Making Progress

My best man Dan used to describe home ownership as a "never-ending series of projects."  Indeed, that's true.  There's so much to do, and so much on the list of stuff to do in the future that the list might as well be endless.  Add to that all my other tinkering projects and it just.  never.  ends. Over the past few weekends, we installed a hot tub, organized the garage and shed, removed a bunch of plantings, fixed the pool slide and a bunch of other things.  Yesterday, the quad got new nerf bars to replace the one I bent and we bought a new chain saw so we can start taking down trees in the back yard.  That's a next weekend project - I'm also trying to figure out how I'm going to get my truck into the back yard so I can yank stumps out.

All in all, there's too many projects and not enough time for people to come over for swimming and such.

Do We Revisit Audience-Based Buying Models?

A lot of buying we've been doing lately hasn't been predominantly against psychographics, interests or lifestyles, but predominantly against demographics with interests and lifestyles functioning as qualifiers.  Context still matters a heck of a lot, but in the end, clients are measuring delivery via Reach, Frequency & GRPs.  Putting aside the relative merits of the buying models for a sec, can we take a look at what an audience-based online currency would look like? Most sites have the ability to frequency cap.  Instead of calling them up and asking how many gross impressions a site can get in a given content area, what if I were able to ask them what type of reach they could deliver at a 3X frequency?

The quantitative portion of media planning would probably get easier for clients who plan against demos.  After a while, we'd have reasonably stable Cost Per Points to work with, once vendors started selling this way and got used to it. Networks would get a fairer shake.  Entities that could roll up the long tail, or portals with wide and deep content, would compete with one another on a more level playing field - at least as far as demographic delivery is concerned.  Plans against demos would take less time to put together.

In the past, I've said that moving toward demographics would sell the Internet short.  By and large, that's true if the audience-based model replaces the impression-based one currently in use.  But if advertisers had a choice of buying models, it would make online easier to measure, easier to plan and more acceptable to advertisers who buy on demos.  The folks who "get" the advantages of the impression-based model could continue to buy that way.

I think it's time to look at this again.  We certainly have in the past, and most of the technology to do this exists today.  The big questions would be:

1. Could comScore and Nielsen be able to project demos from content areas more granular than that reflected in current data?
2. What would we post against?  Actuals from the server or something from comScore or Nielsen?
3. What would be required on the adserver side to manage demand/allocations between impression-based and audience-based campaigns?

Thoughts?

Inch by Inch, Row by Row...

One of the things I loved about growing up with an acre of land in the backyard was that we had a big vegetable garden.  When I was a young kid, my mom and dad used to send me out to the garden to pick tomatoes, corn, snap peas, squash and other veggies and bring them back to the house.  We used to grow some of the best tomatoes, IMHO, since our yard was on a former farm. Since I demolished the shed in Holtsville, I was kind of at a loss for what to put in the spot it used to occupy.  I ran out to Home Depot, got some top soil, fencing and seeds and decided to plant a small garden.  Lauren planted all the seeds and we've been watering it religiously for a couple weeks.  Already, we have some small squash plants, corn, radishes and peas coming up.  We also planted peppers and tomatoes on the right-hand side, but those are taking a bit longer to come up (you can only see the seedlings starting to poke through the soil and that's about it.)

Yeah, I know we planted late, and yes, I know some of these plants are way too close together, but we have some additional space to move plants when they start crowding one another, and it looks like the veggies are taking off.  Hopefully, we'll have something to harvest by the end of the summer.

We've been invaded by a rather annoying little rabbit who munched off the tops of our pea plants.  No biggie - I got some spray containing capsaicin from Home Depot, and I haven't seen the little bugger since.

Indestructible Wedding Bands

Lots of people have been asking me about my wedding band, which isn't your typical gold or platinum band that most guys get.  In poking around the Straight Dope Message Boards, I found this thread about Tungsten rings.  It links to this video, which totally sold me.  In the video, you see a tungsten ring get attacked by a metal file, but it doesn't even leave a scratch. I've worn class rings and such over the years.  Once, I played a game of intramural softball in college and wore my ring under my mitt.  Catching a hard line drive, I managed to dent my gold class ring a bit.  I also have another ring that requires nearly constant polishing to look presentable.  When I saw the tungsten rings, I figured they were definitely for me.  I can do yard work or work on a motor in my garage without having to take it off.  (That's how rings get lost - you take them off and forget where you put them.)  I don't have to worry about it getting scratched or dented.  It's made out of tungsten carbide, which is one of the materials toolmakers make high-quality drill bits with, and it's pretty much indestructible.

Yep, that's the ring for me.