Well, I’ve been bouncing all around Iowa/Illinois/Minnesota for the 25 Dec – 1 Jan holiday period, so I’ve been lax on the ol’ site updates here. Big surprise.

Anyway, I notice a lot of people are writing posts summing up the previous year or outlining goals for the coming one. I’m going to skip that, mainly because it sounds like a lot of work.

Instead I’ll reduce all that to this:
Here’s hoping this year is better than last — for all of us.

A few months ago, I noted that Google Earth obscured the White House roof as well as those of the adjoining buildings. Later, the blurred images where replaced, and the tops can now be seen.

The Times has the story today:

For a brief period, photos of the White House and adjacent buildings that the United States Geological Survey provided to Google Earth showed up with certain details obscured, because the government had decided that showing details like rooftop helicopter landing pads was a security risk. Google has since replaced those images with unaltered photographs of the area taken by Sanborn, a mapping and imagery company, further illustrating the difficulty of trying to control such information.

The Vice President’s Residence/Naval Observatory is still blursville, however…

Riddle me this: suppose you’re responsible for the documentation for a particular computer network card. (Like so many of your fellow companies, you think of “documentation” as “one small printed sheet and a CD.”) Suddenly it’s brought to your attention that the included page is wrong. What do you do?

• Ignore it. Let tech support deal with it. You’ve had the sheets printed, after all.
• Pull the sheets and replace them with a corrected version.
• Run off a “correction” addendum and tuck that in with the original.

The makers of a NIC I recently installed opted for the last option (click to enlarge):

While an addendum might be smart in the case of a printed manual, it’s absolutely mystifying in this case, where instead of replacing the small, black and white quarter-page, they opted to double the number of sheets involved. Yet they didn’t even do that right: check the larger version and you’ll see that none of the three diagrams match.

Why didn’t they just replace the wrong sheet with a new one? They’ve even assigned a part number to the second sheet, so clearly they have to manage stocks of these pages as well. How is this a good decision? Most importantly, why do they think it’s an acceptable experience for the customer, who has to spend the time and cognitive energy trying to figure out just what the hell is going on?

The PhRMA misadventures reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to cover for nigh on six months, this little Glaxo ad (click for big!):

Let’s unpack this, starting from the bottom:

• The drugs were junk. Not much to say here. (The FDA’s test results and the accompanying press release are online.)
• The credit card was processed in St. Kitts. Suspicious, but doesn’t really tell us much. After all, VeriSign, the $6B company that controls .com, hawks this very service (see FAQ: I am a U.S. merchant interested in processing offshore in Bermuda, can I do this? Hint: Yes.)
• The Web server is in China. Easily the weakest argument of the bunch. My site is hosted in California; the domain lives at a Canadian registrar. Can you spot some technical difference between this North American-based offering and, say, The Modest Mr. Pech‘s, which is hosted in Hong Kong on an IP that reverse-resolves to a Bulgarian-registered hostname? Thought not. That’s the whole point. The Internet is the Internet.
• It’s not clear where they’re “based.” Fair enough on the evasiveness, but what does “based” really mean these days? GSK itself says they’re “[h]eadquartered in the UK and with operations based in the US.” So I guess their HQ isn’t a base.
• The postmark and return address didn’t match. Ever receive an Amazon package that wasn’t shipped from Washington? Spooky!

Now hold on, John, you might be saying. Yes, each of these things could have a legitimate explanation, but how likely is it that all of them would come together? Aren’t you cherry-picking comparisons?

Certainly! But at least I admit it. GSK, on the other hand, buries the single most important fact of this entire ad: all of these events were set in motion [a]fter receiving a spam e-mail….

If they’d run an ad with a headline such as: “With Spam, What You Don’t Know Might Kill You” I wouldn’t even bat an eye. That would be alarmist yet honest. In fact, they could even use one of their own lines: “Where did all these medicines really come from? And what exactly is in them?”

But no. While there are real problems with ordering drugs online from any source (including domestic), the drug companies prefer to shoehorn the message into their chosen narrative: we can’t trust Canada.

OK, we’ve discussed product placement in TV shows, TV news, newspapers, and (awhile ago) movies. What are we missing?

Would you believe books?

According to Slate, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America commissioned an entire novel, The Spivak Conspiracy, with a rather arresting plot line: Croatian Muslims attack the U.S… through poisoned drugs sold to Americans via Canadian pharmacies (see “Truth is Stranger Than Phiction.”)

The audacity of the move is breathtaking. First PhRMA budgets $300k for the book on the quiet. They got nabbed, so we don’t know what the plan from there might have been, but we can guess: after they arranged a nice print run, it would be time to trot out the surrogates on cable news to gravely intone that “the novel has a clever premise, a danger that’s all too real.” It wouldn’t be necessary for people to actually buy the book (or even read it) so long as they could keep repeating “Canada = tainted drugs” as many times as possible. (In this respect, the terror hook is also clever.)

If by some freak event the book actually was popular, the PhRMA’s no-doubt wet dream scenario then comes into play: a movie. (Tom Cruise battles Goran Visnjic in devious plot to import tainted Ritalin to harm America’s children! Featuring Jim Carrey as the wacky Canadian pharamacist who learns never to trust foreigners.)

Except the writers had another idea:

In the end, Spivak and Chrystyn turned down the money, rewrote the book, and retitled it The Karasik Conspiracy. The thriller is due out next month. We’ve read part of an early draft, and we can’t recommend it as great literature. But the book has an instructive new bad guy: A large pharmaceutical company, so far unnamed, has poisoned Canadian-sold drugs—and then tried to make it look like a bunch of terrorists were behind the plot.

Can’t say I’d read that one, either, but good for them.

I made a passing reference to VNRs in my last post and linked to the Wikipedia. One of the descriptions I’ve always enjoyed is from the novel Slick, by author Daniel Price (of the late AbusedByTheNews.com.) It’s written from the perspective of a PR flack:

The video news release (VNR) is the dirty little secret that all flacks and hacks share. It’s do-it-yourself coverage. Using my own crew, my own script, even my own voice, I serve as the on-the-scene (but never seen) reporter. When all is said and done, I’ve got a professional-looking two-minute news piece, the kind you see every night at eleven. From there we use a portable uplink to shoot the whole thing into space. The final step is faxing notice to all the newsrooms…

For the budget-conscious news director, this is manna from heaven. It takes just minutes for Graphics to add their custom network overlays and Sound to dub a local reporter’s voice over mine. Presto. The station runs the piece as their own. There’s no legal requirement to cite the source, and that’s just the way we like it. The producers often mix it up a little to cover their tracks. That’s what a B-roll is for. It’s a no-frills collection fof relevant interviews and visual clips, a media LEGO set they can put together any way they want. It’s a great system. On a slow news day, a thirty-minute show can squeeze in a good seven to eight minutes of VNRs, as compared to five or six minutes of real news. It’s pretty easy to tell the two apart. That fire in Century City? News. The new laser technique to remove wrinkles? VNR. If it promotes a product or company, it’s a VNR. If the reporter never appears in any of the on-scene footage, that’s because it ain’t his story. It came from outer space.

NewsUSA CEO Rick Smith e-mailed me this morning, wanting to respond to Tuesday’s post. Because I believe his original intention was to leave a comment (there were two attempts in the logs — not sure why they failed, actually) and also because he left an identical note on another site (right down to the truncated ellipsis after “by you”) I’ll quote his message here:

Thank you for mentioning our free service to editors and webmasters who may not have the budgets to buy copy, yet want great consumer editorial for their readers. www.newsusa.com
The Editor Rewards program was slightly mischaracterized by you..let me clarify…
We have over 4,000 newspapers using our free service and 18 years history.
This year the 2 national clipping services merged..we felt we would allocate the $2/clipping to reward editors that are using us to send copies of those missing tearsheets…
I doubt $2 would get any editor to run copy that doesn’t help serve his readers. Our copy is in Associated Press Style and color photos and free.

Rick Smith
CEO
NewsUSA, Inc.
[contact information snipped]

Before I respond, I’d like to also quote from “E-Media Tidbits”, a Poynter Institute newsletter to which I subscribe:

The report suggests that there’s a serious plagiarism problem among some Chinese reporters. It cites an example as told by a media worker: “A while ago, there was a big traffic-related story in Xinyuan. Our newspaper dispatched three reporters to gather news. But all three were too lazy to go. When the newspaper director pressed them for their reports, the three reporters sent in identical reports” (based on what they found online)!

Of course, there are hard-working journalists, looking for the truth, but for the audiences it is very hard to tell the difference between a truth and a fabrication. — 7 Dec 05

First, from what I understand, the $2 isn’t cash, it’s 250 prize points, only useful if you advance in their affinity system — by publishing more articles. Mr. Smith seems to think my quarrel is with the $2 reward for sending in a clipping; it’s not. My problem is that I recognize that their is an ever-shrinking number of professional newspaper reporters, and as a result the pressure put on them and their editors can only increase, making “easy out” options like NewsUSA (or online sourcing) more tempting.

Is that so bad? I think so. Mr. Smith takes pains to note that his copy is professional, written in AP style with art provided, and thus can be of use to publishers who “want great consumer editorial.” It sounds like a win-win for those on tight budgets, but it’s time for a reality check: most press releases are, in fact, well-written in AP style. Why don’t companies just use them? Why do people pay Mr. Smith? Cui bono?

Obviously there’s a difference between a press release and news. By masquerading as any other article, NewsUSA features take advantage of the prestige and trust of the organization that runs them. In doing so, they make print press just a little bit more like the B-roll/VNR hell that is television news, and a little bit less like the “I saw it, I checked it, I vouch for it” print media we know.

And trust.

Tonight I watched some of that crap TV that’s sucked me in. And yeah, it was not so great, but it was the commercials that really left me scratching my head, including:

1. MetLife car insurance. Right after boasting you get “full replacement cost” for your car, they’re noting there’s no “depreciation deductible.” Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but the replacement cost of your vehicle will go down each year because of depreciation. So isn’t that already priced in to your benefit — by definition?
2. Canon Digital Rebel XT. Quick, what’s the official truck of the NFL? Give up? I have no idea, either — and I couldn’t care less. Why do companies continue to spend money on these deals? Unless it’s some sort of cross-promotional requirement with the NFL, I’m baffled as to why companies like Canon would use their own commercials to boast they’re the “official camera of the NFL.” Really, who cares? Is there any research that says being the “official” anything converts sales? (Other than jerseys and such, of course.)
3. Tide Coldwater. Tide makes a big deal about how you could save “up to $63 a year” in energy costs by washing your clothes in cold instead of hot. They even have a savings calculator to help you estimate how much! Except how about this math: Tide’s $63/yr figure is based on 7 loads/wk. So that’s 7×52 = 364 loads/yr. A 50 fl. oz regular Tide goes for $6 (the cold water version may be more) and lasts for 16 loads. So you’ll need 364/16 =~ 23 bottles ($138.) Compare this to something like All “Small & Mighty”, which is a more concentrated liquid. The same $6 gets you enough for 32 loads, so you can do your 364 loads with ~12 bottles for $72. That’s a savings of $66 — more than Tide’s “up to” $63.

See, this is why I shouldn’t watch TV.

The Internet gives so very many things, but one area where it’s weak is context — or so it seems. For example, today I was doing a little research on a site that interested me, and I wondered: who’s behind this? How big is their operation? As we all know, it’s easy to create a facade online.

So I dug into the site a little bit. The traffic numbers were pretty good. The site had plenty of inbound links. The domain was registered with a “Care of” address, but the site itself provided this Chicago address: 3540 N. Southport Ave, with an (office? suite? apartment?) number. Not being too familiar with Southport Av., I pulled up Google Maps in satellite view. Assuming the geocoding was correct, 3540 was a pretty big building. That would make sense, given the additional number, but what type was it?

I plugged the same address into Amazon’s A9 Yellow Pages, and I had my answer: 3540 is a UPS Store, and in fact was a former Mailboxes, Etc., home of P.O. box-style mail drops.

Of course, I could have reached the same conclusion by simpling Googling the address, but that’s the beauty of it: just sitting here on my lazy ass, I have all sorts of resources at my fingertips, and I barely have to move to get ’em.

Just under two years ago, I was in Singapore and wrote this:

True, the arrivals form seemed a tad unsubtle in its boldfaced announcement of DEATH FOR DRUG TRAFFICKERS UNDER SINGAPORE LAW.

I remembered that arrival form today when I heard they executed a man for heroin smuggling.

It’s a weird little city-state, Singapore. Very friendly people, but a government that just does not fuck around.

Tim Andrews, a Canon employee from London, said: “We always fit lots of new glass to copiers after New Year due to ‘rear-end copying.'”

In fact, Canon claims a shocking 46 percent of service calls are in response to non-work-related breakages.
[…]
Partly in response to this trend–or perhaps because of the “supersizing” of the western physique–Canon has now increased the thickness of its glass by an extra millimeter.
—Confessions of a photocopier repairman

If that’s true — and I doubt it — I’d love to see the internal documentation:

-- M E M O --
FR: Engineering
TO: Manufacturing
RE: Thicker glass

Changes will commence with the 2006 model line, and sales staff should be informed of this new feature, which will be promoted as "Christmas Party Coating"^TM.

The Death Star is dead. Long live the Death Star.

That’s the message I’m getting from the new post-merger SBC/AT&T logo, unveiled today. Here it is, with its forebears:

(From left, the 1983 Saul Bass original, the 1999 “refined” version, and the new globe.)

Now, brand consultants usually have some high-falutin’ language about what the brand means and what it evokes and all that. (Example: “[CEO Ed Whitacre] says marketing people finally convinced him that the new look was more evocative of the Internet generation: ‘They tell me it’s more trendy and modern.'”)

I don’t know know about the “Internet generation”, but for me it says:

1. Look, we turned the globe inside-out. Sort of like how former AT&T-spinoff SBC gobbled up its parent. The student has become the teacher, see?
2. We liked Citigroup‘s font. And hey, lowercase seems to be working for them…
3. Sure, it’s ugly as hell — but aren’t you glad we didn’t make some unholy combination of the SBC logo and the globe? Imagine the Death Star with tentacles!
4. Hey, at least it’s not Verizon.

It’s 5°F out right now. With snow on the ground and even a little ice.

I’m so not ready for 5 months of this crap.

I just visited a car inspection website, only to be greeted with this box:

Clever, eh? Fuck-off message and a fake number: I don’t know why they didn’t just go for “We don’t want your business. Go away.”

In a similar brain-dead vein, I came across two other things today that left me shaking my head. One’s in Canada:

Mark Duncan, chief operating officer for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, the agency tasked with providing security at Canadian airports, says the system is sound.

“Our last public opinion survey showed that 90 per cent of the people were satisfied with the security process. So we think we’ve delivered on the mandate we were given,” Duncan said.
—Investigation highlights security concerns at Canadian airports

The security guys that I read tend to get pretty pessimistic, because they’re so creative they’re able to find flaws in just about anything. Not Mark Duncan. He’s apparently from the “Family Feud” school of penetration testing: “Survey says: ‘we’re secure!'”

And finally, let us also bestow a “Whaaa?” award to the folks in Redmond:

“As Web advertising grows and consumer revenues shrink, we need to consider creating ad-supported versions of our software,” two Microsoft researchers and an MSN employee wrote in a paper presented to company executives earlier this year.
—Microsoft eyes making desktop apps free

Because the only thing that could make Microsoft Office even better was if the little paperclip thing said “It looks like you’re trying to write a letter. Would you like to save money on your car insurance?”

Tonight’s episode of “The Apprentice” featured some of the most uncomfortable television I’ve seen in awhile. First “The Donald” asked one of the contestants (age 22) if he’d ever had sex, and if that wasn’t awkward enough, told another that homosexuality was like ordering spaghetti instead of steak — it’s all “a menu.” Creepy.

Neither player got the boot, however, as The Hair opted to cut loose Markus, who had a Kerry-esque talent of using 30 words when 5 would do. He recently put this skill to use on MarkusApprentice.com, in which he attempted to rebut his portrayal on the show, episode-by-episode. Somebody prevailed upon him to stop, however, and those pages were pulled. Now his site contains 7 categories, of which 5 are “Coming Soon!”

Markus is not alone here — I found a list of contestant websites, clicked around, and soon found several “coming soon” pages, a whole bunch of Flash, and just generally empty and generic sites. I find that odd. (Well, not the generic part.) The show was filmed months and months ago, so these people had plenty of time to put together Web sites if they wanted to attempt to capitalize on their fleeting fame. Do they seriously expect that anyone will check back in the future for an updated page?

And before anyone claims that as an Internet nerd, I place a higher premium on this than the general public, let me point you to one of Martha’s hopefuls: David Karandish. This guy lists “Search Engine Optimization” and “IT Consulting” as his skills. He actually told Martha that he could greatly improve MarthaStewart.com.

So this guy at least must have some clue how to use the Internet, right? Err… not so much. He gets a few points for attempting a blog, but the stock photos? The faith section? The laughably incomplete business section?

I know it’s just a dumb TV show, but seriously: is this the best they could find?