Maren's Pyenson Blog - Maren2000.com

Schlock exchange

Portions and Preferences

I'm always happy to find a restaurant or cafe like Amici that serves small portions and am always super annoyed to end up at a diner like Mel's with only massive portions. The irony is that I always spend more at the places that serve up small portions. Maybe some of these restaurants that push massive portions should think about shrinking their plates and their prices. Overall, they'll make more money, have happier customers and not contribute to this country's obesity crisis. Given this Time magazine article, people will have yet another excuse to not exercise. It's all about garbage-in/garbage-out; if we don't start controlling the "in" and/or increasing the "out", it's only going to get worse. It'd be nice to see someone - restaurant-industry, diet-industry, exercise-industry - do something productive for a change. A small step towards portion control would be a good start.

Online Ad Revenues Woes

Per this article from the "Silicon Alley Insider" yesterday, the outlook for online ad revenue is becoming more optimistic. Reading this article gave me hope until I read the article about the state of online advertising at the NYT...

Per the "Silicon Alley Insider", "Online display ad prices haven't fully recovered to last year's peak, but according to one source, they're getting there.

At the end of June, ad rates among the 6,000 Web publishers working with ad-optimizing firm PubMatic were up 35% since a low point at the beginning of the year. Rates climbed 15% between May and June.

“Although ad pricing has not returned to year-ago levels, the industry has gone up consistently every month since January 2009. The worst may be behind us,” says PubMatic CEO Rajeev Goel."

However, seems like the New York Times is still suffering and hasn't seen a turn around yet. "In its earnings announcement this morning, the company breaks out Internet advertising revenues of $68 million, which is a 15.5 percent drop from a year ago."

The topic of declining ad revenue is disconcerting to me as I attempt to make revenue projections as part of a project I am working on. On a positive note, it has forced me to seek out alternative revenue stream opportunities and/or to find other ways to show the value in investing in additional product development. So, the article from the Silicon Alley Insider definitely counters the negativity of the current situation at the NYT...hopefully this positive trend will be realized in my project!

What kind of fruit/vegetable is this?

I got this piece of fruit/vegetable in my CSA Box, and I cannot figure out what it is. It smells kind of sweet. Any ideas?

Reorganizing this site

I'm in the process of reorganizing this site so that it is complementary to my new consulting services site: www.marenmgmt.com. I need to redesign both this site and my blog, so there will be evolving changes over the next few weeks. Any feedback is appreciated!

Gazing up at Mt Rushmore

Passport to Chelsea Launch Party at the Chelsea Art Museum

Passport to Chelsea Launch Party at the Chelsea Art Museum,
originally uploaded by Yelp.com.

Congrats sister!

...Sent from my mobile phone=

Hot Soup on a Cold Day in SF

...Sent from my mobile phone=

Best barbera!

From Sunday: Beautiful Day in Dolores Park

@ the audition movie

Dog Cat Rat

Sushi happy hour

Welcome home, little miss clavinova

Pumpkin Yellow Chicken @ Mingalaba

Now presenting short attention span theater

I no longer have the attention span to write out long blog posts. So, to find out what the heck I'm doing and/or the random crap I'm spewing out, find me on Twitter.  I protect my updates, so you'll have to request to follow me. :) Or, friend me on Facebook. Or, we could go all old school, and you could instant message me or {{gasp}} call me!

RedTagCrazy: Like Woot, but for Women's Clothing

Here's $5 to spend at redtagcrazy.com

Hope and Change Cupcakes

happy birthday marissa!

workout time machine

Baby Bokchoy with Mushrooms and Sweet Peppers in a Garlic Red Wine Sauce

...Sent from my mobile phone=

Egg white french toast - the last bite

...Sent from my mobile phone=

Rhett modeling my new Lululemon Headband