Stuff you can’t live without
This week’s task was tough. Artwork is very subjective. None of these candidates are artists. How can they pick a winner? I can only fault them for failing to work together as a team and for thinking too small (again). I can’t say that I could have picked a better artist and lead a team to victory, but I certainly would have pushed the idea further than any of the other contestants.
Alex The Entrepreneur writes that he likes to watch The Apprentice because, like me, he finds himself thinking of so many alternatives to their lame decisions on the show.
Once again the kids are asked to invent a business for a day on the Feb 17th show. They have $5000 to work with and the winner is based on revenue, NOT profit. I am mystified. This is so simple, it’s dumb. Psst, hey buddy, pay $4000 to come into my trailer and I’ll give you a $5000 plasma TV. Boom, one customer, and $4000 revenue that easily blows away $900 earned by selling manicures. One big ticket item might be hard to move. How about a crate full of iPod minis for $200 each instead of the typical $250?
Gina’s RantSpot About The Apprentice
Gina has a nice summary of the Feb 10th episode of The Apprentice. Read that first if you didn’t see the show.
I honestly believe that the Street Smarts team (“Net Worth”) had the winning Dove ad and simply lost on the execution. The initial concept was funny but the director, Kristen, totally lost it. John should have scripted the whole thing and stayed on the set. Bren’s idea for Magna’s commercial was so bad on so many levels, I don’t even need to go into it.
MacCentral: Apple partners with Euro telecom firm Teleca
European telecom services company [[Teleca]] on Monday announced a partnership with [[[Apple]]] that will enable the services provider to use Apple’s hardware and software in its creation, delivery and multimedia playback solutions.
Someone else in my office brought this to my attention today (I work for Teleca in [[[San Diego]]]). I didn’t know our company was working with [[[Apple]]] at all. I’ll have to forward this to my friends at [[[AAPL]]].
The article claims [[[OS X]]] will be the focal point of Teleca’s efforts to build … software for mobile devices. Sadly, our office doesn’t have any [[[Mac]]]s, but based on this statement I think we should get some for our mobile application development. I’ll keep hoping anyway.
Apple, Napster Swap Jabs Over Security Flaws
Apparently, [[[Steve Jobs]]] sent a message to top record industry executives directing them to “a Web page detailing how to convert [[[Napster]]]’s rental tunes into permanent downloads.” I’m not sure what page he is refering to but it could be something like All-Streaming-Media.
Napster CEO Chris Gorog jabbed back by pointing out that the same technique could be used to capture [[[iTunes]]] music and in fact, it’s even easier to unlock most iTunes downloads using hymn. Hymn is open-source, free software that attempts to remove the Digital Rights Management (DRM) from [[[Apple]]]’s [[[AAC]]] files. Of course once the DRM is removed, users can swap files with their friends or move the music on to (unauthorized) machines.
There has been an ongoing battle between Apple and hymn. I can’t believe that Jobs would be so dense as to throw rocks from his glass house. I thought Steve was smarter than that.
Most birds aren’t as fluent as the Bud Light cockatoo you saw on the Superbowl ad, but that was obviously faked. That bird had a Spanish accent and everybody knows that cockatoos come from Australia (like iocane powder).
The last episode of The Apprentice featured one of many tasks that required creating buzz. I’m dumbfounded that nobody leveraged the internet to do that job. I can go to Google, search for “blog apprentice” and churn up over 250,000 hits. Why wasn’t anybody on those blogs posting comments the night before, urging people to come out to their events? Why limit it geographically to a park in NYC? How about a 1 day, worldwide contest? Did anybody call newspapers and TV stations? Honestly I think they could have gotten a bigger turn out just by walking down the street saying, we’re filming The Apprentice over there today. Why give away anything at all? Put the money into entertainment and advertising.
Surprise, surprise, [no OBEX on the v710][1]! Dial-Up Networking (DUN) and Handsfree only. There were some blatent communications from Motorola and Verizon that flatly stated OBEX was removed at Verizon’s request. Lots of rumors were flying about Verizon releasing a new firmware version that would enable OBEX again.
I have to say, I just love watching [The Apprentice][2]. I guess it’s because I love to analyze things and I like trying to solve tough problems. Today is no exception.
In the most recent episode, the teams were given a $75,000 budget to devise and execute a marketing campaign for Nestle Taster’s Choice Coffee. The Donald urged the teams to think big. I think both teams came up short.
