I have always admired the struggle that hospitals go through to raise money for themselves in addition to any initiatives or operations they are spearheading, but today I received some more mail asking me to buy $100 tickets for those charitable lotteries with big prizes. I’ve been receiving more and more of them after I purchased a couple of tickets recently. On occasion I’ll toss a hundred their way but must they constantly email and mail me reminders? If I wanted to buy a ticket, I would have done so already.
This is what I deem as unnecessary marketing to the point of annoying your past customers. What for? To sell another ticket and gain an extra hundred? If I want a reminder, I will ask for it. I already hear the radio ads, see the television commercials and see the Internet banner ads so I highly doubt I’ve forgotten about the big house or cottage or car that I can win.
See? I can remember. Now stop sending reminders. Don’t waste your money and my time.
I’ve decided to make myself a virtual bookshelf and thanks to Shelfari, I am now able to. I think it’s an interesting and more visual method of sharing what books I own and my opinion of them. The more typical aspect of Shelfari is the “others who own this book … also own … “. One thing I do like about Shelfari is that they are not depending on Amazon’s infrastructure so much and are trying to have their own database of the different books out there. It does to some degree “learn” about new books through an option of searching on Amazon when it can’t find a particular book on its own database. I am curious as to how much more effective Shelfari will be at providing new and creative ways for people to find new books that would be of interest to them.
For the meantime, you may check out My Bookshelf on the menu link or check out the public page via Shelfari.
—– Update —–
On a side note, I started reading about Shelfari and realized that Amazon.com is investing in the relatively new startup. How unfortunate that we just can’t get away from Amazon and that the online retailer is almost everywhere with little competition. Don’t get me wrong, I love Amazon and the ideas that they have brought to the table but I believe independent diversity and competition in a business environment is necessary in order to truly push forward the customer’s best interest. That being said, the fact that Amazon invested heavily into IT infrastructure technology of its own makes it quite the heavy weight to compete against.
I managed to obtain an invite to the popular mini-blogging / tumblelog site called Pownce. I’m still trying it out but so far it really is just mini-blogging, building on top of the idea with so-called status updates and wall conversations of Twitter and Facebook. This is my Pownce page.
It is quite different than I am used to because whatever you decide to write can go privately to a friend who is also on Pownce, publicly or to all the friends on your list. What is very different is that whatever someone writes to their friends shows up on the wall permanently. It is similar to the wall posts on someone’s Facebook profile page, only these “conversations” are listed publicly. I am not sure if it is really living up to the hype of being a next-gen site but it definitely is a decent mini-blogging website for those who prefer to write less and not run their own blog.
I just recently dished out a chunk of change on Samurai 7, an amazing re-telling of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai which was later made into the popular western movie The Magnificent Seven. I’ve only watched the first episode of Samurai 7 and I am hooked, by the way they introduce the farmers from the little village and a few samurai themselves. The plot I think is generally the same but I am sure that the 7 DVDs versus the 1 DVD original will provide a whole lot more depth to everything!
Aside from Samurai 7, my friend Dan passed on a link to a fantastic looking animated film called Tekkonkinkreet. I am really not sure what that means but the trailer reminds me of a blend of Japanese anime with some international animation styles that I have seen before at the Animation Show.
Check out the trailer below or at the site. The trailer website has better quality if you’re willing to wait a little longer for the file to load.
I was surprised to learn today that Future Shop has a forum. Very rare that a big box type of store would have a forum, but what struck me was the fact that Future Shop product experts were roaming around the forum answering questions. I think that is a great way to interact with customers and provide assistance where necessary. Now … can we do that with books? I am not one to promote the activities of large retail chains but I do like to point out things that I feel are good for the customer and is good business in general.
Just a quick post. Read/WriteWeb has posted 5 Alternative Ways to Browse Amazon, most of which are excellent ways to find new products that one may be interested in. Now … it seems that people come up with all sorts of marketing ideas and visualization techniques for the music and movie industry yet when it comes to books, we tend to have nothing to show. With BISAC codes to work with and the ratings and reviews that Amazon’s infrastructure provides, someone has got to be able to code a visualization for books. Some people may ask why? I will ask why not? It’s the only way to move the entire industry towards a state where people can truly find what they are looking for. Do not tell me about word-of-mouth because that is a constant factor in any market.
Anyways, take a look at the different visualizations that have been developed to browse Amazon’s movie and music offerings. I think it’s worth giving some thought with regards to finding new ways of marketing books… maybe one of the bigger publishers will have the income to push forward something like this. Or maybe … just maybe … Canadian publishers can work together to develop something that provides a real alternative online, rather than a band-aid solution based on grants from the government.
So I am in the middle of recovering from my hike yesterday. I said I would provide an opinion on the pack and the boots I got a couple weeks back and I’ve come to the conclusion that the pack is of an excellent make, although I think I am still getting to used to carrying such a huge bag. The boots protected my ankles well along the way down some steep slopes which is important for all hikers, especially for novice hikers whose ankles are not strengthened enough for the rougher trails. My only concern for the pack may be that I have to adjust the waist belt a little as I felt it wasn’t firm enough around the hip bone. As for the boots, they were really comfortable and most likely saved my feet from the 8 hours of hiking or so yesterday, but oddly enough I got bruises in different areas of my feet … I don’t know if this is due to the boot or just the way I walk. I will test everything out again next weekend.
The hiking party of seven people including myself had travelled to Battlefield Park in Stoney Creek, Ontario where we hiked a number of trails, only to find ourselves hiking through the suburban neighbourhoods of Hamilton! I have to say that concrete just makes the temperature feel that much higher. My friends and fellow hikers did enjoy a good laugh on my part since I was the only one carrying a huge pack, hiking shoes and all through the streets of suburbia. Nevertheless we survived. One of our stops was the bottom of the Devil’s Punchbowl which unfortunately did not have any water flowing down, not that you’d want to get near that water anyways. It was amusing to see all sorts of garbage (i.e. computer parts) lying around. Apparently people can’t seem to figure out the difference between a conservation area and their garbage can.
I thought this was pretty neat … despite it being in the wrong place
I will have more photographs posted soon enough. On another note about testing … I think I am going to try out Ubuntu on a test computer. I am impressed by its capabilities and relative user-friendliness. I don’t mind the command (DOS-like) interface as I grew up with it when my dad got us the first 386. It was a sad moment though as our Commodore Amiga 500 was no longer the main family computer.
Take a look at this video clip of what Ubuntu can do …
Latest Comments
RSSEhren, Sonny Gill, davidmiller, Mark, Erin
Following the Twitter Folly at one little cog, Ehren, toster, Shey, Ehren, Jennifer
Mark
Ehren, Antijerk, You Are Gonna Have To Move Along (Can’t sleep here) | The Antijerk
Ehren, Sonny Gill
Beth