April « 2008 « Brian Junyor

27Apr/081

Green Marketing?

A post by Chris Keating over at The Wiccan Scientist regarding his growing skepticism over the environmental impact of plastic bags reminded me of a Burst Media study from earlier this month. According the the survey, 65.3% of consumers say they "sometimes" believe green claims made in advertisements. 22.7% of consumer say they seldom or never believe green claims made in advertisements. That's a whopping 88% of consumer who are skeptical about products pitched to them as green.

Interestingly, given all the cynicism, 81.9% of the respondents have incorporated some level of green activity in their lives. This indicates to me that most folks want to live in a way that is environmentally conscious, but don't trust corporate america to give them the real skinny on their products.

The internet has given the average citizen access to a vast amount of data to be able to verify the claims advertisers make about their products. In fact, the same study found that 41.6% of respondents frequently or occasionally research the claims made in green advertisements.

Making an emotional connection with your customers has always been important, but in the digital age you'd better make sure that you are telling them the truth. The age of buyer beware is slowly turning into the age of seller beware -- otherwise, you'll be called to task, probably on a forum board, blog, or wikipedia.

And as for my paper or plastic preference, I have to admit that I am a plastic guy who wishes he was a canvas guy.

Image Credit: by aussiegall

Filed under: Environment, marketing 1 Comment

27Apr/081

Gas Prices Part 2

First: I am not advocating the use of fossil fuels. I believe we should continue the search for and development of renewable sources of energy that are economically feasible and environmentally responsible.

Second: I am not an economist. Read at your own risk and seek out alternative sources of data.

Last week, I shared an article from the Ludwig von Mises Institute by Sterling T. Terrell that related the historical price of gasoline compared to today's prices. That article spurred me to do some armchair research on the U.S. price per gallon of gasoline versus U.S. median income.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau the median income in 1950 was $2,570 for men & $1,017 for women. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in 1950 was $0.27. That equates to .011% of total income of males and .028% for females. In 2006, the median income for men $32,265 and $20,014 for women. The current price of gasoline (U.S Average) is $3.50 per gallon. That equates to .011% of total income for males and .017% for females.

So the net-net on gas prices to median income pans out to be flat.

I decided I had better run my data through CPI calculator to adjust for inflation. The median income in 1950 adjusted for inflation was $18,381 for males and $6,816 for females. The price of a gallon of gas in 1950 adjusted for inflation was $2.39. That equates to .013% for men and .035% for females. When adjusted for inflation the net-net shows an ever so slight decrease.

Notes: I couldn't find a reliable source for disposable income numbers from 1950 to present to validate the data against. Also, this data doesn't take into account income gaps, for instance I don't have a handle on the percent of the population at the bottom that have the least amount of disposable income.

Footnotes:

Gas Price: Source: US DOE

Median Income: U.S. Census Bureau

Filed under: Business, Environment 1 Comment

27Apr/081

Sirius Internet Radio

I mentioned on Twitter that I was looking for a better way to stream music from Sirius. Even though I have a Stiletto, I find that it is more convenient to listen via the computer when I am in my home office. Sure I could listen to Pandora, last.fm, yahoo music, or a multitude of other streaming music services -- but, I am big fan of the Sirius music formats and have developed a familiarity with their rotation and DJs. I have Sirius radio in the car and at the office and I wanted to continue it into my home.

The standard interface provided by Sirius is web based and resides in a browser window. That might be fine for some, but I don't like having a tab or window open for some web app that really should be running in the background. It might be a personal prejudice, but I can't handle it. So I went off in search of something better. There are aren't many options out there, maybe because I am part of a small niche market.

Luckily, while searching the siriusbackstage.com forums, I found a nice little program that suits my needs very well. stream_On is a desktop streaming application for Sirius.

stream_On provides listeners with features that are not available through the Sirius online player, such as uninterrupted (all day) listening, song and artist alerts, full channel listings, instant artist biography retrieval, son info, and lyrics.

Screenshot of stream_On (preferred)

Screenshot of the Sirius web interface (yuck)

stream_On is a beta release and as such it has a few rough edges. If you are installing on Vista you will need to manually open the firewall to allow the program to access the internet. You will also need to download a third party app on the stream_On website if you want to minimize to the system tray instead of the task bar.

I have been using stream_On for several hours last night and this morning and am very happy with it. The author is also working on a version 2, but has stated not to expect it anytime soon.

Filed under: Music, Web 1 Comment

26Apr/081

Willie & Snoop

In the vein of unusual alliances, here are Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg performing together. According to Country Corner at AOL Music, the pair are in Amsterdam recording a song and video together. Nelson and Snoop followed their recording session with this surprise performance at Amsterdam's Melkweg concert hall.