Why Didn’t I Think of That? Podcast: GROUPON
I’ve been putting in a lot of work getting this podcast ready for prime-time, and it’s finally here. Please check it out, courtesy of Why Didn’t I Think of That?
Why Didn’t I Think of That? Podcast – EPISODE 1: Groupon
How did a music major wind up founding the fastest growing start-up in history? In our very first Why Didn’t I Think of That? ® Podcast, Bob Smith and Greg Anastos look at the story of Andrew Mason and his tech start-up Groupon, an online daily deal service. Topics covered in this 27 minute podcast include:
-Andrew Mason’s initial inspiration for Groupon
-Controversy surrounding the company’s advertising and recent publicity with regard to its Initial Public Offering filing with the SEC
-Groupon’s plans for the future–including its new Groupon Now feature
-Some practical advice for other companies that are looking to use Groupon to help grow their own business.
What’s It Take To Be Number Four?
What’s It Take To Be Number Four? James Frey’s Small Army of Starving Artists
In college I wrote a Young Adult, Sci-Fi novel about aliens. It was actually a drafting I’d started at seventeen, but I did finish a novel. I started thinking about agents. About publishers. About book tours and signings and fancy interviews where I’d get to talk about all my hard work. I was ready to be a book star.
And this new term, the book star, is exactly what James Frey, author of the controversial “memoir” A Million Little Pieces, is willing to make you if you sign on with his new writing company. The company, called Full Fathom Five, is one in which Frey signs on work-for-hire writers, for little or no pay, for the chance to become the next Twilight or Harry Potter-sized author. As New York Magazine’s Suzanne Mozes, an alum of Full Fathom Five, describes it in a recent feature on the company:
In exchange for delivering a finished book within a set number of months, the writer would receive $250 (some contracts allowed for another $250 upon completion), along with a percentage of all revenue generated by the project, including television, film, and merchandise rights—30 percent if the idea was originally Frey’s, 40 percent if it was originally the writer’s. The writer would be financially responsible for any legal action brought against the book but would not own its copyright. Full Fathom Five could use the writer’s name or a pseudonym without his or her permission, even if the writer was no longer involved with the series, and the company could substitute the writer’s full name for a pseudonym at any point in the future. The writer was forbidden from signing contracts that would “conflict” with the project; what that might be wasn’t specified. The writer would not have approval over his or her publicity, pictures, or biographical materials. There was a $50,000 penalty if the writer publicly admitted to working with Full Fathom Five without permission.
Astral Answers: Jesus is Magic
Dear Shae,
My sister is an ultra-religious fundamentalist Christian. She and her husband believe that God himself decided on them having 8 children. I guess I can handle that, but as I get older I am less and less able to find any real satisfaction in keeping a friendship with her. I don’t want to just cut things off completely, but when we’re together the whole Jesus thing is ALWAYS there, hanging over us. She insists that she won’t try to convert me anymore, which always seemed to be the problem. I’ve realized lately, however, that it’s me who needs to get over her ever-present religion. It annoys the hell out of me. I am an atheist, but I don’t want to be the kind of arrogant atheist who goes around criticizing everything in sight. I would like to have genuine respect for her religious beliefs, but the truth is that I just don’t. How can I stop this trend of liking religious people less and less?
Atheist Rising Continue Reading
Did ‘The X-Files’ Predict 9/11?
Q: Did The X-Files predict 9/11? Isn’t The X-Files, like, about aliens or something?
A: Relax, baby. Just sit back while blogger Benjamin Christopher quietly blows your mind.
J.J. Abram’s Awesome, Unfocused 2007 TED Talk
Of course J.J. Abrams has a mystery box that he’s never opened. The writer/director did this TED Talk in 2007, and it’s an interesting peak into how he functions as a storyteller, director, and writer. Worth a watch, especially if you’re a fan or writer. Tangentially Related Posts:What’s It Take To Be Number Four?OMG! The [...]
The Age of Aquarius is Nothing Nefarious
Dear Shae,
I’ve heard remarks about how household endeavors (caretaking, gardening, landscaping etc) can put you in touch with the efforts of your past selves. I’m fond of this idea, and see in both myself and in my friends an affinity for activities that could easily have ancient roots. How can I apply this sensitivity to my more modern technological endeavors? Certainly, a 12th century incarnation had no interest in Facebook, or the iPhone/Android dilemma, but there must be a common thread. Connections, calculation, memory tools, and the pursuit of better tools are endeavors as old as human history. How can I search for a technological connection with my distant past?
Drudge Reigns Supreme
Matt Drudge, founder of the Drudge Report, purportedly dislikes the classification of his site as “a blog,” but the Drudge Report and some of today’s blogs have more than a little in common. Sure, there’s a big difference between Perez Hilton and Matt Drudge, but they both serve similar functions. While they may have “tipsters” calling in “scoops” from time to time, neither Perez Hilton or The Drudge Report are usually reporting the news. Instead, they’re reporting on the news. Perez Hilton dishes gossip and takes pictures of celebrities to town with Windows Paint. Matt Drudge finds interesting news stories from around the web and links to them with eye-catching headlines. The Drudge Report came up when “weblogging” was in its infancy, and if not a blog by strict definition, it is still of the same family.
So is there money to be made in simply linking to the news? Well it’s certainly making Drudge a pretty penny, and it has also given him remarkable power in the world of internet news traffic.
Making of The Pirates of the Caribbean (The Ride)
In case you didn’t find our Disneyland home video informative enough, here’s a video about the making of the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride in the late 60′s, early 70′s.
It’s weird to think that a ride that seemed so revolutionary at the time is still somewhat awe-inspiring with only minor upgrades and changes.
What sort of changes have been made? Well I’m glad you asked…
What’s The Doughboy Afraid Of?
“What’s the Doughboy Afraid of?” Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream might not exist today if that question had never been asked. Find out how some guerilla marketing and relentless campaigning saved Vermont’s finest from national obscurity.
Reuben Mattus was a Polish immigrant. He was 47 when he decided to start his own ice cream company with his wife, Rose Mattus. They called it Häagen-Dazs, which as you may already know, means absolutely nothing. It’s two made-up words meant to look Scandinavian.
I probably don’t need to tell you that Häagen-Dazs was a huge success. In 1983, Häagen-Dazs was sold to the Pillsbury company for 70 million dollars.
Let’s go back five years from that, to 1978 in Burlington, Vermont. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, “a couple of hippies,” as they have described themselves, took a twelve thousand dollar investment– four thousand of it borrowed– and opened an ice cream scoop shop in a renovated gas station. They called it Ben & Jerry’s, and within a few short years, it became a staple of Burlington, Vermont. They opened their first franchise in 1981, and in 1983, the same year Pillsbury bought up Häagen-Dazs for eight figures, Ben & Jerry’s opened their first out-of-state franchise. Within a year, the two companies would be, more or less, at each others throats.
Introducing The Macintosh, a New Product From Apple
In the early 80′s, something very special was going on in the Xerox PARC laboratories. Xerox PARC had designed the first graphical interface for a computer. What’s a graphic interface? You know when your computer breaks, and all you can see is white text on a black or blue screen? It’s the opposite of that. Files appeared as little file icons on a virtual desktop. It was like nothing that had ever been invented. And two men took notice- Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
By took notice, I mean- they stole it. Flat out. Jobs went off to work on the Apple Lisa, and following that, the Macintosh computer. A year after the Macintosh, Gates released Windows 1.0.
Jobs would later try to sue Gates, saying the Windows was a rip-off of the Macintosh. To this, Gates responded, “No, Steve, I think its more like we both have a rich neighbor named Xerox, and you broke in to steal the TV set, and you found out I’d been there first, and you said. ‘Hey that’s no fair! I wanted to steal the TV set!’”
But it’s not important who stole what. It’s not even important who did it better. The question is: Who sold it better. In the mid 1980′s the answer to that question was a resounding Apple.