Fill My Eyes With That Double Vision

I went to the eye doctor today for my regular checkup to learn my eyes are normal as ever.

I don't really mind eye doctors that much. I mean it's not like I'm seeing the proctologist. However, when they get out those dilating drops and want to put them in my eyes I'd rather hear the snap of a rubber glove. I can't stand anything touching my eyes.

Knowing what was in store, I planned ahead and took my laptop with me so I could get some work done while waiting for the drops to take effect, and I knew that when I had to increase the size of my document to 250% to see what I was typing that the drops had taken effect.

The doctor proceeds to shine a light in my eyes that seems like I'm staring into the center of the sun and makes my eyes hurt and water like crazy. And as if that wasn't enough she gets out some kind of magnifying glass which lets her see inside my eye, but also magnifies the light to the equivalent of walking out of a cave and staring into the center of the sun. But, the real fun begins as I try to drive back to the office with my sunglasses on, those hideous eye doctor sunglasses tucked behind my sunglasses and avoiding every reflection off of every piece of glass along the way so I don't become blinded by the glare.

Why has no one developed drops that instantly reverse the dilation process? I asked the doctor - she said there aren't any. I'd pay double my co-pay to get them. Instead, an hour later and I'm sitting at my computer straining to read as I type this post, and impatiently waiting so I can start working again.

Don't Let Your Product Be Mistaken

Why should you make sure your product or service is distinguishable from your competitor's? I'll give you one reason. You don't want to lose sales because of mistaken identity.

Think about this. Have you ever noticed how some websites use very common names with slightly different spellings in order to capitalize on the more commonly used website to drive traffic to them? Think http://www.whitehouse.gov/ I'm sure most of you have at one time or another in haste typed in the wrong address and ended up at a not so family oriented website.

Another example is the notorious fake Rolex watch. Of course, most people in the market to spend a couple of grand on a watch, don't shop from guys displaying them in a trench coat, but the idea is the same.

I had this problem of mistaken identity happen Friday afternoon when I was at home and my phone vibrated telling me I had an email from work. I popped it open and began reading, then repeated aloud to my wife what I had just read, which went...

Dear UCCS
students, staff, and faculty:
The UCCS Police Department has just received a report of lewd behavior near the campus. According to the witness, they observed a white male, mid-30’s, heavy set, dark hair, who was...

At this point I mumbled the words so my kids, who were in the room couldn't understand what I was reading and was motioning to my wife to keep reading the rest of the email which read...

mid-30's, heavy set, dark hair, who was naked and masturbating. This unknown male was near the dirt trail that leads from Austin Bluffs Parkway south sidewalk to the Cragmor neighborhood just south of the UCCS parking garage.

We both kind of rolled our eyes at each other thinking what kind of deranged idiot would do that when my youngest son piped up and said, "Daddy that's you they're talking about!"

While I am a white male, mid-30's, heavy set and dark hair, there was one important feature of that other guy that was different than me.

Make sure your customers know what the important, distinguishing characteristic your product or service has that your competition doesn't have.

A New Twist on Old Marketing

One of the oldest grocery item marketing concepts is the "New and Improved" product. Everything from soap to lipstick to microwave popcorn has been new and improved at one time.
While this article from the Motley Fool explains that New and Improved doesn't always mean that much, as I sat down to eat my morning cereal I found a new twist on an old marketing concept.

My wife, being the great mother she is bought my kids the new Limited Edition Spider Man 3 cereal. This is a new product, isn't it? I mean the movie just came out this summer, so how could you possibly have a new and improved version when the character on the box is new? A great question, I'm glad you asked it.

Well as I poured my first of 2 bowls, I was instantly taken back to being about 10 years old at my grandma's house, where she always spoiled me by buying me that sugar cereal my parents would never let me have. I loved eating Smurf-Berry Crunch. Mmmmm, I loved it. I would eat all of the red ones first and leave the blue ones last. Almost like I was Gargamel, I would chase the little blue ones around my cereal bowl and eat them like Gargamel always wanted to eat Smurfs. (But not Smurfette, she was hot)

So take notice of the two cereals. They look strikingly similar I think. Granted Smurf-Berry Crunch was a Post cereal and Spiderman 3 is General Mills, but there couldn't have been much creativity in copying one cereal to another and slapping a cool new box on it.

Honestly, I don't care if it was a blatant copyright infringement as a result of industrial espionage, I'm just glad to have my Smurf-Berry Crunch back in my cereal bowl.

My New Friend Dizzler

I've been a fan of music on the Internet since Napster in the mid 90's. Of course the plight to find music online in segments longer than 30 second samples has been one of ups and downs. When I saw them arresting some grandma who's grandson downloaded music to her computer off of Kazaa, I decided it would be best to find alternative sources. While those "issues" have been resolved, now it's not free.

I started using Launch for quite some time and still go back there. I like it because it easily sorts music by genre on it's stations and allows for some good customization of your personal music choices. Even though Yahoo now owns it and muddied it up a bit, I still use it.

Later I jumped to Pandora and liked it because it was easier to set up and manage than Launch was. and gave me a better random exposure to new music that I might like.

Then there are the actual radio stations that broadcast live via Internet. These are good, but the traffic reports from New Jersey aren't real relevant to me.

Finally, just yesterday I came across a new one. This one has some real teeth and goes beyond just music. It covers video, games and live radio as well as music. Dizzler is a free web based application that searches for online streaming media that you can use through it's player.

It allows you to create a play list of your favorites and will cycle through them all for you. While it's maybe not the best way to listen to music like you would a radio station it is great to listen to songs you have stuck in your head, but don't want to buy from iTunes.

It also offers a business application. I'm not exactly sure how it works yet, but I've got ideas on how to integrate pod casting into a player on a website using Dizzler.

So check it out and give me your thoughts on where you get your music.

The Most Annoying Sound in the Universe

I think most would agree that the most annoying sound in the universe is the sound of your alarm clock going off in the morning.

So, when I saw this over on Barry Moltz's blog and thought how annoying could an alarm clock be that launches a rotor in the air and keeps buzzing until you find the rotor and return it to the base?

Probably not that annoying if you had one of these under your bed as a snooze button.

Just a thought.