AOL signs off from Time Warner | A history of AOL

Welcome.

You’ve got mail.

Goodbye.

Today, AOL officially spins off from TimeWarner as an independent company, the last remnant of a merger originally announced in 2000, where the company…

Comcast/NBC merger breaks my heart.

One of my dreams growing up was to buy a TV station.  One of the over the air variety.  The power for a select few to reach and connect with millions was something I desired.  And I’m sure…

CBS is the General Motors of Television

Many complain that the auto industry is being unethical keeping their business model alive. They keep on making and selling vehicles which rely on petroleum-based gasoline, even though…

Friday Question: Who are YOUR trust agents?

Last month, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith published a book called Trust Agents. Being a fan of Brogan, one of my social media heroes, I bought the book the day it came out, and was amazed…

Gary Vaynerchuk is the King of SEO

There is one man who seems to be invisible from any controversy, or at least when you search for his name on Google.  His name?  Gary Vaynerchuk, social media icon and the star of Wine…

The Phoenix Coyotes

On Saturday, April 24th, 1999, I went to a Phoneix Coyotes playoff game.  They hosted the St. Louis Blues in game 2 of the 1st round of the playoffs.  The home team won in overtime at the America West Arena. 4-3.  The atmosphere was electric.  The people of the desert were happy with this foreign sport of hockey, and they showed it.

10 years later, the team is in trouble.  They are bankrupt.  They have the most recognizable name in hockey, Wayne Gretzky, as their head coach.  They have a fairly new arena north of Phoenix in Glendale.  But they don’t draw.

Blackberry CEO Jim Balsillie wants to move them to Hamilton, Ontario, not far from Toronto, but the NHL won’t allow that.

Sure, there are people who say that Toronto could support 2 NHL team, and they’re probably right.  However, it would be at the expense of the NBA’s Raptors (who are owned by Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment) and the Blue Jays.  No wonder they tried to get Jerry Reinsdorf, who owns NBA and MLB teams in Chicago to buy the Coyotes.

This is not fun.  But for 1 game in 1999, it was amazing.

Theme for Global Live

I am co-organizing an event in NYC this Tuesday called Global Live.  We will have a number of presentations on how to help businesses grow internationally.

We need a theme.  Here’s some ideas.

“Fun with businesses around the world”

“Leverage your business with passion around the world”?

What do you think?

My new AIM? coffeewithian!

After 12 years with the same AOL/AIM screen name, I have changed it to coffeewithian.  I thought that with the new iPhone push notifications, it was finally time.

Send me an IM!

Partnership for Student Advancement

PSA is an amazing organization.   You should know more about them.  http://psapartnership.org/

What is #2cats all about?

You may have seen some of my statuses / tweets today (My Twitter posts double as my Facebook Statuses).  Every one of these posts is ending with the tag #2cats.

How come?

Meet Daisy and Bailey.  For the last few months, my friend Nicole has had them at her house.  They need a new home.  Nobody has taken them.  It is important that they stay together.

Therefore, until they find a home, every status / tweet (can I call it a stweet?) that I post will end in #2cats.  This makes it easy to group post by myself (and others) that use it on Twitter Search.

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%232cats

We also have a Facebook group to help the cause
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=61944317179

I have a question for you.  What else can I do to introduce a loving family to these beautiful creatures, without being so pushy?

Spam on Ning

To all those who have signed up for the Coffee With Ian social network on Ning (coffeewithian.ning.com), you may have seen some recent activity of “members” spamming you.  I appoligize.

Coffee With Ian is about breaking the barriers between the real world and the online world, and such practices have nothing to do with this initiative.

From this point on, all members have to be approved by me.  In the meantime, please take a look at the newly revamped Coffee With Ian website (www.coffeewithian.com) as I return the core focus to in person meetings.

I am looking forward to meeting each of you this summer for coffee!

The Im Tirtzu project

As many of you may (or may not) know, I grew up in a Jewish Zionist youth movement called Young Judaea.  I spent my summers going to camps and Israel programs with other Jews.  I spent the year between high school and college in the holy land on a program called Young Judaea Year Course.  YJ was very important to me growing up and had a lot to do with the person I am today.

YJ is in trouble.  Its sponsoring organization, Hadassah, lost $90 Million in the Bernie Madoff scandal.  They are now in a major restructuring involving massive layoffs and the sale of real estate in Israel.  Not fun times.

In order to raise awareness for the cause, I have started the Im Tirtzu Project.  How does it work?  Just submit a video of you singing Im Tirtzu to Youtube.  Here is my entry:

Im Tirtzu
Words: T. Herzel & N. Imber, Music: D. Nichols
Im tirtzu ein zo agada, l’hiyot am chofshi b’artzeinu,
B’eretz tziyon Yerushalayim.
If you will it, it is no dream; to be a free people in our land,
in the land of Zion, and Jerusalem.

This Thursday night in NYC, there is an alumni benefit to raise money for the movement.  You can find out more about it at http://youngjudaea.org/nycevent/

At least I'm in the stadium. Right?

You know that I’m a bigger Yankee fan than you, right?  I’m one of those remaining few nostalgic of those early 90s teams managed by Buck Showalter, with an infield of interchangable parts like Randy Velarde, Mike Gallego and Sarina’s idol Pat Kelly.  I spent some of my greatest summers listening to John Sterling and Michael Kay on WABC painting the picture of a team on the rise.

The year after high school, I went to Israel.  This happened to be 1996, where after only a few short years of patience, the union going on strike and the heartbreaker in Seattle a year before, the Yankees won it all!  But I was in Israel.  But this blog post isn’t about that, you can read my GroundReport piece I published last fall to hear about that.

This is about the New Yankee Stadium.  When I knew this was really happening, I accepted it.  It was and still is quite bittersweet.  I was at the last game at the old place, as I had a Sunday plan for a bunch of years, which included tickets for Opening Day and Old Timers Day.  There were some good times.

However, with the relocation process to the new place, the priority wasn’t to keep the current fans happy.  The new stadium was designed with luxury in mind.  The old upper deck had around 30,000 seats and the new one has 20,000.  Where did those seats go?  Downstairs of course.

But it is not that simple.  With more seats downstairs, they jacked up the prices, forcing fans with comparable seats in the old stadium to move to the upper deck.  This has pushed the incumbent ticket holders out of the way, being assigned inferior plans.  My Sunday plan in the old stadium has translated into a WEEKDAY plan in the new place.  I’m not alone.  I’ve heard horror stories of people with plans in the upper deck moved to the bleachers.  That’s just not right.

I’m sure that the Yankees expected by making 10,000 seats that were previously $25 now cost $325, they’d make a lot of money.  Except nobody is buying.  They are being marketing to the corporate types, the ones that probably already have season tix to every team in the city and use them to entertain clients.   The recession is blamed, but I just can’t accept it.  The biggest losers?  Your biggest fans.  The Mets, on the other hand, didn’t do such a power play, and have semi-decent seats available today at Citi Field.  But I’m a Yankee fan.

I expect that in the next few years, as the euphoria of being in a new stadium wears off, better seats and plans will be available.  But until then, you can find me in Section 421, Row 13 once a week on some random weeknight…

My phone and internet blackout!

At 12PM today, I did something very unusual.  To me, at least.

I took my iPhone, and switched on Airplane Mode.  What is that?  It shut off the phone and internet options, making the device into an iPhone.  I also shut off my internet access.

No phone calls.
No incoming emails.
No IMs.
No text messages.
No Twitter DMs.
No Facebook pokes.
Etc…

Why?  Because I needed it.  I went to a location where I knew that I couldn’t find anybody and worked.  It was nice.  Expect another blackout soon!