Scrabulous Scrapped

It’s all over the blogosphere, and the media, that Scrabulous – a wildly popular Facebook Application ripped off of the classic game Scrabble – has been dismantled due to legal action from toy and board game manufacturer Hasbro (Scrabulous Barred to North American Users).  Opinions on the issue have ranged in flavor from outrage with a twist of withdrawl to rightious indignation (“corporate greed and ego. it’s pretty simple. ” v. “The creators of Scrabulous are unimaginative thieves. How hard is it to create a software application that rips off an existing board game?”).

Whether you believe the programmers were justified or not in creating the interactive board game, it is universally undeniable that Hasbro has a big black stain on its image in the interactive sphere – a highly profitable, fast-moving culture that is often nearly impossible to nail down using traditional corporate “methodologies.”  Rather than capitalizing on the innovation of two young programmers overseas, who nailed the Facebook market and did it to the tune of $500k, Hasbro took the heavy handed approach and will probably come out of the mess at a loss due to the costs of a) lawyers; b) an interactive PR agency; c) programmers to build a Facebook app that will meet the needs of half a million outraged consumers.

Once again, corporate America has proven itself incapable of moving as fast as the global interactive, internet-based consumer.  Consumers don’t care about complex legal explanations or back stories (Silly Split Rights).  Hasbro needs to drop the moral high-ground and find a way to make good fast before interest in the story dies and consumers walk away – unfortunate headlines like “Scrabulous is Dead, Hasbro’s Version Brain-Dead” ringing in their ears.

Big Government – Do as I Say and Not as I Borrow

Today the government announced a record deficit for the year 2009. Typical sparring ensued – Republicans blamed an irresponsible congress, Democrats blamed an irresponsible president, and both presumptive presidential candidates shouted “change!” at whoever would listen.

Clearly the Republican party has broken a long string of promises and punditry, which decried the excesses of the Democrats’ “big government” and called for fiscal conservation. After eight years of a Republican president, however, the national debt is now equal to 40 percent U.S. GDP – higher than at any other point in history.

It would be a breath of fresh air if McCain took this opportunity to return to some of the maverick statements that got him respect on both sides of the party line – decrying tax rebates we couldn’t afford comes to mind. It profits the American people (and economy) nothing if the rebates and stimulus checks we are getting in the mail are just more loans we (or our children) will someday have to pay back. Obama has a more practical approach, although enough is just not being said in his camp either about the difficult decisions that HAVE to be made to defeat the deficit.  One would think that the government would have learned a little something from the current economic crisis – too many people took out loans they couldn’t afford. Sound familiar?

Into the Breach!

Ratings giant Nielsen seeks to bridge the gap between television and internet ratings

The battle to understand and measure where the attention of America’s consumers is going continues. A recent report by the New York Times looked at the struggles TV ratings bastion Nielsen is facing as it seeks to remain relevant in a world where the Internet has stolen the eyes and minds of American culture.

Although already in possession of a strong reputation for ratings, which has allowed for diversification into the interactive realm, Nielsen wants more. The true holy grail for ratings companies, and the corporations whose data purchase drive their growth, is a combination of television and Internet monitoring. That combination would allow businesses to at last understand the interplay between the two media sources and how information flows between the Internet and television to direct behavior.

The problem is that people just plain don’t want any one corporation knowing that much about their purchasing habits, personal preferences, and overall media consumption. Allowing Nielsen to monitor television viewing is fine, but opening the door to Internet usage as well seems simply too far. The very value of that information – its depth – presents a serious ethical and privacy concern.

As a consumer, I sympathize with those who would prefer that corporations stay away completely, or limit monitoring to one media. On the other hand, I am no stranger to the intense interaction between television and the web. I watch most of my television with an open laptop on one knee, AIM signed on, and two or three tabs open at different websites. I often read the news or look up points of interest online during commercial breaks for my shows. Indeed, the internet is the fastest portal available for getting additional information about products I like in a commercial or a company in which I am interested.

Perhaps most telling on this subject was a discussion on advertising I had with a friend of mine, who is not a marketing major but equally exposed, none the less, to commercials and advertising in the mass media. We were discussing some of the billboards we had past with far more copy on them than anyone driving the speed limit could hope to absorb. “The most effective way to get people to follow up,” she said, “whether its a commercial or a billboard is to give the company name and follow it with ‘Google Us.’ Anyone who was seriously interested would probably do that first anyway.”

Since the Internet is the key portal for getting more information on a topic of interest, a study in the interaction between television and Internet usage could prove extremely valuable, and extremely profitable. As a marketer, I can appreciate the incredible value of this information; but as companies seek greater and greater intensity in the kinds of information they collect on consumers, the question becomes – how far will be too far?

Here’s hoping consumers can continue to draw that line.

Special thanks to “Nielsen Looks Beyond TV, and Hits Roadblocks” from NYTimes.com.

“Don’t Be Evil” – Why We Fell in Love with Capitalism

There’s no denying the Corporate greed is rampant in America. All one has to do is observe the CEOs of major financial institutions, like CitiGroup and Merill Lynch, who’s respective companies suffered billions of dollars in losses as a result of their management, but who still walked away with a tidy financial package, to realize that there is something wrong.

But a new collection of wildly successfully CEOs seeking to apply successful strategies and technology acquired in marketplace competition to the underprivilaged and poverty stricken have made headlines over the past two weeks. First, Bill Gates delivered a speech last week on the pressing need to spread the benefits of technological innovation to the rest of the world.

That speech was followed shortly thereafter by the announcement from Google about it’s plans for allocating about 30 million dollars in funding and assets, plus invaluable employee time from some of America’s best and brightest, to fighting international battles in the war on poverty.  Some of the targets of their generosity include preventing epidemics by identifying potential “hot spots” from which disease could spread; improving the flow of communication for the public services of third world countries; aiding small to mid-sized businesses; and aiding in the commercialization of plug-in vehicles.

While analysts argue the merits and potential success of the efforts of philanthropists like Bill Gates, or the Google boys, all I can see is the reason that we, as Americans, should feel free to love our capitalism.  The innovation and excitement inspired by capitalism has produced billions, even trillions, of dollars in growth since the country was founded.  When those same companies choose to spread the fruits of their success around the world, they have an edge on government programs or non profits because skills have been sharpened in a market place where there are no second chances.  Every move counts, and the efficiency that is born out of such an environment as tremendous potential.