I rented and watched a movie last night called "Russian Ark". I feel compelled to inform you that it was one of the most mind-blowing movies I've ever seen.

I just stumbled across the DVD by accident in the "special interest" section. On the cover was typed a blurb from an Ebert review quite effusive in its praise. The cover's picture framed dancers in what looks to be 18th century attire, and a promise that the last scene is worth the whole movie. "Hmm.. sounds pretty good", said a little voice in my head.

My assessment in the store was a gross understatement. This movie was far beyond "pretty good" though was not at all what I expected. I thought I would be seeing a period piece of some sort set in Russia, perhaps involving intrigue or scandal. There were some elements of intrigue but they are presented by one of the most ingenious concepts ever executed on film.

The movie has no "plot" per se. Its cast consists of one or two actors and some 2000 extras. I later found out that it took 4 years of planning to pull off director Alexander Sukarov's vision. That is because Sukarov would only be granted access to the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, where the entire movie is filmed, for 36 hours. His plan was to make the film using a single camera, producing a 96-minute, uninterrupted shot. The shot had to be planned and rehearsed in excruciating detail well before the director would ever shout "action."

The result is stunning. The art alone, pictured in almost every sequence, is worth the entire movie. Three hundred years of Russian history is stored in the former "Winter Palace" and we are given a look at it, including original Rubens, Van Dycks, mind-blowing sculptures that have to be seen to be believed and the architecture of the palace itself - far beyond my ability to describe it justly.

Fairly early in the movie we are taken through a hall that looks like it was intended to be a copy of the Vatican while the main character, seemingly back in St. Petersburg as some sort of ghost, tells the voice behind the camera that the Russians were excellent copiers (to the mild disdain of the proud Russian we never see but can "hear" behind the camera). The two walk from room to room and slip from century to century - evidenced by occupants they pass, interact with or ignore - and not in any particular chronological order.

The dialog between them is sparse, wry and informative (and in Russian, thus the necessity of subtitles) of the various eras through which they pass. To call this an educational film however would hardly be fair. It is actually a directorial masterwork. Even the brilliantly-costumed extras play their parts perfectly, paying no attention whatsoever to the camera and sometimes not even to the two main characters, though when they do interact with "the European" the result is sublime.

In the final "scene" we are treated to a magnificent ball replete with an orchestra and dancers and party-goers who seem to transport us back in time. It feels as if we're spying on an actual historical event rather than a mere re-enactment. This probably has a lot to do with the setting. It is, after all, against this magnificent backdrop that the entire movie scene is filmed. The real star of this movie is the Hermitage museum and when the movie was over I wanted to watch it again.

The matter of torture has been discussed over the past several years in connection with its use as a "tool" in the "Global War on Terror" or the "Overseas Contingency Operation" as it has now been called. Dick Cheney has been recently making rounds in an attempt to salvage some credibility and to fuel the partisan fire. Those he represents need to keep their justifications for torture at the forefront of the public mind and desire to gain political capital by implying that the Obama administration is faulty because it will not use this much-needed tool to "keep America safe".  Even that may be disingenuous on Cheney's part since Obama's executive orders appear to provide ample loopholes of their own.

Unfortunately, the discussion of torture has revolved only around its alleged utility and which particular acts technically constitute torture. Perhaps we can blame the lawyers for this. When George Bush and Dick Cheney decided that torturing people was necessary, they sought counsel from government attorneys. They desired to find a legal loophole allowing them to employ extraordinary interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists. Historically, torture has been a very effective way to obtain guilty pleas from all manner of suspects whether or not they were in fact guilty. Who needs any evidence when you can use this wonderful means of getting people to implicate themselves and anyone else you desire? If we could only ask the women and men of Salem if the information they elicited under torture was true and reliable, we could dispense with some of these boring discussions.

Thanks to the intellectuals in media we are subjected to questions such as,  "Is waterboarding torture?" Perhaps there are some who can honestly claim that there is an objective and rational argument that it isn't, but the CIA didn't just use waterboarding. They also, according to some who were "renditioned", sliced prisoners genitals with a scalpel. What other techniques were used without any public knowledge? We know that the military admitted there were at least 34 homocides during prisoner interrogations so it wouldn't be unreasonable to conclude that waterboarding was the least of the torture techniques used on suspected terrorists. How much information does a dead prisoner volunteer anyway?

While an elite group of historically, morally and constitutionally-challenged lawyers may have drafted a few briefs, it was the Bush administration which sought this legal counsel. Clearly they weren't interested in any arguments contrary to their plans. So we can't merely blame lawyers for presenting torturous legal arguments in favor of almost-torture to "defend Amurikah."

In spite of the obviously tyrannical nature of the Bush administration, the mainstream media acted as its unpaid PR firm by keeping the conversation focused on the minutiae of definitions. Waterboarding is torture though the name by which it was once commonly known has fallen out of favor. Perhaps it was sensitivity to WWII vets, tortured in this fashion, which brought about the new name. During their era the torture technique was called "The Water Cure". Japanese practitioners of the water cure were convicted of torture and executed after WWII, so of what consequence is a morally-depraved lawyer or Vice President's opinion that the practice is acceptable and legal?

However, the Bush administration didn't just settle for a re-definition of torture. Persons caught up in their sadistic scheme were claimed to be, rather than persons, suspects or defendants, "enemy combatants" and detained on foreign soil. In their eyes, they could act outside the boundaries of the Constitution, in spite of their public oaths promising otherwise, because they had placed these prisoners where the Constitution allegedly did not apply.

They do have a legal precedent for this, no matter how morally flawed it may be.

The Dred Scot decision was instrumental in re-defining the words "the people" from their obvious English meanings to a bastardized form of legalese which meant 'citizen'. Justice Taney, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of a black man roaming the country while not on a leash, grasped at a straw and denied Dred Scot his freedom by claiming he was not a citizen. This decision had the convenient future legal justification for the government to ignore the Constitution when operating in foreign countries. The Dred Scot decision has never been overturned. In fact, it was re-affirmed only 28 years ago in US. v Verdugo-Urquidez wherein Justice Rehnquist claimed that "the people" was a "term of art" alluding to citizens, thus denying foreign defendants certain rights.

As bizarre as the logic was, Rehnquist couldn't bring himself to render the term "person" to mean citizen:


This "failure" of Rehnquist was the Bush administration's bane for which they required a final loophole.

The Bush administration had redefined certain techniques as being just shy of torture, made sure not to keep any suspect on US soil when possible and then, the pièce de résistance, refused to accuse them of any crimes. In this fashion they could deny them constitutionally-protected rights that even Rehnquist acknowledged were not limited to citizens including Habeus Corpus beause they weren't "accused". No rights are limited to mere citizens in actuality. As was stated in the Declaration of Independence, our rights are endowed by virtue of birth, not by legislative folly.

Had anyone in the media investigated the reasoning behind the fifth amendment's addition to the constitution, the American public might not have had to suffer through these torturous terms of art. It was added to prevent the then-common practice of torture to coerce defendants into incriminating themselves.

The genesis of the fifth amendment coincides with the settling of Plymouth by the Puritans who sought asylum from a tyrannical British government. John Lilburne, a terrorist to the British government, was a Puritan and one of the most famous defendants subjected to the Star Chamber. Liburne was persecuted almost his entire life by the British government for his belief and advocation of the rights of man by birthright rather than government decree. His tenacity, in one case while publicly flogged he turned the ordeal into an anti-government rally, inspired his fellow Britons to nick-name him "Freeborn John." He pushed for a written constitution in England and his drafts and final version were inspirations to the founding fathers. His importance with regard to the bill of rights and fifth amendment specifically have been acknowledged in several important Supreme Court decisions including the Miranda decision.

The practice of torture to extract confessions of criminal acts and even heresy, was commonplace during Lilburne's time and even made its way to the North American continent. The constitution, which conferred no power to the federal government to engage in the practice and explicitly forbid it to do so by way of the fifth amendmnent, abolished not only torture but denied authority to compel a defendant to testify at all in his own trial.

Yet today, the media and a good number of politicians allegedly bound by oath to that same constitution, argue that utility and safety demand we allow our government to use 'extraordinary means' to coerce people into admitting guilt before they have even been charged with a crime. Laying aside any argument that certain coercive interrogation techniques are torture, the government has no authority to use any coercive means to extract a confession or incriminating testimony. Since all categories of coercion are forbidden, the argument over whether or not waterboarding is torture is rendered utterly moot.

The neocons have argued (and still do argue) that torture should be allowed in order to protect us all from "extremists", but in their haste have failed to consider (either purposefully or accidentally) what might happen if they were themselves deemed "enemy combatants" or extremists by their own government.

Now that is bad enough to make one nauseus. However, when you consider the number of people tortured and imprisoned by the US government since 2003, without any possibility of legal recourse or release, it is hard not to conclude that those responsible, from the President to the morally deficient prison guards, need to have their roles immediately reversed. What they have wrought is criminal in nature and lesser criminals have reaped the death penalty. The people locked up in the various detention facilities deserve justice as much as any "citizen" of these United States but the current administration is apparently in no mood to serve up any justice. It is, however, perfectly willing to serve up more torturous terms of art.

In another example of how the media is just an unpaid PR arm for the government, this Australian headline was shared by an Aussie friend on face book: "Hunt for 22 on Mexico flu flight"

Not too far down the page we can find this perfect little gem of government disrespect for the people they claim to protect.

"Australian health authorities were given sweeping powers to forcibly detain and isolate suspected carriers late yesterday."

Elsewhere, it's reported that North Carolina health officials are putting their citizens under forced quarantine - essentially a house arrest.

And over what? Apparently only 18 of the 200 that have died in Mexico city have been tested and definitively connected to this "new" flu strain. The CDC claims that 30-40,000 people die in this country from flu. But so far, nobody in any country outside Mexico has died from the misnamed swine flu. Yet public health authorities are panicking and asking us to panic right along with them. How panicky is enough? Why that it will be just perfect for them if you give them broad police powers that allow them to detain you, lock you up and inject you with whatever medication will enrich their big-Pharma benefactors.

From The Nuremberg Diary by Gustave Gilbert.

“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.” - American Marketing Association (2004)

The term "mobile marketing" has been used widely, but as mobile device technology continues to evolve, its meaning becomes less and less clear. As early as 2004, when it became obvious that consumers were embracing smart phones, academia was beginning to question(pdf) whether or not the term mobile marketing would retain any meaning over the long term.

With the introduction of smart phones, there has been a divergence in the use of the term. Before smartphones were available, it was generally limited to include text message advertising but even so, falls well short of describing what actually occurs when SMS messaging is used to market a product or service.

After smartphones became available, the term became even less clear. Its use now includes the smartphones themselves, the operating systems and applications available to smart phone owners. Indeed, if you read 10 articles about mobile marketing you may find that only 1 or 2 refer to the same subject matter. This is bad news for industry advocates and those seeking to introduce their brand via cell phones.

To make matters even more confusing, if one were to judge by the sheer volume of news stories and blog articles about smart phones, one could easily come to the conclusion that there are far more smart phones in use than there are in reality.

For firms interested in finding out about mobile marketing, the lack of clarity can be a source of confusion. A simple inquiry can raise more questions than it answers. Just what is mobile marketing? How does my company get involved? What type of campaign will result in the greatest ROI?

Forget The Hype, For Now

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the iPhone hype, Apple announced at the recent MacWorld expo that it, so far, sold 4 million units . Let's put this into perspective. It is estimated that as of 2007 over half of the world's population has a cellphone, or roughly 3.3 billion cell phones in use. The iPhone will definitely expand its market share, but it only represents a little over 1% of the total market at this time. The RIM Blackberry is now in the hands of about 12 million which represents a higher market share but still only about 3% of the total market.

Depending on your business this may not discourage you from targeting smartphone users exclusively, but most businesses do not have the luxury of such exclusivity.

The vast majority of cell phone users own a device which can only make calls and send and receive text messages.

SMS Is Still King

Even smartphones have embraced SMS by introducing qwerty keyboards in some form or another. SMS messaging, or "texting" is not declining with the introduction of smartphones but continues to increase at a rate faster than email rates. 97% of all phones in the US have SMS capabilities and 50% have browsers.

Clearly, based on the available data, marketing to cell phone users via text messaging and WAP/browser represents the largest potential audience.

Convenient Interaction

Marketing to Mobile (M2M) using SMS has netted companies something they have never been able to accomplish using traditional media advertising. In the strictest sense of the word, SMS campaigns go far beyond advertising.

Traditional advertising campaigns represent a constant source of missed opportunities. Since most media campaigns are targeted in publications or shows to which a particular demographic audience has access, the advertiser relies on repetition in order to embed his brand in the consumer's memory.

With SMS, the advertiser has an opportunity to put the brand right in the customer's hand at the earliest opportunity. In addition, because SMS campaigns are able to deliver contextual information based on the customer's input, there are no missed opportunities. The consumer is engaged from the moment of his first response. Advertising campaigns are transformed from a perpetual missed opportunity to a marketing opportunity.

How SMS Marketing Changes the Game

Consider the most famous mobile marketing campaign apart from the Obama campaign, American Idol. AT&T recently announced that the American Idol SMS voting campaign shattered all previous records and generated a staggering 78 Million SMS messages during the last season.

Fox used SMS messaging to give viewers a way to interact with their programming. In this particular case, viewers could vote for their favorite contestant. This engagement has boosted the show's ratings to the number one show on television among several demographic splits.

Fox Sports allows users to also use texting to interact with live talk-show broadcasts by voting or even sending in comments. Jim Rome now reads almost as many "text hits" on his show as he does emails. Allowing customers to interact has been a boost to the brands that have adopted interaction. The rise of talk-radio can be attributed to its interactive nature.

Obviously, talk-radio and television represent a small minority of businesses. However, SMS offers business a unique opportunity to become interactive with its customer base and it can do so without having to hire a 24/7 call center staff to make this happen.

Recruiting and SMS Marketing

So, how can companies take advantage of SMS marketing? One approach is to use SMS as a business automation platform for recruiting. It especially makes sense for companies seeking to fill hourly positions.

There are approximately 76 Million hourly workers in the US. Retail, food service and hospitality turnover rates are anywhere between 100-130%. The business costs of filling these positions - planning, advertising, screening interviewing - are hard to quantify but are significant nonetheless. SMS marketing offers a unique way to reach potential employees while significantly reducing the cost of providing information back to applicants. Coupled with mobile web sites which deliver standardized job applications and contact forms, SMS becomes a very powerful medium with which to recruit and track applicants.

It also offers a sales channel that you may not have considered: your own customers. If you have a public establishment, your customers could be one of your best marketing channels. Parents with college-age sons and daughters looking for work can easily forward your recruiting text message to them. Virtually any shopper who knows somebody looking for work or who frequents an establishment is a potential marketing channel.

SMS' viral nature cannot be overstated. It is the ultimate in social media as it doesn't require special software or hardware that isn't already available on almost all of the cell phones that your customers possess.

While there may be opportunities for companies to market to customers using targeted to the variety of smart phone operating systems, it will be quite a while before this provides a significant return on investment.

I think so. I haven't looked to see who else agrees with this but in looking at Twitter's API and the number of clients that have sprung up, I am certain that we will soon see the browser's demise - for the most part. I imagine that there will be some use for browsers but specialization appears to be on the rise.

TweetDeck and Twhirl are specific to twitter but look also at "Spotify" - similar to itunes - which opts for a specialized client rather than a browser interface.

This may seem counter-intuitive. Who wants to run 5 applications in order to get access to web apps? The problem is that HTML over httpd is so limiting and challenging to engineering teams, that it actually may make sense to spend time supplying clients that work on different platforms rather than wading through css hell just to make an app look and act the same for the variety of browsers available.

What may end up driving a move to specialized client development is smart-phone adoption. If you think the time and effort required to deal with IE vs Firefox is bad, try developing an app that works well on a mobile browser. With most of the 2.0 applications making heavy use of image buttons, javascript and CSS - which is spotty at best on a mobile browser, it makes little sense to spend time on such efforts until mobile browsers evolve. But why do it at all when you could simply develop an app native to the mobile device that does the same thing without having to deal with css or javascript?

This translates well to the PC. With broadband access becoming ubiquitous, we may see the end of the stateless web app. Really, the only thing preventing stateful apps from being developed was the HPPD protocol - which insists that everything delivered over the internet be ASCII - and the limited bandwidth available on the internet. That is obviously changing rapidly and broadband cell networks such as 3G and the smartphones which connect to them are pushing us closer and closer to a time when the browser may be a dinosaur rotting in the La Brea tar pits right beside the 56k modem.

Somebody sent this to me via email. Love it.