We fought it, I wrote letters to my representatives, and many of my friends camped out and testified in hearings, but it was obvious from their reports back to me that the zeal to raise money through closing a perceived tax "loophole" was greater than their interest in hearing how affilate merchants would leave the state, effectively meaning that there'd be no revenue and we affiliates would be screwed in the process.

The bill passed in a modified form, but Amazon.com's Affiliate team still thinks it's too onerous and as of today my account is shut down with them for the foreseeable future. Here's the email I -- and may other Coloradans -- received:

In a nutshell, Amazon believes that the sales tax isn't that onerous (indeed, the rise of Internet commerce has drastically affected tax revenue on transactions, as I have written about before) but that having to worry about hundreds of different taxation zones, and being potentially audited by any and all of these zones, is ridiculous.

Really, it's something that we need to address on a Federal level. We need a Federal online sales tax that is then distributed through some sort of formula so that it's easy to compute, easy to distribute, and helps alleviate the tax burden that brick and mortar stores face in an increasingly digital age.

Until then, well, Governor Ritter, I sure don't appreciate losing a revenue stream because of short-sighted greed in the legislature. I encourage you and the rest of the Colorado legislatures to reconsider the issue of implementing HB-1193 and tweak it before more and more affiliates drop us hard-working small businesses or we are forced to change our corporate headquarters to be in another state that is more Internet business friendly.

It's the Stealth iBot PC Monitor and, in essence, it's a simple device that enables you to install spyware on any PC computer in under ten seconds.

As the vendor describes in the Skymall catalog:

Easy To Use & Undetectable Total Computer Spying Tool Covertly Monitors Passwords, Chatting, Photos, Websites & More: Insert In USB, And In 5 Seconds Data Nano iBots Monitor All Computer Activity On ALL USER ACCOUNTS w/o Tell-Tale Hardware Left Behind

• Covertly Record Everything A Person Does On A Computer
• Remove Stealth iBot After 5 Seconds: No Hardware Left Behind
• Undetectable By Most Anti-Spyware Applications
• Store Up to 10,000 Screenshots & Virtually Unlimited Text
• Total Surveillance - Record All Computer Activity - Even On Other User Accounts
• Works With Any PC Computer Including Laptops

I think not! To complain, I went to the Skymall site and clicked on the convenient "Customer Service" link, filled in their form, and submitted this message:

I just noticed this product in your catalog:

    http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=203188705

As a computer security professional, I am shocked that you would promote this and would like to suggest that it has no good, legitimate or valid uses in any situation and that you should pull it from the catalog immediately.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us at SkyMall. We do appreciate your time and comments. However I am sadden about your dissatisfaction about one of items. Here at SkyMall we feel that all of our items are properly working items. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and thank you for bringing this to our attention. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us at 1-800-759-6255.
Thank you,
Dianna
SkyMall Customer Service

I will be optimistic and hope that my complaint is sent up the ladder from the first level customer service - obviously someone will minimal training - to someone in corporate who can actually respond in a meaningful manner.

Still, do you think I'll ever see another response from Skymall?

A bad storm threw a monkey wrench into our plans, however, and the Navy informed me that they had to postpone the Stennis visit. Did I cancel my entire trip and wait for the Navy to reschedule? I decided not to, and instead contacted some of my social media pals and changed the San Diego leg of my trip to include a meetup, some meetings and some consulting work. Perfect!

My friends at Bailey * Gardiner helped me get a room at the trés chic Sé San Diego hotel to save me from the hell of a cheap motel in the burbs.

I dutifully checked in with the popular geolocation game Foursquare when I arrived, and you can imagine my surprise when I got this:

To put it mildly, I was offended.

I would like to think that I have a good sense of humor (though my kids might disagree!), but I was not happy to be insulted because I had an opportunity to stay at a trendy place. Worse, from the perspective of someone who works with marketing and PR teams, I realized that this was a potential liability for the hotel as it tries to appeal to a younger audience: is being labeled a "douchebag" for staying at the hotel a good thing? I think not.

As a result, I posted a complaint on the Foursquare support boards, saying this:

Predictably, I got responses like this one: "The fact that you are so upset about the deuche[sic] bag award kind of shows you deserve it..." but they missed the point, as I highlighted in a follow-on message:

The problem here is a fundamental one: Web 2.0 companies need to grow up if they want to play in the bigger marketplace of business and corporate America. Does Foursquare? As far as I can tell, businesses are their only revenue stream, sponsorships and special promotions offered to Foursquare users, so that's an unequivocal yes in my book.

This is really no different from any previous era when companies had to decide whether they were going to stay within their target demographic or dilute the edginess of their brand and thereby appeal to a wider audience. Think 60s hippie demo, for example: did you stay a small company and highlight how you were "sticking it to the man" or did you become a bit less anti-establishment and get those advertising and sponsorship dollars from Fortune 500 companies that would let you grow? I'm thinking Ben & Jerry's here...

Subsequent to me bringing up the issue of the insulting "Douchebag Badge" on the Foursquare support forum, the issue was raised on TechCrunch with the subsequent comments being predictably vitrolic, since their audience is primarily the 20-somethings who think that a "douchebag" is a funny label and not insulting.

As one TechCrunch reader said, "Grow up, chill out, or get out!" and another, a better example of how there's a demographic that finds the word amusing and not crude or insulting: "the problem is not calling a badge 'douchebag' it's that as [Foursquare's] userbase grows, more actual douches will start using foursquare, rendering it too mainstream for early adopters to appreciate anymore."

Chrysanthe Tenentes of Foursquare did pipe in on the support forum and share that "the team is taking the sensitive nature of the db badge very seriously. The way that tagging works is also under review. Hearing user feedback is integral to improving foursquare features. Thanks everyone for piping in!"

What I find interesting in that remark? She didn't want to use the phrase "douchebag", so she abbreviated it "db". Indeed.

Ultimately, Foursquare faces the same dilemma that just about every self-consciously über-hip young Web 2.0 company is going to face: stick to your edgy personality and accept that you're going to be offensive to some of your potential audience and thereby limit your growth potential, or compromise, dilute some of the hipster vibe and be more appealing as a mainstream product or service?

In the case of Foursquare, geolocation check-in games are already a very competitive market segment (with Gowalla and Yelp doing well and, rumor has it, Facebook entering the space very soon) and if they hope to grow beyond their small market segment -- as is clearly the case given that they just signed TV network Bravo as a sponsor -- it's time for them to either make the douchebag badge optional or just scrub it entirely.

And as for the rest of these hip Web 2.0 companies, take a deep breath, it's time to grow up.

This year, I'm co-hosting with Jeff and we have a pretty amazing lineup of speakers for our half-day event on January 6th, 2010 in Las Vegas.

Here's Jeff's description of the event:

It's wild out there in the social media jungle! Unbridled growth and tens of millions of "addicts" have made social media an unstoppable force that's changing the way we live and work. Sit in on state-of-the-industry updates, and get a candid look at how social media disrupts the workplace by empowering companies to lower burn rates. Plus, you'll learn how companies can use social media to motivate consumers and drive product sales without increasing costs. This year our underlying theme is: "How the consumer electronics industry can benefit from social media."

So who do we have speaking at the event? I'll do you one better: here's our full schedule:

9:00-9:10 a.m. Welcome to the Jungle, Jeff Pulver

9:10-9:30 a.m. Consumer Marketing in the State of NOW, Jeff Pulver

9:30-9:45 a.m. Social Media Reputation, Dave Taylor

9:45-9:55 a.m. Brand Engagement in Social Media, Chris Rauschnot

9:55-10:20 a.m. Effects of twitter on Consumer Marketing, Jeffrey Sass

10:20-10:30 a.m. Building Trust in Social Media, Eric Weaver

10:30-10:50 a.m. What's Next in Social Media? Robert Scoble

10:50-11:00 a.m. Social Media ROI, Ben Grossman

11:00-11:10 a.m. Social Media Reciprocity, Warren Whitlock

11:10-11:25 a.m. Digital Presence in the NOW and Beyond, Dean Landsman

11:25-11:35 a.m. Effective PR Strategies in the era of Social Media, Susan Etlinger

11:35-11:45 a.m. Leveraging the Livestream in Consumer Marketing, Kevin Sablan

11:45-11:55 a.m. Social Media Lessons Learned during 2009, Justin Levy

11:55-12:15 p.m. Evolution of Trust Agents, Chris Brogan

Personally, I'm pretty psyched to be in such august company and consider many of the speakers good friends and all of them highly respected colleagues.

How much would you pay to pow-wow with these folk? Well, we won't have a fire going and we won't be passing around a peace pipe (though it is a pretty cool idea!) but we do very much welcome your attendance, but more, your participation in the Social Media Jungle next week in Las Vegas.

To join us please start here: CES Registration then follow the registration process and select Social Media Jungle as the registration option.

Hopefully we'll see you there!

Ayup, spell one word wrong in your ad title and the meaning changes rather dramatically, to say the least.

The problem here is that Facebook, for all it has an interesting self-service advertising model, also suffers from the problem of user-generated content. Ultimately this is not serving the community well, and I expect that either ads over time will prove less and less effective as users learn to tune them out, or that Facebook will need to hire quality control folks...

What's your reaction to the advertisement above?

"As an empirically-based economist, I would like to know whether there are studies that show the impact of twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites on business growth. I have a client (I do a small bit of consulting) that is pushing hard to get "into" social networking to grow the business. I am a bit reluctant, because there is no way to "control" the message. If there's even one former customer that is unhappy with my client, the negative effects can be explosive. I also wonderwhether paying Google for per-click exclusive use of specific words can really grow a business. Your thoughts would be most welcome!"

First though, are there non-empirical economists? What would that mean? That they follow economic theories even when actual real-life data proves them wrong? Hmmm...

More seriously, the first comment I have about this question is that the writer is already out of step with modern reality. As merchant after merchant has demonstrated, there is no controlling "the message" any more and the sooner marketing and PR people accept that, the sooner they can start helping their clients in this brave new world. Control always was an illusion anyway.

Given that fact, it also means that your customers, your competitors and your marketplace are already having discussions about your products, services and employees, and they're having it in online forums, whether it's a protest group on Facebook ("United Airlines Sucks!"), a persistent hashtag on Twitter (#attfail) or just a meme that travels from blogger to blogger.

The question then isn't whether it makes sense to delve into social networks even though you can't control the message, the question is whether you're paying attention to a medium where the message has long since escaped and has a life of its own. This means that your customer defines your brand. It's not about expensive TV spots, it's not about the right Pantone color in the logo when printed, it's not about the company at all.

This is both terrifying and exhilarating because it means that good companies with good products -- like Apple with its insanely popular iPod line -- can benefit even without any branding or marketing efforts, and bad companies -- like United Airlines -- are going to suffer from a bad reputation even as they spend money advertising and trying to position themselves as a market leader.

My take is that it's "step zero" to monitor what's going on in the social media space. Even if you don't want to participate, which is a mistake, you should at the very minimum be paying attention to what people are talking about. You can use individual services like search.twitter.com, but far smarter is to use a more sophisticated monitoring tool like Filtrbox or Radian 6.

There are many studies, some apocryphal, others actual more rigorous scientific research, on the topic of social media on business growth, and a quick search of Google will reveal quite a collection of data on the topic. Intuitively, though, if your customers are already talking about your product, service or competitor, how can that discussion not have an impact on your business, for better or worse?

My take away is this: if you are truly going to help your clients succeed in the brave new world of 21st Century business, you need to enthusiastically embrace social media, jumping in and learning best practices from such books as Trust Agents, The New Community Rules, The Tipping Point and Groundswell, along with by participating in the communities. The key is to remember to engage with your customer base, not just join these social media sites to create new bully pulpits for your marketing and sales messages.

Discuss your background and professional experiences.

I've been in public relations and marketing for over 21 years. I knew in college that I wanted to practice PR and started my career at an agency in New York City after interning there for two summers in row. My background has mostly been small agency PR. When I was running a very small firm for my employer in Northern, NJ, I realized that I could start my own PR/communications company and build a business for myself. I launched the Breakenridge Group with two employees in 1997, while I was still studying to receive my MBA degree.

The Breakenridge Group lasted a little less than a year, when one of my clients, at the time, PFS New Media, asked me if I was interested in becoming a full partner of their agency. They acquired my firm and the rest is history. I've practiced so many different kinds of PR over the years, working with brands in healthcare, broadcast electronics, non-profit, HR, technology and telecommunications. I've always enjoyed working with different types of brands and organizations both large and small. Every company, no matter its size, has unique challenges.

continues...

Me speaking on a panel at SXSW '09 earlier in the year

Aren't we all just wasting our time with social media?

I'm speaking as a representative of Boulder Digital Arts at the Goozmo open house in downtown Boulder. This is a free event, and you're definitely welcome to show up for my thirty-minute talk / discussion.

More information: Goozmo Open House

What's the Point of Social Networking?

This is a two-hour breakfast discussion / networking meeting in South Boulder, a part of the Stay Sharp! series I'm doing with Joyce Colson, Liz Ryan and Jeff Finkelstein and it's a nice, informal event at a fun venue: Eggcredible Cafe. There is a nominal fee for attendance.

More information: Stay Sharp!

Should I Blog, Or Should I Tweet?

This is a free, public discussion I'll be hosting at the Techstars Bunker in downtown Boulder, and it's my vision to spend more time having a discussion than to pontificate on my own opinion. I will say this, though: I do both.

More information: (please email me for details)

The Impact of Social Media on Cable Television

This is a closed event for the cable industry, but it's going to be a very interesting panel and we will be live-tweeting it. One of my great fellow panelists? Filtrbox's Ari Newman.

More information: (sorry, it's a closed industry conference)

Front Range Blogger Meetup, Broomfield CO

This is a discussion and social networking group that meets monthly, alternating between Boulder/Broomfield and Denver. Generally 30+ people show up and it's always an excellent discussion and great fun too. We're very welcoming to new folk, and even if you're just getting into the blogging space, you'll get great value from attending. Join us?

More information: see our meetup page

Holy cow, I'm exhausted just thinking about this! But I do hope you can join me at one of these venues and let me know what your thoughts are on these various topics!

The regulations seem to address the issue of disclosure: if I give you a copy of my book and you write about it, you have to let your readers know that. If I buy you dinner and then you write about my book or reference my site, you have to disclose that. And so on, and so on.

Problem is, this FTC guideline has gotten more and more onerous in the echo chamber of the blogosphere, and bloggers are getting a bit paranoid about the implications.

Luckily, it appears that this paranoia is misplaced, so you can all take a deep breath. Earlier this week - Oct 14th, 2009 - Mary Engle, associate director for advertising practices at the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, had a conference call with reporters to clarify the situation and here's what she said:

"We're not going to be patrolling the blogosphere, we are not planning on investigating individual bloggers."

Engle emphasized that what they've released are new guidelines. "They aren't rules and regulations, and they don't have the force of law. They are guidelines intended to help advertisers comply with Section 5 of the FTC Act [PDF]" which focuses on unfair or deceptive practices.

So it's not the rebirth of the Blog Police as the Disclosure Police, as I tweeted earlier while listening to a panel on this subject here at Blogworld, but it is nonetheless a reminder that you should still be transparent anyway. If a vendor pays $200 to write about their product, don't run away in terror, just let your readers know.

And that's what this brouhaha is all about anyway: just be transparent and disclose what's going on, and you'll be in the clear from both the FTC and ethically on the right side of things too.

I woke up this morning to boldface warnings New virus on Twitter! Don't click on video links in DMs!

Of course, it didn't take long for me to get one:

Being the reckless tech guy I am (and running on a Mac, not PC, so far, far less susceptible to viruses), I clicked on the link anyway, and got this:

Ah, okay, so, duh. Here's an easy rule of thumb:

Surely you, dear reader, aren't so daft that you'd click on a link to see a video and then blindly log in to what appears to be Twitter to do so?

Btw, if you're curious, enter random user credentials on the phishing (NOT virus!) login screen, then you'll see a failwhale screen, then you'll be bounced to some random blogspot.com blog that doesn't even have an entry.

Okay. Last few times I've paid for a rental it's been through Redbox and that's $1/night, so inexpensive that you can forgive the tiny selection in the box.

At the local video rental place, however, it was $4.95 for a rental, and due in four days to boot. Five bucks? Seemed kinda steep, and when I got rave reviews from my little one of this movie I decided I'd buy a copy for her.

A quick visit to Amazon.com and here's what I found:

Can you see the price? $3.75 + $2.98 shipping. For less than $2 more than a short-term rental, I can buy and own a clean used copy with original packaging. Makes it hard to not just buy things that you might want to watch some day, doesn't it?

The problem is two-fold. One, most movies are worth a viewing and maybe, possibly, two, but how many movies have you watched a half-dozen or more times in the last decade? (and I'm a film reviewer with my own film blog, so I know movies pretty well).

The second is that the cost of the product doesn't reflect the cost of production as much as the cost of the studio system. A brand new DVD costs, what, $15? $18? but the disk and packaging cost less than a dollar. Therefore the item itself doesn't retain any sort of value once sold and the used DVD market floats down, down, down, to where you can get just about any movie for $5 or less.

Do you still rent movies, especially in a world of all-you-can-eat streaming services like Netflix and Hulu?

More interesting is that here in Boulder we also have a second organization that acts as the "receiver" to the Tech Transfer group's passes, the Boulder Innovation Center. Between them there's a clear path between professors and grad students inventing and viable commercial marketplaces. Not many universities can boast that (and not many research centers in general. See Xerox PARC for an example).

This morning was the quarterly (annual? It's a blur) breakfast where a few of the companies get to share what they're doing and where they see their business going. It's almost like their Quinceañera. :-)

Anyway, I was impressed by the companies this time. Every one of them seems like it's going to be a home run in it's field. Here's who presented:

Xalud -- they're developing novel therapies for the treatment of neuropathic pain and other diseases of the central nervous system. Apparently, it's quite common for people to still feel the pain from an injury, infection or even a cancerous growth after it's been otherwise healed. Xalud ("salud but with an 'X' because it looks cooler") has a non-opioid-based therapy and they estimate it's a multi-billion-dollar market.

TechoShark -- I've written about these chaps before: they're focused on the intersection of location-aware advertising and location-aware social networks. A competitor to Foursquare and others, they have some very interesting back-end algorithms that are going to start being revealed as they unroll some of their newer features. In the meantime, join me on the Techoshark network by grabbing hoozat [iTunes link], their free iPhone app.

Tusaar -- here's one that I'm really interested in, though I have zero clue how it works: they have a patented system that creates much more efficient methods of purifying metal-laden acidic water. It doesn't create toxic sludge and utilizes readily available raw materials from industrial suppliers. They also apparently have a broad patent which will help them profit from our need as a nation to clean up a lot of terribly polluted areas, mines, wells, and more.

Quest Product Development -- the most boring name hides a very cool group that's development and marketing "MicroFlex" technology, a new and far superior ultra-slim endoscope for non-invasive surgery. It's pretty sci-fi, really, offering digital control over the shape of the endoscope, allowing it to fit in areas where traditional endoscopes just aren't viable.

Mentor InterActive -- the last presentation of the morning was a company that's trying to tap into the desperate need for greater literacy in our youth in a world where they spend tons of time on video and computer games, watching TV and other passive activities, and rarely if ever have someone read to them. They've developed a line of reading games under the brand "My Virtual Tutor" and just a week or two ago released their first game, for the popular Nintendo DS.

All of these companies are worth watching. In their own way, whether they're rockets to the moon or evolutionary stepping stones for further developments, they're all going to make the world a better place. And that's a great thing to see...

But it's not really the same, and I know that every time I fire up GoToMeeting, jump onto Skype or log in to Calliflower (yeah, that's its name). Like it or not, I believe it'll always be the case that to be successful in business you need to get out of your office, get out of your house and neighborhood, and meet people face-to-face. The more important the deal, or the more you're "fishing for opportunities", the more important it is.

I've written in the past about how attending conferences is all about the social, not the presentation (even though I'm a professional speaker). Certainly when I travel now, I try to use Twitter, Facebook or something else to arrange for some meetings with local businesspeople both to socialize and to see what possible business connections I can make.

That's why when online marketing firm Izea contact me about an opportunity to help promote the British Airways "Business Opportunity Grants" program, I was intrigued and willing. Yes, that means that this is indeed a sponsored post on my blog, but please, read on...

Basically, British Airways is trying to combat the business meme of "with teleconferencing you never have to get on a plane again", for obvious reasons: they're an airline, teleconferences aren't so good for their business. However, as I've said, I already know that they're right and that while many meetings can indeed be held digitally, there are also a lot of meetings that go far, far better if you can look someone in the [real, not virtual] eye and really assess them and whether the deal will be a success.

BA's idea is that to promote face-to-face meetings, they're holding a contest and have a very sweet prize: their Business Opportunity Grant will cover an entire year of business class travel and access to a suite of business services both. More specifically:

• British Airways airfare for 10 round-trip Club World business class flights.
• 5 free British Airways World Cargo freight shipments of up to 500 kilos to worldwide destinations
• $1000 toward accommodation at Courtyard by Marriott
• 5 Regus Businessworld Gold Cards providing access to business lounges worldwide
• A Canon PIXMA MX860 Wireless Office All-In-One Printer

I mean, that's a pretty sweet deal, and they're giving away 100 of them, not just one, so I encourage you to go apply before 1 October, 2009 when the contest ends. You might not win, but if you do, it'll sure help your business and you might just find that those old fashioned face-to-face meetings are useful after all.

I am psyched about going to Blogworld and New Media Expo next month in Las Vegas (and I'm speaking too, on the awkwardly titled "Are You Getting The Most Money Out Of Your Blog As You Can?", along with Tim Jones, Chris Pirillo, Michael Jenkins, and, probably, Jim Kukral moderating us. Still, Blogworld's more about parties and socializing than sitting in a room with hundreds of people, listening to presentations.

That's why my friend and colleague Doyle Albee (head of Metzger Associates, a leading PR agency in Colorado with a strong social media practice) and I came up with the Social Media for Executives mastermind briefing the day before Blogworld, also in Las Vegas.

It's exactly the kind of event I most love: a small group of very, very talented people will be hiding out for a day, brainstorming their businesses, rising to their current and future industry challenges, and learning tons from each other. The lineup of speakers? It's world class, really, A+ listers:

• Paula Berg is the manager of Emerging Media for Southwest Airlines, the nation's leading low-fare air carrier and the largest domestic airline in terms of customers carried.
• Jessica Berlin is the Social Media manager for the Resident Shows Division of Cirque du Soleil based in Las Vegas.
• Deirdre Breakenridge has been in PR and marketing for 20 years helping senior executives in mid-size to large organizations communicate to their stakeholders. She has written four books, most recently Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, which she authored with Brian Solis.
• Linda O'Neill is the general manager for Customer Operations with EMBARQ. Linda is a seasoned community manager and customer operations professional with nearly 30 years of sales, customer care, marketing and vendor management expertise, including leadership and training & development experience.
• Liz Ryan is an expert on the new-millennium workplace, a former Fortune 500 Human Resources executive and the author of Happy About Online Networking: The Virtual-ly Simple Way to Build Professional Relationships. As an advisor to corporations on workplace and leadership issues, she has worked with Omnicom, Tyson Foods, General Electric, NBCi and a long list of global employers.
• Ari Newman is a passionate entrepreneur who excels in creating value in ideas and technology and thrives on the challenges and opportunities that define early stage companies. He is president and founder of Filtrbox, a real-time social media monitoring service that helps companies listen to and engage in online conversations.

Sponsored by Filtrbox, this is going to be one of the best small, private workshops available this year, the best place to really learn the strategy of successful social media, not the how-to that your employees or agency can manage. Aimed at senior executives, I'm really looking forward to this amazing day - and great surprise evening event.

If you'd like to join us, you really do need to act right now as we have a very, very limited number of seats available!

      ----> Click here to register for Social Media for Executives <---

Don't delay, we'd hate to turn you away because it's filled up.

The most recent was the announcement of the Disney Blu-Ray Movie Club, which explained that the offer, as with most 'club memberships', was for a couple of movies at an exceptionally good rate, followed by a requirement to buy more films at a jacked up price to balance out the deal.

In this case, the initial offer is for three Blu-Ray discs for $4.95 each. Not a bad deal for Disney films, but then what?

"As a Disney Movie Club member, all you need to do is buy 5 movies at regular Club prices in the next 24 months (starting at $29.95 per Blu-ray disc), plus shipping and processing of $3.95 for the first title in each order, and $1.49 for each additional title in that same order."

So let's assume that you buy five Blu-Ray discs, at once, for $29.95 per disc, after having bought the initial three at $4.95 each, with free shipping.

That's:

    ( 4.95 * 3 ) + ( 29.95 * 5 ) + 3.95 + (1.49 * 3) = $173.02

Given that's for eight DVDs, that works out to $21.62/disc. Not bad. But then again, a bit of research on Amazon.com reveals that Wall-E on Blu-Ray, for example, costs $19.99 for the two-disc set, Bolt three-disc set is $23.99 and the adult No Country for Old Men is $19.49.

So how does this work? It's all about the mailing and the default action. The "Club" sends out a mailing every four weeks and when you receive that mailing...

"You can choose to receive the Featured Title, an alternate, or no movie at all. If you do not inform us of your choice within 10 days or by the date specified on the card (either by returning the card, visiting the website, or by calling the 800 number on the card), the Featured Title will be automatically shipped to you."

In all likelihood, the featured titles are not going to be the lower-priced $29.95, but rather $35.95 or even higher. Now, let's do that math again, with the assumption that four of those five discs you buy are actually $35.95 instead. Now the grand total for those eight discs is $197.02. Divided out, that's $24.62.

But wait, if you are going to be getting these discs by default one per month, then your shipping goes up too, from $1.49 to $3.95. New total: $206.86. New per disc: $25.85.

And did I mention tax? They don't say, but I expect that with the proliferation of Disney Stores, people in just about every state are going to pay at least 8% sales tax, pushing up those discs to $27.92 each.

Suddenly those $19.99 discs via Amazon.com sound pretty good after all. Get free super-saver shipping from Amazon and you're looking at a total savings of $63.49.

Now those monthly mailings can be pretty fun, I admit: I was a long-time member of the History Book Club because I liked to browse through the catalog, but is it worth $63.49 for that privilege when for $9.95 you can get a year's subscription to Disney Family Fun magazine and, I'm sure, get all the ads and a few decent articles too?

Now I admit that there are probably some errors in my calculations here, and clearly some assumptions about pricing differences, but I'm always intrigued by these sort of offers, so it's quite illustrative to run the numbers and really understand the reality of an offer of this nature.

But that's just me. Perhaps you're already a member? If so, how's it going for you?