That’s right folks. Actor Gary Busey, whose last decent film happened sometime way back in the early 80s, and whose most recent credits include drunken rampages on the set of Inside Edition, has his very own series of video shorts (courtesy of GotVMail which must subscribe to the take the most random celebrity-of-the-day and create a series of promos around it aka School of Geico car insurance advertising)
GotVMail heeds us, almost daringly, to “Go inside the entrepreneurial mind of Gary Busey,” but the ramblings of Busey’s inner most thoughts as witnessed on many of these videos feel more like the output/regurgitation of a 5-year-old suffering from ADHD trying to tell mommy and daddy exactly what he/she did in school that day in between back-to-back episodes of iCarly.
Case in point:
Gary Busey has a hobby. He likes to create “Busey-isms.” Here’s two examples of a Busey-ism. Now=No Other Way, Team=Together Everyone Achieves More. You too can craft your own vernacular, according to GB. Just take your last name and make it an “ism.” Extra credit to those who last name starts with “Cynic,” “Bullshit.” By the way I think I just created my very first Busey-ism. Is WTF already taken?
Remember the 5 Ws (Who, What, When, Where, Why)? Gary Busey wants you to think outside the box and turn your favorite interrogatives into…Interrogatives? No, we’re not kidding. This particular video had to be the brainchild of at least 4 hours of direct inhalation. Pott-o-meter says: 8. In case you missed it, POTT=Potentially Over The Top
Never ask your family for money because you have to pay them back. Just lean on the bank or get Wesley Snipes’ accountant. If all else fails, hit the kids up from the lemonade stand. You know the ones who’ve been standing in sweltering heat all day just to make a .10 profit?
Busey does a phat WC Fields’ impression and coincidentally doesn’t like lame I’m too sick to go to school/work excuses especially ones that start with, “I got salmonella thrown right square in the face.”
While Busey is no business brainiac, his Yogi Berra, dumbed-down approach to business might be an asset to GotVMail’s marketing strategy in terms of visibiiity of their brand in the marketplace. However with soaring rates for plans starting at $10/mo for 50 minutes of VOIP, GotVMail will need more than Busey’s bravado and clever topspin to remain competitive with companies like AOL and Cisco.
Akin to Quizno’s infamous gerbil fiasco commercial ploy a few years ago, whether you’re aligning your company brand with gerbils or rats, either way, you’re bound to build buzz, but that only lasts for so long before you’re consumers start to look elsewhere.
First, the rag that doubled as every pseudo geek’s wet dream, whored itself out this month to the highest bidder for the mere promise of tail by shamelessly promoting the tech world’s very own Paris Hilton. The only takeaway from Wired’s cover feature being if you’re greedy enough and cocktease make eyes at the right people, there are places you can go online and offline, btw.
Next, MediaBistro jumped aboard the Anderson lovebug by giving us a cheap imitation (you have to pay $15 to preview the whole clip of Chris) of a marketing man’s bible to Web 2.0 social communities in the form of a video clip.
While most of the content on the video is pretty vague marko-babbly, (we are talking about the guy that launched the long tail phenomenon) Anderson is a source for all things innovative by sheer virtue that he works for “the most tolerant site out there.” If only he had been groomed in an elitist French boarding school that taught him proper elocution maybe I could stand to hear about his or anyone else’s “raison d’etre.”
Ilana Donna goes to visit the folks in Florida and bites off a little more than even she can chew with the characters she encounters (and no, I’m talking about her family).
3 Years ago, Skype was the hottest thing in town. Then the bidding started, and when it comes to bidding no one knows how to do it better then eBay, who, with plenty of woo ha, paid a modest sum of $2.6 billion for their new toy. But, a while later, eBay, who also own PayPal, realized, that its harder to integrate the technology into its auction business then they first thought, Skype has become the hot potato that no one wants, even the appointing of Josh Silverman as the new CEO in February did not seem to help, and now eBay is considering selling the VoIP provider. Skype is quite good actually, it allows free PC calling, and saved me a lot of money when I used it to call computers internationally.
I’d take Sergey over Marc any day of the week. That’s why when I first heard about Facebook’s new chatting utility from Gina Trapani over at Lifehacker, I didn’t really care. Google rolled out a similar item years ago and as far as I was concerned, Gmail chat was my staple. I was reluctant to get too excited over what seemed like yet another device that exposed my whereabouts onto a largely disinterested or conversely, overly gawker-ish audience. Truth be told I use Facebook relatively scarcely, mostly taking advantage of the feeds feature to see if friends have updated their profiles with new pictures.
On the flipside I use my Gmail chat quite often, preferring this over most of the other instant messaging and chat features offered by services such as AOL or MSN. The good news about Facebook’s new chat is that, like Gmail chat, it’s not a downloadable external client, and it pre-populates your buddies based on your contacts list. Facebook has capitalized on the trend of the passive user (and those of us who sometimes forget that we even have Facebook open on a tab in our internet browser) to incorporate an application that ensures we click on our accounts a little more often during our days and/or depending on how often we get pinged by a contact. It’s a savvy move for the company and an obvious next step in terms of features on the site, but the utility lacks a certain efficiency in multi-tasking various simultaneous chats. Clutter erupts at the bottom of the screen which makes attempting to integrate it as an activity during the work day all the more difficult. And I can’t speak for everyone else, but if I can’t use it as a diversion during my day, I’m certainly less inclined to use it as a past time on my time off.
I recently discovered a new site, Linkory.com which allows you to connect with others through memories and shared experiences. It’s Web 2.0 facade aside, Linkory is more than just another one of those community sites geared to make people feel less lonely. Through surfacing stories of childhood and memorable events, users get to evoke their experiences and make them come alive again using media such as text, photo, and video. Even cooler, you can “send” any of the memories (video, photos, etc) you find on Linkory to Facebook buddies. Like most sites out there these days, you don’t have to pay to use the service which is always a nice bonus feature.
What I enjoyed most scrolling through some of these memory threads is realizing how much history I’d neglected or forgotten. I could scarcely remember Elian Gonzalez and yet the little boy preoccupied so many of our lives for months in 2000. Taking a stroll through Linkory is like cuddling up with a cozy warm book you’ve read at least twice, but whose in company you will undoubtedly always find an old friend.
Set to be released in May, Wii Fit is already making headlines with its slew of aerobic exercises designed to get even the most inactive/dormant of couch potatoes off the proverbial couch. The system can support up to 660 lbs of weight (although it stops measuring activity after 330 lbs) and features the following activities:
Strength-training exercises, including a push-up/yoga combo (which sounds devilishly difficult), single-leg extensions, arm/leg lifts, a variety of squats and lunges, and side planks (ouch). There’s also plenty of aerobic action, including steps, runs, and rhythm boxing. Then there’s the yoga, complete with your standard deep breathing, half moons, a potpourri of poses, you name it.
For soccer fans waiting for some sort of fix, the new Wii Fit boasts a soccer ball head-butting game. Head trauma aside, rave reviews and a price tag of ? (yet to be publicized), Nintendo’s new game package has already sold 1.4 million systems in Japan alone.
A few days ago I wrote here about my horrible experience with Buy.com. I just thought I should report what happened after I wrote that post in this short follow up post.
First, a quick reminder. I bought something from this site, and never got it, after contacting UPS, I found out it was sent to the wrong address. Buy.com would not refund me for the item, and was giving me the same answer all the time, saying that it was shipped and somehow it’s my fault I didn’t get it.
Lucky for me, there is one company that does stand behind what they say, and this company is PayPal. After exhausting my efforts with Buy.com, I remembered that I paid for the item using my PayPal account. So, I logged into my PayPal account, and filed a claim against this headless stupid company- Buy.com and guess what?
Not 3 days have past, Including a Holiday weekend (!) and I got my money back. So tell me this, Mr. /Ms. Buy.com hotshot, was replying my 3 emails, talking to me for about an hour over the phone (Buy.com customer service phone number: 1-800-800-0800, a number you do not advertise on your site), getting all the bad publicity, and having to deal with a PayPal claim worth the money you had to refund me? After all we are talking about less then $10…
Something struck me recently when reading Dave Churbuck’s blog. For those of you unfamiliar with Churbuck, he is VP Marketing at Lenovo and a pretty fab blogger in his own right. He has a way of cutting through much of the subtle, latent Web 2.0 BS and calling things out.
I happened upon Churbuck’s post around the time I was “connecting” on LinkedIn with past coworkers and trying to loogle them. It started out quite innocently with me trying to find one of my good friends on there who is a student at UCLA’s management school. I realized just how annoying it is to be prompted for the umpteenth time to upgrade my account with that tiny yellow bar of a button that kept flashing every time I tried and failed to click away from the page.
Why must I be menaced so? What had I done but been a happy user who made frequent visits to the site and spread good word about its attributes? When did LinkedIn start bugging me to upgrade my membership? Thinking back, I had started noticing this a while back, but it took a few months to settle in my mind to the point of distracting me from enjoying the site.
Unfortunately around the time this malaise set in, I was also on Facebook. My friend had sent me another of those SuperWall pictures which required me clicking on the image, but before I could get to that image I was navigated to yet another page which prompted me to send the very image to all of my friends before I was allowed to open the actual image. Thankfully it also selected all of my friends as recipients of this picture so it saved me the work of having to send a picture of a dog to 50 of my nearest and dearest.
On the flipside, when I tried to “pull one over” on the system by “unselecting” all, it prompted me to choose one lucky recipient of an Alaskan Husky picture which most likely barked, licked its nutz, and said “Happy Holidaze” when clicked on. Annoyed that I had just spent seven minutes of my life driving towards a reality far less appealing than the my mind’s conjurings, I started to philosophize a bit on Churbuck’s likening of “spam” to this tactic that Facebook API developers have taken to spreading the word of their creations. Initially I had taken to this feature, especially because I could choose which of my friends would care to partake in a game of Scrabble with me and go a few rounds. Same with Flixter. In a sense it also allowed me to be more social with people I wouldn’t have contact with on a daily basis and rediscover or discover connections I never would have found otherwise.
Newsweek maintains that Facebook is the console of the future (replacing Wii??) and it will connect people socially through computers as never before. Considering it’s the sixth most trafficked site in the world, it’s a possibility. But really short of wireless remotes combined with action-oriented kicking ass, competitive games w/amazing graphics, how can the existing Facebook APIs compete with what Sony, IBM, and Microsoft are putting out?
After a week of holding out hope of buying a Wii anytime in the near future, I’m spent. I know from my quest that I am not alone. Hell, I’ve run into a lot of the same moms desperately hoping to appease their whiny kids by waking up at ungodly hours and schlepping out to the nearest Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Circuit City and any other promised mecca just to secure within their tiny, tight grips a new Nintendo Wii bundle for a mere $250. Having wasted my Sunday morning high-tailing it to every electronics/technology superstore around and being met with the same bemused reaction ad infinitum from every salesperson, I’ve started to catch a bit of the anti-Wii. There’s only so much flaunting and teasing one company and one product, for that matter, should be allowed. With the new Playstation 3 valued anywhere from $400-$500 and XBox 360 at $350, game consoles are the hottest ticket around this holiday season and they don’t come cheap.
But not coming at all?
Conspiracy theorists and other people with way too much time on their hands aside, I’m not of the mindset that Nintendo is holding out on us, more that they simply haven’t manufactured enough Wiis to fill the supply end of their high demand. The fact that the search for the Wii has borne the brunt of every late night talk show (if there wasn’t a writer’s strike) and DJ’s AM joke doesn’t discourage me. If anything, it compels me to push on in my search. The reality being no one relishes healthy competition more than myself. I get that glazed, demonic look in my eyes and march to the possessed beat of a win-at-all-cost drum. But there is no winning with the Wii.
I’m self-defeated at the moment. Angry at Wii, at Bill Gates for his damn Xbox 360 (completely unrelated). Incapable to discerning if I even want the Wii so much anymore, or I just can’t stand to not finish something once I set my mind to it. I may be feeling anti-Wiiish at present, but much like the initial hurdle of running from mile 7 to mile 8 when training for a marathon, this might be more of a mental obstacle than anything else. I might wake up tomorrow with renewed hope, but for now I’ll stick with the odds of the Patriots beating the Steelers this evening. Those are odds which will more likely play out in my favor.
As if social networking sites weren’t over-populated enough (hint of sarcasm) in the webosphere, TechCrunch just posted an insightful piece on the lesser-known, but deep-pocketed Web 2.0 sites that are worth noting. Among those profiled, the Palo Alto-based Ning, which visually reads a lot like Vox, but with a less hipster targeted demographic and helps members with guided instruction make their way through the sinuous road of social networking, and New York City’s KickApps, which plays for the more seasoned web guru i.e. developer and supplies users with applications to build communities/networking platforms on their own sites. Absent from the list was Spock, a cleverly named social networking site, which Irina Slutsky of PodTech invited me to see the other day. Read More…
Apple’s new iPhone is set to be released on Friday, June 29th, but that hasn’t stopped people from starting to stake out their place in line outside Apple stores. Or at the very least get their business and financial matters out of the way in time to reserve a person for an all-day wait on Friday. In NYC, people are getting paid on average $250 for an all-day wait (from 8 AM). In California, human resource commodity prices are as high as $300-400. Even considering that iPhones will be the next XBox/Playstation craze in eBay sales going forward, $250 is a hefty price tag to add to a $600 phone with a $60-100/mo. Cingular plan.
Amaldo.Com is looking for talented, creative video bloggers to produce original video for the site. Vloggers should be creative, witty, and reliable. Love of pop culture is a bonus. Also you must have your own DVR and/or digital recording device to record video.
Think you’re up for the task? You’re the next lonelygirl15? (eh, we don’t really want her! Besides, she wasn’t all that original, even if her scriptwriters were.) Then contact us!
Ever watch “EdTV“? It was a movie starring Jenna Elfman (when she still acted back in the 90s), Matthew McConaughey (when people found him hot), and Liz Hurley (when people actually remembered who she was, before she was pissing off her gizillionaire husband’s parents).
Anyways, the film’s premise was that Matt/”Ed” gets followed around by a camera crew 24/7 and his life becomes one big “Truman Show” only he’s in on the fame so there’s no actual collusion going on like in the Jim Carrey version.
Ok, so skip ahead like ten years and jump into the reality TV/voyeur-inspired Web 2.0 bubble. A few dudes from NYC moved to San Fran (Web 2.0 capital of the world) and found a start-up with the same sort of theme: Let’s follow “Justin” around and record his life around the clock on video!
So these dudes don’t win any points for originality, but even Newsweek made mention of them in a recent issue so we know they pay mad money for a good publicist at the very least. Either that or they lucked out with investors and relied on alternative skillz to hook that up.
But why go by my cynical opinion of JustinTV?
Check it out for yourself. And be amazed and how very slow the clock moves while you’re watching some random guy (you’d probably vehemently dislike if you ever actually knew him) sit in front of his own computer screen chatting with his fans. At least Justin provides us with an agenda of his day to get us motivated and TGIF, Friday looks fun!
1:30 PST: Justin looks for real estate with his parents. (We know he must be doing quite well with this little start-up venture) And then there’s the Wired Rave Awards tonight. Justin is sure one lucky boy. Not to mention he gets to meet the whacked out Irene from Real World Seattle. Just the kinda mid-day mind trip from reality type of distraction we all envy the boy for.
Just shoot me. I’m so uncool. I’m still amazed that there are people my age that actually muster enough energy to go out past 9 on a Friday night.
I’ve been wanting to get this blog to its proper Web 2.0 beta social community interactive state for a while now. After all, what’s the point in having so much fun content, if you can’t share it with others! So this weekend, I worked pretty hard (I’d say my “arse off” but that might be a stretch, cause my heinie is still in full view.) I not only wanted to find a new Wordpress theme, but one that was widget friendly and/or allowed for sidebar widgets so I could make my blog more user-friendly and interactive. Luckily Wordpress is pretty great at explaining every little thing when it comes to themes.
Primarily, this post is for giving praise where a lot of kudos is due since I had the help of a very special tech blogger friend who guided me step-by-step in the process: From finding an ftp client to learning how to transfer files (hey, it was all Greek to me!) to emailing me the right widgets to use for my applications, to fielding my ad nauseum questions on why files weren’t uploading properly in the right directories, to keeping patient and explaining things in detail but also in plain English so I could understand, I’m indebted to Kirk. Not surprisingly for such an awesome dude, Kirk just also happens to have a kick-ass blog I think everyone needs to check out. It’s super well-written and informative.
I also happen to think Kirk should charge for his consulting services with myself being the exception of course. Never discount the important of free publicity. And of course, thanks to my husband who is so awesome and lovable and loving, how could you not just want to gag as you’re reading that I wrote this?
That’s right folks. Actor Gary Busey, whose last decent film happened sometime way back in the early 80s, and whose most recent credits include drunken rampages on the set of Inside Edition, has his very own series of video shorts (courtesy of GotVMail which must subscribe to the take the most random celebrity-of-the-day and create a series of promos around it aka School of Geico car insurance advertising)
I’d take 
Photo taken outside of Craigslist headquarters & courtesy of Craigslist’s 
A few days ago I wrote here about my horrible experience with Buy.com. I just thought I should report what happened after I wrote that post in this short follow up post.
Something 
After a week of holding out hope of buying a Wii anytime in the near future, I’m spent. I know from my quest that I am not alone. Hell, I’ve run into a lot of the same moms desperately hoping to appease their whiny kids by waking up at ungodly hours and schlepping out to the nearest Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Circuit City and any other promised mecca just to secure within their tiny, tight grips a new Nintendo Wii bundle for a mere $250. Having wasted my Sunday morning high-tailing it to every electronics/technology superstore around and being met with the same bemused reaction ad infinitum from every salesperson, I’ve started to catch a bit of the anti-Wii. There’s only so much flaunting and teasing one company and one product, for that matter, should be allowed. With the new Playstation 3 valued anywhere from $400-$500 and XBox 360 at $350, game consoles are the hottest ticket around this holiday season and they don’t come cheap. 
As if social networking sites weren’t over-populated enough (hint of sarcasm) in the webosphere, 
Apple’s new iPhone is set to be released on Friday, June 29th, but that hasn’t stopped people from starting to 
As our site is expanding and growing in traffic, we’d love to post more original video content on 
Ever watch “
I’ve been wanting to get this blog to its proper Web 2.0 beta social community interactive state for a while now. After all, what’s the point in having so much fun content, if you can’t share it with others! So this weekend, I worked pretty hard (I’d say my “arse off” but that might be a stretch, cause my heinie is still in full view.) I not only wanted to find a new 