Tretakoff Musings

As someone who works with the newspaper industry to help explore new forms of monetization, I was impressed with this recent CVS promotion with the San Francisco Chronicle. Yes, it appears our solution to curing Hepatitis C lies with CVS. Even better, a $5 savings! A true triumph of editorial matched with advertising...and the best promotion CVS could have asked for.

I recently visited the Walt Disney Family Museum here in San Francisco. Those words alone are probably making most of the folks who know me scratch their head and wonder if my blog was hacked. Fear not, readers: it's true. Yes, the man who truly loathes gathering places for children went of his own free will to this Presidio unassuming venue, accompanied by the most Disney-crazed individual on this planet. I cringed, expecting an assault of screaming toddlers and the music I expect to hear if there is a Hell. And you know what? Nothing could be further than the truth: it was fascinating, wonderful and I recommend it to all. First, what is it? To put it simply, this is not Disney(TM). This is a celebration of Walt Disney himself, and he's truly a fascinating man. I openly wondered why it was here in SF (answer: this is where one of his daughters lives, and it's the items from her father that she inherited), but after seeing the museum, it's perfect: Walt was clearly t...

Ok, see that card? It was sent as part of a direct marketing campaign from Sirius/XM. See, I bought a car a while ago, and considered activating the Sirius receiver built in. However, I am so rarely in my car, and usually listen to my iPhone, it didn't seem worth it. However, this was a nice gimmick: reactivate the receiver for 2 weeks with the selected channels, and try to get me hooked. Like what the premium channels do on cable and satellite. Kudos on the creative marketing idea. Just one problem. See that picture of the card? See where it says the free preview starts May 24th? Ah yes. Guess when I got this in the mail. Today. June 1st.  Yep, my two week free preview is now reduced to 5 days. This is a significant error. Sirius took on some costs to give away their premium product. They targeted this to let potential subscribers who already had the hardware know. And now more than 60% of the potential to get me to try Sirius is gone. Squandered. Poof. And why? Well, it...

I love ringtones. Love using little movie clips for people who call me. Love having a specific song for particular users, making me smile as I know who's calling. I even like customizing the noises the phone makes when an SMS comes in. Just one problem with all of this. I never hear them. No, I'm not deaf. I spend most of the day either in an office, or in meetings and calls. The eruption of Alan Rickman's phenomenal quote during a conference call tends to sidetrack the conversation, so I keep the phone on mute. My carefully selected ringtones are reduced to a simple buzz, as my phone quietly vibrates, and I am left to wonder if the message is about a nearby special, or something more critical. Sigh. One of the great things about Jailbreaking is the ability to add great new functionality to the iPhone at it's core level, not just as an add-on app. Enter Vibrafications . Now, I can add a custom vibration pattern to each person, whether they text or call, so I inst...

Ok, first an apology for the lack of recent posting. Things have been absolutely skyrocketing at TownHog , so it's been hard to find the time. However, with the recent addition of Charles Barletta to the team, I'm looking forward to getting my arms around the absolute torrent of new business. Now, what you really came to hear about. It's official, I have now broken the Apple shackles. Yep, Jailbroken, and I'm not going back. Why? Well, it started with my trusty 3GS iPhone slowing down and feeling it's age. Apps were taking forever to open, mail was a crawl...in short, it was clearly time for a new iPhone. However, I have recently been feeling the frustration with the limitations of the iPhone, especially with the UI. Notifications taking the entire focus of the phone, no matter what you are doing; the psuedo multitasking, and the badges everywhere. Push notifications that sometimes work...the list goes on. It got worse when I saw the Windows Phone 7 "Metro...

It's not as often as you would expect, but occasionally the Internet proves yet again that there is far too much of a temptation to act emotionally, while in a professional position. Whether it's congressmen sending shirtless photos of themselves to women they want to cheat on their wives with, or news commenters (note not the completely made-up "commentator") using Twitter to say things they never would in person , it continues to be a plague on the digital house. Today's abject example comes from TechCrunch, the technology blog. In an unusual move, the blogger chose to make a private e-mail exchange with a PR rep from a company public to expose the rep's poor attitude. This is a little surprising for TC, as they are usually pretty professional organization, so it's bizarre that they went out of their way to call this guy out. Unfortunately, it blew up a bit on them, as their interpretation of the exchange was a bit tone deaf, and the comments from lo...

I was checking out a story on Chris Simms , the occasional backup quarterback for the Titans and son of former NY Giants QB, Phil Simms. I've always admired the guts of this man, as he played an entire half of a football game with a ruptured spleen. That's seriously  tough. Anyway, I was amused that the story, about Simms losing a key ruling in a traffic stop where he was suspected to be under the influence of marijuana, described him in a "zombie" like state. The ad that ran intext with the article? Shows Saints QB Drew Brees in a state that could easily be described as "zombie like." That's either really good ad targeting or really bad ad targeting. Either way, makes for a funny distratcion!