Facebook Ads Flub for Pizza Delicious
Facebook is huge and loved by so many people, it makes sense to tap into that popularity for advertising . . . right?
Not so much for Pizza Delicious of New Orleans. NPR’s planet money spoke to them and found an advertising dollar spent with Facebook doesn’t go far. Apparently, GM agrees.
Maybe because 44% of Facebook users never click ads!
Create a doc with a partner called “Facebook or Not?”. Use Google to find at least 2 articles analyzing the Facebook IPO. On your doc, list at least 3 reasons why to buy it, 3 reasons why not and link the 2 articles.
How Facebook’s IPO compares to Google (via NPR) The Street says not good.
Assignments for Thursday, May 9th
Toyota introduces Google, all-you-can-eat donuts
Click one of the 4 links above. Read the article with a partner and answer the following in a Google Doc. Call the doc “Market Place News”
- Give a complete who, what, when, where and why that clearly and concisely explains the main points of the article. This should be a thorough article summary.
- Who is a proponent of this idea? Who wants it to work? Who are it’s backers?
- Who will or does this benefit? Who is it good for?
- Why might this fail? Why is it not a good idea? Are there any opponents to this? What pitfalls should supporters beware of?
Here’s an example of how this assignment should look based on this article: Big Girl Cosmetics.
Mr. Brumwell Says . . .
Take it with a grain of salt. Here’s a good example:
by David Owen
Extracted from Reader’s Digest (Asian Edition), April 1991, pp. 47-48.
Mr. Whitson taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a lecture about a creature called the cattywampus, an ill-adapted nocturnal animal that was wiped out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull as he talked. We all took notes and later had a quiz.
When he returned my paper, I was shocked. There was a big red X through each of my answers. I had failed. There had to be some mistake! I had written down exactly what Mr. Whitson said. Then I realized that everyone in the class had failed. What had happened?
Very simple, Mr. Whitson explained. He had made up all the stuff about the cattywampus. There had never been any such animal. The information in our notes was, therefore, incorrect. Did we expect credit for incorrect answers?
Needless to say, we were outraged. What kind of test was this? And what kind of teacher?
We should have figured it out, Mr. Whitson said. After all, at the every moment he was passing around the cattywampus skull (in truth, a cat’s), hadn’t he been telling us that no trace of the animal remained? He had described its amazing night vision, the color of its fur and any number of other facts he couldn’t have known. He had given the animal a ridiculous name, and we still hadn’t been suspicious. The zeroes on our papers would be recorded in his grade book, he said. And they were.
Mr. Whitson said he hoped we would learn something from this experience. Teachers and textbooks are not infallable. In fact, no one is. He told us not to let our minds go to sleep, and to speak up if we ever thought he or the textbook was wrong.
Every class was an adventure with Mr. Whitson. I can still remember some science periods almost from beginning to end. On day he told us that his Volkswagon was a living organism. It took us two full days to put together a refutation he would accept. He didn’t let us off the hook until we had proved not only that we knew what an organism was but also that we had the fortitude to stand up for the truth.
We carried our brand-new skepticism into all our classes. This caused problems for the other teachers, who weren’t used to being challenged. Our history teacher would be lecturing about something, and then there would be clearings of the throat and someone would say ‘cattywampus.’
If I’m ever asked to propose a solution to the problems in our schools, it will be Mr. Whitson. I haven’t made any great scientific discoveries, but Mr. Whitson’s class gave me and my classmates something just as important: the courage to look people in the eye and tell them they are wrong. He also showed us that you can fun doing it.
Not everyone sees the value in this. I once told an elementary school teacher about Mr. Whitson. The teacher was appalled. “He shouldn’t have tricked you like that,” he said. I looked that teacher right in the eye and told him that he was wrong.
Become a Master Googler
Ever felt like what you want is on the tip of your Google search.
You know the thing is out there, but you can’t figure out what search terms Google wants you to use?
Check out this link that explains many of the tricks you need to know to master the art of search using Google
Get More Out of Google-Improve Your Google Search
Stuxnet
This virus made news when it was allegedly used to disable Iranian Uranium Enrichment facilities. No one knows where it came from, but it is potentially the most dangerous virus ever created. Click on the pic to see an interesting video about Stuxnet.
What is Intelligence Anyway? By Isaac Asimov
When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me.
(It didn’t mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP – kitchen police – as my highest duty.)
All my life I’ve been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I’m highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too.
Actually, though, don’t such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests – people with intellectual bents similar to mine?
For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was.
Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles – and he always fixed my car.
Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test.
Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I’d prove myself a moron, and I’d be a moron, too.
In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly.
My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.
Consider my auto-repair man, again.
He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me.
One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: “Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand.
“The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?”
Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers.
Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, “You dumby, he used his voice and asked for them.”
Then he said smugly, “I’ve been trying that on all my customers today.” “Did you catch many?” I asked. “Quite a few,” he said, “but I knew for sure I’d catch you.”
“Why is that?” I asked. “Because you’re so darned educated, doc, I knew you couldn’t be very smart.”
And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.
Who’s in Control
Locus of Control (i.e. where control is located) is a powerful idea that effects your entire life.
It deals with who you think ultimately controls your life. Is it you and your choices?Or do you think other people’s choices and life’s situations make you who you are?
Most psychologists believe that an internal locus of control leads to a happier, more successful life.
Take the Quiz and find out where your locus of control is.
Passwords
Hackers can easily break into many accounts just by repeatedly trying common passwords. So when they say “worst,” they basically mean the most common, and therefore the most easily stolen. Here are the top 5
password
123456
12345678
qwerty
abc123
Do’s and Don’ts for good passwords:
- Do: make your passwords at least eight characters
- Do: use a variety of letters (capital and lowercase), numbers, or special characters (#, $, *, etc…) when possible.
- Don’t: use the same username/password combination on multiple sites.
Volt v. Prius
What have you heard about the Chevy Volt? How about the Toyota Prius? If you could vote on one or the other to win the race to make a profitable, long term impact in sustainable transportation, which would you vote for?
GM to Halt Volt Production, Lay Off Workers
GM to halt Chevy Volt production, temporarily lay off 1,300 workers due to low demand
SMG Update
It’s been a choppy week on Wall Street. Going into today’s trading, the Dow was down two points from last week’s close, but it hit 13,000 on Tuesday for the first time since May 2008. While the 13,000 level is not considered technically significant, it is a psychological milestone.
Yelp officially went public yesterday and raised $107.25 million while their $15/share price set their company valuation at nearly $900 million. Its shares start trading today on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “YELP.” In terms of The Stock Market Game program, students should be able to start trading Yelp in the next week.
Another company that has been in the news quite frequently as of late is Zynga (ZNGA). Its shares are on the move after the online game developer announced a new online platform, www.zynga.com, which will allow users to play Zynga’s games like FarmVille and Words With Friends on its site and reduce the company’s dependence on Facebook.