Ecko's Vote

Bonds may say he’s stupid but I say Ecko’s move is brilliant marketing.

I wonder how much he just decided to do it because it was cool, vs. how much he calculated a likely return on investment.

My bet is that Ecko’s success comes from intuition, that here he doesn’t really care about the cost, and knows he can only guess the benefit. With good instincts, you hit enough home runs with those unpredictable benefits that you have to swing at them. Don’t let bean counters and committees hold you back, because mediocre efforts that take no risks reap no rewards.

(For the record, I voted to bestow it.)

Bonds 756 — From the Fence with Sports Illustrated

Here’s Sports Illustrated photographer Brad Mangin again, this time with his photos of Barry Bonds home number 756. It’s been fun spending so many games in the last few weeks at the fence with Brad and his assistants. (He also shot #755 in San Diego, and many others that are showing up in the magazine and web site.)

I’ve watched more baseball in the last month than I had in the rest of my life, and I’m glad I was able to be there for the fireworks and all the rest… it was amazing.

ASPCA Mobile

I subscribe to as many non-profit mobile programs as I can find (send me yours). I work with NARAL Pro-Choice America on Txt4Choice, but also helped launch The Humane Society’s mobile program, so I’m particularly interested in the messaging from ASCPA mobile. I have to say, I just don’t get it. I mean, I understand why some people would want a weekly dog or cat tip to their phone (though I’d love to find out how many subscribers there are and to hear from recipients what they think of the messaging), but I really didn’t understand their receent legislative alert:

Protect primates and people. Please visit http://www.aspca.org/primates and urge your legislators to support the Captive Primate Safety Act.

This is the only SMS legislative alert I’ve had from them, and it asks me to go online. The website doesn’t seem to be at all mobile friendly (though I’m viewing from an iPhone, so perhaps they’re detecting browser and serving pages accordingly) and asks me to send an email. For goodness sake, why not help me call my legislator? Or let me submit an SMS that is forwarded to my legislator? It seems much more likely that folks on the hill can make use of short sweet text messages actually written by constituents than long boring form letters that are repeated by the thousands.

What do you think?

Barry Bonds 754 — At the Fence with Sports Illustrated

I live near AT&T Park, so from time to time I walk over to enjoy a few innings from the fence. From here, I get to look straight down the first base line. Apparently, I’m not the only one who in enjoys the view, as the Sports Illustrated photographer, his three cameras, remotes and assistant all take up residence. I asked Brad at the beginning of the week if he was shooting anyone but Barry Bonds and he replied “not this week.” I caught a little of the games during the week and then all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Here’s a shot from Friday… Brad has downloaded home run number 754 and is uploading it to SI, and minutes later it was gracing the home page of SI.com. Taken with my iPhone.

The other shot is Brad on Saturday afternoon.

iPhone

Dale Larson talks on his cellular telephone while waiting in line before the initial sale of the Apple iPhone in San Francisco, California June 29, 2007. More than 100 people were lined up on Friday outside the Apple store hours before the iPhone, a combination widescreen iPod, cellphone and pocket Internet device, went on sale at Apple’s 164 stores and nearly 1,800 AT&T stores. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith (UNITED STATES)

I enjoyed spending a day in line to get my iPhone. I was there to see the hype, to investigate the ways this changes everything about mobile going forward, and to see how others are thinking and talking about it. Apparently, some of the press found my image (above is one of many) and views interesting, publishing them in newspapers and websites on every continent (and some radio and TV, too). A few examples below:

Larson looked like he stepped out of one of the office towers nearby, sporting a perfectly creased gray pinstripe suit and working diligently on his Apple laptop. And, perhaps most importantly, Larson said Apple had allowed him to recharge his MacBook Pro three times…

Dale Larson, consultor de negocios de Móviles fue un poco más allá, según publicó Reuters: “Es como una escultura viviente en mis manos”.

OF ALL THE PRAISES heaped on the iPhone last week, one of the most striking came from Dale Larson, a mobile consultant from San Francisco.

In a Reuters article, Larson described it as transcendent and “a living sculpture.” That’s a strange comment, considering it’s just a tool — albeit one with more bells and whistles than the space shuttle.

But in another sense, he’s right. The iPhone is a masterpiece, and Steve Jobs and his team at Apple are artists. As expected, it created tremendous anticipation among the tech elite. But considering who was in the line Friday — a group that included not just Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, but teachers and teens — it also appeals to the masses.

周六下午三點左右,美國舊金山苹果專賣店擠滿了iPhone購買者。短短時間內,該店就賣光了售價599美元的iPhone手機,櫃臺上只留下10部售價499美元的款式。其中一位購買用戶Dale Larson說,『iPhone既不像電腦,也不像移動電話,它就像一個我手中活生生的雕刻品。』