How hard is it to get Drizzy Drake, the hottest young artist in hip-hop to shoot a commercial?  How about LeBron James, the most famous basketball player in the world? Drake has already done commercials for Sprite, Lebron for State Farm, among others. What about Kim Kardashian? Paris Hilton? President Barack Obama?! I could keep going. The point is these are people who have massive audiences, influence, and are some of the biggest trend setters in the world. When they pick up or endorse a product, it makes waves.  And somehow RIM has no idea what to do with that opportunity.

Apple is the company of cool. Steve Jobs is ultra-cool with that black turtleneck and his followers eat up every word he says. Jobs successfully turned Apple into a company that can cost more than all of its competitors and still attract a heavy customer base. Because Apple has the cool, sleek products. Many people, dedicated Apple users included, don’t know what the iPad is for, but that doesn’t matter. Apple made it. That means we buy it. Google is a marketing company above everything else. They became who they are by building an advertising empire and so it is no surprise that they have flooded the market with devices running their Android OS.

RIM does not have an innovation problem. They are not an old company set in their ways. They just have no idea how to sell a product. For years nearly all of their business was conducted without so much as one television commercial for the general public to view. Then one day they woke up and realized that the consumer market was ripe for the picking. The only problem was that companies like Apple and Google made the same observation and the consumer market is their bread and butter.

RIM has to adapt, quickly. Hire a firm that can breath some life into their campaigns. Anything to connect the dots. I’m not saying their phones couldn’t upgrade a feature or two to make them more attractive. But across the board every phone has glaring deficiencies. This is a battle of tactics. Who can reach the masses with the most attractive sales pitch. What device offers the widest appeal. The world’s most influential say the answer is BlackBerry. How does RIM tell the world the answer is BlackBerry? I hope they figure out the answer.

Money never sleeps – Gordon Gekko(Wall Street)

It seems like just yesterday that I was a 17 year old high school student. I don’t remember too much of the classroom part. But outside of my pursuits for higher learning I was beginning to make moves with my first born, MidStateHoops.com. At the time we were just two young kids who were excited to be doing something we loved; closely following the game of basketball. We were unconcerned with everything other than being the best in our field. No other goals existed and we did almost no reflecting on some of the cool things we accomplished. In lieu of the most recent NBA Draft I thought now would be a good time to finally to a bit of reflection.

My partner and I were less than a year into the venture when I had the opportunity to do some work for Rivals.com(Yahoo! acquired Rivals.com for $100 million in 2007). Among the stories I wrote for them were features on Evan Turner and Patrick Patterson. After successful collegiate careers, both Patterson and Turner were selected early in the first round of the 2010 NBA Draft two weeks ago. Turner was selected #2 to the Philadelphia 76ers and Patterson #14 by the Houston Rockets.

It’s funny how things develop over time. Turner was a rising player on the state scene at the time of my article. But was only considered by most the second best player on his own team(Westchester St. Joseph) to Demetri McCamey. We at MSH knew he was special and were the first to put him ahead of McCamey and behind Derrick Rose. At the time people said we were crazy. But time has shown us to be correct. The interesting part about that story is Evan quotes nearly a dozen schools, non of which were Ohio State where he would eventually land and become one of the greatest Buckeyes ever.

A similar situation goes for the Patrick Patterson Q&A I conducted. He listed Kentucky among numerous others but did not even have an offer from them yet. He also said Wake Forest and Virginia Tech were his leaders. Patterson was certainly a larger star by comparison to Turner in high school. He was the state of Virginia Mr. Basketball and the state’s headliner until OJ Mayo arrived to play alongside him at Huntington. Turner on the other hand climbed from the bottom out of obscurity and into stardom. In either event, nothing is a sure thing at the prep level. A guy who is great in high school can fizzle out in college.

No such case for either of these two players though. They both went on to do great things and disappointed absolutely nobody. Despite the number of schools that pursued Turner, I believe that he still managed to exceed anybody’s expectations winding up where he did over the course of his career and now being the #2 pick in his draft class. The story of the class of 2007 in Illinois was Derrick Rose and not much else.

Looking back, Evan Turner was extremely humble and Patrick Patterson was experiencing growing pains en route to maturing into a fine young adult. 5 years later Evan is every bit as humble as he was and Patterson became the example of a stand-up student-athlete. Both of these guys got to where they are because of their mentality towards the game, and their work ethic. If you have ever watched either play then you know nothing is flashy or fancy about them. They just put their heads down and get results. Look for more of the same in the NBA.

As I reviewed for Lurk99Cents.com:

The debut LP from Drizzy Drake is one of the most anticipated of the year across any genre and probably the most anticipated hip-hop release since Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3 in November 2009. Needless to say, I have been anxious to hear it since I heard So Far Gone(the original) in early 2009. While the album isn’t everything I hoped it would be, it is far from a disappointment and if it were released by anybody with less expectations than Drake has resting on his shoulders it would probably be receiving universal critical acclaim right now. So let’s get into the particulars.

One of Drake’s greatest strengths is his ability to choose production to his advantage. Boi-1da is one of the hottest young producers in the game and has been with Drizzy since his early mixtape days. They have great chemistry and they usually connect for high quality music. The same can be said for 40. Surprisingly, I think Drake’s album loses some steam by the superstar production featured. Swizz Beats, Timbaland, and Kanye West all have what I would consider underwhelming contributions. It seemed like Drizzy was just a bit out of his comfort zone trying to fit into their sound. Having said that I don’t think there are any bad songs although the album certainly could have done without Fancy.

Another advantage of Drake has always been his collaborations. From the mixtape days of collabos with the likes of Trey Songz and Lil Wayne to what I would consider the posse cut of 2009 in Forever, Drake does seem to get the best out of his guests. Alicia Keys sounds great on Fireworks and Lil Wayne actually sounds like he tried on his verse for Miss Me. Jay-Z gave what I would consider to be his best guest verse since Go Hard(Remix).

As a whole this album is very good. But it has two potential drawbacks. The first and probably more important in the hip-hop community is all the singing Drake does. Most fans don’t mind the occasional hook but Drizzy goes all out on several tracks and sings everything as if he were an pop/r&b star. It’s not that Drake sounds bad per sé, but rather hip-hop would prefers to see Drake display his lyrical ability as often as possible and these verses take away from their opportunity to hear him.

The second and less costly drawback is the lack of a certifiable hit. Plenty of tracks sound good but I don’t think any of them are memorable beyond present day. If you are like me and like to listen to complete albums this does not obstruct your listening. But from a historical perspective it does hurt. For me it is also the difference between this being more than a 4 star album. But it is just that.

Overall this was an excellent first effort for Drake. He is a victim of his prior success and thus had high expectations that were difficult to match. While I think that his album is better than fellow newcomer Kid Cudi’s was, this album probably does less in the way of growing Drake’s fan base as oppose to Cudi’s album which added to his following and hype for his next release because of lower expectations. Moving forward Drake must continue to craft his formula and perfect his sound. But his future is more than bright.

Best Guest Spot: Jay-Z(Light Up)
Best Production: Boi-1da, Al-Khaaliq(Over)
Best Songs: Miss Me, Light Up, Unforgettable

After finishing Pretty Little Dirty, I finally got a chance to move on to Raven. At present time, Allison Van Diepen is my favorite author to read. Her first two novels were excellent and Snitch is probably my second favorite book. So anytime she releases something I am anxious to check it out. I thought I would offer a few of my thoughts after I finished reading this impressive novel.

Van Diepen has a very smooth writing style that allows the reader to quickly become interested and then stay interested. Her style is transitive and before you know it you have already read 100 pages. Fantasy books do not make up the majority of my choice reads although I have read my fair share of them. Therefore I essentially only wanted to buy this book because of Van Diepen and the respect I have for her work. Truth be told, I never even read the preview. Needless to say I was not disappointed and actually read the entire book in one sitting.

The book is very good and the ending leaves the storyline open for all types of possibilities. A sequel could definitely be written although it probably isn’t pertinent. The main thought that came into my head when I finished the book was the potential for a television series. In my opinion the characters and plots create a universe that could easily be a success on TV with plenty of room for expansion and a strong foundation coming from this first book. I can also see these characters in a comic book series.

In either event it is a very good read and I recommend it.

So I thought the Borders.com drama was over but it isn’t. The last time I wrote about my troubled experience with the online division of the bookstore I mentioned quite a few things I wish they would get around to fixing, but the whole point was that I was trying to spend my gift card from 2006. I thought I had accomplished that mission after ordering several books. It turns out I was wrong.

After placing my order February 4th, they emailed me February 9th to say that my goods had been shipped. Great. I didn’t really read the email too closely ie. reading what they said I had ordered because I assumed they meant everything had been shipped. Anyway, March 11th they emailed again to tell me that one of my books was on backorder and that I would not be charged until it was shipped. Which was fine. Then April 1 they emailed to tell me that my item had been cancelled because they flat out didn’t have it! They also said they would be sending me a new gift card with the refunded balance on it so that I could buy something else. Thus, I still haven’t spent my gift card from 2006.

Now, overall there isn’t too much to be upset about. Other than the fact that I still don’t have the book I wanted. They communicated well, keeping me in the loop about what was going on with my order. I appreciate that. But the one thing I can’t figure out is: Why did it take two months for them to figure out they didn’t have my book? I mean its not like I bought it from their awful marketplace I alluded to in the first post which is comprised of independent vendors like Amazon. I got it directly from Borders. They know what they have in stock, right?

In either event what’s done is done. Frankly I still want that book though. So they need to get it in stock so I can use this gift card. Or maybe I should move on and by some other book. The saga continues…