A Republican political branding group, Strategic Perception Inc., is working on releasing a ton of anti-Obama salvo in September or so in the form of a film titled “Next,” in an effort to make the president look as bad as humanly possible — bringing up such good memories as Jeremiah Wright and the one time that he shook hands with the Russian president. (The voiceover they want to use? Jon Voight.) But Republican ad strategist Fred Davis, working with TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, didn’t count on one thing: The New York Times got a hold of it first. Read the whole document describing the ad. It’s comedic.
In the U.S. we were very, very successful coming from the core enterprise business, and in the public opinion this is still where we’re skewed to. We need to be more marketing-driven. We need to be more consumer-oriented because this is where a lot of our growth is coming from. That is essential in the U.S.Research in Motion’s new CEO, Thorsten Heins • Discussing the difficult issues the company faces as it tries to compete with Apple and Google in a field that they popularized with the BlackBerry: Smartphones. Heins, the former Chief Operating Officer, replaced the company’s two co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, who stepped down over the weekend. It has not exactly been the best year for RIM — to call the company’s tablet, the PlayBook, a flop would be putting it lightly, as its failure cost the company nearly half a billion dollars last year. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg in terms of their problems. source (via • follow)
Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, one-man wrecking crew: Kaczynski managed to unearth a 200-page booklet with all of John McCain’s talking points against Mitt Romney in 2008. While RedState.com had part of it, this is the first time the whole thing’s showed up online. Opposition researchers, time to jump in. (via Reuters)
» Why is the PlayBook flopping? If you asked RIM, you’d get an answer that sounds pretty jargon-y: “Recent shifts in the competitive dynamics of the tablet market and a delay in the release of the PlayBook OS 2.0 software.” Here’s the English version of that answer: “The iPad, the Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire.” But that’s just us talking. Meanwhile, RIM has been trimming the price of the PlayBook from an absurd $500 to as low as $199 — in part to clear inventory for the next version of the device, though we’re guessing the fact that other seven-inch tablets are selling for roughly that price doesn’t help.
Heavily-discounted BlackBerry Playbook disappears from online listings, orders cancelled: Sounds like RIM didn’t learn a lesson from the whole HP Touchpad debacle.
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