PlayOn Adds Hulu and Others to Your Xbox 360, PS3

Windows only: PlayOn streams online video from the likes of Hulu, YouTube, and Netflix to your Xbox 360, Playstation 3, or HP MediaSmart TV. I've only tested the application on my Xbox 360 (it shows up as a source in the media blade of the dashboard), and for the most part it's worked really well. In addition to the three streaming video sites mentioned above, PlayOn also supports CBS, CNN, and ESPN. The Netflix streaming didn't work in my tests, so your mileage may vary. The application is available as a free three-week trial and costs $30 for a full license. If Netflix streaming is what you want most, you can already turn your Xbox 360 into a streaming Netflix player for free or just wait until the fall update. According to one reader, XBMC users can also take advantage of PlayOn by setting up an UPnP share

Find the Yuppiest Possible San Francisco Apartment with Gentrify

New webapp Gentrify "helps the elite urban bourgeois find their natural habitats." Naturally, it's only available for San Francisco right now. The site mashes up Craigslist apartment listings with business listings on Yelp and plots them all on Google Maps to help yuppies find a neighborhood with all the amenities they've come to expect, from raw food restaurants to pilates studios. It even provides a "gentrification score" for an apartment's surrounding neighborhood (mine, North Beach, came in at only 40.7 percent — chi-chi Pacific Heights scored 85.8 percent). For wider-reaching home-hunting helpers with less yuppy, check out Kevin's top 10 real estate search tools.

The Last Lonely Ride - Death Comes in Its Own Time, in Its Own Way

My experience with my father's death started with a phone call. You might know the kind. It's the one I dreaded picking up the most. The voice on the other end of the line was very matter of fact and the conversation was brief. I got up. My bag was already packed. It had been for weeks. The airport was close. My parents lived four hours away and I still remember the sound of the crashing surf as I climbed into the cab.

My father had died. It was expected and we had said our goodbyes weeks before, but I still regret not being there. I couldn't stop wondering if an angel had whispered in his ear and held him close in that long last lonely moment.

All in all, everything went off very smoothly. Just as he had planned. He was meticulous in everything he did ... why should his departure be any different? We were as ready as we could be for what had happened. Dad had Alzheimer's. And early on, he decided to transition all aspects of his control of the family before things got out of hand.

There was no Irish wake, such as the one he held for his father. There was a cremation and the ashes were flown back to his birthplace so he could be buried in the family plot. As was befitting the occasion, his hearse was a black PT Cruiser. There was no need for an expensive stretched vehicle. After all, I held his ashes in a wooden box on my lap and it was only family and a few close friends. "It's not how much you make, but how much you save", he always said. We brothers passed the box around on the way to the cemetery so that we all got a chance to hold him one last time. And, we left him there, weighing probably about the same as he did when he came into this world.

I thought I was mentally and spiritually prepared for whatever was going to happen at my father's death. It was expected. It had been going on for quite some time. And I thought I was ready. I was not ready. It hammered me with a crushing blow. I found this poem by Henry Van Dyke and it really made a lot of short easy sense for me at the time. I still read it occasionally and it brings back memories of that last lonely ride in the black PT Cruiser.

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and the sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: There, she is gone!

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: There she is gone! There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: Here she comes!

And that is dying".

Henry Van Dyke

Jeff Fitzgerald has played many roles in this lifetime: adventure traveler, international businessman, entrepreneur, family man and intrepid crusader of a life without limits.

Inspired to Lead - Surprised by a Social Marketing Book

Late last night, I downloaded Seth Godin's Tribes audiobook. I was prepared for more of his uncommon insights into marketing and also to see what he had to say about social marketing, The Next Big Thing. Well, I was surprised.

Not let down. Surprised. Although, I can see where the complaints will come from.

This book doesn't weigh heavy on how to make money. In fact, Godin reiterates numerous times that leading a tribe is not about money. He goes so far, once, as to say that if you try to cash in on your tribe, you'll ruin it. And I can just imagine how wonderfully that's going to go down with the marketing types who'll buy this book.

I was surprised. This is not another marketing book. This is a book about leadership. One of the best I've come across, and leadership is a genre I follow quite closely. (I even got Guiliani's post-9/11 tome, eh.)

Over and over again, Godin says that we need leaders; leaders who will do the right thing. He emphasises how each of us needs to connect--to each other, to a higher purpose. He talks about the difference between faith and religion, how faith is what we believe, and religion is what we construct to try and nurture that belief. And how religion can sometimes go awry, in that it may not promote belief but rather imprison it. And how when you then challenge those concepts of religion, people get offended because they think you're challenging their faith. How can we know that we believe in a true principle unless we're willing to put our mental constructs to the test?

Godin surprised me with this one. It's like the time I went to watch Click, expecting another trashy, brashy Adam Sandler gagfest. And found myself choking back embarrassing man-sized tears.

Sometimes it's nice to sign up for one thing and get another.

Are you looking for some inspiration? Tribes the audiobook is available for free now on Audible.com. Follow the promotional link from Seth's blog post announcing the release of Tribes. This is one of the best books on leadership that I've read (actually, heard) in a long time. And it's got some good points on marketing, too.

Alpha Lim is a professional copywriter who would like nothing better than to see every man, woman and child writing their hearts out with pathos and flair, for fun and profit.

The global youth culture is not only spending money on western goods and services, they are also learning English as a Second Language.

This year teenagers around the world will spend one hundred billion dollars on personal items. This is their allowance for them to freely spend. You are probably thinking that most of it is in the hands of American kids but it's not. Actually most of this money, about sixty five percent of it, comes from outside of America. This newest generation of teenagers is part of the global youth culture. Their style of music, dress and dance traverse the globe. You can see teenagers sitting and drinking Coca Cola in Thailand listening to hip hop music on their iPods. The same music, dress and dance will be found in Tanzania as well. Of course there are some adaptations for climates and religious beliefs. The head scarves are found in most Islamic countries and denim jeans are lined with flannel for warmth but the style is the same. Even though most of the teens in the world would say they do not like America for some reason the American pop culture dominates all others. But like the American teen demographic, the global teen market breaks down into basic subgroups like aspirers and traditionalists. Music is the common thread woven through all these widely spread groups of teenagers. Some of them understand the lyrics of the songs thanks to English being the Lingua Franca of the world. Many times even if you can 't understand the lyrics you will recognize the tune because the lyrics have been translated or adapted and rerecorded with the same music. Almost all of them have had English lessons in public schools. The European Union has English classes in elementary schools with most students being at the intermediate level by the eighth grade. In the rest of world, second language education starts in middle school continuing through high school. In most communities there are also private language schools that target this demographic. Of course the British have a heavy influence there since their programs are sponsored by their government but most are owned by locals. Some of them learn English with free lessons online. An internet café is found on many street corners in big cities around the world. After music the World Wide Web is probably the second biggest influence on teens. Most of the information on the internet is in the English language but Chinese is catching up rapidly. Tapping into the global teen market to influence and benefit from this generations affluence is the question. While there needs to be global advertising campaigns and the same time the grassroots movement needs to be moving in harmony with it in order to capture the hearts, minds and wallets of this new and affluent generation.

Research Your Marketing

All forms of marketing have a common theme in order to be successful, and that theme is research. Every aspect of marketing requires extensive research if you want to be successful.
Of course, you don't have to research in order to have marketing. You can ignore researching what your customers actually want. You can choose to ignore trying to find out what kinds of things will best appeal to them, which forms of marketing will work best, and what your advertisements need to say in order to encourage them to buy something. You can certainly do all of that, but you won't end up with any kind of successful marketing if you do.
The fact that you need to research your customers in order to best appeal to them before you print posters or brochures is a better known aspect of marketing. I think that most companies are aware of the fact that this is vital to marketing success.
Instead what happens is companies don't think about how much they should research when it comes to developing the best and most cost effective form of marketing.
Unless you plan on handling every part of your marketing yourself you're likely to have someone who is designing your ads, maybe another person writing them, and of course a printing company who is going to actually get your ads printed off.
Each of these require a lot of extensive research as well if you want to be sure that you end up with not only the best kind of advertisement, but also the best prices.
Let's look at an example of posters. Now, with color posters you're certainly going to need a good graphic designer to get you the best kind of design work possible. I would do a lot of research into the best people for the job before committing to anything.
The printing is going to be just as important. A lot of companies might shop around to find the best poster printing quotes, and that's a good first step, but I'd research more about the printing process than just how much it's going to cost. Different types of printing can not only greatly affect the costs, but the types of paper and ink you use can also affect the way the poster looks.
If you've done your research than you'll have a better understanding of what goes into the printing, and so you'll know what to ask about. Get your poster printing quotes as well, but also ask them about the type of paper and ink that will work best for your poster to get the most polished end product possible.
Advertising is a very large part of what keeps a company going, and so why would you entrust it to people you don't know every much about. Do your research into the best companies to handle your advertising needs, and you'll end up saving both time and money in the long run.