Verizon tries to stop sale of VerizonMath T-Shirts!

Verizon is trying to shut down our sale of VerizonMath parody T-Shirts. It seems they think we may be cutting into their T-Shirt sales as a competitor. As if someone might somehow get them confused.

See the T-Shirts for sale (at cost) here.

Your opinions and ideas are welcome and appreciated.

PLEASE digg the story here !

Here's the email:

From: patrick.m.flaherty@verizon.com <patrick.m.flaherty@verizon.com>
Date: Jan 9, 2007 6:08 PM
Subject: Unauthorized Use of the Trademarks VERIZON and the VERIZON Logo
To: info@bluefishtshirts.com, jdean@bluefishtshirts.com
Cc: janis.manning@verizon.com


This email is being sent on behalf of Janis M. Manning, Esquire, Verizon's
Assistant General Counsel – Trademarks & Copyrights.

Dear Mr. Dean:

Please see the attached correspondence.

Very truly yours,

Janis M. Manning

(See attached file: Blue Fish T-Shirts Letter 010907.pdf)

Janis M. Manning, Esquire
Assistant General Counsel – Trademarks & Copyrights
Verizon Corporate Services Group Inc.
1515 North Court House Road, Suite 500
U.S.A.
Phone: 703-351-3080
Fax: 703-351-3669
Email: janis.manning@verizon.com

___________________________________
Patrick M. Flaherty
Counsel - Trademarks & Copyrights
Verizon Corporate Services Corp.
1515 North Court House Road, Suite 500\n
Arlington, Virginia 22201, U.S.A.
tel: 703 351 3020
fax: 703 351 3669
email: patrick.m.flaherty@verizon.com

Happy New Year! + Updates

Happy New Year everyone!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I have been working on a few things:

1. Peter's situation is still not yet resolved - I find this utterly amazing. Any ideas you might have as to help get this resolved would be much appreciated. Before my issue was "addressed" and I was refunded, many people mentioned sending verizon emails and posting to their feedback and referencing my blog - perhaps others might be motivated to do this specifically using the link to Peter's story here. He mentioned some new audio - I will bring that to you as soon as I get it. Perhaps you could even email Ana Diaz and reference my email to her from 12/12/2006 regarding addressing Peter's quoting/billing issue.

2. Jeremy has generously created some VerizonMath wallpaper which I have posted here - Thanks Jeremy! Warning - LOTS of ads show up on the fortune city site (using a free site to cut costs). Also, I will post any other wallpaper designs anyone might have or want to create.

3. The t-shirts are NOW Available! See the link in the upper right of the blog.

4. If you get a chance, please check out geekwishlist.net. This is Davman's (a winner of the remix contest) new website. He generously donated his prize to childsplaycharity.org.

Thanks for your support.

Contest Results

OK,

I've been thinking quite a bit about how to make the call about both contests, its been really hard on both fronts.

T-Shirt Contest

In the end the tally came to (for the top 3):

	5	27	37
1	5	10	5
2	6	3	1
3	3	4	1
Total Votes	14	17	7
Wighted Votes	30	40	18

First of all, I like all 3 of the top voted designs, but as previously expressed I really like #5, but I also think #27 and also #37 are very good. I've been stewing about how to deal with the situation since #27 did get more votes than #5 in terms of votes. Also, as we know, #27 and #37 have some issues in terms of trademark, that have to be addressed - Tony (#27) has provided some updated designs, which I like, but that absolutely noone has given any feedback on.

Like I said, this has been very difficult and I hope that everyone who voted, understands the difficulty - I've decided to give the prize to BOTH top entries - VL for #5, and Tony for #27. Congratulations to both of you - and thank you for your great designs!

I would like to give Beau's #37 what amounts to an honorable mention for his design. Also, should the trademark issue get addressed, and at least a few people express an interest, I will have #37 offered as well.

Beau if you would provide a similar modification ("revizon" I think would work well in your case too), and we can get some feedback on it, it would be great to offer all 3 designs as T-Shirts (as long as my T-Shirt maker will do that for us).

Also, in light of the dwindling interest in this blog :(, I'd like to set the price for the shirts as low as possible so that people might be more likely to buy them. I haven't gotten any feedback on this at all, so I'm making the call that seems to make the most sense. I don't think we would have raised much money for charity. Perhaps the visibility this issue has raised in terms of math education, has done some good in its own right.


Remix Contest

In this case the votes still stand at 0 to 0 - not a single vote. I assume this is again due to the dwindling interest and the holidays. That said, I think I have a solution that will work.

I think both submissions are great, and obviously took a lot of time and effort. Therefore I am again going to award BOTH entries the prize!

Congratulations Davman and Beau!

Coincidentally, today my total ad revenue stands at $289.57 - which is a mere $2.41 higher than 4 x $71.79 (I find that pretty funny). So all 4 of you will be receiving the full prize! (please contact me with your preferred payment method - physical address for a check or paypal email).

Thank you everyone for participating! I will try to get the 2 T-Shirt designs into the hands of the printers ASAP. The earliest I will have news about this is probably Tuesday because of the holiday. I will post the info as soon as I have it.

I wish you all a very Happy Holiday!

Last Call for Votes - Deadline 9:00 PM Eastern

Ok, its about time we rapped this baby up.

Current Results for the T-Shirt Contest

Here are the current votes for the T-Shirt Contest - as long as I've done my counting right - it was a challenge with some changed votes, and some ambiguous ones.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
1		2	2		4	1					1		3					1		1	1	2			1		10
2	1		1	1	5	1	2	1	2		2		1				1			1		2				2	3
3			2		2	3		1		1		1				1		1		2	2	1	1	1	1	1	4
	2	6	10	2	24	8	4	3	4	1	7	1	11	0	0	1	2	4	0	7	5	11	1	1	4	5	40	0	0	0

	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58
1			1				5					1					1								1		1
2	1	2			1		1										2				2
3	1			1		1	1									1	2
	3	4	3	1	2	1	18	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	1	9	0	0	0	4	0	0	0	3	0	3	0

I have weighted the scores such that a #1 vote = 3 points, a #2 vote = 2 and a #3 vote = 1. I also don't think the weightings really affect the outcome, as 027 is clearly in the lead, and 005 has 4 & 5 votes, while 037 has 5 & 1 votes (for #1 and #2 respectively). So no matter how you slice it I think that 005 clearly has the lead over 037... Anyway...

Clearly the current breakdown is, 027, then 005, then 037.

Please post your votes if you havent already, and for 027 and 037, please submit ideas (everyone) or modified designs (from the original designers only please), that address the verizon logo, and one sided T-Shirt issues.

At this point, and I hope without hurting anyone's feelings, I'd like to cast my vote for 005, and explain why. Remember, we can go with more than one design - I think we will wind up doing that.

1) simple
2) cool - I'd wear it without feeling nerdy - (insert laughs here)
3) does not mention verizon
4) recognizable by anyone thats heard the audio
5) it says a lot without saying a lot


Current Results for the Remix Contest

I have receive 0 - that is not a single - vote for the Remix competition. Please cast a vote, or at least post a comment that you can't decide :).


Thank you all for following along. The traffic on this site has dwindled quite a bit from the big bang the first weekend - the rest of you are real die-hards - Thank's so much for participating!

Remix Contest Entries

I extended the deadline for the remix contest because I was alerted that it was too much to ask for a remix in such a short timeframe, but then the guy who made that comment was just doing a drive by and never returned. The good news is we managed to get 1 more remix from the friendly folks over at verizonmath.com.

So here are the, count 'em, 2 remix entries, and the first one is an old favorite:

1. Davman's Verizon-Cant-Do-Math-Money-Remix
Note: Dave made this baby in a tiny timeframe and IMO did a great job.

2. Beau and Brett's March of the Super Dumb Parrots Mix
Note: There are a few parts in this remix where it sounds like an echo - I've been informed this is actually created using unique samples from the original call - thats a lot of "point zero zero twos!"

Please check them out and submit your votes and comments.

Thanks guys! Nice work!

Preliminary T-Shirt Contest Results

Thanks to all who submitted designs and voted. There are a bunch of great designs, and some good feedback in the comments. Nice work everybody!

OK, to the top 3 in terms of votes:

027: 10, 3, 3
005: 3, 3, 1
037: 4, 0, 1

I have a couple of comments:

1) this is before my vote :)
2) both 027 and 037 use the Verizon logo sans the "V" swooshy thing.
3) 027 as it stands is a 2 sided design - which drives the cost up - unless we move the back design to the front as well.
4) 005 uses a "2" that looks stylistically similar, but is not the same as the verizon "z" - very clever design.
5) I'm disappointed noone liked 020 (it only got 1 #2, and 1 #3) :(

Anyway, I'll accept votes for one more day, and take them into consideration as well.

That said, I'd like people to think about the fact that IMO (based on speaking with lawyers late monday) we cannot use designs 027 or 037 as they stand because the verizon logo is pretty much intact. Perhaps modifications of those can be produced. I think 005 is safe as it does not even contain the name verizon.

I would like to remind everyone of rule #2: "must not infringe any trademarks." I should have not even allowed these entries, but did thinking that they would inspire other ideas and comments. Also at the time I had not yet consulted lawyers and thought there could be a chance we could safely use them.

I'd like to hear all your thoughts in light of this information.

Thanks very much! I can't wait to get the final product...

T-Shirt Contest Entries

Hello everyone, and thanks for your entries.

I have received a total of 36 entries for the contest. I'd like to remind everyone that comedy and design are subjective, and ask that people only make positive comments or constructive criticisms.

There are a few things to know about the the way I am hosting the entries:
1. I am hosting this on a free web account, so there are ads - most of the time they are not visible, but sometimes they popup in front - in that case just hit your refresh/reload button.
2. I wrote the photo album viewer myself and its not that polished.
3. the little numbered buttons in the upper right resize the thumbnails dynamically.
4. click on an image to load its higher res version, when it turns green you can click it again to see a larger popup display.
5. if you hover over a thumbnail, you will see its # and credits
6. the images sometimes size strangely wide as their heights are held consistent.

Please vote by posting a comment in the format:

My Votes:
1. #
2. #
3. #

Where obviously the number sign is replaced with the actual number. You don't have to place votes for 3, and feel free to elaborate, for example "I like # but I think the slogan should be ..."

I will compile the results manually. And potentially make the call based on my own preference - hopefully there is a clear winner.

Finally, find the entries here.

Also, I'll be happy to take late entries, just realize they won't get as much visibility.