December 2005

For advertising on the Watershed Studio blog we are moving away from Google AdSense and we are giving AdBrite a whirl. While AdSense does a great job of serving up relevant “pay-per-click” advertising, we feel it would be better to have the option of advertisers intentionally advertising on the site for as little as one day and at a set price.

If you’re interested in advertising on the Watershed Studio blog you have two options at the moment; advertising on the sidebar of the main page or at the bottom of every individual entry. For advertising information click on the “Advertise with Watershed Studio” link located in the advertising sections.

Watershed Studio and Trolley Dodgers are proud to bring you The Future Karnies of America Podcast.

The first episode is the 2005 Christmas edition with the “Karnie Christmas Classics”; Randolf the One-Armed Karnie, Carnie Wonderland, Pitchmen We Have Heard on High, 12 Karnie Days of Christmas, The Carnival is Coming to Town & Randolf (’munk re-mix).

Enjoy.

A few days ago I noticed the “K.B. Twister” mascot / logo on a loaf of bread from Kroger. I’m not sure if this is something new or old, but this is the first time this character caught my attention, so my guess is that there’s not much of a marketing strategy for its use.

I’m assuming that K.B. either stands for “Kroger Bread” or “Kroger Brand” or “Kroger Bakery”.

The logo depicts a character (made of dough?) in a baker’s hat, a sports coat, a tie (with the number 7 on it) and sneakers playing a guitar while standing on a sliced piece of bread.

I’m not sure what message they’re trying to convey with it or if it’s a successful venture, but it definitely goes into my file of “unique” marketing ideas.

If you’ve not checked out the NPR Podcast Directory yet, I highly recommend doing so.

This has been up and running a few months and is an excellent addition for people who would like to listen to NPR’s content without being glued to the radio at a specific time.

[UPDATE (01-21-2008): Version 2.3.x works fine in WordPress 2.3.x. However, the version 2 line is being retired to make way for version 3, which should have a public beta available in a few weeks.

[UPDATE (10-25-2006): Check out the WordPress Email Notification Plugin v2.3.2 Alpha post. There is a possible spam issue that is being addressed.]

The Word Press Email Notification Plugin has been updated to version 2.3.1.

Updates to this version:

• Blog names with commas now display correctly in the from field
• Changed the default location to look in the WP directory for the wpemn_config.php file
• Updates the sent flag before sending future dated posts in order to cut down on duplicate e-mails being sent

If you see anything that looks like a bug or the documentation needs corrected, please comment.

Sony easily wins the largest business mistake of 2005 with their DRM strategy.

I won’t go into the details (you can find a good run down here), but the bottom line is that in an effort to curb the “ripping” of certain CD’s Sony decided it was a good idea to install malicious spyware on people’s computers without their knowledge. When you take into account that they’re doing this to customers who purchased the CD and that it can be defeated with a piece of Scotch tape, the only thing they’ve accomplished is to alienate their customers.

Way to go Sony! Whoever is on the PR end of this one is in for a fun time. And I can see additional lawsuits beginning to fly. (I’m just waiting for Sony to sue 3M for creating Scotch tape.) And if they think music sales are down now, I can’t image that this will help matters any.

The lesson we should all learn from this is to listen to your customers and not alienate them. If people want to listen to their music on their MP3 player, let them (especially if you have a division that sells MP3 players). Yes, something needs to be done to curb piracy, but spyware and lawsuits are not the answer. And with the society is going towards “open source” and “creative commons” licensing, it may very well come down to finding different revenue streams or going out of business.

It’s always a pleasant surprise when a plugin you’ve released makes the “short list” list of plugins used by one of the more visible bloggers out there. (If you’ve cruised the “emergent church” blog realm or other techie type blogs, you’ve probably ran across Darren Rowse at some point). Darren, thanks for the link to Watershed Studio.

Related to our WordPress plugins, we’ll be launching a plugin registration system in the near future so we can keep in better communication with people who use the plugins. Stay tuned.