Google Will Track You - Whether You Want It or Not

More for the world of Google wanting to have all the information about you whether you want it or not.

Google is going to track you no matter whether you want to allow it or not. Google has decided that you are actually just a bit of information. And therefore your real persona and your online persona are fair game for the Googleplex.

Check out this post.

Add in the agreements that you make when you sign up for GoogleTalk and other Google applications and you would be amazed at what you have agreed to. So enough of this 4Square Mayor stuff - let's just make people eventually opt out of - rather than opt into Google Latitude. Combined with other Google products like Google Places (formerly known as Google Location) and you can start to see that Google is slowly enveloping all of us.

As an aside I think the reason Google chose "Latitude" and "Places" as brand names is because they learned from Microsoft that standard words like "Windows" are possible trade marks and therefore Google wants to own the concept of "presence" because then they own us. But they do anyway so its really rather academic.

One final thought, when you opt out of Google's clutches you only partially opt out. Google only promises not to use the information to spam you. At no time do they ever agree to stop monitoring you. Meta data (true data about data) doesn't need specific data when you own the entire data set.

And now you can go back to being afraid of where the Googleplex will go next.

Cheers

These rumours about Google/Opodo are great fun.

Unlikely but fun.

Its the weekend - pretty much wherever you are - so how about a nice rambling discourse on Opodo.

I remember back a couple of years when writing about Google getting into travel was constantly denied by Google. Remember we used to go on about Troogle? Then we heard (on reasonable reporting) that Google were looking to buy Farecast (prior to Microsoft buying them and incorporating that service into Bing). Ok that never happened but now we have Google / ITA. Big, and clearly attracting a lot of interest, angst and unwanted attention.

But something has been bugging me about these deals for a while. Look Farecast isn't ITA. While both on the surface may look like they give great flight data they both come from different sides of the equation. Farecast were always on the side of the consumer - they said don't buy now, buy later (upsetting airlines in the process). ITA, while not exactly the darling of the wider travel industry, seem much more on the industry side than, say, TripAdvisor (who appear to pretty much help consumers exclusively). For example see just how many airlines and meta-search sites are powered by ITA software.

So whatever Google are doing it seems they are focused on "helping" the industry. This is understandable - they could deliver a mediocre consumer proposition (the competitors are good, but don't own travel consumer traffic so are disadvantaged). A mediocre consumer proposition owning "free" travel focused web traffic would deliver a great revenue. No need for doing something exceptional or game changing. Perhaps then some of the pundits who say that Google wont need to bring innovation to the Travel process may be onto something.

As we have seen from large scale players such as Apple and it's iPhone business model - the real darlings of the stock market are those with multiple bites of the revenue stream. Let's look at Google and travel then.

On the media model the players/customers Google would really care about are the companies buying the adverts. On the transactional model (e.g. buying Opodo) they do need to care about consumers quite a lot more. This is something that is unlikely because its an operational business. However it's the consumers would deliver the revenue.

Of course in reality consumers have the money and wear the trousers. Long term, if Google slightly would - naturally - be expected to favour the trade (whatever they say this would happen in my opinion because Googlepus has to "game" the sellers of travel to optimize its revenue) then this leaves a tiny crack for a new entrant to take the pure consumer perspective. Maybe this could be Bing, with their consumer friendly Farecast heritage, could be that company. But that would result in another clash of titanic elephants. Not known for being swift on their feet.

Enough of this talk about elephants. Instead let's consider what would happen if the mega pachyderm Googleplex took the same approach to the travel sector as for example they have taken to other areas they have recently acquired. Instead of these multi-gazillion dollar transactions howabout building a new industry from ten plus startups who either take the consumer perspective or are part of the supply jigsaw. We know Google are running "invite only" events for some of these these travel startups so Big Brother is aware who they are (although I am personally slightly miffed that my invitation went missing the post, apparently!)

The question stands. Either Google go 100% taking the consumer perspective (aggressively helping consumers at the cost of their supplier relationships) or they go the media model, trade helping, route. The nuances of doing both are too tricky for a non-travel specialist.

If Google don't go the consumer backing route then this leaves a hole. It might be a tiny hole but it will be one that as I noted above Bing, with their Farecast system (very consumer oriented) plus many startups can attack them on. Taking this point of view, actually buying Opopo (revenue generated by consumers) may not be quite such a mad idea after all.

OK - confused? Don't be... Google isn't going to buy Opodo. That is just wishful thinking by Amadeus. (or a PR agency trying to build some value for the purchase of Opodo which is such a dead duck).

But stranger things have happened.

Google - Good Or Bad?

Careless or Stupid
Dishonest or Fiendish
Uncaring or Mean
Superior or Seeking only a master race?



Can Google really be evil? Just because it stretches plausibility doesn't make it not true. The onus on proof of "do no evil" must be on the person making that bold statement - not on the rest of civilization to prove them wrong.

In my view - Google has crossed the lines of both human decency and now more likely several laws in multiple countries. While this piece is on Google's streetview product/service - it clearly shows what happens when Google has a dominant position and/or the capability to do evil, it ACTUALLY does it. In the case in question, one has to ask the basic question, what if they did this and no one had found out?

When I discussed the Googleplex’s interesting denials earlier this year about its “accidental” collection of wifi data – I made the point that it was far from plausible/possible that the data collection could be accidental.

So far Google has made two retractions. The first one was that yes they did indeed capture personal data not just SSID and open Wifi details, the second far more serious admission is that they have kept the personal data for a very long time and still have not deleted it. Indeed, Google is not even making much of an effort to eradicate the personal data.

In privacy discussions lately, I have been amazed at the very lax approach to privacy taken by some large sections of our society. From a societal perspective as a whole it would seem that privacy has a low priority. In geographic terms – there is a general assumption that privacy is not a big deal in America. In Asia and the middle east the view is that privacy is expected to be monitored at the Government level only Australasia and Europe appear to champion the cause of privacy. On a generational basis the declining Boomer generation appears to be concerned with it but from Gen X onwards, security and privacy are just assumed to be OK. So far I have not seen a definitive study on people’s attitudes to security so I have gleaned this from many different perspectives.

Perhaps the final straw of this whole debacle is that Google has committed to deleting the data “as soon as is convenient”. It takes but minutes to do that – write a piece of code that erases this stuff from the database should be a trivial exercise for the Googleplex wonks given all the other stuff they can do to mine data.

Since I know that (A) some of my wifi ports were open when the street view was taken of my house and (B) Google still holds this data – I must be a member of the injured class.

With the Rapleaf + Facebook/MySpace Apps story over the past two weeks, the issues of what Google is doing makes chilling reading. In exposing what Rapleaf does by searching for data and capturing it from disparate but readily available public and semi public information sources from the web that are easily available just think what Google can do with all its exabytes of data that it holds on us and our behavior. Google is like an incredible octopus (perhaps we should call it the Googlepus from now on). Everyday it increases the number of Touchpoints that it has with humanity. I doubt there are now many people on the planet who are not in some way touched by the web – knowing or unknowingly in an identified fashion. Google has to stop these practices.

Over a pleasant evening with a former client in India this week – he asked a very poignant question that I had not considered before. Is Google’s behavior deliberate? He cited the increasingly arrogant positions that Google has taken in the ITA battle. His point was that Google is daring the US authorities to either ban them from taking over ITA or worse have remedial action that might include an anti monopoly action to break up the company. In my view with full hindsight, Microsoft’s 7 year battle over the browser pails into insignificance in comparison with what Google now knows about us and their control. Why the US Department of Justice has not launched an investigation into Google seems now to be a very scary thing. One thing for sure is true. We have created a commercial “Big Brother”. And he really does manage the Googleplex.

Perversely on my part I don't think that Google should be actually prevented from buying ITA judging by prior decisions from the US various departments. But if you then consider what can be done and then look at the request you can see why the Expedia cabal are scared.

Returning to the subject of Streetview are my assertions scare mongering or worse? Actually there is a lot of evidence to support my position and views. For example let’s consider the way Google dealt with its admission earlier this year that it had “by mistake” collected information. In a June 9 letter to the Energy and Commerce Committee, Google director for public policy Pablo Chavez asserted that Google "mistakenly included code in our software that collected samples of 'payload data'" from private WiFi networks. That sounds a reasonable enough explanation. But a PRIOR application for a patent indicates that Google had (and continues to have) every intention of collecting as much data as it possibly can and using it. And darn it if Google had even filed a PATENT application in January of 2010 that supports this position that Google actually has a mission to assemble as much information as possible about US residential and commercial wifi networks (and we must assume other markets since it admitted to collecting data in 30 countries).
Google’s patent application makes frequent indeed repeated reference to 'capturing' packets, including paragraph [0055], which states that the system will enable geolocations so long as the equipment being used 'is able to capture and properly decode a packet...'
Read the patent here: http://insidegoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/US20100020776.pdf
Read the letter from Google to the US Energy and Commerce Secretary here: http://insidegoogle.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/LtrWaxman071910.pdf
Over the past few months I have written several Blog posts on my opinions about Google and what supports these views. It just makes me so darn nervous to see their behavior and the abuse both potential and now actual that they can put their power towards.

Here are a selection of posts you might want to read:

http://t2impact.blogspot.com/2010/08/google-on-future-will-it-all-be-good-in.html
http://t2impact.blogspot.com/2010/09/googlesphere-is-already-googleopoly.html
http://t2impact.blogspot.com/2010/08/is-google-intentionally-evil-forgetful.html
http://t2impact.blogspot.com/2010/08/wsj-gets-its-headline-wrong-google.html

And if you want to be really paranoid about it, you could like other bits of information and become a serious conspiracy theorist. Like for example as the Washington Post reported in July that Google now holds several significant contracts to supply search and geospatial information to the U.S. government. In addition, White House records show that Google executives have been holding meetings with U.S. national security officials for undisclosed reasons.

If you wish to read more on this story – starting with the UK’s Daily Mail which has been one of the major advocates for the pursuit of Google on this subject – then follow some of these links.

I thank you for reading this piece.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1323310/Google-admits-Street-View-cars-DID-emails-passwords-computers.html
Consumerwatchdog.org - http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/corporateering/articles/?storyId=35944
CNET Reporting - http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20005051-266.html
Daily Mail May 2010 - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1279178/Google-rapped-watchdog-spying-Britons-web-habits-mistake.html
The Truth or The Fight – Privacy Advocates http://www.thetruthorthefight.com/?p=6819
BNet (CBS) http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/daily-mail-london-england-the/mi_8002/is_2010_Oct_25/google-finally-admits-spying-computers/ai_n55860471/

Now - you can be afraid - very afraid....

Amadeus – Slow or Prescient?

Amadeus likes to pride itself on its technological prowess. In my view regular readers to this blog will know I am very uneasy over some of their business practices and how they have started to exert some severe pressure on both its customers and its competitors

However I believe that it may have gone a bit too far in showing how it can control things – by pushing out an implementation by TWO MILLENIUMS!

Check out this image culled from one of their recent product enhancement announcements.



I think it shows they have a distinct attitude to working on security! So I have to wonder is Amadeus becoming the Google of the Travel Industry?

Now there’s a thought.

With a tip of the hat to Professor Andrew for the link. Ping me directly if you would like a copy of the actual link address. Its public but I don't want to appear TOO hard on Amadeus.

Cheers

Google's TV: Harder Than Flying

Seems like Google cannot get much respect for some of its products.

A great post from Buzz Feed CEO Jon Steinberg compares the new Google TV designs for remotes to be easier than "Flying a Cessna" arguably the easiest plane to fly.

Check out the story and the images. http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/10/25/buzzfeed-president-flying-easier-than-using-sony-google-tv-remote

So message to Google - better not try and end run the ITA acquisition

Cheers

Rate Parity - Evil or Not?

Rate Parity Battle Ensnares Sabre

For years the battle to bring rate parity to the hotel world has been a somewhat hit or miss affair. In the North American market where the market pays retail this is common behavior. In the rest of the world where retail is not the norm in pricing rate parity is both harder to achieve as well as much more complex.

Many people have attempted to bring this to a sense of rationality – but this has only been partially successful.

As the rate distributers and checkers get more and more sophisticated, those who commit to making rate parity work have tried to up their game. However is that good behavior for the consumer or bad?

In fact if the rate parity program starts to affect overall pricing, then it could be considered a way of raising and fixing the price. And it seems someone finally noticed

It all started with a pissing match between Skoosh .com and its larger brethren Sabre’s lastminute.com and Priceline’s Booking.com. In September – Skoosh up’ed its game by reporting both to the UK”s Office of Fair Trading, (OFT). BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11330463

Much to the chagrin of the larger players – the Skoosh decided to put the matter to the extreme test. By filing a formal complaint with the OFT..

The OFT has formally started its investigation into the practice and has notified several of the players accordingly.

The end result could have a profound effect on the long term practice of rate parity maintenance. For those who make a living out of trying to monitor and enforce rate parity – you have now been officially warned that the practice will be under some pressure. Given the other rate practices that are under the microscope – such as hotel tax rates, the hotel industry needs to be careful not to upset the UK government. So better start thinking about how else you would like to ensure that your rates are correct across the board

Memo to OFT. Good luck with this topic. And if you would like some help to give me a call.

Cheers


With a tip of the hat to Hotel Internet Help who has a good story on the subject it can be found here:

http://www.hotelinternethelp.com/lang/en/revenue-management/the-price-of-rate-parity

Slater Gets Off With Wrist Slap

So Now we have a SLATER moment entering common law.

Former JetBlue Flight Attendant copped a plea deal to avoid jail time.

Too bad - they should have thrown the book at him. The common punishment for treason in France during the Revolution would have been too good for him in my book.

And Now The End Is Near.....

Could this be really it?

Can Ryanair really acquire the Irish Government's share or enough of it to become the majority shareholder?

The Irish government's bailout of the banks is one of the most extensive of any government on the planet. The real estate bubble burst with a high percentage of these houses left unoccupied has to be paid for. So the Irish Government is frantically looking around to find assets it can flog off to fund this huge debt. Aer Lingus must just be a prime target.

MOL must be licking his lips....

Which Is The Meanest Airline…

At WIT today in Singapore – the theme today was LOVE. And you could feel it. A group of people who were really enjoying themselves. Travel is a very aspirational subject. But over the last few weeks I have experienced probably what to me is the world’s meanest airline. I don’t use this word lightly.

And no its not Ryanair… its not even a LCC, it is indeed a full service carrier. So I flew this airline several times over the past week. I would have flown them more but .. well they wouldn’t let me.

For many people when they have a dispute with an airline they bitch and moan and write letters but it’s a fruitless task. Chris Elliott writes about this a lot on his Blog and News letters. In my view there are emotional parts of this and then there are hard issues. Individually these things would be an annoyance. Collectively they are bad. However to discover that it is systematic – is actually scary.

I am an advocate of airlines ancillaries as a way to make money. Let me state categorically – I hate it – personally, when the fees are imposed on the user, but I understand it. Peter Harbison who is Executive Chairman and Founder of CAPA (a panelist at my session on airlines at WIT) quoted a recent statistic that showed the airlines make MORE money out of change fees than they do out of bags and seats.

It is not just about setting fees… many airlines have fees and most of them are pretty silly and its somewhat of a hidden rule that airlines will waive the fees in most cases if its reasonable. And airline staff – because they are indeed human – are actually a pretty nice lot.

However this airline in question forces behavior that takes away this ability to make a decision with that degree of flexibility. How do they do that?

Firstly they have the longest list of fees I have seen from a full service airline.

Secondly they make communicating with them almost impossible. You can only look at the reservation with your PNR RLOC. Every other airline on the planet allows you to do it with different information – Nope not these guys. So if you book an alliance ticket under a JV even you basically cannot speak to them. Oh yes and there is almost no way to speak to them without costing yourself some money.

Now if you have ANY ticket (other than Full fare First class) explicitly requires a change of the ticket. That is the rule. That means the airport staff can’t make optional changes only flight interruption type changes. Every ticketing change extracts a ticket exchange fee. Even if the fare allows changes. Most changes cannot be accommodated online so the automatic fee for speaking to a human automatically applies.

In my specific case I bought a round the world business class fare. It’s a regular fare and its been in the market for probably about 10 years or more. Its one of the best deals out there…

The fare allowed 2 stops in Australia and a limited number worldwide. So I changed a leg and saved myself some money by throwing away a coupon. The itinerary portion was: LHR-SEA (arnk) LAX-MEL-BNE-SYD-SIN-BOM-LHR. Arriving in MEL I asked to move to a different flight and get off in SYD. Sure said the guy $175 dollars. Well I tell you what I will waive that if you pay a $90 change fee. But I can waive it because its within the same day… So now I should be in BNE but actually I went to SYD. I bought a new ticket to BNE on a cheaper airline (Jetstar). Once in BNE I asked to change my flight and take a different one back to SYD.
“no sir your ticket does not allow a stop in Australia”
Huh? But I am in Australia.
“sorry sir you are not supposed to be here according to us”
OK so can I get back to SYD
“no sir you cannot do that because it is against the fare rules of the ticket. And it doesn’t matter that you are a mega flier”

So I contacted the agent and he confirmed that the rules require a change but he didn’t understand the “not allowed to stop in Australia” question since the ticket was written that way and it is actually the home of that airline. (oops that was a bit of a give away).

So I bought a new airline ticket from BNE to SYD (on Virgin Blue).

Once back in SYD I called the airline again.

Hello Qantas – yes I found my RLOC – can you just cancel the segment from BNE to SYD – but keep my already booked flight up to SIN?
“Sorry sir you are not allowed to stop in Australia on this ticket – I just checked (10 mins) with the fare desk and that is the ruling.”
Huh? Can you look at the history of my original ticket – it shows a legally issued ticket and it showed 2 stops – Ask them again?

“Sir the fare people have ruled there is no point in discussing this you are not allowed to stop in Australia on this fare”
At least look at the history of the reservation. Do you see that it originally had 2 stops in Australia in it?
“Oh yes sir – I see that – let me call the fare desk again – please hold…. (20 mins later) .. yes sir I can see that you did book this. Our fare desk now agrees (as do I by the way and I always thought they were being a bit harsh). So because we seem to have interpreted it badly so we will in this case waive the $175 fee and the $80 change fee and the $10 telephone fee”

Hello Qantas Club – can you print me a copy of the reservation with all the remarks? No sire we are not allowed to do that.

…

And there you have it… I have asked for a refund… but do I think I will get one?

So my nomination for meanest airline of the year – yes Mr Joyce’s Qantas. I do want to say that their customer service people are not necessarily a reflection of this attitude but it wont be long before it happens. Check out the fee list… find it here: http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/schedule-of-fees/au/en and its very complicated and QF clearly spent quite some time enhancing this set of pages.

This is not your father’s Qantas – not even John Travolta’s V-Jet Qantas. This is the “hard nose profit and let’s screw the customer so he doesn’t realize it” airline. I don’t think I will be finding excuses to fly them again. I admire their business acumen - its just sad to see the brand take this turn. I always have hope about people’s behavior changing but I really hope they don’t carry on doing this.

Cheers

Economic Warfare: Airlines vs Airports+Countries

Last week Air Asia X started mumbling about pulling out of UK and moving to Europe because of taxation. Also last week Monsieur O'Leary instructed his Marseilles base to close because of employee taxation. Today I saw a news item that one of the big traditional airlines has made a threat... KLM is talking about pulling out from the Philippines because of taxation.

The economic power of an airline and its impact on a community has been shown by Ryanair. The tight relationship of national interests no longer holds true. Indeed an unbundling of the nationalistic and economic self interests.

This is going to be a long game. Its here and its permanent.

Get used to it

Cheers

So What ARE You Doing All Day Long?

Firstly the young are not doing the same things we do. Also they consume less media in 2010 than in 2000.



I love Radio - but Radio is just not as connected to me as it used to be. I have an iPod nano with FM radio but the service is crappy. So my saviour is online radio. I listen to NPR from the USA (my local radio station) and I love Pandora. Because its embargoed outside of the USA or when I eat up my 40 hours a month on the free site, then I switch to Last FM.

I can really determine my mood and match the music by my choice of station. Just like Radio.

eMarketer has released a piece on the subject of radio.

What do the kids do first thing in the morning... I watch and I see them plugged in but its not radio.



Radio is dead - long live Web Radio.

Cheers

The Professor Apologizes For Being Busy - Check out WIT2010

Greetings students of life

I will be at WIT 2010 Version 6.0

I will be blogging and tweeting. So check out the #webintravel on Twitter.

Good brain food

Cheers

UK Retail Downsizing Continues

It has been more than 15 years since the effective start of the Online Travel era. Arguably that started in late 2005 with the launch of Preview Travel and Travelocity's businesses.

Today we see a significant move in the UK which cements the decline of the retail high street market. UK Adoption of the web for travel purchases already among the highest in Europe has been accelerating in recent years.

In the mid 1990s we (collectively) predicted that Europe would follow the US by about 5 years in online adoption. Two things have actually happened.

1. The profile of web usage in Europe is vastly different
2. The adoption curve has been slower and longer

Today the Coop Travelcare group and Thomas Cook's retail operations are being combined into a single entity. Coop has the largest independent travel group after the big two. Thomas Cook is the smaller of the big players that used to number 4 which is now two.

In the past 15 years we have seen some spectacular failures in travel at all levels of the distribution chain from the supply side (think XL Airways which went bust in September 2008) to Tour Operators (Think Goldtrail which went out of business this year) to retail (Think Harvey World UK which went into Administration in June of 2009).

The pace of the closing of retail stores is reflected somewhat in the UK ABTA numbers

30/9/10 Travel Agent members 986 with 3806 branches = 4792 outlets
30/9/05 Travel Agent members 1397 with 4727 branches = 6124 outlets
30/9/00 Travel Agent members 1826 with 5222 branches = 7048 outlets
30/9/95 Travel Agent members 2263 with 4705 branches = 6968 outlets
30/9/90 Travel Agent members 2940 with 4265 branches = 7205 outlets

However this is masked by a change in the rules a few years ago when the category of small agent was opened to allow more people to join. but as can be seen in 20 years a drop to one third of the number of members. The definition of outlet has also changed over time.

We can now expect another wave of consolidation and shutting of storefronts in the UK at the same level as the USA experienced about 10 years ago. This can only mean that the same will apply to other markets' retail location based businesses. So if you run a retail business - beware. The change is coming.

Its sad but its progress. Perhaps this will finally kill off Viewdata!

DoT Caves to Big Airline

Continuing its policy of serving the industry - the US DoT has approved a broad brush of alliance requests. In doing so it has set the standard for a world of an oligopoly of airlines.

I have long argued that while alliances are very positive from a business perspective for the airlines they are distinctly un-consumer friendly and will ultimately result in higher cost of travel to the customer.

The evidence of this can be found in viewing the average fare revenue cents per mile. Over the last year in 12 months the revenue has shot up for the US airlines by an average of 18%. By any measure that is astounding. And that was with the loss of only one player.

With now CO and UA merging we are going to see more. So the oligopoly is in effect here. What used to be the big 10 is now the fab five.

And if no one else is listening I hope the DoJ and the DoC are.

Cheers

Are Passengers Happy?

I travel a lot... regular readers know that about me. I therefore get to enjoy the best and the worst of travel. I have one rule for travel. The destination is the goal not the journey.

So its often interesting to overhear people who are griping about travel and its problems. I think Americans complain more than other nationalities. I have always attributed it to the time squeeze of the US passenger.

Just lately I have noticed an increase in unhappy people. More people griping more shouting at desks. I think this is in part due to the reduction in the number of customer service people and their replacement by machines. Its rather hard to shout at a machine. So what do you do? With the significant reduction in manpower over the last year the human has to go somewhere. Well since the US DOT who overseas the services of the US carriers made it a little easier to file a complaint - indeed they are up a lot.

However the Wall Street Journal could not quite fathom the answer. In my view its obvious. Less people to resolve, More machines and more avenues to complain results in more complaints.

Check out the WSJ article.

Cheers

Vote NOW. Best Road Warrior Selections

OK chaps time to get your votes out.

Vote for your fave airline and experience as a road warrior.

The Flyertalk awards can be accessed here.

http://vote.ftawards.com/ballot.php

Public Mea Culpas. How Not To Do It

I love baseball. For no other reason that going to a game and just hanging out. This season I didn't attend one single game. And with good reason. My local team - the Seattle Mariners sucked badly.

Yesterday they ended the season with a record breaking loss. 105 games. But don't worry folks there is always next year.

Except to rub the noses of the fans in it the organization pushed out a kind of apologia. I reprint it here so you can see what is probably not the right way to do that.

This is the point where the more noble of people would have fallen on their swords. Not these guys.

Oh yes and the final score yesterday in Seattle? Yup they lost again 4-3.

Cheers

The Professor



October 4, 2010
A Message from Mariners Chairman Howard Lincoln and Executive Vice President-General Manager Jack Zduriencik

I've been a naval officer, an attorney and a business executive in my life. But before any of these, I was a baseball fan.

I was born and raised in Oakland, California. As a kid, I sat in the bleachers and rooted for the Pacific Coast League Oakland Oaks. Casey Stengel was the manager and a young Billy Martin played second base. When the Giants came to the Bay Area, I spent a lot of sunny days and foggy nights at Seals Stadium and then Candlestick Park watching the Willies - Mays and McCovey.

I'm still a baseball fan and, like you, I was very disappointed with the performance of the 2010 Seattle Mariners. It was a frustrating season and, yes, we made some mistakes on and off the field. Good organizations learn from setbacks and make themselves better - that's the mindset we're taking into 2011.

I have asked GM Jack Zduriencik to give you an end-of-the-season report on our baseball operations. You'll see that despite our struggles at the Major League level, Jack's plan to build through scouting and player development is working well at the minor league level. I trust Jack. I believe in his plan and I see progress. He has the full support of our ownership group, Chuck Armstrong and me, along with the resources to be successful.

Will it take some time? Yes. Do you have the patience to see this through with us? I hope so. Our number one goal remains to bring championship baseball to Safeco Field. I'm sure we'll get there.

Before you hear from Jack, I want to say something straight from the heart, from one fan to another: Thanks for sticking with this team, thanks for caring as much as you do, thanks for wearing the Mariners "S."

Sincerely,

________________________________________
October 4, 2010
Jack's Report to the Fans

Some of you may remember an old-time player named Rocky Bridges, a colorful middle infielder who went on to manage in the minor leagues for many years. Rocky once said, "Well, there are three things that the average person thinks he can do better than anybody else. Build a fire, run a hotel and run a baseball team."

After the 2010 season, I'm sure a lot of you are ready to step up and tell me how to run our ballclub. And I'm always willing to listen.

But despite our poor performance at the Major League level in 2010, there are plenty of reasons to believe that our long-term plan is working. In fact, looking at the big picture, our organization actually took a step forward last year.

Before you click away from this e-mail, give me a chance to explain.

Let's start with the cornerstone strategy established when I came to Seattle in October, 2008: We will build a winning franchise through talent that we draft, acquire and develop in our farm system. This is the key to long-term, sustained success in baseball.

The good news is, you gotta like what you see down on the farm.

• Eight of our nine minor league teams made it to post-season play in 2010.
• The AAA Rainiers, Class A Lumber Kings and Northwest League AquaSox all played in their leagues' championship series.
Two won league titles.
• As a group, Mariners minor league hitters ranked #1 in home runs, runs, slugging percentage and on-base percentage.
• The cumulative won-loss record of our minor league teams was 489-410, a .544 winning percentage. Only one organization
did better - the Cardinals at .549.

Does this mean that we should start printing 2011 World Series tickets? Unfortunately, no, not yet. But it does mean that we've got talent at every level of the organization - talent that's developing, scoring runs and learning how to win.

Let's talk about some of these kids.

We've got a flock of top-rated prospects on their way to the big club. These include position players Dustin Ackley, Justin Smoak, Carlos Peguero, Nick Franklin, Kyle Seager, Johermyn Chavez, Greg Halman and Matt Mangini, along with hard-throwing pitchers like Michael Pineda, Blake Beavan, Dan Cortes, Mauricio Robles, Maikel Cleto and Anthony Varvaro. Many of our best prospects are headed for winter ball and the fall instructional league - they're driven to improve and play at the next level.

Some of these youngsters will develop faster than others, but we've got a rich pipeline of talent. Impressive, considering how thin our minor league system was just a couple of years ago. Plus there are more top prospects coming: We have the #2 pick in the 2011 June draft and we continue to scout and sign top international players.

At the big league level, Mariners pitchers tied for the third best ERA in the American League in 2010. Felix Hernandez has fulfilled his potential as a perennial Cy Young candidate. Jason Vargas, Doug Fister and Luke French made major strides in 2010. We like our pitching; our staff is young, developing and hungry.

Two young players, catcher Adam Moore and outfielder Michael Saunders, got valuable playing time and impressed scouts around the league. Meanwhile, our four core players - Ichiro, Felix, Guti and Chone Figgins - are signed to long-term deals.

I'm a baseball man. I'm not trying to sell you on the idea that we're at the top of the baseball world. We still have work to do, lots of it. My first job is to hire our field manager - and I'm already hard at work identifying and reviewing candidates. Obviously, we need to score more runs by adding to the middle of our lineup. And, for much of the past season, our team didn't play the fundamentally sound baseball that I want to see. I'm addressing all our team's needs and I'll keep you posted throughout the winter.

But there's one thing you need to know about the Seattle Mariners organization:

Everybody wants to win - from Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong to the clubhouse attendant in Everett. We have a plan in place and we're working days, nights and weekends to make it successful.

But as a fan, you want results, not promises. We know that. So we're doing everything we can to make it happen sooner rather than later.

I love the people of this city and this region. I love the energy you bring to the ballpark and the loyalty you've shown to the organization. We owe you a winner. It's coming. Stick with us, there's a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you.

Sincerely,

© 2010 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved. All Major League Baseball trademarks and service marks used herein are the property of the applicable MLB entity. All other marks used herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

You received this message because you registered to receive commercial e-mail messages from Mariners.com.
If you no longer wish to receive commercial e-mail messages from Mariners.com, please unsubscribe.

Postal Address: Mariners.com, c/o MLB Advanced Media, L.P., 75 Ninth Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011.

Blondes Are More Fun?

OK this is one of the few times when I can honestly say this story deserves much better coverage than I can ever hope to give it.

The Lithuanian company Olialia Group have come up with an idea to show how Blonds are better than other people.

As part of their brugeoning empire - they want to enter the travel space with a resort in the Indian Ocean Island Paradise of the Maldives.

I got this story from TTG. by Sofie Griffiths - herself a blond it would appear from another story in TTG - click here for her picture (she is the one in the middle).

I was very tempted to put in a few of the pictures from the company's website but I think this is a family oriented blog and the only potty mouth or potty brained ideas we really follow usually come from Michael O'Leary.

Anyway - enjoy this story... I did.

Cheers

is Blogging Important?

I have been pondering Blogging as a subject recently and even posted on the subject of late. Where I have some issues is the amount of junk out there. Last week I posed a question and thanks to all of you who gave me encouraging responses, privately.

It does seem that many people do not like to post comments on blogs. Given the ease with which this can be done I find that surprising. However then I looked at the amount of re-tweets.

Taking a sample of TNooz - and using Tweetdeck to follow a few stories, I found that Tweets and re-tweets amounted to an average of several hundred times the number of comments. I took stories by one poster on TNooz and then counted the number of Tweets appearing on the story vs the number of comments.

But this is just my little counting in an unscientific way.

Interestingly when we look at larger scale - our friends over at eMarketer did some more in depth study entitled: “The Blogosphere: Colliding with Social and Mainstream Media.”

It seems that on average about half the web users in the USA will read at least one blog each month. I suspect that the numbers are far greater.

Blogging has become a media form and an outlet for commentary - both quality and frankly crap.

But there is no qualitative measurement. The social blogsphere applies its own rules based largely on popularity rather than quality as there is little to provide a qualitative measurement in the Social Sphere.

That bother's me. There are clearly a lot of people who are upright citizens who blog and blog responsively. There are those who don't care. Journalists - particularly traditional players in a broad generalization turn up their noses at bloggers. In many cases that is understandable. Given the growth and the impact of blogging - particularly to the detriment of the traditional media outlets for journalism - perhaps we need to set standards for blogging.

I hope that we can do that and self regulate rather than have all blogging classified as junk by such esteemed bodies as the US Supreme Court.

With Special Thanks to the Phillipines Blogging Idol Contest for the image.

http://wordpressphilippines.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/blogging-idol.jpg

Would the Real Low Cost Carrier Please Stand Up

The model for LCC airlines has changed over the past few years. At last week's World Low Cost Airline Congress, that question kept popping up.

Ralf Anker of Anna.Aero does a good job of keeping things in perspective. I really like the website and recommend people who are interested in the model to read it on a regular basis.

He gave a spirited presentation last week on the subject comparing the top real LCCs. The interesting thing is that he has so far not taken into consideration the GCC carriers such as Fly Dubai. Nor does he rate Vueling as a LCC - which is understandable as they have become more like a full service airline.

The emergence also of long haul airlines is beginning to show. Feel Air CEO Kai Holmberg was on one of the panels.

Clearly across the board the adoption of some of the successful LCC characteristics are paying off. You see the unbundling of the product occurring in almost all instances. At the same time you also see the hybridization by the LCCs of things like - offering a frequent flyer program, participating in the GDS and moving to regular airports. But the core principles seem to stick. Focus on costs and simplicity of product.

As was said several times during the conference - the big boys are coming to the LCC model. Few are going the other way.

Cheers