeid; geen wonder als nog géén 1% van de frauders wordt gepakt.

Inderdaad, Nederland verdient beter…. Door frauderen, zwart bijklussen, met een vette uitkering op de luie reet zitten…. Het kan niet op. Normale economische arbeid zit er echter niet meer in.

Het verval is duidelijk. We zijn al het Italië van Noord-Europa met graaiende bureaucratische maffia’s van links en graaiende mafiose bedrijfsleiders van rechts. Als we nog verder doorgaan met verloederen, zullen we binnenkort ingehaald worden door Turkije – dat hoge groeicijfers haalt.

Nog meer belangrijk Nederlands nieuws:

[Quote:]

Het lied ‘Zij gelooft in mij’ van André Hazes is vanuit het niets binnengekomen op nummer één in de Top 100, zo werd vrijdag bekend. Na het overlijden van Hazes, vorige week donderdag, werd besloten zijn populaire hit nogmaals uit te brengen.

Hazes domineerde jarenlang de hitlijsten, maar bereikte nooit de hoogste positie. Met deze notering is het hem postuum alsnog gelukt. ‘Zij gelooft in mij’ is de titelsong de gelijknamige documentaire uit 1999. Het nummer verdringt Marco Borsato en Ali B van de eerste plaats op de hitlijst.

[Quote:]

Fox News has posted a redaction and an apology for running a story filled with falsified Kerry quotes. Yes, Fox actually made up quotes and attributed them to John Kerry, then published them on their web site. Now they say their sorry, but they’ve already done the damage they set out to do.

The quotes have been removed from the Fox story but here’s what they claimed Kerry said before posting their redaction and apology. Note that everything inside this quote block is the invention of Fox News:

Rallying supporters in Tampa Friday, Kerry played up his performance in Thursday night’s debate, in which many observers agreed the Massachusetts senator outperformed the president.

“Didn’t my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!” Kerry said Friday.

With the foreign-policy debate in the history books, Kerry hopes to keep the pressure on and the sense of traction going.

Aides say he will step up attacks on the president in the next few days, and pivot somewhat to the domestic agenda, with a focus on women and abortion rights.

“It’s about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures,” Kerry said.

Kerry still trails in actual horse-race polls, but aides say his performance was strong enough to rally his base and further appeal to voters ready for a change.

“I’m metrosexual he’s a cowboy,” the Democratic candidate said of himself and his opponent.

A “metrosexual” is defined as an urbane male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle.

Yes, they actually published this. It was the work of Fox reporter Carl Cameron, who is assigned to cover the Kerry campaign. According to the Talking Points Memo, Fox spokesperson Paul Schur said, “Carl [Cameron] made a stupid mistake which he regrets. And he has been reprimanded for his lapse in judgment. It was a poor attempt at humor.”

The published Fox news apology reads, “Earlier Friday, FOXNews.com posted an item purporting to contain quotations from Kerry. The item was based on a reporter’s partial script that had been written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast. We regret the error, which occurred because of fatigue and bad judgment, not malice.”

If you believe that, I have a great bridge to sell you. Where are the calls for a Congressional investigation of Fox News? Has Fox violated election law?

Well, at least CBS believed its information was correct…

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

Voltaire (1694 – 1778)

[Quote:]

Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction.

~ Jimi Hendrix

Bottom-placed Czech first division football club Chmel Blsany has launched a new campaign to lure fans to its game on Monday by promising free sausages to them if the team scores a goal(AFP/DDP/File)

A Shiite militant loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr, takes a position in one of the alleys of Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood as a young child looks on. (AFP/Ahmad al-Rubaye)

[Quote:]

The Spanish government approved a bill to legalise homosexual marriages, which will make it only the third country in Europe to condone same-sex marriages — but the move sparked fury within a still influential Roman Catholic Church.

The plan, which will also give gay couples the right to adopt, “recognises all rights for homosexuals, when it comes to qualifying for a pension, administering an estate, asking for a loan, authorising surgery for a partner but also to adopt a child,” cabinet spokeswoman Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said.

Spain “is in the forefront of Europe and of the world in the struggle against centuries of discrimination,” de la Vega said, adding that about four million of Spain’s 40 million inhabitants, or 10 percent were homosexual.

To date, gay marriages are only legal in Europe in Belgium and the Netherlands — though only the Netherlands allows gay couples to adopt. Similar unions are legal in six Canadian provinces and the US state of Massachusetts.

[Quote:]

Jay Nordlinger of the National Review, the secular scripture of American conservatism, began his evaluation by saying to his pro-Bush readership, “Don’t shoot the messenger!” Then he gave them his unhappy message: “If I was a normal guy … I would vote for Kerry. On the basis of that debate, I would.”

What happened to Bush? What’s wrong with him? I would say he has a bad case of Ovalitis — an ear infection endemic to the Oval Office. Sit there long enough, and you don’t hear anything you don’t want to hear.

The people who come into the president’s office know all about shooting messengers, so they bring only tidings of great joy. Anyone who doesn’t do that gets fired. That’s what happened to both his chief economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, and the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, when they said, correctly, that occupying and stabilizing Iraq (news – web sites) would take more money and men than Bush had imagined.

At first the president must have seen through all the bowing and scraping, but gradually it became his due; he is the boy in the bubble. And the bubble moves with him around the country as his staff and the Secret Service protect him from any unpleasant words or people. Tickets to his rallies are given only to the loyal. He holds no press conferences. He hides away out there in the Crawford sagebrush. He’s alone.

Thursday night visibly shocked Bush. He was shocked by what Kerry was saying, particularly about the poisoned chaos that is Iraq. Why, the Democrat even raised questions about Ayad Allawi, the Iraqi tough guy Bush picked as prime minister — and seemed on the verge of comparing to Winston Churchill. How could Kerry say such things about such a man? How could Kerry say things are going badly in Iraq? No one told the president that, or he didn’t hear it. Why, that could demoralize our troops — as if those soldiers in harm’s way did not know what was going on long before Kerry spoke out.

Bush is a man who does not hear, or does not listen. That, rather than Kerry’s confident professionalism, was what was important Thursday night. The challenger, we know, has had problems because he hears too many voices; he listens to everyone. The only people we know the president listens to are members of his small court, led by Vice President Cheney, who has been pushing the preposterous for the past three years.

This is not new. Bush gave away part of the game when he talked about never dreaming when he debated in 2000 that he would have to send troops into harm’s way. What did he think presidents do? He seemed ignorant then. But as commander in chief he quickly became imperious. Answering a question from Bob Woodward in 2002 about whether he was listening to staff and advisers as he prepared for war, Bush said: “Of course not. I’m the commander. See, I don’t have to explain why I say things. … I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”

Apparently he meant that. He certainly did not make much of an attempt to explain anything in this first debate — and that’s why he lost it.

Fortunately, there’s a cure for Ovalitis: retirement.

[Quote:]

Mount St. Helens, the volcano that blew its top with cataclysmic force in 1980, erupted for the first time in 18 years Friday, belching a huge column of white steam and ash after days of rumblings under the mountain.