Here’s something just for some fun on a Halloween. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
Monstermashup.com is a site like Elf Yourself or Simpsonize Me where you can add your picture to make a cool animated video for some Halloween fun. You can also choose from several scenes. Very Cool.
Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
Extreme Pumpkin Carving is a site that features lots of very cool Jack-O-Lanterns. Some are perfect for a fun family project. Others should never be tried at home, but are great Friday Fun to look at.
I’m back to work today after a great visit to see my nephew graduate from Navy boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. It was a fun time even though we didn’t get to see him for long as he had to fly out to his new school in Virginia.
I was catching up on my work and not thinking about this blog yet when I got an email from T-Mobile. You may know that I have had a G1 Android phone since the beginning. I have written about how much I like the phone, but since it’s the very first one there have been some upgrades and I’ve been thinking about getting newer features, more memory, better battery life, that kind of thing.
Today’s email said “Buy the MOTOROLA CLIQ™ with MOTOBLUR™ for $199.99* and a free car charger is yours.” I checked out the * and thought, WOW this might be a good time to upgrade. It had surprised me that they would give me the discount to upgrade, since I still had almost a year left on my agreement (from the G1 buy), but it didn’t mention that either way in the fine print. I had researched the Cliq, and liked what I saw, even thought some people had warned me to avoid Motorola. I was willing to add the extra two years (mentioned in the fine print) to my contract to the one that I had left.
I was very disappointed, but not surprised to get to the T-Mobile site and see that my cost for the Cliq would actually be $369.98. So instead of going right back to work, I wasted some time investigating new Android phones. What I found was that Acer is bringing out what looks to be an even cooler model, The Liquid. The previews all sound like this phone may provide me with even more of what I want than the Cliq.
I’ll wait to see the actual reviews once it’s available and there is not a set price for this phone yet. I imagine it will be more than the Cliq, especially since I won’t be buying it from T-Mobile, but I also won’t be extending my contract.
I’m not sure that I’ll buy the Liquid, but I know that I wouldn’t even have gone looking for it if T-Mobile had sent me an email today with the actual price I would have to pay for a Cliq instead of a generic ($199*) ad.
Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
On Fridays I usually try to provide just plain fun and time wasting things to do, but lately I decided I wanted to find something good and helpful to do. Then I got an email from the AARP that provided me a site to do just that. Create The Good.
AARP is providing a great list of volunteer opportunities for almost anyone. Whether you would help out at a senior center calling Bingo numbers or help with crafts at a cancer center, there are many, different and mostly local things that you can do to help your community and make yourself feel good, too.
Yesterday I wrote about how I thought that the new FTC rules for bloggers were pretty much unnecessary and probably won’t work the way the it’s expected to.
Today I’m reading where they might be dangerous, too. Mike Masnick raised some new, interesting, and alarming scenarios today in his TechDirt blog.
I’m sure by now you’ve probably seen that the FTC has set new guidelines for bloggers. I’ve been reading comments on both the pro and con side of the issue. Some folks argue that this is long overdue. Without specific rules people will take payments to promote products and services whether they actually like them of not.
The other side says that this is not needed and is probably weakening the First Amendment to our Constitution. The government has no business infringing on our freedom of speech. Our right to lie, so to speak. Personally I’m on this side a bit more than the other, but I can see good arguments for both sides.
What I’ve decided is that it probably won’t make a bit of difference either way. Bloggers (or anyone else) who are willing to lie about a product or service will soon lose their credibility. It doesn’t matter if there’s payment or not or what they disclose. The biggest problem with rule in my mind is that while the FTC says that you have to disclose the relationship between you and your sponsor, they don’t mention how it must be done. So while many people are writing about how they think it should be done, they’re just guessing. It seems that it can be done in many ways. Here’s mine…
Disclaimer – There may be some people or companies out there crazy enough to pay me money or give me merchandise for my opinion or review of their product and/or service. If they do I’m going to take it.
I’m not a lawyer, but from reading this rule I believe this small blurb or something like it may be actually enough to satisfy the rule. It doesn’t even say that it has to be on the same page as the endorsement.
While my statement may not actually be enough disclosure, the rule is gray enough that you could argue it is. I don’t expect that anyone will actually offer me anything for my public opinion and I would like to think that I wouldn’t give a positive review to something that I really don’t like, but I did write a post on this topic a couple of years ago called I Probably Can Be Bought.
Some people will continue to ignore this rule and if I were a big enough celebrity that was worth more than the $11,000 fine I might consider risking it. In addition if by some fluke I was caught and publicly fined, the resulting publicity would probably be worth much more than that anyway, so the company might even cover it.
Read more on this topic on Search Engine Watch Site
The search engines in an attempt to make sure your search results are relevant to what you were actually asking for are getting more and more local. If you search for “pizza” for example you not only get a list of the national chains, you also get a list of the shops that are near you. Yes, they know where you are and they know that someone here in Pittsburgh probably won’t be interested in a pizza shop in California.
So the search engines know where the searcher is, but do you know if they know where your pizza shop is? There’s a great post on the SearchInsider site by Todd Friesen that can help you with this. I got some really good information from reading it and visiting the links. See for yourself.
This is almost a Friday Fun Site post. If you read my rantings here regularly you know that I am a big fan of my G1 Android Phone. I’m even thinking of upgrading early because of all the cool stuff about to be available on the new phones.
One of the great things about my phone is choosing from over 10,000 (mostly free) apps. True that the iPhone has six or seven times more, but that gap is closing fast and some of the best are Android only.
I found this post on ComputerWorld that list the ones they like best.
Here’s something just for some fun on a Friday. (Not responsible if you get caught playing at work)
Without anything even close the Friday Fun Site where I recommended Simsonizeme. Due to the fact that it’s almost always busy well over two years later, I have to believe that it may have been one of Burger King’s most popular promotions ever. This is a great example of how giving something away can be a wonderful promotion for your business.
Today Netflix is trying something similar to honor the 70th Anniversary of The Wizard or OZ. They offer you a page where you can upload your photo and appear in the movie. You can share it with your friends, but I don’t think that you can save it (the entertainment companies won’t let you have that much fun) so it probably won’t be as popular as Simpsonizeme, but it’s still good fun for a Friday.
