So, I went to my mailbox today to, well, get the mail. I get back inside and look through it. Aside from the bullshit junk mail, I come to a letter from Chase Bank. I have a credit card card with them, but not a bank account.

So I open it because it's a freaking bank and occasionally there is something I need to read. Before I do though, I inspect the outside of the letter which says "Check Inside." Now, first I think, "Why the fuck would you write that on the outside?" I mean, I'm not saying I don't trust the Postal Service, but do you know how many people touch that letter between Chase Bank and me?

Anyway, I open it up and discover a check for $9.75 from them. Low and behold, it's a real fucking check. Now normally, when you get a check in the mail from your credit card company, it's a blank check that allows you to deduct from your credit card account. That or you have a cash back bonus thing, (but you'll be expecting that.)

So, last night being Halloween, I went out. It's just what any guy does when every girl who is young and sexy decides to slut themselves up on one night of the year in a way that indicates that yes, girls do enjoy role playing.

Anyway, I realized something after about my fourth Miller High Life; that beer sucks! After getting a good Johnnie Walker Black label on the rocks and making everything right again, I realized something else, Halloween is a great time to get free brand equity. All you have to do is allow the licensing of your image to a few costume makers.

Do you know how many "Capitan Morgans" I saw last night? I think there were more people dressed as him as people drinking the actual rum. I also saw a group of about 20 who were dressed like The Blue Man Group and a few people dressed as iPods like this. This is something that can easily be leveraged. All you need is a good spokesperson(or spokes-thing in the case of an iPod) who is unique and can be identified with a simple costume.

A few months ago, we posted an entry: "5 Things Big Business Doesn't Know." It seems like NBC and News Corp didn't read the post, and immediately make categorical changes to their marketing ideology.

The post was about how big business wanted too much control over their market. You know, instead of going to Facebook and Youtube, they start their own sites. Well, the whack-jobs at NBC and Newscorp responsed by removing their copywritten content from Youtube and hosting it on their own video site (which probably wasn't exactly free to launch).

Today it became pseudo-public in a private Beta. It's called Hulu (catchy, isn't it?) and what is interesting is not just that they have decided to move away from their audience, but they have also decided not to stock it with fresh episodes. Now, normally I would say "Hey great! I can go watch shows that have been off the air for a while." Not this time. Personally, I'm glad "The Pretender" went off the air. In fact, I don't see any reason to watch it....(no one did really, that's why it was canceled)

I'm not kidding, they actually hate you.

Why? Because they think you are a burden on their network. I mean, come on. How dare you use bittorrent on their network? How dare you stream video? How dare you visit Amazon? Don't you know they pay good money to build a network, only to charge you more than they should, but still not as much as they would like to?I mean, you are killing the ISP's!

Eleven years ago, the Telco's were given $200 Billion in tax breaks so that at-home broadband would reach 45mbps at a cost equivalently to ISP charges of the time ($21/month). This was supposed to be done by 2006. Obviously, you are killing the Telco's because that wasn't enough money or time.

20 years ago, i was 3, but that's besides the point.

20 years ago, if I or my mom, wanted to buy a TV, we opened the phone book, found the local TV sales place, and headed down to scope out the TV's. The sales guy would do his song and dance on the most expensive unit because, well, it was the most expensive unit and he earned the most money on selling it.

20 years ago, if I was a business man, say in marketing, and I wanted to publish a catalog, I picked up the phone, called people who may know mailing list houses, called the house, sent a check, and received a whole bunch of stickers in the mail.

Quick, name the movie that title came out of! Wallstreet? The Firm? How about Boiler Room? Maybe Glengarry Glenn Ross? Nope, all wrong. It came from Joe Dirt. That may be the only thing I got out of that movie. Well, that, the fact that mullets will now and forever be funny, and a waste of 3 hours. (it was on tv)

As sad as it is, it;s true. There are a lot of things internally you want to do. Segment the market, harvest emails, sell more to your consumers who bought like products, but at the end of the day, who cares? Your consumer sure doesn't. They have their own needs.

Are you meetings the needs of your consumer? Can you even name all the needs of your consumer? I know I can't, because each of my consumers has different needs. You just have to try your best and realize it's all about them; does this help your consumer or you?. Remember, it's not about your bottom line, it's about theirs.

Every once and a while, a trend comes along that changes the rules. There are two responses to these trends 1) ignore it 2) fight it and 3) realize it's potential and jump on it. The internet is one of these trends. In fact, the internet even has it's own trends associated with it. However big business still doesn't seem to realize a lot of things about the net. These things are obvious to the consumer, but they defy all that big business knows, and they don't seem too willing to learn.

1) Unless you sell a product, your web site better be free. Simple enough right? If what I pay for i cannot download or have shipped to me, don't make me pay for it. The internet is about the free exchange of information.

Well, it appears that major TV networks, news organizations, and a few other information sites still doen't seem to understand this philophosy. Sure, they consider the news they provide as a product, i get that; but when was the last time you paid for CNN? Never right? You pay for cable, not CNN itself. So why did CNN think that people would actually pay to see CNN video online? The Post just realized the stupidity of paying for online content, in fact, so did CNN, but why did it take so long? One would think that a business that is supported by ads would just utalize the same concept on the internet.