AOL Scrambling for a New Identity

What to be? What to be? Let’s see. AOL began by making the Internet “easy.” It turns out that it wasn’t all that complicated anyway.

Now that AOL is losing market share to high-speed providers, you’d think that AOL would be working up their own high-speed solution, right? Well, they do! And people are still leaving. Might have something to do with their price, me thinks.

Now AOL is working up their portal in an effort to sell more advertising. Hmm… now where have I heard that before? When Cost per Thousand rates were dropping the critics cried, “Oh no! The Internet will die!” But it’s alive and well.

Just goes to show how supply and demand when not overly regulated generally works better than any other system devised by man.

One Track Mind

This is certainly not worthy of a post, but does anyone else out there think there’s anything wrong with the link title below:

I mean… I understand that sex sells, but isn’t this a bit perverse?

Box Office Devastation

Marginal Revolution has a good post called The fall of Hollywood? Tyler has listed some great points, but there are two more I would add:

6. The rise of video games has taken market share from both TV and cinema.

7. Producers are running scared. They are more risk averse and are relying more on traditionally popular genres like horror films (cheaper to produce) to keep the cash coming in.

Yet, I wouldn’t go out of my way to dismiss the political slamming that takes place when Hollywood, via either their films message or directly by a famous spokesman, demeans something that many people hold valuable. I know there are certain movies I just won’t see because the producers or actors in the movie have been so antagonistic towards my belief system.

I was just talking with my Father today about the idea that for much of the Muslim world, the primary reason (reportedly) they hate America is that they believe what Hollywood is selling. Namely that Americans have meaningless sex with multiple partners, experiment with drugs, have a propencity towards violence and speak primarily with expletives and vulgarities. It’s sad but Hollywood is creating our marketing message to the world.

The Attractive Paper

What do you do if you have a novel product and you want to create some buzz? You build a viral website of course. [via Presurfer]

War on Terror Needs Madison Avenue

Ok. Terrorists like to blow things up. Often themselves included. Which means, they’re constantly on the lookout for new members. How do they go about this recruiting campaign? I doubt they use professional headhunters or staffing agencies but it really doesn’t matter. This aspect of the war isn’t fought in the streets but in the mind… and who fights those communication wars better than Madison Avenue?

We need to put Al Ries in charge of our marketing campaign against the terrorists. Ries (along with Jack Trout) created the concept of Positioning. If can better position ourselves at home and abroad, then:

• the psychotic hate-mongers will have a tough time finding new “talent”
• arms suppliers will be less likely to “partner” with the terrorists
• public sentiment will shift so that policy can better support our stated goals

C’mon Mr. Ries, give it some thought. Your country needs you.

Boycott Amex

A paladin, by definition “fights for a just and lawful cause.” With that said, I’d be remiss in my responsibilities if I let American Express get away with their current Duke University promotional campaign disguised as advertisements. The TV spots cause my stomach to roil but now they’re on the NBA.com too?

The time has come to call for a boycott of American Express. It’s not like we all don’t get 4 credit card offers in the mail every, single, day. Visa and MasterCard are accepted in more places anyway, who needs Amex?

You need to stand up for all those schools who don’t get the unfair benefit of free commerical airtime to help their recruiting. Heck, everyone sees that it’s unfair! Ok, who’s with me?

Spying on the Spyware

Here’s a fascinating interview with Ben Edelman, a leader in the fight against spyware. Get this. He’s only 25.

The lengths that some of these companies go to sneak their software onto your computer should drive you batty. In my opinion, we need stiffer penalties.

It seems to make sense that an organization like Symantec could benefit by setting up a site that collects user complaints. It could be a more full-featured version of what legitimate companies like PayPal do, when they accept spam email complaints. Spammers target PayPal customes with fake emails in the attempt to steal personal information. Someday, PayPal may have enough evidence to file suit, if they haven’t already.

Swimwear Primer

The crack young staff over at The Hatemonger’s Quarterly has some (sarcastic) wisdom regarding your upcoming swimsuit forray into Target, TJ Maxx and beyond. Ladies, are you with me? Uh, I mean… you can go and I’ll stay here. Right.

I’m still supportive, just not in the store.

It’s one of those things that God genetically implanted in the male DNA. It ranks right up there with baby showers and epilation, though still slightly behind antique hunting. I’m sorry, but isn’t that why Al Gore invented the Internet? Heck, Land’s End even has their Virtual Model. What could be more fun?

Important Note: Unless otherwise noted, the information provided by this and other servers within the 21stCenturyPaladin.com domain or otherwise operated by Paladin does not directly represent the official statements or views of the aforementioned Paladin but are merely for sampling purposes. And by no means does any of the preceeding message apply to Mrs. Paladin in any way, shape or form. Seriously.

Brand Affects Perception: Why We’re All Biased

We all have our own perceptions regarding different brands. Some love Starbucks, others despise it. Polo used to be the “it” in clothing, but times change and tastes fluctuate.

Perception greatly affects brand loyalty when it comes to automobiles. But does the brand affect our perception? Or, the perception affect the brand? What I mean is, do we upgrade our perception of a given car if the brand is one we like?

Here’s a quick little quiz. I’ll show you three pictures of some new concept cars with their brand logo airbrushed out. You give me your honest evaluation of the cars styling. Then, when I reveal the company that produced each one, try to guage whether that improves or degrades your view of that car. Sound fun? Here goes.

Mystery Car #1
Answer: 2006 Pontiac Solstice

Mystery Car #2
Answer: 2005 Nissan Azeal Coupe Concept

Mystery Car #3
Answer: 2004 Saturn Curve Concept

Come back tomorrow for the reveal.

Ty Sells Soul, Price Undisclosed

Looking to capitalize on the success of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Sears just made the final installment payment on Ty Pennington’s soul. Now they own him.

But is it such a bad business decision? Sure, he’s more obnoxious than that guy in the next cube who’s always doing the baby talk over the phone with his girlfriend but look at those eyes, that jawline, that bird’s-nest-of-a-mop hairdo! Umhm.

I mean, he may be a wonderful stylist, a la Martha yet for the younger, boy-crazy teeny-bopper demographic. But for the rest of us, haven’t we all reached our Ty-limit about 6 months ago?

When the show first began, it was truly heartwarming. Now we have to endure the “Ty”rades just so we can enjoy watching the family realize a dream come true. “The time is running out! Oh no! We won’t finish the house in time?!?” Seriously, look for ABC to pull an American Idol-style contest to find the new host for next season. Scratch that. Wasn’t ABC the network that just kept spinning off shows from Three’s Company? Oh my goodness The Ropers was bad.

Guess Ty will be back behind the bullhorn next season. When will they invent a TiVo that can edit out stuff? A guy can dream can’t he?

In-Game Ads Becoming More Legit

What was a novelty ten years ago is now taking the next big step forward, in-game advertising is going mainstream. With game developers complaining about the cost of producing games (a separate, not entirely true, issue) the enticement of another revenue stream is going to be too much for the purists to resist.

Buying a pizza is nice, stadium boards at the ballpark are a value-add, but if I’m playing Star Trek Elite Force II and I get a call on my communicator from some survey-taker, I might have to go postal! And I don’t mean the game.

Smart adidas Gonna Fly Off the Shelves

You know you’re big-time when you get a highlight on the AOL Welcome popup. What does adidas pay for this? Whatever it is, it’s worth it. Other news is far easier to ignore but this stuff is money. Anyway, I got sidetracked.

Have you heard about these new shoes? The adidas 1 claim to be the world’s first intelligent shoes. They have a built-in computer that senses the kind of surface you’re running on and adjusts the amount of support they give you.

If it works, “Wow!”
If not, still “Wow!”

Some people will buy just to give them a test drive… well, unless they’re like $600, which they might very well be.

Impossible Is Nothing

Impossible is nothing, especially when you are dreaming. [via Coudal]

Amazon Building Personal Profiles, So What

Amazon was granted a patent last week for a profile system that looks at customer reviews and tries to guess what to offer that customer. Of course, the privacy folks are all in an uproar, so it’s no surprise to see c|net use the word “snooping” in their article title. But what’s the big deal? It’s not like they’re selling this information, they’re using it to try and get you to buy more stuff on Amazon. Isn’t that what businesses are supposed to do?

Yet opposition forces (Ed- For teaching purposes I’m using my own slanted terminology to describe the people with whom I disagree. See how it works?) use blacklisted words like “profiling” and “snooping” to make it sound worse than it really is. Bunch of screaming ninnies if you ask me.

Duke Obsessed

Nobody gets the media love like the Blue Devils. Every time you turn around CBS is showing Laettner’s last second shot in ’92. Vitale preens Coach K this and Coach K that. ESPN has a huge site-crush on Duke. Even AOL is kneeling at the altar of Coach K, even though both Illinois and North Carolina are the tournament favorites. Et tu AOL?

People wonder about an underground Jewish cartel that runs America’s financial institutions, but what about the obvious Duke promo-bloc? No wonder everyone hates Duke.