edward spurlock

You know those blurbs at the end of pharmaceuticals commercials on TV? “If you can’t afford your medication, Prescott Pharmaceuticals may be able to help.” Who is the intended audience for those blurbs?

According to DailyKos commenter Ralphdog (a rural family-practice physician), those programs involve a LOT of paperwork for the doctor - so much so that some doctors won’t fill out that paperwork without charging the patient (who can’t afford their medications, remember) a paperwork fee. So the pharmaceutical companies don’t seem to be knocking themselves out to make these medicines available to low-income patients.

OTOH, people with reasonable insurance will probably hear those blurbs at the end of the commercials and think, “Well, that’s good. If the pharmaceutical companies are helping out, I guess I don’t need to be concerned.” This is straight out of psychological studies of “Social Proof.” Robert Cialdini writes about this in connection with the Kitty Genovese case, IIRC.

Check your Facebook privacy settings. Now!

MSNBC’s Helen A.S. Popkin goes step-by-step through Facebook’s recently changed privacy setting, giving what I think is very useful information about the settings changes that need to be made. This is NOT the useless “Un-check the ‘Allow indexing’” advice that’s currently making the rounds of email and Facebook Status messages. Setting your Facebook privacy settings correctly takes more time than unchecking a single box - but Popkin’s advice can help.

How McDonald’s Conquered France

For me, the “money shot” can be found on page 2 of the article:

The wallet was no minor consideration…The food at McDonald’s was cheap, and it was made cheaper still because its restaurants were officially designated as takeout joints. The value-added tax on meals at such establishments was just 5.5 percent, versus the 19.6 percent levied at “gastronomic” restaurants. This gave McDonald’s an even greater competitive advantage over brasseries, bistros, and cafés. It was odd that French politicians, supposedly committed to keeping globalization at bay and defending France’s culinary patrimony, would extend such favorable tax treatment to an American hamburger chain, and the different rates were a source of endless consternation to chefs, restaurant owners, and other purveyors of French cuisine.

What especially cheesed off Daguin and other chefs was that McDonald’s was being taxed as a carryout establishment even though the overwhelming majority of its customers actually chose to dine chez McDo…

Seriously, what’s up with that? If most of your customers sit down and eat, you’re more like a café than a takeaway joint. IMO, the official(s) who allowed MickeyD’s to get away with that favorable tax rate out to be fired or encouraged to resign in disgrace.

One good thing about that Slate article was a sidebar link to a Slate Explainer article: How Do They Measure Calories?

Pizza Hut to change its name?

Blame recession cuts. Pizza Hut reportedly is slicing the “pizza” from its name. The fast food chain will now be known simply as “The Hut.”

“The Hut”? Are you kidding me, Pizza Hut? “The HUT“? Like, short for “Jabba the Hutt”?

Yeah, I know there’s only one “T” in the restaurant’s version of the name — but it sounds the same. Is this really good marketing?

Facebook Dethrones Myspace in U.S. Popularity Race

According to the article, Facebook has led MySpace outside of the U.S., but now has just squeaked by MySpace in visitors for May 2009. The article goes on to say

Worldwide, Facebook had more than 307 million unique visitors in May while Myspace attracted less than half of that total — 123 million.

Myspace remains a go-to site for the tween and teen set, but Facebook has been getting significant growth from those closer to eligibility for an AARP membership.

Facebook has definitely gotten too big to ignore — which is another reason to Claim Your Facebook ‘Friendly’ URL before some miscreant grabs the one you want.

And MySpace? Alas, all King Rupert’s horses and all King Rupert’s men can’t stop the bleeding:

MySpace, the social networking site owned by News Corporation, the media conglomerate controlled by Mr. [Rupert] Murdoch, said it was laying off roughly 400 employees, or nearly 30 percent of its staff.

Alas, poor Murdoch — we knew him well.

If you’re like me, you’ve signed up for Facebook, but you don’t use it every day. I signed up for Facebook and have 34 Friends, but I’ve gone months without updating my status. That’s why I was not aware that Facebook is now allowing users to select permanent usernames that can be used as a “friendly” URL to one’s Facebook page.

For example, you can now view my Facebook page as http://www.facebook.com/edwardspurlock, instead of something like http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=[some huge number].This is a great thing for people who use Facebook and put their Facebook links on their business cards. Of course, if you’re one of those people, you probably grabbed your Facebook URL last Friday (June 12).

If you haven’t already claimed your preferred username or other vanity URL on Facebook, I would advise doing it now. Log in to Facebook and you should have a link to choose your username in the upper left-hand corner — or just go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ and attempt to select your username there.

You may feel that Facebook is not that important to your online presence — but if you change your mind in the future, it might be too late to claim the username you want. So do it now!

Don’t Sell Out Your Friends

Why small business should play nice—but hard—with social media.

Almost anyone in marketing will tell you it’s critical to make use of Facebook and Twitter—and maybe LinkedIn and MySpace, too…Yet the nature of these networks poses huge challenges for marketing. Facebook and Twitter were designed for socializing, not selling, and those activities don’t tend to gel.

…Making good use of social networks requires you to act human and to stay sensitive to the evolving ethos of the community. And that requires time and attention—two commodities that are always in short supply at small companies.

I’ve been on Facebook for a couple of years. A number of us at my 30th high school reunion talked about ways we could stay in touch. Classmates.com has a large “installed base” of people who saw their ads and signed up over the past 10 years, but it seems like you have to pay them money to do anything useful (like e-mail your old friend). I know they had to do something to pay for all those ads, but money doesn’t grow on trees.

I use Facebook mainly for networking with old friends and keep most of my business networking on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is just more professional — Facebook has a little too much of “Join my Dragon Wars tribe” and “What Hogwarts House Would You Be In” for me to be comfortable with it as a business networking venue. Besides, I think that “Hogwarts House” test is rigged - it put me in Gryffindor, and anyone who knows me knows that I would definitely be sorted into Ravenclaw.

Top 10 Tech Embarrassments You’ll Want to Avoid

The one that really caught my eye was the illustration of how wrong an email graphic can be:

“We were planning to have an open house in early October. The e-mail invitation was scheduled to go out on September 12 (yes, one day after 9/11). That morning I told the owner’s secretary not to send the invitation because nobody was in the mood for a party in New York. I was overruled, and the secretary pressed the Send button. The invitation embedded a small animation: An airplane leaving Milwaukee and flying to New York City — directly toward the Twin Towers.”

OOHHH, boy…

Foodies flock to Twitter-savvy food trucks

…more food trucks — a fast-growing food phenomenon in major cities, especially in the West — are using the social networking site [Twitter] to draw customers.

I suggested Twitter to the guy who delivers breakfast tacos to our building a few months ago, but he hadn’t even heard of it, much less thought about using it.

Other stories:

Microsoft reverses Windows 7 Starter limit

Microsoft was trying to force users of the Starter edition of Windows 7 to use no more than 3 applications at a time, or upgrade to a non-Starter edition? Does the term “screwing the pooch” mean anything to you guys at Microsoft? OY! Fortunately, they’ve dropped this idiotic idea.

U.S. military using Facebook, Twitter 

KABUL - The U.S. military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site and feeds on Twitter as part of a new communications effort to reach readers who get their information on the Internet rather than in newspapers, officials said Monday.

When the Web Got It Wrong

A PC World (via msn.com Tech) story about the “telephone game” gone high-tech.

Michigan launches new Web site for seniors 

LANSING, Mich. - Michigan seniors can visit a new Web site to find information ranging from a guide to nursing homes to how to avoid scams.

One of the skills needed by tech writers, bloggers, and podcasters is interviewing. The I’d Rather Be Writing tech writing blog has the Top 10 Worst Things SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) Say or Do.  I’d Rather Be Writing also has 10 Tips on The Art of Interviewing. The article references an article from the Poynter Institute — Some Useful Interview Techniques. Other articles from the Poynter Institute include The Bare Facts of Interviewing, The Zen of Interviewing, and The Interview as a Free-Form Art. Good stuff.