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The Oregon Zoo announced the concert lineup for this season's
Oregon Zoo Summer Concert Series today and it looks to be one of the strongest lineups in years.
Consider: Indigo Girls, Bela Fleck, Robert Cray & Buddy Guy and many more. See the full schedule.
If you'd like to join me at any of the concerts this summer, let me know. I'm sure I'll take in a couple of them before the season's over.
According to Steve McLain, owner of ¡Oba! in Portland’s Pearl District and the Hall Street Grill in Beaverton, "Downtown still has a vibrant core. It’s a missed opportunity not to come down here. The Pearl is almost a little city of its own. It’s taken a little of the focus off downtown, but downtown is the next frontier.”
He's announced plans to open his third restaurant, to be named Harrison's after his three year old son, in the Fox Tower. Learn more.
I just spent my lunch hour searching for a particular product online and did not find that for which I was looking. What I found instead, however, is a very troubling reality: every major sportings good retailer in the country that has a website has outsourced their web operations (including inventory and fulfillment) to the same operator. I had visited a few sites before my hunch really began to crystalize.
The first thing I noticed was a little tag line at the bottom of the site that read:
*List price is for reference only. No sales may have occurred at this price. **See product page for details.
That's funny, I thought to myself -- the last site had the same note.
The second thing I noticed was how even though the look of each site was unique at first glance, the underlying design elements were identical. Coincidence I wondered? Probably just an off the shelf estore template.
The third thing I noticed was the fact the search results had the same behavior -- first a "no results found" response with Steps 1-2-3 on how to fix it. Then a refined search found lots of items, sorted from high-price to low-price.
By the time I had resorted the search results on the third site, I was amazed to discover the same products for sale at the same price points as the last store. Hmm... my wheels started spinning at that point.
Most of these are regional chains so perhaps they are all owned by the same mega-comglomerate? I checked out the About Us section of each website and found out that while Dick's is publicly traded, the others had their own histories (real or imagined). Hmm again.
I had to get to the bottom of this so I turned to Google. Within minutes I was on the trail:
"Global Sports today effectively services all of the national sporting goods retailers. Global Sports owns the business. They own the sales, they own the inventory, they do the marketing. Their partners, including Dick’s Sporting Goods, market the Web site in their circulars, and are paid a commission for the sales that happen on the site. But when a customer comes to the site and goes into DicksSportingGoods.com, it never mentions Global Sports. The relationship is totally transparent to our customers."
This reminds me of the pearl market depicted in John Steinbeck's The Pearl. Kino, a poor Mexican pearl fisher, discovers a great pearl and brings it to the market believing he will be rewarded for its true worth. Instead, all of the pearl buyers collude to low ball him and deny him an open and competitive market. Stall after stall, he goes trying to sell his magnificent pearl but encountering the same attitude and low offer that he just left. In reality, Steinbeck tells us, all of the vendors are but different doors to the same buyer and there is no competition.
Well, John Steinbeck, I'm afraid your story lives on today. The falsefronts today go by these names:
So much for competition.
When Jason Kottke redesigned his site last fall, I was quick to love to his inlined movie and book review posts (complete with their distinct design and graphic title bars), but slow to love his decision to move remaindered links from a sidebar to inline placement. Well, after a few months now, I realize that I've gotten used to it. Dare I say I even like it? I rely on it as a supplement to Google News, to round out my midday news diet. There are a lot of stories that don't need a lengthy explanation, just a quick, witty intro. Hmm, a lot like dating now that I think about it...
So today marks the first day of a little experiment here at WebBP with a different posting style (to augment -- not replace -- my usual posts which some people even read).
Get a Free Scoop of Ice at Baskin Robbins Tomorrow Night (Wed 6-10pm) (It was 85 yesterday, can't argue with free ice cream for a good cause)
Deal of the Week: 180SF parking space in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood for $160,000 (No wonder my friends in Boston take the T)
Lax Security at Google's Gmail (I independently came to the same conclusion yesterday doing the same thing that Brad explains)
Earlier this year, I stumbled upon a site deep within the OSU web that had pre-release copies of the forthcoming new graphic identity for Oregon State University. I poked around for a while and reviewed the new wordmark and related design templates. I contemplated posting the link at that point, but opted to keep my "discovery" private until after the university publicly announced its new graphic identity. Officially, the university has retired its previous logo, which was designed in the late 1980s or early 1990s and often mistaken for a manhole cover. In its place, OSU is adopting a wordmark that -- while not as catchy as the Oregon "O" designed by Nike -- is definitely bolder, simpler and more effective than the symbol it replaces.
The new graphic identity was adopted for official use beginning April 5, 2004. And while I've not seen any media coverage of this transition whatsoever (intentional on the part of OSU?), I think enough time has passed to allow those so interested to review the new branding guidelines (PDF) and marketing collateral.
Here is an example of what the new business cards will look like (This is a mock up only):
(Click to view full image size in pop-up window)
Yahoo! News Full Coverage - World: Up to 3,000 Casualties Reported in North Korea Train Crash
Two fuel trains collided at a North Korean railroad station near the Chinese border Thursday, igniting a deafening explosion that rained debris for more than 10 miles around, South Korean media reported. One television channel said as many as 3,000 people might have been killed or injured. The secretive communist government in Pyongyang declared an emergency while cutting off international telephone lines to prevent details of the crash from leaking out...
I grieve for the families of those killed or injured. I also grieve for a regime that believes less information is better than more ...
In case you missed the article in today's Oregonian, not everyone wants to their hometown to be like Portland.
Overheard in London: "Flirting is fun, sex is fun. We're just employing expensive, complex toys to find the most basic form of entertainment."
I still remember the day Maggie Berry got her electric toothbrush:
3.6.01 So I got an electric toothbrush, which is charmingly efficient. You push a button, it brushes your teeth for exactly two minutes and beeps at intervals that indicate when it's time to change sectors. My teeth are shiny and new--they do the little lens flare thing when I smile. The only problem is, my new toothbrush sounds very much like a vibrator. My roommate has begun to avoid eye contact with me when I leave the bathroom. 2:37 p.m.
I was in grad school at the time, living with a Danish girl and the idea of using an electric toothbrush just struck me as something quite funny. It ranked right up there with that electric knife my parents got as a wedding present that only pulsates and gyrates through a turkey but never cuts. It never got used and was ultimated buried deep in the recesses of the kitchen. I mean, really, I am all for power steering in my car and anything that makes my life easier, but a power toothbrush? I think I can handle the brushing myself, thanks.
Oh how wrong I was.
Amazon Launches Search Engine...
CNet: "Amazon.com has quietly launched a test version of its long-awaited search engine, aiming to challenge industry stalwarts Google and Yahoo with new tools to navigate the Web." You can check it out here.
Americans Keep Buying Digital Cameras...
Reuters: "Forty percent of US households are expected to own at least one digital camera by the end of 2004."
Interest Rates to Rise "At Some Point" ....
Reuters: "The Federal Reserve will have to raise its benchmark federal funds rate "at some point" to head off inflation, San Francisco Federal Reserve President Robert Parry said on Wednesday."
Amid New ED Competition...
AP: "She asks in a sultry voice if you want to know a secret. And when she spills the beans, she is quite explicit. The latest ad for an erectile dysfunction treatment is taking the battle for dominance in the $2 billion market up a notch with its frank description of the medicine's purpose. The Levitra ad, slated to begin airing Thursday, features an attractive brunette saying the drug improves erection quality and how that experience increases her partner's desire to "do this more often."
Seven Free Nights ... Yours From Viagra!
Telegraph UK: Viagra devotees get 'frequent flyer' offer
