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Monthly Archives: February 2010

Senator: “OK Some TV Isn’t Free. But … Not the Olympics!”

Posted on February 26, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 2 Comments

How can US Senators be so unclear about the meaning of the laws they write?

Today Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, who not coincidentally chairs the antitrust subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked NBC to explain why certain Olympic events, available on NBCOlympics.com, can only be viewed there after you prove you have a subscription to a pay-TV service.

Really?

Let’s see: ... READ MORE of Senator: “OK Some TV Isn’t Free. But … Not the Olympics!” at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (232 words, estimated 56 secs reading time)

  • NBC’s ownership of paid-only television channels to augment their over-the-air broadcast stations was approved by the United States Congress. Congress didn’t think approving that was antitrust
Filed Under: Business Change, Media

Patents Must Be Unique. Facebook’s 7,669,123 Isn’t.

Posted on February 25, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 50 Comments

Who Wants a Patent? Because they seem to be getting handed out for just about anything.

I’ve long believed that in general software patents are a very bad idea. This week the United States Patents and Trademarks Office set a new record for calling something unique that’s just not anything of the sort.

To start, let me state that I’m not an attorney. That said, I’ve dealt with Intellectual Property for a very long time and successfully defended against a trademark infringement claim when my software Uninstall for Windows was sued by the makers of the program Uninstaller. In fact, I got Uninstaller’s trademark invalidated. It was pretty much a matter of explaining common sense in a calm, rational manner to the USPTO. ... READ MORE of Patents Must Be Unique. Facebook’s 7,669,123 Isn’t. at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (483 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Content

TOO Much Social Networking with Foursquare and AppAware

Posted on February 25, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 1 Comment

I’m being less social. My Twitter Community has spoken.

As cool a thing as social networking is (or can be), every time you write something you risk rubbing the people who follow you the wrong way. You probably want to avoid the “I’m Eating Breakfast” messages that I’ve joked about, but how close to that standard is it OK to get, in the interest of being social?

I use Foursquare on my Droid. I’ve told you about the service / game / social networking tool before, and I’ve said both here and in conversation that I’m not really sure what its purpose is. The test goes on, but I’ve disabled one of Foursquare’s features. ... READ MORE of TOO Much Social Networking with Foursquare and AppAware at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (362 words, estimated 1:27 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Media

Is Yelp in the Extortion Business?

Posted on February 24, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 12 Comments

How’d you like to be review site Yelp? Before you answer “you bet!”, consider this blog post from The New York Times.

A real quandary.

Let’s assume that Yelp’s position (“we’re just the place where people say things and so we aren’t responsible for what people say when they come here”) is fair and right and legally correct.

Let’s further assume that in talking to businesses that contact them with problems their sales pitch includes careful wording, such as “we don’t police this stuff for strangers, but we do make calls to verify information on behalf of paying customers as part of our service to them”. ... READ MORE of Is Yelp in the Extortion Business? at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (211 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

Google Kills the Droid

Posted on February 24, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 7 Comments

Ahh, Droid. We barely knew ye . . .

This week, Google introduced a version of Google Earth for Android SmartPhones. In large part, I don’t care; Google Earth is very cool, but compared to Google Maps it has limited real-world use.

And Google Earth requires version 2.1 of the Android operating system. Which means that it won’t run on the Droid, which has been available for just over three months. ... READ MORE of Google Kills the Droid at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (353 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

I Don’t HAVE An “Any” Key!

Posted on February 23, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 11 Comments

Who said using computers was easy?

I’ve been a computer geek (umm . . . not really, but close . . . think of me as Leo LaPorte without the bazillion viewers) for a long time. I remember the days when people thought that the little tray that popped out of the front of your computer at the press of a button was a coffee cup holder. No, I’m not kidding. ... READ MORE of I Don’t HAVE An “Any” Key! at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (337 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Media, Uncategorized

Congress, Business Change, Health Care Reform and California

Posted on February 22, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 1 Comment

Something’s gotta give. Something is going to. Business Change isn’t just an idea; it’s become an imperative.

In a world where the health care we provide for people isn’t even good enough for animals, where famous columnists like Nicholas Kristof and economists like Paul Krugman—very different guys with diverse right and left leanings— are stating the same thing, it’s time. ... READ MORE of Congress, Business Change, Health Care Reform and California at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (242 words, estimated 58 secs reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

To Tiger Woods: Next in Business Change is Firing John Kerry

Posted on February 19, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 0 Comments

Do you want to hear what I think of Tiger Woods’ apology-heard-round-the-world? I’ll tell you, but let me be clear this is a business change conversation, and not a gossip piece.

If you want to watch the entire speech Tiger gave today as apology for his recent behavior, you can see it here.

Here’s what I think: I don’t care how good a golfer this man is; I can’t look at him any more. I’m not making a moral judgment; Tiger Woods, like anyone, is a human being, and human beings make mistakes. We should all stay out of his personal life, period. Being a celebrity does indeed open you to scrutiny, but nobody needs to know what happens inside Tiger Woods’ home. ... READ MORE of To Tiger Woods: Next in Business Change is Firing John Kerry at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (322 words, estimated 1:17 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

Patent Trolls, Business Change, & Carping by The Uninformed

Posted on February 18, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 3 Comments

The Whining Has Gone Mainstream. Even the Whining Required Whining.

Yesterday, there was a lengthy article in The New York Times about companies that buy patents and then go after companies using the matter covered by those patents for licensing fees. Specifically, the article talked about Intellectual Ventures, a company run by the guy who was in charge of much of the science in Microsoft’s early days.

Steve Lohr, the author of that article, is apparently so passionate about the subject that he needed to write a blog post follow-up this morning. And as blog posts often do, that article reads more like opinion than journalism. ... READ MORE of Patent Trolls, Business Change, & Carping by The Uninformed at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (386 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Media

Business Changes in Phone Apps? Not at Mobile World Congress

Posted on February 17, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 0 Comments

This week in Barcelona, Spain a conference called Mobile World Congress is happening. The attendees are employees of some of the world’s biggest and most influential companies: AT&T, Apple Computer, Motorola, Google, Microsoft.

Their goal? To consolidate the market for the software that runs on SmartPhones. Summing it up if you’re from Apple, you might say: “there’s an app for that, but only if you use an iPhone”.

So let’s see: Apple, the undisputed leader in the SmartPhone market (but losing share quickly to Android), would like everyone’s software to run on everyone else’s phones? And Microsoft, who have released yet another version of their phone software, is looking to be cooperative with their competitors? ... READ MORE of Business Changes in Phone Apps? Not at Mobile World Congress at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (378 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Development, Uncategorized

Your Web Site Doesn’t Belong To You

Posted on February 16, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 2 Comments

A few days ago, and with no notice at all, Google deleted a handful of blogs. <POOF!> Gone. Just like that.

Most of the attention to this has focused on what those blogs did; they were repositories for music, and while there were reviews attached (for example) to legitimize the blogs’ purpose, they were in fact making copyrighted materials available without the permission of the copyright holders.

And that, as you know, is generally not legal. ... READ MORE of Your Web Site Doesn’t Belong To You at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (576 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Content, Media

Doing Business Means BEING a Business

Posted on February 15, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 5 Comments

Today, a tweet caught my attention. The question, posed by Anita Campbell, was whether the existence of services like LegalZoom caused more people to incorporate their small businesses.

The answer is no.

Ms. Campbell links to a story on her own web site that appears to say otherwise. But growth notwithstanding, services very much like LegalZoom have existed for years, are as easy to use, and cost (and have cost) about the same amount. So, once again: no, more people are not incorporating “because of LegalZoom”. ... READ MORE of Doing Business Means BEING a Business at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (256 words, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change

Google’s Aardvark Business Trust: The More Things Change …

Posted on February 12, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 0 Comments

Doug Leeds, US President of Ask.com, has a point to make: “at the end of the day, people would rather Ask for something than Google it”. (credit where it’s due: the quote is from this article from yesterday’s New York Times).

More credit: Mr. Leeds is correct . . . sort of. He’s wrong if he believes that people are interested in abandoning their Google.com search habit in favor of Ask.com, but we’ve all stared at that Google search box, not quite sure what to type in, then been frustrated by the results of our choice of search terms. ... READ MORE of Google’s Aardvark Business Trust: The More Things Change … at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (382 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Uncategorized

People Who Live In Empty Heads Shouldn’t Throw Stones

Posted on February 11, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 2 Comments

I can think for myself. So can you. While a lot of what I write here has the potential to be inflammatory in one way or another and while nothing’s off limits, I don’t spend a lot of time being purely political.

Yes, I’ve commented on health care reform, and Barack Obama’s non-connection to ACORN. But there’s always context; health care reform is a business change that I believe everyone in the United States needs badly, and my comments on ACORN and President Obama’s connection to Hookergate was really about the idea of what business change is: I said then and I repeat now that those ACORN community organizers teaching the undercover filmmakers about how to run a successful prostitution business were nevertheless teaching someone how to be in business. ... READ MORE of People Who Live In Empty Heads Shouldn’t Throw Stones at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (318 words, estimated 1:16 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Media

“Kids Don’t Blog.” Gee, No Kidding?

Posted on February 10, 2010 by --Jeff Yablon/The Answer Guy-- Influency & Integrated Marketing Strategist • 1 Comment

So it turns out that young people have stopped blogging.

Really? When were they?

It was only a few months ago that kids thought Twitter was stupid, and unsafe. Now, young people are embracing the world’s hottest social networking site in droves. But the impetus for this change isn’t that Twitter has become any better; the deal here is that regular blogging takes too long, while just spewing your thoughts 140 characters at a time is easy! ... READ MORE of “Kids Don’t Blog.” Gee, No Kidding? at Answer Guy Central, your Influency and Integrated Marketing Source By Clicking Here (264 words, estimated 1:03 mins reading time)

Filed Under: Business Change, Media




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