Saturday, January 18, 2014

Selllout

Sales fixes everything.

--Guy Kawasaki

Perkily, Marissa Mayer

Proving no American exception, Yahoo! didn't learn from history. When they announced Marissa Mayer's hiring, my reaction was the same as when they hired Terry Semel (from, aol-time-warner, the old media side, film, which made zero sense to me; an old media dude to run a new media company...?): why?

From the article below:

Mayer was on the product/engineering side of Google, but not in the advertising part of product/engineering.

Even "advertising" doesn't get it right. Advertising is not sales, it's mechanics, not sales (making money). Sales, and only sales, is sales. And yet, no one ever talks about going into sales, oddly opting instead for marketing because, given our valorization of money, that's where the cache is.

But marketing (mechanics) doesn't fix problems -- sales do (making money).

It's why I think ad traffic models have an inherent flaw; at pennies per click ("cpc" cost per click in industry speak) it relies on Godizilla amounts (economies of scale) of suckers (traffic) to "keep on clicking" -- that's why fb, twitter, et al ad nauseum, can cash in - for now. These "new economy" models have to be free to attract Godzilla traffic which they in turn sell to spammers. But is that sustainable for anyone outside of the billionaire boys club of facebook, instagram, and the rest of "the smoke and mirrors gang"?

Maybe someone will figure out how this makes sense over, say, "build it, sell it", but until then I see these two core flaws as not just unsustainable, but ... weird. Why? Because despite the "irrational exuberance" of gamblers who're in the market with a new equities high yesterday, the smoke and mirrors gang lose money. And until that's addressed, how can anything else be considered more important? Am I missing something? Hey, despite Jeff Bezos claiming he can turn on the earnings spigot "anytime" most would be surprised to know that Amazon doesn't make money and for quite a while bled money like Niagra Falls.

But at least I can see the Amazon model's potential to succeed, because they sell like crazy.They're excellent at sales and customer service.

Then there's the weird insidiousness, the crassness, of "free". People are up in arms about the NDAA and NSA spying, but there's nary a whimper from the msm about your information being the target of spammers. It's as if there were an invasion scale; NSA prying? Hell yes we give a damn! Corporate retailers whose only goal is to weasel their way into your wallet? Eh, huh?

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Two sins:

[de Castro] has no experience whatsoever running any kind of a real ad salesforce...

It looks like former AOL ad executive Ned Brody is going to take over for De Castro. We're hearing that he too was a "systems" guy at AOL. Mayer still needs to find a true sales person who understands the media business.

In the meantime, I'm not completely stupid. I'm working on a model that at least in part is derived from my contribution to the vomitus vernaculus -- "fread": free + advertising. Yeah, yeah, I know, sellout.

From Business Insider

MARISSA MAYER'S $109 MILLION MISTAKE: Why She Hired COO Henrique De Castro In The First Place

JAY YAROW

JAN. 16, 2014, 12:29 PM

Marissa Mayer just had her first major mistake as Yahoo CEO.

She was forced to oust Henrique De Castro, her hand-picked, and highly compensated COO after just 15 months on the job.

From the moment De Castro was hired, people warned that he was a big mistake for Yahoo.

Yet, Mayer plowed ahead, hiring De Castro, likely because when she started at Yahoo she had a blind spot for how the ad industry really works. After almost two years on the job, she now understands the industry better and is trying to correct her mistake.

When Mayer hired De Castro, one source told us, "[Henrique] is very smart, but he has a difficult personality; both his teams and his clients dislike him ... He has no experience whatsoever running any kind of a real ad salesforce, let alone a 1,000+ team selling experiential media into brand buyers."

This source wasn't an outlier. De Castro had plenty of enemies.

He has his own parody Twitter account that tweets some of the outlandish things he's said, such as, "To the CEO of major UK TV broadcaster: 'This deal is like sex with a Russian prostitute. Veeeerry tempting.... but no.'"

At Google, De Castro oversaw the successful creation of its display ad business, but Yahoo's ad business is different from Google's ad business. De Castro was running systems that served/targeted/optimized/ display ads for Google. That sort of advertising is radically different from a takeover display ad that runs on Yahoo's front page.

Mayer was on the product/engineering side of Google, but not in the advertising part of product/engineering. She didn't have to think about advertising. And since ad dollars flowed into Google, she probably thought she could just pluck any Google ad guy out of a lineup and plug him into Yahoo.

To people like Mayer who didn't pay attention to the ad business, an ad is an ad is an ad. But there are important, nuanced differences.

Despite many warnings that De Castro was bad fit for Yahoo, Mayer still poached him with a giant payday. Executive compensation firm Equilar estimates De Castro will collect $109 million from his time at Yahoo.

His time at Yahoo yielded little in the way of results, as far as we can tell. Yahoo's ad business remained stagnant, and De Castro was clashing with Mayer and her top executives.

Kara Swisher at Re/Code reported, "In recent months, according to numerous sources, he and Mayer had developed a tense relationship that many in meetings with the pair found it hard not to notice."

De Castro was a no-show at CES, the big tech industry trade show where Yahoo had a massive keynote with all sorts of executives. That was a warning sign that De Castro was not long for Yahoo.

Now, he's gone. In a note to employees, Mayer didn't try to soften the news. She said, "During my own reflection, I made the difficult decision that our COO, Henrique de Castro, should leave the company."

While this is a high-profile mistake for Mayer, there's some reason for optimism.

First, the stock is only down 2% this morning. By firing De Castro, Mayer telegraphed that the ad business is not doing well. And still, investors don't care, because Yahoo remains (for the most part) a tracking company for Chinese Internet giant Alibaba. In other words, Mayer has time to find her footing.

Second, she made her decision relatively quickly. De Castro was only at Yahoo for 15 months. She didn't let his tenure drag on just to save face. She cut him before it got too ugly.

Moving on from De Castro is good, but there's already murmurs in the ad industry that she still hasn't solved the problem.

What is EM08?

We have to get ready.
We have to fight.
-Carol, The Walking Dead (S07E13)

Intro, September, 2012

The Econ Meltdown of 2008

It's been over 3.5 years since I got very curious about the historic welfare bailout triggered by the massive implosions of Bear, Lehman and the soon to be shotgun wedding bride, Merrill, to groom B of A.

With OUR money. I did say "welfare."

I tell anyone who'll listen that when I began researching EM08 in Q1 09, within a few weeks I knew we were in the midst of the biggest story ever. Bigger than any wars, atrocities and cruelties. It makes atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki look bush league. And I'm Japanese.

History has shown us the ebb and flow of empires past; Mongolia, Rome, England... but because of the limitations, the relative crudity of the technology of the times, empires past were limited to portions of the earth, their colonies.

Today is different. With a military base in every corner and a bazooka aimed at every citizen on earth, we exist in the era of the first true global empire. But here's something even more disturbing; our weapons of mass destruction come bathed in the glow of purity, but it's the purity of Walt White's blue meth.

Those wmds are what's destroying the EU right before our eyes. To those like Matt Taibbi, Goldman helping Greece rig its books in order to gain entrance into the EU is old hat and not even square one of EM08. But it illuminates the thesis; the EU crisis is an American one, with the fingerprints of American banks all over it. Pension funds, sovereign debt funds, hedge funds... you name it. All got taken in, or rather more accurately, just taken. The scope is staggering. All were suckered into the biggest con in history involving the entire world far beyond what any empire past or futurist could have possibly dreamed of.

Ultimately horrific and the most interesting story ever.

The other big theme I asked in 2009; Why has no one gone to jail? The Obama administration, AG Eric Holder and the various regulators have done absolutely NOTHING amidst the Godzilla of crime scenes. In fact, they have arguably enabled the psychopathic banksters and associated thugs with a string of settlements that are sickening embarrassments.

I'm anything but an economist. These are my "everyperson" observations based upon what citizen journalism I can muster. Need I say it, this time is history being writ LARGE. My bullet point advice for the coming tsunamis ahead (yes, that's plural):

1. Get educated; there's no time like now to start learning about the way the American system of economics works. Even a cursory glance on a consistent basis at some of the analysts and blogs I cite (see sidebar links "EM08 Analysts to Trust" and "EM08 Blogs I Like") will begin to shed light if you really reflect and chew on the cud. Ironically, in a time of extreme unemployment, this is work.

2. WAKE UP - THE ENEMY HAS DECLARED WAR. The eCON elites have already made it abundantly clear that they do not care about and even look down on "the little people." It therefore makes sense to connect with others of like mind. You do yourself no favors by acting in isolation.

You are not a super hero and no god will save you from the wrath of the eCON elites when your number comes up. Ask the millions of taxpayers who were raped by "having to give" the largest socialist welfare theft in history to shithead bankers for their evil pre-2008 machinations so that they can dole out bubble era bonuses for 2009! Also be aware that as of February, 2010, these shitheads are doing the same things that got us in trouble before. In fact, because of even more welfare era conglomeration that created the super banks -- ironically in the face of "too big to fail" which, like so much of political speech, turns out to be empty rhetoric -- it can be persuasively argued that the bankers' position is stronger than ever. The lesson is that the eCON elites conglomerate and so should we. As the Ethiopian proverb says, A million spider webs can take down an elephant.

Note: Throwing your hands up and shrugging, feeling helpless, remaining uninformed, not even trying... essentially doing nothing, is the worst "strategy" of all. It plays right into your enemy's hands and is not just easy, it's lazy and weak. It makes you, in the con artist's playbook, a mark. Which in the fall of '08, became painfully clear we all were.

The bottom line: Your enemy is highly organized and powerful, they are relentless and they are coming. They are Skynet and the Death Star on super roids, the ultra Terminator that will not stop. This is not being alarmist, this is not hyperbole and this is not a screenplay. February, 2010: The biggest socialist welfare "mothers" in history, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein and JPMC CEO Jamie Dimon take BONUSES of $9mil and $17mil respectively, thanks to the welfare money they and uncle scam stole from us and while the world is on its knees. The national debt is over $12 TRILLION with interest counting fast. Does that sound like we're playing poker with a strong hand?

3. Organize strategically. In an era of unprecedented complexity, too much information, obfuscation, deflection, mis-direction, filibustering avoidance, mass media manipulation, and outright censorship, the ONLY answer is pragmatism based upon strategic insight. Take lessons from the analysts cited below, connect with others, form small, agile communities of support, and PLAN. Not to do so is to go to war armed with a Nerf ball.

NEED: A local, national and even international network of these small, agile communities so that they can share resources and support. Tall order, but the time to start is now simply because the eCON elites have such a tremendous head start and as of Q1/2010 EM08 is still in the beginning stages.

WATCH FOR: EGOS (include your own!) & BUREAUCRACY. Communities that hedge their bets by acting strategically, egalitarian and fair have the best shots. There is nothing wrong with good leaders, provided they are fair and do not succumb to the god complex. Remember, in insane times, sobriety and pragmatism should be your first rule. In other words, if times are hard, what would you rather have, a gold ingot or clean water?

Good luck to us. We need it.

For much, much more: CLICK HERE for EM08 Posts

lordonlow at gmail dot com

RZA

Piri Thomas

My father Juan, also known as Johnny, once gave me some advice in the art of survival, saying, "Listen, hijo, sometimes you don't look where you're going and you stumble into trouble. You must learn how to spot danger by learning to smell the ca-ca at least twenty miles away, for remember, son; that mierda not only walks on two feet, but it comes in all colors." I moved to exercise my powers of being able to smell ca-ca twenty miles away and to recognize the difference between ca-ca and flowers, when my father stopped me. "Por favor, son, before you start out to smell other people's ca-ca, smell your own first, otherwise you'll get so used to smelling everyone else's, you might forget you have quite a bit of your own." Punto!