Funniest Out-of-office Auto-Reply of the day

From Alan Cross, OnGoingHistory.com

I'm not here and for that, I apologize. I've failed you. And I feel shame.
But I am being punished for this transgression. I'm currently enduring the indignities of air travel: endless security lines, shuffling in sock feet past the surly demons determined to take my precious gels and liquids and overweight fellow passengers in the middle seat who ooze out over both armrests after insisting on taking up the entire overhead compartment with their steamer trunk. And it's a 4 1/2 hour flight.
If you need something immediately, shoot an email to n____@_____.com or m___@_____.com. Failing that, I'll try and get caught up on all outstanding email over the weekend. Pray for me.

Alan has always had a great sense of humour, and now I'm even more a fan.

Some other funny options you can put on your computer when you're away from your desk next...

I am out of the office Feb 23 to Feb 24 with limited access to Blackberry. I'll do my best to respond to your email as soon as I can...

How does someone have limited access to Blackberry? Can't reach your pocket?


Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 332nd place and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 18 weeks.


Sorry to have missed you but I am at the doctors having my brain removed so that I may be promoted to management.


Hi! I’m busy negotiating the salary for my new job. Don’t bother to leave me any messages.


The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is unable to deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try sending again.


I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for personal medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as ‘Danielle’ instead of ‘Daniel’.

Classic!

I'm starting to love the scrabble site.

So I just randomly was looking at my own blog, and laughed again at the Scrabble word of the day (Dildo) and decided to see what today's word was.   Awesome.  I may just have to check this everyday.  

Are they messing with us?  Is this an elaborate strategy to spread the site virally by putting awesome words, or did I just happen to pick another cool day.

Scrabble's word of the day. FAIL.

How hard would it be (pun intended) to create a word filter list to avoid a situation like this. Well done Hasbro, well done.

Hasbro's Scrabble Page

UsernameCheck has shut down

Useful service UsernameCheck.com has shut down. Seems as though there just wasn't the money opportunity, though there was definitely the interest. The site claims over 1MM uniques and over 500k usernames checked to date.

Usernamecheck No Longer Available

I am temporarily taking the usernamecheck.com functionality down. The hosting fees have become unviable for a project that makes zero income, I have attempted to keep the site running for as long as possible.

In the last 4 months we've had over a million absolute unique visitors, who have checked over 1/2 million unique usernames across 65 of the leading social networks. It's sucess was beyond anything I imagined, and I'm very proud that it was of use to so many people. Thank you all for trying it out, and thank you for the kind words I've seen online.

Any questions, comments please email info@usernamecheck.com

I've used this site many times to check not only my own names and aliases, but also brands that I work with, and even competitive brands. It was good while it lasted. The reason this is useful to a marketer, is that they can easily identify brand squatters, as well as new opportunities in the social networking world. I was tempted to register all the competitive names as well, just to slowdown and obscure them from entering the space, but the reality is that if they're not there yet, they've got enough catch up to do anyway.

Slumdog Millionaire is my pick

Spent the day at the AMC Oscar Showcase at the new (all Digital) AMC downtown Toronto at Yonge and Dundas, watching all five of the Best Picture noms for tonight. Slumdog Millionaire was my favourite, and as far as story, directing, acting, cinematography, etc--- Slumdog impressed me the most.

I guess we'll see...

The AMC Oscar Showcase (popcorn included?)

On my way to Yonge and Dundas AMC to spend the day watching movies... This is what it's all about people! If I had a plug for a laptop, and a waitress to bring me iced tea and sandwiches all day, I would literally call this heaven.

Even though I mostly watch movies and TV at home *cough*, this is a great opportunity to see the big movies all at once. I've only seen Benny Buttons, but Milk, Frost/Nixon, Reader, and Slumdoggy are all supposed to be great.

Andrei and I will be tweeting all day, and I will likely follow this up with my picks for Best Picture in a post tonight.

ALL OSCAR®, ALL DAY LONG: AMC ENTERTAINMENT® PRESENTS A SINGLE-DAY SHOWING OF ALL FIVE “BEST PICTURE” FILMS

Tickets On Sale Jan. 30; New Discount for AMC MovieWatcher Members

Kansas City, Mo. (Jan. 30, 2009) - AMC Entertainment Inc. (AMC), one of the world's largest and most innovative theatrical exhibition companies, is proud to offer guests the rare opportunity to experience all five motion pictures nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for "Best Picture," on one special day.

On Saturday, Feb. 21, the AMC Best Picture Showcase^SM will take place at approximately 97 AMC theatres in 42 North American markets* (check local listings for availability and show times). Guests can purchase an exclusive AMC Best Picture Showcase All-Day Pass for only $30, or just $25 for AMC MovieWatcher® members. Moviegoers will have the chance to see all five Oscar^®-nominated "Best Picture" films and will also receive a large popcorn with unlimited refills for the entire day. This offer is valued at more than $50 and marks the third year of this exclusive event.

The Oscar^® "Best Picture" nominees, "Milk," "The Reader," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Frost/Nixon," will play in one dedicated auditorium back-to-back throughout the day. Upon arrival to the theatre, guests will receive a souvenir lanyard, which will feature artwork from the five nominated films and give guests the freedom to come and go throughout the event as they please.

Guests can locate a theatre hosting AMC Best Picture Showcase in their area by visiting www.amctheatres.com. Advance ticket sales will be available by noon C.S.T. on Friday, Jan. 30, on a first-come, first-served basis online at www.amctheatres.com or by visiting the box office or Guest Services area at any theatre hosting the AMC Best Picture Showcase.

AMC Best Picture Showcase schedule (all times local; schedule is the same nationwide):

About AMC Entertainment Inc.

Headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., AMC Entertainment Inc. is one of the world's leading theatrical exhibition and out-of-home entertainment companies. With a history of industry leadership and innovation dating back to 1920, the company today serves more than 235 million guests annually through interests in 353 theatres with 5,105 screens in six countries. www.amctheatres.com.

Oscar^® is the registered trademark and service mark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Recipe Fail

Delicious, but not a very good feature.

Tweets for the Collectors

Recently, I've been involved in a pilot to use Twitter to connect with our (Air Miles Reward Program) Collectors and fans. The program talks to millions of Collectors via email, and ten of thousands via calls in to the Customer Service Centre, and every day millions of Collectors use their cards at our sponsors, so why not another new channel.  Not sure if we'll continue to use it, but we need to evaluate it to decide, so away I go...

I've been a loud proponent of social media for some time, and especially the role big business can play by maintaining reputation and even more importantly engaging savvy customers in their channel of preference. In all likelihood, most Collectors who are heavy Twitter users are the same Collectors that we're not able to engage via the traditional channels. They've got all their marketing email going to a spam folder, they empty their mail into the recycling bin every week, and could be avid users of the program, but do it on their own terms. (Maybe I'm giving Twitter users too much credit)

Anyway, I've found many great posts about how to use twitter to the maximum benefit of the company, and how best to get the word out, and how to optimize the tweets so that you're not wasting time, etc, etc... What I really liked though was a post about rules. There are no rules. You can invent your own rules and reasons for tweets, and as long as you're honest and consistent, if that's what people want to follow-- they follow you. Here's what I've decided for our pilot:

• I'm not customer service. If I get asked a question and I know the answer, I'll answer, because maybe that will help some other people, but if you have a problem, we have hundreds of pros with proper training for that. (I'm a marketing guy)
  
• Spam sucks. I have some feeds pulling in some news and other interesting Air Miles related content into my Twitter stream, but engagement is what counts.
  
• If someone is talking about us, or our sponsors, maybe they're interested in what I have to say. Engagement
  
• People want value. No I will not give you free Air Miles Reward Miles for following me, but I will share the latest scoop on where to go for a bonus, or what the best offer is when you're credit card shopping. Value. Part of the intent of the pilot is to give the super-savvy something to listen to.
  
• I'm still a marketing dude. When I read a cool blog post about something or hear a news item that I think will interest those who follow @AirMiles, I'm going to share it. The PR dept doesn't do that, but that's a dept, not a person. This is new territory. If the followers of @AirMiles don't feel like they're interacting with a human, then all of the sudden it's another spammy marketing channel, and engagement is lost. Transparency and Honesty.
  
• Value for our Sponsors. Whenever possible, I'm going to mention the fact that I'm on my shopping trip to Metro, or visiting a BMO ATM to get cash, or filling up at the LCBO. I'm in Ontario, so my mentions of Safeway or the Manitoba Liquor stores will be few and far between, but if there's a deal or bonus offer, they will get the mention. The coalition of Sponsors is what makes Air Miles so great. Our followers should love every new opportunity to earn Miles...
  

As the number of followers of @AirMiles grows (hopefully to the tens of thousands) this new channel will surely evolve. As it does, we'll see what's new that we can share. Later on, I plan to use a service like TwitPic to actually share photos, screenshots, specials, coupons, etc.

Does Spam still work?

ukonlinelotterywinningnotifys45@yahoo.co.jp

Your email address has won you $4.6M from the UK Lotto online draws held on 50/02/09 Lucky #: MX014926583 and Free ticket #: APP236566301307. Contact Henry Lrmbert henry_lambert08@yahoo.com.hk with your official names, Nationality and resident country, address, tel/mobile #, date of draw, sex

- UK LOTTERY ORGANIZATION

This has to be the worst Phishing Spam I've seen yet. It's like they don't even try any more. Geo-targeting is way off, because I'm not from the UK, and I don't know anyone in Japan (email address #1) or Hong Kong (email address #2).

Also-- since when does February have 50 Days! That's just lazy. I may just have to let Mr. Henry Lrmbert know what I think of his UK Lottery Organization from Hong Kong.

Henry Lambert should be pissed.

Twitter eCommerce Tools

Read an amazing and pretty comprehensive article from my favourite ecom blogger Linda Bustos at Get Elastic this weekend, all about the tools available to business (and specifically those using Twitter to promote deals), and who have the need to track visitors and get the normal analytics and measurement we expect with everything on the web these days.

FEED THE TWEET: Most savvy businesses are already updating a blog, even if it's just to keep customers up to date on outages, new products or changes within the scope of the company. Taking an RSS feed, you can now tweet that content using Twitterfeed or HootSuite. I've been using Twitterfeed to tweet this blog fo a while now, and its a simple and easy to use site. It hasn't let me down, and ensures prompt seeding of my content via all my various channels.

ANALYTICS: I've been using Google Analytics to track what links are getting clicked, but I have far less of need for analytics than an eBusiness. The trick I've found, and Linda touches on this point in her article, is that If your followers click on links right out of their own home stream, then all the analytics will tell you is /home .

Fo this reason, if a business wants to get the best possible measurement from Twitter links (and don't forget, these get re-tweeted)the trick is to put campaign parameters into the link before it's shortened. In some cases, since Twitter is so short anyway, if you're going to do some campaign testing, you can put the entire tweet in the campaign parameters of the URL, and simply look at what performs best. Try, tweak, Tweet, Try again.

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT: Google alerts are good for blogs and mainstream, but simply don't pick up the tweets fast enough or at all in some cases. Get Elastic recommends taking a feed of a search term from the Twitter Search, but if you're doing active monitoring, you can also try real-time search like Monitter, that literally pours results (in multiple columns) into your browser. I've also heard good things about TweetGrid, but it's not as slick looking. None of the two I've mentioned will actually alert you when your search terms are mentioned, so if you want to be passive, and just be told when the twittersphere is talking about you, try Notify.me. I've heard god things...

notify.me demo from notify.me on Vimeo.

Get Elastic's blog is great. Check out the full article HERE If you like my additions and help, follow Linda @Roxyyo or me @andrewkinnear

Advair by GSK changed my life.

It sounds like a promotional video or an after-school special, but it's true. After a conversation with a colleague today, discussing asthma and her daughters troubles, I was reminded of my childhood, and how absolutely terrible it is to be a kid with asthma. A few years ago one of the many clinic doctors I was rotating between (I had just moved to Toronto, and didn't have a doctor at that point) suggested I try Advair, instead of my trusty sidekick, the Blue Puffer (Ventolin, Salbutemol, Novo-Salmol, etc)

It took some getting used to, as Advair is a Diskus-type delivery system that crushes a pellet into an inhalable powder, but once I got the hang of it (and trust me, those stickers that say "Wash your mouth after use" are totally valid in this case) I was off to the races. I started playing squash. I attempted running (though quit when I discovered it sucks even if you CAN breathe) and not I do things like workout, or even go up a flight of stairs without wheezing...

Anyway, just wanted to give a shout-out to my new trusty sidekick. I literally take this drug once a day in the AM, and I'm fine all day. I used to be a twice daily with the orange (corticosteroid) and then lots of the blue whenever I needed 'rescuing' but now I don't even carry the blue rescue around. It's that good.

Finally an advance in medical science that actually affects me, and it's for the better. If you are on the old stuff, (blue and/or beige/orange) check out the purple Advair. I have a plan, but I expect it's not cheap, but trust me it's worth it. Plus, every 60 days, I get a cool purple diskus that I can make into stuff like this person...

Most expensive domain names ever sold

I've been selling some domain names lately, and as part of my research and interest in the industry, I found an interesting list of the top 10 most expensive domains ever sold (where a public record exists). I'm sure there were some shady backdoor deals for many more domains, but these ones made the headlines.

1# Sex.com: $14mil The most expensive domain sale of all the time. Currently, this domain redirects to another site.

2# Fund.com: $9,999,950 Sold in 2008. An elaborate mutual fund education and sales site.

3# Porn.com: $9.5mil Sold in 2007. Actually a porn website.

4# Business.com: $7.5mil Sold in 1999. A search engine specifically filled with sponsored links for business. I searched for 'chairs' and got all kinds of ridiculous things.

5# Diamonds.com: $7.5mil eCommerce site selling diamonds. This actually makes sense.

6# Beer.com: $7mil Other names like alcohol.com, wine.com, and vodka.com are also among the top sellers of all time.

7# Casino.com: $5.5mil Online Casino based in Gibralter (ahem...) where the tax and legal implications of an online casino are probably a little more flexible.

8# AsSeenOnTV.com: $5.1mil Sold in 2000. eCommerce site dedicated to selling all things TV related. You need a ShamWow or a Snuggie? This is the place.

9# Korea.com: $5mil The only domain in the Top 10 with a country name in it. This one is a tourist site for South Korea, also available in Engrish.

10# SEO.com: $5mil SEO is one of the most popular search terms in search engines today and as the name suggests, its a related website.


How much a domain is worth, is entirely based on what someone is willing to pay for it. Back in 98, 99, and 2000, before the dotcom bubble burst, HAVING a dotcom was incredibly valuable. Now, as search has evolved, the dotcom is less valuable from an organic/type-in traffic value, and more from a marketing/name-recognition value.

A friend of a friend sold a domain back in highschool to a large multinational and bought a house with the proceeds. He wasn't infringing any trademarks, but they REALLY, REALLY wanted the domain. At first, they tried to sue him for it, assuming some punk kid in the middle of Canada would just lie down for the man and be intimidated by their legal bullying, but his father was a lawyer, and they went to court for fun. (or so the story goes...) Settlement made the most sense for the big company.

Imagine if Facebook charged a membership

Facebook has 150+ million users and yet generates only $208 Million in annual advertising revenue. That's $1.39 per user. Not very impressive when you think about how much money Google makes.

Advertising isn't very exciting though.

Imagine for a moment that you had to pay $8 sometime in the next 12 months to keep your Facebook account active.  You would be exempt if you ever bought a $1 gift, or paid for a Facebook ad, but everyone else would have to pay.  I would hazard a guess that 10 million users would be of an age that simply could not get a credit card (or trick a parent) to pay the fee.  Another 10 million would probably quit on principle, and move to some completely lame FREE social network that none of their friends were on.  That leaves 130 Million Facebook users at $8 each instantly putting revenue at $1.04 Billion a year.  --And that's just membership, not even whatever awesome other things they can do to grow revenue. 

I pay $20 US (somehow that's $31 Canadian) a year to have a Flickr account, and right now Flickr pales in comparison to the number of photos and videos being uploaded to Facebook everyday. Sure there's a free account for Flickr, but I want unlimited.

What if Facebook had Free Facebook, but as soon as you wanted to upload more photos or become friends with more people you had to pay.  Would it limit your social interactions, or just make you pay for them?

What's happening to e-commerce in Canada?

HBC announced that they were 'pausing' all online e-commerce activities, as well as their affiliate relationships. HBC (Hudsons Bay Company, Zellers, Home Outfitters) is the second major Canadian retailer to shift strategy away from eCommerce, after Canadian Tire pulled a similar move less than a month ago.

As part of a strategic review, Hudson's Bay Company has decided to suspend the sale of merchandise on its banner websites - The Bay, Zellers, Home Outfitters and Hbc.com as of Thursday, February 5th, 2009. Over the coming months, Hudson's Bay Company will be developing an e-commerce strategy for each of the banners and plan to re-launch in the future.

I heard today from a reliable source that Canadian Tire's shift was motivated by different reasons. Apparently, franchisees of the Canadian Tire banner complained loudly enough to the top brass that the web store was 'stealing business' from their bricks and mortar locations, and that that was one of the reasons they pulled the plug.  

Barring reasons outside of the channel (like pressure from a dealer network) is there any reason why these big retailers can't make money online?  Amazon can do it.  Is it because Canada is so vast and patio sets are so bulky?

Google Latitude but only for your real friends

and by 'real friends' I mean the ones cool enough to have a location-aware smart phone (like the iphone, blackberry, android phones, etc).

Google Latitude is a new service from google that allows you to see where your friends are in real time, assuming they have allowed you the permission, and that you both have the service installed.

Not sure how this will affect my data usage, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. The install was completely seamless, and the interface is my standard google maps (on the Blackberry) so all is cool.

If you want to be 'Latitude' friends, let me know.

Fail! First Choice Haircutters cut off a finger

I'm really getting good at finding funny (read: terrible) ads on the subway. Just open your eyes. This poor woman only has only 3 fingers on her right hand and a weird super-long left ring finger.

Obama style. Design changes everything

I just discovered this compilation of Barack Obama campaign imagery. What a wonderful display of talent by the artists and designers involved.  

It inspires me.

Click the image to go to the original size for a better and even more inspiring look...

Childhood dreams come true.

General Hawk, Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes... Watch the Teaser Trailer HERE.

For those who got the same feelings from Transformers in 2007 (and will again this summer), I say now it's time for Joe. Go Joe!

Also, we're definitely going to need some PSA's at the end of the movie.

Bye Bye Domain Names #5

A few more domains from the depths of my imagination. As always, if you have interest, or know someone who may be interested, drop me a line.

UniversityOfRock.com - I originally conceived of this as a concert series that would go from campus to campus. It would be like the Vans Warp tour meets Another Roadside Attraction. When School of Rock came out with Jack Black, it made me think this was even cooler as an idea, but it never materialized. Good name for a music program, a band, a concert series or a record label.

PictureLingo.com , LingoPix.com - The idea with these two (yes I registered multiple domains for this idea) was to create a simple interface for smartphones, completely web-based, that would allow someone in another country (or another part of our country) to communicate. Say you have no idea what language someone speaks, but you need to communicate, you type a word, and a picture appears. That was the plan anyway.

BirthdayPoints.com , ChristmasPoints.com - Pretty simple rewards currency system. The idea was you would buy 'points' for someone like a child or spouse. They would go online to redeem via an amazon-powered merchandise machine. Money would come from breakage on the points purchased but never redeemed, the float of the purchase from the time the points are bought to the time they're redeemed, the margin on the products purchased, and a small affiliate commission from the web interface. Sounds great doesn't it?

So of all of those domains are interesting, but I think the points ones have the most potential. If only I had $100k and some free time!

In the event of the Zombie Apocalypse...

You must remove the head or destroy the brain.

What will people without a vocation do in a post-apocalyptic world. There won't be need for marketers, lawyers, analysts, computer programmers, etc... Only real skills like welders, carpenters, farmers, doctors.

It's sad to say, but in a world attempting to recover from war-torn economic disintegration, struggling to stay peaceful among the living, cautious about the ever-present re-animation of the dead, most people will find comfort in all the wrong things. Their cars will be monuments to a world without gasoline. Their houses, representing all that could not protect them. A military, impotent because of their reliance on technology over training, and smart bombs over marksmen.

Will you be ready?

Who is this green stock photo girl?

Just by happenstance, I stumbled across two completely unrelated (save their desire to go green) websites that both included the same stock image of a girl on a green grassy hill with a laptop.

Does it matter who was first? --or should both designers get a FAIL for using the same image, not properly licensing it, etc, etc. Or maybe someone's in the right and Getty Images dropped the ball...

Either way, it's always interesting to me to find this kind thing on the internet.  It reminds me of when they discovered the similarities between Barack Obama's website and the campaign site of Israel's Benjamin Netenyahu...