Barnes and Noble have opened up a used book buying program on their website. In real time, find out exactly what Barnes and Noble would pay for your library of books. All you need is their ISBN number.

This could disrupt the under-priced textbook buy-back programs at college campuses worldwide. We’ve all been through buying textbooks for $75 and selling them for $12. New businesses are going to be popping up….

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/frames/selltextbooks/index.asp?z=y

Tags: used books, Barnes and Noble

I just got back from the James Blunt concert at Webster Hall here in New York City. I was standing in the Atlantic Records VIP area throughout the entire performance and there was quite a buzz going back and forth about digital distribution and how James Blunt is/was #1 on iTunes.

Being #1 on iTunes is quite a feat and it’s certainly showing in his concerts: Webster Hall was sold out this evening and tomorrow, it’s sold out as well. The amount of people singing in the audience in his first “big” show in NYC was astonishing…everyone was singing along to not just “Beautiful” but to many other songs.

One thing to note: There were tons of cameras and cellphones held high throughout the entire performance. Look for many pictures popping up on Flickr. The show was actually much better than anticipated. The band came out strong and maintained a solid crowd buzz throughout the show. It was a good first concert for James @ Webster Hall.

Tags: James Blunt, Atlantic Records, Beautiful, and Webster Hall

As expected, it looks like a continuation of brand placement within the Sopranos.  In the first episode of the season, we’ve seen plot integrations and product placements within the highly anticipated one hour HBO show.  To quote a USA Today article from 2002, "We’re not a network that accepts advertising. And product placement is a form of advertising," explains HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson. Adds Ilene Landress, executive producer of HBO: "We could pay for the whole show that way. But we don’t."

David Yurman (unexpected), Porsche, and Georgio Armani were integrated into the plot (did I miss any?).  As for product placements, we saw Nestle, Fed Ex, Cingular, Philipps, Corvette, and a few other minor ones.

The creators of the HBO shows do accept free use of cars and other goods. It cuts costs and adds realism. The days of TV characters drinking generic "beer" are over. Sopranos creator David Chase and his team of writers frequently write brand names into scripts to add reality to the show.

Looking forward to the next show to see which brands are exclusive (category) and which are one show deals.  It’s interesting to see that Nissan pulled out of the Sopranos at least for the first episode as last season, they had the Xtera extremely integrated.

Tags: Sopranos, HBO, Product Placement, Plot Integration, and TV

I was sitting at Starbucks here in New York this past week and was discussing the state of the Internet with a few friends who are involved in investement banking, media companies and hedge funds.  We were discussing how Google isn’t just making acquisitions for the actual "product", but they are making acquisitions of companies for top talent.

Talent is what is going to make or break Google.  At a company of their size and with their continued appreciation of innovation (80/20 rule), finding potential employees who are entrepreneurial, forward thinking, and execution oriented are hard to come by.  By making the Writely acquisition, they are "hiring" folks who have demonstred a high level of the attributes they are searching for.

I wonder what’ is next for Google…

Tags: Google, Writely, HR

Tonight, I went to the NY Tech Meetup held at NYU.  I’ve been a member of Meetup.com for quite a bit of time now, but I’ve never been in town or always been busy when prior meetups have been held.   This evening was my first experience of a NY Tech meetup and I am pleased to say that I had a great time.

There were apparently 202 people who RSVP’d that they’d attend the meeting and it was a ’sold out’ event.  The majority (98%) of folks in attendance were males - so it was essentially one big sausage party.  I was pleasantly surprised that the CEO/Founder of Meetup.com was leading the NY Tech meetup and he was the moderator throughout the entire presentation program.

There were 5 presentations that lasted about 7 minutes each with questions coming at the end.  It was very similar to the "gong" show - if a company pitched too much, or wasn’t crowd pleasing, the crowd certainly got restless.  The second speaker was almost "boo’ed" off stage, literally!  One of the technologies that I found interesting was that of the "soft search" as I call it.  When we query databases, we normally are searching for something ‘hard’ - such as a direct match.  What if you’re looking for an apartment in New York between 2,000 square feet and 5,000 square feet.  If there are no apartments that exist, don’t you want to see an apartment that may be 1,998 square feet?  Sure you do, but previously, in our database schema’s, we do not account for that.  This now opens up a whole new way of database transactional search.

It was nice to see some old friends from FortuneCity.com, i33 Communications and other previous companies I’d worked with.  Looking forward to the next NY Tech Meetup!

Tags: meetup, NYU, technology, internet, transparancee, and entrepreneur

I was reading Stowe Boyd’s blog /Message this evening and he posted about a model used by many web companies - but most recently gootodo. The company is irrelevant to this post, but it’s a post that looks at the business model of “try before you buy… but provide your credit card first, and oh yeah, cancel your membership before the 30 day trial period is over.”

I’d argue against Stowe Boyd in some context here. I think that this business model can be correct depending upon the startup you are working with. Lets take a vertical social network that is looking to qualify their users higher than most open social networks. By providing a credit card, it makes the user work harder to join the network, thus eliminating many of the unwanted low value registrations.

To the point where Stowe talks about how the user must contact the company to make sure their credit card isn’t charged… I agree and disagree with him. Many adult websites (not that I visit them) actually have this model as a good % of registrations forget about their registration within the first 30 days. This is a way that companies can generate some revenue (users forgetting). Another reason why this model isn’t so bad is that it makes the user give more to the community/site/organization, which in turn, should lead to a much more invested experience and the switching cost becomes higher.

Just a few thoughts - would love to hear yours.

Tags:business model, marketing, stowe boyd, gootodo

Agenda Inc., one of the companies I have utmost respect for as a thought leader and market analysis organization has posted a bit about the IGA Worldwide Inc in-game advertising campaign in the AAA title, Test Drive Unlimited.  For those of you who do not know, Atari is the publisher of TDU and Ben Sherman has integrated their clothing in the game so drivers can pick their driving attire….more here.

Tags: Ben Sherman, Test Drive Unlimited, IGA Worldwide, Hive Partners, video games, and in-game advertising

Programmableweb.com has put together a fabulous matrix of web 2.0 mashups.Â

http://www.programmableweb.com/matrix

Certainly worth checking out.

Tags: web 2.0, internet, mashup, cool

America Online’s instant messaging product, AIM, has taken down the gated walls and opened itself up to independent developers. This is a fantastic opportunity for advertisers to take advantage of the increased time spent with users over the instant messaging platform. I predict this as a move to go head to head with Gtalk, Google’s platform. Studies are showing that children utilize IM more than email to communicate. The Pew Internet & American Life Project has done extensive research on IM and has some fantastic reports.

AIM, AOL, Instant Messaging, Gtalk, Open Source, Developers

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An article came out in Sunday’s edition of the International Herald Tribune called On Advertising: Getting In The Game. The article references a placement IGA Worldwide Inc has done in a game called Test Drive Unlimited from Atari. The game has yet to hit the streets (been released) but is highly anticipated as one of the best automotive games of the year.

The Ben Sherman campaign, for instance, will feature virtual billboards displaying the company’s logo and clothing, which drivers will see as they navigate around Hawaii, where “Test Drive Unlimited” is set.

Because the game, which will be available for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and PCs this spring, will allow users to play online, Ben Sherman will be able to update those billboards with changing seasonal displays.

The game industry calls this “dynamic advertising,” and it is expected to generate much of the growth in spending on advertising in games.

Dynamic advertising helps solve one of the biggest problems with in- game advertising: Because few games sell more than a few hundred thousand copies, it has been difficult to reach mass audiences. Using dynamic ads, however, IGA and other agencies can now patch together virtual “networks,” placing ads in multiple games, just as real-world billboard operators can provide a variety of poster sites.

A new T-Mobile campaign, for instance, appears in games like “CustomPlay Golf” and “Trackmania Nations.”