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The writers may be back at work following their extended (and very justified) holdout, but that doesn’t mean all is well out there.
Internet auction giant Ebay has apparently ticked off a few of their key sellers by altering a few of the fees among other functional changes – and the sellers are fighting back. While this plays out very well for smaller auction companies, its also great to see that it is actually providing results; as seen in the 13 percent drop in listings.
Drops in listings will provide drops in profits, so as the users unite, the Giant gets kicked in the shins. Whether or not anything happens from this is to be seen. Just like those that like to send emails out about not getting gasoline on certain days, for example, fail to realize that sometimes, you just have to do certain things. Whether or not EBay users are willing to forgo all of the hard work that has gone into getting their “ratings” and “Power Seller” status to sell things at another site is the big question.
As much as people like change in the technology world, I’m willing to bet that this one won’t be long – even if it is “extended” for now.
When I caught wind of the recent news that more than three dozen Duke students are filing suit against the University as well as the city of Durham, NC, my first response was “what took so long?” While the three players that were charged have gone to file suit against Prosecutor, and dirtbag, Michael Nifong, the new suit will be aimed at the University for invasion of privacy, among other damages.
The way the city was quick to rally around the “victim” disgusts me, so it is to no surprise that I’m fully supportive of this suit. It should be mentioned that I’m wholly against frivolous claims, and most legal politics in general, so my support of this is more of an exception than the “norm.”
And if you’re wondering where my post title came from, check out the video here. I hope to get my hands on this book relatively soon. (I’d embed, but WordPress apparently isn’t in tune with that)
” To establish oneself in the world, one does all one can to seem established there already.” – François La Rochefoucauld
In other words, one can never self-promote enough.
With that said, here’s my latest piece that went up on SI.com. What’s seven better is that it finally pays some decent homage to Cleveland basketball.
Carry on…
Ugh, this week has been atrocious. I’ve been meaning to vent on this for a while, so you may just want to ”x-out” if you’re easily bored with tech-type stuff.
As a Blackberry user, I was a bit perturbed by the system outage that occurred last spring, forcing a large gap in email reception – followed by a barrage of all the emails that I had missed over the course of those few hours. Of course, major periodicals were all over Research in Motion (RIM) for not having the capacity to support the growth of their product.
Well all of this leads to this past Monday while I was on my way home from work. While the majority of the emails that I receive on my 8703e get deleted immediately – thanks to SI.com putting direct links to one of my email addresses on each of my pieces – there are a few that get digested. One of which comes from the Motley Fool regarding the past day in the market. It usually arrives around 5p… at least it did.
Apparently, there was another outage that occurred around 3:30 EST that knocked out about half of the users. As my luck would have it, I was in that “half,” so any emails that were sent between the outage time and whenever it ended did not end up getting to me until about 7:00p EST.
Thankfully, I’m not that important (yet), so those emails that I didn’t immediately get weren’t exactly time-sensitive. But for the million or so people who also use this service that may have a little more leverage placed on the device cannot be happy either.
Reports are already circulating that RIM is doing what needs to be done to bolster its infrastructure, but I just wish that these companies would be a bit more proactive in their innovations instead of using them to react to problems. But who am I kidding?
As a huge fan of music, I like to think of myself as one who deviates considerably from the mainstream. Most of today’s top-40 music is completely awful, and there are SO many artists out there that even I haven’t heard of that should be getting more play through whichever mediums than they are. It would be pompous of me to say that I have “better” taste in music than most, so I’m not going there. While I do scratch my head at most people that I encounter, I think it is not their fault that they do not “like” certain music. They just haven’t had a chance to hear it – you know?
But I digress. While I’m not a huge mainstream music fan, I am a huge fan of anything that celebrates music. Even if it is the Grammy Awards. This show has turned into more of a concert than an award show, but it keeps the attention of today’s short-spanned society. DVRs unite when you do not want to see a certain part – and rewind when something great happens. I get that. But what I don’t get? The category of “Song of the Year.” Check out this year’s nominees…
“Before He Cheats,” written by Josh Kear and Chris Tompkins
“Hey There Delilah,” written by Tom Higgenson of Plain White T’s
“Like A Star,” written by Corinne Bailey Rae
“Rehab,” written by Amy Winehouse
“Umbrella,” written by Shawn Carter, Kuk Harrell, Terius “Dream” Nash and Christopher Stewart
Does anything jump out at you? Nothing? How about when I add in the Vegas odds for who is taking home the award?
Before He Cheats- Carrie Underwood 1/2
Hey There Delilah- Plain White T’s 11/4
Like A Star- Corrine Bailey Rae 11/1
Rehab- Amy Winehouse 9/4
Umbrella- Rihanna featuring Jay-Z 5/2
Yes, folks, the (heavy) odds-on favorite to take home this award had absolutely NOTHING to do with the composition of the song. You can bet that cameras will pan to Miss Underwood during nomination time, but the truth is that she’s simply a performer. Isn’t karaoke the “act” of singing someone else’s song over the music? Ironically, its one of the cliche responses from the whole American Idol crew to someone who isn’t quite good enough. She’s raking in millions, while these two dudes – who wrote one of the biggest “yea, girls fight back now, so take that” songs of the year – are virtually unknown.
Gotta love pop music…
The ongoing quest for area-based exposure hit the ground running last night as I took to the 20/30 YP happy hour, which was held at Ultra – one of those places that looks completely different when the lights are on.
One of my buddies within the Corp. was cool enough to bring me along to introduce me to some new people. He understands where I’m coming from in this whole age-based frustration issue, so he was alright with me being a fifth wheel.
Met some cool people, saw some familiar faces. The free Bud Light (promotion) was even better. As a colleague of mine here always says, “Cocktails build camaraderie.” The only knock against the evening was the fact that I should have made it a bit longer. Maybe next time…
Had my monthly one-on-one with my Senior Officer today to discuss 2008, what to expect, and how our performance will be judged – changes, etc. My homework for the month is to come up with some goals of my own that I’ll be looking to achieve during this calendar year.
Obviously, the Charter is going to be up there. “Third times a charm” or something of the like. I’m pretty much through Econ, so it’s on to Accounting and then its pretty much good to go from there. Ordering the study guides should be a priority for tomorrow. Note…to…self.
In a past meeting, my boss and I were discussing the social/local perception of my team and how it has changed over the past. Long story short, members of my team are not as prevalent within the city as in the past. There was once a time when “names” carried a ton of weight. You have this convergence within a few of the big fund managers, but you rarely hear of it in the private sector – especially in this region. Possibly due to the shifting demographics in the area, possibly due to a shift in the culture of the business. I’m not sure. What I do know is that we have a handful of very talented people within this group, and if I’m going to make a name for myself, it needs to start now.
Thus, my goals for 2008 will include joining several area organizations. I’ve been doing some research on a few, some more networking-based, others focused on civics, the rest are based on the actual industry which I’m a part of. It doesn’t help much that many of my professional goals consist of an increase in sales-based metrics – something that’s not exactly a cake-walk in this area, let alone for someone my age. But no excuses. Line ‘em up!
We’ll have to revisit this periodically, as I hope to gain a few more associations between now and – let’s say – Easter. A decent time-frame, in my opinion. From this point forward, we’ll casually title 2008 the Year of the “People.” Focusing on the old vocation, “controling the controlable,” and taking it from there. Onward…
