Michael Castellon

Six junk foods that may not really be junk foods

2008-07-22T09:08:00.001-05:00

PORK RINDS
WHY YOU THINK THEY'RE BAD: These puffy snacks are literally cut from pigskin. Then they're deep-fried.

WHY THEY'RE NOT: A 1-ounce serving contains zero carbohydrates, 17 grams (g) of protein, and 9 g fat. That's nine times the protein and less fat than you'll find in a serving of carb-packed potato chips. Even better, 43 percent of a pork rind's fat is unsaturated, and most of that is oleic acid--the same healthy fat found in olive oil. Another 13 percent of its fat content is stearic acid, a type of saturated fat that's considered harmless, because it doesn't raise cholesterol levels.

via Huffington Post

Alex Rodriguez probably doesn't like Toronto Blue Jays fans [picture]

2008-07-13T18:27:00.000-05:00

Video: the old fake a heart attack in court routine

2008-07-08T18:17:00.000-05:00

Egyptian youth arrested, tortured for starting Facebook group

2008-07-08T14:10:00.001-05:00

via Christian Science Monitor:

In an interview last week, Ahmed Maher says he was shackled, blindfolded, and stripped. He says the police dragged him across the floor and beat him for almost 12 hours. They demanded to know the password to his Facebook account and asked for information about the 60,000 people in the group, then threatened to rape him if he would not comply, he says.

Average age of TV viewers increases

2008-06-30T08:01:00.001-05:00

Fueling the graying of the networks: the rapid aging of ABC, NBC and Fox. The three nets continue to grow older, while CBS -- the oldest-skewing network -- has remained fairly steady.

"The median ages of the broadcast networks keep rising, as traditional television is no longer necessarily the first screen for the younger set," Sternberg wrote.

For the just-completed 2007-08 TV season, CBS was oldest in live viewing with a median age of 54. ABC clocked in at 50, followed by NBC (49), Fox (44), CW (34) and Univision (34).

2008-06-28T03:46:00.001-05:00

link

Blackberry Pearl not receiving text messages? Try this ...

2008-06-27T15:57:00.001-05:00

Last week my Blackberry Pearl began randomly deleting text messages and call logs. If I missed a call, I would have no way of knowing whose call I missed. The phone numbers of incoming calls would also go missing.

But the biggest problem was that it would randomly and completely stop receiving text messages. A day or two would go by before I realized I wasn't receiving SMS text messages. This was an extremely frustrating issue and I see now that a lot of people are complaining about it in various forums.

Solutions I tried included everything from removing the battery each night to freeing up memory. None of these steps provided a successful long-term solution.

Long story short, I finally found a solution that works:

1.Confirm that the subscription is set up correctly
2.Click on the Options on the home screen.
3.Select Network.
4.Highlight and select Start Provisioning.
5.A provisioning status message will display: Provisioning in progress.
6.If successful, then the following message will display: Provisioning
completed successfully.
7.Click OK.

The device is now ready for data, then power cycle your device for this action to take effect.

Six truths about the Web 2.0 and social media revolution

2008-06-27T11:49:00.001-05:00

1. Web 2.0 is over-marketed and over-hyped.

2. Overall, there is a slow adoption rate. Stop asking people on the Internet if they've adopted, and start asking your boss, your parents and your neighbors about RSS feeds, tagging and Digg to get an idea of this.

3. Those who trumpet the web 2.0 revolution are largely marketers who are trying to sell it.

4. Web 2.0 integration is being held back because those who make decisions about new technology are those who understand it the least –– senior managers and politicians.

5. Web 2.0 innovation appeals to a very small, albeit loyal and passionate, user base.

6. The solution to integration will be found at some halfway point. For example, blogs haven't made mainstream media obsolete, as many Web 2.0 gurus claimed it woul 5 years ago. Rather, mainstream media have dedicated a portion of their business model to using Web 2.0 technologies.

2008-06-27T07:48:00.001-05:00

How to effectively hide an airplane factory.

2008-06-26T13:29:00.001-05:00

What to wear, eat and drink before the Keep Austin Weird Marathon, or any 5K marathon, for that matter.

2008-06-26T07:54:00.001-05:00

My Facebook profile has helped me connect with old friends. It's like high school again, minus all the high school.

2008-06-25T09:25:00.001-05:00

Sometimes the king is disappointed in the kingdom. This e-mail rant by Bill Gates outlines his frustrations with trying to install Windows Movie Maker.

2008-06-25T09:14:00.000-05:00

Hola! Me llamo Mr. Hyde. People who speak more than one language may subconsciously alter their personality depending on which tongue they speak in.

2008-06-24T13:34:00.001-05:00

David Hasselhoff has a social networking site.

2008-06-23T09:43:00.001-05:00

How we access and interpret information online may be having a profound affect on our brain's wiring, according to The Atlantic.

Strangest Google Maps Street View image ever?

2008-06-01T15:53:00.003-05:00

Maybe. What do you think happened here?

Disney 'ad lab' coming to Austin

2008-05-16T13:43:00.001-05:00

Will people remember three-second video ads on their mobile phones? Do high-definition commercials on big screens get people's hearts racing more than ads not in high-resolution? Is the sports ticker crawl distracting, or does it add value to the 30-second TV spot?A laboratory in Austin, to be founded by the Walt Disney Co. by the end of the year, aims to answer these questions and others.

Researchers will measure people's biometric reactions to advertising that takes advantage of the latest technology. In a controlled living-room setting, scientists will measure heart rate and skin conductivity and track the gaze of up to 4,000 participants who will be exposed to new ad models over the Internet, mobile devices and TV screens.

via Austin American-Statesman

Why Generation Y won't change the Internet, and what to do about it

2008-05-16T10:51:00.001-05:00

In just about every marketing position I've held, one of the most commonly discussed organizational issues is how to reach Generation Y users––the insatiable consumers of online information and content that represent a key demographic of consumers, and thus, are widely targeted by anyone with something to sell.

Web 2.0 marketing "gurus" are crawling over themselves at conferences and business meetings to convince the world that absolutely everything has changed since the swell of new media platforms, especially YouTube, Twitter, blogging and MySpace. I see dozens of them every year struggling to convince audiences that they're still relevant. Mostly, all they market are themselves.

Business leaders, most of whom are decades away from anything resembling common ground with these users, immediately turn wild-eyed and hopeful when they hear a Web 2.0 geek sling terms like RSS, Social Networking, User Generated Content, and Electronic Content Distribution. Marketing guys like myself quickly learn that by throwing these terms around in front of the right audience is a good way to have your manager hand you a blank check.

"These users are going to forever change the Internet!" communications and marketing managers blurt recklessly.

But here's the kicker––Generation Y users are actually doing very little to change the Internet. Dollar for dollar, it is often a dead end endeavor to attempt to reach users solely using these new platforms. Here's why:

Y Users Do a Tiny Bit of Everything. Watching a Gen Y user in their native environment is a peculiar thing. They will listen to an iPod, watch TV, text message from a cell phone and check in on their Facebook page simultaneously. While this ambidextrousity is impressive, it means they're consuming far too much information to process any depth or understanding––this makes it painfully hard to deliver to them any particular message.

Y Users Mostly Generate And Consume Useless Content. Text messaging for Gen Y users is often little more than creating and reading quick status updates, much like what's found on the social networking tool Twitter. Messages are usually trivial and under 50 words – making it difficult for marketers to slip through the cracks without looking like spammers or creating the impression of intrusion.

Y Users Can Detect Strategic Marketing Better Than Many Can Package It. Every generation is subject to more marketing and advertising assaults than the previous. That means a high percentage of fluff marketing and broken promises. One of my favorite film scenes takes place in A Christmas Story when Ralphie discovers the throes of strategic marketing through his Orphan Annie decoder pin ("Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!"). Imagine the effects of that experience if it were to happen to you thousands of times throughout your childhood. It's currently happening to Generation Y and their subsequent generations, and as a result, they think you suck.

Gen Y Seeks Absolute Truth. As a marketer, Gen Y hates you. They know that your job is to infiltrate their personal space and violate the control that they celebrate over their content. If you are not a product of Generation Y, you cannot communicate with them. No matter how clever you may think you are, do not try. Wal-Mart attempted to enter the social networking arena by creating a blog that "strategically" marketed to teens, and it went down in a hellish blaze thanks largely to the site being driven by people who did not understand their target audience and did not know how to speak to that audience.

Gen X, Not Y, Has Driven The Design of the Social Media Revolution. Kevin Rose of Digg, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Brad Greenspan of MySpace, are true revolutionaries of social media. While their users are largely tweens and Generation Y, these guys are Generation X all the way. Generation Y has yet to create a considerable footprint in the actual creation of these platforms. Will this change eventually? Of course. But it hasn't happened yet.

So, What Are We Gonna Do? So based on all this, we're to completely abandon our attempt to reach this youthful and spend-happy market? Absolutely not. The best marketing still comes down investing in research, innovation and overall quality of your product. The iPod, just before it's launch, needed very little strategic marketing because the product was far superior to anything else on the market and met the needs of a market segment. Anyone who saw an iPod was going to talk about it and write about it.

At Texas Tech University, when I was asked to help bring the communications and marketing efforts there onboard with the social media revolution, my job was relatively easy because the university had a great product - the promise of a tremendous education at a tremendous value. I didn't have to be overly strategic while designing plans to reach teenagers and convince them and their parents that coming to the university was a wise choice.

Instead, we established new channels to communicate the same content that was already being produced by our Web-savvy students, staff and faculty. So, we inked a deal with iTunes to have a TTU content page that allowed us to show video and audio from campus that demonstrated our beautiful architecture, resources, and academic programs, most of which was produced by our own students and faculty at little or no cost . Our staff started blogging, and we began encouraging students to become marketing advocates for their university––something they were largely already doing. This is what Web 2.0 marketers will have to begin to understand if they want to stay relevant in the discussion of Web 2.0 marketing.

Think I'm totally off mark? Let me know in the comments.

Follow me on Twitter!

2008-05-15T13:25:00.001-05:00

I'll be adding a sidebar badge to the blog shortly, but in the meantime here's Michael Castellon on Twitter.

Maya Angelou, Lilly Tomlin, Afro-Cuban Allstars to kickoff Austin theatre season

2008-05-15T11:37:00.001-05:00

The Paramount Theatre has announced it's 2008-2009 season lineup. Headliners include K.D. Lang, Carol Burnett and Hal Holbrook.

Seinfeld 10 years later

2008-05-15T10:35:00.001-05:00

Interesting photo gallery.

Turn your iPod Touch into an iPhone

2008-04-15T16:46:00.001-05:00

You already know how to hack your iPod Touch, but Lifehacker describes how to make VoiP calls from your iPod Touch in just a few steps, turning it (almost) into a functional iPhone-esque device.

Lion riding a sidecar on the wall of death

2008-04-14T20:46:00.001-05:00

Just because.

via Jalopnik

Court: Spamming Not Protected by Constitution

2008-03-02T10:17:00.002-06:00

via physorg:

A divided Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the nation's first felony conviction for illegal spamming on Friday, ruling that Virginia's anti-spamming law does not violate free-speech rights.

Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., considered among the world's top 10 spammers in 2003, was convicted of massive distribution of junk e-mail and sentenced to nine years in prison.

...

Justice Elizabeth Lacy wrote in a dissent that the law is "unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mail including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution."

Original 1980s Nintendo Entertainment System commercial

2007-12-21T08:58:00.000-06:00

Know how you're racing around town, frantically trying to find a Nintendo Wii for your spoiled children this Christmas? Your parents likely did the same thing for you twenty years ago when Nintendo released its first ever gaming console, the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Check out this vintage commercial for the NES console, feathered hair and all.