You know, part of the problem of having other people pick names for you is that sometimes they pick stupid names.
It’s even worse if “other people” is “the general public”
Tag Archives: bad ideas
PicApp: Ads for copyright compliance?
If you know what Getty Images is, chances are you’ve seen some of their stock photos used on blog posts to add some visual flair. Some times they’re used under a license, other times not so much.
In an attempt to capitalize on bloggers who steal photos without permission, an outfit called PicApp has reached a deal with Getty in which they’ll provide photos free of charge, along with ads to offset licensing costs.
The service is in private beta, but you can see it in action on PicApp’s blog. Basically, it’s a complicated JavaScript/Flash combination that, if you’re lucky, won’t crash your browser. It’s also annoying as hell, but that’s the entire point.
Perhaps I’m just being cynical, but I don’t see bloggers going through setting this up and dealing with these ads just so they can comply with copyright law, something they tend not to care too much about anyway.
Bye bye, ByeByeLogement
Here’s one of those “really stupid business plans” examples: A startup called ByeBye Logement launched a month ago. For the low low price of $7, you can put a classified advertisement announcing an apartment for rent of sub-lease for 90 days on their website. It becomes part of a massive searchable database (a global search reveals they have a grand total of three listings across Canada right now).
Now, you might ask, why should I pay money to add an apartment-for-rent listing to a website nobody’s ever heard of (and whose visitors can’t even get access to my contact info without signing up first) when I can post to Craigslist or MoreMontreal, high-traffic sites with thousands of listings, for free?
And if you’d asked yourself that question, you clearly would have done a lot more market research than the people behind ByeByeLogement.com.
When 90% just isn’t good enough
Here’s another stupid idea: Giving small business tax credits for speaking French, something they’re supposed to be doing anyway.
How do you accurately judge something like that without doubling the size of the language police?
CRTC looking at eliminating top-40 radio restrictions
In one of those “we have a law for that?” moments, the CRTC has decided to (again) take a look at a rather archaic regulation they have that limits FM radio stations on the use of “top 40 hits.”
The regulation was created to protect AM Top 40 stations from the FM Radio Menace that sought to kill them off with their better sound. Sure enough, now AM stations are disappearing, being replaced with talk radio, all-news stations, all-sports stations and some community and student radio stations. Portable music players are being built with FM-only tuners (where radio tuners are built-in at all), which will lead to further erosion of the AM listening base.
What does this law say about our radio broadcasting industry? Sadly, radio stations are failing to realize that having a 1,000-song playlist and virtually no indie content or DJ autonomy means that nobody wants to listen to your stations. Now they’re really starting to feel it as people tune to podcasts, Internet radio and songs they’ve ripped from their own CD collection.
I certainly hope their solution to that problem isn’t “more top 40 hits.”
Deadline for comments is March 4.
Expensive junk
From Cracked.com, a list of 10 “laughably misleading” ads, which I would say is more like “top 10 commercials for laughably unnecessary or overpriced products”
A little place to get your revenge for My Lil’ Reminder and its ilk.
Bell Canada, our Do Not Call overlords
Bell Canada has been awarded the contract to manage Canada’s anti-telemarketing Do Not Call list.
Because when you think “customer service” and “convenience,” the name “Bell Canada” inevitably comes to mind.
No doubt the Bell Canada-run Do Not Call list will be fast, efficient, error-free and in no way a nightmare for thousands of Canadians stuck in customer service hell.
Oh, and the reason Bell won the contract? It was the only bidder.
Can you feel the irony biting you in the ass?
VISA reports from the future
The news outlets were buzzing today about the fact that spending on Boxing Day went down this year compared to previous years.
I find that funny because, you know, Boxing Day hasn’t happened yet.
The news, naturally, comes out of a VISA press release, which they based on a survey that asked people what they planned to do. This, I guess, is somehow infinitely better than waiting two days and just finding out what they did.
But VISA knows a slow news day when it sees one, and the news fell for it.
15 reasons I’m not crazy about Capazoo
Roberto Rocha has an interesting article in today’s Gazette about Capazoo, a Montreal-based social networking website that wants to take on Facebook and MySpace.
What’s interesting about this project, unlike the thousands of other social networking sites, is that it’s starting big. Millions of dollars big. Before it even has 100,000 users, it’s going to flood the Web with advertising, spend millions on servers, and get as many famous people involved as possible to lure the young’uns on board. In other words, it’s going to use traditional marketing methods instead of the word-of-mouth methods that created Google, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and everything else.
Their gimmick is a social currency (“zoops”) that people can exchange by “tipping” each other. Voluntary contributions toward people whose content you approve of.
I’ll reproduce here some of the concerns I expressed (and some new ones I’ve added) about the project on his blog:
Here’s my issues with Capazoo:
- The name. It’s a random nonsense word like every other forgettable Web 2.0 startup. And it tells me nothing about what the site does.
- Yet Another Social Networking Site. People assume they put up a website and they’ll get Facebook/MySpace-like success within months. That’s just not going to happen unless their site is much better or they have a distinct advantage with newcomers. Microsoft took advantage of the latter (leveraging its Hotmail and MSN services) to outseat ICQ in instant messaging. Google used the former to build its search engine and Gmail. I see neither as the case for Capazoo.
- It’s bad enough for startups that social networks require a large critical mass before they can take off. Nobody wants to join a social network that none of their friends are in. But their virtual currency system requires an even larger critical mass before any content producer sees real money.
- I got the same weird feeling as TechCrunch about tying virtual currency to referrals. It sounds like a pyramid scheme. And the value of a Zoop is about equivalent to the value of a Zimbabwean dollar.
- Content creators getting money is great and all, but the entire payment process is based on tips. And those tips might be worth a penny or two. I don’t see even moderately popular people making a lot of money this way. And even if they did, wouldn’t they feel obligated to zoop all of their supporters?
- What’s to stop someone from stealing a popular video off YouTube, putting it on their Capazoo page and profiting off it? How will they ensure originality of content? Any system that involves money will attract people who will try to game that system.
- You have to pay them money in order to get money. Which means you have to make more money. Thousands of these “zoops” just to break even.
- Deals with major content producers is a red herring that sadly a lot of people use. MySpace is good for listening to unsigned bands. Facebook doesn’t have any of these content deals (that I know of). Reprinting articles from wire services and major magazines is a gimmick, and isn’t going to overcome problems with the concept.
- I don’t like the layout. Facebook took away MySpace people (including myself) because it has a simple uncomplicated layout. Capazoo goes back to a giant mess with no apparent structure.
- The walled garden. I know Facebook uses this approach (requiring people to login to see anything), but that only works when the desire to see what’s behind the wall overpowers your frustration at having to register yet another account.
- Their terms of use. They have the right to terminate your account and take all your zoops for any reason at their sole discretion. Capazoo claims non-exclusive, unlimited royalty-free rights to your content for anything they want. They’re not even required to inform you of changes or ask for your consent.
- They don’t allow people under 16 to use the site. (At least not officially.) That’s going to cause problems if the site gets popular. They also allow only people 18 years or older to earn money. So the site seems to be completely pointless to a key demographic for these kinds of sites.
- Even if it’s successful, what’s to stop Facebook and MySpace from stealing the currency idea? Revver was started up as a competitor to YouTube in much the same fashion. So YouTube began compensating its top contributors. YouTube is still king.
- The entire premise is based on what I think is a faulty idea: That most users of social networking sites feel they should be compensated for the time they spend there and the content they provide. While there are some people who put up videos and blog posts and other stuff because they’re creative and want the world to see them, most people use social networking sites to comment on friends’ photos, see who’s broken up with whom, or communicate with old high school buddies they lost touch with. Nobody expects to get compensated for this.
- And finally, like the others, I think it’s silly to start with such a huge organization before the product is off the ground. Computing gives companies the ability to start small even when they’re starting big. It’s foolish to squander such an opportunity.
Tonight’s word: … uhh …
This is a joke, right? Colbert’s just going to ad-lib his whole show?
I can understand Leno and Letterman putting on a bare-bones show without monologues in order to save the jobs of non-writing tradespeople who work for them. But Stewart and Colbert are all about the writers. What the heck are they going to do?
Cyberpresse putting up 360 photos
Cyberpresse (which just started playing music on my laptop without permission) is putting up 360-degree photos on its website: already one of a snowy Gilford St. shovelling on de Mentana St., and a truck accident on Cremazie Blvd.
It’s just another example of how big media companies like Cyberpresse understand the Internet and are prepared to use cutting-edge 1994 technology* to bring things that are cool but uninformative to users. (The last picture is particularly apt at showing the weaknesses of the technology: a truck accident is shown from only one angle — it’s great that I can see out in different directions, but I can’t see the other side of the truck.)
*Actually, it’s a Flash-based emulator of cutting-edge 1994 technology, but otherwise indistinguishable from Quicktime VR (right down to the unintuitive navigation).
Vaillancourt getting greedy
Laval mayor Gilles Vaillancourt, apparently not satisfied that the Quebec government spent more than his city’s entire annual budget building a metro extension of questionable worth there, wants even more money to close the loop of the Orange Line.
That’s kind of ballsy.
His arguments are as follows:
- Laval’s population is growing: Yes, but the area around the Laval metro stations is still pretty vacant. Extensions of the blue and yellow lines would be through much more highly-populated areas that are in more desperate need of high-density transit.
- The metro costs less per person, saving money: I don’t know where he gets his figures, but I’m guessing it’s based on operational costs, not construction costs. Building a metro to nowhere won’t pay for itself.
- The current extension is a huge success: Its ridership numbers were a bit higher than an arbitrary conservative estimate pulled out of someone’s ass. Meanwhile, the project was almost an order of magnitude over budget. I don’t call this a success.
- Closing the orange line loop would simplify many transit trips: Almost all Laval bus routes terminate at either the Montmorency or Cartier metro stations, funneling passengers onto metro cars. Creating a western connection would only split that traffic. It wouldn’t add another 40,000 riders to the system.
- It’s environmentally friendly, and we need to get more cars of the road: In that case, I’m sure you’ll have no problem taking all that cash that’s building a new bridge along the Highway 25 axis and putting it into metro development instead.
Vaillancourt says he wants a dedicated tax for the extension. I agree. But I think he should be the one implementing it. If Laval wants a redundant metro extension for no particularly good reason, they can pay for it themselves.
UPDATE (Dec. 13): The Gazette’s Jim Mennie sees this as a shot across the bow in a battle between Laval and Montreal. And an editorial plagiarizes agrees with my main points.
We can’t accomodate freedom
Leaders of the FTQ and CSN told the Bouchard-Taylor commission that workers in Quebec should be forbidden from wearing anything that indicates what religion they are.
So I guess that means no more crucifix necklaces.
The article (I’m guessing it’s more their position) is a bit confusing, later going on about how they just don’t want employers to have to change any rules about safety or uniform codes in order to accomodate religious minorities.
It’s odd to hear about a trade union arguing for restricting workers’ rights, but then again these hearings are creating a lot of crazy ideas.
So when does the witchhunt begin for determining what constitutes a religious symbol? Does a black top hat make you Jewish? Does wearing a loose-fitting dress make you Muslim? Does a spaghetti-strap top make you a Pastafarian?
Habs want money for bricks
The Montreal Canadiens, preparing to celebrate their 100th birthday, are redeveloping an area outside the Bell Centre, calling it “Centennial Plaza,” adding some statues and selling bricks.
The bricks, a seemingly a propos metaphor for the team currently (overpriced dead weight that people step on, defined only by the stubbornly unending support by Montreal hockey fans), are being sold at between $175 and $800 apiece (depending on size and location) to raise money for … uhh … the Montreal Canadiens. (With “a portion of the proceeds” going to the Canadiens Alumni Association.)
Some might call it a transparent money grab, but the hard-core fans will eat it up. After all, it’s a chance to be a part of Canadiens history and have your name be forever etched on a brick that you own, on the walkway to the greatest hockey arena in the world.
Provided, of course, your definition of “you own” is “remains the sole property of the Club de hockey Canadien, Inc.” and your definition of “forever” doesn’t last longer than five years.
The terms and conditions of the sale provide you no right to ownership, gives complete veto power to the club over the text you use, makes absolutely no guarantee to keep the plaza beyond 2013, and for that matter doesn’t even guarantee you that they’ll build it where they say they will.
I also note that the website is entirely silent about any obligation to maintain your brick, even for those five years. So if someone sticks gum in it, or scratches it, or takes a jackhammer to it, it’s entirely unclear who will pay the bill to have it replaced.
But hey, who am I to stand between them and your money?
Family transit fares don’t make sense
St. Laurent’s Alan DeSousa wants the STM to introduce “family” fares, which would supposedly give group discounts if a household buys multiple transit passes. He says his borough offers family prices for leisure activities, and we need to get more cars off the road.
DeSousa isn’t specific about what he means by family fares. It could be discounts (or tax rebates) when buying monthly passes, or it could be discounts when travelling as a group.
Here’s the thing with the latter option:
- Leisure activities tend to be done as families, because families spend their leisure time together. Public transit tends to be the opposite: Everyone headed in different directions at different times. How often do you board a bus with two or more members of your immediate family at the same time?
- Even the most fervent public transit supporters will concede that family activities will almost always require use of a car, if only to transport all the food, diapers and other supplies they need to take with them.
- How do you enforce such a thing? I’ve gone to Ottawa and travelled on their “family” fare with a female friend, pretending she was my wife. The drivers there don’t care, it’s not like they’re going to ask for a marriage certificate. So it really comes down to a group discount, usually for two adults and up to two or three children. And why should group discounts be limited to families?
- Families travelling together is hardly the most pressing need environmentally. In fact, environmental policies encourage carpooling. What we need to get off the roads are people who drive alone to work during rush-hour, not the family carload heading to the amusement park.
The other option (giving families discounts for buying monthly passes) has its own problems:
- We already get a federal tax break for buying transit passes.
- Once again: Why is this treated differently from any other form of group discount? Certainly others, like offering a discount for someone who buys a transit pass for 12 consecutive months, would be more popular and more successful.
- It increases paperwork, which benefits accountants and civil servants more than it does anyone else. This is especially true if families have to prove relationships before they can get the discount.
- Unless more people start buying passes as a result, this would decrease revenue for the STM, requiring either more cash from the city, reduced services or higher fares for everyone else.
- There’s no direct link between number of people in a household and ability to pay for public transit. There are plenty of poor people without families (indeed, for many of them that tends to be why they’re poor in the first place), and plenty of rich people with families (where mommy and daddy both have their cars and drive them to work, coming up with some flimsy excuse why they can’t take public transit).
It’s a gimmick, and I doubt it’s going to do anything to help public transit. Instead, more buses, lower fares and more investment in things like reserved bus lanes will bring people out of their cars. It’s boring, but it works.