Oh, Yes, I’ll Be Your Neighbor!

Now this is a treat! Today’s Google Doodle brings me back to one of the best parts of my childhood: Mister Rogers. His message of kindness is one we so are lacking right now.

It was, and still is, a privilege to be his neighbor.

Facebook’s Video Ads

Autoplayed videos; oh, how I loathe thee! I’ve been grousing about this for years. And now, NOW Facebook wants to launch into the space. Grrrr…

The radio piece I heard this morning didn’t  have much, except stating the auto-play piece. Reading this article on AdAge gives a bit more balance. Apparently, scrolling or swiping past will stop them from playing. And the mobile app won’t play them unless you’re on wifi. I guess that’s better than some of the ways these are executed, but still…

What I find most interesting, though, is their eagerness. Yes, this has a large revenue potential ($1 *10^6/day, plus the ability to deeply refine their  targeting), but, BUTTTTT I don’t know anyone who isn’t annoyed by them. I wonder how much this will alienate users, perhaps driving them somewhere else? Ok, I really don’t think that this will drive a max influx of Google+ users, but I do believe it will drive a lot of people to download Adblock, or one of it’s kindred products.

 

Life in the Shadow

A key moment of political awareness for me came during my mid-teens. I don’t remember the full context, but I realized that I knew great details about the candidates for Seattle’s mayor, but nothing about mine (Lynnwood’s). I didn’t even  know WHO Lynnwood’s mayor was. That made me aware of the dominance of Seattle in this region. Not simply political, but media-wise and culturally.

For example, media-wise, besides Seattle’s several tv stations (this was the 80s), Spokane had a few, and I believe Yakima had one or two, Bellingham had KVOS, and Tacoma had a PBS station on VHF. Print news had greater presence, but was distributed much the same.

This motivated me to learn more about this region, to explore and understand with greater detail the richer culture. That’s become much easier with the advent of the internet and world wide web. I’m nowhere near where I wish to be, and plan to continue with my explorations.

Some Friday Thoughts

Just reviewing my blog content when a thought occurred to me: I’m posting mostly press releases lately. That’s really not my vision for this site, yet it is a component. I receive so many messages with really interesting/relevant information, and cool opportunities that I want to share with you. And, often, the copywriters do a great job of getting a concise statement with a good touch of backstory, it seems pointless to do anything but put it out there. 

I will, soon, add more original content, but one of this blogs purposes is to provide community information. Hope that provides some insight into what the heck I’m doing here. With that, may you all have glorious weekends.