Greatest Press Conference in the History of Media
February 2, 2007 | 1 Comment
The insanely ridiculous terror scare in Boston on Wednesday lead to the greatest press conference that has ever occurred. Watch above, you can’t help but love it!
Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens walk out of the Charlestown District Court and turn the media into a laughable circus, a feat they usually only accomplish on their own. The only topic open for discussion would be “haircuts in the 70’s”. The press conference goes on for a good amount of time with them refusing to consider any other topic and their lawyer repeatedly supporting this position. Eventually the media gives up and leaves them alone.
They were arrested for putting up throwies around Boston that depicted an advertisement for “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” on Cartoon Network’s late night Adult Swim. Considering the fact that they were hired to do this work and their only intention was marketing and not terror, legally they should be fine. Luckily the judge handling the case seems like a reasonable person. “Judge Paul K. Leary seemed skeptical of the state’s case, telling Grossman that the law requires that people must intend to create a panic to be charged with placing hoax devices. This case, the judge said, seemed to involve two men who relatives say were paid to place unorthodox advertisements throughout the city.” [from the MAKE article]
Clearly the devices they used were innocuous and reasonably common (at least in principle) amongst netizens. I first learned about throwies a year ago in this Amanda Congdon Rocketboom video. Boston was the only city, out of the many that saw the same marketing campaign, that overreacted in this way.
Some of my favorite quotes I’ve heard related to this incident:
- “Boston police protect me from marketing!”
- “Couldn’t these have really been bombs?” response: “So could trash cans, mailboxes, and tubes of toothpaste…”
- “The press accuses of them of not taking it seriously but, in a sense, they’re taking it just as seriously as they ought to.”
- “omg exploding light brights”
In the end, what I find most disturbing is that this was a win for terrorism, even though no terrorists showed up to play…
Thanks to Cliff for finding the embed friendly YouTube video
Tags: adult swim, amanda congdon, aqua teen hunger force, boston, cartoon network, MAKE, marketing, Peter Berdovsky, rocketboom, Sean Stevens, terrorism, throwies, youtube
Direct Response Sells to Digital River
January 31, 2006 | 5 Comments
In a $15 million dollar deal, Direct Response Technologies sold off a majority of it’s company to Digital River. According to the press release, the main reason for the purchase was to acquire Direct Track. Digital River had been using DT for some time now for managing their affiliate network. They clearly saw this as a logical progression. MyCoupons and GiftCards will not be sold in this deal, I assume they will be spun off into their own company, but the details on this are unconfirmed.
I often think of Direct Track as one of my greatest professional achievements so far in my life. In 2002 I started working as a PHP developer with version 1 of the product when many thought it was merely one of CEO Jason Wolfe’s “crazy” ideas. For those who’ve worked for DRT, one of Jason’s greatest skills is his ability to see opportunities in the digital world and jump at them. Often these leaps are failed or partially succesful, but if you don’t try new things you’ll never succeed.
At that time there were only a handful of companies using Direct Track. As the product stabalized and was continually enhanced over the six months that I feverishly responded to client feature requests and bug reports, it started to become obvious that this was going to be a serious contender in the space. More concentration was put towards the product including the expansion of the support and sales teams in Beulah, North Dakota. At the end of January 2003 we launched Direct Track version 3. This was a complete rewrite of the underlying infrastructure. After a few bumps in the road it, the product became very appealing to nearly everyone the sales team showed it to. If you look on the site there is no major press release about this, in fact I’m not sure any of us really believed we had succeeded until months later.
I remember this time in my life fondly in retrospect. Direct Track was getting better every day as the sales team kept heaping on more clients and we kept making the product do more. This was when some of the most proud unique features that are touted by marketing even today were born (Ad Pools, Cross Publication, Direct Coreg, etc.).
After 13 months of satisfying employment at DRT, in the middle of the Summer of 2003, I left Direct Response to return to Plymouth, NH when I was offered a job at Plymouth State University. I do not regret having taken the opportunity to move back close to friends and family, but I’ll always miss Direct Track. I feel a personal attachment to that product which still runs deeply today. I hope I can someday find another project that captures me so completely.
On the other hand, I don’t miss the 60+ hour weeks and sleepless nights…
With this in mind I was absolutely thrilled to hear about this large deal they made. Congratulations Jason and all of the current team that makes his demanding visions a reality.
Tags: adpools, affiliate, affiliate marketing, company, coreg, cross publication, digital, digital river, direct response, direct track, directstuff, directtrack, giftcards, internet, jason wolfe, marketing, mycoupons, php, technology, tracking, wolfe
Merchandise
December 20, 2004 | Leave a Comment
I came across a cafepress site selling “no sheep” merchandise. Same sort of idea I have going on, but not mine. Check it out
On a slightly different note, check out the cafepress site a friend and I made a couple years back. Midget Inside
Tags: cafepress, marketing, merchandise, nosheep