Custom publishing update, podcast edition: BMW is podcasting audiobooks featuring product placement. More here.

(via: MIT Advertising Lab weblog)

Technorati Tags: advertising, custom-publishing, custompublishing, podcasting, publishing

The price of Demo’ing: One of the most pointed to posts on this weblog is this one from last year about this time, when I said, “The reason you’ve heard of podcasting is because no one first ‘demo’d’ it at a conference and no corporate marketers were involved.” I was referring to a conference that once again is taking place now and that Mike Arrington is covering.

Quote:

“70 companies gather at a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona to compete head on for our attention. $15,000 buys you 5 minutes in front of 700 people.”

I hadn’t heard that $15,000 price-tag for Demo’ing before. According to the Demo website, the price is going up to $18,500 for the next one. Is it worth it? I guess you need to take a look at the list of past Demo’ing companies. How many of the products got funding? How many of the products are still around?

Speaking of Michael’s round-up. I actually use one of the online things that Michael reports on today. I’ve been using Kaboodle consistently since last October — and I think I’ve mentioned it on the rexblog before (sorry, I can’t link back now, as I’m watching the Duke-UNC basketball game and while I can type and watch TV at the same time, I can’t watch TV and Google simultaneously). On one level, Kaboodle is a bookmarking service. However, it has an attractive user interface and offers a compelling way to organize and present links to websites. I use it to record “hacks” I run across and want to remember. I mainly do it for myself — I just noticed that I haven’t even added it to my “related weblogs” blogroll — not as a “networking” activity. But today, they added the “tell about yourself” feature. If they offered a “pro” version (without ads), I’d probably opt for it.

I still prefer del.icio.us/rexblog as a link blog and am a big fan of the hacks one can do with a del.icio.us RSS feed, but my eyes have been opened by Kaboodle to how compelling a nicely presented and organized and labeled list of links can be.

Disclosure: I don’t know anyone at Kaboodle and, frankly, I can’t remember why I ever set up the account. I hope they got their $15,000-worth today.

Technorati Tags: kaboodle

McDonalds rejoices: (see Update) I was just IM’d by a female reader of this weblog who informed me she was dropping what she was doing so she could run grab a Big Mac. “This is the most exciting news, ever,” she said.

Quote (from the NY Times):

The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet keeps women from getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet had no effect. The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women aged 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer heart attack and stroke as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.

Woddy Allen fans are going to really enjoy this. If you’ll recall this line from the 1973 film, Sleeper:

Dr. Melik: [puzzling over list of items sold at Miles' old health-food store] … wheat germ, organic honey and… tiger’s milk.
Dr. Aragon: Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or… hot fudge?
Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Those were thought to be unhealthy… precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
Dr. Melik: Incredible!

Also from the NY Times article:

And, confounding many popular notions about fat in the diet, the
different diets did not make much difference in anyone’s weight. The
common belief that carbohydrates in the diet lead to higher insulin
levels, higher blood glucose levels and more diabetes was also not confirmed. There was no such effect among the women eating low-fat diets.

Man, there are entire industries (start with Lean Cuisine and work your way down) that will be impacted by this news. I can’t wait to see the spinmeistering that is about to explode. (Actually, a bit of it starts in the article.)

Bottomline according to this nearly half-billion dollar study: It’s not what you eat, it’s how much you eat, that determines your weight and health.

Somewhere tonight, Julia Child is smiling down on us.  She said once, “The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook.”

Update: Despite me clearly saying in the original post, “It’s not what you eat, it’s how much you eat, that determines your weight and health,” some of you must not have read that part. So, once more: “If you “intake” lots of calories and don’t burn off those calories, you’ll gain weight.” Also, you’ll be out of shape and have a miserable life. The whole point of my post and of this study is to underscore that fact: You can enjoy food AS LONG AS you control the volume of calories - coming in, being used. Apparently, from this study we learn yet again: It is not in WHAT you eat - it’s how much one eats and how many calories one burns!

Technorati Tags: lifehack

Who is Josh Hallett? And why should I care? (Answer: He’s this guy I know who can explain why blogs and bloggers matter.)

Technorati Tags: blogging

Someone tell Verizon their customers are paying for that “free lunch”: According to this story in the Washington Post,” A Verizon Communications Inc. executive yesterday accused Google Inc. of freeloading for gaining access to people’s homes using a network of lines and cables the phone company spent billions of dollars to build.

Quote:

“The network builders are spending a fortune constructing and maintaining the networks that Google intends to ride on with nothing but cheap servers,” Thorne told a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. “It is enjoying a free lunch that should, by any rational account, be the lunch of the facilities providers.”

What’s next? Is Verizon going to ask for a commission from any business transaction its customers make using their telephone? Verizon customers are purchasing bandwidth from Verizon and using Google to help them get to where they want to go using that bandwidth. I can’t blame the Verizon (and other telcos and media companies), however. They all want to hold-up Google for the same reason Willie Sutton held-up banks.

Technorati Tags: google

How James Frey blew it: My fellow member of the rex-rex brotherhood, Rex Sorgatz, has a brilliant essay on a topic I was hoping would go away forever:

James Frey blew it. Or rather, James Frey blew it twice. First, he blew it by writing a mediocre fictional tale and passing it off as the truth. But then, he blew it again by posturing as guilty and sorrowful and repentant and worst of all — tedious.

Here me out.

Do you remember how Jason Blair handled his succès de scandale? Bold, without regret. How about the author of Sokal Text? With absolute glee. Sure, these are different scenarios (Blair was trapped; Sokal’s entire plan was to expose the academic publishing as fraudulent), but they open a glimpse into a radical alternate history, one in which James Frey had scoffed at Oprah’s wimpy “embarrassment” and laughed this in her face:

“Ha, ha, gotchya sucka.”

(more)

Technorati Tags: publishing