Funky Friday

Research or Baloney?
In Nielsen's "Three Screen Report" for Q4 2009, there was a number that confused the hell out of me.

According to their data, between Q1 2009 and Q4 2009, average time spent on the internet dropped about 10% from 29 minutes a day to about 26 1/2 minutes a day.

This seemed impossible to me. For this reason, I left the number out of my post about the report.

It turns out Nielsen was wrong. According to an email they sent out yesterday to subscribers, "we are actively investigating an erroneous decline in our Internet use data." Apparently the mistake has something to do with their system not recognizing sessions on websites with long URLs. Don't ask me to explain this.

The point is, like I always say, research is no different from creative work. Some of it is excellent and valuable, some of it is worthless and dangerous.

Just because it's called "research" doesn't mean it's science.

Unclear On The Concept
Matthew Nieveen, 19, of Lincoln, NE is apparently a very creative guy. For Halloween this year, Matthew made himself up as a Breathalyzer machine.

Unfortunately, Matthew's creativity turned quickly to irony when he was busted wearing his Breathalyzer suit in his Ford F-150 pick-up.

Nieveen’s blood alcohol level was more than twice the state’s limit and a search of his truck turned up beer and a bottle of vodka.

Mr President, I Hate To Say I Told You So, But...
Back last January I wrote an imaginary letter to President Obama. In it I said...

....There are two types of voters -- Brand Loyalists and Product Examiners. The Brand Loyalists are essentially ideologues. They will vote for a Republican regardless of how corrupt he is or a Democrat regardless of how inept he is. They don't care. They're buying the brand. We need to forget about these people. They almost never decide elections.

We need to target the Product Examiners. These are people who vote for the product, not the brand. These people almost always decide elections...

...They are losing confidence in the capability of your administration. You need to change this immediately or your party will suffer severe losses and you will become a premature lame duck.

To read the whole letter, go here.