All 2 entries tagged Cnn

101 Dumbest Moments in Business

Writing about web page http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/biz2/0701/gallery.101dumbest_2007/index.html

Some of the best include:

#17

A jury in Fresno, Calif., awards $1.7 million in damages to Janet Orlando, who quit her job with home security company Alarm One after team-building exercises during which she and her colleagues were forced to eat baby food, wear diapers, or submit to being spanked on the butt with a rival company's yard signs.

#22

In June, BusinessWeek publishes a cover with the headline "Bill Gates Gets Schooled" showing the Microsoft chairman in front of a blackboard.

The magazine itself gets schooled when observers point out that Seattle Weekly used the same line and a similar image a year earlier.

#27

In August, RadioShack fires 400 staffers via e-mail. Affected employees receive a message that reads, "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."

Very surreal: such a Dilbert moment.

#50

Mick Woods purchases a package of cooked ham made by British food processor H.R. Hargreaves & Son. After reviewing the complete list of ingredients, which includes "dog s**t," he loses his appetite.

Hargreaves fires the employee responsible for the prank and begins a recall of the mislabeled packages.

#67

Sony runs a billboard campaign in the Netherlands depicting a Caucasian model rudely gripping the jaw of a woman of African descent to promote its PlayStation Portable in "ceramic white."

Sony initially defends the campaign, saying it was meant to "highlight the whiteness of the new model," but later apologizes.

This is one of the more recent problem's Sony's encountered. We've had exploding batteries, racist ads and, perhaps most annoying of all, one of the Sony CEOs had the balls to say "We decide when the next generation [of gaming/tech] begins. Arrogance. 

: 27 Jan 2007 15:00 |  Tags: Advertising America Cnn Sony Television Video Wal-Mart |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Web 2.0: A chance for Tech Show presenters to bombard us with buzzwords

Just watching "CNN Connects: Our Networked World". It's basically a round table discussion on the "new" explosion of internet usage in the form of Youtube and the like. 

It's a relatively interesting discussion. There's a co-founder of Flickr, the founder of Facebook, the CEO of Orange etc. 

But, as usual, the presenter is absolutely clueless concerning the current world of the internet and just reeks of condescension and stupidity. In between lame jokes about Second Life and The Matrix and rampant hand-waving, she comes up with gems like this: 

"If Web 2.0 is more than just a marketing gimmick, then there will be a Web 3.0, won't there?"

Yuck.

I don't understand why the big broadcasting networks don't hire people who are genuinely into the field. It's like they called up the weather team and asked them to pick a weather girl at random to present a tech show. Makes me want to throw the TV out of the window.

: 27 Jan 2007 13:00 |  Tags: America Business Cnn Internet Modern Tech Web 2 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem