Filed under: Office, Productivity

You’re paying way too much for moving boxes. At least, that’s the premise behind BoxCycle, a site that lets you purchase and sell boxes cheaply to others in your area. If you’ve got a business that buys more boxes than it needs, list them for sale, and a buyer will come pick them up. If you’re moving and you need to purchase boxes, just put in your zip code and pick some up near you.

BoxCycle isn’t quite perfect. Most of the boxes we could find were in the New York/New Jersey area, so hopefully a bit of publicity will get more listings up in the rest of the country. BoxCycle also takes a cut for facilitating the transactions, much like other on the web marketplaces. Although I think the idea behind BoxCycle is a good one, the infrastructure to purchase and sell boxes locally is already out there: it’s called Craigslist. Other than encouraging people to redistribute their boxes locally instead of throwing them away, which is commendable, it doesn’t seem to bring anything new to the table.

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Filed under: Rumors, Products and services, Competitive strategy, Wal-Mart (WMT), Marketing and advertising, Viacom (VIA), Best Buy (BBY)

Billboard announced last week that Best Purchase Stores, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is rumored to be the exclusive retailer for the continuously pending Guns n’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, by the end of 2008. For anyone who does not know about this album, it is likely to be one of the longest produced and most pricey in the history of the music business; it went into production in the mid-1990s.

Helping to fuel this rumor is the band’s new management, Irving Azoff’s Front Line Management, which has a history of releasing new albums exclusively through single retailers. Front Line released the Eagles return album Long Road Out of Eden through Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) a year ago with big success. The “new” Guns n’ Roses album would predictably see similar success when and if it is ever released, and Ideal Buy is smart to be grasping at the exclusivity if it is more than a rumor.

But will the album’s release recoup the amount of money spent producing it? This is one of the major reasons the album is continuously unreleased, despite rumors of release dates and its appearances on release schedules. A March 2005 article by the New York Times stated that production costs had reached $13 million, a figure that could only have increased in the following three and a half years. These high figures raise the question of whether the album will truly be worth release financially, even if it is critically or popularly successful.

Continue reading Good news for Best Purchase (BBY): Exclusive deal for Guns n’ Roses album

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

My mouse has two buttons, and dammit, I’m going to use them both. The Windows context menu is a trusted tool, and I rely on it heavily.

Moo0’s Right Clicker makes several welcome additions to the default options. I particularly like the folder bookmarking feature, which makes it a snap to navigate between folders in any explorer view. Couple it with the copy to and move to features, and managing files and folders in Explorer is much simpler.

It also adds a “go up” option to the menu - much quicker than mousing up to the Explorer toolbar - and the ability to duplicate a file’s name or full path to the clipboard. Right Clicker’s duplicate feature will spawn a new window with the current location (even from a file dialog). I find this particularly useful when I’m uploading or editing something and notice some file system untidiness that needs to be addressed immediately.

Right Clicker is available in free and paid versions, and my only real gripe is that the advanced options are all visible but grayed out. You know, just to remind us what we’re missing out on. Still, it provides a nice set of functions that context menu aficionados are sure to welcome.

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Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Productivity, Web services, Freeware, How-Tos, Unix, Browsers

If you frequently find yourself browsing on a low-bandwidth connection, you can potentially speed up your browsing experience by using the compressing proxy server at Toonel.net. The concept is simple: install their application on your personal (versions are available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Sun Solaris, and even Windows Mobile and Symbian), then set your proxy settings to point to your localhost IP address on port 8080 (127.0.0.1:8080). Once you do, all of your web traffic is routed through Toonel.net’s server, which compresses it before it gets to you.

The compression used is lossless, which is required to ensure the pages show up as expected, though there are image-specific options that allow you to change the compression that’s applied to JPEG and GIF images. This is likely only worthwhile on a very slow network, since it takes the server a bit of time to recompress images before your browser can download them, but could be handy on a struggling network.

I wouldn’t advocate running Toonel.net full-time, or even at all if you’re always on a broadband connection, but if you find yourself struggling with a lack of bandwidth, this is a great trick to have in your back pocket.

[via TechRadar]

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Filed under: World wide web, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Web services, Google, Freeware, Browser Tips, Search

Have you ever wished you could apply the power of Google’s search algorithm to the bookmarks you’ve stored in Firefox? If you’re okay with uploading your bookmarks to a relatively unknown site, you can do just that.

Searchmybookmarks.com has a Firefox extension you can install that’ll upload all of your bookmarks to their server. Then, when you visit the site, you have the option of searching just your bookmarks, searching your bookmarks and the rest of the internet (but giving preference to results from your bookmarks), or just searching the web.

In my brief testing, the site is clearly still in beta, as some obvious search queries that should have returned many results from my bookmarks returned no results at all when searching only my bookmarks. Yet, if I chose to search both my bookmarks and the rest of the web, those same results I was anticipating the first time around came out right on top of the result set.

If you were ever sure that you had something bookmarked, but couldn’t remember where, searchmybookmarks.com might just be able to help you find it.

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Filed under: Utilities, Productivity

If you don’t already use a timer to boost your productivity you are missing out. Pretty much every productivity book, blog and web site out there suggests a timer to help you get things done.

Some of you might be going old school and using a kitchen timer. But, if you’ve had enough of that once adorable ticking chicken, check out cool timer.

It’s quick and easy to download and equally easy to use. You can set it up to be an alarm clock, a count down timer or a stopwatch. When the designated time arrives, cool timer can play a preset sound or an MP3 file from your personal library.

I like to set a timer for a certain amount of time when doing chores like cleaning the kitchen or working on tasks I don’t enjoy as much. That way, I know I only have to do it for a certain amount of time. The added bonus with cool timer is that I have the ability to play some tunes I enjoy at the end of the task. Right now I’m enjoying “Sweet Home Chicago” from the Blues Brothers soundtrack every time my cool timer goes off.

[Via Lifehacker]

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Mozilla, Open Source

Mozilla has released version 0.9 of Sunbird, its calendar application. The Lightning calender extension for the Thunderbird email client has also been updated. There’s a massive list of changes under the hood, but here are some of the most noticeable:

• Calendar views have been overhauled
• A progress indicator shows up when you’re reloading a remote calendar
• Multi-day events now have visual indicators showing that they’re connected
• You can now show the this day pane in the tasks mode

Memory use has also been improved and the application is reportedly more stable. Lightning 0.9 is the last version designed for use with Thunderbird 2. Future development will focus on integrating the calendar extension with Thunderbird 3.

Sunbird and Lightning are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

[via Mozilla Links]

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Filed under: Time Warner (TWX), PepsiCo (PEP), Amazon.com (AMZN), Marketing and advertising, Walt Disney (DIS), Procter and Gamble (PG), Kraft Foods’A’ (KFT), Media World, Technology

Science-fiction has proffered worlds where advertising is instantaneously and specifically delivered to individuals, sometimes through such wondrous devices as brain implants. As we move along the timeline, it’s interesting to see how much of that isn’t actually fiction anymore, but indeed, science. Take the following article, for example. It discusses a cafe that has screens next to cash registers that attempt to increase sales by displaying images of appropriate add-on items. One of the examples given was of a pastry suddenly appearing on the screen upon the order of a coffee.

That doesn’t sound so bad, but what about the following? The article mentions that an Israeli business, YCD Multimedia, has a technology that can scan the faces of customers and then utilize algorithms to reveal demographical information about them, such as gender and a rough idea about age. The rest becomes obvious: advertising can then be matched to the demographic, yielding the ultimate in instantaneous targeted marketing. There apparently are some trials underway in this country, but they seem to be on the lowdown.

Now, we all know the problem here. Do you really want to walk into a retail store and be scanned? Do you want a piece of software converting you into zeroes and ones for the sole purpose of extracting money from you in the form of promotional advertising and/or offers? Maybe a huge needle should extend out of the cash register and poke you in the finger so that a DNA sample can be taken and examined so that, a nanosecond later, it’ll know exactly what your likes and dislikes are and go from there. Actually, I’m just being funny on that last one, I put that in a short sci-fi story I wrote a while ago about the dark side of retail and customer service.

Continue reading Will Big Brother advertising help shareholder value?

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Filed under: Competitive strategy, Ford Motor (F), Marketing and advertising

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) is stepping into the consumer-created advertising content kingdom. It announced today that it will run a national ad featuring a short film that recently won an online competition.

This is the secret that many companies are just now learning: your customers are your ideal advertising asset. When it comes to something as passionate about talking about the 2010 Ford Mustang, you definitely want to get out of your customer’s way, right?

This reminds me of Tide’s “Talking Stain” ad during the last Super Bowl. The ad was more than a pitch for the product; it also sent viewers to Tide’s website where they could send in their own “Talking Stain” video entries. Prizes were available and everything. The commercial was fairly low-budget, but the message and the strategy were brilliant. Perhaps Ford is trying to latch onto some of that effort. It’s about time.

The advertising industry’s “same old, same old” tack on strategic consumer messaging is exhausted, no matter how innovative the ad glitz is. Engaging consumers by encouraging a two-way line of communication is where it’s at for a whole new crop of consumers.

Continue reading New Ford Television ads made by consumers

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Filed under: General Motors (GM), Marketing and advertising, Columns, Recession

This is the first in a weekly series about the car business. The auto industry plays an important role in the global economy, but record-high oil prices and a global slowdown have created a crisis in the sector. This column will highlight some of the interesting stories that emerge as that crisis plays out.

Sure, the economy is in the tank and the stock market is teetering on the edge of a very steep cliff. But the severity of the situation really hit home with shocking news about a beloved secular American feast day: General Motors (NYSE:GM) announced this week that it will not buy ad time during the 2009 Super Bowl (that’s Super Bowl XLIII for all you Roman numeral lovers).

It seems that it was just yesterday that GM was promoting the new 2007 Cadillac Escalade at Super Bowl XL. Sales of the Escalade — perhaps the most over-the-top of the gigantic SUVs that so many Americans fell in love with — had been falling, and GM hoped to recapture consumers’ bling-addled imaginations with a shiny new model displayed, appropriately enough, on a fashion runway. It wasn’t to be, though, as Escalade sales continued to fall.

And who can forget GM’s adorable suicide robot ad from Super Bowl XLI? Some stick-in-the-muds found it a bit insensitive, but it did get people talking. It did not, however, help GM increase its sales.

And that’s the basic problem. Critics have long argued that GM relies too heavily on cheap redesigns and flashy advertising to sell automobiles, rather than focusing on good engineering and construction. The fact that GM is bailing out on the biggest advertising day in the media calendar recommends just how desperate it is. Maybe it has learned the lesson that you can’t sell cars no one wants, no matter how much you spend on advertising. Let’s hope that the money saved on Super Bowl ads is spent on making vehicles that can compete with Toyota (NYSE:TM) and Honda (NYSE: HMC).

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