Rampenfest and the Sportka

I've been reading coverage here and here as well as elsewhere about a supposed PR blunder that BMW made with the "Rampenfest" viral video campaign. I'm pretty certain this analysis by all these mainstream sites (as well as many of the blogs) are just an excuse to run embeds of the video itself.

Here's why. (see native blog post for embedded video)



Enjoy. MP4 link here. RSS feeds coming later tonight. Check back.

/rizzn

A Quick Camera Test

This is a ridiculously short video of me and my son, and I know it looks silly sandwiched between my bumpers, but I've got the new video platform more or less configured, and I wanted to know what it looked like on the site as a published file.



I'll have more details about the platform in an announcement video some time tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy!

Grab the MP4 link here.

Logitech's Mac Tax

Hey folks.

You look around the blogosphere today, and it's apparent that Logitech finally decided to cash in on this whole "Apple Craze." They have suddenly realized that labeling all their web cameras as "PC Only" cut out a significant share of the market. Even I, a PC guy, have to acknowlege that a lot of the target market for web camera users are Mac users. That Logitech didn't see this until recently is a bit silly.

The thing is, Logitech also figures that Mac users are dumb, too. They've "created" the new Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro and released it at a Mac user premium price.

Watch the video below for the full scoop.

Logitech's QuickCam Vision Pro = QuickCam Pro 9000

Also, in other news, this will (hopefully) be my last video on a non-professional video platform. I'm speaking with my platform guy this evening, and he'll be setting me up with my new feeds tonight, which should allow me to start broadcasting Wednesday with a better look. Exciting!

/rizzn

Update: changed embed to the DailyMotion embed. Just noticed none of my stats on MySpace are registering for some reason.

Soliciting Your Suggestions

I spoke with a brand new video platform provider today, and based on our conversation, my new podcast should be launching here in the next day or two. Maybe three. It all depends on how quickly I can get my act together.

For me to do that, I need to crowdsource my research a bit. I've been combing through the net for good PR blogs - I've got a very large list already. I've also pretty much pegged down my social media sources.

AI and semantic resources are a good deal harder to find. Do you read blogs on semantics, AI, and robots? If so, in the comments, can you list them? I'd like to put together a well rounded list of sources as fodder for for inspiration on my new video series.

Thanks.

/rizzn

Seven Words You Can't Say On This Blog

George Carlin died at the age of 71.

There are four things I wanted to show you that you need to see from Carlin. First of all, I want to apologize that the last clip is plastered with Ron Paul stuff, and I don't necessarily recommend the organization that edited the video together, but it shows some of the latest works from Carlin that I've heard published, and I think reflects a bit of where his head was at recently.

There's of course this one, the most famous speech of his of all time.



There's this, which reflected his thoughts on technology (he was a bit of Luddite).



There is this, which is why we can't blame Carlin for the state of our nation.



And there's this, a monologue after he's apparently had a little more time to think about it.

Been Busy This Weekend

First of all: congrats to Louis and his family. I know how amazing it is to see your children appear before your very eyes. It's lifechanging, amazing, and can reduce an otherwise stoic man to tears. I know it did that for me.

In other news, I've been building video elements for my new video podcast. Instead of saying some sage things here, I'll point you to some hopping conversations elsewhere:

• Steve started a topic I really like here, and continued it here.
• Chris Brogan talks about Liz Strauss and business for bloggers.
• I started this at Mashable, but it's a topic that I've been talking about for ages: Veg-Factor.
• Both Sean Kennedy and I are against gun control. Here's why.
• There aren't many left in the Rat Pack who haven't been absorbed by the big boys. Congrats Frederic (and Corvida!)

That's it. Hopefully I'll have some episodes to start showing you folks next week. Hopefully.

Comments Are Blog Posts

I've been doing a lot of retro-active blogging. At Mashable, my posts are constrained to things that happened that day, for the most part. Here, I can look back a couple days on something and continue a conversational thread that might otherwise be "dead."

Fred Wilson inspired Frederic Lardinois to declare comments in no way blog posts:

The difference between a blog post and a comment is very simple: a blog post is meant to spark discussion - a comment is part of that discussion. Bloggers spend a long time thinking about what they write and maybe edit and rewrite their posts once or twice. Comments, on the other hand, are written within a few minutes and while they themselves can often spark new posts, they are definitely in a different category from blog posts.

I can see Frederic's point, but I can also easily see the other side. More on that in a second. Alexander van Elsas posted something along Frederic's lines, but sparked a whole other train of thought for me:

But at the same time I also feel that commenting is easy. Easy, not because the stuff that is written down is obvious in any way. But easy because the original blog writer triggered a commenter to think and react. And that is what Blogging is all about. Some are in it for the money, some are in it for the fun. But a great blog post, no matter what it is about, makes the reader think. And that is what is so hard about blogging.

Blogging, when done right, can be just as easy. Sometimes, when I get into a groove, I can tap out a short post on a topic or company that is just a guttoral reaction, but contains insightful commentary and garners a pretty big reaction, just like a comment on a blog. That's not every post - some are creative works written from the ground up. The ones that flow the most naturally are from the top of my head, usually one or two drafts deep in process tops, and tapped out usually in under twenty minutes, regardless of length.

That was the case when I went over to read the comments on a post the other day by Fred. Strumpette (aka Amanda Chapel) inspired me to reply a couple times in the comments section to her, and by the time I was done enumerating my points, I had written something akin to the length of my normal blog posts.

Amanda said:

Pseudo-modernism isn't a movement; it's anti-movement. By making everything equally valuable, nothing has value. The result is "a weightless nowhere of silent autism."

The questions are: What are we sacrificing? Why do we expect value to emerge from an anti-system that works to constantly reduce value?

For example, as the Web2 evangelists work hard to de-professionalize business, why on earth do we expect there to be business if they succeed? If you de-formalize the value chain, don't you ultimately, consequently, produce shit?

I've said to you before Fred: the levy broke and we stand in awe of the abundance of water. That's silly... stupid... dangerous.

replacing "the currency of money with the currency of attention," indeed. Here's a analogy: Bethlehem, Pa. is replacing the former Bethlehem Steel Corp. with a casino. Okay? Do you see the difference.

And Fred, again, you seem to be in awe watching the flood rather that evaluating the consequences. The "attention" economy like the casino above DOES NOT MAKE ANYTHING VALUABLE! That's what is meant by "pseudo."

I replied:

To say that the casino doesn't make anything valuable is in itself shortsighted, Amanda. It makes entertainment, which by looking at the US economy, is one of the most important chunks of the whole mess. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't you in Marketing and Communications? Point to me what hard and concrete thing you create of value to your customers. Can you hold it in your hand? Is it real? Does that make it less valuable? No.

Money, as in currency, is worthless. Why do you think Bill Gates spent the first half of his life amassing his wealth and pledged to spend the second half giving it away? Because after a certain point, unless you're gold plating your commodes, you just can't spend it all in a way that adds value. Given he has a conscience (contrary to my Linux-using friends' popularly held beliefs), he decided that the best way to improve his quality of living would be to improve the world through charitable giving.

Speaking more directly to your criticisms of the Web 2.0's efforts to 'deprofessionalize business,' it makes the world more of a meritocracy. You put in the work and you have the ability, you get ahead - the market deems you more valuable. If you sit on your duff and your high-falutin' degree and collect a check, you get left behind.

Moreover, it de-centralizes business. In terms of efficiency of the organization, smaller focused companies rule the day. You don't need a team of thousands to put something in the hands of every man woman and child anymore. You can simply assemble a team of two, five, or ten and create something valuable enough that it will sustain itself as a business and the proprietors of that business in perpetuity. The interactive nature of virtual goods and service creation means that what you invent doesn't always mean what ends up in the hands of the consumer - and that's fine, because the engagement is the loyalty is the product is the value.

In short, the de-centralization,removal of hierarchy, and dis-incentives to elitism serves to broaden each of our slices of the pie by use of the free market without implementation of socialist policies of punishing achievement and rewarding slack. It functions philosophically on the same tenants that built the Internet itself and has served to make it the powerhouse it is.

You see my point? Comments can be blog posts. Do a bit of re-arranging and insertion of block quotes, and you have yourself the beginnings of a weekend bitchmeme

More importantly, comments in blog posts about blog posts about comments being blog posts make for really long blog posts (and very meta discussion).

Robert Scoble is Wrong - Short Form Video Rocks

The upload process took a lot longer than I expected (I need to encode to a slightly smaller format, apparently), but I managed to eek out an under-produced response to Robert Scoble's assertion that short-form inherently doesn't lend itself to high engagement (and is thus less prone to monetization).



We'll test that theory. As I said, leave your comments (video or otherwise) here on the post, and we'll see if you're engaged in this conversation or not.

/rizzn

PS: With regards to this type of stuff as a series - this isn't the ultimate final product of how I want my series to look (or even the typical subject matter). Talking about video all day with all of you fine folks made me want to jump in and do something, though.

This is the general idea in terms of how I want it to looked. Imagine this video post with intros, outros, a bit of music and some dressing up with captions and such, and you get my general idea.

So About That Question...

I've got a question. I know I have six readers, at least, so I expect at least three answers.

Should I do a video podcast? I've got the urge to do something a little bit freer than the constraints of Mashable would allow me, so this would be a personal video podcast.

The other question is, what would you like me to pontificate, rant, or joke about (assuming you want to see my mug on camera)?

I like a lot of crazy topics like religion, politics, and some science things that border on philosophy or fantasy. I can speak reasonably intelligently about them, but there's also a good chance you don't wanna hear any of that junk from me, and want me to stick to Web 2.0 things. That's understandable, if true. I figured I'd get an idea before I did any planning, though, what you folks thought.

/rizzn

Jabberwocky 2.0

I had this great question I was going to ask all five six* of you today, but I want to share this instead. I wish I could say I made it up, but credit for that has to go to Brendan Cooper. Come back tomorrow for the question.

`Twas Twitter, and the MySpace Mixx
Did Pownce and Plaxo on the web:
All Woophy were the DotNetKicks,
And the socialogs Friendfed.

"Beware the YahooMash, my son!
The jaws that Joost, the claws that Cloob!
Beware the Qoolsqool bird, and shun
The CouchSurfing DailyHub!"

He took his Xanga sword in hand:
Long time the Blogmeme foe he sought -
So rested he by the Bebo tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in ThisNext thought he stood,
The YahooMash, with FARK of flame,
Came Xing through the Nettby wood,
And LinkedIn as it came!

Blipoo! Badoo! And through and through
The Buzzflash blade went ZigaZoga!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went a-googling back.

"And, has thou slain the YahooMash?
Come to my arms, my blogger boy!
O Phanfare day! Kaioo! Kazaa!'
He jaiku in his joy.

`Twas Twitter, and the MySpace Mixx
Did Pownce and Plaxo on the web:
All Woophy were the DotNetKicks,
And the socialogs Friendfed.

* Turns out Matthew Ingram reads this blog on occasion. I had forgotten that when I tallied all known readers yesterday.

Elite Tech News #11: Hot Coffee Pods

Hey Rizzn-ites,

I figure, since I'm posting here regularly, there's no reason I shouldn't use this personal blog platform to pimp my other podcast as well, Elite Tech News, to all four of my readers (or is it five? Steven, did you ever subscribe to the feed?).

I say that it's "my" podcast, but that's just because I elected myself ringleader and 'dictator for life.' What really makes it something anyone else would want to listen to are the other guests and I do mean that. Last time I did a solo one hour podcast gig, I had about as many listeners to that show as I do readers of my personal blog (since the reset).

This week, it was a smaller panel, consisting of Frederic, Steven and I with my buddy Art doing the producer thing. We went off on a number of tangents, and if you look at all the other blog posts about it, you can get all the topics we started with.

Aside from those, I know we talked about:

• DHL losting my laptop last Christmas.
• Class warfare.
• Noah David Simon on FriendFeed and Twitter.
• My love of liveblogging, and MG's new love of FriendFeed as a liveblogging platform.
• Igor the Troll, and how Scoble blocked him.
• Other things.

In other words, we're apparently honing our bantering skills. Check it out and enjoy!

You can download the directly show from here or:

Subscribe to the Elite Tech News podcast here or:
Add directly to iTunes here (or give us a rating)
Add directly to your Zune here.

Cleansing the Palette

Hey Rizznites,

I really don't have a lot to say today, I'd just like to cleanse the palette of my blog a little bit, since the last several entries are largely about how I've been wronged, offended or otherwise been made to feel sad inside. I'm really not that big of a complainer, usually.

That's not true. I love to complain and make it sound like I've got this over-reaching point to make. I'm a blogger, I've got a big ego, and so I pontificate. I'm just tired of hearing myself rabble-rouse so darn much (a lot of editorials and opinion pieces at Mashable, lately), so I'm going to try to dial back the fervor over here a little bit.

Don't hold your breath.

I've really been enjoying putting a lot of time and effort into our video initiative at Mashable. There are still some aesthetic and technical glitches I'd like to work out:

• Not all of the slates I designed for the video made it into the hands of my editor in time for the first two episodes to be compiled.
• The compression quality needs tweaking. Things are looking a little pixelated at times for my taste.
• Conversion and transferring takes up too much time. We have to convert to FLV, MP4 and MP3. Blip does some of this, but transferring the files around is a bit of a pain.

Aside from these minor gripes, the content of these interviews so far have been stellar, and given that we've committed to at least five episodes a week for two months, I've got a bit of freedom in what sort of content I can bring on the program.

Additionally, having Alana, Sean and Kristen helping out with the interview workload (as well as Art with the editing) makes my life worlds easier than when I was trying to do five of these a week by myself. I send my heartfelt thanks to the entire team on that, and can't wait to see what else comes of this.

In the mean time, check out these two videos we've already put out, and see if you can tell me we aren't going to have a great series ahead of us.

/rizzn

Todd Cochrane: Making Dumb Moves. Even For Him.

It's late, and I'm tired.

I was going to do this whole long thing with veiled references to yet another Web 2.0 business that's decided to pick a fight with me, and make it a sequel to this one I posted last Thursday.

As I said, though, I'm late, and it's tired. Or something like that. So I'm just going to post the email thread and a quick summary at the end.

I briefly mentioned on Wednesday a tiff I had with RawVoice CEO Todd Cochrane.

He emailed me late tonight (emphasis added):

It is nice how you bend the story on your blog to make yourself look completely innocent. You have never acknowledged that you were as much to blame over the payment issue. You were the one that changed stats keywords mid campaign, you make it sound like it was all our fault. I have never had someone continue to spread mis-information like you have.

I have had it with you and will turn this over to our attorney he will decide what the next course of action will be. Todd..

I replied:

Todd, it was all your fault. You were the one who made the error of looking at the wrong stinkin' podcast network. I don't understand how that could at all be considered my fault. I tried to get your attention several times over it, and it wasn't until it was plastered all over the front pages of Mashable till you did something.

Do what you will. The best defense against claims of libel or slander is the truth. That's what's on my side. Get with the program.

He replied:

Truth is fine when you tell it. Not when it is convenient to make yourself look better. Your a class act.

I replied:

Class act or not, if you could do your job right, we wouldn't be having this discussion. It was your mistake, and you aren't big enough to admit that without casting blame on me. Sue if you like, but it'll be you with egg on your face. Who between us has the bigger reach? Who between us is right? Are you sure you're completely in the right here? Given the fact that you never responded to the emails I sent, I'm gathering a lot of stuff falls between the cracks for you. I, on the other hand, have the entire exchange archived and saved from start to finish, not to mention documented in thorough detail in daily episodic format on my podcast.

You don't want to go to war with me, Todd. It's a dumb move, even for you.

He didn't respond.

If you ever listened to my old podcast, you're probably well aware of the the trevails we experienced when Todd sort of re-defined on the fly what a download was. I've gone into great detail on Mashable in posts and comments over the story, so I won't rehash it here.

The bottom line is that he promises that checks or PayPal payments will be sent out for payment in a Net 30 situation. His accounting system is so screwed up that my most recent payment was about a month ago on ads that I did almost a year ago (money that he claimed up until recently I wasn't owed because I somehow cheated the system).

At some point along the way (my email records indicate it was right around Christmas last year), I had enough waiting for money that was evidently not coming, so I removed all my links and profiles from the RawVoice system. This is what he's referring to as "changed keywords."

Todd is a perfect case study on how not to behave as a CEO. The man literally wrote the book on podcasting, and ever since then seems to have the attitude that he could never possibly be wrong about anything. This leads to personality conflicts, his heels being dug in, and very public displays of anger and superiority at anyone with even the slightest philosophical differences on technology, let alone legitimate business disputes. When you react so violently to the slightest provocations, how can you expect to generate anything but bad PR?

But I love a good fight, and Todd has frankly been nothing but a jerk to me since I left the Tech Podcast Network, insisting on blaming me for his accounting error. If he wants to waste a bunch of money on lawyers and filing lawsuits, I'll gladly oblige him.

I'm sure there's some way for me to come out on top for being wrongly harassed (if not monetarily, maybe with a ValleyWag headline or two?).

Google Deadpooled by CrunchBase; OmniDrive Not So Much

I saw a note on FriendFeed from Duncan Riley earlier today indicating he'd posted on OmniDrive, the back-up solutions company that's had an uncertain future for quite some time. Duncan and Nik Cubrilovic, both of which who have history at TechCrunch, also have history with each other.

I know exactly what it's like to have piss-poor relations with someone in the Web 2.0 world and subsequently blog about it. Todd Cochrane of RawVoice and I had a serious misunderstanding on the amount of money a podcast series I ran on his network was owed, and blogged about it over at Mashable. A lot of nasty words were said at the time as he rallied all his allies against me and organized a smear campaign to impugn my words, but when he and his employees went about doing a forensic accounting, they found that I was right, and a check was eventually sent out to rectify the situation.

The situation seems to be similar with Duncan and OmniDrive's Nik Cubrilovic (without the Omnidrive eventually working to repair its rift with Duncan part). It isn't hard to see why things are being seen as so bad for Nik and his company. There are rumors that he's been unable to pay folks for quite some time, as well as the fact that he seems to be working for Mike Arrington again to pay his bills.

So when the line "Omnidrive entered The Deadpool 2008" showed up on the CrunchBase entry for the company, Duncan was not at all surprised and took the opportunity to blog it. I'm not sure of the exact nature of Nik and Duncan's disagreement; I vaguely remember something about Duncan briefly contracting for him and then not getting paid or something. If it wasn't 5 am, I'd dig up the old Inquisitr post referencing that.

The thing that makes this so very interesting, to me anyway, is the way that Nik is vehemently denying that his company is dead:

Thats awesome work Duncan. Just ignore that anybody can edit the page and mark a company deadpooled. Hey, I just marked Google dead, you gonna write about that too?

Duncan replied:

news to me. All changes have to be approved last time I looked, unless you have admin rights...which I'm guessing you may do. Further the account used to make this change would appear to be an internal TC user account. The user has a long list of admin style changes. My guess: one of the interns. None of the changes made by the user were vandalism, and they are too frequent for anyone outside of TC to have made them.

There was some clever back and forth after that that is definitely worth reading - I'll link to it and you can read it there (giving the Inquisitr the benefit of about 30 extra pageviews or so. Never said I didn't give you anything, Duncan).

I suppose I could go all highbrow and ask some questions about how this is a great example of PR gone wrong, and that Nik's inability to manage his corporate image is leading him closer to this mythical Deadpool for OmniDrive, but this is my blog and not Mashable (and especially since I haven't yet finished my FriendFeed powered comments module, leaving no place for that type of discussion).

The real point is here that it's sometimes just plain amusing to see how disconnected from reality folks can be. OmniDrive has had more negative press about it than just about any Web 2.0 company I can think of aside from Facebook during the Project Bac'n debacle. The only organization I can immediately recall with more folks running around saying that they haven't been paid is that Blognation Global River of News thing.

So does OmniDrive really deserve to be in the CrunchBase deadpool? Who cares. Is it amusing to see Nik run around and try to debunk statements from credible folks with longstanding reputations in the blogosphere? Definitely.

[Disclaimer: My words in no way reflect the opinions of my employers or co-workers at Mashable. I'm guessing. I didn't really ask them, but this is a personal blog, so don't suddenly start blaming my boss for something I said. Unless he says it, too. Then feel free.]

Twitter is Poo Poo Bad

Hey folks. There's a lot of folks who've Direct Messaged me lately on Twitter.

I'm real sorry for not getting back to you. I'm used to Twitter sending me my DMs via Twitter. Unfortunately, I've been missing them all since Twitter's IM functionality has been all goofball for a good long while.

You probably know this.

At any rate, apologies go out to @technosailor, @duncanriley, @markdykeman, @patrickruffini, @micah, @calilewis, @seanpercival, and @sampad. Those that are timely for me to reply to, I will, for the rest, I extend my apologies.

/rizzn

Frigtarded PR and Corporate Communications

I wrote a blog post over at Mashable this week that made someone mad. This is fairly par for the course, given my position as outspoken editorialist. Every once in a while, though, I'll irritate a reader, sponsor or strategic partner enough for someone to ring up my superiors and call for my head on a platter. This week contained an incident along those lines.

My bosses have always been supportive of me, even when I'm fairly out there in my opinions, irking the world, and generally making it difficult to be my friend. Still, I'm not so far out of whack with my written pieces that I play fast and loose with the facts. If I have what some consider an untenable position, I support it fully with facts or reasoned analysis. If I have a bit of information about a company that may not be completely flattering, then I make sure it's true to the best of my abilities given the reach of my contacts.

Mashable is a blog that isn't known for it's hard-hitting, nail-'em-to-the-wall investigative journalism. There are sites like that, we just aren't that kind of blog. Still, there have been a number of times in the past when we've had access to credible information that doesn't make certain companies look their best. When we have that information, and it's germane to the topics at hand, we report it.

This week, there was a story in which just that happened. I wrote a story based on credible information I had available to me to me. The company's PR guy drops a line to all my bosses the next evening asking for my reprimand, but not before he and I had a brief exchange that led my to believe all was well. The piece I put out about his company wasn't at all negative about his company, it only revealed a bit of information that they hadn't anticipated becoming public knowledge.

When the PR fellow wrote me, he attempted to spew a list of facts and firsts about the company that were patently untrue. I've been in tech professionally for more than half my life, and been following this company's tech sector since it became a sector. Off the top of my head, I was able to correct a number of claims he made in his communication with me (and claims made to other media outlets), and I imagine this is what pushed him over the edge to try to get me into trouble.

Essentially, I'm telling all of you this because these incidents happens often enough for it to be a pattern, and I'd rather not become soured on more Web 2.0 companies because of their shady corporate communications departments.

The overwhelming majority of PR folks I talk to on a daily basis are smiley, cheery people, and most of them are truly honest folk who are just doing a job of conveying information. There's a minority of them, however, that seem to be conniving power-weasels, bent on making bloggers' lives miserable in any way they can.

I'm reminded of one a few months ago that almost caused me to change my phone number. I had written a funding story, and I had somewhere in the article transposed a number incorrectly (instead of $3.89 million, I had put $3.98 million). I promise you I'm not exaggerating, and my wife can back me up on this, this PR lady called me around 12 times a day for two or three weeks straight, saying that my screw-up entitled her client to a podcast interview to "set the record straight."

What these PR people don't realize, though, is that they don't have the power in the relationship. Going around and generally annoying or starting feuds with bloggers will not win you any career points, particularly if your company has things to hide. What's more, it makes me not want to deal with or write about your company at all, let alone shine the positive sunbeams on your company's accomplishments.

Undoubtedly, the PR people in question is going to eventually read this blog post, and they'll immediately know who they are, so here's a bit of a narrow cast message to them: you know the ways in which you insulted my craft and abilities, and you know the secrets of your company. Given that precarious precipice you sit on, was it wise to make an enemy of me? Was it the brightest move to stalk me? Was it worth it to be as hyper-sensitive and defensive as you were?

I really don't dig long-term investigative journalism as my preferred way to spend my days, but these horrendous PR people have motivated me to take a deeper look at their organizations. To them I say: for your sake, you'd better hope your falsehoods end only with your product pitches.

I feel somewhat better having gotten all this out of my system Though I'm sure I'll be just as irritated again next month when it invariably happens again with someone different, I'll try to not inflict it on you, my readers.

/rizzn

Attention: PR People

Hey. I saw this in CrunchGear a few minutes ago (thanks Steven), and I had to comment on it:

Sometime on Tuesday morning, a mystery box was delivered to the crew over at Photojojo. The attached freight slip barely served to demystify things, reading: “Call to arrange delivery. Do not let consignee know shipment is from Yahoo until delivery is made.” Odd - surprise packages from Yahoo aren’t exactly an every day thing. What could it be?

Turns out, it was a big ol’ box of beer. To help get the word out to developers about the recent launch of Yahoo’s new open search platform, SearchMonkey, they sent out these “Happy Hour in a Box” kits, packed with SearchMonkey shirts, mugs, and a Heineken mini keg.

Well played, Yahoo. Whoever thought of this deserves a high five and a raise.

Seriously. I can be bought, people. I'm not above reproach in that respect. You can't purchase the positive analysis you want, but you can darn well at least purchase a mention from me by sending me cool toys or schwag like this.

Most important to note (I'm looking at you, SearchMonkeys) - I live in a dry county out here in Texas. I won't can't legally encourage you to bootleg, but I do enjoy the occasional adult beverage.

Just sayin' (surprise me).

/rizzn