Peter Guzli climbed to the top of the World Trade Center on November 28, 1997 and had his picture taken. Then, four years later, after the horrific attacks, he decided to doctor the photo into one of the most infamous hoaxes in history.
The picture appears to show a man standing on the observation deck moments before United Flight 175 strikes the tower. A viral email sent along with the picture claimed it had been found on a camera pulled from the wreckage.
Guzli added the plane from a stock image and changed the date stamp on the picture (did I mention he’s a computer technician?). He then sent an email to friends, but created a new email address to make it appear the message had originated from a local police chief. From there, it was posted to the Internet and went viral.
“It was a private matter – I assumed my friends would recognize me and call me to see if I was alright, but they didn’t, they posted it on to other friends and suddenly it was all over the world. I am ashamed that even now the police still get calls about it, I never did it for money and I never intended to cause any harm to the real victims or their families,” he said.
The image became a full-scale meme with the wool capped man appearing in dozens of doctored other historical moments. There is a full site dedicated to the hoax.
For many of us, life before September 11, 2001 is hard to remember. Yet, the front pages of September 10 detail the ordinary news around the country. The first hurricane of the season, Erin, was making waves along the East Coast as she moved far out to sea. New York Jets coach Herman Edwards was under scrutiny after his team lost by 21 points in the season opener. All across America, the normal joys and disappointments of life occurred. These pictures capture some of those moments. One day later, our world changed forever.
1. An Australian man named David Officer was visiting New York with his family. They got to the top of the Empire State Building and took this picture of the World Trade Center on Sept. 10. They planned to visit the World Trade Center the following morning, but were delayed when David decided to go for a run. (ABC News)
2. Taken by a hiker on a trip, this image from Mohonk, New York was taken on the evening of Sept. 10. (Flatbush Gardener)
3. Impressed with the lovely night sky, a man decided to snap this picture from the window of his DC office building. You can see the Capitol Building in the background. (Boston Bill)
4. Over in the United Kingdom, a man stopped and photographed a train. (rowanC82)
5. This picture comes from inside an airplane that was making the transatlantic flight from London to San Francisco. (steve_l)
6. In Pittsburgh, this shot shows a business luncheon occurring on Sept. 10. (mml.stanford)
7. A beautiful lookout into the peaceful tranquility of nature. Taken near Leecher Lookout in Washington. (firephoto39)
8. Coming back from lunch, this San Francisco worker snapped a picture of the flower below. (GordReece)
9. Artist Monika Bravo was at work on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center until midnight on September 10, 2001. She took a video of the thunderstorm that hit New York that evening and created a 5 minute video from it. You can see the complete video here.
10. President Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard shake hands before a meeting on Sept. 10. Prime Minister Howard would be in Washington the following day, as the attacks began to unfold.
11. This image could make your blood freeze. Hijackers Mohamed Atta (rear) and Abdulaziz al-Omari (front) were photographed by this ATM in Portland, Maine at 8:41 p.m. the night before the attacks.
Video: This was taken on September 3, 2001 by someone in town for a wedding. It’s chilling and shows what the complex was like just days before the attack.
It is still quite the achievement in the music world to have a song hit number 1 on the charts, and that’s exactly what Maroon 5 did last week with their latest single “Moves Like Jagger” ft. Christina Aguilera.
The accomplishment is notable for a variety of odd reasons. Let’s go through them one by one.
1. For Maroon 5: The rock band has not had a number 1 since 2007’s “Makes Me Wonder.” This puts them back on top again.
2. For Christina Aguilera: The singer has not had a number 1 for ten years since 2001’s “Lady Marmalade” with Lil’ Kim, Mya and P!nk. It is her fifth number one hit overall.
3. For Adam Levine: The Maroon 5 frontman becomes the first artist to have a number one hit with a band and place another song in the top 10 as a soloist in the same week. He contributed vocals to the Gym Class Heroes‘ “Stereo Hearts.”
4. For Mick Jagger: The Rolling Stones frontman becomes the first musician ever to have had a number 1 hit and to have their name mentioned in a number one hit. The Rolling Stones had 8 number one hits in the 1960s and 1970s. This achievement doesn’t apply to “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” by the Temptations since it didn’t refer to Jagger’s band specifically.
Overall, Jagger becomes the fourth musician to have his name appear in a number one hit. The others:
Tone-Loc (1989): “Funky Cold Medina” (Cold coolin’ at a bar, and I’m lookin’ for some action / But, like Mick Jagger said, I can’t get no satisfaction)
The only other celebrity to have their new appear in a number one hit that I can find is Bette Davis whose name appeared in Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes.”
In case you haven’t heard, Groupon is planning for a massive IPO sometime soon. The company hopes to raise from $1 billion from the deal (though they only mention $750 million in their filing). That’s a massive amount of money.
There’s reason for optimism from the Groupon camp. They have posted unbelievable growth in sales (from $30.47 million in 2009 to $713.4 million in 2010 to $644.7 million in the first quarter of this year) and have reliably been called the “Fastest Growing Company in History.” They sold 28.1 million Groupons in the first quarter of this year. They have 83.1 million subscribers in March 2011 up from 152,203 in June 2009.
All good things. But there are major reasons for concern as well.
1) The company could be insolvent: Now, CEO Andrew Mason (see below) says we shouldn’t worry about this, but I don’t buy it. Groupon has generated new subscribers and grown so rapidly by spending massive amounts of money on advertising and sales. This means they have never been profitable. In fact, the company owes merchants $392 million versus $225 million cash in the bank. Overall, they owe $681 million in current liabilities but have just $376 million in assets. Think of it like this: Groupon makes money the moment they sell you a Groupon and they don’t have to pay the merchant their share for 60 days. This means the company continues to generate money (and lots of it). Eventually, though, they’ll have to pay up. Which brings us to the second point…
2) People could be getting sick of daily deals: Now, I’m reluctant to read too much into this, though many people are not. Traffic for both Groupon and their main rival, Living Social, was down substantially in July, 8.9 and 28 percent respectively. Now, I happen to agree with Matt Pace of Compete:
The most likely factor is seasonality, as summer vacations disrupt normal routines. This says a lot about summer web surfing behavior, something that marketers may want to explore a bit more closely.
Pace does also point to potential deal fatigue among customers as another factor for the drop in traffic. This should be much more troubling for Groupon. With more than 500 daily deal sites, customers and merchants may simply be bogged down by offers and deals. Both Facebook and Yelp essentially eliminated daily deals offers after brief experiments.
In the short term, daily deal fatigue may be helpful for Groupon by eliminating competitors. Most of the 500 competitors will fold and drop out of the race, leaving Living Social and Groupon as the marketplace leader. However, should the economy continue to limp along or customers become tired of daily deals, Groupon’s sales may drop. Keep in mind how much they owe merchants. If sales drop, the company could be in real trouble. Some potential investors have already realized this…private trading of shares in the company are down 20 percent.
3) Andrew Mason: The CEO of the company should be a major reason for concern. Mason is weird and bizarre. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but he comes across as immature in running his business. That’s not good for something that could be worth $20 billion. Take a look at some of the videos he posted on YouTube. First, there’s the ten-minute yoga video in his underwear…
Then, there’s this review of a recent Desperate Housewives episode…
Or this video advertising a monkey renting business….
The list goes on… to more professional matters. First, Mason insisted The Wall Street Journal use a goofy picture for his headcut portrait in the newspaper. Then, he mockingly stared down a reporter who was asking him questions about a potential Google merger. Multiple times, rather than responding.
He has also said pretty bizarre things about his ever-expanding company. During an interview with Time, he said:
To me, as somebody who likes to come up with ideas, [Groupon is] kind of stupid. Like, I’ve had way better ideas, way cooler ideas.
I think when people call us the fastest growing company ever, I think of us as like the N-Sync of websites, like we have had good tunes, but we’re not The Beatles. It’s not like we’re the best thing ever.
Yeah, really bizarre comments. Most troubling, though, is an internal memo he sent out last week in response to press criticism. It was “leaked.” The document is extremely snarky and seems almost paranoid.
“If there’s a silver lining, it’s that we’re almost on the other side, and the negativity leaves us well-positioned to exceed expectations with an IPO baby that, having seen the ultrasound, I can promise you is not one of those uglies.”
Read the whole thing here. Particularly troubling for many people is the fact that company handed out $810 million of the $946 million it raised in a funding round last year as bonuses to early employees and investors. Just $136 million was actually used to support the company.
Seems questionable. Could the world’s “Fastest Growing Company” be headed for an epic implosion? Only time will tell, but I’m holding onto my money. Certainly as long as Mason’s running this ship.
Professional bicycle rider Danny MacAskill heads to an abandoned train yard and some derelict buildings to perform some outrageous stunts on his bicycle. The film was filmed in the Scottish countryside and will become part of a Channel 4 documentary called Concrete Circus. It was directed by Stu Thomson.
The picture appears to show a man standing on the observation deck moments before United Flight 175 strikes the tower. A viral email sent along with the picture claimed it had been found on a camera pulled from the wreckage.
Not Intent on Arriving 