All Things Cahill

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  • Red Sox Ticket Prices, StubHub and Ace Tickets

    Back in the day, I used to go to Red Sox games…lots of Red Sox games, as many as 30 or so a year.

    In the past couple years, not a game.  In fact, I’ve never taken my two daughters.  Prices obviously enter into this – read this on the pricing thisyear from ESPN

    Following an across the board freeze of all ticket prices in 2009, approximately two-thirds of the tickets at Fenway Park will stay at 2009 levels or increase by $2 for the 2010 season and no single price category will increase by more than $5. In 2010, 63% of the tickets at Fenway Park will be $52 or less, with the lowest ticket price remaining at $12.

    For many of you, you’re saying, that’s not so bad, go for the $12 tickets.  That’d peg you immediately as someone that has never been in the bleachers at Fenway.  It’s traditionally not a place for your kids…at least not for my kids.

    The real rub in my mind is that I can’t get tickets to the games I want, such as the May 7 game against the Yankees without going through a scalper like StubHub or Ace Tickets.  Both have hundreds if not thousands of tickets to that game.  Meanwhile, Redsox.com, the official box office has none…not a single ticket for the game.  This, just ONE DAY after tickets went on sale.

    So how’d that happen?

    You see in 2007, Stubhub.com signed a 5 year deal with MLB to resell tickets.  On the face of it, the deal was to allow fans to resell their tickets.  Are we honestly to believe that thousands of Red Sox fans waited online Saturday and then changed their mind on Sunday and are now selling their tickets.

    No, obviously not.

    The big question here has to be asked of the Red Sox: are you providing tickets directly to StubHub?  If so, then that ought to be figured into the average cost of ticket prices.

    If this is the case, then the Red Sox and MLB have found an excellent way to increase revenues, without having to face the bad PR of drastically increasing ticket prices.  Also, if this is the case, then both the Red Sox and MLB need a trip to the woodshed.

    I fired off an email to the Red Sox box office:

    Why is it one day after tickets went on sale, games such as the May 7 Yankees game are unavailable from your site, but StubHub has hundreds if not thousands of tickets.  Do you sell or in any way provide tickets to StubHub?
    As a fan, this situation is not acceptable.

    What do you think? Should fans be forced to buy their tickets from secondary sources?

    Kind of funny to think that StubHub’s motto, “Sold out? Not us…”  when for MLB for this is definitely a Sell Out.

    (Note: I contacted the Red Sox via email on Sunday and as of the publish time of this post, have not received any sort of reply).

  • How to Report the News

    Brilliant…

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGSXMuWMR4[/youtube]

  • NY Times: When iPhone Apps Are Too Smart

    The big secret of iPhone apps is coming out of the bag: most apps that are downloaded are rarely, if ever used.

    While I’m not saying we’ve jumped the shark here, it is important to note that if the New York Times has picked up on this fact, then it’s approaching common knowledge.  Read their article, “When iPhone Apps Are Too Smart” here.

    So, for every zealous owner whose iPhone is loaded with little-known programs that predict asteroid fly-bys, there are many more Caroline Cuas, who seldom venture outside the predictable. Most say they’re too busy, too lazy or just plain flummoxed by the choices.

    “I think I’m supposed to want more of them than I have,” said Julie Graham, a psychotherapist in San Francisco who echoed Ms. Cua’s vague anxiety. “There’s this sense that I’m missing out on something I didn’t know I needed.”

    Ms. Graham, 50, said friends were shocked when she confessed to having failed to download Urbanspoon, a compendium of restaurant reviews. She now has it — and seldom uses it. “I don’t have time,” she said.

    So what does it all mean?  I’ll put it simply: don’t put too much stock into how many times your iPhone app (or any other) was downloaded from the App Store.  More importantly, build in the appropriate mechanisms to allow you to find what the actual usage was.  Once again, it comes down to a pure matter of metrics.  How many page views, how many purchases, etc.

    Similarly, we’ve got to bridge the gap between coding neat little apps that get downloaded and get to the point where we have serious apps that get used.

    A few things to consider:

    • What is the core user need your app is fulfilling?
    • If there isn’t an existing need, what need are you creating?
    • Are you applying the tenets of online community building to maintain user interest?
    • What are the top apps you use?  What is it about those apps that makes them compelling to you?
    • Have you closely examined competitor apps?  What’s good about them?  What isn’t?  What can you do better?
    • What are the real metrics for your app?  Compare downloads vs. actual usage.
    • Talk with real iPhone app users, not the Tech/SM crowd.  What do they really use for apps?

    Let me know what you see…I’d love to share info on this!

  • Geo Location Services and the Coming War for Our Whereabouts

    Over the past few months I’ve been messing with Foursquare…the geo location service-based social network-game.  Frequent readers will possibly remember that I’m not a really big fan of sharing geo location information, even though I’m perhaps one of the few who has directly had his life saved by cell phone geolocation.

    Foursquare is an interesting study.  By turning the geo location service into a game and allowing the most frequent visitors to locations to earn the title of  “Mayor” of that spot, as well as providing badges which users can earn for certain actions, they’re amassing a fairly comprehensive database of mostly bars and restaurants around the globe.  They’ve beautifully applied some of the best features of online communities in a way that has allowed them to expand at an exponential rate. (more…)

  • No, Uh, We Don’t Have an App for That…

    Think about this: much of the “web traffic” we see now doesn’t actually go through a web browser at all,  instead a lot of traditionally “web” type interactions are now happening on smartphones, etc. through applications.  It’s pretty cool stuff.

    On my phone I have all kinds of neat stuff, such as the Navionics app that allows me to carry around every navigational chart for the eastern seaboard of the US, and navigate in real time, which is great if you’re a boater, a database of knots,  the New York Times app, the MLB app that gives me real time scores and access to live game video, a db of recipes and nutrional info from Big Oven, as well as  cocktail recipe guide, tides, a translation app, surf reports, and a bazillion other things.

    This stuff is truly transformational.  I kind of pity you folks stuck with Blackberries or, ugh, regular old cell phones.

    However, there’s a problem on the horizon, and it’s due in large part to Apple’s attempts to control what happens within the Iphone universe.   You see, now that we’ve got a worthy competitor, the Google Nexus, and the other earlier Android phone apps, we’ve got a Balkanization going on.  Apple apps require Objective C code, while Google is using Java.  Hence developing smartphone apps has become what developing computer apps used to be: either code for both platforms, or forgo one of the two.

    We’ve been here before.  Most of these apps don’t really do much, basically they access info on the web and display it on a small screen.  Maybe they access the GPS, but one is left asking the question: would it have been such a problem to come up with a common application protocol?

    I thought we’d learned this lesson before.  Now instead of having commonly shared apps, for the Iphone, the Nexus, the iSlate, the Lenovo UI, etc, we’re looking at one off app development for each.

    Oh well, on the other hand, I guess there’s lots of money to be made redoing work to make it function on divergent platforms…

  • Friday Music Video

    This one is a left-handed request.  A “new” reader requested it, in an off handed way…

    The Foo Fighters – “You’re So Vain” from the 2008 Grammys.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhqj2hM4a-c[/youtube]

  • MA Senate Campaign, Change is in the Air

    I don’t talk publicly about politics much.  Not that I don’t have something to say, but more because I think our votes are personal things.  I respect your right to use yours however you want.

    I live in Massachusetts.  That makes it easy to be apathetic about politics, as we’ve got a one party state government.  Personally, I am an an independent.

    Throughout the fall, I watched as the Democrats argued over which of them would become the heir to “Senator Kennedy’s Senate Seat.”  I have to admit, that rankled me.  It’s not “the Kennedy Seat” as the NY Times called it yesterday, it’s a seat owned by the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and conveyed by us on he or she who is best able to do our bidding in DC.

    After the Democratic Primary, their candidate, Martha Coakley, the State Attorney General, literally disappeared from the election.  She tried to avoid debating the Republican candidate, and she acted as though the election was a done deal so long as she kept her mouth shut and managed not to commit any capital crimes before the election.

    During that period, in that vacuum, we heard from a seldom heard voice, a Republican with a heart and a message.  That message resonated with many who were troubled, like I was.

    Last Monday, Coakley realized that things were rapidly coming unglued.  She tanked in the debate on Monday,  then instead of taking to the campaign trail, flew down to DC to get an infusion of cash from the DNC.  In that same period of time, her opponent was out on the campaign trail, talking to voters in Massachusetts, and managed to rake in $1.3 m in contributions via the web.

    Now we’ve got attack ads sponsored by unions, by the DNC and approved by Coakley herself.  It would appear, from listening to them, that they’ve found out some shocking news: her opponent is a Republican.

    I can’t speak for my neighbors, but I can tell you that I’m not impressed with Coakley.  I’m voting for Scott Brown, and if you’re one of my neighbors, I hope you will too.

  • DeLurker Day!

    Today is DeLurker Day, the day in which bloggers like myself celebrate our readers by offering you an invitation to leave a comment.  I know there are a lot of you out there that read this blog almost daily, but as you know, there aren’t always a lot of comments.  Take the time and let us know who you are and what you like, don’t like and what you’d like to see here or in the world in general, in the coming year.

    From Wikipedia, the definition of a lurker:

    In Internet culture, a lurker is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing or other interactive system, but rarely or never participates actively. Research indicates that “lurkers make up over 90% of online groups” (Nonnecke & Preece 2000).

    So take a minute to drop a line and join our conversation!  We’ll all be glad you came. (A tip of the hat to Jeff Bennett for pointing me to this campaign)

  • New Book, Site & Forum: LoveYourGeek.com

    Last night Karl Susman opened his new site which I developed over the holidays.  The site is to support his new book, “Love Your Geek”, which was released over the weekend for the Kindle and will be arriving in the full splendor of print on February 1.  Many of you will know Karl from his WestsideGadgetGuy.com podcasts, and if you don’t you ought to check them out.

    The site is a combination of WordPress and BBPress Forum, designed to foster discussion around the book as well as provided news, reviews, etc.  Technically, it required customization of an existing theme, and design integration with the BBPress theme.

    If you’re a geek like me, you’ll love the book.  If you aren’t it ought to be required reading to clue you in as to how lucky your are to have us.

    They are your personal “always-on-call” computer “fixers;” your personal helper with All Things Computer. Broken Printer? Screen “not-responding”? Spill coffee on your keyboard? Computer “locked-up,” or just “not working” the way you want it to? You call your resident Geek.

    You don’t pay them. You don’t ask them. You just call them – and expect the Geek to be there for you. And, of course, you accept nothing less than, “problem solved.”
    In this short book, I’m going to tell you what it’s like to be Your Geek.

    Go check out the site!

  • New vBulletin Theme – Discussnames.com

    One of the first tasks I’ve tackled this week was updating both the software and the theme on Discussnames.com.  A fairly simple project, but one with big rewards for the Afternic.com crew, I think.

    The project was fairly simple.  Take one vBulletin site that had a completely separate look and integrate it into the look and feel of the Afternic.com site.  No small task, but luckily one I had some level of experience with, having worked on the http://domainersadvantage.afternic.com WordPress project a few months ago.  Still, vBulletin templates are notorious for their ability to frustrate developers and evade integration.  It’s all part of that “a bazillion nested tables without a single id to be found” thing that has had designers complaining for the better part of a decade.

    This is really phase two of another project, in which I had updated the out of date software and got things up to date.  Now the site has a nice, clean, professional looking design, vs. the tossed together theme it had been sporting for the past 4 months.