Archive for the ‘Bob’s Happygood Funny Blog’ Category

Newer Entries »

‘The King of Pop is Dead’ social-media time trial

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

michael_jackson_1971_got_to_be_thereWho was first to report on Michael Jackson’s death?

It’s just after 9:30 p.m. EST on Thursday, June 25 — the day of Michael Jackson’s death.

The first tweet from my admittedly small ‘follow’ list came at 5:24 as a retweet from Daniel McCarthy, who I don’t actually know, but rather stumbled across him in a retweet from a former boss for whom I have a lot of respect. McCarthy’s tweet was a retweet of a source that claimed Michael Jackson died from a sleeping pill. Suicided, accidental overdose, adverse reaction?

C’mon, it’s 140 characters. Ambiguous to be sure. Call it an unfortunate aspect of the medium. Or the fog of war/celebrity reporting.

The next tweet with the news from my list came in 5:45 p.m. (+21 minutes from the first report/+19 minutes from the event)  from TimAmikoff in Tehran, Iran (if I thought it was true, I’d ask if he doesn’t have anything else to do. And how did he end up on my follow list anyway?) TimAmikoff’s was a retweet from  CNN Breaking News, linking to a CNN story online that cited the LA County Coronor as the source, with the death declared at 2:26 p.m. I’m considering that to be the original primary source. It said nothing about cause of death, other than a third-party quote from one of Jackson’s brothers that he had collapsed in his home. I’m inferring (because the full story was vague) the state times were local, which would be time of death of 5:26 p.m. EST — two minutes AFTER I received the very first tweet announcing his death.

Let’s say my computer clock is off two minutes. Practically a probability.

So while CNN’s story took about 29 minutes to make it’s way to my computer via Iran, the news was out to at least one source within a minute or so of Jackson’s declared death.

That’s the one I got from Daniel McArthy, who was retweeting Wierd News, which linked to a Top News Stories site owned by Global Associated News — which seems to be an empty logo used by Fake-a-wish.com — a spartan website unencumbered by “About us” links — that in its entirety seems to be a dynamic content generator about fake celebrity news. Seriously.

The story said Jackson had died from a sleeping pill (later elaborated to “cardiac arrest after consuming more than two-dozen sleeping pills.”

At the bottom of the Wierd News Page was this disclaimer: (this story was dynamically generated using a generic ‘template’ and is not factual. Any reference to specific individuals has been 100% fabricated by web site visitors who have created fake stories by entering a name into a blank ‘non-specific’ template for the purpose of entertainment. For sub-domain info and additional use restrictions: FakeAWish.com.)

Can it be a coincidence that FakeAWish would generate this story even as it was happening? Or is somebody sabotaging FakeAWish by placing real big breaking news on it — within seconds of it becoming available, and then updating it?

At 6:22 (+58), CNN Breaking News tweeted that Jackson was in a coma — +37 from first reporting he had died.

At 6:30 (+1:06) TimAmikoff cited the LA Times as confirming Jackson’s death. CNN Breaking News followed within a minute, confirming from multiple sources.

A 6:42 (+1:18) the Wall Street Journal tweeted that he had been rushed to the hospital.

At 8:37 (+2:53) The Onion tweeted “The last piece of Michael Jackson dies.”

What it all means is that I still don’t know where the news really comes from. Except I didn’t get it from any of this. I was busy elsewhere. When I looked, it was all there, preserved by my Tweetdeck utility.  But I learned the whole thing at about 7:00 in a phone call from my brother-in-law.

Leave your comment »

Posted in Bob's Happygood Funny Blog, Future of media, Poutpourri for 200 Alex

Tags:

I have just reached the point at which…

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

I have just reached the point at which … … as I’m sitting down at the computer to work, I would rather spend an extra 10 looking for my reading glasses than just gutting through the session by straining my eyes.

That’s got to be some kind of tipping point.

Leave your comment »

Posted in Bob's Happygood Funny Blog, Poutpourri for 200 Alex

Tags:

American Pie send-up on media

Friday, June 5th, 2009

apie2Anyone living through the media meltdown will enjoy this clever 9-minute rewrite of the old Don McLean anthem.

Leave your comment »

Posted in Blogroll, Bob's Happygood Funny Blog, Future of media

Tags:

The difference between liberals and conservatives is … genetic?

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Nicholas Kristoff writes in the New York Times that your political leaning isn’t your fault.

Liberals and conservatives not only think differently, he writes, they feel differently. Which means that when a person accuses you of a horrible misunderstanding about the way the world works, an argument doesn’t have to ensue.

First, you should know that this poor confrontational soul has been trained from the day he or she was born — and maybe even programmed in the womb — to disagree with you on pretty much anything that matters.

This is important to a whole bunch of folks, like those at Civilpolitics.org who seem to think that we ought to be able to discuss our differences without calling each other idiots and nitwits.

That’s just crazy talk.

We should care precisely because polite dialogue is a waste of time that we don’t have. Anyone who uses this knowledge to increase the amount of talk should be sent to Guantanamo. The rest of us will use this insight can be used to get right to the heart of the matter ASAP. We can finally settle the critical issues of our time: abortion, gay marriage, access to health care and whether the Constitution is a living, breathing document.

What we need to do is conduct more research into the workings of the political mind. This could get costly, so the government might need to subsidize it. But it would be one area of study that we can all agree is worth the price. Am I not right?

Soon we will know with certainty which end of the political spectrum is not a choice, but rather an unfortunate disability. Once we know that, it’s an easy step to an infrastructure of subsidized treatment centers offering therapy, behavior modification, enhanced cognition techniques and, eventually, carefully monitored release of individuals back into society.

Which side would get this assistance and care? Liberals or conservatives?

It’s obvious already. And if you have to ask, fill out the form below; your plastic bracelet will arrive in the mail in a few days.

Leave your comment »

Posted in Bob's Happygood Funny Blog

Tags:

With apologies to The New Yorker

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

From a New York Times wire story in The Plain Dealer:

This morning, at the American Museum of Natural History, researchers will unveil a 47-million-year-old fossil they say could revolutionize the understanding of human evolution at a ceremony.

A truly epochal event.

Leave your comment »

Posted in Bob's Happygood Funny Blog

Tags:

How fast can one company lose customers?

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

According to Shelly Palmer at imediabytes, Sirius/Xm Radio lost $36 million in Q1. And that’s nothing. It lost 400,000 customers — which I’m thinking is more customers than Johnson & Johnson lost back in the 1980s when someone started putting cyanide in its Tylenol products. siriusxm_siriusI mean, 400,000 is a mid-size city. It’s a lot of customers. I’m not sure you could get rid of customers that fast if you paid telemarketers to call them up at dinner time and swear at them.

And if you’re the folks at Sirius/XM, it’s the kind of number that puts you into a full-blown panic attack. When you lose 400,00 customers in 3 months, you start asking questions like, “Are we doing the right thing here?” and “WTF?”

My personal experience is that I had been a subscriber for 2 years when I got a note from Sirius/XM in February siriusxm_xmwarning me that I would no longer be able to access programming for free on my computer unless I paid for the full year in advance right away.

It annoyed me, and I immediately assumed it was a cash-grab. But I bought the 12-month subscription because I thought it was important to me. Two weeks later I lost my job, and a week after that, in an effort to cut all unnecessary costs — and because I was irritated at being leveraged in the first palce, I called to cancel my subscription.

Their response? The nice lady with a Punjabi accent asked if they could keep me as a customer if they reduced the annual subscription rate by 50%. Now I was really mad, realizing that all along I’d been paying twice what they were willing to take. I told her no.

A month later, I got a direct-mail piece asking me to come back at 4.99 a month for six months — 38% of the original price. I suppose this was supposed to entice me. But it made me feel even more stupid for having paid $12.99 in the first place.

There’s one other thing: All along, Sirius/XM has advertised that it’s commercial-free radio, which should be worth paying for. But it’s not true. If you listen to any syndicated programming that’s re-broadcast via satellite, you’ll get the same amount of commercial time as you would on commercial radio.

And if you listen to their original programming — some of which is really pretty good — you still get advertising. And it’s the most irritating kind: low-budget stuff for whole-body cleanses and businesses that you can run from home without any skills or experience required.

I originally bought my XM subscription because I didn’t want to be my own DJ; I’d rather have someone else do it for me. But these are hard times, you know. Worst times since the Great Depression. So now, when I get in my car, I plug in my i-pod or put in an old CD. I still don’t want to be my own DJ. But I’m guessing that 399,999 other people agree with me that it’s not all that bad a job.

Leave your comment »

Posted in Bob's Happygood Funny Blog, Business, Future of media, Poutpourri for 200 Alex

Tags:

Quote of the day

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

From Richard Mitchele, who just won a contest from Sailing Anarchy (without a doubt the best blog, forum and e-newsletter on earth devoted to racing sailboats). His prize was a ride-along on the Puma entrant in the Volvo Ocean Race during the closed-course races sailed in Boston as part of the round-the-world race’s only North American stopover.sailing-anarchy-swag

“You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out that I’d won the contest on SA. I was kind of thinking maybe I’d score a T-shirt or some other Puma swag. It was as if Jessica Alba called to say that the restraining order had been lifted, that she and Uma Thurman had talked it over and wanted to give my idea a try.”

Leave your comment »

Posted in Bob's Happygood Funny Blog, Poutpourri for 200 Alex

Tags:

Are magazines really that important?

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Folio:, a trade magazine for the publishing industry, reports that Entrepreneur magazine is being sued for $178 million by a group of 87 investors who claim the magazine promoted a business that turned out to be a giant Ponzi scheme. (Here’s the article.)

ent-mag-cover-may-08In the suit, they claim the magazine “deliberately, willfully and recklessly failed to exercise due diligence in publishing information” about Agape World, according to the Folio: article. That information was contained in a May 2008 ranking of the “Hot 100” fast-growth businesses. Agape World was ranked 73rd, but early this year its owner was arrested and charged with mail fraud to the tune of $375 million+. The company has  been retroactively removed from the Hot 100 list.

This sounds to me like a bunch of crybaby investors looking for someone to blame because they didn’t do their due diligence. And I have little sympathy for them. The investors, according to the article, are also going to sue Dunn & Bradstreet, which apparently provided some of the information Entrepreneur used.

But it also peels back the blanket on one of publishing’s most worrisome and quietly kept problems. Magazine people claim that, despite the advertising/revenue crisis they currently face, they will remain viable over the long-run because their content is so important to readers.

For instance, here’s what Gordon Hughes, president of American Business Media (trade magazine association) said just a few weeks ago, in another Folio: article about the 26% declinein ad sales in 2009′s Q1: “What our industry does, and has always done, is provide information that makes business better and stronger. We will come through this period as a stronger industry, a more creative industry, and maybe even a more dedicated industry.”

He should have included the word “smaller.” Because the great good that he claims the industry performs is more exception than rule.

Take Entrepreneur‘s example. Its Hot 100 list is repurposed information from public databases. OK, somebody has to crunch the data. And I’m not saying there isn’t any original reporting; but even the magazine’s CEO says there isn’t a lot.

Here’s what Entrepreneur‘s COE Peter Shea told Folio: “Given the limited information provided about each company, it was certainly not Entrepreneur’s intention to evaluate or predict a specific company’s investment potential nor expectation that anyone would rely on such information to make investment decisions.”

What a terrible position: In order to defend his product against this lawsuit, he has to make the case that the content is really just trivia.

I don’t mean to condemn all magazines. Many do fine work, which I read and admire. But most of what passes for such is a little bit of data and a lot of promotion. For every magazine that is earning its way by producing content that readers really won’t live without, there are probably dozens that face a real comeuppance.

Advertisers are dropping out of magazines to create their own content, and magazines must finally (they’ve been talking about it for years) get readers to pay a larger share of the actual cost to produce the information they provide. As they do, many will face a truth they probably already know: Their content isn’t all that important.

Leave your comment »

Posted in Bob's Happygood Funny Blog, Future of media

Tags: