I see what you did here.

From IMDB.com:

Watchmen: When A Win May Be A Loss

Although it took in $55.2 million at the weekend box-office, the news for Warner Bros.' Watchmen wasn't all that good. After reports came in of heavy pre-opening ticket sales on Internet sites, a theater count of 3,611 and a screen count of about 7,500, analysts had expected it to come close to or even exceed the $71-million opening gross for the previous Zach Snyder fantasy thriller 300. Moreover, sales fell off precipitously on Saturday and Sunday (the movie took in almost half its gross on Friday, including midnight screenings), and some pundits saw the result as an indication that the movie's appeal was limited to young adults who were fans of the graphic novel on which it was based. (Warner Bros. said that 65 percent of the audience was male and 54 percent older than 25.) They predicted that the movie, which some said had cost as much as $200 million to produce, would take a big tumble next weekend.

Whoever thought that Watchmen would pull huge numbers is not bright. Watchmen isn't a comic book that's been around for decades with multiple iterations. It's not a franchise like Superman, Batman, or X-Men. It's one graphic novel. From the 80s. With limited readers. There are no generational ties with Watchmen. At least not to the extent of said comic books.

Trying to compare Watchmen to 300 isn't justified either. Same director, sure, but did movie heads compare Schindler's List to Jurassic Park just because they were directed by Steven? No. While 300 was a technical achievement, Watchmen isn't. There isn't anything groundbreaking in Watchmen; it's just another adaptation.

Also, Watchmen was presented as a superhero tale, very dark, and very violent. I would venture a guess to say the general populace saw the previews and thought, "Hmm. Looks like an X-Men rip-off movie. That's dumb."

Lack of identity with the characters and source material should have been the first clue to the movie heads. Throw in the non-Watchmen movie goers who don't really understand the theme, and you have more non-recommendations.

Logo Fight: Re/Max vs. Rehava

Um... Re/Max, your logo is ugly. Quit going to court to fix your own problems. And the Rehava.com logo looks absolutely nothing like yours.

No one would ever get the two companies mixed up.

 

 

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Logo Fight: Re/Max vs. Rehava

via Neatorama by Alex on 3/10/09

Do the two logos look similar to you? They do, according to the trademark attorneys of Re/Max, a national real estate franchise. They're challenging the trademark application of a real estate startup Rehava, which has a new commission structure that is different than the established culture:

Adam Scoville, Re/Max's legal counsel, said he can explain.

First of all, both names start with "r" and have logos with accent lines near the letter "e," he said.

"It goes beyond that," Scoville added. "If you chop the top off of the 'h,' you (almost) have the 'm' in Re/Max. The next letter is an 'a,' and if you take the 'v' then you have half of an 'x.' "

Steve deGuzman, Rehava's broker-in-charge, said he doesn't buy it. He said the trademark challenge is harassment and a form of corporate bullying that will cost his firm thousands of dollars.

"It's a huge distraction, particularly for a startup and also in this kind of a market," deGuzman said.

He suspects the Colorado-based franchise is challenging the trademarkbecause of Rehava's controversial commission rebates, which some in the industry see as a threat to traditional compensation standards.

Link - via reddit

 

 

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From the files of "Huh?"

There's always time to launch your dream

Interesting perspective.

 

 

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There's always time to launch your dream

via Signal vs. Noise by David on 3/10/09

"I'd love to start a company / become a great programmer / write an awesome blog, but there's just not enough time in the day!" Bullshit. There's always enough time, you're just not spending it right.

Now that's some tough love, but I'm sick and tired of hearing "no time" as an excuse for why you can't be great. It really doesn't take that much time to get started, but it does take wanting it really bad. Most people just doesn't want it bad enough and protect their ego with the excuse of time.

This excuse is particularly depressing when it comes from students. Oh, I have so many classes. Oh, I have so much home work. There's simply no time to learn outside of school. Then you're doing it wrong!

Never let your schooling interfere with your education, someone clever once said. Being willing to sacrifice at the edges is one of the most important skills you'll ever learn.

I've received plenty of Bs and even Cs for classes that I was incredibly proud of because they came from hardly no time spent at all. Time that I could then spend on reading my own curriculum, starting my own projects, and running my own businesses.

And I did. During my undergrad, I created Instiki, Rails, Basecamp, and got on the path to being a partner at 37signals. Do you think I could fit all that and still get straight As and have lots of time left over for playing World of Warcraft? No.

If you want it bad enough, you'll make the time, regardless of your other obligations. Don't let yourself off the hook with excuses. It's too easy and, to be honest, nobody cares on the other side.

It's entirely your responsibility to make your dreams come through.

 

 

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The Closest You’ll Ever Get to Being Batman

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Just visualizing someone wearing that. Oh geez, where's the oxygen?!

 

 

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The Closest You’ll Ever Get to Being Batman

via Neatorama by Stacy on 3/3/09

You can actually zip this thing all the way up and then look out of mesh eye holes where Batman's eyes are. I think this is kind of cool as a hoodie, but when you add the face to it, I get creeped out. But if you're ready to go fight crime*, you can spend a mere $75 and be well on your way! The Tumbler will set you back a little more, though.

Link via Geekologie

*Do not actually go fight crime wearing this.

 

 

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Every Year Capital One Reopens My Account And XBOX Live Debits Money [Frustr...

I hate Capital One. The 2-times weekly "Pre-Approved" mailings really get annoying. So would this-

 

 

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Every Year Capital One Reopens My Account And XBOX Live Debits Money [Frustrating]

via Consumerist by Meg Marco on 3/6/09

Every year Erick gets a Christmas present from Capital One. They reopen the credit card he closed 4 or 5 years ago. At that point, Microsoft gets into the act and starts billing that account for XBOX Live service he canceled at about the same time.

Erick says:

A long time ago I joined xbox live. I then cancelled xbox live a bit later. Microsoft continues to bill me even though my account is cancelled and they can't even find me in their system. I had paid off and closed my CapitalOne card about 4 or 5 years ago. Every year at Christmas, however, I get a neat present from them. See what they do is re-open my credit account then allow the xbox live payment to go through. Then I have to spend hours on the phone being bounced between customer service and collections and explaining over and over what happened. I finally get in touch with someone who knows what they're doing. I get told "yeah that shouldn't happen". They reverse all the charges and tell me the account will be closed permanently now.

Next Christmas comes along. Wash...Rinse...Repeat.

Well, I was no longer at the job or address that they had on file for me this time. So I've been sent to collections on an unauthorized charge made against an expired card attached to a closed account.

Well excuse me, CapitalOne, for not calling to inform you that I had moved WHEN MY ACCOUNT WITH YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN BE ACTIVE!

This time I'm not messing around. I've sent a certified letters to their president and the attorney general's office for their state. I'm also going to be searching out lawyers if this isn't settled. I'm tired of this game.

Yay! Go Erick! Get 'em! You should also inform the attorney general of your own state, as they represent your interests no matter where the company is located.

(Photo:taberandrew)

 

 

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Spelling check isn't right if you're wrong

Mislead: to lead or guide wrongly; lead astray
Misled: Past tense and past participle of mislead.

In other words, I was misled when the post was misleading in it's title. Misled is what happened; past tense. Read it outloud if you must. Mislead is "lead" as in "leader," or more visually, "leed."

Allen Weiss: What the Young People Say About Social Media

Peace out!

 

 

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Allen Weiss: What the Young People Say About Social Media

via Marketing Profs Daily Fix on 3/2/09

Once upon a time I wrote a weekly column for an online technology magazine. When new Internet technologies and web sites emerged, I was tasked with predicting their fate.

Whenever I said something would take long to adopt (like e-books, for example), I got tons of hate email saying a) I didn't know what I was talking about, and that b) the upcoming generation would look at the technology completely different than we did and readily adopt it. That I didn't know what I was talking about wasn't surprising, but what was curious was this faith that once younger people came along, everything would change.

Well, last week I had the chance to talk to two classes of undergrads at a major university about Internet marketing. After explaining search engine optimization, web analytics, paid search, etc the subject turned to social media. I gave them the typical talk about listening, participating, having a dialog, giving up control, etc, and how social media is a big deal (you know, the standard rap about if you're not on a social networking site, you're not on the internet). Then I showed them the various social networking platforms and asked them which ones they participated in.

Now, just a bit of background here. These are juniors and seniors in a business school. When you look at them, you know these are the kids who aspire to move into the business world very soon.

So, the first class told me that MySpace was considered pretty passé, and they were all on Facebook and almost all on LinkedIn. When I asked about Twitter, however, only 4 (out of 40) in the first class used it.

I immediately posted a tweet about this and heard back from several people. Matt Collier, for example wondered whether many of them had even heard of Twitter (perhaps this was about non-awareness, rather than a disinterest in using this platform).

So, during the second class I asked this question again. It turns out almost everybody had heard of Twitter, but only 1 of 40 was using it. When I asked them why they were so disinterested, they explained they got most of this experience on Facebook and didn't see the value. Frankly, the general comment was "why would anybody waste their time on this?"

When I showed them what TweekDeck looked like, I got almost pained looks and comments about information overload (this from a generation that has grown up with information overload).

Now, some people think that when relationships and business are important, these people will flock to Twitter. Hmm. Business is important to them right now and they are obsessed with finding jobs and building relationships. So, what does this platform mean for their future?

Other people think this is about being "ahead of the curve". But whose curve are we talking about…the curve of people who are in business right now, or the younger generation that isn't living in the land of curves?

As many who heard me talk about this subject know, I have no proverbial dog in this fight. I'm not an evangelist of any platform, just trying to understand what is going on. But one thing I know is that you can't have it both ways. If you believe that looking at younger people give you an idea of what will be popular in the future, then you have to seriously consider what this group of future business people are saying about the technologies they feel are valuable to them.

So, what do you think? Well, it turns out if you're over 20 years old, what you and I think isn't relevant here. But look through a really objective lens (no evangelism, please), and what do you see for the generation about to enter the working world?

 

 

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