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After years on hold, I've started using my home page again: ephealy.com

I'll still watch my friends here on LiveJournal, but I'll be posting there from now on. Feel free to drop by and keep in touch.

I decided to check my enlistment contract for the US Army today. Why? I wanted to figure out how long I had until my initial 8 years is up. See, even though I'm not on Active Duty, I'm technically still in the Army until 8 years after my enlistment date - though classified as Inactive Ready Reserve during the remainer of my non-Active term.

I have 603 more days. You would think that, after those 603 days are up, I'm free and clear, right?

It's amazing the things you realize after it's too late to do anything about them...( Read more )

Everyone has drama in their lives. I don't know a single person that has had something happen to them in the past that's left a permanent scar of some sort. Most of us are blessed to have small scars, but some aren't so lucky.

Some people really seemed to get kicked around by life. They may do well in some way. People may even look at them and think they lead charmed lives. Their blessings may be real, but for some... suffering the slings and arrows thrown at them has really taken a toll.

I have a friend like this. Someone whose company I enjoy and with whom I share many ideals and dreams. Unfortunately, I stepped on a land mine today... I poured salt into an unhealed wound without really understanding what I was doing.

If I had thought more with my heart than my head, I might have avoided causing them pain. I don't know.

Cause paid, though, I did.

Have you ever been in this situation? Ever hurt someone without realizing it and then wondered whether you should have known better and/or what you can do to mend bridges?

I don't know how this will shake out, but it makes me sad to know I hurt a friend.

Turn out the lights.

Close the door.

Click Play.

Lean back.

Close your eyes.

Enjoy.

It's important to measure ROI when spending marking dollars. Tactics change (both in price and effectiveness) over time, so I regularly evaluate them to see if I can find the ones that will give my clients the greatest bang for their buck.

Today, I'm thinking about online banner advertisements. Why? Because, for all their faults, online banners are one tactic that allow the advertiser to gather hard data on their effectiveness. When I place a banner on a site, I can tell how many people respond - allowing me to make better advertisements. I can even measure the quality of the response once people click thru to my site - allowing me to develop a better mousetrap on the other end.


If you purchase online advertisements, I'd love to read your answers to these questions:

(1) Why are you buying banner ads? What is the purpose?

(2) Branding: Do you place any value on the fact that people may see your advertisement, but never click on it? How much value?

I'd be interested in this study: What percentage of people actually notice a banner advertisement, regardless of whether they click on it?

(3) Response: What Click-Thru-Rate is acceptable?


What am I trying to figure out?

If I buy 1,000,000 banner impressions at $1 CPM (easy math), I'm paying $1,000. If the CTR is 0.3%, then I'm getting a response from 3,000 people (assuming one person doesn't click on my ads more than once, though that'd be another interested study). In essence, I'm paying $0.34 for the opportunity to communicate with each person that clicks on my banner. How does this compare to other forms of marketing?

And related to this... Let's say my 1,000,000 banners are seen by 30,000 unique individuals. Do I place any value on the branding that happens when someone sees my advertisement, but doesn't respond? How does this compare to other forms of marketing?

War Pig is a 24-hour streaming radio station, with programming that focuses on board games, RPGs, comics, and other geek content. You can find the stream at: http://www.warpigradio.com

Before launching War Pig, we contacted a number of our fellow podcasters, inviting them to contribute content for the station. Most of our initial contributors are now in place, including:

* Atomic Array
* Family Night
* Fear the Boot
* The Game Kennel
* Ogre Cave Gaming New Update
* Print & Play
* RPG Countdown
* Wapcaplets

We also have some new content launching shortly, including contributions from:

* The Escapist
* Sy Fy Radio
* Voice of the Revolution

With our current line-up we have great content, but not as much new material each week as we’d like. We’re looking for more.

War Pig is designed for a broad, public audience—including game stores—so we’ve determined a number of things we’d like to see from any shows we add.

1. It must be informative and entertaining.
2. It should be safe for listeners of most ages. No swearing or adult content.
3. It needs to be short-form. We prefer content that runs less than 15 minutes and will not likely be adding anything that runs more than 30 minutes.
4. It should offer something new—something that our current content doesn’t cover.
5. It should contain no irrelevant, divisive topics such as politics or religion.

If you have a show you’d like to submit, or a show idea you’d like to see us develop, contact us at warpigradio@gmail.com.

Our other major objective is to increase the number of places where War Pig is available. We recently made it possible for webmasters to add War Pig Radio to their websites by embedding a special widget using only two lines of JavaScript. The widget pops-up a player that can be custom branded to your site. Even if you don’t administer a website, you can help by encouraging your favorite ones to add the War Pig player.

We currently have twelve gaming shops playing War Pig Radio over their speakers. We’d like to quickly increase this number. If you are a retailer and playing War Pig in your store, let us know so we can tell people about you.

There are hundreds of stores that don’t even know about War Pig Radio yet. Please help us get their attention by telling them about us. If you don’t feel comfortable asking your local shop owner, let us know how we can contact them, and we’ll do it for you.

Website: http://www.warpigradio.com
Contact: warpigradio@gmail.com

MOONSTEW PRODUCTIONS LAUNCHES RPG COUNTDOWN – NEW BI-WEEKLY SHOW SPONSORED BY RPGNOW HIGHLIGHTS TEN HOTTEST SELLING RPG PRODUCTS

(January 28, 2009; DuPont, WA)—Moonstew Productions launched RPG Countdown today. Sponsored by RPGNow, the world's largest source for digital RPG products, this bi-weekly show highlights the ten hottest selling RPG products, combining product descriptions with quotes from publishers and creators.

“We are jumping up and down, I can tell you. Moonstew has put together a very cool production,” says Sean Patrick Fannon, RPGNow marketing director. “We are looking at the 21st Century marketplace for games, and this is a strong part of our new market strategy.”

RPG Countdown combines the hottest sellers from online retailers, such as RPGNow, with sales figures provided by hobby game retailers. The show is available at the RPG Countdown homepage, and at RPGNow.

ABOUT MOONSTEW PRODUCTIONS: Moonstew Productions produces custom media programming for publishers. Moonstew produces advertisements, promotional spots and programming content that supports and integrates with greater marketing programs. POC: Ed Healy, ephealy@moonstew.com .

ABOUT ONE BOOK SHELF: The combination of RPGNow and DriveThruRPG represents the largest source for digital RPG products in the world. POC: Sean Patrick Fannon, sean@onebookshelf.com .

Subscribers to Atomic Array will now receive PDF samples and previews in addition to our bi-weekly podcast episodes. This video is meant to be consumed by publishers, but it explains what we're doing so...