Got this Dilbert strip from Rich. It reminded me of meetings we’ve all attended…

Despite an outcry from users who still prefer Windows XP over Vista, Microsoft announced that, as of today, it will no longer sell XP. Rather than allow customers the choice to simply buy and install XP, Microsoft’s strategy is to force them to buy and install Vista before being allowed to “legally downgrade” to XP.

I’ve written before about the sub-market that formed after Vista’s release where some computer stores were doing a brisk business uninstalling Vista and installing XP in its place. In addition, many Windows users decided to upgrade from older versions of Windows to XP instead of Vista.

It would appear that Microsoft’s marketing strategy to improve Vista sales is to “innovate” its foolish customers away from XP and to Vista “for their own good” until Windows 7 can be brought to market sometime in 2009. Of course, if we’ve learned anything from history, it’s that Microsoft never delivers on schedule.

So if you’re one of the folks unhappy with Vista, you might want to grab a copy of XP while they’re still readily available. Or better yet… (Nope, I won’t even say it.)

You’ll be happy to know that the $6 million lawsuit filed by the New York City street performer known as Naked Cowboy against M&Ms candy maker Mars Inc can go forward on grounds of trademark infringement, a judge ruled on Monday.

Photo: Getty Images, nypost.com

Robert Burck — a fixture in Times Square for ten years, strumming his white guitar while dressed only in white cowboy boots and hat and tightie-whities — filed the suit in February over video billboards depicting a blue M&M dressed in his signature outfit. A U.S. District Court Judge denied a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, ruling that Burck may proceed with his false endorsement claim, “for he plausibly alleges that consumers seeing defendants’ advertisements would conclude — incorrectly — that he had endorsed M&M candy.”

Burck, who poses for photos with giggling tourists in return for dollars slipped into his boots, has trademarked his look and licensed his name and likeness to companies for endorsements and advertisements, including a Chevrolet commercial that appeared during a Super Bowl, the suit says. Read more…

Makes you wonder what Mars, and Chute Gerdeman Inc, their ad agency, were thinking. Still, it will be an uphill battle for the cowboy against Mars. Trademark laws seem to exist for big companies while little guys rarely get equal treatment. For example, in this case, the judge basically threw out Burck’s claim that his registered trademark had been infringed, saying that he might have a shot at claiming the M&M ad implied an endorsement, a foot in the door but a significantly diminished position.

But imagine if the roles were reversed. What if the cowboy had donned an M&M suit? Mars would have crushed him in court like a souvenir penny. And what if Mars had had their M&M wearing a Coke outfit? I rest my case. Trademark law offers an uneven — and unfair — playing field.

But good luck, Naked Cowboy. I hope, at the very least, you win a hefty endorsement fee.

Following up on Monday’s post about the spread of airline add-on fees for everything from peanuts to baggage and aisle seats, U.S. airline Southwest is resisting the trend — and picking up a lot of extra business — by sticking to their business model. The airline ran this ad in the Wall Street Journal (click to enlarge):

It reads “Don’t #$*!% me over” followed by “Southwest is the only airline that accepts this coupon” and the clever tag line: “Fees don’t fly with us.” More   (Hat tip to Teddy and Billyum!)

James sent this ‘toon. It reflects the current air travel environment with beleaguered airlines employing tactics used successfully by telephone and utility companies to bolster their bottom lines — add-on fees. The strategy is to remove all perks and comforts, then gradually reintroduce them as part of an à la carte menu of fee based options. Baggage fees were first, presumably to test the water, and now there’s talk of charging a premium for aisle and window seats.

Where will it end? It won’t, not unless passengers decide not to fly at all. Vacation train travel, or simply staying home, seem more attractive options every day.

Of course, business travelers are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the airlines will likely continue to stick it to them. But even business travelers will cry uncle at some point. Or will they? More likely, corporate America will simply pass on the additional costs of doing business to consumers.

Cousin Mike sent this a couple weeks ago, along with what I think is someone’s incorrect mathematical explanation, under the title, “How You Can Tell You’ve Ticked Off an Engineer”. It works as a pretty good joke on its own but, to bring it full circle, you need to know a little history.

Seems engineer George Vaccaro took issue with Verizon for quoting him “.002 cents per kilobyte” for air time prior to his visit to Canada but billing him “.002 dollars per kilobyte” upon his return. After several unsuccessful attempts to explain the hundred-fold difference to Verizon, he recorded a twenty-six minute conversation with a Verizon manager which became famous on YouTube with more than a million hits. YouTube has since taken it down, but you can still listen to the original recorded exchange on Putfile or read the transcript on Verizonmath.

Enter my favorite physicist/cartoonist, Randall Munroe, who wrote the above check to satirize the whole comical issue. It’s funny all right, especially in view of its genesis, but for how much was the check actually written? Well, based on my very rusty high school calculus, and meaning no disrespect to whomever produced the above explanation, I think it’s a check for essentially “nothing”:

Click to read more ...

SWEETWATER, Tex. — The wind turbines that recently went up on Louis Brooks’s ranch are twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, with blades that span as wide as the wingspan of a jumbo jet. More important from his point of view, he is paid $500 a month apiece to permit 78 of them on his land, with 76 more on the way.

“That’s just money you’re hearing,” he said as they hummed in a brisk breeze recently.

Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is rapidly turning into the capital of wind power. After breakneck growth the last three years, Texas has reached the point that more than 3 percent of its electricity, enough to supply power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines.

Texans are even turning tapped-out oil fields into wind farms, and no less an oilman than Boone Pickens is getting into alternative energy.

“I have the same feelings about wind,” Mr. Pickens said in an interview, “as I had about the best oil field I ever found.” He is planning to build the biggest wind farm in the world, a $10 billion behemoth that could power a small city by itself. …  Article…

Movie theaters are notorious for charging consumers top dollar for concession items such as popcorn, soda, and candy. Are moviegoers just being gouged?

New research from Stanford and the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggests that there is a method to theaters’ madness — and one that in fact benefits the viewing public. By charging high prices on concessions, exhibition houses are able to keep ticket prices lower, which allows more people to enjoy the silver-screen experience.

The findings empirically answer the age-old question of whether it’s better to charge more for a primary product (in this case, the movie ticket) or a secondary product (the popcorn). Putting the premium on the “frill” items, it turns out, indeed opens up the possibility for price-sensitive people to see films. That means more customers coming to theaters in general, and a nice profit from those who are willing to fork it over for the Gummy Bears.

Indeed, movie exhibition houses rely on concession sales to keep their businesses viable. Although concessions account for only about 20 percent of gross revenues, they represent some 40 percent of theaters’ profits. That’s because while ticket revenues must be shared with movie distributors, 100 percent of concessions go straight into an exhibitor’s coffers. Article…

Forever in search of the secrets to entrepreneurial success, the editors at Forbes peeked into the inspirational lives of five whiz kids who built million-dollar enterprises before the age of 20. While their peers were out making trouble, these young achievers were making bank.

The five teen millionaire entrepreneurs partnered with friends, siblings and mentors, or did the work on their own. Three are from the U.S., two from the U.K. All started at age 15 or younger—and one before he broke double digits. Their common thread? Preternatural business sense and demon drive to turn ideas into reality.

It’s an inspiring article that proves the point: Anyone can do it. You’re too old, you say? Not so! There’s no rule that says you have to be a teen to succeed! This article describes, in words and pictures, exactly how these young entrepreneurs took their ideas and turned them into success. It’s a good read!

In his January 31 post, Kevin Kelly writes:

(There) are eight things that are better than free. Eight uncopyable values. I call them “generatives.” A generative value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place, over time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.

He goes on to explain these eight generatives — immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity, accessibility, embodiment, patronage, and findability — building blocks of new products and services that are required reading for anyone who creates products or offers services in today’s digital economy.

You can read more at Kevin’s site.

I’m one of those people that hates to read instructions. I’d much rather either figure it out myself or, better yet, watch it being done before tackling it myself. So this new service seems right up my alley…

A New York City startup called Howcast launched yesterday and wants to be the “YouTube of instructional videos.” In fact, the three founders—Jason Liebman, Daniel Blackman and Sanjay Raman—are ex-Google employees who worked on Google Video and YouTube before leaving eight months ago. They’re apparently going for a little more polished look than YouTube, trying to bring some production values to the world of Web video.

The site provides professionally produced instructional videos on everything from “How to Groom Your Cat” (see below) to “How to Hang a Picture” and “How to Paint a Room”. There’s a familiar formula for each one: The Howcast graphic, an intro explaining what you’ll need for the task at a hand, and step-by-step instructions explained in a voiceover. The site’s video player lets you jump to different chapters, or steps, zoom in for a better look, and provides the transcript as well. Viewers can add comments in the form of tips, warnings and facts to each video. And the Flash-based site lets you browse the video directory on the left hand side while you are watching a video without interrupting it or going to another page. More…

Although a few similar sites already exist, I’m looking forward to trying some of these as Howcast’s library broadens. Lord knows there are a lot of things I need to learn how to do!

I’ve been watching HD DVD’s plummeting popularity since Warner’s decision to jump on the Blu-ray bandwagon, especially evident following CES. But Toshiba’s apparently not going down without a fight. In Bryan Gardiner’s article for Wired, he explains what may be their “Hail Mary” effort to stem the tide.

You’ve got to hand to Toshiba. Even now, when faced with overwhelming evidence that Sony’s Blu-ray has won the high def format war, the mortally wounded HD DVD backer just keeps on prolonging the inevitable.

First, Toshiba decides to dramatically cut prices on its HD DVD players in the U.S. following Warner Bros. Blu-ray defection earlier this month. Now, for reasons that also escape us, the company has decided to buy a 30-second Super Bowl spot for $2.7 million to advertise its desperation those marked down HD DVD players.

Of course, none of this is really convincing consumers. As Ars Technica recently noted, in the week following the Warner Bros. defection, weekly HD DVD player sales tanked big time, falling from 14,558 the week previous to a measly 1,758.

Meanwhile, Blu-ray saw a reverse trend, climbing from 15,257 to 21,770. In fact, the format ended up capturing approximately 93 percent of the market that week, according to NDP. …

We’ve watched the format war rage for nearly two years. The world’s apparently made its choice. Maybe it’s time for Toshiba to throw in the towel on this one.

It looks like David Watanabe’s accidental discovery (see my September 12 post) a few months ago was right on the money. Three weeks before Steve Jobs’ annual keynote address at Macworld, someone - perhaps Rupert Murdoch - just stole his thunder. If reports this morning in Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal are true, Apple and News Corp have struck a deal for a new video-on-demand service that could change the way digital movies are distributed, viewed and paid for.

According to this morning’s Wall Street Journal, the two companies signed an agreement that would allow customers to download the latest 20th Century Fox movies through the iTunes store and watch them for a limited time. No pricing details were available, but earlier reports suggested that Fox and Apple were talking about charging $2.99 for 30 days viewing. That’s considerably cheaper than competing services from BlockBuster and NetFlix, neither of which work with iTunes, Macs or iPods.

Disney is the only other studio that makes new releases available on iTunes, but only to buy, not to rent. Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Lionsgate sell older library titles. But the tide may be turning, and Apple is reported to be in talks with Sony, Paramount and Warner Brothers

In a related move, Fox also plans to release DVDs that use Apple’s digital rights management system, a move that would allow consumers to make legal copies of the disc that could be played on an iPod or other device, such as a computer. The moves were reported by the Web site of the Financial Times ….More

This is good news for everyone. Now, before you X-box and Zune users start chirping how you can do some of this already, recognize that the iTunes Store rules (legal) entertainment downloading and the iPod/iPhone devises are used by more people for mobile entertainment listening/viewing than others. This will ultimately benefit everyone, especially if/when other movie studios climb aboard.

The crowds, the traffic, the utter mayhem. You already know all about the day after Thanksgiving, appropriately dubbed Black Friday. And although I’d vowed never to set foot in a retail store on that day, I found myself accompanying Dawn last Friday as we shopped for a few early Christmas gifts. But guess what - there’s another day for you to deal with. It’s called Cyber Monday.

Feeling left out of all the hoopla, online marketers (they prefer being called e-retailers) conjured up an ad blitz for the first work day after the Thanksgiving shopping weekend and even created a special web site. I suppose It was only a matter of time. In fact, I have to wonder what took them so long. Well, word has spread and now online marketers (oops… e-retailers) offer some real deals on Cyber Monday, everything from free shipping to one-day sales specials.

Shop.org claims that, according to its online survey, 72 million folks will shop online from work (hmmm… I suppose there will be a corresponding drop in business productivity) for holiday gifts, up 11 million from last year. And yes, Dawn and I keystroked our way to a couple of good buys, too.

E-retail believes that, with everything going high-tech these days, they’re entitled to their own traditions, especially those that also happen to turn a profit. I suppose it’s only fair.

Today marks the start of the Christmas shopping season with what retailers see as one of their busiest shopping days of the year and what many shoppers see as their best shot all year of snagging one of a handful of $400 laptops and other teaser bargains. It’s such a phenomenon, it’s been dubbed “Black Friday,” the day retailers say they expect to move from being “in the red” to being “in the black” for the first time all year.

But from where I stand, Black Friday should more accurately be called “Black and Blue Friday” as Americans across the fruited plain have been stampeding and, in many cases, fighting each other in the rush for  — “seasonal bargains.” And to be honest, there are some bargains to be had. Unfortunately, most shoppers lose perspective and become part of the feeding frenzy to grab anything and everything that seems cheap. Never mind whether or not they need it - it’s a bargain!

And that’s the biggest problem I see with the whole fiasco. Shoppers scour  myriad ads touting ridiculously cheap stuff — like the $400 laptop — and rush to grab one only to find that all eleven of them are already gone. But now they’re primed to get whatever bargains remain, often leaving the stores with carts filled to overflowing with crap they don’t need. 

Is this what Christmas has become? Who are these people? Have they completely forgotten what Christmas is about? Have they no common decency, courtesy, manners? Were they raised in a cave by wolves?

It’s sad on so many levels I don’t know in which direction to scream first. So, like many, most I suspect, I refuse to play. Sure, I’ll probably pay a little more for some gifts, but I won’t subject myself or anyone I care about to such lunacy. These folks may get some great bargains, but they’ll show who they really are in the process. And how they were brought up. And how they lack manners. And how the real meaning of Christmas has completely eluded them.

Do retailers really need this to make their annual nut? I doubt it. Folks would still shop — even these folks — if retailers simply agreed to quit feeding this annual frenzy. But retailers won’t…

While the madness continues, I should remind you that it’s also Buy Nothing Day. What’s that, you ask? Well, about fifteen years ago, Vancouver artist Ted Dave founded a movement, now celebrated on the Friday after Thanksgiving, to protest rampant over-consumerism. Since then, the movement has spread to some sixty-five nations. Has it had a major effect? That’s debateable, but if it’s done nothing more than cause shoppers to re-examine their spending habits, it’s served its purpose.

So were you one of the many who stood in line awaiting the 4 a.m. Target and other store openings? Did you elbow your way through the herd and grab one of the prize widgets on sale for half off? And, having made the big score, did you turn around and leave? I doubt it. Like most, you probably came home with a car full of crap you don’t need. Happy holidays.