• As usual, I picked up a few lawyers going to or from work. (Work seems to always be the destination or origin for lawyers in my cab.) One lawyer was late for work but needed to pick up her dry cleaning first. She hadn’t been able to pick it up in 3 weeks because of work.

  Both hadn’t yet paid their student loans. This is one of my standard lawyer questions now, “Have you paid off your loans yet?” I’m surprised at the frequency of the answer of “No.” Perhaps those that have paid off their loans no longer identify as being a lawyer?

  One had a strong desire to change from commercial law to being some sort of public defender after paying off loans. The other seemed happy where she was.

• I picked up a lady from a hospital in an outer neighborhood. She was heading back to her apartment downtown.

  After a few minutes of standard opening chat I learned she had lived in the City for many decades and lived through the 1989 earthquake. I hadn’t talked to other passengers about this yet, so I asked her what it was like. To my surprise she had quite a story.

  She had been heading back west toward the City over the Bay Bridge. She felt the quake as she was approaching Yerba Buena Island. Her car swerved and she described the feeling like her tires were melted rubber, or something to that effect. She came to a stop, as did the few other motorists around her. She wasn’t sure whether or not to continue, but figured it’d be safer to get off the bridge than wait for aftershocks to knock it down. She kept heading west and was happy to hit solid ground. She drove through the City back home, noticing the wreckage. Back home people asked her how she got through — they had seen on the news that the Bay Bridge had collapsed. She was stunned — she missed by just a minute that section of collapsed roadway to return home. She was one of the last people to successfully cross the bridge after the quake.

  I know luck is a human construct in a feeble attempt to rationalize chance, but I thought and said, “Gosh, you sure were lucky!”

• Early Monday morning, around 4:30am, I was in my standard ‘Marina early morning radio hunting mode’. Along with a sizable chunk of the rest of the cab fleet, I hunt around for fares on Polk, Union and Fillmore Streets while monitoring and checking-in for radio calls in the area.

  As I was turning from north bound Van Ness to west bound Lombard to position for some deep marina radio calls, I heard a guy yelling for a cab at the hotel on the corner. He was a white guy in his late 30s, with facial hair classifiable as ‘stubble’, wearing a giants cap.

  I could tell from the start he was an odd character, but I had a hard time then (and still do now while writing this) identifying the particulars off his oddness. First off, he was heading to the Tenderloin from his Marina hotel at 4:30am. That’s odd. Well, it’s not really odd, it just means he’s picking up drugs.

  RE: Drug policy. I don’t want to know about it, I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to hear about it. But, if someone heads somewhere to “pick something up from a friend”, I have no real qualms about the object they’re actually up-picking. As long as they don’t take too long I don’t really care what they do. Usually drug runs are good runs — we head quickly to a destination across town, they do some sort of business, then we head right back. It’s a quick $20 or even $30 depending on distance and tipping.

  When we arrived in the Tenderloin he didn’t know exactly where he was going, changing his destination once or twice. (This is always a bad sign.) Finally he found the right corner and he said he had to go pick up a ‘diskette’. Okay, whatever. He runs across the street and around a corner. I see him appear again in a minute as he runs across to the diagonal corner, gets money from an ATM, and then disappears around the corner again.

  About this time a smartly-dressed young black guy comes up to my cab, with iPhone in hand, and asked for a ride. I explained that I was waiting for my passenger to pursue a transaction and then return to his hotel. I’d be happy to take him if I wasn’t taking somebody else. This guy wouldn’t have it. He tried all sorts of persuasive verbal techniques to let me take him, “I’ll drop you $10 right now and we’ll head up. I’ll pay for this guy’s fare. Let me just share a ride with him back to the hotel and you can drop me at my place.” His insistence was impressive and we had a nice ancillary chat about the relative ‘roughness’ of the Tenderloin vs. other economically depressed cities’ ghettos. Our shared thesis: the Tenderloin is rather tame.

  But, upon arrival of the original passenger sparks flew. The passenger got in the cab and the younger guy kept asking to share the ride. I asked the original passenger and he said, “No, let’s head to the hotel.” The original passenger looked very, very uncomfortable. The young guy started insulting the passenger and vice-versa. Perhaps I should have left before that started, but at this point I said, “Goodbye, nice to meet you,” and took off.

  The passenger was irate. “How could you let that guy talk to me like that?”

  He soon calmed down and went on a different track. “Let’s get something to eat. What’s open right now?” I mentioned I’d be happy to drop him off at the 24 hour IHOP down the street from his hotel. No, this wouldn’t work. He specifically needed fast food.

  At this point my passenger’s lack of focus became clear. He wasn’t making rational decisions, especially with regard to my time. He was just spouting off random things he wanted to do. “I need some cigarettes. Can we stop by a 24-hour market?” “I’d even be happy with a Taco Bell. Is there a Taco Bell around here?”

  “How about I just drop you back at your hotel — there are a few gas stations open around there.” This satiated him enough for a few more blocks. At this point I learned another fun fact, he was leaving the country with a quarter of a million dollars in the bank to go see the world. Wow. How’s that for odd?

  Finally we arrived back at the hotel, but, of course, by then his cigarette need resurged. “No, no, let’s go to the gas station down the block. It looks open.”

  I grudgingly accepted — the station was within sight after all. I dropped him off and he wanted me to stay to take him back to his hotel. (Yes, his hotel two blocks away.) I told him I couldn’t keep running around doing errands and expect to make any money. This was a true statement — this run was taking too much time. And pursuing errands with an erratic drug addict is not my idea of a fun time. He was pissed again, “I just don’t get the cab drivers in this city! You can’t just wait a few minutes? I’ll pay you for the metered time!” He paid just the meter, no tip, around $12, and I wished him luck on his trip and offered an apology.

  Looking back on the story of this fare, I realize it’s a bit confusing. I wish I could revise it to make more sense. But, perhaps it’s a good reflection of events — he was a confusing, confusing guy. His actions and requests were individually logical, “I’m hungry, let’s get some fast food,” but collectively irrational, “Let’s head back and forth across the City as each of my needs — food, drugs, nicotine, etc — wins in priority at any given moment, without attention paid to the external world.” I’m not sure if this state was induced by a long history of drug use, drug use at that very moment, or an inherent personality trait. But, I was happy to have him out of my cab.

• As cab driver turnover rate is rather high, I see new drivers often and don’t give it much thought. One new driver, however, happened to engage me in conversation at the cashier window and we started chatting as we headed out of the garage after our shifts.

  I was glad I spoke with him. He had been a cab driver in Chicago many years back and commented that all the cost drivers — gate, gas, and the meter — seemed to have increased proportionally such that earnings are the same as before. But, considering inflation, real earnings are significantly lower. (That is, earning $150 a shift in the 70s was worth a lot more than it is today.)

  He is also a ham radio enthusiast and we spoke at length about the radio dispatch system used by the cab company. As I had guessed, there are 2 separate radio frequencies allocated to the cab company by the FCC — one for the dispatcher and one for the cab drivers checking-in across the City. He explained that they are both frequency modulated (FM) channels around the 150 MHz spectrum. (Remember, your favorite FM radio station is in the same ball park, 88.5 KQED is 88.5 MHz.)

  A neat feature of FM over AM is that the strongest broadcasting FM station will drown out other lower-power FM broadcasts on the same frequency. For some applications, like cabs checking-in for an order, this is desirable behavior. At least one cab will be heard clearly, while others are drowned out. This process is repeated until no cabs are left checking-in. During each check-in, at least one cab will be able to clearly check-in. Competing AM broadcasts bleed such that receivers hear a mix of all broadcasts. While not ideal for the application of cab dispatching, it is well suited for, say, emergency channels where you want to absolutely be able to hear any broadcaster calling for help.

  Thanks, driver, for the cool info.

• I crested Taylor Street at California looking for fares Tuesday morning. I saw empty cab after empty cab heading outbound (west) on California toward the neighborhoods where fares are likely. Had those cabs not been there, I would have headed outbound on California at this point as well. But, I crawled northward on Taylor past California and saw a potential jackpot — a guy crossing the street after leaving his Nob Hill apartment with airport-bound luggage.

  Had I just started driving a cab I would have naively left him since he wasn’t doing a traditional “hail.” But, I could tell he needed a cab: he wasn’t waiting for the 1-California on Clay to take the BART, he wasn’t waiting for another cab at his house, he was walking with a purpose toward California Street where he would surely find a cab. So I pulled next to him, made eye contact, and scored a $45 fare to SFO.

  Of course, by no means does this learned skill make cab driving a lucrative profession. But, it sure does help on a slow Tuesday morning.

• I picked up a van call at a Fisherman’s Wharf hotel. A Filipino family was waiting for me as I pulled up. They were heading to Mill Valley in the North Bay.

  This was a great trip. I love out of town trips. Not only do they pay well, but it’s a pleasure to see other parts of the Bay Area, especially beautiful drives like the SF to Mill Valley drive.

  I learned the family was emigrating from the Philippines to Canada. They were very excited at the move except for the cold Canadian weather. They tipped me well and I had a beautiful drive on a beautiful day. Thanks, family.

• I picked up a group of reporters at a low cost hotel in ‘TenderSOMA’ where the Tenderloin’s trademark seedy feel extends below Market Street, especially west of 5th Street. I took them to the BAVC where they were meeting with other documentary filmmakers and reporters.

  One of the guys in the front worked for Frontline World which sparked an interesting discussion. I had met another Frontline World employee at a journalism meetup I attended to promote a website I’m developing. This led to a long discussion about the website I’m making and my motivations for making it: namely, the failure of local media to evolve with media consumption habits of persons under the age of 30.

  At a certain point we realized we were having an excessively cliche “San Francisco” moment: a part-time cab driver and ‘startup’ wannabe having a chat with visiting reporters about the failure of local media to evolve at the same pace as technology. And, to pour salt in the wounds, we both mentioned we’ll blog about it afterward. Ouch. It’s like something out of an Onion headline: “Blogging cab driver blogs about blogging passengers.”

• A few staff members at the cab company mentioned they heard about my blog. Hi, fellow cab company staff members and/or drivers.

KALW’s Manager’s Report took place in the late morning, preempting an episode of a local call-in forum show.

Similar to Indiana University‘s arrangement with public radio station WFIU, the San Francisco Unified School District provides KALW with discounted real estate and other ancillary business support services such as telco, Internet access, payroll processing, basic utilities, etc. But, they must find revenue sources to pay for staff, production costs, and purchase programming from NPR and other sources.

I enjoy 91.7 KALW’s positioning as an ‘alternative’ public radio station — an antithesis to the standard NPR fare of 88.5 KQED.

Of course, as a public radio junky, I also enjoy KQED’s great standard NPR program offerings, but KALW provides a nice alternative view with a heavier focus on world news, especially BBC programs like World Have Your Say and the BBC World Service through the wee hours of the night. KALW is also my source on Sunday morning for unique radio programs like Working with Marty Nemko and Harry Shearer’s Le Show.

Keep up the good work, KALW!

MP3 direct link to KALW Manager’s Report

Here’s a sample:

Sure, the Examiner won’t win any awards for ground breaking investigative journalism, but it delivers a simple product effectively.

The success of the Examiner print makes it even more of a shame that their online version sucks so much. The online headline often differs completely from the print version — which I view as a major fault. The print version provides consistently intriguing headlines, like “Mayor steals money from Muni,” that draw your attention to pick up the paper. Why don’t they match? The only reason I’ve ever thought to go to Examiner’s online page is to read the full story when I walked by a paper on the ground with an enticing headline. Duh?

The “top stories” on Examiner’s web page link to other sources. This doesn’t make any sense to me. As of writing this post, the second top story is a link to an SF Gate story about setting a new record for handshaking. Yes, a new record for handshaking. This isn’t a “top story” in real life, nor is it a “top story” in the print Examiner daily, nor did an Examiner writer write this story, nor does clicking this link earn revenue for the Examiner. So, why include it?

The Examiner online team is asleep at the wheel. (Perhaps there is no Examiner online team.) Too bad considering the print daily is spot on.

What does “engagement” really mean? Some part is puffery — it’s an abstract term. Anyone can claim they have engaging content, but it’s hard to measure. But, despite my deep rooted discontentment with ad sales pitches, “engagement” does attempt to define a real need from media buyers: I want my ads in placements that demand attention from the end-user.

What if there were a way to objectively measure engagement? Here’s a simple suggestion: measure the average number of seconds displayed per impression (SPI) for a given placement. You could backdoor a site-wide SPI estimate from existing analytics data by taking ‘average length per user session’ divided by ‘average page views per session’ and expressing this in seconds/page view units. (Both session length and page views per session data are available in common analytics packages.)

SPI stats could be available for one specific placement on a particular page of a site and also aggregated site-wide to give an overall average SPI for an entire web property.

What would this do? It would provide a quick and easy measurement to validate placement bids expressed in CPM (cost per thousand impression) when comparing against other sites of a potential buy. You could even derive a cost per thousand seconds (CPMS = CPM / SPI). By using CPMS or CPM and SPI in tandem, you would get a uniquely different tool to help compare the potential value of sites competing for a buy.

Let’s say MySpace.com offers a $3 CPM for run of network ads (run of network = non-section specific, anywhere they have free space), whereas NYTimes.com offers $10 CPM for run of network. Inventing some numbers from intuition, let’s say that MySpace users spend 5 seconds per page (5 SPI) whereas NYTimes.com users have an average of 15 SPI.

NYTimes CPMS @ 15 SPI = CPM / SPI = $10 CPM / 15 SPI = $0.67 CPMS (Cost per thousand seconds)
MySpace CPMS @ 5 SPI = CPM / SPI = $3 CPM / 5 SPI = $0.6 CPMS (Cost per thousand seconds)

Wow, these numbers seem about right. We approach a $0.6 cost per thousand seconds of user-engagement for both sites, with a slight premium placed on NYTimes.com from higher quality content. In fact, when considering CPMS instead of CPM, NYTimes.com seems like a bargain: it’s just a shave more expensive than MySpace when calculated in CPMS, but its content is unquestionably a more premium placement for most brands than MySpace.

This metric has neat implications for the monetization potential of social networks vs. online video. You might disagree with my 5 SPI for MySpace, but I contend that it will not exceed 10 SPI. Compare that to YouTube, which could have a site-wide average of 60 SPI (videos can range up to 10 minutes — 600 SPI!). Let’s say YouTube prices at $10 CPM (run) (note: it’s surely cheaper than $10) whereas MySpace is still $3 CPM (run).

MySpace CPMS @ 10 SPI = CPM / SPI = $3 CPM / 10 SPI = $0.3 CPMS (Cost per thousand seconds)
YouTube CPMS @ 60 SPI = CPM / SPI = $10 CPM / 60 SPI = $0.17 CPMS (Cost per thousand seconds)

Obviously, YouTube blows MySpace out of the water. (Of course, other performance metrics should help with planning media buys too too – historical CTR, APM, CPA, etc. This would be a nice standard addition to the media planning toolbox.)

Epilogue:
“Oh no!” A social network ad salesman frets upon reading this post, “When calculated with CPMS it is now embarrassingly obvious that social networks are a bad buy for most display advertising! What ever am I to do?”

Not to worry, social network ad salesman, most clients and agencies don’t give a shit about this stuff, they just want to see their pretty ads on the pretty computer screen.

So, keep using the old ‘engagement’ pitch with the wide-eyed recent college grads munching away at free Starbucks muffins in conference rooms of their conglomerate parents, and they’ll keep throwing tens of thousands of dollars your way.

This is some significant competition for SpotRunner, whose sole purpose is to provide easy-to-use, small scale online TV buying in local markets.

I played with both and noticed one big difference: SpotRunner requires a $1,000 minimum buy, whereas AdWords appears to let you get by at just $150/day. You can get your feet wet with Google’s TV ad buying very, very cheaply. Of course, with both services you’ll still need to create an ad, but these days many savvy small business owners can just whip up something in iMovie.

Meanwhile, in the world of online buying of online video ads, the IAB finally released some up-to-date online video ad guidelines (pdf).

They’re boring to read and surely even more boring to implement, but this is important since finally we’ll have some sort of standardization for fledgling online ad formats like video overlays. I’m a big fan of video overlay ads — a 5-10 second animation on the lower fifth of an online video playback. Overlays combined with a 300×250 companion ad may prove to be a great online video monetization strategy. It punches through the ‘clutter’ of ads — the end-user notices the ad — but it doesn’t get in the way of viewing the desired content. A win, win?

The meta story here is that buying video ads is becoming standardized for online AND offline video content. We can talk all day about the convergence already taking place by end-users watching Lost and the Office on their computers. Now the über-important revenue stream — easy ad buying by the masses — is catching up to the convergence party.

While sitting in the queue to pay the toll for the Bay Bridge Monday, I heard two great counterintuitive pieces on KQED.

The first was a thoughtful comparison between our quality of life now compared to the distant past. It is a true and important comparison and a nice reminder of how great our lives really are in modern times.

“A Very Rich Man” KQED Perspective:

• >MP3 Direct Link<
• Program Page

The second was a nice piece by NPR’s Morning Edition which sought to answer the question of why Americans have built up so much personal debt in the past 20 years. I liked this part: for some, debt it good. Debt is not always an evil thing.

In my case, I know that my income will be considerably higher in a few years than it is now. As exemplified by the example in the story, it would make little sense for me to save money now given my limited income.

“Why Do We Borrow So Much?” Morning Edition Story:

• Segment Page

I recently stumbled upon another great radio show: Radiolab.

Radiolab tries to explain things. Big things. Philosophy and science things.

Radiolab features a simple theme for each episode such as Love, Pop Music, or Deception. My initial frustration while listening was that they didn’t always get to the bottom of the theme. Why do we fall in love? How has pop music evolved? You won’t get an absolute answer. (Will we ever?)

But, that’s okay. Let go of the need for a perfect, direct explanation of the theme and embrace the unique experience of Radiolab and you’ll enjoy it just fine. Each episode features at least one nugget of unique radio that keeps me coming back for more.

And, the host’s name is Jad. How cool is that?

Links

• Program Website
• MP3 RSS Feed (Podcast)

Given all this information, you’d think that Facebook would be able to tailor advertisements uniquely relevant to me, right? Wrong!

I’m not sure how they’ve been messing this up for so long, but for the first time in years I finally saw an advertisement on Facebook uniquely relevant to… ME!

This ad was spot on because, drum roll, I watch this TV show. Genius.

If they keep this up, maybe they’ll be able to justify their bloated valuation!

But, you’d think that the San Francisco Chronicle, being the San Francisco Chronicle and all, would report on a murder in broad daylight within the City and County of San Francisco, even if did take place in Bay View/Hunters Point, an area which yuppie Chron readers conveniently ignore.

Nope. The Examiner is the sole print daily that reported the story of 17-year-old Tauvares Wooten gunned down on our City streets on Sunday.

What does the Chronicle report? Well, they sure hit hard with the news the Mayor covets the Governorship. They reported on a tragic accident in which 2 SF residents lost their lives to a careless driver in Cupertino. They even managed to report on a hit and run that happened this very morning on Market and Octavia. But, not a word about the tragic death of Tauvares Wooten or that the SFPD haven’t arrested a single suspect.

Am I the only City resident that feels scared that our main, respected source of local news doesn’t report on a vicious murder in broad daylight on our City streets?

Link to Examiner Article

UPDATE 3/12/08: In an odd twist of fate, Mr. Wooten was featured in a Chronicle photograph from 2004. The photo accompanied a Chronicle article about Visitacion Valley Middle School principal Jim Dierke’s grant request for a grief counselor to help students deal with frequent shooting deaths in the area.

Editor and Publisher says newspapers no longer hold relevance in end-user’s daily lives.

TRUE.

Newspapers cling to their old function as news reporters, but end-users want more. They want to hear about events that affect their lives and their communities instead of tired old stories about shootings, local politics and sports.

For consumers, it must no longer just present news and information, but become the first choice for customers and non-customers alike “to help me know or do whatever it takes to live here.”

Newspapers are losing relevance. This is a golden opportunity for new entrants.

Link