We IM for this...
cuth23b: Goes back to my point, hitters are stupid. It's why we should have both made the majors
links for 2006-10-20
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Getting to be my favorite tag on Last.fm
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Looks like we're all getting trounced by Stardoll
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Another iPod/Last.fm solution
Don't Say a Prayer for Me Now... Save it 'Til the Morning After
I just don't understand how you could go down looking in Game 7 with the bases loaded and a chance to tie or win the game. That just hurts.
Gotta give it to Perez for holding his own this series... Maine, too. Much to look forward to next year, but, man, this stings. I lack the words.
Game 7
I didn't think it would come to this.
I didn't want it to.
I think I'm going to hole myself up in my apartment and not come out until its over. My whole entire season depends on Oliver Perez. They better score 12 runs.
I don't understand why we're not starting Darren Oliver.
The guy pitched 6 scoreless the other day... AND... and this I didn't realize today... he's got a great postseason start under his belt. In 1996, with the Rangers, he left the 9th inning of Game 3 with a 2-1 lead and two on and none out. The Rangers bullpen couldn't hold it, so he got the loss, but still... that makes him a lot more qualifed to start than Perez, who honestly got battered the other night. He just had a lot of run support.
I don't really understand what goes on in Willie's head. Maine bats in the bottom of the 5th, only to get taken out after the leadoff guy reaches base in the 6th... that was after he fanned Pujos to end the 5th. The guy was cruising and he goes to the pen in the 6th inning. Why strain the pen when your starter is cruising and you know you're going to need at least four innings out of them the next night? He could have gotten one more inning out of Maine.
So now we get to watch Wild Thing fall off the mound because he can't figure out a windup that works.
They better score 12. Please, let them score 12... in the first.
links for 2006-10-19
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Yeah... because these users would otherwise pay for these videos. :/ I thought video was for marketing anyway. Isn't distribution good?
Referrals for Money and Your Chics for Free
Recruiting is a big industry. People pay a lot of money to get the right people because the right people are key to your business. That's why a number of attempts have been made to leverage the power of social networking and recommendations to disrupt the hiring model in the job space.
I've never passed on a job any more or any less because of monetary incentives... I do it for social capital. If I actually know the right person for the job, I pass that job on to create social capital with both sides, and for some reason that resonates with me more than the money. Actually, I think it is because I'm guaranteed social capital, whereas the money always seems like a crapshoot. If I pass you on a job, even if you don't get hired, but you're good... and the job was right for you.. .you think of me as a resource and so does the person doing the hiring. I make social capital that way.
Anyone building one of these systems should take that into consideration. What good does passing the job on through your system do me if I don't get paid? Can it help build my reputation as a connector? How do you enable me to store social capital?
Don't Beat Yourself
This weekend, I was reminded about not beating yourself.
Saturday night, I watched Steve Trachsel make a mess out of a pivotal playoff start by not throwing strikes. Granted, the Mets offense was nowhere to be found, but Trachsel couldn't make it out of the second inning because he walked five batters. When you walk that many batters, your fielders fall back on their heels and when you do actually let the other team put the ball in play, they wind up missing a lot of balls by just a half step, which is what happened.
Then, tonight, my Zog team played a fall softball game. We couldn't field our way out of a hat. It was awful. We're normally a very good fielding team, but we threw the ball around and bobbled a lot of easy plays. We found ourselves down 20-6. We even managed to score 10 runs with two outs in the last inning, but it wasn't enough. It was a game that got away because we beat ourselves.
So back to the Mets. Enter Oliver Perez... a guy who has been beating himself for two seasons by not throwing strikes. The Mets needed to stay in this game badly. The bats were cold and Perez was a wildcard. Well, he wasn't perfect, but he didn't beat himself. He threw strikes... and kept them close until the Mets offense exploded. Up by seven runs, he kept throwing strikes even when the Cards started hitting home runs... three home runs.. all solo shots, because he wasn't walking batters ahead of those hits. He left in the sixth inning with a big lead, and for a guy who went 3-13 this season, that's about all you could have asked from him. Unlike the guy who pitched the night before who rang up 15 wins this season, he didn't beat himself.
That makes such a huge difference in any aspect of your life. Make the other guy beat you. I manufactured a run in my Zog game tonight by lining to right and not stopping when I saw the right fielder bobble the ball. Let him throw me out. If me makes the play, I'd get up, say, "Nice throw" and walk off... but I was forcing him to be better to get the better of me. Then, on a bloop single to right again, I ran through a stop sign on the way home.
Let them throw you out at the plate.... don't hand them your opportunity to shine.
Internet didn't kill the radio star
Scott Karp at Publishing 2.0 uses the example of the music industry to show why content needs to be controlled to be monetized and I just wanted to share something I learned a while ago.
"As for ceding control of your content, look at what happened to the music industry. Illegal file sharing crippled music sales, and the only saving grace has been the iTune platform, which functions by rigidly controlling distribution."
This actually isn’t true. I thought it was for a long time, being a college student when Napster was big, but I worked on a co-investment in the buyout of Warner Music and studied this hard. There were two much larger factors at play. First, you have a supply issue. Big box retail started killing off mom and pop record shops and music-only stores to a much greater degree than the web. Even the demographics that weren’t web savvy and into downloading music weren’t buying music anymore, because people shopped at Walmart and Best Buy and they hardly carried any of the catalogue that the music only stores did. More focus was put on DVDs and video games which were a much higher profit margin per inch of shelf space compared to CDs. So, if my dad wanted to go buy the Moody Blues first album, he simply wasn't going to find it... but he could find lots of copies of Madden Football or maybe even a DVD of a live concert.
Then, you have competition for finite entertainment dollars. Mobile revenues went up… $5-7 a month in text messaging and another $5-7 a month in ring tones… that’s a CD a month when you consider the limited budget of teens. Mobile revenues and gaming revenues skyrocketed during this time, not because music was free, but because they offered a much more compeling product. Eight songs for $16 simply wasn't going to cut it when, for ten bucks more, you could get a movie, and for the price of three CDs, you could get a video game to play with your friends for hundreds and hundreds of hours. Interaction. Socializing. Music, at that price, just didn't seem so interesting anymore. Napster didn't tank the industry... it just proved there was demand for the CD format to get broken up and for music to be obtained over the web. Apple is taking advantage of that, and they would take better advantage of it if they offered more pricing schemes and less DRM.
Tom Terrific 2
Glavine's performance last night was wonderfully boring, as usual. Nice to see Beltran hitting at home, too. Wagner? He's John Franco with a 100 MPH fastball... always out of the strike zone, always makes it interesting.
So I'm totally jumping ahead here, but I hope they sweep, just because it would enable us to pitch Glavine twice against Detroit.
Is this really the best way to arrange these letters?
If I was an old subway car, I'd be nervous.
After Facebook, what will be the web's next billion dollar exit? Let's build a virtual stock market for startups.
Assuming Yahoo! gets some kind of a deal done with Facebook (can you say motivated buyer?), we will have had three billion-plus acquisitions on the web (Skype, YouTube, Facebook) in the last year.
So what's next? Who has the best shot of creating a billion dollars of value?
At first I'd say Craigslist, but I don't really see Craig ever selling. Perhaps he wakes up one morning and decides it needs a safe home just in case any pissed off New York real estate scammer vows revenge, but, regulatory albatross aside, I think its much more likely he'll "give it to the people" and maybe go public or something.
LinkedIn? I'm not sure they engage users along enough dimensions... it is too much of a business tool rather than the go to social network for adult professionals.
What about Revver or Spotrunner? YouTube got sold because they dominated the medium and Google thought they could figure out how to monetize it. What if these two figure out the monetization first and attract publishers and advertisers.... might be a necessary add-on... but maybe not for a cool billion?
Feedburner is dominating and monetizing a medium, with little competition... if and when RSS takes off, they could start making bank in a hurry.
You know what would be interesting... and something I would definately monitarily contribute to the production of? A virtual stock market for startups. I need something to do in the fantasy baseball offseason. I'd love to be able to buy and sell "shares" based on the predictive expectations of the crowd. That might be a very cool experiment.
Any other ideas for the next billion dollar acquisition on the web? I don't think it will be us. Our number is only $750 million. :)
links for 2006-10-13
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Where else can you find a blog post that speaks the current time and Central Park weather? :)
Former Mets, Current Yanks Pitcher Corey Lidle Dies in Plane Crash into NYC Apartment
Very sad story... Turns out the pilot of the small plane in NYC was Yanks' pitcher Corey Lidle, who got his started in the majors with Mets. Lidle died in the crash.
If it were me, I'd want them to play tonight's game, but out of respect for the family and for Lidle, I agree with Brooklyn Met Fan, they should probably cancel.
Small Plane Crashes into Upper East Side Apartment Building
Well, this is just bizzare... A small "general aviation" plane flew into a building on 72nd and York.
A few apartments in the building are on fire... details coming out. Hope no one was home.
YouTubers Reaction to Purchase
Pretty reasonable I'd say... We're not all raving lunatics in the consumer world, you know. Thanks to Jeremy for the heads up.