The Red Socks vs. The Black Socks

Two links:

First a link from Engadget HD. In the HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray rivalry, Blu-ray fans are organizing a "Buy Blu-ray Day" on Amazon next week. Why? Because HD-DVD fans pulled a similar move this past week on the one-year anniversary of the format. HD-DVD rankings on Amazon skyrocketed, talks of a resurgent HD-DVD-format emerged, and Blu-ray fans were pissed.

Now check out this post from Mark Cuban from awhile back on Fanboy culture.

Take a step back from all this and it's fascinating. Take two steps back and it's astounding.

People these days are rooting for products and companies in the same way people have always rooted for players or sports teams. On the one hand it makes sense. Sports is a business, teams are a brand. Players could be viewed as mere commodities, especially when endorsements are included.

But on the other hand it doesn't make sense at all. The point of choosing a team in a sporting event is to involve oneself in the game. As soon as you choose a team, you now have something on the line, that is, you have something to lose - your team. There is melodrama in the question, "Will they win?" The closer the game - the more drama.

So maybe that's what this is all about? Fanboys join the competition, aka The Game, between businesses. They take a side - for the melodrama.

They are entertaining themselves over a battle of products whose sole purpose is to entertain.

The real winner in all of this? Jeff Bezos.

Brawndo and Paris Hilton

Outside this blog the question has been posed, "How can multi-billion dollar multi-national corporations make such obvious mistakes yet stay in business?

Here's my thoughts.

Corporations are like the aristocracy of the business world. They sit at the top of the heap and everybody knows it, and in most cases nobody knows why. Take the Hiltons for instance, we all know the name, and we all at some point know somebody named Hilton opened up a few hotels, bought a few more, and next thing you know they're godjillionaires.

Same for our contemporary corporations. We all know what Michael Dell did with personal computers, but a generation from now the name Dell will be just as disconnected from its founder as the name Hilton. Keep in mind PR, advertising, and marketing departments enable this process by creating a brand - dehumanizing the name and creating an experience. You hear De Beers and you think about shadow people proposing in Rome, not some dude in Africa paying bills by selling rocks.

So along with name recognition comes of course huge influxes of capital - not just cash, but all kinds of capital, intellectual, name/brand-recognition, which is a sort of emotional capital.

In life, money does not buy you happiness, true enough. In business, capital does not buy you success. But in both cases, an influx of each can get you out of jail free a few times.

Take a normal guy in his twenties, a few years out of school, working hard on a career. And maybe he's a few grand in debt from getting his teeth drilled one too many times. Say this guy gets pulled over on a Saturday night after having one too many. He is f*cked. There's no way around it. A. He might lose his car and have to find a way to work on time - impossible to pull-off without anyone knowing what happened. Or B. he might pay a $1000 fine. That's it. He's out of commission for a few years. (Clearly, I'm not saying people shouldn't get pulled over for drinking, I'm just saying how it is.)

Now Paris Hilton gets a D.U.I. No problem. In fact, the ratings to her reality show go up. She probably sells a few more albums. No car? Take the town car. $1,000 fine? Do you take Amex?

And this is how it goes. Corporations make decisions that have everybody spinning their heads, yet they truck on. Smaller businesses, like the lower classes, have little room for error, and that is not fair. And that is life. But, I think, it's good to know.