REI Runs Its First TV Ads

 
REI, which enjoyed a 6.9% increase in sales from 2007 to 2008 because of increased interest in the low-cost, outdoor vacations, is running its first two TV spots during the holiday buying season this year.

The first ad features a group of hikers huddled under a rock during a rainstorm. "For instant friends, just add water." The second ad features a mother and daughter on a summit sharing a slice of bread with peanut butter at dusk. "They discover a 4-star restaurant has nothing on 4 million stars."

See the ads on REI's "Find Out" campaign on YouTube. REI's press release announcing the two-ad campaign is here on its website.

GoLite Semi-Annual Warehouse Clearance Sale December 4-6

Exploit the Internet's Most Useful Company...for Free

Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” My mission is to illustrate how publishers can take advantage of Google’s useful services to better manage their brand, publicity campaigns, and websites. From simple search to Analytics, here is how Google can help you.

Google Search
Unless your commitment to paper and ink is so firm that you still use a phonebook, you probably use Google Search every week. As the world’s online Rolodex, Google handles 60 percent of the world’s search traffic. The Google search engine is so accurate and fast that it obviates the need to bookmark any website. Key in a common search, and the first result is often what you seek.

Google Search has powerful operators that make the service even more useful:

• Quote a phrase like this: “book packager,” which is more likely to return service companies than cardboard boxes.
• Find all instances of a word or phrase on one specific website like this: “ “My Book Title” site:nytimes.com.”
• But Google’s real usefulness is in its value-added features—the parsing of all those correct searches and their delivery to you.

Google Alerts
Instead of going to the news, let the news come to you. A well-tuned suite of Google Alerts can be like a news website that is custom-made to deliver only the news that interests you. Google Alerts allows you to create a continuous search that will periodically report on its results. Instead of visiting google.com once a week to sift through all the search results for new information on Lance Armstrong, I can create a Google Alert that will search 24-7 for new search results on Lance Armstrong. Alerts will send me an e-mail as soon as it finds a new search result, once a day, or once a week. For those of us with clogged inboxes, Google Alerts are also deliverable via an RSS feed.

How Publicists Can Use Google Alerts. Google Alerts streamlines the task of tracking online publicity hits with continuous searches for a book title or author name. It’s best to quote a phrase for more relevant results. With Alerts, you can discover new websites or bloggers that might be willing to review future books.

How Editors Can Use Google Alerts. Find new authors using topical Alerts. Say you acquire books on birding and you’re looking for an author to write about birds in Maine. You could create a Google Alert for “birding in Maine” to see who shows up in the results over a period of time. As you become ­familiar with the landscape, you could further hone your Alert keywords. An author in hand is worth…

How Production Can Use Google Alerts. Using a keyword search, such as “print-on-demand” or “ebook xml,” production ­editors can follow trends and new developments.

Blogger
Until recently, publishing has been a one-way dialogue, but publishers and authors can learn a lot from their readers. Create a community using Blogger. Blogger is Google’s free blogging service. Within two minutes, you can register, pick a visual design, and begin blogging with text, photos, video, and more. Authors can tag each blog post with topical keywords. Blog readers can leave comments, beginning a dialogue with authors. Readers can subscribe to the blog using its built-in RSS feeds or via e-mail. In fact, with some design know-how, a publisher could created a full-featured website and online catalog using nothing more than Blogger.

How Publicists Use Blogger. Raise an author’s online profile and create a community around an author or book. Since Blogger is part of Google, blog posts that link to outside websites will quickly raise the blogger’s ranking in search engine results. The most popular blogs on the web treat blog posts as conversation starters.

Google Search-based Keyword Tool
Everyone wants to know how to get more website traffic from online searches. The answer, “search engine ­optimization,” sounds technical and fancy, but Google has a strong self-interest in making your website relevant to its users. Google provides the Search-based Keyword Tool to help make websites more relevant.

Here’s how it works:

• Plug your website URL into the Search-based Keyword Tool.
• It scans your website, noting keyword phrases.
• It compares your keywords against searches by ­actual Google search users.
• It suggests keywords you should use on your website to capture more traffic from future Google searches.

Google Ad Planner
This is undoubtedly one of the more powerful services Google offers because it gives users a glimpse into web traffic statistics for a huge number of websites.

How Marketers and Publicists Can Use Ad Planner. Discover websites that your potential customers are visiting. Use Google’s default audiences (“Baby Boomers,” “Culinary Aficionados,” etc.) or set custom geographic (country, state, city) and demographic (age, household income, gender, etc.) criteria to find the websites that audience is already frequenting. If those websites are part of Google’s vast ad network, you can launch an AdWords campaign directed at a specific group of websites and their underlying demographic. Marketers can build campaigns around keywords or target websites, too. This is an unbelievably powerful tool.

Discover difficult-to-obtain web traffic statistics for most websites. Since Google provides the majority of web searches, captures traffic data via Google Analytics (see below), and collects ad-serving data via its AdWords network, it is in the unique position to make educated guesses about the extent of web traffic for any given website. For example, Google Ad Planner tells us that 21 million unique visitors visit nytimes.com each month, viewing 880 million pages of the site. In my experience, Ad Planner underestimates web traffic, but it offers both a ballpark and a pecking order. These data help publicists determine which websites, and for the first time bloggers, are most influential to their publicity campaigns.

Google Analytics
How well do you know your own website? Google ­Analytics can bring to light critical data about who is visiting your website, what they read, and how they got there.

How Marketers Can Use Google Analytics. There are books on this topic. Put simply, tell Google Analytics what websites you want to track and it will give you a piece of code to insert into your website. That code tracks your website’s traffic, offering you a wealth of data.

The key data are these:

• Visits: number of visits to your website in a given time period
• Pageviews: number of pages those visitors saw
• Absolute unique visitors: number of individual computers that visited your website (approximates individual people)
• Direct traffic: number of visits from people typing in your URL or using a bookmark to your URL (approximates the loyalty of your visitors)
• Referring sites: number of visits from sites that link to yours (These data are particularly useful for publicists to discover the influence of online publicity or specific websites)
• Keywords: the words a user typed into a search engine that led them to your website

Google Analytics delves much deeper and can tell you what keywords a reader used to find your website, what pages they read, how big their monitor was, what web browser and operating system they were using, and more. You can use this information in dozens of ways, and many marketers will use Google Analytics to improve website navigation, tailor their home pages to match user interests, create landing pages for hot titles, and track online advertising campaigns.

A Quick Case Study in Googling
One of our authors is named “Jamie Smith.” He has a common name and his book with us was his first. Jamie is a bike racer and bike race announcer, but he had no “platform” at all. In fact, he was invisible to Google—you couldn’t find the right “Jamie Smith” in the first five pages of results.

So I set him up with Blogger. I bought him two domain names, ridersready.net for his blog and thatsbikeracing.com for his, um, bibliographic information. I filled each site’s metadescription with good keywords to make them more relevant to Google Search. I linked both sites to each other and to velopress.com, which raised their Google PageRank. Next, I hooked Jamie’s blog feed into AmazonConnect (now Author Central), juicing his PageRank even more. I “burned” his blog feed using FeedBurner, which gave his blog better search engine visibility and more ways for readers to subscribe to his posts. Before launching his book’s press release into the wild, I made sure to list both websites in the “About Jamie” section in the hope that websites and bloggers would link to them, which would raise their ­PageRank. I blogged about Jamie’s new book on the ­VeloPress blog, linking to both sites and boosting that PageRank even more. I installed separate Analytics tracking codes into his blog html and his biographical site, shelled out a few hundred bucks for a little online advertising to help get Jamie’s blog off the ground, and watched the web traffic roll in. Today, my “Jamie Smith” is the third Google result and “Jamie Smith Roadie” is the entire first page of Google results. Take that, other Jamie Smiths! Oh, and over 13,000 people have visited Jamie’s blog.

And all this is free, courtesy of Google! All you need to get started is a little time and a username (or four).    

Dave Trendler is Marketing and Publicity Manager at VeloPress. He has somewhat accidentally accumulated at least four Google accounts while using Ad Planner, AdWords, Alerts, Analytics, Blogger, Book Search, Calendar, Chrome, Custom Search, Desktop, Docs, Earth, FeedBurner, Gmail, Goog-411, iGoogle, Image Search, Keyword Tool, Maps, News, Picasa, Profiles, Reader, Search-based Keyword Tool, Toolbar, Trends, Voice, Webmaster Tools, YouTube, and his most recent addition—a Google Wave account.

This article appeared in the PubWest EndSheet No. Two during summer, 2009.

Would You Like a Copy of Your Receipt?

Science News, a news magazine devoted to making the science behind new findings accessible to non-scientists, published this story revealing a surprising source for bisphenol-A contamination in humans--cash register and credit card receipts.








Photo credit: Yan-san via Flickr

The Internet Solves All Mysteries! (Even After 23 Years)

Last weekend at 12:45 a.m., after 23 years of (okay, very intermittent) searching, the Internet answered a seemingly unanswerable question I'd had since 1986.

I played my first video game in 1984. I was in second grade and living in Massachusetts when one of my dad's coworkers gave him some ancient PC (even for then!). By PC, I mean it had a keyboard and a monitor. It must have been a Commodore 64, though I swear ours only displayed black and white. The "hard drive" for this thing closely resembled a cassette tape player. All the game cartridges, for games like hangman and various other semi-educational games, were cassette tapes. The thing was abysmally slow and I got more enjoyment out of watching it boot up than from the games. From the time you turned it on to the time it was ready to use, you could make a bag of popcorn and eat half of it.

Two years later, my family got an Atari 2600 along with games Air-Sea Battle, Centipede, Chopper Command (one of my favorites), Crackpots (a fun one), Defender, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong Jr., Dragster, Frogger, Joust, Missile Command, Moon Patrol, Qbert (which I despised), and Zaxxon.

I remember all of these games being just impossibly difficult. Then again, I had not yet reached the apex of my gaming skills (attained '94-'98 between the Super Metroid/Legend of Zelda/Super Mario Bros. years and Mario Kart 64).

But there was one game we owned that I didn't list and this is the game that has tormented me for 23 years. That game is Pitfall II: Lost Caverns. I don't at all regret my youth spent on Super Metroid, Legend of Zelda, or Mario Kart, but I truly wish I could take back the time I spent on Pitfall II. This game was a boring, lame youth waster. Yet it had a catchy soundtrack. Perhaps the ultimate catchy soundtrack.

You see, there was this one section of the game where you had to jump and catch a horizontally travelling balloon which would, of course, being a balloon, stop travelling horizontally and, as if sensing Pitfall Harry's urgent need to ascend, begin travelling vertically. During your ballooned ascent you had to dodge horizontally travelling bats which, being a particularly vicious type of bat and the variety for which balloons are mortal enemies and perhaps occasional prey, would explode your balloon, sending poor Harry plummeting to his demise. Quite a pitfall, as it were.

But most importantly, whenever Pitfall Harry was ascending on a balloon, the game soundtrack would switch to this magnificent! Reeling! Airy! Drunken! Free-wheeling song! The song so perfectly suited a precarious balloon ride that it was etched into my brain! Well, perhaps it was an endless repetition of bad balloon rides and slow-to-improve balloon-piloting skills that contributed. Repetition being the key to learning and all. And to be honest, I really don't remember any stages past the balloon ride part, so it's quite possible my 23-year old quest is the result of this particular failed quest on the Atari 2600. I swore to my wife that I'd heard this same song in other contexts: a ferris wheel or a carousel, on cartoons, in a tipsy movie scene, etc. Yet I could never remember quite enough detail about those contexts to be able to check song credits.

At this point, I knew the balloon ride song was a waltz. It had the three beat of the 6/8 time signature. Years of grilling my classical music-loving mom and hours spent skipping through Strauss's works and the works of other Viennese composers turned up zilch. I'd sing the song for musically well-rounded friends and they'd be no help at all.

So I hadn't checked in with the all-knowing Internet on my Pitfall balloon song question in maybe a year. On Saturday night around midnight, struck by a particularly interesting and dramatic tuba rendition of the "dun dun duhhh!" sound of suspense on 30 Rock, I began Googling "dun dun duh suspense drama sound effect". (But to no avail. There are an unfortunate few results that might be turned into an entertaining ringtone.) Pretty soon I was thoroughly rabbit holed into Googling sound effects when I suddenly remembered my little "Pitfall II problem".

I Googled "pitfall atari video game hot-air balloon ride" and the glorious result? A YouTube video of the balloon ride! (Go ahead, watch it now. This is where you decide I'm nuts.)



Pitfall II was taunting me. After two decades of not hearing the song, I got to hear it again. It was exactly as I'd remembered but I was no closer to discovering its name. (No, I didn't notice the first comment about this video.)

I Googled "Pitfall II". The top entry was this Wikipedia entry. I clicked skeptically. Lo and behold, the sixth paragraph:

"Another enhancement over the previous game is the addition of a soundtrack. The musical cues act as subtle rewards and punishments for performance. The main "heroic" theme plays for a short while before reaching a loop of atmospheric music. When Harry collects a treasure, the main theme begins again. If Harry dies, a downbeat version of the theme plays, continuing until Harry succeeds at finding more treasure. Finally, if Harry ascends using the Balloon, Sobre las Olas ("Over the Waves") is played."

SOBRE LAS OLAS! OVER THE WAVES! BY JUVENTINO ROSAS!

A classic waltz by a Mexican composer published in New Orleans? Now I can understand why it took the Internet 23 years to answer my question.

Listen to the Edison Military Band play Sobre Las Olas and picture yourself floating from a balloon high above the Earth (or below, as in Pitfall), walking precariously across a tightrope, enjoying a circular trip around the carousel or carnival swing set, reeling drunk on the high seas, Googling aimlessly...

Next up? The intro music to the WWII u-boat simulator Wolfpack, the between-programs string music I heard on our local NPR affiliate KCFR (sounds like Copland?), tunes from the Japanese pop band "Seagull Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her", oh, and a "dun dun duh" ringtone! Because now, after 23 years, the suspense is finally over.

It's a Good Thing Flu Season Is Off Season: Exercise and Immunity

The New York Times Well blog, in its ever-snarked, contrarian way, asked recently "Does Exercise Boost Immunity?". The answer: moderate exercise boosts the immune system and intense exercise hampers it.

This answer requires some explanation. What do moderate and intense mean and just how much boosting and hampering are we talking about?

According to this article, moderate exercise is compared to a leisurely jog or walk. For endurance athletes, a leisurely jog is a warm-up. Intense exercise is described as "a workout or race of an hour or more during which your heart rate and respiration soar and you feel as if you are working hard". For endurance athletes, this is 2 out of every 3 workouts.

The endurance athlete's "neck check" needs some refinement. The traditional guideline for endurance athletes is to go ahead with a workout if your illness is a head cold -- above the neck. If you're sick below the neck -- with a cough or something intestinal (or a fever) -- ditch the workout to avoid getting worse. 

One expert interviewed said that "Moderate exercise...may prop up your immune response and lessen the duration and severity of a mild infection....It is okay to exercise if you have a simple head cold or congestion — in fact, it may improve the way you feel. I would avoid heavy, prolonged exercise with a head cold, though.". 

So endurance athletes fighting a cold (or fighting to stay healthy in a germ-ridden workplace) should adjust their workout intensity. Skip the intervals and stick with easy, aerobic workouts like a zone 1-2 ride or base run for intervals.

Heck, isn't that what the off season is for?

News for Nerds Update: Google and Windows 7 Edition

Google now commands 6% of all internet traffic. Relatively, that doesn't sound like much. Absolutely, that is a lot of internet traffic. Take that Facebook!

But Google isn't paying much for all that bandwidth. Why? It seems that Google has been buying up huge amounts of previously unused fiber optic cable. Google doesn't just draw traffic, Google actually transports its own traffic. Google also seems to trade traffic with other large cable owners in a "swap", with no money changing hands. Wired.com "YouTube's Bandwidth Bill Is Zero"

Microsoft released Windows 7 today. Lifehacker, my favorite tech blog, released its Complete Guide to Windows 7 which includes:

• how best to install it (upgrade vs. clean, partition vs. traditional)
• new features in Win 7
• new mouse and keyboard shortcuts
• tweaks, hacks, and more

I've been using Win 7 since July, and I'm loving it. Then again, I've been using Win 7 on a screamin' new PC, so that might be juicing its performance.

VeloSwap, the Cycling Flea Market, Is This Saturday

Here's an obligatory plug for VeloSwap, the consumer cycling show that is part of the my employer's corporate "family".

Okay, so VeloSwap is usually mobbed by 12,000 to 20,000 bargain-starved, two-wheel fanatics.

And, alright, it's got that BMX stunt team making noise every few minutes.

Sure, sure, it's located in Denver's most miserable venue, the National Western Complex (home of our Pro Rodeo and right across the street from the Purina factory).

BUT, VeloSwap is also a great way to rub elbows with people who, like you, are really passionate about riding (and getting a great deal).

Check out the 'Swap and see if you can score that sweet Serotta road frame you've been looking for or a lightly used wheelset fer yer fixie or a new mountain fork. At VeloSwap, you really never know what--or who--you're going to run into.

Barnes & Noble's Kindle Killer Features Adorable Name

Barnes & Noble unveiled its ebook reader today and it's called... The Nook! It's a great name, I think, giving rise to warm associations like nooks, crannies, cozy little spots to curl up and read... a digital book. The name sounds like book, but perhaps that "n" is for new. It's just a short hop to "I'm reading a nook." Where "Kindle" conjured kindling (and paper book burnings?), Nook sounds nice.

The LA Times has a great bullet point review of the Nook's features, which you can also read on this Barnes & Noble product spec page.

The B&N product page offers a side-by-side comparison of the Nook and Kindle 2. Notable Nookish features include:

• both wireless and wifi connectivity
  
• support for the open-source EPUB and eReader formats
• grayscale e-ink and -- taking a page from the iPod's album cover browser -- a 3.5 inch color touchscreen for browsing your library and navigation
• USB connectivity for direct file import
  
• the ability to "lend" ebooks to any friend with a computer or smartphone for 14 days.
  

Combine this with B&N's industry-leading store (over 700K titles), and you've got a pretty compelling device. In fact, the only two features Kindle has over Nook are 4 more days of battery life and the ability to read Word docs.

News for Nerds Roundup: Book Publishing Edition

Google Announces Its Ebook Store
The world's largest ebook library announced "Google Editions", a 500,000 title ebook store that will launch during the first half of 2010. Reactions to the news varied. Bezos, with his 350,000 ebooks, was overheard muttering "Dang!".* Barnes & Noble's 200,000 non-Google-provided ebooks alternated cheers of "Crap!" and "Yahoo!"*. Manufacturers of the 15 ereader devices expected to launch by mid-2010 cheered for joy* while Kindle owners sighed with disappointment*, victims of their all-too-familiar love of glitzy proprietary formats (ahem, Apple).

Meanwhile, a Popular Science magazine reader explains How to Build Your Own Kindle
A Popular Science reader builds an ebook reader that's full color and can read any ebook format. Cost? 1 hour and $100 less than a Kindle. Disclaimer: Okay, the guy just loaded a few ereader software programs onto a tablet PC. Not that cool. Still, the point remains: Kindle is overpriced and underfeatured and, courtesy of Google, about to be out-titled.

Meanwhile, the RIAA and MPAA learned that they have no hope against BitTorrent.
Book publishers attending the Frankfurt Book Show this weekend fretted openly at this sign of things to come.*

Meanwhile, the Association of American Publishers scratched its head*, noting that ebook sales accounted for just 1.6% of the $5.25 billion in U.S. book sales in the first half of 2009.

*not really

Federal Trade Commission to Regulate Blogs, Twitter

Soon, Bloggers Must Give Full Disclosure
New York Times

"The F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently. The new rules also take aim at celebrities, who will now need to disclose any ties to companies, should they promote products on a talk show or on Twitter. A second major change, which was not aimed specifically at bloggers or social media, was to eliminate the ability of advertisers to gush about results that differ from what is typical — for instance, from a weight loss supplement."

"“If a product is provided to bloggers, the F.T.C. will consider that, in most cases, to be a material connection even if the advertiser has no control over the content of the blogs," said a lobbyist."

What this means for marketers:

• Nothing at all! The burden seems to be entirely on bloggers.
• Bloggers may clam up initially. Though the regulation will apply to all bloggers, as with any other federal regulation, enforcement will be isolated to highly trafficked blogs and to those instances in which a blog reader reports an infringement or sues. Like all social networks, blogging caters to niches. Few blogs are so big that they will come into the FTC's radar. I think we can expect business as usual for the majority of blogs that cater to niche readerships.
  

What this means for bloggers:

• The burden is on bloggers, not publicists, to disclose that they received a product for free. But how? Will bloggers be required to disclose on every post? Can a blog post a disclosure disclaimer on its About page and consider itself compliant?
  
• This article does not refer to a value minimum for disclosure. All free products require disclosure.
  
• What about products reviewed and then returned to the manufacturer?
• This new regulation says that bloggers must disclose to readers when they receive a free product or payment to review a product. What about when a marketer provides both free samples to a blogger and also advertises on that blog? Is it possible to separate editorial from advertising when just one person manages both efforts?
• What will happen to spamblogs, blogs which republish product descriptions in order to capture search engine results and earn money through retail affiliate programs? Spamblogs have no "person" running them, but they use the blog platform to earn a buck.

This regulation is win-neutral-lose. Consumers should benefit from full disclosure about possible conflicts of interest. Unscrupulous manufacturers, the ones paying bloggers to review their products favorably, will lose an unethical way to advertise. The majority of manufacturers should benefit in the long run from more trust with consumers.

Many bloggers will lose big, especially the ones accepting payments. This regulation will put some blogs out of business, but given the seemingly endless supply of them, this seems like a small loss to society.

For the idea of blogging, this regulation is a big win. While many bloggers will lose income, this regulation represents a return--at least idealistically--to the spiritual roots of the blog.

Update March 25, 2010: the FTC's announcement and the FTC's actual guidelines (pdf).

News for Nerds Update

Whoa! I really fell off the blog pace there, didn't I? What happened? Well, I was training for a 5K, ran it, got sick, and went to Interbike. Now I'm back, still recovering, and just now checking the news. Funny how the world moves on, even when you check out for awhile. So here's where I'm behind the curve:

Tungle makes Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCal talk to each other. No more "I didn't get your meeting invite because you're on a Mac!" excuses?

Take a look at Lifehacker's intro to Google Wave, Google's new integration of email, IM chat, and web apps for online collaboration.

I've been a die-hard eat-lunch-outer. I spent thousands of my first job's meager salary exploring Baltimore's Lexington Market. When I moved to Washington, DC, I blew my cash on Starbucks and pay-by-the-pound buffets (blech). In Boulder, I've been burning cash at Salvaggio's Deli, the Spicy Pickle, Ozo, and the like. This isn't the most affordable noontime nosh strategy. Here are some suggestions I haven't yet tried on how to make packing a lunch less like tossing a frozen burrito into a sack:

• Washington Post packed lunch menu suggestions
• Lifehacker's survey of various lunchy tips
• Seattle Times's extensive suggestion list, with recipes
  

It's All About Performance

Cyclists know it's all about performance. Trackies and hipsters take a hike!

BolderBOULDER Warehouse Sale! Aug 28

The BolderBoulder is hosting its warehouse sale on Friday, August 28th!

BolderBoulder Warehouse Sale
Friday, August 28th
8am-6pm
5500 Central Ave.
Boulder, CO 80301

The official announcement is here.

The sale, which will somehow feature identical pricing on the online store and in person (how will they track inventory?), includes $5 technical t-shirts by adidas. Check out the tech tees here.

Neptune Mountaineering Hosts Multi-Brand Rep Sale - Aug 14

Neptune Mountaineering hosted a summer clearance and "rep" sale from August 14-23. A rep sale is when sales reps pool their inventory to sell off the sample products they've used throughout the season to try to sell product into retail stores. It's like a warehouse sale, except with a smaller selection and, for apparel, mostly size medium.

Did you make it to this sale? How was it? Let us know in the comments.

SIGG bottles contained bisphenol-A

In a letter posted on the SIGG website this month, CEO Steve Wasik admitted that SIGG bottles manufactured prior to August 2008 contained the controversial chemical bisphenol-A (BPA).

Wasik's letter claims that all SIGG bottles manufactured after August 2008 use a new polyester-based liner that contains no BPA. He explains that (company sponsored?) laboratory testing had shown that the BPA-laced proprietary liner SIGG used did not leach BPA into common liquids like water, juice, soda, etc., and that SIGG continued to sell the BPA-lined bottles believing they were safe.

In an interesting marketing twist, the SIGG website shows consumers how to determine between pre- and post-August 2008 made bottles. I suppose SIGG loyalists (people who enjoy cute, $20 aluminum) may recycle their BPA bottles and replace them with the newer model.

Read SIGG's letter of admission.

The consumer blog Z Recommends offers a timeline of SIGG's misinformation campaign about BPA in its bottles.

SIGG clearly has violated consumer trust.

Read this blog's posts about bisphenol-A.

News for Nerds Update

Biologists are beginning a new round of experiments on life-prolonging chemicals called sirtuin activators that activate the same life-prolonging pathways as the 30% calorie restriction diet.

If you feel like you're in a rut, you probably are, and it's likely been (temporarily) engraved into your brain. To break out of a rut, you need a vacation.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, despite having the word "safety" in its name", seems to have withheld data demonstrating the dangers of distracted driving. "The highway safety researchers estimated that cellphone use by drivers caused around 955 fatalities and 240,000 accidents over all in 2002...'We’re looking at a problem that could be as bad as drunk driving, and the government has covered it up,” said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety.'" The Adminstration was pressured by members of Congress to conduct the study and keep the findings private. The telecommunications industry is a large political donor.

There's another reason to run all your email newsletter subscriptions through Gmail: the new auto-unsubscribe button.

The Real Advantages and Benefits of Electric Cars

I just read about Nissan's upcoming Leaf electric car. Hybrid and electric cars tout all sorts of tree-huggy, heart-warming benefits, but for me to shell out for a car that can only go 100 miles at a time, it has to have some cold, hard benefits to yours truly. Others can sell the emotional benefits; here's my list of immediate, tangible, self-centered benefits of electric cars. Add your ideas in the comments!

• No more oil changes! For people who pay others to have their oil changed, this means no more attempted ripoffs by grease monkey mechanics. If you're a DIY oil changer like me, this means no more tedious trips to Auto Zone, flipping through a tattered parts catalog, lugging cases of oil home, messy driveway oil changes, and lunchbreak trips to your local HAZMAT disposal facility to drop off a few windshield wiper fluid bottles full of used motor oil that's been sitting in your garage for a year.
  
• More reliable: Fewer moving parts means less wear and tear, fewer maintenance costs, and better reliability. Batteries have no moving parts and electric drives apply force directly to each wheel. They're also low heat. This means no more pistons, crankshaft, transmission, transmission fluid changes, radiator, engine coolant, fans, catalytic converters, exhaust systems, mufflers. You don't have to maintain those things, repair them, or burn gasoline moving their weight around. Electric cars should be simpler, lighter weight, and more efficient systems.
  
• Less expensive: Better reliability combined with not using gas should make electric cars cheaper than gasoline ones. Electricity is cheaper than gas. Its price doesn't fluctuate as much so the costs are more predictable.
  
• No more emissions inspections: Okay, depending on your state, this might be a 1 hour, $25 commitment once every two years. Still.
  
• 4WD: Since electric drives can apply force to each wheel, more electric cars should be four-wheel drive or at least all-wheel drive. That should equal safer cars.
• 4WB: Regenerative braking should be safer. I'm not sure how regenerative braking works, but I think it might involve resistance magnets. If so, then each wheel should be able to brake independently, meaning that more electric cars should have all-wheel or four-wheel braking.
• More data: Ever since some friends and I accidentally rented a Chrysler Sebring convertible in the late '90s, I've been 0ften annoyed that cars don't offer more data to drivers. We got all excited seeing the Sebring's real-time reports on gas mileage. There's nothing inherent about electric cars that they should offer more data, but they all seem to. After you park, Toyota's Prius rates the efficiency of the driving you just did. Why don't more cars offer higher tech features like this?
• Safer? I haven't seen any burning or exploding cars lately, but not carrying 10-15 gallons of flammable liquid that is designed to explode when ignited inside a hot hunk of metal seems safer than doing so.

News for Nerds Update

Your Facebook profile photo might appear in a "Fakebook ad", luring your friends.

A reporter reviews Baltimore's new WiMax network: "WiMax delivers speeds much faster than many DSL circuits, rivaling many cable modems. I often clock downloads at 6 megabits per second (equivalent to basic cable service in many areas) and uploads at faster than 1 megabit per second."

Twitter explains itself to unhip business owners using language like "best practices" and "highly relevant" and offering "case studies".

FCC questions Apple and AT&T on removal of Google Voice apps from the iPhone app store.

Senate Investigating Cellphone Industry

I've never seen David Pogue so upset!

The New York Times' tech columnist has offered Congress a roadmap for investigating the U.S. cellular industry. Among Pogue's complaints:

• Double-billing: Why are both sender and receiver billed for calls and text messages? A traditional landline call bills only the placer of the call.
• Long and unnecessary voicemail instructions. Pogue estimates that Verizon alone earns $850 million a year by explaining how to use a phone.

Related:

• A Guide to Lowering Your Phone Costs with VOIP
• Use Your Broadband Connection to Save Money

"Funemployed" and Staycationers Boosting Endurance Sports

Back in February, I declared that triathlon is not recession-proof and made some predictions about what would happen to the sport during this recession. Since this recession is likely to continue into spring 2010, time will tell how right I am. Right now, though, I'm happy to report my wrongness.

This is a great time for some in the endurance sports industry, especially athletes and producers of lower price-point products.

Aside from the Slowtwitch.com poll I mentioned in my February post, the June issue of Runner's World magazine ran the first story I've seen addressing endurance sports and the economy. "Fiscally Fit" by Yishane Lee is a survey article of how the recession is affecting run.

Some of her findings:

• Runners are running more now than pre-recession
• Race attendance is up and registrations are filling up faster than usual
• Race entry fees haven't changed
• Corporate sponsorships--both for races and elite pro runners--are way down

Read the Runner's World online survey that inspired this article at runnersworld.com/economy.

Reed Albergotti at The Wall Street Journal has found that "funemployed" and furloughed athletes are spending more time training and racing. In his June 9 article, Fast Times for Jobless Runners: As Unemployed Amp Up Their Training, Marathon Results and Participation Rise, Reed shows not only that there are more runners, but also that they are actually faster!

Some highlights:

• Participation in 2009 is up over 5%.
• Marathons, triathlons, and road runs are filling registrations in record time. "With the economy in the doldrums, more people are discovering thatwithout those 12-hour workdays, they're able to pursue fitness goalslike never before."
• In 2009, 4.6% of marathoners could qualify for the Boston Marathon. That's a 39% increase over 2008.
• Average gym membership has actually risen 18% this year.

And on July 6, Iowa's WCFCourier.com published a story "Road races not feeling sting of economy". This article provides several examples of running races selling out registrations--because of the down economy.

The main points:

• "Nationwide, several races appear to actually be prospering in the current economy." Even my hometown's Bolder Boulder 10K, which hit record participation numbers last year, "had its second highest number of entries and a record number of finishers."
• Endurance event race registrations, ranging from $70-$150, are cheap in comparison to travel and vacationing. By racing, endurance athletes are saving money. That's one way to "staycation".

Americans exercising? During a recession? We must reward these energetic people with The Pro Deal for All Americans!

UPDATE July 22: "Running for Lean Times" from the Wall Street Journal and "Spent, before race: Sales of marathon goods still strong" from the Boston Globe discuss the emotional benefits of running when times are tough and the shopping mentality of the "bucket list" marathon runner.

Your Two Minutes of Hate, Amazon Edition

Amazon deleted ebook editions of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle users' accounts and their Kindle devices and then refunded their money.

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle Devices

Amazon was right to delete these books from Kindle accounts. (It seems that the irony is the story here!) But this point is really scary: "An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function."

Yet Amazon sold the ebooks anyway because it didn't know any better.

This lapse demonstrates my leading critique of Amazon--that Amazon has no way to vet any of its content and relies instead on unreliable sources. Any user can suggest changes to an Amazon product page. From a product perspective, Amazon is a dumb database (and from a sales perspective, a pretty smart one). Amazon is the Wikipedia of the retail world.

Clearly, Amazon's reliance on the goodwill of its users and vendors is flawed. It's fortunate, then, that Amazon can delete its mistakes. Who knew Bezos had the right and ability to push a button and delete books off a Kindle?

Oh wait--he doesn't have the right. According to the New York Times story cited above, the Kindle terms of service say explicitly that when a user buys an ebook from Amazon, they have bought the right to a permanent copy of the book.

So what if an unreliable vendor sells an illegal copy on Amazon? Apparently, Amazon is willing to incite the wrath of its Kindle customers to defend a copyright. Nervous, future ebook publishers everywhere are relaxing just a little.

How to Disable DNS Prefetching in Firefox 3.5

If you just upgraded to Firefox 3.5 and have been frustrated with many "server not found" error messages, you might be having trouble with a new feature introduced into the 3.5 version of Firefox called DNS prefetching. DNS prefetching looks up every link on a web page and figures out where that link is going. This is supposed to speed up web browsing. Obviously if you're getting a lot of "server not found" messages, DNS prefetching is really slowing you down. This feature needs some work. Until it's fixed, you can disable DNS prefetching in two ways:

• Open Firefox 3.5.
• Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit enter.
• Click "I'll be careful, I promise!".

This "about:config" menu is where users can make changes to Firefox's configuration.

• In the "filter:" bar, type "prefetch". This search should bring up one result: "network.prefetch-next".

You'll see in the "Value" column that this preference is set to "true".

• To disable DNS prefetching in Firefox 3.5, simply double-click the gray line to switch this value to "false". This new setting is now saved and should take effect immediately. If you ever need to turn DNS prefetching back on, just do all these steps again but set the preference value back to "true".

• If you are still getting lots of "server not found" error messages, you can close Firefox and restart it.
• If you are still getting lots of errors, you can restart your computer.
• If you still getting lots of errors, there is another setting you can try.
• Open Firefox 3.5 and go to about:config as described above.
• In the filter bar, type "network.dns.disablePrefetch".
• There should be no search result.

There is no search result because you will have to create this setting.

• Right-click in the blank search result area.
• Highlight "New" and then click "Boolean".
• Type "network.dns.disablePrefetch" into the space. Hit OK.

• Choose the value "true" and hit OK.

• To confirm that you created this new setting, type "network.dns.disablePrefetch" in the about:config filter bar.

If you created the setting succesfully, it will show up in the search area.

• If you are still getting lots of "server not found" error messages, you can close Firefox and restart it.
• If you are still getting lots of errors, you can restart your computer.
• If you still getting lots of errors, then you might want to consider uninstalling Firefox 3.5 and installing Firefox 3.1, which did not included any DNS prefetching features.

Other resources: This Mozilla article about controlling DNS prefetching in Firefox 3.5

National Park Fee-Free Weekends

Our Colorado-grown Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, announced in June that the National Park Service would offer free park admission on three weekends this summer!

1 out of 3 National Park Service parks will offer free admission on June 20-21, July 18-19, and August 15-16. Here's the list of parks that are participating.

Windows 7 50% Off Sale Ending Today

Microsoft is offering a pre-sale discounts on its next generation operating system. You can pre-order Windows 7 for 50% off the full retail price until midnight Eastern time tonight. Microsoft has said that the offer is good "while supplies last", which is sort of funny considering that the software won't actually be available until October.

To upgrade from Windows 2000, XP, and Vista, that's just $50 for Windows 7 Home edition and $100 for Windows 7 Professional!

Many software columnists and tech reviewers have called Windows 7 the "fully baked" version of Microsoft's Vista. Where Vista was widely criticized, even despised, 7 is earning positive press from Lifehacker, Gizmodo, and the New York Times's David Pogue.

Google Planning Its Own Operating System

Google announced this week that it will release an open-source operating system for netbooks this fall. The Google Chrome OS will operate netbooks, which are scaled-down laptops designed primarily for doing webby things, like reading the news, checking, email, etc.

Google has mentioned several goals for its Linux-based OS:

• It will be free and open-source.
• It will boot quickly, getting users onto the web in seconds.
• Its design will be minimalist, much like the Google Chrome web browser.
• Most of the functionality of computers powered by the OS will come from web-based applications, like Gmail, Google Docs, etc.
• Files will also be available offline, presumably using Google Gears and Google Apps.
  

Google Plans a PC Operating System
New York Times

Introducing the Google Chrome OS
Official Google Blog

Google Releasing Chrome Operating System
Lifehacker

Do Kids Really Need Exercise?

The New York Times is many things and lately it seems to be a personal trainer. The Times "Well" blog, anchored by Tara Parker-Pope, is offering everything from free nutritional advice to free marathon training plans.

So I was a little surprised to see contrarian writer Gina Kolata questioning the common belief that kids need exercise. In "How Much Exercise Do Children Need?", Kolata argues, as is her familiar refrain, that there is little clinical research supporting the conventional wisdom. Kolata raises these points:

• Research shows only small health improvements in some (not all) kids who exercise
• Kids don't get continuous exercise the way adults do. They exercise in spurts.
• There is no evidence that kids participate in their childhood sports in their adult lives. I.e. Soccer kids don't necessarily play adult league soccer.
  

Parker-Pope offers a different approach in "Help for Budding Couch Potatoes". She cites a new study published in the JAMA that shows that "by the time a child is 15, daily activity falls to less than one-third of the level it was at age 9". She offers strategies to help kids stay active and these other findings:

• Active parents don't necessarily inspire activity in their kids. Adults often exercise away from home, so kids aren't exposed to exercise.
• The most physically active kids have close friends who are physically active.
• Kids are more likely to exercise when parents offer logistical support and help with daily living like making meals, driving to practices, etc.
• Half the kids drop out of sports programs by age 12 because they don't enjoy them. This is probably because many programs are overbooked and kids do "far too much standing around".

When it comes to the benefits of exercise, Parker-Pope's article contradicts Kolata's: "Overall, teenagers who take part in sports earn better grades, have fewer behavior problems and are less likely to drop out of school."

Okay, so there's no clinical research showing that kids need exercise. Do we really need clinical research to tell us this? Kids run everywhere. They play all the time. And when they don't, they get overweight in epidemic proportions. At any age, it's human nature to exercise, clinically proven or not.

Fitness People vs. Outdoor People

Back in December, I wrote about a creative agency's white paper, "Actively Different: Fitness vs. Outdoor Messaging". In that short post, I mentioned that the agency's interesting observation was this:

The outdoor-oriented person asks, "What could I do today?" The fitness-oriented person asks, "What should I do today?"

Ever since, I've been thinking about this observation and wondering how one might expand on it. As a backpacking triathlete, a skiing cyclist, a swimmer turned camper, I've often found that my endurance sports training plans interfere with my more directionless wandering about in the woods. Training plans have a framework; each short-term goal is part of a bigger picture. Woodland wandering more often seems like simple fun.

What makes the outdoorsy different from and similar to the athletic?

Outdoorsy :: Athletic
* What could I do today? :: What should I do today?
* Being outside as long as possible :: Being outside for as long as the workout requires
* Eat what tastes good :: Eat carefully
* Build capability for longer hikes, higher climbs :: Build muscle for speed, endurance

Common ground
* Goal orientation: reach the summit
* Enjoy the journey and enjoy the workouts
* Except for the old-fashioned outdoorsmen whose yester-gear is "good 'nuff", gear lust seems to be a common trait. (This explains my garage.)

To Earn a PR, Pace Yourself

Joe Friel, one of the most respected coaches in endurance sports, just blogged about why the negative split is so crucial for endurance athletes. Joe says that he recently read about pacing and running world records.

"[The research] indicates that nearly all of the record-breaking times in the last 40 years or so have been run with negative splits."

A negative split is when you do the second half of something faster than the first half. For example, I can confirm that I eat the second half of an ice cream cone much faster than the first, mostly to prevent it from dripping all over my hand, which I hate. If I were to begin eating an ice cream cone really quickly at first, my tongue would go numb, I wouldn't savor the flavor, and I'd likely get a painful ice cream headache.

It's the same in endurance sports. If I burst off the start line, I'll likely get very tired quickly and then I'd have depleted much of my body's limited carbohydrate fuel stores (because I usually race without access to ice cream), and I'd be unable to recover. I'd either shock my muscles and they'd turn to lead or I'd race for awhile and then bonk.

Instead, the goal is to set a controlled pace, let the body, the muscles, and the fuel systems to adjust to that pace, and then gradually build into a higher speed. It's this gradual build to a higher, sustainable speed that makes the second half take less time than the first. This negative split is key to racing well. And when you do it right, it feels fantastic! Instead of feeling fastest at the beginning of the race and fading, which is frustrating, I race faster and faster all the way to the finish.

Joe concludes that "The bottom line here is, once again, that if you want to run a fast race it appears to be beneficial if you start conservatively and pace yourself so that the second half is run slightly faster than the first half.".

For cyclists who have on-handlebar computers, estimating pace is easy. How does one estimate pace while running?

• Run on a track.
• Run on a path that has mile markers.
• Trace a route on mapmyrun.com and get familiar with landmarks that approximate distances.
• Use a "foot pod". Foot pods relay stride length to a recording device, usually a wristwatch, but they must be calibrated and can't adjust for changes in stride length without recalibration. Many runners' stride lengths will change throughout a season and throughout a run, so food pods don't strike me as reliable.
• If you have an iPod, get the Nike+ device (Nike site, Apple site). This $29 device, profiled in the July issue of WIRED magazine, straps to your shoe and your iPod and estimates and records your running speed and distance. Next time you sync your iPod, you can upload your running data to the Nike+ website for logging and analysis. The Nike+ uses an accelerometer to measure how long your foot is in contact with the ground, which exercise physiologists have found to be a 95% accurate measure of running speed.
• Use a GPS device, like certain smartphones or a Garmin Forerunner wristwatch. Polar and Timex have GPS products, too, but they look enormous compared to Garmin products. GPS products track your speed over various time periods, which can give you your current pace, average pace, and much more.
  

Some day, running without a GPS watch will be like driving without a speedometer. Sure, there are purist runners out there who won't run with even a wristwatch, but there are purists in any sport until they've all become convinced by their faster peers. I just got a Garmin Forerunner 405, and I'll review it later.

Until then, pace yourself. It's the time-proven way to set a personal record.

Why Fight the Internet Turf War?

One of my favorite news sources, nytimes.com, just ran a story about online identity: Keeping True Identity Becomes a Battle Online.

The article suggests that both individuals and companies are struggling to defend their intellectual property and branding on fast-growing, trendy internet sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Celebrity interviewees and corporations complain that site users are registering their personal or trademarked names as usernames. It seems that we're back to the cyber-squatting of the 1990s. Cyber-squatting got media attention back then, but the battles were largely resolved in intellectual property lawsuits. Courts decided that just because you registered "McDonalds.com" first didn't mean that you were its rightful owner. It turns out that 1 billion served trumps first-served.

So what's different today? Back then, domain names were treated like a public good and became de facto regulated by courts. Today, web services like Facebook and Twitter do not regard their services as a public good. Nor should they: these are privately-owned, for-profit companies. This is why Facebook allows any individual to register their username as a URL (i.e. facebook.com/davetrendler) but requires brands to have at least 1,000 friends before allowing a custom URL (i.e. facebook.com/cocacola).

According to the Times article, "To some, the rules of this new game are frustratingly hazy. Facebook has invited trademark holders and celebrities who find their names are taken to fill out a complaint form on the site. It says it will resolve disputes on a case-by-case basis.".

Riiight. A complaint form: that sounds promising. If you're familiar with Facebook's track record, you know that the company is scarily self-centered and fanatically ambitious.

So unless you've got the resources to devote a staff member to staking your claim in every new web service (Ning.com, Tumblr.com, Friendfeed.com), what's a person, brand, or person/brand to do?

1. Be your own cyber-squatter: suck it up and register your username on all the trendy new sites. Registration for most web services these days takes about 60 seconds.
2. Hire a marketing firm to manage your online brand. If you're big enough to fear a cyber-squatter, you're big enough to hire someone to register usernames for you.
   
3. Create a good website you control. Sure, Facebook, Wordpress, and Twitter can compensate for a sucky website, but a decent website is fairly inexpensive these days. If you aren't willing to mash up enough free web services to cobble together a functional, interactive website, drop a few hours or a few grand on a website that runs itself and doesn't suck.
4. Some brands lose relevance on web services. The web is becoming increasingly personal and niche. Some consumers are happy to poke their Facebook friends with Starbucks Frappucinos, but most people sign up for web services for more personal reasons. Brands should parse content into pieces appropriate to the media. For example, instead of tweeting as "@espn", tweet as "@espnhockey". Niche-ify your brand, especially if you're a niche brand!
   
5. Usernames are disposable. So you were late to the party and didn't snag "@pepsi". Who wants to follow Pepsi on Twitter? How is "@pepsi" useful on a micro-blogging site? Use web services to meet a specific goal, like "@trypepsifree" or "@pepsiandmentos". Build a campaign around the quirks of a web service, like Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice.
   
6. Don't sweat over a flash in the pan. Web services are notoriously short-lived. Who spends time on MySpace anymore? Or Second Life? Private equity investors love to talk about "hockey stick growth", when user registrations suddenly skyrocket, but how many web services take a nosedive six months later? Brands are better served focusing on longer-term branding, like a decent website and a solid online advertising plan.

A Pro Deal for All Americans

In the outdoor and fitness industries, a "pro deal" is a discount given to employees of outdoor and fitness industry companies. This discount is usually at least 20% off retail, and the best discount I know about is 30% off the wholesale price. The only consumer equivalent would be a warehouse sale, but pro deals are usually in effect all year long. There are even websites set up exclusively to sell discounted merch to industry pros.

The rationale behind the pro deal system has several points. The first reason is promotional, and this is where the pro deal system got its start. Manufacturers want influential people to wear their brands. Who is more influential than those whose job it is to introduce consumers to a new activity? For example, a ski instructor might teach lessons to hundreds of skiers each year. If his eager pupils are impressed with him and his sexy $500 Spyder jacket, they might very well pony up full retail for apparel from Spyder in the future, though the instructor paid far less. This pro deal offers the manufacturer a powerful branding opportunity.

The second reason is charitable. In some industries, the average employee doesn't earn enough to be a customer of that industry. The cycling industry is a great example. Since the average bike shop's profit margin might be as low as 35%, the typical shop rat can't possibly be paid enough to afford a $5,000 bike. Bike shops usually offer an employee purchase program, but many manufacturers of high margin items graciously extend pro deals to their own kind.

The third reasoning is simple gear lust and stinginess. Most people who participate in a gear-intensive activity love them some sexy gear. Most people like paying less than full price. So employees in an industry will offer reciprocal pro deals to other companies just so they don't have to pay full price. In this way, the outdoor and fitness industries are a complicated network of pro deals.

Pro deals have rules. You can only order for yourself. No purchasing for friends or family. Some pro deals have an annual dollar maximum. Most pro deals will only ship to your work address. The most stringent deals require proof of your employment in the industry, like a pay stub, business card, and current catalog. Some pro deals are on a limited selection of products. Most pro deals expire at the end of each calendar year, which causes a flurry of pro deal paperwork early each spring. Industry tradeshows like Interbike and Outdoor Retailer are a flurry of pro deal trading; some companies actually send reps to each booth with the next year's pro deal form or unique login.

There is a certain sense of backalley shame in the pro deal system; people tend to lower their voices when discussing the pro deals available to them. "Pro forms", the special order forms that employees use to fax in or email pro deals, are secured in the back of filing cabinets and passed around surreptitiously. No one wants to risk losing their special pro deal by sharing it with someone who might blow it for them by abusing the deal or ordering too much. If you have a sweet pro deal, you only offer access to those you trust.

But what if everyone had a pro deal?

The Personal Health Investment Today Act of 2009 promises just that. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association offers a breakdown of what the "PHIT Bill" might mean. Basically, the PHIT Act would extend the Flexible Spending Account tax break to include some purchases of equipment used in physical activity.

Depending on your tax bracket, that could mean 20-40% off your next TREK bicycle, gym membership, Gregory backpack, gym class or ski lesson, or Garmin GPS-enabled fitness watch. That, my friends, is a pro deal every American should support (though I certainly wouldn't want to have the job of approving or denying purchases or, for that matter, making up the tax revenue shortfall).

The bill's sponsors offer these justifications:

• 20% of Americans aged 2-19 are overweight or obese.
• 8 of the 9 most expensive illnesses are more common in overweight people.
• Between 1981 and 2001, per capita healthcare costs rose 27% because of the increase in the number of overweight Americans.
• The WHO estimates that, in the U.S., a $1 investment in physical activity would reduce medical expenses by $3.20.

So score yourself a pro deal: ask your representative in the House to sponsor the PHIT bill.

The Bucket List Marathoner

A few days ago, Runner's World "tossed a rhetorical hand grenade" into its Daily Views column, asking "What do you think of folks who run a marathon for the sole reason of crossing it off some sort of 'bucket list'?". A bucket list being a list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket.

The article got over 200 comments and inspired this post today:

"Whew! Is it safe to come out now? Dear readers, before the weekend we sparked a doo-doo deluge when we asked for your thoughts on the "Bucket List Marathon." After more than 200 comments, including accusations of being "insulting," "elitist," and "off our rockers," we're ready to call a cease-fire. Let's all tip-toe away from that little battlefield, and agree that from this point forward, we'll never again mention the word "bucket" unless we need a synonym for a pail of water."

I thought the posted comments were refreshing, particularly the first one: "I've been running for 45 years (7+ miles per day) and I ran my one and only marathon to cross it off my bucket list. You don't have to be a marathon runner to be a runner!" (I've only read one issue of the Runner's World print magazine so far, but I was struck by how the editorial staff seemed to assume that all runners want to run a marathon.)

The reaction to the writer's tone and assumptions in "The 'Bucket List' Marathon" shows that many Runner's World readers are bucket list marathoners. Did the writer overestimate his readership? Should we take his post at face value, that it was a "rhetorical hand grenade". He certainly stirred up quite a conversation.

How to Buy and Apply Sunblock

The New York Times comments on this summer's impending SPF "arms" race:

"No SPF, not even 100+, offers 100 percent protection. What’s more, both UVA and UVB radiation can lead to skin cancer, which is why dermatologists now advise using sunscreens with an SPF of at least 15 and UVA-fighting ingredients like an avobenzone that doesn’t degrade in light or Mexoryl SX.

The difference in UVB protection between an SPF 100 and SPF 50 is marginal. Far from offering double the blockage, SPF 100 blocks 99 percent of UVB rays, while SPF 50 blocks 98 percent. (SPF 30, that old-timer, holds its own, deflecting 96.7 percent).

A sunscreen’s SPF number is calculated by comparing the time needed for a person to burn unprotected with how long it takes for that person to burn wearing sunscreen. So a person who turns red after 20 minutes of unprotected sun exposure is theoretically protected 15 times longer if they adequately apply SPF 15. Because a lot of sunscreens rub off or don’t stay put, dermatologists advise reapplication every two hours or after swimming or sweating."

"It has long been assumed that applying half the recommended ounce meant half the SPF protection. But a small 2007 study...found that 'If you apply half the amount, you get the protection of only the square root of the SPF.'...So applying a half-ounce of SPF 70 will not give you the protection of SPF 35, but 8.4."

Read the full article here.

How to Leave a Voicemail That's Worth Your Listener's Time

I hate voicemail. I hate seeing that red voicemail notification light.

There is nothing more tedious than hitting the "envelope" button --> # --> my four-digit PIN --> 3 --> 2 --> 0 only to hear a long-winded or misdirected message after which the caller leaves a phone number (or email address!) at lightning speed so that I have to listen to the rambling message all over again.

There is nothing I want to do less as I'm trying to escape my office for a vacation or tradeshow than to hit the "envelope" button --> # --> my PIN --> # --> 3 --> 1 --> 2 --> 1 --> --> # --> 0 --> --> #.

There is nothing I appreciate less than a "tsk tsk tsk" voicemail from someone who informs me upon my return to the office that my out-of-office voicemail greeting is out-of-date. And I sure don't like hitting the "envelope" button --> # --> my PIN --> # --> 3 --> 3 --> 1 --> 0 to reset it to my default greeting.

Michael Arrington's blog post "Think Before You Voicemail" mentions several reasons you shouldn't leave a voicemail. Number one in my book is that leaving, retrieving, listening to, and calling the caller in reply to a voicemail takes minutes. Writing an email, reading the email, and replying can take just seconds.

Voicemail is only superior to email in a few situations:

1. Sensitive topic: when the person you're calling must hear your tone or pace of voice to fully understand your meaning
2. Emergency: when you just can't wait for an email reply and must try to reach the person in every possible way for the fastest possible response
3. Cold call: if you think the person you're trying to reach won't read your email
4. Complex topic: if the topic is too complex or requires active conversation and decision making, and you're playing phone tag as a result (in which case you should schedule a call via email)

If you must leave a voicemail for someone you know, do it this way:
1. make it short (no more than 10 seconds)
2. make it audible (no cell phone calls from the car)
3. if it's time sensitive, leave some deadline for getting back to you
4. repeat your phone number twice (even if that person has it already)

Alternatively, make it funny as hell! (Sing me your personal "hold" music! Leave your best animal sound! Try a celebrity impression! Do anything to justify all that tedious button pressing.)

If you must leave a voicemail for someone you don't know, do it this way:
1. rehearse your message once before you call
2. make it short, but give enough time to explain who you are and why you're calling (15 seconds)
3. if it's time sensitive, find a polite way to say that
4. repeat your phone number twice
5. send a follow up email with all of the above plus a contact card (.vcs file) so the contact can choose how to get back to you

I'll call it right now: voicemail will go the way of the fax. People will still use it, but only under specific circumstances. Before then, we'll have to wait on Google Voice.

#FollowFriday and Hashtags Explained

A few seconds after some of us concluded that we'd got Twitter figured out, this crazy "#FollowFriday" thing shows up. First, let's explain what the heck the pound sign ("#") is doing on Twitter.

A pound symbol or number sign ("#") that is part of a Twitter update (or "tweet") is called a "hashtag". The reason it's called "hash" is because the number symbol, "#", is also known as a "hash mark". Learn more about it here on wikipedia.

The reason it's called a "tag" is because the "hashtag" is a label. A hashtag is used to label something.

Why label something on Twitter? Isn't Twitter a bunch of announcements about what we're having for lunch or when we're running out for more coffee? Well, yes, mostly.

But soon after Twitter launched (like, six months ago), someone realized that Twitter was sort of like Google News on speed. On Google News, the top news stories that people are searching for on Google float to the top. Google News reflects the most popular news.

There is no Twitter News yet, though "Twitter Trends" is a start. Twitter Trends appears off to the right of a Twitter user's home page, like this:


Instead, Twitter's search function, http://search.twitter.com, shows the most recent tweets about whatever topic you search for. So Google News reveals what's on the Jungian hive mind while Twitter reveals information on a topic that is just a few seconds or minutes old.

Okay, still we want to know: why label something on Twitter, especially if you can already search for a topic using search.twitter.com?

Two reasons:

1. Hashtags consistently identify specific news or ideas. Say your plane just crashed into the Hudson River and you want to become a celebrity survivor. You whip out your cellphone and tweet "holy moley! my plane just crashed into the hudson!". Once you're safely above water and standing on the wing, you might tweet "i'm standing on the wing of my airplane which is now floating down the hudson!". But no one who is not following you on Twitter would know how to follow your fascinating adventure.

Enter the hashtag! Let's say you're a hashtag-savvy tweeter. When your plane first splashes down, you would instead tweet "#hudsonplanecrash holy moley! my plane just crashed into the hudson!". Once on the wing, "#hudsonplanecrash i'm standing on the wing of my airplane which is now floating downriver!".

Now your tweets on this topic have a consistent way to identify them.*** Instead of forcing Search.Twitter.com users to search for a bunch of keywords to learn about your story, you've given them one very precise keyword, "#hudsonplanecrash".

Now things get interesting. Say a friend who is following your tweets sees your tweet about the crash. He tells CNN's breaking news Twitter feed about it like this: "@cnnbrk a plane just crashed into the hudson! #hudsonplanecrash". Alternatively, that friend could direct CNN to your Twitter home page or your @ address.

So this is one use of hashtags. But can't anyone create a specific keyword? Why does it need the # symbol in front of it?

2. Hashtags are subscribable. If you want to follow tweets about one specific topic, you can subscribe to them using hashtags.org. You simply enter the one-word topic or an existing hashtag and the hashtags.org search engine shows you the most recent tweets containing that hashtag. Click the "tag results" button on the left and the "subscribe" button on the right, and you are now subcribed via RSS to all tweets that use the hashtag you searched for. Super sweet! Now, instead of being subscribed to a billion Twitterers, which is like trying to watch 10 tv shows on 10 tvs all at once, you can subscribe to topics instead of people. Using hashtags and a feedreader, you can stay on top of the most bleeding edge news about any pre-hashtagged topic.

***But creating hashtags that show up on hashtags.org is not quite this easy. In other words, you can't just begin hashtagging about your plane in the Hudson. You think this is wikipedia or blogger or something?

Not just anyone can create a hashtag and not all hashtags show up on Hashtags.org. First you have to "register" with hashtags.org. To do this, you simply follow "@hashtags" on Twitter. @hashtags will then automatically follow you and begin tracking all the hashtags you create. And now those hashtags will become searchable and subscribable on hashtags.org. If you don't follow @hashtags, your hashtags are mere mortal keywords and findable only via the plain vanilla search.twitter.com. (Borrrring!)

I have a sneaking suspicion that most people using hashtags on Twitter have no idea what they're for. I suspect that most hashtaggers are simply doing what they see other Twitter users doing. I mean, @hashtags only has 83,500 followers, and I'd be surprised if all those 83,500 Twitterers were responsible for all the hashtags I've been seeing lately. There's an easy way to check. Next time you see a hashtag on Twitter, check to see if that Twitter user is following @hashtags. If not, you know that person is a big time poser.

Don't be a poser. Follow @hashtags here:
http://twitter.com/hashtags

Alright, so what's up with #FollowFriday?

#FollowFriday is a hashtag that I guess is maybe a little like a chainletter or an icebreaker game. Let's break one down:

"#FollowFriday @davetrendler @lancearmstrong @velopress"

Translation from Tweetese to English: "Hey, my loyal followers, it's Friday and I think you should begin following these interesting Twitter users: dave trendler, lance armstrong, and velopress!".

#FollowFriday is nothing more than a suggestion to your followers that they should consider following the people listed in the tweet.

So marketers like me instantly look for a way to turn this into more followers. Fortunately, Rafe at CNET has experimented with #FollowFriday and found the key to getting more followers. (Economics majors will recognize Rafe's tactic as rooted in game theory.)

If you like, you can follow me on Twitter in two places:
www.twitter.com/davetrendler (mostly personal stuff)
www.twitter.com/velopress (mostly work stuff)

But don't be dismayed if I don't follow you back using my davetrendler account. It's nothing personal, it's just because I think I understand how to use Twitter. More on this later.

Useful links:

• An English description of the history (back to 2007!) and use of hashtags
• Hashtags.org