No play for mister gray

I can't help it... Each time I see a news story about the new bin Laden video, I keep thinking about the quote "No play for mister gray" from the Just For Men commercials. Oh well...

Wrong build/buy/partner decision

The Sun-Sentinel reports of Palm Beach County tourism officials canceling their project to build an online travel agency. At least they stopped the project now.... But why did any of these people think that they could build a profitable online travel business around a single destination. All the major OTAs are investing millions into new platforms, and these guys thought they could do it on the cheap.

Besides building their travel site, I'm curious to know how they planned to run this business. These things just don't run themselves. In addition to keeping the technology alive, operations/fulfillment running (online and offline tasks), and the site functionality relevant, you need resources to acquire supply and market products to customers. Selling properties in one destination would never overcome the high initial investment and continued operating costs.

The only way that I can see this build decision working is if they were planning on reselling this platform as an affiliate solution to other municipalities, but I don't see any sign of this goal. They should have just partnered with an OTA (like Expedia, Orbitz, or Travelocity) and immediately started taking bookings. Some of these advanced platforms support unique functionality "out-of-the-box" that I believe would be close to their needs.

Odd Item: Amazon.com's Old Timer Junior 3 Blade

Take a trip over to Amazon.com and pick up a new knife. The Old Timer Junior 3 Blade is priced to move at $895,200. You can even save $30 by signup for the Amazon.com Visa. Yeah... seems like a silly offer considering the sale price. It's been this way since at least 2.16.07.

Super Bowl XLI - The Good And The Bad

GOOD

• Prince - Great performance. Best half-time show I've ever seen.
• TV @ Wilson's - The food and beer were good too.
• Emerald Nuts spot - You can't go wrong with Robert Goulet. Can't stop thinking about Will Farrell's impersonation.
  

BAD

• The Bears losing - I've become a big fan of Chicago over the last few years. It's a great town. You should go visit.
• Most of the commercials - How much did King Pharma/American Heart pay for that spot? At least Sales Genie had a low production budget. I would have liked to see another of the new Blockbuster ads from their current Total Access campaign instead of a re-purposed spot from the past.

Read SuperAdFreak for more reviews.

I love brownies

First of all... I love sweets. Brownies are at the top of that list (along with chocolate chip cookies and ice cream). Daily Candy (yes... I subscribe) covered an incredible new brownie tin today. You can make a batch of regular brownies, all edges, or all centers. I'm writing about this fantastic product because for both its goodness and the fact that it was invented by a smart guy (yet another... ;-) named Matt Griffin. Isn't that cool. I've never been so proud to have my name.

Great Private Equity News

If you interested in knowing what companies/concepts are getting funding, check out private equity HUB. They have a great investments newsletter (daily) that gives you the latest info on VC deals, buyouts, IPOs, M&A, as well as their opinions on current topics. Check it out at www.pehub.com.

Thank you Blogger Custom Domains

I'm glad that Blogger now offers custom domains. This is a great feature that ties very well with the Google Apps for Your Domain product offering. What this essentially gives you is the ability to have mail, calendar, web site, and blog services for free. All you have to pay for is the domain name. Subdomains can be configured easily with your registrar to support all of these services. I don't think there's much of a way to get around that.