The recent trend in print advertising to have technicians endorse audio products is, in general, a good one.  They normally have a useful perspective and their endorsements have value.  Big Mick has put the value of those endorsements at risk.

Here’s what Big Mick says about his microphone of choice, Audio Technica in May’s Pro Sound News.  “I love Audio-Technica mics.  You can definitely tell an Audio Technica gig as soon as you walk into it.”

Now, I’m no “golden ear” but I do know that between a microphone and my (and Big Mick’s) ears there is (at minimum) a mixer, an amplifier, speakers, and cables, all of which color the sound you hear, regardless of their quality.

The idea that you can identify a brand of microphone just by listening to a live sound system is laughable.

Put on your blindfold, Mick, and step into any music club in America.  Even your ears aren’t that good.

I hope Audio-Technica is paying you well.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.   Click here to sign up for our newsletter.  Lots more good ideas at our Twitter feed.

This article speculated that a lot of the Chinese buying was a stockpiling of material for which China’s manufacturers had no real demand.  If that’s true, then the Chinese buying binge may be over.

This may well explain the recent downturn in copper prices after a steady rise over the last six months. This rise made little sense in light of the overall worldwide decline in manufacturing.  If this downturn is real, it could be a harbinger for lots of commodity price reductions.

Why do we care?  The cost of extension cords (copper and rubber), mic stands (steel and aluminum), tape (cotton, oil and chemicals) and batteries (tin plate and many minerals) are all tied to world commodity prices.

Lets hope that if this recent reversal in commodity prices is real, that we will see it passed through to the products we sell.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands.   Click here to sign up for our newsletter.  Lots more good ideas at our Twitter feed.

I posted two knol articles back at the end of April to see if Google was ready to take on Wikipedia. I’m proud to report that my knol posting about microphone stands has had a total of 42 page views, several of which I am sure were me.

No one has bothered to rate it and no one has made any collaborative contributions.

While it appears that I might be right about Google not being in a position to challenge Wikipedia, I am certainly wrong about Google using knol as another way to display relevant ads.

The google ads on my mic stand knol page are about cell phones.

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I learned a lot of my “hands on” production skills working as a stagehand, first as a student, then as a part time employee at my alma mater, UNC Chapel Hill, on the tech crew there.

One of the first acts I had a chance to do sound for was John Sebastian, soon after he had left The Lovin’Spoonful to go out on his own.

In those days, acts never traveled with sound systems and rarely did any sort of advance work.

The day Mr. Sebastian showed up, the took a look at our sound system and said “where are the monitors?“.  Not only did we not know WHERE the monitors were, we also didn’t know WHAT the monitors were.

After having him explain to us what monitors were and what they did, we decided that we could achieve what he wanted by simply setting up two complete sound systems, duplicate mixers, speakers, mics, stands, everything.  One set for the audience.  The other set for the performer.

I’ll never forget the first thing he said when he hit the stage.  Looking at the audience through a forest of four big, shiny chrome microphone stands, he said “I feel like I’m in jail“.

Next time we produced a concert, we had the monitors.

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The time required to keep with with online subscriptions to  Netflix, audio books,  The New York Times,  satellite TV, Itunes, Pandora, etc. has become a time issue.  It makes me less and less interested in taking the time to look into the next newest, greatest idea.

Just keeping up with the passwords is a chore, never mind the payments.

Why not a media aggregator that could handle all the details of every media account you subscribe to.  You would log in to a single account to access all  your services (premium & free)and make a single monthly payment that the aggregator would distribute to everyone you owe.

A single log in would quickly tell you how much you are spending and remind you that it might be time to cancel or downgrade a service that you longer provides real value.

The aggregator could potentially increase their revenue by making suggestions about new services or changes in service level based on an analysis of your current subscriptions.

Unfortunately, right now I’m too busy to get rich.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. Sometimes we have some interesting ideas about web development too!  Click here to sign up for our newsletter.  Lots more good ideas at our Twitter feed.

It’s all but guaranteed that 30 minutes before the event is over, but well after dark, the bottom will drop out of the sky, promising a load out in the rain and a truck full of wet gear.

While the standard hardware store blue tarp is the industry standard for quick cover ups in the rain, they can really cause you some problems when the rain is accompanied by a stiff breeze.

A simple modification in a cheap tarp can make it many times more useful when the raindrops start falling.

Turn the tarp into a plastic bag.

Just take your tarps, fold them in half, and stitch up the edges.  If you’re not handy with a sewing machine, gaffers tape or even a stapler will work almost as well.

Larger tarps can be turned into bags that will cover up your entire PA stacks, and you can make smaller bags for covering up things like monitors.

Since the tarps can be easily cut and normally do not unravel, you can take one large tarp and turn it into a lot of custom covers for things like your consoles and amp racks.  No hemming necessary.

Since the tarps have grommets, you will have some tie down points, but you probably won’t even need them.  Since wind can’t get inside the bag, the harder the wind blows, the firmer the bag stays in place.

Make sure you label each bag with a large label (try using a Sharpie marker directly on the bag) in letters large enough to be seen in the dark.

At the first mention of rough weather, place each bag close to the location where it will be needed and instruct stagehands or volunteers how they are used.

This might well be the best piece of sound equipment you ever buy.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands. Sometimes we have some interesting ideas about web development too!  Click here to sign up for our newsletter.  Lots more good ideas at our Twitter feed.

I realize that keyword driven advertising has a long way to go before it can be counted on to deliver up relevant ads, but this is ridiculous.

What most advertisers don’t seem to recognize that only they are in a position to be specific about how their ads are served up.

It would be fascinating to know what percentage of keyword advertising is  totally irrelevant to the subject matter being delivered.

Just a quick thought!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands. Sometimes we have some interesting ideas about web development too!  Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

I have resisted using sites like Facebook and Twitter to date, partly because they can be pretty complicated to use effectively, but more importantly, they are so difficult to read.

I’m not talking about actual postings (not too hard to read a 140 character twitter posting).  I’m talking about reading the instructions for setting up profiles.

I realize that most of these administrative pages are intended for eyes younger than mine, but who thinks that green type against a blue background is easy to read, even if you are a twenty-something?

The basis of good design may be negotiable on the web, but the presentation of information that requires the reader to comprehend instructions and actually do something still call for good contrast, an easily readable font and text size large enough that you don’t have to constantly zoom the text in order to get the job done.

The standard settings for web text that present black type against a white background are one of the most powerful tools the web has for presenting information and it is something that most people take for granted.

Just because it’s the “default” doesn’t mean that it isn’t also the best!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands. Sometimes we have some interesting ideas about web development too!  Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

While the articles don’t show up in search when the key words are used by themselves, when you combine the key words with the term “knol” the , mic stand article pops up number one.  Yesterday’s blog posting is returned in google search as well.  I certainly never had a posting show up and go to #1 so quickly, regardless of what it was.

I returned to the knol on microphone stands using another browser and discovered that I was able rate it.  Needless to say, I gave it four stars.

If google allows the writer of an article to control who can edit it and allows the author to rate his own article, I doubt if knol will be around for long.

Rest easy, Wikipedia.
GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands. Sometimes we have some interesting ideas about web development too!  Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

Knol is an acronym created by Google, and it means “a unit of knowledge“.

Knol is a new content creation index from Google that has a lot of similarities to Wikipedia.  Individuals are allowed to post articles on any subject of their choosing and then the articles can be commented on and edited by other users of the service.  Unlike Wikipedia, knol will allow the creation and viewing of multiple articles on the same subject and the author can control how his or her work is edited.

I first came across it through an online posting by Jason Calacanis, a highly regarded web guru.  Mr. Calacanis went to great lengths to draw interesting and accurate between KNOL and traditional content creators like the New York Times.  These parallels led Calacanis to determine (and I agree) that this project was Google’s latest attempt (not unlike YouTube) to get into the content creation business.

It should be obvious that a business that has become the defacto provider of indexed search results faces potential conflict of interest problems if it is the creator and controller of the content it returns with its search results.

Since we are currently indexed at the top of page one for a number of  Google search terms,  I have created a couple of KNOL articles on microphone stands and gaffers tape to see how quickly Google might index them and how high they might rise in search rankings.

You can take a look at these articles here:

microphone stands

gaffers tape

If you’re interested in whether this test turns up any interesting results, check back here from time to time.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment ONe extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands. Sometimes we have some interesting ideas about web development too!  Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

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That’s the idea that led to the launching of goodbuyguys.com.

After almost thirty years in the special events production business, it just made sense to develop a web business that could take advantage of what I had learned from three decades of “hands on” experience.

A good part of my time is spent monitoring forums about audio visual and stagecraft discussions,  looking for info about how the products we sell are being discussed and used in the field.

Unfortunately, most of the moderators of forums that cater to those in the sound and lighting business take exception with the idea that you can combine a production career with supplying products that you used successfully when you actually used what you sell now.

It seems that if those who control these forums think that you make a living selling something, then you are automatically disqualified from posting useful information to their forum.

It is difficult to understand how bringing practical knowledge to the marketplace somehow disqualifies the seller from being able to answer questions and comment on forum user postings.  Would you rather buy your gaffers tape from someone who has taped down enough cable to go to the moon and back, or someone who has spent their entire life in a sales office.  The sense that selling a product discounts the value of the sellers experience means that the real loser is the person who posts a forum question.  They are denied access to what may be a lifetime of experience just because the email address of the person answering their questions points to a domain that sells the product.

As the web continues to build a larger and larger database of links back to the sellers domain, it becomes even more likely that the forum administrator will disallow postings from an experienced seller with real world experience.

The end result of this sort of thinking means that the forum subscribers are denied access to a lot of valuable information.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment ONe extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands.  Look here for good information about web development too!

The first several times we got online orders from “usfirst“, frankly we thought they were coming from a bank or other financial institution.  I’m glad I took the time to look a little closer.

First sponsors a national program for for middle and high school students who design and build robots  and then compete against other teams.

It turns out that they use gaffers tape to lay out the “arena” where the robots compete.  The lanes and end zones are marked with different colors of cloth tape.

You can see an example in this video.

First was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, a well known inventor and entrepreneur probably best known for inventing the Segway.

To date, First has awarded almost $10 million in scholarships.  This year they will work with over 196,000 students making up 1680 teams.

This year the national First championship will be at the Georgia dome in Atlanta April 16-18.  I hope they will take us along.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment ONe extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands.  We are proud to be a supporter of our local schools here in Chatham County, NC.

If you want your pages to be found, the quickest way to decide which key words to use is to look at the key words used by the pages with which you are competing.

Do a quick check of your competition for the information you want to be found by the search engines.  Open the top scoring pages and then “right click” on those pages.

What you will see is the underlying code that makes up the page that you are viewing.  This is very different information than the web page you were just viewing and this is the information the search engine spiders will use to decide what is on your page and how to deliver it to those looking for your information or product.

When you search for “microphone stands”, our #1 scoring page “buymicstand.com” appears at the top of Google results.  When you right click on that page, among a lot of other nonsensical information, you will see:

 <META NAME=“KEYWORDS” CONTENT=“microphone,mic stands,boom mic stands,microphone stands, straight microphone stands”>

This tells the search engine something about what is contained in the page and how it matches up with your search criteria.

While you may need to be careful using some copyrighted material found in the keywords of a page’s source code, for the most part there is no reason that you can’t use the same keywords on your page that your competitor uses.

There is no quicker way to starting on getting your pages found by your potential customers’ search.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment ONe extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

I could find nothing available that ran Windows XP, so I took the plunge and bought a computer that ran Windows Vista.  I have regretted it every day of the last two years.  What an awful operating system!

I was delighted to learn that Acer’s new line of netbook computers used Windows XP, so I gave their Aspire line a try.  I love it.

Having a tiny computer that is designed primarily for internet based work makes a lot of sense and the Aspire One speaks directly to this new approach to personal computing.

The cost of a fully featured netbook (1 gig of ram/160 gig hard drive) has fallen below $300.00 and this segment of computing is ready to blast off.  Using a browser like Firefox to access online applications like Google Apps for word processing and database managment minimizes the compromises created by this Netbook’s lack of an optical drive for loading software. Minimizing the number of applications actually residing on the computer means faster startups and less time in changing your activities.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has already announced their plans to offer a version of upcoming Windows 7 specifically for netbooks.  XP works great for this type of computing.  Why not leave well enough alone?

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment ONe extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands.

Sun Kwak, a Korean artist, is using over three miles of black masking tape to create an abstract art installation at the Brooklyn Museum.

Deploying a special six inch width black masking tape provided by Shurtape, Kwak has developed a method of applying and then tearing the tape she applied to columns in the museum’s rotunda.  This appears as wavy lines and patterns contrasted against the museum gallerie’s walls.  The effect is stunning.  To a casual observer, it looks like thousands of feet of painted patterns.

The artist has spent almost 300 hours on this installation and it will be on display until July 5.

After that,  its three miles of tape headed for the landfill.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment ONe extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands. Click here for lots of useful graphic arts supplies.

I was intrigued by a story on NPR’s Morning Edition today about an arts group  called  Fractured Atlas.  Fractured Atlas, a non-profit based in New York, provides much-needed support to artists and arts organizations so that they can function as more effective businesses.

We know that many valuable arts groups will not make it through these challenging economic times, and Fractured Atlas is playing a key role in helping those groups most challenged.  They offer a broad range of programs and services, including professional development, access to funding information, insurance and arts advocacy.

Our business has been built on extending credit to arts groups of all sizes, and I have never regretted those decisions.  The financial health of local theatre and dance companies, orchestras and performance venues is critical to our own success. We applaud the efforts of Fractured Atlas and others who provide this type of support.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment ONe extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

In theory, by subscribing to a RSS “feed”, updated information is pushed at you by the website hosting the new information so that you don’t have to go looking for it.  Setting up this service has been really confusing and a lot of people don’t take advantage of it.

A version of Google called iGoogle has finally made the “simple” part of RSS really simple.

If you haven’t tried iGoogle, you ought to take a look.  iGoogle lets you set up a personalized version of Google which can is customized for each user.

In addition to things like local weather and links to favorite web sites, you can also use iGoogle to subscribe to as many RSS feeds as you want.  When information is updated in the feeds you have subscribed to, this information shows up on your iGoogle page.

We have RSS feeds generated by GoodBuyGuys.com which sends out new product information, and a feed from this blog that is distributed to anyone who wants to subscribe to it.

I include these RSS feeds in those I can see on my iGoogle page, and when we update something, it shows up on iGoogle within minutes.

Already got an iGoogle page?  Here’s a link to very easy instructions for adding RSS feeds.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and “value added” customer service.

I wrote about Craig Newmark of Craig’s List occupying the position of “customer service rep” even though he owns a company worth many millions of dollars.  I enjoy working in customer service, as well, as it affords me the opportunity to speak directly with customers.  That’s where the ideas for improvements to our existing web pages almost always come from.

A simple question from a customer asking for more (or more specific) information about something they have seen on the web can quickly lead to improvement in a page.  The best part is, quite often we quickly see an increase in sales of the product they asked about after the page update is made.

Having your customers serve in the role of unpaid editors not only adds value to your web sites, but taking the time to find out what additional information the customer needs is always appreciated by the caller.

Don’t forget-the best web page is one that is never finished.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and “value added” customer service.

Naturally, I am sorry to see so many newspapers in financial difficulty and regret that some good papers will not survive our current economic troubles.

I can’t argue with the supposition that one of the greatest problems for newspapers is the loss of classified advertising and that the primary source of this lost revenue is Craig’s List.

I use Craig’s List almost every day and there is no better way to track down local resources, whether you are buying, hiring or trying to sell something.

Even though I see Craig’s List as a real problem for the papers I love to read, I still have great admiration for its founder, Craig Newmark.

The owner of this multi-million dollar enterprise (some say multi-billion) uses this job description for himself: Customer service representative and community organizer.

Rather than settling into the corner office and surrounding himself with lots of manager, Newmark stays right in front of his customers.

His simple business philosophy: Treat people like you want to be treated.

It’s easy to see how Craig’s List has stolen the classified ad business from newspapers, but a lot more difficult to see why Mr. Newmark chooses to define his role in the company as one of customer service.

Newmark is quick to admit that others are better suited to manage his company and that he is much more comfortable (and valuable) with serving in a capacity that he understands, enjoys and which defines the core of his company.

Lots of business owners could learn something from Craig Newmark.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

We’ll, at least in the realm of portable live sound, there is still at least one area where the sound person’s ability to problem solve still makes him/her valuable.

I’m talking about the use of microphone signal multicables (snakes as they are known) that delivery signal back and forth between the stage and the mix position.

There are so many different standards in use for the digital “snake” that making these links in the signal chain work with the equipment they meet up with on both ends guarantees the sound man will have a job for years to come.

There is a great push to digitize this signal path, because one of the greatest costs affiliated with touring productions is that of moving case after case filled with heavy copper and steel wire.  If the signal moving along these cables can be digitized and then carried along fewer and smaller conductors or along fiber optic cables, the weight and cost savings is significant.

At this point, there is no standardization among manufacturers who make this equipment, and it doesn’t look like either the connectors or the transmission protocol are anywhere close to being agreed-on.

Many years ago, the makers of pro audio equipment agreed on the XLR standard for equipment, and it has made it easy to use equipment manufactured by lots of companies together in the same sound system.

More recently, the Neutrik Speakon connector system has been adopted by lots of speaker and amplifier makers, and this connector appears to be well on its way to becoming an industry standard.

Until this lack of standards issue is settled among most of the major pro audio players there will be no rush to adopt the digital mic snake.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and “value added” customer service.

This morning they sent me a link to a new service from Yahoo that they called “Yahoo’s Intelligent Search“.    It sounded interesting so I clicked over to Yahoo and entered the search term “Yahoo’s Intelligent Search“.  Not only was there no information on this new service at the top of the page-the first result was for “Extraterrestrial Intelligence” and the second was something about ebay-there was no reference to  “Yahoo’s Intelligent Search” anywhere on the first two pages of search results.

It’s easy to see why Yahoo lags so far behind Google when they are not able to push their own new products to the top of their own search results.

We continue to show good search results for many of our products at Yahoo, but it becomes more and more difficult to understand how they can survive in the search business.  They should have sold Yahoo Search to Microsoft when they had the chance.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

Odds are better than ever, that she had been served by the shop’s owner.

As businesses downsize as a way to survive in a very challenging economic environment, lots of “behind the scenes” owner/managers in retail and service businesses are suddenly turning up “behind the counter” instead.  While it is unfortunate that this may mean that someone has lost their job, it holds great promise for an overall improvement in the quality of customer service.

The attention that an owner can give to a customer is seldom matched by most employees and having an owner meeting the public face-to-face can provide a great training opportunity.  “Do as I do” rather than “do as i say”.

While no one feels good about an economy in tumult, if we come out on the other side of the current crisis with a new emphasis on customer service, then there will be some small good that comes from this.

Wondering how this works in real life? Give us a call.  Chances are good that I’ll be the one who answers the phone!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and “value added” customer service.

We are proud to tell them “Chapel Hill, NC” which more often than not (especially this time of year) leads to some sort of discussion about college basketball.  It’s great to live in the center of the college basketball universe with UNC and Duke just a stone’s throw away.

Yesterday, NPR’s Morning Edition ran a story on their Marketplace program that put another part of our community on the map.

Before we moved to Chapel Hill, we spent 20 years in the next-door-neighbor town of Carrboro.  It was a great place to work, but we outgrew our space.

Marketplace focused on a very interesting business venture called Carrboro Creative Coworking.  This new venture is taking advantage of Carrboro’s unique mix of technology workers, web developers, college students, and artists. They are creating a community environment focused on a physical place where those who need reliable office space and the traditional support systems  in an office can congregate.  They then make this space available in smaller increments of time at a greatly reduced cost. The idea of having (and paying for )something expensive like a copier or a conference room only when needed is a great concept.  Using these resources in an environment used by like-minded entrepeneurs makes the idea even greater.

Providing support for a new class of productive and creative worker that CCC refers to as “mobile workers” is a phenomenon that is popping up all over the country and Carrboro is uniquely suited for a business that provides this sort of service.

While we are not mobile workers, we do need a way to stay connected with cutting edge thinking in our community and I look forward to paying a visit.

Maybe best of all (at least in Carrboro), they even have a parking lot.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

I was particularly interested in this, after reading about Yo-Yo Ma’s plan to play a new carbon fiber cello that was supposed to be immune from effects brought on by cold weather.

It turns out that what the audience (and the world) heard was a little world class karaoke.  The whole thing was a recording, and the public was kept in the dark until today.

In an interview on National Public Radio, Mr. Ma explained that the performance was impossible because of the temperature and that he had even gone so far as to use soap instead of resin on his bow so that his cello would not make any sound.  A piano technician “decoupled” the piano keys from the hammers so that played keys would make no sound.

Maybe it was a great idea to plan to make this performance part of such an historical ceremony, but why not chose performers who could play live regardless of the weather.  There are lots of instruments and performers who can play in cold weather, as was apparent over and over again during the inaugural parade.

I, for one, am incredibly disappointed to learn of this sham, and am sorry that it mars, for me, what was, otherwise a ceremony for the ages.

Want to pretend you had a front row seat at the inauguration.  Click here.

Want to record your own inauguration “lip sync“.  You’ll need a microphone, a mic cable and a microphone stand.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

Apparently, customers hoping to walk out of a bankrupt Circuit City store with a $1.99 flat screen television aren’t willing to extend the seller that priviledge.

Lots of shoppers who showed up last Saturday for the beginning of Circuit City’s liquidation sale not only left the stores empty handed, they left mad as well.

Unbeknown to most of these vultures, once Circuit City declared bankruptcy, the court turned their assets over to a liquidator whose job is to get as much money for Circuit City’s creditors as they can.  The management of Circuit City really has nothing to say about pricing.

I, for one, will miss Circuit City.  While neither their selection nor their pricing was  anything special, the competition they provided for Best Buy was good for both the local and national electronics marketplace.

Unfortunately, those customers who waited to show up at Circuit City until it was time to turn out the lights are now finding that liquidation pricing is not even as good as sale pricing was before the bankruptcy.

Lots of challenges for retailers and bargain-hungry customers will be presented in the next few months as our economy works through a really difficult retail environment.  Circuit City’s experience has lessons for all of us.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Enterainment 1 extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and quality speaker cables.

The basis for the Times article was how web users, particularly young peope, were using YouTube as much for education as for entertainment.

It seems that YouTube is evolving into a search engine, one that is much more appealing to young users than the static search returns that Google provides.

I got over my infatuation with expoloding Coke bottles full of Mentos and kittens playing the piano pretty quickly, and chalked YouTube off to yet another brilliant invention of a time wasting machine.

I now find myself going back to YouTube almost every day to learn how to do something valuable.  In the last week, I have used it to finish a water heater installation under my house, sharpen kitchen knives using a new tool my wife got for Christmas, and to get some help with a particularly challenging part of a piano lesson.  Time saved, not time wasted!

Perhaps the most important piece of information in this article was buried near the bottom of the page (in parentheses no less). Google owns YouTube!

While Microsoft continues their never ending courtship with Yahoo in an attempt to develop an advertising revenue stream based on a model that Google perfected years ago,  Google is now ready to take their $1.65 million dollar purchase of YouTube to the bank.

In fact, as of November, the number of monthly searches on YouTube now exceeds Yahoo searches.  Either way (text or video), when someone clicks on an ad served up with their search results, it’s money in Google’s pocket.

We are beginning work on some simple videos that we hope will help our customers make better use of the products they buy from us.

Get ready for the GoodBuyGuys to make their Hollywood debut!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Enterainment 1 extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and quality speaker cables. Count on us when you need specialty tape items and sound advice.

A recent story in the online version of Pro Sound News points out what is happening in the pro sound field.  This story highlighted the “retirement” of Paul Owen, after mixing monitors for Metallica for 22 years.  That’s right.  22 Years!

While it is a little surprising that anybody could live through the Metallica soap opera for this long, it is certainly no surprise that there are touring sound techs out there who are actually reaching retirement age.

Paul Owen has logged 1340 Metallica shows and reads lips so well that no one realizes that he has been deaf since 1994.

Metallica’s lead singer James Hetfield honored Owen from the stage at this week’s concert in Detroit.  Wonder if his replacement will be under 40?

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Electratrac and Coast Wire extension cords, OnStage Stand mic stands, and lots of other useful production supplies.

On my way to work, I usually listen to Morning Edition on National Public Radio.  It has been a long time since NPR has been advertising-free, even if they choose to not call what you hear “advertising”.  Almost all their programs are underwritten by corporate sponsors, and this underwriting is just another name for advertising.

I was struck this morning by how differently two of these underwriters try to take advantage of their broadcasting budgets to drive traffic to their web sites, using the broadcast version of “word of mouth” marketing to leverage their brands.

One, a national home builder,  K. Hovnanian Homes, uses their complete (unpronounceable, unmemorable and unspellable) name in their underwriting, directing a listener to the web for more information, but in a way that makes it almost impossible for the listener to remember, spell or even “Google” the underwriter’s name.  The chance that this underwriting will actually bring NPR listeners to their web site is unlikely at best.

The second is for a public relations firm,  Rella-Cowan, an equally difficult company name to remember, spell, or “Google”.

Realizing the difficulty of using word of mouth for site traffic building, Rella-Cowan instead uses the cleaver and easy to remember web URL iffytimes.com prominently in their NPR underwriting. Iffytimes.com drives web traffic to their site designed to help businesses with marketing problems in difficult economic times.  “Iffytimes.com” is clever, easy to remember and intriguing to the reader.  Its easy to remember this URL on your walk from the parking lot to the office and it allows Rella-Cowan to build a web presence by planting an idea where they really want it, in your memory.

We are blessed to have a number of web sites that are both easy to remember and which are a subliminal “call to action“, something that any marketing pro will tell you is critical to successful marketing and advertising.  Buytape.com, buybattery.com, buyextensioncord.com, buymicstand.com and all the other members of the goodbuyguys.com family all lend themselves to building web traffic by word of mouth.

Remember, just because you have a web site that is considered your primary company web address, nothing prevents you from having additional web sites that are more relevant to building the kind of word of mouth traffic that can put your web site to work.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Enterainment 1 extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and quality speaker cables. Check back here for ideas on web development.

One of the ideas that comes up over and over is the timeless concept that “the customer is always right“. After many years of selling specialty products online and through catalog sales, I can tell you that nothing could be further from the truth.

I field at least a couple of phone calls every day from a prospective customer who needs to be talked out of making a purchase from us. This is sometimes harder to do than one might think, but I would always prefer to lose a sale than to sell you the wrong item.

Over and over, a customer will try to talk me out of recommending that they not use a tape product for an outdoor application because it does not have UV protection and is not intended to stand up to exposure to sunlight.

Time after time, I have to convince a customer that using an extension cord of too small a gauge will create a fire hazard.

I wish I had a nickel for all the times I have tried (unsuccessfully) to convince a caller that the performance of a ProCell battery is identical to that of a Duracell CopperTop.

It has always been our hope that by creating web sites that were deep with information that we could lead customers to make the right choice-a purchasing choice that would provide a product that met their needs. The same theory is at work when we provide information that should help a prospective customer realize that they product they are considering is not the right item to meet their needs.

Sometimes we lose a sale by insisting that the customer is not always right, but, in the end, this is a lot more satisfying than trying to always make the sale.

Are you someone who believes that conventional business wisdom is not always the way to go? Share your thoughts with us!

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Shurtape gaffers tape, Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Enterainment 1 extension cords , OnStage Stand mic stands and quality speaker cables.