DesertStandard

A good friend from my UK college days, Ben Godfrey, recently posted about using Myspace for marketing a friends company:

A friend of mine runs a children’s theatre company and wanted to build a site to promote herself. I recommended she use MySpace instead and gave her a rough strategy for marketing through MySpace.

He goes on to explain the process for doing this very well and its great how easy it sounds and actually is. Many of my clients over think this whole online marketing stuff when its right there in front of their faces.

As a business owner I would be collecting emails and then going throug all of the social network sites and start inviting everyone to join your profile. This gives you instant access to whatever your customers are talking about and allows you to post messages to all of them immediately, at ZERO cost!!

If you have questions on doing this please contact me.

This is really disturbing stuff:

The report said the United States incarcerates more people than any other nation, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. It said the U.S. also is the leader in inmates per capita (750 per 100,000 people), ahead of Russia (628 per 100,000) and other former Soviet bloc nations which round out the Top 10.

Maybe we need to take a break from saving the world and figure out what’s going on here?

Yahoo : Record-high ratio of Americans in prison

If you own a business and haven’t looked into pre-roll video ads then you are missing out big time. Online video views are one of the fastest growing aspects of the Internet. Pre-roll ads are great as they force the viewer to see them before they get the goods. Keep it short as this quote suggests and you will see success.

Hate pre-roll video ads?

Don’t count on them going away anytime soon.

Heavy Media’s John Lumpkin and Voxant CEO Marcien Jenckes both made that assessment today at an iBreakfast program, “Web Video, Where’s the Money?”

“The bulk of the [Web video ad] dollars is in pre-roll. It scales. It’s easy for advertisers to create and deploy. It will take awhile for the market to evolve,” said Jenckes, formerly AOL’s vice president of messaging, community, and voice.

Lumpkin concurred, suggesting that advertisers stick to :15 spots and avoid longer ones.

“Pre-rolls will never go away. If you’ve spent a lot time on TV [ads], and if you’re not doing the Internet, then you haven’t done your job,” said Lumpkin, Heavy’s SVP of sales strategy and partnerships.

: ClickZ News Blog

Long Live the Pre-Roll (for Now)

With all this push for green technology there is a tendency to overcomplicate the solutions. Sure you could go buy a hybrid car but using public transport is much more effective. You can also spend a small fortune getting your home setup for solar water heating and battery charging, or you can start drying your clothes on a clothes line.

I live in Arizona so its pretty much a sin that I don’t do this already. Well here is my new weekend project.

We’ve covered this topic before, but to be honest I hadn’t realised just how big the issue was. Probably because backyard clotheslines are a cultural icon in Australia. The adjustable rotary clothesline, known as the Hills Hoist, is such a part of our psyche it is exhibited in national and state museums, and was even incorporated into the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games. By 1994 some 5 million Hills Hoists had been sold, which is pretty impressive considering its country of origin only had 5.2 million detached houses at the time.

So it comes as a shock that America is resisting something that we take for grante…

: TreeHugger

Clotheslines Hung Out to Dry

In my short stint as a Loan Officer I learned a lot about the financial world. From how loans are underwritten to how incredibly messed up this whole country is right now. This is because there are so many people with loans that they cannot afford, at all.

One thing that I enjoyed talking with people about what the interest rate. Everyone thinks that when the Fed cuts their rates then mortgage rates come down too. Well it ain’t that simple. You see the Fed rate is what the banks use to trade money with each other. The interest rates that you and I enjoy are the result of the banks and their investors deciding how much they want to charge for the loan. Just because they can trade money with each other at a cheaper rate does not mean they want to give Joe Blow the same deal. Right now there is so much uncertainty in the markets that I don’t see rates going lower for a while.

With the economy slowing and the Federal Reserve Board cutting interest rates, mortgage rates were expected to come down a bit. That’s not what’s happened, though. Mortgage rates on 30-year fixed-rate loans have actually gone up over the last week.

» E-Mail This     href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Ftemplates%2Fstory%2Fstory.php%3FstoryId%3D19333965">» Add to Del.icio.us

: NPR Programs: Morning Edition

Mortgage Rates Rise, Defying Expectations

Take a look around while driving through any part of Phoenix and the amount of lifted trucks and high end cars will make you think that everyone here is making six figure incomes. The reality is that these people are in deep debt attributed to the housing boom seen over the last few years which has allowed people to take out second and third mortgages to make big purchases.

Now that the economy is slowing and the housing values are dropping we are seeing a slowdown in this spending. Since Arizona gets most of its taxes through sales and income there is a huge shortfall occuring in all city budgets across the state. Its going to start getting very tight around the Desert.

State and local governments tighten belts as tax revenues fall, a ripple effect of the housing slump.

If there’s any reason for cheer, it’s that the state has been in this position before, and it not only came out of it, but also came out of it with unprecedented growth to lead the country as the fastest-growing state last year.

“There have been seven nationwide recessions since 1960, and each time we’ve bounced back,” Vest says. “The two most recent recessions, in the early 1990s and 2001, were both short and mild. So far there’s no reason to believe this is any different than the last two.”

: Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories

Arizona coffers shrink amid housing bust

McCain is gonna go down in a ball of flames once the Dems decide who is gonna get the presidency.
Just a reminder on that Renzi indictment…

Happy Friday!!!!

A few interesting business stories today:

• Toxic emissions up 52 percent in Arizona from 2005 to 2006, EPA report shows - Out of sight but still in your lungs and water.
• Apollo Group’s $170M headquarters sale in limbo - In case you were wondering what was happening with that huge building by the I-10, nothing. Oh and Apollo Group/University of Phoenix is rich!
• Gov. Napolitano imposes hiring freeze for state positions - remember how we had that surplus last year? Well its gone plus some now.
• Arizona gas prices jump, but still lower than most of U.S. - Valley metro anyone?
• McCain rebuffs ‘New York Times’ story - This story is strange. On one hand it is galvanizing the GOP, but it also brings Lobbying back into the debate. This is why the GOP is scared of Obama and his lack of Lobbying ties.
• APS building what it calls world’s largest solar power plant - Its a start, only covers 1% of AZ population, but its a start. My question is why are we using a Spanish company to build this?

Reading a book about relationships is a tragic tightrope walk between laughter and embarrassment ending with a resolution that leaves you with as many questions as you started with. Throw this theme into the LA small band scene and you have a recipe for gut wrenching relief that your life is much more sane. This is what ‘You Don’t Love Me Yet” by Jonathan Lethem threw me into and caused me to reluctantly finish.

The story is well woven and is full of great quotes and situations as when Lucinda(our lovely and tragic narrator) is talking with her current employer and former lover Falmouth about her current position as a complaint line operator:

“Has it never been explained to you that self-pity undermines sarcasm? Pick one or the other, then stick with it.”

This line may sum up much of the book as Lucinda deals with her up-tenth breakup with her bands front-man Matthew and her shallow/destructive relationship with the Caller. As she leaves Matthew at the start of the book she is strong and sarcastic, but her self-pity is growing and the Caller manages to coerce it out completely. The irony is that as Lucinda undoes her own confidence by giving into the Caller’s seduction she also creates the bands success by appropriating the Caller’s words into lyrics.

Lethem has a good command of language and his ability to describe the unspoken aspect of relationships draws the reader further in as you apply past situations into the plot. This made the book difficult at points but in the end things get wrapped up well and without too much of a let down.

Overall “You Don’t Love Me Yet” is a fun ride through the uber hip and self defecating landscape known as Los Angeles. It makes me happy to live in Phoenix.

Didnt feel like writing anything (shoot I guess I just did):

• China Will Decide What Movies You Watch, Got It? [More Olympics Craziness] - We practice torture here, no need for silly movies
• Can Anyone Spell Cartel? - Is big coal feeling the pressure?
• Public comment sought on transit study for west side of Phoenix - speak up if you is on the West Side!
• Apollo Group buys university in Chile for $40M - University of Phoenix in Chile?
• Home construction makes first increase since October - Sweet, recession is all done! You wish!
• Yahoo to boost severance packages if takeover happens - Translation: Enjoy your Firings!
• PetSmart offering pet picture credit cards - Making virtual cash seem real with your virtual relationships
• Roz Ho Now Leading Microsoft’s Danger Division - iJoke?
• Chief Beer Officer Does Best Work Before Lunch - My hero.