| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

CalacanisCastBeta10

This version was saved 17 years, 1 month ago View current version     Page history
Saved by ExposureTim
on February 10, 2007 at 12:49:48 pm
 

CalacanisCast Beta #10 & Across the Sound #69

 

www.calacanis.com

www.acrossthesound.net

 

Jason: Ok Everybody. Welcome to a very special first video episode of Calacanis Cast Beta. Yes we’re still in beta. This is a joint podcast with of course, Mr. Joseph Jaffe sitting next to me. As you know, The “Jaffe Juice” is the author of such amazing books such as The 30 Second Spot and Guns, Germs, and Steel. He also did Jurassic Park and Purple Cow, Built to Last... many, many books! And of course he is the host of his own podcast Across the Sound which this is going to also be played on so this is a joint podcast the way podcasters do efficient stuff…Lazy podcasters doing two podcasts at once.

 

So I’m going to hand it over to Joseph. He’s going to do the introduction to his show so you get to have two introductions and two sets of commercials. Everybody knows that the CalacanisCast Beta is sponsored by Podtech.net, Podtech.net, I love you podtech.net for sponsoring my show. Of course everybody knows that their sponsorship goes to the Bay Ridge Preparatory Opportunity Fund. And that’s a donation that they made of fifty thousand dollars for the year for me to do fifty shows and that’s gonna help some kids go to um…private school who were formally in public school real disadvantaged kids. So, it’s a really great thing. Also GoDaddy, GoDaddy; everybody loves GoDaddy! That’s the registrar I use and when you use GoDaddy they’re also making a donation to the Bay Ridge Prep Opportunity Fund and you go there right now, because you’re a pal of Jason’s. We’re going to give you a special code. You give your special code when you checkout and you buy your domain name you type in ‘Jason1’ J-A-S-O-N 1 and they’re going to give you ten percent off your purchase or something like that. It’s a really good deal. You need to buy domain names anyway, Joseph Jaffe loves GoDaddy.com correct?

 

Joseph Jaffe: Bob Parsons is brilliant. As far as their commercials are concerned we can talk about that later. So, I also share the same vision which is the ability to send kids to beautiful private schools in, but I guess my difference is or my different association is that I’d like to send my kids to private schools. So, right now Across The Sound is looking for a sponsor so if Podtech and GoDaddy would like to sponsor Across The Sound please help send my kids to college…and the best of colleges because, and the best of colleges Ivy League! Ivy League because you know at the end of the day one buck and seven cents for one copy of Live After will…you know what? It’s taking too long! I don’t want these kids to be 35 years old and still wondering whether or not they’re going to get into Wharton or Harvard or Princeton or something like that.

 

Well, welcome to a very special episode – a video podcast episode of Across the Sound. The new marking podcast, this is episode 69 Beta as well, I like the idea of Beta. And Jason knows I’m sure that he will never----

 

Jason: My podcast will be in beta forever!

 

Joseph: Yes, well that’s what I was going to say you’ll never ... you’re taking the Google route you’ll never get out of beta.

Umm…I am thrilled to be here with of course none other than Jason Calacanis who is himself a presenter of the Calacani…cala... cala… CalacanisCast. I can’t quite get it right! And we’re gonna have a little bit of fun. I’ve never done a video podcast before so as you can see over here - I don’t know if you can zoom in or something like that - but this is a red beard. And for those of you wondering where the hell the growth is coming from this is what I call dieting-by-community! I’ve told my wife that I’m not going to shave this beard until I lose 24 pounds. So I’m going to do a little bit of a test here which is you can see me in my glorious fat state and now it’s, you know, let it all hang out because until I lose the weight this beard ain't gonna be shaven and if I don’t lose the weight I’m going to look like a giant dick, as well, by coming out to you guys and saying I’m gonna do this. So…that’s my little sponsored kind of link. Oh, by the way, one other thing….Across the Sound is being brought to you by Sequoia Capital... (laughing)

No - I’m joking.

 

Jason: Yeah…we’re now investors. (laughing)

You’re basically going to look like Gandalf by the time this is through. Losing 24 pounds is gonna take six months. Yeah exactly, exactly. This is the shaming yourself to lose weight concept!

 

So, I guess we should use the format since we have one microphone. We each ask each other a question or something like that. So, I guess the question for you is… My question for you is you’re launching a new agency called Crayon… and it in Second Life and you’re doing all these sort of cutting edge marketing ideas but how much of this is really different than what ad agencies are doing? Because some ad agencies are doing stuff for YouTube now and other stuff, so what is the premise… what is the reason that you’re starting a new marketing agency?

 

Joseph: Well, you basically got one out of the three things right there 'cuz we’re not an agency, and we’re not about Second Life but our name is Crayon…

 

(laughing)

 

Joseph: You know what the thing is we… we’re playing around with stuff right now. I’ve called Crayon a mashup. I’ve called Crayon a shape-shifter. I’ve called Crayon a company just like some people just call not consumers or customers but human beings or citizens.

 

I believe that Crayon will be the best of five worlds…agency, consulting, advisory, thought leadership, and education. And ultimately Crayon exists for many reasons. One is to simply help marketers makes sense of the madness… the chaos which to us doesn’t look like chaos. To us it looks like a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful montage or collage of opportunities. Umm…I think that the Second Life thing by the way…First of all I love the fact that we have launched in Second Life because here it demonstrates just like using marketing to prove your marketing which is a little thing that I do to promote my book where I offered free books in exchange for reviews with no strings attached. I love that fact that we walk our talk! And I think maybe, Jason, that’s the difference. We walk our talk but we don’t even just walk our talk…you know, it’s not like new marketing can talk a big game. It’s not even that we walk our talk. We are a new marketing! You listening to this or watching us right now YOU are a new marketing. We are pioneers. We make this stuff up as we go along. Which is not to say that we don’t know what we are doing… we know exactly what we are doing. We’re going out there and we are by default pioneers just because there is no precedent. That’s one of the lessons that I want marketers to learn. If you want to be a leader and ever single one of you along with the beautiful oil painting or portrait of your founder from 2000 years ago your mission statement says that you are the leaders to be leaders in. Your brands are leaders. Leadership is not just market share. Leadership is a mentality... is a mindset. And if you want to be a leader well guess what? There is no one in front of you. That means there’s no research. There’s no data. There’s no precedent. You’ve got to follow your gut. You’ve got to follow your heart. You’ve got to follow and use your god-given common sense and brain and make the right decisions. So I think Crayon is a company that ultimately that exists… it says on my iPod ‘make a difference, change the world.” We want to make the world a better place. We don’t want marketing to be a swear word anymore. We don’t want advertising to be scorned or just you know, literally, we don’t want the stain anymore from media and advertising branding because they’ve become jokes in a sense.

 

So that’s what we’re kind of going out to do and we’re gonna make up, as I said, stuff as we’re going along and have a lot of fun as well

 

Jason: Ahh, so you brought up sort of like; marketing not being a bad word anymore. It seems like there’s umm… blogging and podcasting and what I’ll just put under the umbrella ‘authentic media’ ---people talking with real voices about you know, real products, real issues, their lives. It seems to have really sort of ankled marketing. Right? It seems to have been this like truth serum for marketing and now marketers are trying to figure out how do I live in this authentic world and a lot of them do really stupid things like create fake blogs and have ghostwriters doing it and they fall on their face or they try to game systems and they get caught like editing their Wikipedia page, editing their competitors Wikipedia page or you know, putting fake stuff on message boards or Amazon reviews. So it seems that traditional marketers have been making mistakes, you know, with regards to this stuff. And then, you know, you have people on top of that creating platforms to enable people to do evil stuff…like…people would do splogs or Pay Per Post or let’s try to do covert marketing.

 

There’s many examples of people trying to say ok let’s take this beautiful city that blogging is and like pissing in the well spoil it for everybody and capitalize on the authenticity that was built over years.

 

Is there really a place for marketing anymore because it just seems like you know marketing was so traditionally like Seth Godin says: “All marketers are liars”.

 

It seems like so much of marketing was based on type and spin and PR and was so unrealistic and PR people get paid to present their companies as incredible companies when in fact if you check the PR person at the bar later they’ll be like ‘yeah, their paying us ten thousand dollars a month to promote their company but it really is garbage and you know I would much rather represent somebody else’.

 

Is there a place for marketers in this new authentic world and what would your advice be to them? Or what is your advice to them when they show up?

 

Joseph: Look it’s a great point. And …let’s take a step back for a second.

 

Transcript

So marketing has basically been a profession where we lie chronically and pathologically for a living. The reason we lie is very simple because most of the time we’re dealing with crap. We’re dealing with deficient products. We’re dealing with products that have weaknesses. During most of my advertising career I’ve worked brands and companies that have huge, huge issues. And instead of addressing those issues and dealing with them, we cloud them and we try in a way to use misdirection and as I said hyperbole and exaggeration, and lies to mask the deficiencies. One of the things that we’re trying to do with Crayon, and listen I don’t want, you know too much bravado here because quite frankly we’re a startup and we’ll take it… we’ll take the business any way we can get it but we’d like to be a company that refuses business of or from companies that we do not believe in. OR, if we accept that business we want to be able to tinker with and fix the product and fix what is wrong with it. Instead of lying about it, we want to be able to tell the truth. So do I think marketing is part of this opportunity? Damn straight!

 

Here’s the other problem Jason is that companies like Pay Per Click, etc…word of mouth which is the most…we all know it…It is the most organic, natural, credible, influential form of ultimately influencing a potential purchase and conversion.

 

So what we have done now is we’ve tried to formalize it. We’ve tried to go ahead and productize it. We’ve tried to scale it and in doing so we are bastardizing it and manipulating it as well. So you got word of mouth, you’ve got buzz, you’ve got conversation, companies like Pay Per Post, for example, they’re just businesses and businessmen and women that are out there saying how do we create processes and technology that scales it and automates it and takes out the human element? So - and I’m not defending it at all - I’m saying that at the end of the day for marketing to exist and have a place, and it does have a place, we cant forget with authenticity comes humanity as well and humanity doesn’t just mean humans involved, it means life, it means being in touch ultimately and really just connecting with what is real and not believing our own shit and not believing our own lies.

 

Joseph: I just want to say one thing: I’ll give you a good example, Dove’s campaign for real beauty is an example of marketing that has a place and a purpose.

 

Yeah, well basically the whole Dove campaign for real beauty and it is deep and is attached to charities and there is a conversational element when people can submit stories. But at the end of the day what did they do? What did Dove do? It created billboards and print ads yes very traditional advertising with women that were flawed. In other words: real. Women that weren’t exactly supermodels…

 

Joseph: Yeah as in flawed. As in as in supermodels like Jason and myself!

In a way, you know, people that didn’t have the best skin. People that maybe weren’t, you know supermodels – they were a little bit overweight, they were maybe were shorter or taller than the rest. They were a little bit older. They hadn’t been retouched and now they’ve come out with an unbelievable piece of video called ‘Evolution’ that actually shows you how much manipulation is taking place with someone who is very average looking is literally made, comes out… it’s almost bizarre, comes out like beyond supermodel. And it just shows you all that is wrong not just about that industry, the health and beauty industry, but about marketing as well. So they’ve actually come out -and I don’t think whether they knew it or not and whether they intended to or not - They have become not just part of the conversation but they’ve actually seeded the conversation. They’ve actually demonstrated how a brand can stand for something that is real and authentic and I will be very curious to see whether they…

 

It’s like eating from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. You know whether you like it or not you ain’t gong back to running around frolicking naked anymore! You know - it’s time to leave. It’s time to grow up.

 

Jason: It’s really interesting you know when you bring up that Dove campaign. It’s almost like that they really - either stumbled upon, like you said, or maybe somebody’s really brilliant – but, they really brought authenticity to beauty and they stripped down what beauty is and said “OK, let’s look at exactly what we’re saying as a society what beauty is?” OK it’s making all these people up to a point of uncertainty. And let’s look at real beauty and hey that looks pretty beautiful too. It’s almost like, you know I told people the analogy of… you know you have someone like Britney Spears or something like that or really processed music and then somebody comes out with just a guitar on stage and , you know like Dylan pops out on stage and plays and you know ok yeah his voice isn’t perfect and he misses a couple of chords and he changes the lyrics but…that’s sort of what’s endearing about it …a sort of authenticity that I look at this movement as sort of the acoustic movement of marketing.

 

JJ: Sort of unplugged marketing

 

Jason: It’s unplugged marketing! Yeah like let’s just let’s strip away all the makeup, the… I’m buying that domain name before I publish. ‘Marketing unplugged?”

 

JJ: By the time you get to registering somebody has already registered---

 

Jason: Would anybody…If anybody wants me to write a book right now here’s the deal. Somebody give me a hundred thousand dollars for my scholarship fund and that will help put two kids in school. I will write a book! OK? All proceeds go to this.

 

JJ: Give me fifty thousand and I’ll…

 

Jason: Right! And you’ll send your kids to school.

 

Jason: But the other thing is…you mentioned Pay Per Post again and you talked about Buzz Marketing. And I always hated this whole genre of buzz marketing and I always took sort of exception to it because like you said…add something organic and natural and beautiful when buzz spreads. And to try to make it happen through strategy in an inauthentic and manipulated way, I sort of look at it as between the difference between true love - you know when you really fall in love with somebody or something, a vacation spot or a restaurant or a beautiful woman or a beautiful man as the case may be - and then you try to make them fall in love in a sort of serum or manipulative way it actually becomes prostitution. And I look at Pay Per Post and it’s almost like they took love and the Buzz people they took love and they made it into this prostitution.

 

Joseph: Celebrities are the ultimate prostitutes. Aren’t they? They are the ultimate whores because they go and they pimp all these products that they don’t necessarily believe in just because the price is right. And on the flip side you’ve got brands I mean look at all the trouble that GAP is in right now. GAP is in trouble because they don’t stand for anything, they stand for absolute squat! That brand, they forgot, if the brand ever stood for something they forgot and so did consumers. All they did was basically help Joss Stone, and Jessica Parker and Lenny Kravitz, and, and who else? And Steven Tyler, and etc etc continue to sell records and …not that anyone buys those anymore either. But the fact is, you’ve got this …this almost this ….this recognition in a sense, or concession that we as marketers or brands have lost touch not just with our consumers but with reality as well. I won’t----

 

Jason: so, it’s not about the clothes anymore? Is that what you’re saying? They just basically made it about some pop stars and forgot about the clothes?

 

Joseph: Well, you know, celebrity endorsement is borrowed interest. Say you’ve got, you know Buick uses Tiger Woods or you know maybe TAG Heuer uses Tiger Woods…There’s some good examples and there’s some bad examples. Nike has done an unbelievable job in terms of how they have leveraged the Tiger Woods connection. Because if anyone has ever epitomized Just Doing It I think it’s Tiger Woods. He just…he just does it! I don’t know how but he does. But…but then you look at Buick. Just because Tiger Woods drives a car which he would never drive in a million years, do you think I’m gonna go and buy it? So the problem with celebrities is it is, it is complete borrowed interest but it also demonstrates an emptiness that the brand cannot stand on its own two feet. I want to say one other thing as well which is I think one of the biggest problems which is that marketers and agencies are making right now is they have lived in an ivory tower aloof and detached for too long. And what they’re doing now is they’re going from one extreme to the complete opposite extreme. They’ve given up all power all control which is completely not the answer either. The answer is equilibrium and balance and partnership. So even though we talk about organic and natural and, you know, authenticity…I think authenticity above all… transparency, there are ways to meet in the middle I guess. We can still be storytellers I guess. We can still go out and create beautiful pieces of art and cultural seeds in a way and allow people to buy into a dream without being liars.

 

I mean, ??? did this great campaign with the balls and etc rolling down the streets of San Francisco with the paint, etc . We can still buy into a promise as long as that promise is consistent, as long as that promise is full and not empty and not a fake or a promise or a lie. So, I still think the point is let’s meet in the middle and stop darting around from extreme to extreme because that’s where the clueless-ness and where just he complete idiocy occurs.

 

Jason: So it’s a conversation - So all things come back to the Clue Train Manifesto at the end of the day.

 

So let’s segue into podcasting and blogging and stuff like that. You, I guess were a blogger… You started you blog a couple of years ago, maybe two or three years ago, I’m trying to remember… and you started podcasting a year ago or so. What, what do you think the difference is between podcasting and blogging is? Which do you prefer? And what do you get a better reaction from?

 

Joseph: Alright then and I’ll ask you the same question then I guess as well. And it’s interesting I guess because we’re talking about it. Jason was just saying that he just launched a comment line or opened up a comment line where he got 17 calls in like the first day or first week or whatever the case may be. Now, I simply use my ??? interface before and now I’m healthy and he’s at the opposite end of the extreme where he’s got seventeen and trying to figure out how the hell am I gonna edit these and audit them and integrate them and it’s like be careful what you wish for.

 

But it’s interesting because Jason obviously he hit the ground running whereas I, in a way, both have the podcast from literally zero base. I guess, I love podcasting a lot more. I feel a lot more excitement about podcasting than I do about blogging which is not to diminish blogging. It’s just, you know, selfishly, I’m on the crest of the, in fact I’m not even on the crest of the podcasting wave. The wave hasn’t even peaked yet! It is still completely under utilized which is why I am trying to, not challenge, but call out to people like Adam Curry, and maybe you Jason, to start the Podcasting Advertising Bureau - the PAB. Because, right now, I mean right now we’ve got this nascent medium. I don’t even think it’s fair to call it a medium but it’s certainly nascent. And it’s not getting the respect and the treatment and the incredible follow through and investment that it deserves because it’s just this incredible, rich environment and it is truly conversational. Now…now I love blogging. I mean Jaffe Juice is terrific. I feel very, very close to it. It’s very special but… I prefer, you can tell, I prefer to talk. I prefer that you can hear my passion! You can hear my intonation, the tonality of my voice. Now, you’re actually seeing me in the flesh and I realize that you probably won’t eat for three days after seeing me in the flesh.

 

I’m telling you. If I took my shirt off trust me you would lose a lot of weight!

 

Jason: This is not the ??? show.

 

Joseph: Yeah, exactly, keep your shirt on. Exactly!

 

Jason: He guys we’re back! Sorry about that the battery died on the little camera here but we’re back on the Across the Sound new zoomcast---that was one of my favorite moments when you started calling everything a zoomcast.

 

Joseph: I, I still have not figured out what the hell I wrong with iTunes. I still think it’s Apple trying to get rid of me because according to iTunes the latest episode of Across the Sound the show is 55 and here we are at 69 so there’s something ridiculously wrong and I am not a tech guy so if anybody, anybody now that I am going out to Jason’s audience, if anybody wants to help me figure out what the hell is wrong with my feed? Umm…I tell you what first prize will be one signed copy of my book. Second prize: two copies. How ‘bout that?

 

Jason: First prize is a Cadillac. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize you’re fired! Glen Gary Glen Ross!

 

Joseph: The fourth prize is a Buick car driven by Tiger Woods! Ha-ha. (laughing)

 

Jason: Yeah I’m sure macking out in the Buick Oldsmobile or…!

 

Umm…well... you know with the podcasting you probably should just work with Podtech... Podtech… Podtech.net which is doing my podcast and will do all the work for you. You setup an mp3 file and they’ll probably give you some money to sponsor it. Work that out?

 

Joseph: SO, so you’re saying that PodTech will love podshow? Is that what you’re saying?

 

Jason: Ahh…Podshows great. Adam Curry’s great. We love Adam Curry.

 

Jason: impersonating Adam Curry:

It’s FUBAR Friday here on the deli source code. Hello, my wife, Patricia. Woooohooo I may get some tonight! So hey, ahh, I was trying to setup my cable box modem-----

 

Jason: normal voice That’s my, my standard Adam Curry voice.

 

Joseph: I thought you were mocking me!

 

Jason: No, no. When I mock you it’s like this…

 

Jason: impersonating Joseph Jaffe:

Hello, this is Jaffe Juice. And listen you marketers your idiots! Your stupid! You’re dumb! You have to admit to yourselves that we’re worthless. We’ll never be worth anything. We took their money. We robbed them. We raped them! We’re terrible people. We should die! But you know what? It’s a beautiful thing.

 

Jason: normal voice That’s pretty much my Joseph Jaffe. How’s that? Pretty good?

 

Joseph: No, you know it’s like staring into a mirror!

 

(Laughing)

 

Jason: All right. So now we should probably just fast-forward to winners and losers since I’m Across The Sound you always do winners and losers. I haven’t even thought of my winners and losers right now. (singing voice) Winners and Losers. It’s Winners and Losers. It’s Winners and Losers…

 

That’s the song, right? Winners and Losers?

 

Then we’ll put it over there? So right now when I’m singing…to the guy who’s gonna edit this: (singing voice) Winners and Losers.

 

Joseph: Well, I guess my winner is absolutely going to be this whole social media and this whole kind of conversational marketing… I wouldn’t even call it conversational marketing I think conversation in general. And what I mean by that is very simple. Here I am sitting with Jason. The last time that we... this is bizarre! Jason doesn’t even remember the last time that we met. The last time we saw each other was on 5th…no it was at the Hudson Hotel. I think it was the Hudson Hotel in Manhattan? He had just done a Silicon Valley reporter type of an event that I had sat on a panel. I was at Chi Days as the director of Interactive Media. He, he got on his vesper and he bugged off and he, ahh, he zoomed off that day. And we’re talking 2001 maybe the beginning of 2002 now Jason and I have not spoken have not seen each other and not spoken over the phone in literally five years and yet we have been going backwards and forwards through email, through references on each other’s podcasts and, and, truthfully, it seems like Jason and I saw each other yesterday and I saw today that there was so much familiarity so much, you know genuine kind of affection that is great to see you again even though five years have passed. We could not have been able to maintain this kind of rapport without some social media. So, a winner’s got to be the fact that we, strangers, have been brought together and people have been kept together by virtue of the fact that a conversation can ensue even on a blog even on a podcast even without that actual physical face to face contact yet the humanity and the intimacy’s still there. So that’s my winner of the week.

 

Jason: What about your loser?

 

Joseph: Well, why don’t you do your winner and then…

 

Jason: I have to think of it keep going…

 

Joseph: Alright well, my loser of the week... ahh, umm... definitely has to be this whole Orville “Deadenbacker” fiasco that says Created by Crispin Porter and signed off by the folks over at ConAgraXYZ. It is a television campaign that kind of resurrects the late spokesperson and I guess owner Orville Redenbacher, Orville Redenbacher. And literally, he’s done in such a creepy weird way that he looks like a zombie that he’s literally being resurrected from the grave and retouched with makeup. It is so bizarre and so off-putting that remember we’re talking about food here. We’re talking about fresh popping-corn to quote dead Deadenbacher. And now I have to think this dead dude! This old fart, dead dude when I’m trying to think about which kind of popcorn I should buy. Now, Alex Vajeski, who is an incredibly accomplished creative direct and arguably, or inarguably Crispin has been the hottest advertising agency in this country over the last few years Mini Cooper, IKEA, Burger King, yada yada yada. But this, this campaign to me, sickens me! It is weird. It is wrong. It is exactly what we’re talking about earlier when people try to buy and manufacture and pervert buzz. Alex is quoted as saying they planned this all along. That they meant to shock people. They didn’t care about all the negative publicity and they believe that all of this word of mouth and publicity will help drive sales - certainly top-line awareness and bottom line sales of the brand. I hope he’s wrong. I hope the brand suffers. And I don’t say that maliciously. I hope that we can go out there and certainly not prove but refute the assertion that buying negative publicity will help drive brand sales because if that’s the case, then everything we’ve been talking about is dead wrong!

 

Jason: I, I read your blog. I saw the Orville Redenbacher thing. I immediately went and checked it out and I was equally disturbed when they re-animated Orville Redenbacher. It looked to me as if somebody went to like George Romero and said hey let’s make like a zombie version of this loved character who was quite appealing and let’s have his flesh you know sort of like drooping off and…it looked like a zombie or something like that really disturbing horror figure like the Cryptkeeper or Night of the Living Dead. So that was just a bizarre thing. We had this debate earlier and it was like is that CGI? You think it might be CGI. I looked at it and said I think that’s like makeup…like early bad makeup job that looks like there’s somebody behind there like maybe even a woman because it’s such a frail, little thin body that maybe it’s a woman who’s got just layered cake makeup on---

 

Joseph: It’s completely digital - I think it’s completely digital!

 

Jason: It’s completely disturbing! That’s the bottom line. Ahh…my big winner for the week is going to be Apple Computer. Umm, or I should say Apple Inc or Apple. Just Apple! The reason is not because of the iPhone. I think the iPhone is going to be a big success whatever. I’m not going to buy it. I like the blackberry. I like the keyboard. There’s no way that touch screen will beat a keyboard I guarantee that.

 

However, I think the biggest part of the Apple announcement the last couple of weeks was really that they were dropping the Computer from their name and that their profits are from their Ipod and appliances and I think this is where they’ve basically separated themselves from Microsoft and saying we’re an appliance company, we’re a gadget company, and the computers are just one part of what we do, but frankly, if you buy the computer great, you don’t need to but maybe someday you will.

 

I’ve got probably eight or nine researchers working with me and you know in my little research group I’ve built and I bought all of them 24 inch Imacs and I have to say it is the greatest business computer ever made! Because…it’s one plug, everything is built in, OS10 is brilliant as an operating system, the Intel chips in it are lightening fast and all those problems you use to associate with MAC like it crashes, it takes 20 min to load up the operating system, it’s sluggish, not enough memory, the video cards were underpowered or whatever…all that is gone! And so the beauty on the outside actually matches the beauty on the inside of the monitor now for the first time that I’ve seen. And the speed is there and I just think that would obviously lead me to my loser being---

 

Joseph: Before you do your "loser", let me comment on that!

 

Joseph: I like to bash Apple all the time because I feel that somebody’s got to keep them honest and humble because god knows that they’re neither. I think the problem is that in talking about the re-branding of the company as Apple, Inc., you just singled out ultimately what you love about them, which is the computer. And it’s funny. It’s funny because history will reveal whether in fact they are the gadget company because they certainly are credible on many fronts: design, brand identity…Certainly they’ve won the Ipod war; the MP3 war and I don’t think anyone will ever come close. But are they credible as a phone provider and what happens when calls get dropped even though it may be Cingular’s fault and people start blaming Apple? Umm…I have a feeling that the “Apple Inc” will be short-lived. And I have a feeling that it is almost getting drunk on the short-term successes of that Mp3 player but time will tell whether in fact this is a company that can own and successfully market and position themselves to be the one-stop I-shop, ultimately, and whether in fact walking away from their computer niche which let’s face it at the end of the day by not opening themselves to Microsoft initially they limited their growth but they still had that core, passionate, user-base that would die - those sellers - that would die for Apple and right now a lot of these mp3…you know I’m a PC guy and I love my Ipod Nano to death! But ultimately would I die for Apple? Not a chance!

 

Jason: I think though what’s starting to happen is that Apple, by being a closed system and building everything from soup to nuts, has such a controlled environment that in a world with, with two things, tyranny of choice and forces of evil... The tyranny of choice with a Windows machine with too many peripherals that don’t work and too many drivers, too many DLL’s, too much software, it’s become overwhelming to people to have to deal with… they just want their computer to work! Which is the thing with the Ipod. The Ipod doesn’t have every feature yet it’s not open but it works. And it’s flawless in my experience…the Macs are becoming flawless. Ok yeah I can’t run every piece of software on it. Every peripheral’s not made for it. Windows has many more options. But you know what I just want my people to be able to focus on work and not have the thing breaking constantly, not have viruses constantly, and I think a lot of small to mid-sized business owners have now had this realization that if you buy windows you need to have an IT department. If you buy Macs, it all just works brilliantly and you don’t need an IT department and that’s a major mind-switch. I would never have though about this. My old philosophy was buy $600 eMachines, keep a couple of extras around and know that after when windows craps out after six months…

Joseph: Let me tell you, though, everyday I am so close to switching to Mac. And by the way - and I’ll say this with a big smile on my face – ‘cuz I know how Apple operates…

I have an idea for Apple and I guarantee you, guarantee you that this idea will, will increase sales of MacBook Pro’s or any Mac ten-fold overnight... guaranteed!

 

Jason: What is it?

 

Joseph: I’m not going to tell you right now.

 

Jason: C’mon – that’s editorial gold!

 

Joseph: I, I’m going to wait until I get the letter from Apple which will I’ve got in the Pod saying ‘Thank you for submitting an idea to Apple, Inc. Here we get so many ideas from people just like you. And if we kind of, like you know…acknowledge those ideas well we’d be a very poor company because we’ve got this guy who’s got stubble, like mine, and who likes to just stand up onstage and reveal his great ideas.’ So I’ll keep this one to myself but I guarantee you ten-fold increase overnight or your money back!

 

Jason: Ok, well…Ok tell me afterwards that’s good. My idea actually…I had a really good idea for a feature. I had this .mac feature that they charge for. I think they should just include that in the price of the computers and back up everybody’s computers constantly for free so that you never have to worry about losing your data ‘cuz that is sort of the biggest fear for PC users and Mac users: the loss of data. Now that everything is in the cloud if they just had a Mac cloud where all your data and all your documents are all stored. They already do this for your music and licenses with stuff that you paid and you’re never gonna lose that hopefully…

 

Joseph: It’s the operability as well. I think that the ability to move from platform to platform and location to location you know just do it really, really smoothly and it’s the same thing because the whole world, the old world, has focused on barriers to entry and barriers to exit. And now they’re looking for the ability to open that up and actually… the company that actually breaks down those barriers ironically by doing so would create the ultimate barrier.

 

Jason: Right. Right. Right. By being truly interoperable ‘cuz, I…when I go onto a new Mac I put on the Firefox browser synch which has all your passwords and cookies stored and I log in to my GMail and my Google Docs and I’m done! It’s basically you know, I don’t even have to download anything. But another great piece of software I’m going to put on my winners is Moxy, a great backup system software that backs up your stuff constantly.

 

So for my loser, for my loser I think I’m…It’s obvious to go with Microsoft I think because of the next version of Office, even though they’ve really innovated according to Walt Mossberg and I trust his opinion and I saw him last year at the D Conference some new versions and it looks pretty swift…I think Office is by and large over. I think most of the people will not spend $400 bucks on a copy of Office especially mid-sized companies. They’ll maybe buy one copy for the person that’ll need to use a database or PowerPoint but most people are going to start using Google’s Office Suite or other office suites online because it’s free, because it’s cheap and because it doesn’t crash your machine or bog it down. You don’t need additional memory or RAM or upgrades to…

 

So Microsoft is my initial loser but I’m going to put Pay Per Post in there because I’ve been riding these guys for a long time and I think anybody who doesn’t require full disclosure at the top of the post that’s my benchmark! Pay Per Post I know that you are watching. I don’t think that you guys are really bad people. I think that you’re probably misguided people and yes bloggers should get paid. I’ve fought for that for many years and I figured out ways to do it but there is a way to do it credibly so let’s not start this ridiculous argument that I pay bloggers and that I’m saying that it’s wrong for you to pay bloggers. I believe it’s right to pay bloggers but if you want to do marketing in a blog post in the editorial, put a line in the first sentence ‘The following post is paid” so that you don’t confuse users ‘cuz at the end of the day, and you’re the marketing expert, tell me if I’m wrong? People do not like to be deceived! That is, I think the best way to frame the debate about any type of buzz marketing, covert marketing is that: do you as an individual like to be deceived?

 

Joseph: So, it’s interesting though because I think that I would also say that people don’t, people don’t like to be insulted. People don’t like to be taken for granted. People don’t like to be underestimated. I think all of the above apply and then my point of view... I always take a step back with respect to Pay Per Post and I say I think two things should happen. One: is that we should all be held to the same low standards across the board OR we should be held to higher standards across the board. Now, obviously---

 

 

Joseph: The point is we are not happy about being deceived. The point is obviously which one do I agree? Clearly it’s high standards. But, but here’s my problem. All the product placement that goes on I mean look, Donald Trump is a bit of a joke and The Apprentice is, this is it’s last season even though it’s in LA... Hi L.A.! I’m in LA right now…But the whole point is like, it’s like if we’re going to disclose, which we should, if we’re going to be transparent, which we should, number one we should do it across the board, right? And number Two: it also can have a certain semblance of sanity and common sense. Which is, you know, the above saying advertisement in the newspaper that - print has always done it best! They’ve always been the most anal about church and state. I’m necessarily saying ‘The above is a paid blogging advertisement” but I think we can also be able to say ‘hey you, know, I received this basic computer with Windows Vista from the folks over at Microsoft and Edelman and they’ve asked me to give it a review without any strings attached so here it goes.”

 

How hard is that to do? How hard is that to do? And I do want to say one thing is that I at the same time you know PayPerPost you have Jason and myself giving you free consulting so take it, take it! Take our advice, you know and follow up with us as well and join this conversation because ultimately we both want bloggers to get what they deserve. We both want bloggers to get revenue and credibility and the ability to build a real business that can send their kids to college based on blogging! There is nothing wrong blogger outreach. There is nothing wrong with me being a Sprint ambassador and receiving a free phone and talking about it but let me just disclose the fact that… not “Hey Sprint is the coolest thing since sliced bread or cheese” or whatever the case may be. Just be honest! See, honesty at the end of the day and common sense and I think Pay Per Post could have a role to play but they’ve got to just be able to ... I think, actually Jason, that in defense of them, the only time I will, that they require every single…is it true? Ever single blogger has to disclose now?

 

Jason: There, there has to be disclosure in some fashion and so in all of these things it’s you know, the devil is in the details. And so what they’re saying is put this little icon somewhere on your page and if somebody happens to click on it and goes to your blogger disclosure form that’s where you put it. So you will never see that - when you read a post and you’d never know!

 

Joseph: It’s small print. Once again, it’s the same thing like we see …we see a friggin' Toyota driving at 250 miles per hour backwards on a deserted LA highway and then in the small print you know it says ‘Professional driver. Closed course. Do not ever attempt.” You know? So like, why the hell are you selling me a car representing something that would obviously is, is retarded but at the same time, you know, it’s just so far away from reality and I think the point is to what you were saying, Jason, by putting you know, an icon below the fold, all your doing, you know is a thirty second spot -deceiver in terms of the small print. I will say one other thing for what it’s worth for my final piece of the rant here. This is my rant of the week I’ll send you that mp3 as well. But, but, you know… I went to a blogger’s blog the other day and there was that little icon that said PayPerPost. Immediately, the credibility that… It was unbelievable! I just looked and I said suddenly what is real and what isn’t real? You know?

 

Jason: Depicts an airplane crashing visually and audibly

 

Joseph: I mean, it wasn’t that bad. Ha-Ha. It wasn’t that bad. It, it regained. You know? It went from there to there… it’d didn’t actually flame up and crash…

 

Jason: And the other thing is that Pay Per Post doesn’t require is they still let people… they say you can only review this product if its positive. So, some people say you can review it negative but when you go on the site it’s just like most of them are positive or half of them are, you know, “Only review if it’s positive”!

 

Joseph: You know again, Jason, it comes down to this point which is if the product is deficient then ultimately why the hell are you, are you trying to kind of shroud that or cloud that in a sense? When I did my “Use new marketing to prove new marketing” it was very simple. It was if you’re a blogger, a marketing blogger or a podcaster and you agree to review my book, no strings attached, I’ll give you a free copy. That was it! It was as simple as that. Now, I believe in my book…I better! And, and from what I’ve been told the book’s pretty good. So in a way I knew what was going to happen. I knew that some of them were going to be snarky just because that’s what they do. You know, I knew that that’s how some people were going to give but I’m not going to give too graciously. I have to be balanced and look purposely for faults, but ultimately you take your chances and if you don’t believe in the product and you don’t believe in the brand then ultimately you can’t, just cannot, put limitations on whether reviews or whether word of mouth can be positive or neutral or whatever. It is what it is. Deal with it!

 

Jason: Yeah I agree with that. I mean, I think that there is a market for tapping bloggers for advice on how to help people make their product suck less! And Dave Winer and I have had a lot of conversations about this and I would almost like to start a company called “Authentic Post” where the concept of “Authentic Post” would be: you put yourself - it’s almost like you did with your book - I would like you to review this and I’m not going to pay you off in any way because giving somebody a book it’s a ten dollar item…what you’re really asking me to do is review it and give you feedback on it almost like you’re hiring a consultant. So if somebody said ok we’re coming out with a new phone and we’re gonna pay you an amount of money to pay you to review the phone. You could actually create Joseph Jaffe’s review of your phone on his blog - because he’s smart, he’s worth $1,000 and Peter Rojas from Engadget, his review of your product and his advice is worth $3,000 because he’s really smart in that space and Calacanis is only worth $500, Dave Warner is worth $750, and Scoble is worth $1,500. You could actually tap those people as consultants. That’s where the issue comes in, I think, with blogging! Some people look at blogging like journalism, like I do, because I come from a journalism background. But I understand some people are consultants. So if it was absolutely transparent: “I am being paid $1,500 to write a detail review of what’s good, bad, about this and they’re paying me for my time” I would actually like that.

 

Joseph: Would they need to disclose the amount of money?

 

Jason: Absolutely! And on the “Authentic Post” site it should have a link it should have a list of who’s being paid how much, a link to their post and the advertisers’ response so the advertiser would have to respond to the person’s complaint - so it would be let’s make the product better!

 

Joseph: I’ll give you a tagline for free: The influence marketplace So it’s “Authentic Post: The influence marketplace”. And by the way…don’t even try to register the domain name because Jason has registered that one already by the time you actually view this.

 

But it’s interesting I mean, why not? That is almost taking almost ultra-disclosure and transparency and actually using that really as a point of differentiation which is this person worked so hard to establish the credibility and the consistency and the rapport and the influence on there blog... Why not go out and pay, you know…Scoble, fifteen hundred bucks just for his opinion? He’s just one man. He’s one man, but anybody that knows him knows that he is that’s what he is and is like what you see is what you get and he’s laid back, he’s honest, he’s a good guy and quite frankly, know, if I wouldn’t put more equity and emphasis and value on what Robert Scoble has to say well then why the hell am I, and I mean by I, I mean the world, care what the hell Joss Stone has to say about GAP? How’s that for completing the circle?

 

Jason: I think that, I think we’ve completed the circle. So, I guess we’re probably coming toward the end of Across the Sound, the new marketing podcast. CalacanisCast Beta is probably episode #11 so at 1PM I’m taping…

 

Joseph: And I’ll make it 69. 69! You and me…

 

Jason: Across the …yeah, that’s just disturbing! Ahh, please whoever’s editing can you please take that part out because it’s bad enough you have to see two old… terrible, terrible stuff, take it out!

 

Well, this has been a great episode. I’m really psyched about Joseph. I get to see Joseph again after many years and…

 

Joseph: I’ll see you in…I guess I’ll see you in 2011 for episode I don’t know 669 Ha!

 

Jason: Uhh yeah. So thanks everybody for tuning in. Let me also thank Podtech, Podtech, Podtech.net! That’s a great, great site doing great shows.

 

Joseph: You know I think we should do something here. Podtech, Podtech why are you not sponsoring “Across the Sound”? But more importantly, um, because we’re two audiences coming together and certainly there will be a degree of overlap and duplication. Maybe each of us should take, ‘cuz it’s right at the end so there’s a kind of self serving nature to it but I don’t mean that self serving. If you like what I have to say and you’re one of Jason’s cronies or you like what Jason has to say of my zealots… Maybe we should just give a few links and a few places where people can go and find out more about each other’s shit!

 

Jason. Yeah, well…If you’re listening to “Across The Sound” and you wanted to check out my blog it’s very simple it’s my last name Calacanis.com. CALACANIS.com and my show in beta is available over at Podtech.net, Podtech, Podtech.net. PODTECH.NET.

 

Joseph: For me Acrossthesound.net, and obviously you can subscribe via iTunes. See…little bit of plug back to Apple even though ITunes still says Episode 55 of Across The Sound.

 

My blog is called JaffeeJuice.com

My books website is lifeafter30.com

My company is called Crayon - You can go to Crayonville.com or Crayon Second Life, come to our island Crayonville in Second Life.

 

I am sure there is another link that I should have given you but god knows I can’t remember it. So, I hope you guys will join the conversation. Jason, do you remember your blog call-in number?

 

Jason: I don’t remember it, no.

 

Joseph: Mine is +1 206 203-3255. Send in an audio comment for myself or Jason and I’ll pass it along.

 

Jason: I could probably sing the (singing voice) +1…ahh I don’t know the exact.

Jason: And we love Splenda. And we love Adam Curry.

 

Alright, peace out everybody. Thanks for listening to Across The Sound and CalacanisCast Beta.

 

Great show everybody!

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.