Sushi Money

***Update #2: 3/10/08*** I never managed to use MyBlogLog more easily, or efficiently. It was a fun tool for a while, but I stopped using it altogether a couple months ago. These days I see more anonymous smiley faces, and the changes they are making to MyBlogLog are only getting more complicated. It’s a shame, but I’m back to my original premise- Yahoo screwed up another company after the acquisition.

*** Update#1 10/20/07 *** After receiving a note from MyBlogLog, apparently I am mistaken about the avatar showing up only when being logged into Yahoo. I certainly apologize for the mistake. Must be my cookie settings then… but I still haven’t figured it out. If it works as seamlessly as before, I may start using it again! We’ll see… Thanks for the heads up guys.

Time for a Monday morning rant… a few thoughts on acquisitions. Someone help me understand why companies that acquire other companies so often screw up the merger? Probably has a lot to do with why they sought a merger in the first place, and a lack of appreciation for other corporate cultures. Sometimes they don’t screw it up, but just want to remove the competition and increase market penetration, aka the Whole Foods and Wild Oats combination. Usually a merger has more to do with Aristotle’s theme of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. In other words, a synergy that wouldn’t be found otherwise. But I’ve got to wonder why companies screw it up so often!

One merger that always bothered me was the Yahoo acquisition of Geocities back in 1999. I think Yahoo paid something like $3.6 Billion dollars for Geocities… isn’t that amazing! Part of the hype of the dot-com boom, but Geocities is now a forgotten netherland. Why? Because Yahoo screwed it up… I remember Geocities very well. I was a neophyte web page writer looking for tools and ideas for developing web pages. People were crazy for Geocities, almost like the MySpace or Facebook of today. What did Yahoo do in all their brilliance? They tried to rebrand Geocities with the Yahoo brand, and in so doing removed just about every vestige of wonderful, unique buzz and excitement from Geocities itself. In other words, Yahoo tried to cram Geocities into a Yahoo flavored site that totally changed the user experience. Within a week of the changes, I had given up Geocities forever, as did millions of other people over the subsequent years.

This is not to say Yahoo has not succeeded with many of its acquisitions, because it has. But someone tell me why they don’t recognize the inherent beauty and unique culture that a company brings to the table when they are about to acquire them? It’s not about making them your own. It is about providing a capitalized opportunity for them to continue to grow and expand! One of the blog world’s fledgling success stories recently was MyBlogLog. A new kind of social-media branding experience that put a face to bloggers and visitors, and created a synergy that expanded the user experience.

Yahoo recently acquired MyBlogLog, but guess what? They’re doing it again. Last month, without notification, all MyBlogLog users were required to log into the site with their Yahoo ID and password! Bam! It changed that quickly… if you didn’t have a Yahoo user id and password you had to create one. The transition was pretty seamless, but guess what? Now if you want to remain logged in to MyBlogLog and have your neat picture id pop-up on various blogs or web sites, you have to remain logged in to the Yahoo service continuously. (Not according to MyBlogLog- I’ll keep working on it). And I can’t stand that idea! I have a Yahoo id, well now I have two of them. The one I had before, and my new one for the MyBlogLog id because I didn’t want to use my other one. But I don’t want to stay logged in to Yahoo! So what does this result in? I don’t use MyBlogLog anymore. Period. And that is a darn shame, because it had a charm and momentum that was unique to itself. Yahoo has now Geocitied MyBlogLog, and it won’t ever be the same.

I’m not trying to be a stick-in-the-mud about the whole thing, I just think that companies can acquire another company and make it more successfull without trying to mold it into something it’s not. To Yahoo’s credit with MyBlogLog they are not changing the theme and working elements thus far. Except that my picture id was lost in the transition, but that’s not a big deal since I can load a new one… which I haven’t done yet… I wonder how many other people have stopped using MyBlogLog? If I’m ever in a position to acquire another company I swear I’m going to help them “be all they can be” and take my time working with the branding aspect. If you’re going to pay top dollar, or any dollar, it’s important to remember why you liked the company in the first place.

P.S. The MyBlogLog widget I’ve got in the sidebar? After Yahoo’s new id requirement, the visits slowed way down, and are now slowly changing to anonymous faces.

P.S.S. If this thing succeeds wildly in the years ahead, I’ll be the first to say I was wrong!

     This post is going under my Dog Blogging category… named after my goofy, lovable Yellow Lab.   He means well, and even when he chews up one of my favorite shoes, he tries really hard to do the right thing.  I learned a good lesson today with blogging… if you’re using an RSS and/or email subscription service (e.g. FeedBurner), make sure that you check the service every now and then to see if it’s still working!   I put up an email subscription form a few weeks ago on the right sidebar to help keep things quick and simple.  After checking it today?  It wasn’t working!  Ugh… so if you have tried to sign up via email, I offer my humble apology. The subscription via email is working fine now… apparently Feedburner modified their code and I had to replace it. 

   With that in mind, please join me on this great journey and subscribe to the email updates. I would love to increase the readership and continue our dialogue on personal finance.  If you have any suggestions or input, please contact me with the form above, or through comments. I would love to hear from you!

    Humility is a wonderful thing… it keeps us balanced, it keeps us honest, and reminds us not to take life- or blogging- too seriously.  A kind reader sent me a contact form reply that the comments were not working.  Hmmm… I don’t know how long they have not been working! It could have been since the theme change, or it could have been weeks or more.  I think I had removed various plugins, or configured some incorrectly- but in any event I’ve tweaked them and the comments appear to be working normally again.  Another lesson that shows how we can go about our lives blindly unaware of some simple aspect of ourselves or our work… but so often when we least expect it, we find knowledge and awareness from somewhere else.   I think of my Lab pup at the times I feel silly- he doesn’t ask for much, just a little time to play and be friends.   One of my favorite quotes:

“The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.”     Samuel Butler

I hope my readers can be as forgiving!  Besides, it seems we have something in common, the dog and I… we’ve both been chasing our tail for weeks now… :)   With that in mind, I christen a new category and term for foolish, funny, silly or downright goofy blogging mistakes… Dog Blogging!

Or maybe a little longer I spent the past few days changing and updating the theme for Sushi Money… It’s not quite there yet, but offers a little more flexibility. But what a learning curve! Especially with various plugins and modifications to the theme for images. I came across a great post from Vandelay Design on How to Successfully Switch Your WordPress Theme Without Throwing Your Computer Through the Window. I should have read this before changing themes… its a great post. The recommendation to test your site in multiple browsers is right on- subtle colors and CSS layouts can render differently, which you can then modify to suit your taste. Fortunately WordPress makes the process pretty simple overall. Any feedback is appreciated… and I’ll keep working to make it better!