Idiocracy...

No, not the movie, although that's good too (in a mindless comedy way). I'm asked why I don't participate in social networks, and challenged when I say I just don't get their value. Call me old fashioned, call me naive, but this pretty much sums up my point...God bless the Brits!

Square Peg…Round Hole

Have our childhood days taught us nothing? I am a firm believer that if principles taught in kindergarten and advice from mom are applied to most of life’s problems things will work out just fine. Sure to be a more a lengthy blog in the future, I’ll stick right now to the lesson I learned spending hours trying to literally bang a square peg into a round hole…it doesn’t work.

Who might I be referring to that didn’t learn this lesson? I’m not entirely sure, but it’s some combination of the following: Mike D’Antoni, Steve Kerr, Mark Cuban and Avery Johnson most recently.

Both the Suns and the Mav’s bowed out last night after each receiving top seeds the past few years. Combined they have 3 of the last 3 league MVP trophies, the Suns reached out and sacrificed flexibility and defense in Shawn Marion to get Shaq at the deadline, the Mav’s doing the same to get the old and offensively inept (and wife beating) Jason Kidd.

The Mav’s might have been better off suiting their coach Avery Johnson up, Kidd couldn’t stop anyone and couldn’t put the ball in the basket to save his life. This shouldn’t have been a surprise either, and now they’ve given up on a great youngster in Devin Harris in the process.

The Suns run and gun style, granted not proven as a consistent winning style in the NBA, worked for them. To change mid-season and trade for the biggest anchor in the league, Shaq, who not only slows down their offense and exposes them defensively, but he’s owed an additional 20 mill a year the next 2 seasons…hardly the blueprint for allowing yourself flexibility to improve in the off season.

In contrast to these teams, the Lakers, Spurs and Celtics made well timed and well thought out trades vaulting them to phenomenal success. The Lakers and Spurs have already advanced, the Celts eventually will. LA and Boston both had #1 seeds. Sure the names of Paul Gasol, Kurt Thomas and Sam Cassell don’t scare anyone. But each fit perfectly into these team's styles and glaring needs. Passing center in the triangle offense, tough forward to rebound and play defense next to Duncan, backup point guard with size to a 2^nd year phenom (who can guard Billips too).

Listen here GM’s, know your team and your identity. Mid-season is not the time to try and change this, so make trades for your need and not to appease the fan base. What else is it they usually say? Listen to the fans and soon you’ll be sitting with them? Mike D’Antoni and Avery Johnson, I think there are a few already reserved for you…

How Parcells Builds His House

We’ve already seen the beginning of Bill Parcell’s 5^th reclamation project (Giants, Pats, Jets, Cowboys, maybe Dolphins?). The beginning of any of Bill’s tenures are met with one of 2 reactions from fans: head scratching or head nodding. To those scratching, check his track record and re-evaluate.

Why his model is not repeated (we know that his coaching tree is extensive, but it’s not so hard that anyone can’t copy it) is beyond me. For those of you who haven’t caught on at this point, let me help you through what has, and what is going to happen here on out:

-Winning starts at the top (see Bill Polian and Scott Pioli); Bill hand picks his organizational staff, coaching staff and scouting department. All the way down to the trainers and ball boys, Bill gets the people he wants in place.

-After tireless hours of watching film, which is probably what has caused his abysmal failure in family life, he cleans house of players who don’t play his way, are too old with too big a contract (most recently Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor might be taking his dancing shoes elsewhere before long), and those who flat out can’t play (watch your back Cleo)

-Once his team is down to the bear bones, he does the reverse, he stock piles as many players as possible, “his players”. He did it in New England with David Meggett et all. He did it with the Jets with Bryan Cox & Curtis Martin. Now with Miami he’s traded for Anthony Fassano (14 catches last year) and Akin Ayodele. What’s the point? Bill does things his way and these players listen, he sets a tone and the more yes men he has the better.

-Usually a top draft pick of some sort, Bledsoe, Keyshawn, DeMarcus Ware and now Jake Long.

What’s next you ask?

-More free agents, make players compete for their roster spot, none are guaranteed in the NFL, and no one is safe.

-Stock piling of draft picks. He’ll trade down this year whenever possible to get 2009 and 2010 picks.

-Strategic salary dumps…much to the dismay of the season ticket holders.

-3 yards and a cloud of dust. Ronnie Brown, hope you’re rested! Wonder why Bill would not find an often troubled Ricky Williams expendable? Ha, exactly the opposite, he’s keeping him because he IS EXPENDABLE!

- DE-FENSE!!! A genius on the defensive side, championships are built around it, and the Dolphins strongest side of the ball.

-Years 2 and 3 will be his refocusing on filling what he has taken the first year to figure out where the holes are. This is where those draft picks and salary cap room come into play.

-Just win baby!

Seems easy right? If the TVI knows this, why can’t anyone do it? As a wise friend of mine once said, ideas are nothing without execution. In this case the evaluation of who to draft, who to sign, who to cut and what management bring in is the key. Sound familiar? I’m sure this same estimate is echoed in several top MBA programs on a yearly basis…only difference is Bill didn’t have to drop 100k to figure it out…

Final Standings

In this the first year of TVI's March Madness pool, Big Pun took the top prize with Rob pulling a rabbit out a hat, or somewhere else. Congrats Irene on 3rd...till next year, early favorite...UNC!

Participants	Total Points
Jason L.	146
Rob D.	126
Irene Y.	112
Ryan M.	109
Clark S.	105
Justin F.	96
Nate F.	96
Craig S.	92
Blair L.	87
Matt T.	85
Scott M.	81
Andy F.	80
Chris B.	75
Rich R.	67

U2BE Part Deux

To follow up on my previous post on YouTube, it was made clear to me by a forced loyal reader (probably the only reader) that I did not expound upon my answer to their monetization issue. I believe there would be great value in placing the ad around the border of the video screen for a few reasons, let me explain.

First, let’s play a little word associate game…Ads…no, not “tuberculosis”, you watch too much Seinfeld, I’d bet most of you come up with “annoying” within the first 3 words. Whether messing with your show on TV, making it impossible to flip the pages in a magazine, or in this case, watch the whole video on YouTube, ads are in the way. AdWords and AdSense have succeeded in part because they’re not in the way. Look at Facebook’s Beacon, failed because it was intrusive, in a little bit of a different way, but intrusive nonetheless.

What makes YouTube different than other web pages though? There's no scrolling, moving of the eyes left to right, up and down….no, it’s a dead on stare straight ahead. So put the ads there, almost. Placement around the perimeter ensures a couple things:

• The ad can’t be closed like current in video ads are
• The ad will be seen for the entire duration of the video (unless they listen, but who does that)

I’ve conceded this will wreak havoc with advertisers who need to create new online ads for their clients, but let’s look at this glass half full for a moment. A user now goes to Popular Mechanic’s website and sees an ad for Ford in a predetermined sized box that looks like every other Chevy, BMW, Volvo and Porche ad. With YouTube they have the unique advantage of having all the content of value in a centralized area, with the remainder of the page for robust, more create, and DIFFERENTIATING ads. Imagine if Ford instead animated a Mustang driving in and parking on top of the video of drag racing a user is viewing, and dropped down the new price and financing deals on either side. Perhaps Bud Light could bring back their frogs to hop across the screen chasing a fly holding a beer instead of having a picture of a girl in a bikini like every other ad. You get my point.

Sure I hear some of you screaming that the success of online advertising has been because of the ability to report EXACTLY how many users clicked on their ad, and consequently charge more. Who’s to say though this old ad sales pitch won’t fly?

“I will sell you a 40 foot by 20 foot sign on one of the busiest roads in America to be viewed by every man, woman and child who drives by for a low daily flat fee!”

Now throw in: we’ll only put the ad on roads where there’s people who like what you sell, these people don’t need to move a neck muscle to see your ad, and oh yea, they’re not driving 65 miles per hour and will view it for minutes on end! It just might work…

Taking It to the Street!

Forget Foldgers, the best part of waking up is realizing the Sox are tied up on opening day in the bottom of the 9th. After a top of the 9th homer by Brandon Moss, local hero Hideki Okajima (game was played in Japan) shut down the A's in the bottom to set up a great day for me. For those of you counting at home, Manny's season tally for "obnoxious poses after getting a hit, the one where the thought of running doesn't come to him for 15 seconds, the one that will be sure to get him plunked 5+ times and cause at least 1 bench clearing brawl this season" is now 1. But what a 1 it is. A top of the 10th, 2 run double off Huston Street to give the Sox the lead, later locked down by Paps. 1-0 is a great way to start, baseball is here, summer is just around the corner, and we're one step close to goggle clad river dancing to the Drop Kick Murphy's. I can faintly hear, even from 3200 miles away, the fans clearing their throats and practicing their "Sweet Caroline". I'm not naive, we won't go 162-0, but at least during some of those home losses we will be sure to get treated to plenty of "these" guys:

Thinking Around the Box

Far be it for me to pretend to be a tech expert. In fact, it’s a minor miracle I can spell tecnolgy technology. I can’t stop thinking, though, that it’s bizarre all these companies are being valued at astronomical amounts with almost no revenue. It’s as if I could write a business plan (everything except how it turns a profit), register a domain, stir up some press and voila...$200 million. Don’t believe me?

Facebook.com – Valued at $15 billion with an expected $150 million in revenue for 2007, their price vs. sales value is almost 100/1

Bebo.com – Just purchased by AOL for $850 million, had $20 million in 2007 revenue, 42.5 / 1 P/S ratio

Slide.com – A widget (yea, I thought it was a fictitious product from business school too) producing company used on Social Networks such as the ones listed above was valued in their Series D funding at $550 and I am not sure if they’d made any significant revenue.

What’s my point? 1.5 years ago Google purchased YouTube for 1.65 billion. At the time CEO Eric Schmidt said to their new acquisition to focus on attracting users and not on attracting revenue. Fast-forward to present day and the word that sums up the missing part of all these overvalued companies starts surfacing – MONETIZATION. As of this past October, Google / YouTube had a 31.3% market share in online video watching. Considering 75% of web users viewed a video that month, and they averaged 3.25 hours of watching in the month, this is what you might refer to as a captive audience. Still though YouTube has not found a way to successfully convert these users into dollars.

Fear not though YouTube, The Village Idiot is here to the rescue.

Picture frame ads. Sure this would require advertisers to partially redesign their online media content. But to take advantage of someone watching the day's Glumbert videos for 5-10 minutes without flipping during commercials? I think they’d find time.

How to target the ad though…there’s several ways. Google already knows every other site you’ve been to, so start with that data. Non-original content’s source can be identified and most media outlets already knows the demographics they reach. Throw this data into the equation. Lastly, using the speech recognition software Google already has for their GOOG-411 service they can build out the software to analyze original video’s content. Based on the determination of the video’s content a final data point for ad targeting is applied. An AI component can be built into this last piece to better target over time based off user clicks and engagement.

Adoption would be tough I admit, advertisers have become used to their easily measured CPC’s. Cozying up to a new measurement scheme, not so dissimilar to Slide.com’s measure of engagement, would take time. But since thinking in, or out, of the box hasn’t worked so far, perhaps it is time to see what can be found around it…

What a dog....

In her first, and surely not her last, appearance on the Village Idiot's blog, everyone's best friend Loomis shows her skills....and what a skill it is!

Tradition....

Man we're getting old. For the 5th year running I've joined my friends (I use this term lightly) for a weekend of college basketball. What began for them 10 years ago didn't start for me until my move to SF. Ruby, the "Duckman" and myself typically are first in line at 8am for the bar Thurs - Sunday...but no longer. It has slowly deteriorated to "I'll try and make it by 4 on Thursday" and "How did we ever get up this early" on Friday morning. The thought of making the normal Saturday and Sunday sessions has given way to "I'll catch some games while doing the work I missed on Friday". It's always good to have those annual traditions, whatever they may be. The problem is what we hoped would be an age old tradition is falling victim to old age....

Don't forget about the NBA

Let's not forget about one of the greatest NBA seasons in years, coming down the stretch its easy to lose interest with March Madness and Opening Day imminent. Figured some of the NBA's finest entertaining in a non-game setting might enlighten your Saturday morning...