Facebook Owns Our Content?

Interesting article in The Consumerist,  with commentary by Ad Age Digital.

Seems that Facebook owns the content of our Facebook page.

According to the Chris Walters article: “Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later.* Want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense it if they want.”
It’s a complex subject, explained in this article and in many responses, including Mark Zuckerberg’s.
The bottom line is the same as it has always been: If you post something — anywhere — figure on it being available  forever.
Actually I’m not sure why there’s such a big stir.  The announcement in Facebook’s Terms of Service simply underscores what was true from the very first email post in the dark ages of the 20th century: Hit the send or upload button and you’ve lost control of your post and your privacy.
It’s an old message, but obviously one that needs to be shared over and over.

You may create the message, but once it’s out there the question of ownership is as vast, unruly and vaccilating as the evolving cyberspace itself.

Death of a Cell Phone

I plugged my cell in to charge it Monday night and nothing happened.
No little charger light.  The battery symbol showed half the charge gone. I know a dire situation when I see one.
Tuesday morning I called our purchasing department. “Peg, do you have an extra charger lying around for a Motorola Razr?”
She caught the desperation in my voice. A half hour later Gardi, the campus mailman delivered a charger. I plugged it in. The screen read, “Unauthorized charger.”
What the hell! What insidious bastard bent on the worst form of torture could invent an “unauthorized charger?”
I was beside myself. The 40-minute drive to work was bad enough knowing I had maybe only an hour left on my cell. Now I sat at my desk staring at my dying companion, knowing there was nothing I could do but let it quietly, painlessly, expire.
I called Peg in Purchasing  again. “Peg, my cell is dying and I’m not doing too well, either.  The charger is unauthorized.  The life support system failed.” She understood. We’re allowed a new cell every two years.
“Am I eligible?” I asked in a voice that I noticed was sounding more breathy and raspier as the clocked ticked toward my cell’s demise.
Yes, she said. Sometimes in this business you have to make quick decisions No time for vacillation. I placed my order.
I took some deep breaths, felt my empty pocket where my cell had nestled for two years. The new phone wouldn’t be in until Thursday. I could make it, I told myself.  Somehow. . ..
In the bathroom mirror, the deepening shadows under my eyes said it was going to be a tough battle.
Cell phones change one’s habits more than we realize. My office phone rang. Most of the times it’s a sales rep so I usually let them leave a message.  Only people close to me have my cell number.
On the few occasions that the university president calls me, she calls my cell. I realized that she couldn’t do this now and that I’d have to more closely monitor incoming calls on this 20th century fossil whose mouthpiece is anchored to a box with a springy cord!
I couldn’t leave a message to the admissions director and tell him to just call my cell.

I couldn’t take calls in my car which has a built-in Blue tooth.

I couldn’t make a couple quick calls while walking across campus.
Life as I’ve known it for more than a decade was now moving Back to the Future minus Christopher Lloyd.

I realized how close I had become to it these past two years and at the same time taken it for granted.
God, I missed that little silver beast.
That night it struck me that I had two years’ worth of phone numbers programmed into it. I opened it just as it started a slow beep:  “Power low.”
It was telling me, in a quiet farewell message,  that  it would soon be dead.
I quickly started yanking the numbers off.  A few moments after I pulled the last number it quietly left this world.  I stared at it and ran my fingers in a goodbye caress across its sleek silver chassis.

I’ll miss you Motorola Razr.

But not for long.

Tomorrow I pick up my new Blackberry!

Taking a Break with Dimitri Martin

Sunday night.  Busy weekend. Long week ahead.

No business.  I want to talk about Dimitri Martin. I love this guy.  His humor is subtle, quiet, cerebral and hilarious.
I discovered him on one of my top two favorite radio shows, Fresh Air.
So I looked up his website, which is unfinished and funny.

The lean Martin  with his carefully done hair,  big innocent eyes and prominent, is a physical hybrid of  David Krumholtz and a ’60s Paul McCartney.
He has a new series starting on Comedy Central Feb. 11.
His humor is a kind of genteel pop culture Far Side.

Try him out.  You’ll love him and he’s going to be big.

Okay.  Back to work.

Radio and TV Ad Buys –Drive a Bargain

If you do ad buying for radio and TV, you know it’s a buyer’s market.
You know the first quarter is the slowest one for broadcast media. This year it’s even slower. The auto industry, which media counts on, has tanked. Other major retailers are struggling.
Advertising has been reduced to a weak crawl and the broadcast  is hurting almost as badly as print.
This means two things:
1. If you have the money, now’s the time to advertise.
2. Don’t pay standard rates.
I usually get some very good deals in the first quarter — like 50% off, two ads for one, etc.
This week a radio station came out with a deal:  buy $500 worth of ads and get an extra $750 in free spots.
Another sales rep who I’ve been dealing with for years was pushing a new, great bargain. I held off. Before we were finished, the bargain $1500 deal dropped to $1,000 with a lot of free bonus spots thrown in.
He admitted that this quarter was especially “challenging” with the drop in auto ads and some other businesses who were not advertising.
“We have a lot of inventory,” he said. “We can be very flexible and it’s a great time to take advantage.” Broadcast media need to fill airtime. It’s how they exist. Dead air is just not allowed.

If all this sounds cold,  sorry, it’s business. Supply and demand.  I’ve paid top dollar when their inventory was nearly full (Christmas, political campaigns).  Now it’s reversed, and you, the buyer have a lot of leverage.

Use it.
Sales reps  put on good faces, as they should. But while all of them tell me their respective stations are doing well, their statements were belied by Clear Channel’s recent announcement of more than 1,800 layoffs — sales reps, general managers, programmers and personalities.

It looks like this trend will continue into the second and maybe even the third quarters.

Do your university a favor and don’t accept any deal at face value.  Work a little bit and get a better deal. Sales reps are under the gun to sell and management is getting very creative.

My ad budget was reduced this year, as yours probably was.  But with the advantage you have, you can get some great buys and keep your institution ahead of the competition.

I have a couple deal-maker arguments I’ve developed.  If you want more info, let me know and I’ll do a more detailed post.