mayorscupballoonrace.com

Google topped pessimistic Wall Street profit expectations Thursday, reporting a net income increase of 31 percent to $1.31 billion for its most recent quarter.

Excluding various items, that meant earnings per share of $4.84, well above the $4.52 expected on average by analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. Revenue, which benefited an “immaterial” amount from the acquisition of DoubleClick, was $5.2 billion in the quarter ended March 31, compared with $3.7 billion for the same period a year earlier, the company said.

Excluding $1.49 billion in partner commissions called traffic acquisition costs, Google’s revenue was $3.7 billion. That result was 46 percent greater than the year-earlier amount and about $100 million more than the $3.6 billion analysts expected.

(Credit:
Google)

The company’s stock surged more than $76, or 17 percent, to $525 in after-hours trading. That’s a significant step back toward the company’s all-time high of $747.24 in November.

“Our ongoing innovation in search, ads, and apps (online applications) helped drive healthy growth globally across our product lines, yielding another strong quarter for Google,” said Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt in a statement.

The report comes amid fears that an economic slowdown or recession could be hurting Google’s paid-click results, the number of text ads that Web searchers click on.

Recession-proof? So far
Schmidt essentially called those fears baseless.

“It’s clear to us that we’re well positioned for 2008 and beyond, regardless of the business environment that we find ourselves surrounded by,” Schmidt said on a conference call. “We’ve looked at this really carefully, and we do not see an impact as of this time.”

And if economic conditions do deteriorate, Google expects to weather the storm fine, Schmidt added. “Our conclusion is we’re well positioned should economics change. We continue to do well because our model is so targeted, and targeted (advertising) does well in most scenarios,” he said.

Google’s text ads are geared to correspond to search results, presenting ads at what the company calls the “magic moment” when a person’s search can indicate interest in a specific subject.

Google has been concentrating on showing fewer ads but making them better-suited to search results, a move it hopes increases the revenue generated by each click. But statistics from ComScore released this week show that compared with the fourth quarter of 2007, paid-click growth slowed in the first quarter for Google and Yahoo and that paid clicks flat-out declined for Microsoft’s MSN.

Paid-click growth
Last quarter, Google’s financial performance fell short of Wall Street expectations, triggering fears that economic woes might be hurting the company. Schmidt pooh-poohed the idea, at least for that quarter, by saying: “We have not yet seen any negative impact from rumors of future recessions. We’ll see what happens.”

Google said paid clicks increased 20 percent over the first quarter of 2007 and 4 percent over the fourth quarter of 2007.

Google and ComScore use different methods to measure paid clicks–for example, Google reports global numbers compared to U.S. tallies from ComScore–so it’s not possible to directly compare Google’s 20 percent quarter-over-quarter increase to the 1.8 percent increase ComScore reported for Google for the same period.

But Schmidt was willing to take a potshot, at least indirectly: “Paid-click growth is much higher than has been speculated by third parties,” Schmidt said.

Google kept expenses down to $1.5 billion for the quarter. “We’ve had good, disciplined management of our operating expenses,” Schmidt said.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company kept hiring down to a mere 800, excluding the 1,500 that arrived with DoubleClick. Total head count now is 19,156, Chief Financial Officer George Reyes said. Google cut DoubleClick’s staff by about 10 percent after the acquisition, and “an additional 15 percent, approximately, are expected to leave the company in the U.S. in the near to intermediate term because they are in a transitional role as they move through the system,” Reyes said.

New ad frontiers
Google executives had optimistic words for a variety of expansion plans:

• In China, Google lags Baidu.com as the top search engine but hopes to take the lead within five years. Schmidt said Google’s made progress in that area.

“We are seeing market-share growth and good revenue growth as we have learned to operate in that environment,” Schmidt said. “We have significant new products with respect to Chinese knowledge, Chinese language, Chinese search.”

• Most of Google’s business comes from text ads, but graphical “display” ads are a priority, particularly with the acquisition of DoubleClick. Where will Google employ such ads?

Display ads in video form are already used on YouTube and Google is evaluating other possibilities. “There are some other Google properties that might be good fits, though we haven’t made clear decisions,” said co-founder Sergey Brin. Those include “visual sites like Orkut. And there’s some potential like Google Images.”

• Mobile advertising looks good in areas such as Japan where there are devices with high-resolution screens and responsive networks, Brin said.

“The mobile ads work very well. There’s nothing to dissuade me it would be any worse than traditional desktop search,” he said.

•  Social networking is a challenge when it comes to advertising. Google ads appear on its own Orkut site and on News Corp.’s MySpace, and there’s “a tremendous amount of inventory” to be sold, Brin said.

“It takes some time for some advertisers to realize they’re there and target them effectively,” Brin said.

Google is working on it. “Social-networking monetization (has) been an area where we applied a lot of new technologies,” Brin said. Demographic targeting, which lets advertisers get some idea about what types of people use a site, “has been very successful,” he said.

commentary

For some time now, many of the best and brightest minds in Silicon Valley have been focused beyond enterprise software. The New York Times carries a feature today on Silicon Valley’s efforts in solar power, coinciding with a steady drumbeat of news on Silicon Valley and Green Energy.

Add to this the dominance of consumer-facing players like Google and the push of Software-as-a-Service vendors like Salesforce.com and you have what appears to be a complete rout of the traditional enterprise software market. Selling upfront license fees for millions and dinging enterprises on an annual basis is sooooo 20th Century.

All of which begs for the rise of the IT department again.

Why? Well, because the need for software hasn’t dissipated. Enterprises still need to track their supply chains, manage their financials, build and deploy their websites, etc. How we deliver the software to do so has changed, but the need for that software definitely has changed.

As research from IDC shows, enterprise IT departments are increasingly the new software “vendors.” Building off open-source components, these enterprise IT staffs are finding great success in serving their own needs rather than shoveling dollars out the door to big vendors with one-size-fits-all value propositions. This is the 21st Century’s response to the 20th Century’s pillaging of enterprise IT budgets by the big proprietary vendors.

Open source. Where IT doesn’t matter, use proprietary software. Where it does, use open source (and hire a development team that can match your need for innovation. The day of the order-taking MCSE is dead.)

For some tasks the software can be offloaded to a SaaS vendor. There will be a lot of such software because, as Nick Carr rightly notes, “IT doesn’t matter”…at least, not all of it. Some IT matters to a particular organization much more than others. This software will be open source because it allows the enterprise to take ownership and control of its destiny. Proprietary software secures an iron umbilical cord between the vendor and enterprise IT and refuses to let go.

Silicon Valley has largely moved on from the enterprise, but open source has not…fortunately for the enterprise.

Speaking before a room of about 45 fellow researchers, McDiarmid reported on exploratory research conducted in 2007 with Jennifer King, also at U.C. Berkeley. Based on feedback from this initial sample group, the two hope to open the survey to a much larger audience of novice, intermediate, and advanced users during 2008. They will also narrow the focus to two specific RFID-enhanced items: e-passports and contact-less credit cards.

Perhaps most surprising among the data was the assumption of audio or visual feedback among all three groups. McDiarmid said that the use of contact-less credit cards is impersonal; often there is no confirmation of a transaction, such as you had when a clerk handed your card back at the end of the purchase. “Customers want feedback,” he said.

In a paper released at the conference, McDiarmid and King expressed concern over how the government and commercial interests are assisting the typical end user with the new technology.

In a talk Monday at USENIX Usability, Psyschology and Security Conference (UPSEC) 2008 in San Francisco, Andrew McDiarmid of the University of California, Berkeley, shed light on how ordinary people perceive RFID-enabled cards in their day to day life. He said while novices and intermediates were familiar with times when RFID-enabled smart cards such as work access cards or transit cards didn’t work, they couldn’t explain it. On the other hand, advanced users knew enough to keep their RFID-enhanced credit cards sheathed in a mini “Faraday cage” so the cards could not be read by others.

Another misconception revealed by the survey is that cards can only be read by specific readers. That is not true, said McDiarmid. Thus, he wasn’t too surprised that only two individuals in his survey group knew to sheath their contact-less credit cards.

When asked how RFID worked, a group of novices responded to a recent academic survey with “witchcraft” and “magic.”

McDiarmid said on Monday that although the State Department provides a brochure describing the features of the ePassport, and companies like Visa offer videos describing the features of its PayWave contact-less credit cards, the general public still doesn’t understand the basic concepts behind RFID, and therefore do not understand the inherent risks.

The 1-inch SSD.

The new SSDs use Intel Z-P140 NAND Flash-based SSD technology and employ the older parallel ATA (PATA/IDE) interface, as opposed to the current and popular SATA interface used in regular-size SSDs. Both offer rather modest read and write speeds of 40 megabytes per second and 30MBps, respectively. They are also available in very small storage capacities. The .85 inchers offer 2GB and 4GB, while the 1 inchers offer 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB sizes.

It’s unclear how much these new SSDs cost. Chances are, however, that you won’t be able to purchase them at all; rather, they will be available to OEM manufacturers only.

Thanks to their tiny physical form and limited storage space and speed, these new drives are only suitable for ultramobile PCs and digital-multimedia broadcasting devices.

(Credit:
Super Talant Techonology)

Solid-state drives aren’t always faster than regular hard drives, but they sure can be tinier.

The smallest regular hard drives are the 1.8 inchers that Toshiba has been making for ultracompact laptops. On Wednesday, Super Talent Technology announced two SSDs that come in a significantly smaller form factor: .85 inch and 1 inch.

“There’s no magic threshold but with high share levels, you get to be concerned,” he continued. “On the other hand, monopolists are allowed to compete. The question is whether the arrangement would stifle competition.”

I chose Schmalensee because of his unique vantage point. During Microsoft’s antitrust trial a decade ago, Schmalensee testified as an expert witness for the defense, spending hours on the stand sparring with lead government attorney David Boies about the precise definition of a monopolist.

For an answer, I sought out the opinion of a renowned antitrust expert, Richard Schmalensee, of MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

“There are the standard numbers people throw around but I think most people would say you have to decide whether search ad is a market for antitrust proposes. If it is, that’s a high enough share. But you also have to look at issues of entry and issues of fragility. How stable is that share and how intense is that market,” Schmalensee said.

(Credit:
MIT Sloan School of Management)

Advertisers are putting all of their new search dollars into Google, and pulling money out of Yahoo Search and Microsoft Live Search.

MIT Prof. Richard Schmalensee

I did a double take recently after listening to Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell acknowledge that his company was ready to lose even more money in online services in the near term, if that’s what it takes to catch Google. During the company’s earnings call last week, Liddell indicated that Microsoft is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its online advertising business, an investment he allowed would be “a drag” on the rest of the company.

There’s the proverbial $64,000 question, isn’t it?

Just how far ahead of everyone is Google? Consider the following, courtesy of Efficient Frontier Insights: Google now enjoys more than a 77 percent share of the search ad market.

That kind of information was seized upon by Microsoft’s top lawyer, Brad Smith, during his recent testimony before Congress. Testifying on the proposed search advertising between Google and Yahoo, he said it was possibly “illegal under the antitrust laws.” Monopoly anyone? Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being a monopoly, per se. It all depends upon context and behavior. But considering Google’s dominance and Microsoft’s inability to significantly close the gap in the search business, I’m sure rivals would be thrilled if Uncle Sam finally declared Google a monopoly. That may be wishful thinking.

Outside of the occasional fit of Monkeyboy inspiration, Microsoft’s managers are a sober bunch. They don’t decide things haphazardly and they don’t rush in reaction to current events. But their willingness to dig deep into Microsoft’s (enviably deep) pockets in pursuit of Google was a remarkably telling comment. Much like WordPerfect and Borland and Novell, which at one time sought unsuccessfully to play catch-up to Microsoft, the shoe’s now on the other foot– and it’s irritating the hell out of Microsoft.

(Credit:
CNET News)

I’ve commented on Oliver Alexy’s research on open source’s effects on stock prices before, but was gratified to see it featured in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Companies saw their stock price rise if they met one crucial condition: explaining how they expected their open strategy to bring in short-term revenue. Companies that clearly communicated a short-term revenue model saw an average stock-price increase of 1.6 percent. Companies that didn’t saw an average decline of 1.6 percent. This means companies can’t rely on vague long-term assurances.

In other words, the very thing that the companies most need to do (i.e., take a long-term view of open source’s benefits for their businesses) is the thing most likely to punish them in the market. Who said markets are rational?

Ironically, this betrays a woefully naive view of open source by the market. Open source is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s not a quick fix for any business.

It turns out, as per Mr. Alexy’s research, that open source can have a salubrious effect on one’s stock price, but only if done right:

commentary

Take the Kombi iRip, for example. This is one of the absolute coolest gloves I have ever seen…or heard. The Kombi iRip lets you control your
iPod from your glove. It’s completely wireless so that you don’t have to fumble for your iPod on the chairlift…only to watch it topple into the snow.

The Kombi gloves also include nice touches like the nose wipe (Sounds funny until you’re on the slopes and then you discover what a necessity this little bit of fabric technology is…) and a generally lightweight feel without offering lightweight protection from the cold.

Kombi iRip Glove

Kombi Phoenix Mitten

I like the added control that gloves give me, however, so I was excited to try out three different gloves from Kombi Sports. Of the different brands we reviewed, Kombi’s gloves may well go farthest in seriously pushing the envelope in technology and design.

Very, very cool.

I had never worn Kombi gloves or mittens before now. They are exceptional. Each of the gloves or mittens we reviewed were distinct from the others we reviewed from the other brands, reflecting innovative thinking in what a glove should be. I’d highly recommend any of these three models.

The Kombi Freeform features Gore’s 2-in-1 technology and includes two chambers. (Meaning: You can slide your hand into one of two chambers.) One chamber isn’t as warm but gives you an incredible grip. The other is fully insulated and kept even my circulation-poor hands toasty warm. (The other reviewers even found the minimally insulated “grip” chamber plenty warm.) This is the perfect glove to use throughout the season: use the “grip” chamber for Spring skiing and the insulated chamber through the colder months.

The Kombi iRip kept the other three reviewers toasty warm…but left my fingers a little cold. Remember, though, that I’m a bit of an anomaly here so unless you have a history of freezing fingers this glove should be plenty warm for you. It’s made of stretch nylon with X-Loft insulation, a Waterguard waterproof membrane, and Accu-Dri lining (meaning, the lining wicks moisture away from your hands which keeps you dry…and keeps the glove from smelling). This glove is worth its price ($150).

It works with a wide range of iPods, though I couldn’t get it to work with my iPod Video. (It worked flawlessly with every other iPod we tried, however, so I’m blaming my iPod on this one.) You simply plug the wireless transmitter into your iPod, tuck it away, and go. There is nothing like slamming the moguls to Jane’s Addiction (”Mountain Song,” anyone?), turning it up on the way down without anything more than nudging the iRip’s “joystick.”

Though less flashy, the Kombi Freeform Glove (MSRP: $100) has some interesting tricks up its sleeve. Two, to be exact. That is, two sleeves.

I loved the little touches to this one, as well. The hidden pocket that lets you put in handwarmers (though I can’t imagine needing one). The super-soft fleece cuff. And, of course, that ever-useful nosewipe fabric on the thumb.

The last glove we reviewed was actually not a glove at all: it’s the Kombi Phoenix Mitten (MSRP: $80). As noted above, I’ve worn mittens for years but this one was different: it’s very lightweight, making it easy to grip, yet super warm (due to a Goose Down insulation and a GoreTex lining).

Beyond this, the Kombi Freeform features a textured nylon shell with leather reinforcement and the lining is Accu-Dri (no-stink and wicks moisture away). Though polar bear warm it is doesn’t feel at all bulky.

While ski technology has dramatically improved over the years, there’s one area that still leaves me cold: gloves. I have very poor circulation in my hands, resulting in freezing hands unless I wear mittens.

commentary

Kombi Freeform Glove

The case was slated to go to trial on March 10.

Still unresolved is a patent suit brought by Visto against BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. Visto alleges that RIM violated four of its patents. That case is scheduled to go to trial in July.

In 2006, Visto prevailed in a patent infringement suit brought against Seven Networks. The company ultimately was awarded about $7.7 million in damages.

Microsoft and Visto, which provides mobile e-mail services, said Monday that they have settled a long-running patent dispute.

The companies did not disclose details of the settlement; Visto had alleged that Microsoft violated its mobile e-mail patents. In a press release, Visto said it has entered into a licensing deal with Microsoft that involves “cash and non-cash consideration.”

Unfortunately, Microsoft updates the browser only once a month, and even then not all known holes in the browser will be plugged, as Michael Horowitz pointed out in his Defensive Computing blog last week (scroll down to read the updates).

Yet IE remains the preferred browser of nearly four out of five people surfing the Web. If you’re one of the Web majority, there’s one thing you can do to enhance your online security: Update to the latest IE release.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Click "View available updates" under the Install Updates button in Vista's Windows Update applet.

As with all Windows updates, you may want to wait a day or two after an IE patch is released before installing it. Then keep an eye on the tech-news sites for reports of update-related glitches. If all appears to be well with the update, add it to your system. Remember what they say about the pioneers being the ones with the arrows in their backs.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remains the most popular browser in the world. This despite report after report calling the program less secure than Mozilla
Firefox, Opera, and other free competitors.

Check the Windows (and IE) updates you want to add and click the Install button.

According to Net Applications, IE 6 accounted for more than 26 percent of the browser market in June 2008, while IE 7 was used by over 46 percent of all people on the Web. If your PC runs Windows 2000 or an earlier version of the OS, you can’t upgrade to version 7 of IE. Unless your boss insists that you use the older version of the browser on XP or Vista, you’ve got no excuse for not upgrading to the safer IE 7.

Check the updates you want to install. Look specifically for security patches for Internet Explorer. Once you’ve made your selections, click Install.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Even with Microsoft’s spotty update record, it pays to upgrade to IE 7, and to download and install all available security patches for that version of the browser. If you set Windows to download updates automatically but prompt you to install them, or to alert you when updates are ready to download (as I described in a previous post), click the update-alert icon when it appears in your system tray to open the Windows Update Control Panel applet. In Vista, choose “View available updates” in the right pane under the Install Updates button.

Of course, as the missions have gotten larger and more sophisticated, the group’s need to stay below-radar and out of trouble hasn’t changed. That means that the group strives mightily to stay true to its roots, even as it works to bring the pranks to the world at large.

The upshot of that event is that the cops ended up putting eight participants in handcuffs and citing them for disorderly conduct. However, he added, all eight had their tickets thrown out later “because it’s not illegal to wear (nothing but) underpants in New York City.”

“That’s one of the (great) things about having a giant mailing list,” Todd said. “We’re able to make requests for unique types of people and to get responses. I sent out a request for identical twins and got 50 offers.”

In actuality, the explanation is little more than the act itself. In the group’s videos, you can see the bewilderment on onlookers’ faces as they witness what, to many, is the oddest thing they’ve ever seen. But in most cases, when the mission is finished and the agents disappear, it’s quite obvious what’s happened, and you can see the delight on witnesses’ faces at having seen something so bizarre.

Todd said that while they have had very few run-ins with the police, one of the earliest no-pants pranks did draw some angry cops to the scene.

So what ties them together?

But even as the Improv Everywhere Global community–there’s now more than 12,000 people signed up–gets going, the mother ship is continuing on.

Even though the pranks are designed specifically to be harmless to people and property, they sometimes cross the lines of what authorities are able to deal with.

But what makes Improv Everywhere different is that it has mastered the art of documenting, with rich videos and lots of photography, their work and then disseminating the documentation to the world at large via the Internet, both on YouTube and other services, and on the group’s own Web site.

To Todd, that’s exactly the point. His goal with the various missions is to surprise an unsuspecting crowd with something they’ve never seen before and then to walk away as if nothing happened, leaving nothing but smiles in his wake.

That’s why Todd turned to the custom social-network service Ning to create Improv Everywhere Global, which is enabling culture jamming fans in other cities and countries to band together to create their own missions.

So, Todd said, when everyone gathered for the 2008 version of the no-pants prank, there were three police officers waiting for them. But they weren’t there to stop the event. Rather, they were there to escort them and to make sure everything went smoothly.

“A cop encountered it and didn’t know how to handle it,” Todd said. “He was freaked out.”

“We never break character, and we never have a reveal moment at the end of the mission,” Todd told me recently. “From the beginning, we’ve been interested in the idea of doing something that’s unusual, doing something out of the ordinary, and then vanishing, leaving without taking credit or giving explanation.”

The best part of that whole experience, he said, was that the police officer in charge of the scene was Officer Panton. Seriously.

What that means, practically, is finding ways for the group’s cameramen and women to be discreet yet manage to be right in the middle of things.

“Now the NYPD just knows that on a Saturday in January,” Todd said, “they have to assign some (officers) to the no-pants detail.”

So, there have now been “freezes” in many other cities, and you shouldn’t be surprised to see a group of people on the subway in your city in their underpants.

But Improv Everywhere has also managed to demonstrate that its missions are meant as nothing but fun.

One thing that makes it possible for Improv Everywhere to continue to succeed with its missions–at least in terms of finding many surprised onlookers–is that the art of so-called culture jamming, or flash mobs, is still foreign to most people.

That may change over time, however, especially because as Improv Everywhere’s popularity has grown, so too, has worldwide interest in bringing its message, well, everywhere.

Why, you ask? The standing still was actually part of an elaborate prank, pulled off by “agents” of a group called Improv Everywhere. The idea was that the hundreds of people would simultaneously “freeze” in the middle of Grand Central, with no warning nor explanation to those nearby, and stay that way, no matter what, for five minutes.

In 2001, Todd–who, to some, is a dead-ringer for rock star Ben Folds–found himself onstage at a West Village bar, impersonating the singer. He got a positive response from the crowd, and decided to use the experience as the jumping-off point for a new form of prank theater.

In the video, you can see dozens of perplexed onlookers, confused as to what’s going on. In their midst, the participants look like statues, comic in their stationary poses. When, after five minutes, they all suddenly began to walk away and to blend back into the crowd, the onlookers broke out in applause.

“If you’re doing something that pleases 100 percent of the population, it’s probably not very interesting,” said Todd. “Every year, after we do our no-pants mission, there will be comments on the Web site that say, ‘How dare you do this in front of children.’ My practical response is, ‘Are you going to raise your child and never take him or her to the beach?’”

But Improv Everywhere has pulled off many other pranks as well. A visit to its Web site reveals a wide range of concepts, some quite simple and others much more complex.

And while Improv Everywhere itself is based in New York, it has spawned what might be called a worldwide spinoff movement of people who love the idea of impromptu pranks and want to follow the group’s footsteps. The resulting network, known as Improv Everywhere Global, helps those in other cities and countries coalesce behind the notion of creating and perpetrating pranks, all in the spirit of Improv Everywhere itself.

At its essence, Improv Everywhere is a group of pranksters that strikes here and there, around New York and the occasional other city. In that regard, they aren’t much different from other groups that have come and gone, playing practical jokes on an unsuspecting public.

That’s why participants are told that if anyone asks what they’re doing, they should answer something along the lines of, “I’m just here to meet my girlfriend,” even when they’re dressed the same way as dozens of other people answering the same way.

Todd said that last weekend, the group carried out its latest mission and that in a couple of weeks, it will be posted to the Web site. He wouldn’t say much about what it is, except to say that it involved identical twins.

But while the global arm has managed a few pranks, Improv Everywhere remains a New York phenomenon, the brainchild and the passion of its founder, Charlie Todd.

One good example of that was when Improv Everywhere pulled off its Best Buy prank. One video camera was hidden inside a modified
Xbox 360 package so that the person shooting the video looked like a store customer thinking about buying one of the Microsoft video game consoles.

One of the most important things in pulling off these kinds of pranks is being prepared to handle any security or law enforcement that may come along.

On January 31, 2008, a video depicting hundreds of people standing perfectly still in New York’s Grand Central Station was posted on YouTube. The video quickly became a phenomenon, and to date, nearly 9.5 million people have watched it.

“One big challenge we’ve been wrestling with is riding the line between the events being pure and special for people who see it in person,” Todd said, “versus also the importance of getting awesome video footage and photographs as well.”

In the years since, Todd has recruited hundreds of so-called agents to help him with what he calls “missions,” the pranks Improv Everywhere runs. Among the most notable are the annual “No pants” subway rides, in which hundreds of participants show up on New York City subway
cars in their underwear; “Food Court Musical,” the group’s most recent mission, in which a number of agents materialized in a mall in Los Angeles and suddenly broke out in what, to onlookers, appeared to be an impromptu musical about several people’s simultaneous and coincidental need for napkins; and one of my favorites, in which dozens of participants dressed in blue shirts and khaki pants and flooded into a Manhattan Best Buy store, attempting to look like the store’s easily recognizable employees.

Still, there are always going to be detractors, even when groups like Improv Everywhere goes out of its way to make sure its missions are done in a purely positive spirit, something Todd is proud of given that many pranksters on television strive to make fun of people in front of the whole world.

Other strategies have involved shooting video through windows and having the photographers pretend to be onlookers who just happen to have cameras.