- Hey NBA stars looking for other basketball options during the lockout…….that China thing, it’s no longer an option. Stars like Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul had all expressed interest in playing in the Chinese Basketball Association if the lockout drags on as expected and wipes out part or all of the season. Bryant and Orlando center Dwight Howard already have huge fan bases in China and ostensibly viewed balling in China as a way to both make a lot of money and expand their brand, so to speak. However, the CBA has no interest in being anyone’s fallback plan, to be jettisoned the instant the NBA lockout is resolved. As per its announcement Friday, the CBA will restrict contracted NBA players from playing for domestic teams in the event the NBA season is canceled. Only current NBA free agents would be permitted to play and those players would be required to play an entire season in China. Any player with an existing contract would be barred and left to choose from options in other countries such as Turkey, Germany, Spain and Greece, all of which seem to have no problem with an NBA player being under contract and certain to bolt when the lockout is lifted. According to state media, contracts with Chinese teams would also designed to discourage players from ducking out for dubious reasons, such as suspect injuries or unverified family problems at home. Of course, those places may not be as attractive as China and its 1 billion citizens in terms of marketing and advertising, but the primary aim of an NBA player looking for a new team abroad during the lockout should be basketball, right? But a decision need not be made now, as the Chinese season is not scheduled to tip off until Nov. 20. Of course, the CBA is allegedly planning to introduce further restrictions on NBA players wishing to play for one of its teams in between now and then, so inking to play in Turkey or Israel just might be the way to go…………
- If you suck abysmally at something for a prolonged period of time, it’s best just to quit. That is the valuable lesson being taught to one and all by Hewlett-Packard, which is radically restructuring its entire company and as part of that effort is looking to spin off its struggling personal computer business. The decision is surprising particularly because HP just launched its much-hyped and heavily advertised TouchPad tablet last month. Included in the massive kill-off will be the company’s webOS smartphone line. HP went to great lengths to obtain the webOS software by acquiring Palm last year, but vowed in its gloom-and-doom proclamation that it will continue trying to "optimize the value" of its purchase. That the TouchPad is dying such a quick death isn't so stunning, as it had failed so miserably (despite a huge ad campaign feautring celebrities like Manny Pacquiao) that HP almost immediately cut the tablet's price by $100. Furthermore, the company admitted none of its webOS products reached the company's internal sales targets. Yet in the midst of the bad news, HP tried to offer a glimmer of hope by announcing its purchase of British software developer Autonomy for roughly $10.2 billion in cash. Oddly enough, HP will run Autonomy as a separate company, but HP will "look for synergies." Stock prices for HP have been all over the map but mostly down in the past month (but what stock hasn’t) and fell 6 percent during regular hours Thursday and an additional 6 percent in afterhours trading. HP CEO Leo Apotheker did his best to keep a positive outlook, but in the end could not outrun May predictions that the company needed to put greater investment into its "value-added services" or it will "be left with a business that is running out of steam." There is also no outrunning the reality that consumer PC sales have slumped industry-wide for the past several quarters, as tablets like Apple's iPad have slowed netbook and mini-notebook sales. HP’s consumer sales fell a whopping 17 percent between May and July. "The tablet effect is real," Apotheker said. "Consumers are changing how they use PCs." Yes, they are changing to not using PCs at all. In lieu of actually selling computers, HP’s new plan calls for a transition into faster-growing, more profitable businesses like software, servers and corporate technology services. Axing its consumer computer business is still huge, as HP's Personal Systems unit accounts for about one-third of the company's annual revenue. In light of the news, HP reduced its full-year revenue forecast by 9 percent and lowered its profit forecast by 16 percent. HP Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak admitted that the outlook was "definitely the toughest one for me as CFO." All of this underscores just how quickly the computer business changes, as just 10 years ago it was HP buying Compaq in a contentious deal that eventually helped cost then-CEO Carly Fiorina her job. HP became the largest PC manufacturer in the world and has held that position right up to now. It still sells more PCs than any other vendor, shipping 14.9 million PCs last quarter for a 17.5 percent share of the market. Dell and Lenovo are close behind, but after HP waved the white flag there is more of the market to be grabbed. Who will acquire HP’s Personal Systems unit, you may ask? Well, the company said its board of directors has authorized executives to explore "strategic alternatives" for the unit and it plans on making a final decision within the next 12 to 18 months. For consumers, it simply means there is one less brand of computer on the market to run the world’s worst operating system………..
- March’s massive earthquake that struck Japan may have shaken the country in a literal sense, but it clearly has not shaken the core values of the Japanese people. The earthquake and resulting tsunami have left much of Japan’s coastline ravaged, but in the recovery process the country’s trademark honesty has been prominently on display. In the five months since the tsunami struck, people have turned in thousands of wallets found in the debris, containing $48 million in cash. Additionally, more than 5,700 safes that washed ashore along the coast have also been hauled to police centers by volunteers and search and rescue crews. The safes have yielded an additional $30 million in cash, including one safe containing the equivalent of $1 million. The National Police Agency confirmed that most of the valuables have been successfully returned to their owners. "In most cases, the keyholes on these safes were filled with mud," said Koetsu Saiki of the Miyagi Prefectural Police. "We had to start by cutting apart the metal doors with grinders and other tools." Matching the safes with their owners proved relatively easy, as Saiki says most kept bankbooks or land rights documents inside the boxes, containing their names and address. However, locating people in the nature-ravaged area has been extremely difficult. Many were either killed in the tsunami or have been evacuated to safer locales. "The fact that these safes were washed away, meant the homes were washed away too," Saiki said. "We had to first determine if the owners were alive, then find where they had evacuated to." To find the rightful owners of the returned loot, police fanned out across the region, searching for names of residents posted at evacuation centers, digging through missing person reports at town halls, sorting through change of address forms at the post office, to see if the owner had moved away. If these efforts yielded no results, police called listed cell phone numbers, met with mayors or village leaders to see if they recognized the names. As these searches went on, the number of safes turned in continued to increase as the clearing of tsunami debris led to more discoveries. All manner of unusual and valuable items have been found inside the safes, including bars of gold, antiques and even crafted boxes containing a child's umbilical cord. The quest to return these items will likely stretch on for many weeks…………
- Wait a minute…….insulting Lindsay Lohan is a problem now? If a quick reading of a lawsuit by the angry, oft-intoxicated, Colombian-nose-candy-loving actress is to be believed, yes. After hack, bubble gum “rapper” Pitbull lampooned Lohan in his latest single "Give Me Everything," Lohan and her legal team responded with a lawsuit against Pitbull and the track’s producers. "I got it locked up like Lindsay Lohan," the seemingly harmless line reads. Yet that was enough for Lohan and her attorney, Stephanie Ovadia, to claim that the line "by virtue of its wide appeal, condemnation, excoriation, disparaging or defamatory statements by the defendants about the plaintiff are destined to do irreparable harm to the plaintiff." Wait…..telling the truth is disparaging? Lohan was locked up, after all. No one is disputing she was in jail (and probably will be back soon), so why the huffing and puffing? A further read of the lawsuit provides some priceless comedy material, noting Lohan is "a professional actor of good repute and standing in the Screen Actors Guild" who is suing under the New York civil-rights laws, which protects individuals from having their name exploited for commercial purposes. Among other penalties, the suit seeks an injunction to stop all the defendants — in addition to Pitbull, Ne-Yo and Afrojack, who wrote "Give Me Everything," are named — from broadcasting the song. Lohan is also demanding unspecified damages. She was successful in a similar suit filed last year against financial services company E-Trade after the company aired one of its über-terrible talking baby Super Bowl commercial that referred to an infant as "That milkaholic Lindsay." That suit never made it to court and was withdrawn in September, with E-Trade reportedly paying Lohan "a confidential sum." One possible option for Lohan if she wants to avoid future incidents of this type, and it is radical, would be to stop coking up, getting drunk, stealing things and spending time rocking orange jumpsuits and residing behind bars. It is virtually impossible to mock a person for being a coke head, a lush and a felon if they aren’t doing cocaine, getting drunk and living in an 8x10 cell at a local correctional facility.……….
- Care for a little subtle racism with your skincare advertisement, gentlemen? If so, skincare company Nivea is just the one for you. Nivea ran what turned out to be an extremely controversial ad in the September issue of Esquire magazine, an ad so controversial that the company has issued an official apology. The ad for Nivea for Men appeared and featured a clean-cut, African-American male holding what appeared to be a mask of a black man with an Afro hairstyle and a beard. That image was tagged with accompanying copy that read, "Look Like You Give a Damn. Re-civilize Yourself." Predictably, a picture of the ad was quickly uploaded to someone’s Twitter account and it went viral, leading to a massive outcry that made the ad a trending topic on Twitter on account of those complaining that it was insensitive and racist. Within hours, #nivea became a trending topic on Twitter and the company was scrambling to do damage control. Beiersdorf AG, the parent company of Nivea, released an official statement regarding the controversy: "We are deeply sorry to anyone who may take offense to this specific local advertisement. After realizing that this ad is misleading, it was immediately withdrawn. Diversity and equal opportunity are crucial values of NIVEA: The brand represents diversity, tolerance, and equal opportunity. We value difference. Direct or indirect discrimination must be ruled out in all decisions by, and in all areas of our activities. This applies regardless of gender, age, race, skin color, religion, ideology, sexual orientation, or disability. Nor should cultural, ethnic, or national origin, and political or philosophical conviction be of any significance." And yet, none of that seemed to be on the mind of whatever ad agency account executive and creative team came up with the idiotic ad in the first place. Maybe next time………..
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