Sony CEO Stringer Unaware of Attack 3 Years Ago and Still Surprised by April Attack

Here we go again. I previously wrote about Sony’s failure to inform customers of a data breach in reasonable time, and then subsequent failure to notify customers directly, by email, of their remedies. Since the April data breach, the theory behind the attack is hackers were seeking revenge for Sony suing hackers who modified their system (modifying or unlocking a console is considering hacking). It is also known that Sony did not have an effective firewall in place to defend the PlayStation network and those who wrote on company forums months before the attack noted this. Sony has been bashed in the media and by security experts as not being prepared despite threats of an attack. I recently read “Sony Chief Stringer Blindsided by Hackers Seeking Revenge” by Cliff Edwards, Michael Riley and Joseph Galante. As the title suggests, CEO Stringer is sticking by his claim that the massive hacker attack was a complete surprise.

But… oh but…

“Three years earlier, the company faced three breaches in Europe, including one in which Sony said some PlayStation Network user data might have been stolen.” Since then, evidence proves Sony did not put in a good security defense to prevent or lessen the wounds of a future attack. Another attack has happened since the April attack: the So-net Entertainment Corp. was breached, Sony websites have been down in some countries because they were targeted, and the PlayStation network is still down in some countries. The response from Stringer to the criticism of their security and response of previous attacks:

“Sony believed it had ‘good, robust security,’ Stringer said. He rejected suggestions that the company is paying for a lack of vigilance and said he was unaware of the 2008 intrusion on the PlayStation Network”

AOL Buys The Huffington Post to Become Huffington Post Media Group

What do you call it when a struggling company buys a successful, popular entity? A golden combination for that struggling company. AOL which been declined in the past few years, has acquired the Huffington Post, resulting in a combination of the companies named Huffington Post Media Group. According to “Betting on News, AOL is Buying The Huffington Post” by Jeremy W. Peters and Verne G. Kopytoff, AOL is paying $315 million for the acquisition. A great price considering The Huffington Post started with $1 million.

For The Huffington Post, they are receiving capital to help them grow bigger and faster. They will also have the ability to pay investors in the company considering the company hasn’t shown interest in an IPO. Arianna Huffington, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief will gain more titles, becoming president and editor-in-chief of Huffington Post Media Group. According to the article, “the arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.” She states on her post on The Huffington Post her resolution for the site was to go global and offer better video content. She sees this “merger” as Huffington Post’s ability to achieve those resolutions.

Pfizer: Given a Golden Opportunity and Lost It

Imagine: you are a company that sells a drug to help people to stop smoking. All of sudden you receive an immense demand for your product. Sounds absolutely perfect. Sounds like a dream. Well, according to “In Japan, Pfizer is Short of Drug to Help Smokers” by Hiroko Tabuchi, this was Pfizer’s reality. Japan was a smoker friendly environment. People could smoke anywhere and paid low prices. October 1 the government raised cigarette taxes as a move to get people to quit. It worked.

Smokers wanting to quit rushed to doctors requesting Pfizer’s Chantix (or Champix in Japan), which aids smokers to quit smoking. Although Pfizer knew about the tax increase a year before its arrival, the company did not prepare for the great demand. According to Tabuchi “less than two weeks after the tax increase…the company was forced to suspend sales of the drug”. Pfizer has stated they will have some products to sale this month.

OWN: The Next Biggest Part of Oprah's Empire Starts Today

As most of you know, today is New Year's Day and the debut of OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network. OWN has gotten much press. Not only is it anticipated because it belongs to Oprah, it is the first personalized cable channel. It also a big venture. It is to replace Discovery Health channel, it is a partnership between Oprah and Discovery, and Discovery has invested about $200 million (as reported by Brian Stelter of NY Times). I read two NY Times articles, “Oprah’s Network is Her Highest Hurdle” and “Shaping a Network With Oprah’s View” both by Brian Stelter. Instead of giving summaries, I’m going to give some important points about OWN.

Oprah Has Planned This For a Long Time

Often celebrities are approached to simply give their name to a product. Even if some of those celebrities may have always wanted to enter into such a venture, most have not prepared for it. Oprah is a different story. According to “Oprah’s Network is Her Highest Hurdle”, she thought up OWN in 1992. She previous attempted a move into cable as the co-founder of Oxygen network. That didn’t go well for her and it was sold to NBC Universal. According to Oprah, the experience taught her: “don’t partner when you’re not allowed to be in charge and make a decision”. And in 2007, she partnered with Discovery to mold OWN. This has been a well establish goal and she has made efforts to make it happen.

Russia Wanted a Makeover, an Ad Makeover

Does a country need an ad/marketing agency? I didn’t think so until I read “Selling the World on Russia (Leaving Out the Spies)” by Andrew Kramer. It turns out that Russian Officials were so concerned about it’s worldly image and the affect the image had on opportunities that, a few years, they hired various agencies to work on this image. The article profiled one of those agencies, Adore Creative, and Rupert Wainwright's, its CEO, adventure working with Russia.  Adore Creative’s job was to create a video for the 2013 World University Games, the 2014 Winter Olympics,  and the 2018 World Cup, three videos in total.

Russia wanted to shed the stereotypical images of its country. Wainwright wanted to “normalize” the country within the ads because “If people see that sense of normalness, he said, ‘the country will de-demonize itself’” But it wasn’t so simple for Wainwright. The Russian Officials were zealous on shedding Cold War images that their idea for the Olympic video was “a black-and-white montage of post-Soviet street protests and the Berlin Wall falling down…”, not very appealing as a promotional video. They also wanted to include a host of their philosophical ideas and imagery. Wainwright eventually worked with the tough demeanor of the officials to create videos which, along with the other work from the other agencies, helped Russia to earn rights to host all three of the games they submitted videos to.

The article presents a country as a client as a potential clash of ideals and a challenge for the agency.  Having contributed to Russia’s win to host all games is an accomplishment for Russia and the ad/marketing agencies which took them as a client. Wainwright stuck well to his guns; giving the Russian officials what they hired Adore Creative for, the ability to host three international games, three opportunities for Russia to reshape its image on a Worldly stage.

Economy Got You Thinking about Direct Sales?

In this tough economic climate or, at any time, in which you felt light pockets, direct sales may have crossed your mind. Maybe not that exact term, but you might think of someone who sells Avon, Mary Kay, or any other product which is sold door to door, through personal contact, and/ or sell “parties”. Direct sales have a mystery to it. On one hand, those recruiting sellers boast the flexibility and lucrative income. On the other hand, some direct sellers do it as extra income, which questions if it is lucrative enough to be the main source of income. Michelle Goodman peeled back a little of the mystery in her article “Direct Sales: Golden Opportunity or Hype?” on Entrepreneur.com.

The article starts with a profile of direct salesman, Elvi Valenzuela who, within two years of joining his mother in direct sales, makes $12,000 a month.  Success? Well, according to the article, Valenzuela works 40 hours a week and just started to make the income he reported. Amy Robinson, spokesperson for Direct Sales Association states: “the median income for direct sellers is about $2,400 a year” or $200 a month.

Goodman gives three guidelines to think about when concerning direct sales:

Be Realistic about Sales

Set Your Own Hours

Weed Out the Scams

The conclusion about direct sales: it is hard work and will take time to build towards a lucrative income, if one is possible. There is no legal magic product that will give you the income often thought of for direct sellers. So, if you plan on venturing into the field and want to successful, plan on staying for a while.

AT&T + iPhone = The Worst Carrier

AT&T is now the worst carrier. Or, so Consumer Reports says. Today, I was informed so by the article of the same leading sentence from cnnmoney.com.  Almost half of the AT&T subscribers surveyed are iPhone users. Most of them stated the most dissatisfaction. This being sad news considering the mobile carrier gains “2.6 million wireless customers last quarter, half of whom were new iPhone customers”.

What I fail to understand is why AT&T did not come out on top considering the near perfect conditions? While all companies were preparing for touch screen phones, Apple was the first to premiere their iPhone, to great fanfare. This grand premiere was exclusively granted to AT&T followed by the next models and the new iPhone 4. The article stated about 6 million AT&T subscribers are iPhone users. 6 million new customers, within the last three years, all because AT&T had the iPhone. So what does AT&T do with exclusive rights and millions of new customers? They provide mediocre service. Their service fails to match up with the technology of the iPhone. Thus, their biggest critic becomes these users.

AT&T’s Response:

"We take this seriously and we continually look for new ways to improve the customer experience," said Fletcher Cook, spokesman for AT&T.

It might be too late. It might be three years and millions of angry iPhone users too late. In 2011, in a few months, Verizon will sell the iPhone. While AT&T iPhone customers defect and Verizon gains new subscribers, the rest of the cell phone industry and customers will scratch their head wondering the reasons AT&T failed on a great opportunity.