by Scott Scanlon on August 30, 2010
Facebook using your likeness (image by Global X)
Have you seen this latest legal case… Two Los Angeles-area parents are suing Facebook over the Like button that appears in the social site’s ads.
A prepared statement by the plaintiff’s attorney John Torjesen read: “When a teenager sees that their Facebook friends ‘Like’ an ad, it piques their curiosity, making them more likely to click the ad or visit the page. We believe it is a clear case of exploitation of children for the sake of profits.”
Co-counsel in the lawsuit Antony Stuart added: “The consent of the minor for this commercial use of his or her name and likeness is not obtained by Facebook. Under California law, the minor’s consent cannot be obtained without the consent of the parent or guardian. Facebook makes no effort to obtain parental consent.”
Some quick thoughts that come to mind…
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by Scott Scanlon on July 28, 2010
Should Google (and ducks for that matter) be regulated? (image by Yodel Anecdotal)
I recently read an editorial in “The New York Times” called “The Google Algorithm.” This is about whether or not there should be regulation on Google for their search results. Granted Google gets 90 plus percent of searches and they have these offshoot services such as YouTube and Maps and other things.
Another less than brilliant idea although I am a little concerned about Google’s increasingly close ties to government and Washington.
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by Scott Scanlon on July 26, 2010
We have deep seated reasons for not being wrong... wait I'm I right there? (image by KungPaoCajun)
A new and great book has been written by Kathryn Schulz titled Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error.
Schulz starts with one underlying question: Why do we love being right? Is it for sport or some other deep seated need, she writes, “unlike many of life’s other delights — chocolate, surfing, kissing — it does not enjoy any mainline access to our biochemistry: to our appetites, our adrenal glands, our limbic systems, our swoony hearts.” but that’s not quite the case she continues, “we can’t enjoy kissing just anyone, but we can relish being right about almost anything,” including that which we’d rather be wrong about, like “the downturn in the stock market, say, or the demise of a friend’s relationship or the fact that at our spouse’s insistence, we just spent 15 minutes schlepping our suitcase in exactly the opposite direction from our hotel.”
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by Scott Scanlon on July 20, 2010
Is the old media dead yet? (photo by ShironekoEuro)
This old media is not dead—it’s undead. It’s still walking around terrorizing the local townspeople. That latest viral video, do you know how it became viral? First it appeared on YouTube. Then it was highlighted by a blogger who is followed by a few in the know within the old media print media. The story was ran in a few local large markets and then picked up by some more bloggers.
Next it hit the morning TV shows then the afternoon shows. After all this then it hit it’s stride. It went from under a million views to multi-million. The key here is that the driver for the viral effect was the reach and credibility of old media. Old media is also being led by new media.
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by Scott Scanlon on July 19, 2010
Yeah this makes sense to me... how about you? (image from Wikipedia)
Conventional marketing wisdom holds that predicting success in cultural markets is mostly a matter of anticipating the preferences of the millions of individual people who participate in them. If you are aware of the concept of Cumulative Advantage– that is things rise to the top not because they are better quality than the alternatives, but because people copy what their friends do: a tiny rise in popularity an early stage can mean massive popularity further down the line.
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by Scott Scanlon on July 12, 2010
I saw a interesting interview at WebProNews.com and I’ve included it below. Kevin Ryan of Motivity Marketing asks whether or not search is going to become considered a utility?
Interesting concept. Now the first issue we would have to deal with is decoupling.
In public utility regulation, decoupling refers to the disassociation of a utility’s profits from its sales of the energy commodity.
This leads up to the next big question. Is Google a monopoly? No. Even with capturing over 60% of search traffic I don’t see how you can argue that it is an outright monopoly. People use Google because it works and is highly functional. The second they stop being relevant is the second you start looking for alternatives. A monopoly controls your terms of access to service or product–Google does not control the terms in which you access search. There are more than enough options out there they just currently do it best.
The Big Question
Is search an essential part of our daily life? Is it as essential as having electricity, water, and other utilities? If you were limited the ability to search does this limit your ability to what we consider in the Western world a basic need?
by Scott Scanlon on July 7, 2010
I really do enjoy the reports from TrendWatching.com. They recently released a brief welcoming you to innovation insanity brief… here are my favorites:
Number 12. Japan, KitKat 19 regional favorites: Taking a local approach to candy bars, Nestlé recently launched 19 new Kit Kat flavours in Japan that reflect food specialties of specific districts.
KitKats in Japan
Number 15. Curated marketplace for self published books: IndieReader offers a marketplace for independent, self-published books. The books sold on the site are curated by IndieReader to ensure that the cream of the indie “crop” is well-represented.
Number 18 butcher shop installs vending machines. Genius idea and something that has wide ranging possibilities if you think about it. With three stores in Northern Spain, butcher Izarzugaza has installed a vending machine outside its Mundaka shop that sells a variety of meats, sausages, sandwiches and other goods around the clock.
vending machine butcher
Number 41. Group buying widget for Ecom. SyncFu is a free widget that any ecommerce website can install to let deal-seeking consumers team up for volume discounts. Online retailers begin by adding SyncFu to their site and then setting the quantity-price ratio for their relevant products. More like a GroupOn on demand, kind of cool.
group buying widget
Number 51. I love to travel and the tours I’ve been on usually have us getting up at the crack of dawn. This concept from Executive Tours sounds interesting… designed “for those who don’t consider themselves ‘morning people’.” Rather, in its guided excursions to Italy and France, the company ensures that it never schedules any activities before noon.
The report is worth reading through to see a vast range of the latest in creativity.
by Scott Scanlon on July 6, 2010
Have you ever thought or said to someone to just Google It? I’ve heard this phrase quite a bit, I’ve seen the phrase throughout the years, and even 4 year old children know about it.
How did this phrase come about? Did Google launch a major campaign and marketing effort to change the minds of someone saying they are going to ’search’ to ‘google’? Did they run banner ads, print campaigns, commercials on TV and in movie theaters? Did they try to capture the youth market with hip ads and young adults putting their search engine to use while on a mountain snowboarding and drinking RedBull?
Ah no… the term came to be because of utility–because it was highly effective and a product that stood out amongst all the others. So “just google it” became synonymous with search.
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by Scott Scanlon on July 5, 2010
I saw this story today about how the Dow Jones is repeating the same pattern that appeared just before markets fell during the Great Depression. Of course the story quoted the line of those who don’t remember history are bound to repeat it.
If we have a similar type of economic hardship that happened in the 30’s this one will be drastically different. Over the last year or so I’ve done more reading and research on this time frame than ever. I’ve also listened to a fair amount of audio and podcasts such as Russ Roberts EconTalk. There is one comment I’ve seen recently that sums it up:
You can’t compare the Queen Mary to A 747 just because both get you across an ocean.
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