Saturday, December 26, 2009

Let Me Sleep...

I should have posted this song yesterday. Too good not to post a day late.

"Offend exactly the right people in exactly the right ways"

Great marketing lesson from Seth Godin below. His example is the Kindle but it really could be any great, new product. I tucked this one away to remember on my side projects.

"This a useful insight for anyone who markets anything--the people who buy the first generation of a product are more likely to be enthusiasts. They are more forgiving. They like new things. Bilton has tried to invent a trend by lining the items up in chronological order, but this is deceptive, both because of the number of reviews, but mostly because the people reviewing the new ones have a different agenda.


The Kindle has managed to offend exactly the right people in exactly the right ways. It's not as boring as it could be, it excites passions and it has created a cadre of insanely loyal evangelists who are buying them by the handful to give as gifts."

Friday, December 25, 2009

Kenny Kellogg's Best of 2009 (#10 - #6a & 6b)

We're continuing last weeks theme of my favorite albums of last year and selected songs. Here is a link to last week's list (#15 - #11). There is a master playlist below and then links to videos for specific songs (I embedded a couple really awesome ones). These albums are so good they could have easily been switched with the Top 5. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!



10. Bat for Lashes (Two Suns)- Daniel and Pearl's Dream. Just an amazing couple of songs. Intense, cool, and mysterious. Click through on the videos because they are worth it.

9. Camera Obscura (My Maudlin Career) - James and Sweetest ThingGonzo Gal introduced this band to me. I loved both of these songs. The Sweetest thing video is a great acoustic recording of them in studio.




8. Wilco (Wilco the Album) - Everlasting, One Wing, Wilco and You and I. Wilco always comes through. Nothing beats seeing them at the Greek Theater with friends as I did this year.

7. The Fruit Bats (Ruminant Band) - Primitive Man, Beautiful Morning Light, Being on Our Own, Ruminant Band and Flamingo33 Forever introduced me to these guys. He called it "Scott Orn music", which it is. Great discovery John.

6a. Where the Wild Things Are (Karen O) - All is Love, Worried Shoes, Food is Still Hot and Hideaway. I'm a huge Karen O fan and this soundtrack was amazing. I still haven't seen the movie but I will someday. I don't want to soil the soundtrack. Added bonus, she's terrific in concert.

6b. Blood Bank, Twilight Soundtrack & Volcano Choir (Bon Iver) - Blood Bank, Roslyn, Island IS, Beach Baby and The Woods. I decided to make a late edition to the list via a compilation of songs that Bon Iver released in 2009. They're my favorite band of the last couple of years and I listen to them all the time. I can't believe every one of these songs was considered a B-side and not worthy of a full release.



Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Hmmm...

I'm not sure what to think of this. Thanks to Bells for sending in.

Monday, December 21, 2009

This Movie Exists!

Neighborhood Living

One of the great pleasures of living in Russian Hill in San Francisco, is that a large concentration of my friends live here too. I can count 10 friends that live in a 3 block radius of my pad at Union & Polk. I bump into friends on Polk all the time and it's one of the reasons I'm such a believer in Foursquare.

This Sunday morning I staggered out of my apartment with a headache and desperate need for some coffee before discussing the redesign of Ben's Friends with Ben & Eric. Who did I see, but Alex Bain, limping up Union street on a similar mission. He claimed the limp was due to some poor fitting pants, but I think he was embarrassed to admit he might have gotten a little too frisky at a Holiday party the night before. Regardless, it's such a pleasure to live in a neighborhood with my friends for just these type of occurrences.


Friday, December 18, 2009

Kenny Kellogg's Best of 2009 (#15 - #11)

It's been a great year for music so I wanted to pass on my favorite 15 albums of the year. Big thanks to all my friends that surfaced these great records. Special shout out's go to 33 Forever, I'm All Ears, the Gonzo Gal. Below is a playlist that includes two songs from each album, a quick comment on each album and links to some YouTube videos where they are available. Hope you enjoy.



15. Pearl Jam (Backspacer) - Amongst the Waves and Just Breathe. Usually Pearl Jam discs grow on me quite a bit but these two songs are clearly the best on the album. Solid effort by PJ.

14. Gomez (A New Tide) - Bone Tired, Win Park Slope, Airstream Driver, Natural Reaction, and Little Pieces. One of my favorite bands to see live and it's great to see them producing a new album every couple of years. The album didn't really open up for me until I saw them live. Now I can't listen to it enough.

13. Monsters of Folk - Temazcal, Ahead of the Curve, The Sandman The Breakman..., Dear God, Say Please, and The Right Place. Who would have thought a folk super group would have worked so well. Loved their motto "We play folk so you don't have to," and they were incredible in concert at the Fox Theatre.

12. Blind Pilot (3 Rounds & A Sound) - I Buried a Bone, One Red Thread, Poor Boy, The Bitter End, The Story I Heard, and Go On Say It. Forgot who turned me onto these guys but they are pretty awesome. Sensitive, but awesome.

11. Conor Oberst - Cape Canaveral, Get Well Cards, Moab, and Souled Out. Another great concert experience seeing him play at Mezzanine from midnight to 2am. So much energy and talent.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Fake Steve on AT&T

Fake Steve puts it well:


"But AT&T has a much bigger problem on its hands. The problem is that the wireless data explosion is just beginning. This 3% of AT&T users who are supposedly accounting for 40% of bandwidth use? Pretty soon that 3% is going to become 30%.


The whole point of having these mobile devices is to consume data. This is not just about the iPhone. There’s the Droid, and the Pre, and soon there will be the Nexus One and a zillion other Android phones. Plus all the tablets. This is the future. We are going to carry these devices and use them as our televisions, our radios, our newspapers.


The appetite for bandwidth will be insatiable. The network operators that will prosper will be the ones that can keep up with the demand. The ones who don’t will get left behind. Sure, for now companies like AT&T can hang on to customers with exploitative contracts and exclusivity deals. But at some point, and I think it will be soon, the network operators will have to compete, for real, based on quality of service.


The fact that AT&T is already bonking, here in the first five minutes of a 60-minute game, is terrifying. It’s their own fault, of course. Go look at their financial statements and open up the Financial Operations and Statistics Summary and look at capital expenditures over the past eight quarters. I’m no math whiz, but it looks like capex has gone down by about 30% over the time period. Scroll down a bit to the Wireless section and check out data revenues — they’re up 80% over the same period."

Intermission at 39 Steps (it's good so far)

More

“I would really ask that you guys don’t write this? If Tiger is NOT implicated, and won’t be, let’s please give the kid a break.” via the Sports Guy

Monday, December 14, 2009

PaperWheel's Thank You Cards

When you have a couple side projects that have zero funding, you depend on the kindness of friends to lend a hand or expertise. I've been incredibly lucky over the last couple of years and my friends have stepped up big-time. During the holidays I take the time to write them thank you cards because it seems to mean a little more than just a verbal thank you. Of course, my go-to cards are from Sugar Paper but for Thank You cards, I use Elizabeth Weil's PaperWheel. Below are the cards I have been using this year. They're semi-macho, right? It's an Elephant after all. Those things can kill you in the jungle. Anyways, check out Paperwheel and send the friends who have helped you out this year a nice card.



Btw - I came across this one this morning and thought it was pretty awesome.


Sunday, December 13, 2009

Picture Perfect

Everything wrong with the US financial system and attitudes summed up in one perfect photo from Kedrosky.


Saturday, December 12, 2009

The Arc - Toy Store

I feel like I'm giving away a pretty big secret here, but in the spirit of Uncles and Godfathers everywhere, I wanted to recommend The Arc - Toy Store on Sacramento & Presidio. It's my go-to toy store and I just knocked out gifts for the little ones in my life. Happy hunting.


Thursday, December 10, 2009

Molly Mutt on Today Show

Molly Mundt's company, Molly Mutt (www.mollymutt.com) was featured on the Today show this morning. Her doggy duvet's are just amazing. I remember meeting with Molly two years ago when she had just started her company. It's beyond amazing to me that 2 years later, she could be at this point. Big congrats Molly!


All That : The New Yorker


All That : The New Yorker

A new story by David Foster Wallace. I'm a big fan and was sad to see him pass away. This is an interesting story and I had to read the last page twice. I'm not sure I figured it out, but I think it says something about his suicide.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

A Contrarian's Dilemma

Well written piece by John Hathaway, the Manager of the Tocqueville Gold Mutual Fund. Full disclosure, I own shares in the fund. Also, he makes a great case for gold. It's worth noting that Gold has had a huge run, so while I'm a long term holder, you might want to wait for a pull back before rushing in.

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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Obama & Savings

Great post from my buddy Alex Bain commenting on a post about Saving from Fred Wilson. Alex's comments reflex my thoughts perfectly. One of the best things Obama could do would be to popularize Saving.

"What America really needs is someone with street cred that can come along and make saving really cool (perhaps a rapper named “401K”). Not saving in the form of buying a house one can’t afford, but saving as in not consuming, individually and nationally.
I don’t know a ton about macroeconomics (despite my econ BA and MBA), but it strikes me that we’re currently trying to spend our way out of debt."

Monday, December 7, 2009

Palladia

Jeremy Steele turned me onto Palladia, an all music channel that actually shows music! It's great and is channel 783 in the Bay Area on Comcast. I came home from a long weekend in Vegas and watched a bunch of concerts on my DVR. One of the shows was the Silversun Pickups who rock even acoustically.


Stats

Ben Munoz sent me the following stats on the patient networks we run. I was so proud I wanted to share them with you. We've made tremendous progress and helped a lot of people. If you want to help out, either casually or semi-part-time, we'd love to have you.

How many visits last month?
www.AVMSurvivors.org: 9,336
www.LivingWithTN.org: 2,706
www.LivingWithAtaxia.org: 2,446
www.ALDSupport.org: 127
www.LivingWithFibro.org: 276

What percent of visitors come from a search engine?
AVM: 44%
LTN: 27%
LTA: 37%
ALD: 9%
LWF: 3%

Outside of search engines, what are the top sources of traffic?
AVM: facebook, dmoz.org
LTN: facebook, wikipedia
LTA:
litsmith.com, ataxia.org.uk, wikipedia
ALD: facebook, kennykellogg
LWF: kennykellogg, facebook

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Beat the Reaper

Just finished Beat the Reaper. It's one of the best books I've read in years. Super fast paced and a lot of butt kicking, with medical knowledge sprinkled in. Great Read. Check it out.

Beat the Reaper: A Novel Beat the Reaper: A Novel by Josh Bazell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews >>



Saturday, December 5, 2009

Smartphone Segmentation

Is Droid trying to segment that smartphone market based on sex? This clip from Fake Steve sure makes it seem so. The next question is, did Droid choose the right segment? This looks especially male oriented, yet women are the ones who are more prevalent on social networks, talk on the phone more and play way more casual online games. Any advertising pros that read Kenny K have thoughts?

Friday, December 4, 2009

Tiger Slow Jam

Friday Chill Music: December 4, 2009




The latest release of Sunday Morning, my hangover/makeout mix is almost here. This week's mix includes some songs that just didn't make the cut, despite being awesome.