Poker Ponzi Schemes, TV Emmy Winners, Obama: Peace Is Hard Work, X-Factor vs. American Idol, Red Head Sperm: What your business can learn from online poker, TV and politics

Posted by Salem Global on Sep 21, 2011

So it turns out that some of the top poker players in the world have ponzi schemed or embezzeled or stolen over $400 million dollars from innocnet gamblers straight from their homes. You can read the story here from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/us-poker-fraud-idUSTRE78J5II20110920 But seriously folks, a gambler is SUPPOSED to cheat you and bluff you out of your money. I don’t think they did anything wrong here. All of those people gambled and they lost. Let’s move on from this. I have lost too much money at the poker table (and I would like to think that I have won just as much) to be really worried about all this nonsense.

 

And – Drumroll please…. The winners of this years top Emmy awards for television go to:

Drama Series: Mad Men

Comedy Series: Modern Family

Drama Actor: Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights)

Drama Actress: Julianna Margulies (Good Wife)

Comedy Actor: Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory)

Comedy Actress: Melissa McCarthy (Mike & Molly)

 

My impression of the above? 80′s TV ruled! Bring back the 80′s. (Fine so I haven’t really watched TV since 1988 but that’s besides the point. I am sure these are all good shows. And if they are really great and I have nothing better to do with my time I will take them out of the library on commercial free DVD or stream them down from netflix or something else. Until then, I would rather be playing poker…

 

But then again, if you are Simon Cowell, you are really hoping that more people will watch X-factor instead of American Idol. Then again, I think he makes plenty of money regardless of what you watch…

 

And if you are in New York this week, the United Nations is having their general assembly. Today, President Barack Obama told the world that “Peace is hard work.” I happen to agree with him but I find it funny that people just take a soundbite and run with it. So if you do a search for “obama peace is hard work” you get an equal amount of people who are saying that its true vs. not true. Anti-Israel. Anti-Palestinian. Anti-America. Who the hell is anti-peace? No one…. but everyone has their ideas about how our world should look and feel. You can read more here: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46343 They were the #1 spot for the search above… the real winners are the search engines. And then some off the wall character got the #1 video spot but I don’t want to promote that right here right now. But good for him for getting the top video.

 

On a lighter note, I just wanted to end with this story: http://www.channel4.com/news/row-over-sperm-banks-rejection-of-red-headed-donors Though Danish sperm banks don’t want red heads, it turns out that New Yorkers do…

 

So what can your business learn from the above? Well, you might think that you shouldn’t gamble but I disagree. As a business owner I take risks every day, week, month and year. You can’t tell whether to spend more money on HR, technology, marketing, advertising, real estate etc. etc. So you have to test the waters. You have to invest in your future. Sure you can do it with less risk but that is all up to the individual or board of the company. As for Obama and peace – both sides have to take risks. It’s the only way. And as for TV and Emmy’s. Every actor makes a choice and a decision what auditions to go out for and what to reject. Ashton Kutcher is sitting on a heap of money right now with Two and Half Men because Charlie Sheen decided to smoke crack instead of just put his 1.8 million dollars into the bank or real estate or the stock market. Good for you Ashton. Better for you Demi Moore Want to know more about TV, poker, politics website marketing???? Call Raphi Salem at 212-222-3292 or email him at info@salemglobal.com for more info.

 

Japan’s Nuclear Issues, Obama, US Launches Military Action Against Libya, Is No News Bad News? SES: What your business can learn from silence and social media

Posted by Salem Global on Mar 22, 2011

Our sympathies continue to go out to close to 10,000 dead as a result of last week’s tsunami off the coast of Japan. I also heard that another 12,000 are missing. That doesn’t sound good.

The fact that nuclear reactors are melting and sending radiation into the earth and air mean problems for everyone near the reactor, in Japan, close to Japan and around the world. My understanding of the situation is that all of these workers were trying to save the reactor because its not only worth billions of dollars but also generates billions of dollars every year. It probably saves the country billions in energy costs as well. Not to mention how the military uses nuclear plants is beyond me. Regardless, these are the stories you will not hear on the evening news. Various bloggers and pundits will give their opinions but no one really knows what’s going on except the government and the people on the ground. Good luck to all of us seeing how this will all fallout. We know what happened in Chernobyl 25 years later and its not pretty. Of course you have to go down the mountain to go up the next one. We as a world will globally understand more about earthquakes, tsunamis and their relationship to our environment after this tragedy.

And then there is Libya. Who knows what’s going on there? All of a sudden Obama wakes up one day and decides that enough is enough. Come on people. Why do we pick and choose who to pick on, who to deal with and when do we turn our cheeks?

Thanks to social media and the Internet we have a better understanding of what is going on behind the scenes. Now that everyone has a cellphone with a camera built in we can get news instantly.

So I ask the question; Is no news good news or bad news? Clearly if civilians and reporters (who skew the news anyway) can’t get to a scene, there is something missing.

SES – search engine strategies is the trade show for my industry. Internet marketing at its finest. Software, hardware, marketing companies. You name it, we are all in New York, NY this week at the Hilton Hotel at 1335 Avenue of the Americas. Wanna meet? Just email me and lets get together. Want to know more about me, my company, internet strategies, social media and lead generation? Give us a call at 212-222-3292.