I’m going to keep this brief as I’m just testing some links, but as it relates to my theory of web based personal retail the above example “virtual gallery” by Art.com is the perfect example for discussion that I thought I’d share it here.
Art.com calls itself the best kept secret on the web. In fact, it is the biggest brand you’ve never heard of. Above is what they call their virtual store. Any of their affiliates can place one of these “widgets” on their own website/blog as I am doing here. Now that is half the battle. There is no viralness to this widget. I do love that someone like myself can display for you some art that they find interesting or that they’d like to share with you. It allows me to broadcast what I like.
What do I not like about it you ask? Art.com does not make it easy to share. If someone wants to make a copy of this gallery or make one themself, how do they do that? Art.com has created a great widget. Now they have to turn on the marketing engines. Art.com has developed the application on Facebook, but similary there is no viralness. There should be an embed or share button somewhere. There might be, but I couldn’t find one.
“I arrived in San Francisco with no job, a pregnant wife and less than $1,000 to my name.” – Walter Shorenstein, billionaire, San Franciscan and owner of the largest private real estate company in the US.
Clinton and Shorenstein
RIP Walter Shorenstein. Herb Caen, famed Pulitzer winning columnist, used to be so mad at Walter Shorenstein for ruining the San Francisco skyline and views with the large buildings that he owned (the Bank of America building was his most famous) and built. Now two of San Francisco’s largest fans can continue their conversation in heaven. Herb will tell him not to build any buildings in the afterlife. He’ll also tell him that it is cool, but not as nice as San Francisco.
I only met Mr. Shorenstein personally once. He was a very quiet billionaire, but if you knew San Francisco and politics, you knew the name. In fact it was hard to escape in San Francisco and New York where his name could be found on buildings (his daughter just won a Tony for the revival of August Wilson’s Fences). San Francisco is a small town in many ways so it is hard not to run into people some time in our lives.
Like Herb Caen, I hated Walter Shorenstein too! 16 years ago I got married and came home to San Francisco from my “Big Italian New Jersey Wedding” on our way to Hawaii. We were dropping off our bags and picking up our honeymoon bags and flying out the next morning. The problem was that our car (with house keys in the glove compartment) had been towed from in front of my parent’s house. This crazy rich guy had our whole street towed for his wife’s funeral which took place at San Francisco’s Temple Emanuel. By the way, I live on a street where homes were built before people had cars so we all parked on the street back then on the street. Needless to say I never carried my wife into our first home. I spent my second night of marriage at the tow yard. Ironically the World Cup was going on that year as well as I remember sitting in the tow office watching soccer.
Four years later I was still holding a grudge about that night and was out for a run when I got jumped by several secret service people outside of Mr. Shorenstein’s house in the Sea Cliff neighborhood where I lived. Seems that I was of poor timing as President Clinton had been spending the night and was about to go for a run. Mr. Shorenstein had said that he’d seen me in the neighborhood and apologized. I thanked him and he introduced me to the President. I wonder if they both remembered my sweaty and stunned handshake. Not often that you get to shake hands with a current President and a billionaire in the same minute. I never got to tell Mr. Shorenstein about my towed car story, but it was now pointless. This man was a philanthropist. He saved our baseball team from moving, he donated his money freely, and he did it as many would call “The San Francisco Way” (with style).
Now almost 16 years later to the day of his wife’s passing, the quiet billionaire and supporter of Presidents has passed and I’m bracing myself. Monday will be his funeral and now that I’m back living across the street from the Temple, I’m expecting multiple Presidents in attendance. My guess is that I will have an unobstructed view of President’s Clinton and Carter as well as VPs Walter Mondale and Al Gore. Others I expect in attendance are Senator Diane Feinstein (a former neighbor), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (also a former neighbor) , and Mayor Gavin Newsom. So I guess I will be there as well.
Well that is my story about Walter Shorenstein. Attached is the article from the San Francisco newspaper to get a broader view of his career: SFGate – Click Here for article
Baseball in San Francisco enjoys a rich history although not one of success with no World Series victories to call its own. 52 years of baseball in San Francisco and while there have been many faces of the franchise, there is no doubt that Mays, Bonds and now Lincecum for the forseeable future will be the legacy names depending upon the generation you call yours.
Mays and Lincecum
I think the Barry Bonds era is officially over. He’s pretty much forgotten as Tim (“The Freak”) Lincecum has captured the imagination and how holds the torch for the San Francisco baseball community. And while many not have lived long enough to know it, while Barry was so long the face of the community, he really didn’t capture the imagination of San Francisco as much as Willie (“The Say Hey Kid”) Mays and Tim Lincecum have done. He stood on a pedastal while Willie and Tim have personalities that reflect the San Francisco of their times. Although I was only 5 years old when Willie Mays handed me his autographed baseball while I handed him some steaks as we stood in the freezer of my grandfather’s butcher shop, I remember it like it was yesterday.
Willie moved to San Francisco and the City was electrified by this young “African-American” who had enthusisam and personality that transcended racial barriers. Willie Mays, along with my grandfather, a Chinese butcher, who through some luck had come into some money were still in a racially divided society despite the liberalness of San Francisco in the early ’60s. My grandfather, was unable to purchase a home outside of the Chinatown community. My grandfather had earned some money from the sale of his butcher shop to the City of San Francisco so they could build what would eventually become the current Moscone Convention Center.
At the same time Willie Mays was refuted the ability to purchase a home and later chased out of his neighborhood. Then mayor, George Christopher, a Greek man who embraced civil rights, took both men in at separate times and they became friends. My grandfather was eventually introduced by the mayor to another Greek man, John Vrahos, who helped my grandfather to become one of the first Asian homeowners in the ritzy suburb of Menlo Park which ironically today is heavily populated by the Asian community despite small print on most land deeds which still state that the property should not be sold to a person of color.
Although my grandfather died almost a decade ago, when I see Willie Mays today, he still greets me and calls me “Phil’s grandson”. I never got to ask my grandfather but in many ways I feel like Willie might have been his first black acquaintance and the for Willie, my grandfather might have been his first Asian acquaintance.
Tonight I watched my son sit mesmerized in front of the television as he watched Tim Lincecum mow down the Houston Astros. Lincecum’s long hair is being copied by children all over San Francisco’s Little League fields such that you can barely tell the boys from the girls. More importantly he is relating to a new generation of fans. Walking his dog around the city with his girlfriend, Lincecum looks like any 20-something on the street. His dimunitive size for a baseball player allows him to mesh in with the tourists and not call much attention to himself.
What is happening in San Francisco with Lincecum is truly unique. Mays is undoubtedly the best player that ever played the game and those who grewup watching him were lucky. With 2 Cy Youngs in his first 3 years, Lincecum is definitely one of the brightest stars in the game and I hope my child will some day look back and see how lucky he was to have grown up a Giants fan idolizing a future Hall of Famer.
