How to increase blog traffic 20x in one day with three easy steps

1. Blog about a relatively obscure fix for a consumer electronics device.
2. Wait until a catastrophic bug requires everyone to utilize that fix, and Google sends ‘em your way.
3. Ka-ching!

Disclaimer: Results generally good for one day only…

Price discrimination (in the economic sense)

One economics concept I seem to keep running into is price discrimination, although it’s rarely identified as such.  The context is not always pricing – more often than not it’s in regard to dealing with people (i.e., instead of a “one rule for everyone” approach, some leadership styles recommend a tailored approach for each individual).  Anyhow, I found a good overview of price discrimination.

Worldwide spam cut 66% in one day

According to the Post, two ISPs in California shut down a hosting provider that was responsible for the majority of the world’s spam.  Instantly, the amount of spam dropped up to 66%.

Source: Small Business Trends

Market cap? Seriously?

Why would anyone talk about reduced market cap as an indicator of anything in this market?

Pandora shutting down in 2010?

According to an interview with its founder in the Washington Post, Pandora is getting close to shutting its doors:

“We’re approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision,” said Tim Westergren, who founded Pandora. “This is like a last stand for webcasting.”

Basically, the Copyright Royalty Board decided to double the royalty payments for Web radio by 2010 (see page 6).  Pandora currently spends $17 million of it’s $25 million on royalties as it is, so, obviously, the “math don’t work.”

This seems incredibly short sighted of the recording artists lobby.  Of course, the big player here is SoundExchange (a RIAA puppet), so that shouldn’t be too surprising.

High chairs for 10 year olds

Maybe I’ll take another look at this one in 9 years…

Thank you, AT&T, for doing your job

My AT&T account has a corporate discount on it, so last week I called AT&T to find out if I needed to remove it before adding an iPhone as a new line.

The nice lady reviewed my information, told me I did not, in fact, have a FAN discount (although she couldn’t identify what type of discount I do have), and that I would be perfectly fine getting setup with an iPhone (after waiting in line for who knows how long).

Of course, when I got there, my account was “ineligible”, so I had to create a new account.

I called AT&T today, and they merged the new account into the old account and activated the Family plan, all within about 10 minutes.  I got off the phone thinking, “Wow, great work, AT&T!”  Then I remembered why I had to call in the first place…

Bad form: Virus warnings with strange URLs

I received the following virus warning email from UPS:

The problem I have is that it contains an undecipherable link in it:

http://sdm3.rm04.net/servlet/MailView?ms=MjA3NTAzOQS2&r=MTM0Njg0MjE3MDYS1&j=NTM3MTcxODES1&mt=1

If you try to go to rm04.net, it doesn’t resolve.  whois points to http://www.markmonitor.com/, which is a legitimate brand protection service.

However, the casual user isn’t going to do this much research.  Common advice these days for the casual user is that, if there is a fishy URL, it’s probably phishing.

If you are warning people about viruses, send the email in plain text, and use your own URL.  Otherwise you aren’t really helping.

Get 10% off eBay, through June 30

Just clearing out the inbox.  Use coupon code CJUNE0810P.

Get rid of pesky "pre-approved" offers

It’s pretty simple, actually:

https://www.optoutprescreen.com/

Source: Framme Law Firm