The Friday Special: Bezos & Hastings - The Dirty Duo of Internet Business

Yes, my friends, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Reed Hastings of Netflix/Quickster/Whatever are the Dirty Duo of Internet business.

Hastings has been on my "bad" list for a long time. His recent pricing and company split shenanigans were only real-life confirmation of what my built-in BS detector told me when I first saw him on Charlie Rose's program several years ago. (I suspect that in real life he sets off BS detectors at a distance of five miles!)

On the other hand, I've been a Bezos admirer until recently... namely yesterday when Bezos/Amazon announced their new Kindles, and finally decided to make good on the HP firesale pricing of the TouchPad for all purchasers. Ya coulda knocked me over with a feather!

Its painfully obvious what both of these business gurus did will, in the long run, be beneficial to their customers, employees and shareholders, but its equally clear that its a lousy way to treat your customers and employees in the here and now.

Hastings and Netflix did the right thing by spinning off the DVD-by-mail business, but failed miserably at managing their customers through the changes... hence the uproar at Greed Hastings's arrogance. And I'm sure that its been much more painful for Netflix's employees than if a proper change management plan -- or any plan -- had been used with their customers.

Bezos/Amazon's TP price rebate decision was a great move business-wise because it put cash into tablet customer's hands on the same day that it announced the modestly priced Kindle Fire and the other new Kindle models. Briliant... but by holding out for a month, your customer-facing employees took an undeserved beating on your behalf. Your customers and their money were held hostage for pure, naked greed on your part.

Somehow, Jeff, your proclamation yesterday about the type of company you and Amazon have chosen to be set off BS detectors around the world.

Mr. Bezos, have you met your new roomie Mr. Hastings?

Which of you is taking the top bunk?




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The Friday Special: The HP CEO Shuffle - Good News/Bad News

Alas, the ouster of Leo Apotheker  as HP CEO is one of those classic good news/bad news scenarios...

The Good News -- Meg Whitman is the new HP CEO, meaning that Leo Apotheker is out.

The Bad News -- Meg Whitman is the new HP CEO. Feels like an "any port in a storm" move on the part of the HP board.



Some other thoughts on the matter...

• The Good News -- (Insert any name here) is the new HP CEO, meaning that Leo Apotheker is out.

• If Pee Wee Herman, like Meg Whitman, were sitting on the HP board since January, could he have been the new CEO today?

I'm not seeing Whitman as the fix to what ails HP.

Anyone have Pee Wee Herman's phone number handy?





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The Friday Special: My Entry in the boston.com September RAW Photo Contest

The theme for this month's Boston.Com RAW photo contest is "Outdoor Sculptures".

My entry is a cropped version of a March 2002 photo I took near Ground Zero in New York City of a scuplture based on a 1932 photograph of ironworkers during the construction of Rockefeller Center.

The sculpture was adjacent to a public viewing stand of the Ground Zero site.

Learn more about the Sergio Furnari sculpture here,

Click here to see more about the 1932 ironworker photo.

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BTW, here is the original photo from which my contest entry was cropped (and fixed in Paint Shop Pro)...

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The Friday Special: Movie Magic - 28.5 Acres Becomes Forty Acres

Now we all know that its impossible -- even with movie magic -- to turn 28.5 acres of land into forty acres, but a 28.5 acre plot in Southern California was the home of movie magic for nearly 50 years... and was known as "Forty Acres".

Forty Acres was a backlot used starting in 1927 for the original King of Kings and then went on to appear in a long list of pictures including King Kong, Gone With The Wind and Citizen Kane.

When television came on the scene, Forty Acres was used for series as varied as Superman, The Andy Griffith Show, Bonanza, Star Trek, Batman, Hogan's Heroes and Mission Impossible.


Forty Acres in History?

Q: If it were possible to travel from Scarlett O'Hara's Civil War era home of Tara to the Stalag 13 prison camp from WWII and Hogan's Heroes, how miles would your journey cover?

A: 0 miles. The Tara mansion set, built for 1939's Gone With The Wind, was razed in 1959.  The Stalag 13 prison camp for Hogan's Heroes (1965 - 1971) was built on the same land at Forty Acres.



Click here for the whole story about Forty Acres on Wikipedia.

Discover even more about Forty Acres at  http://www.retroweb.com/40acres.html (Hundreds of photographs!)



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The Friday Special: Steve Jobs - The Floppy and the Mouse

I've never been a big Steve Jobs fan, but a recent article in the aftermath of his decision to give up the Apple CEO post caught my attention.

Here are a couple of sentences that really grabbed me...

"He did things his own way and expected the rest of the world to fall into line. He both brought the mouse into our homes and more or less killed it off, eliminated the floppy disk with the first iMac, and did away with the DVD on the MacBook Air, decisions that foretold the obsolescence of physical media."

Check out the whole story...
Steve Jobs Reigned in a Kingdom of Altered Landscapes


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