It is official - Rackspace is moving in to the Windsor Park Mall.

Here are a couple of the write ups:

For some history about the mall, check out these links:

To see what it looks like now, look at these pictures (taken by a Racker):

Here is Lanham Napier talking about the move (video):

An interesting perspective:

Got the following in my inbox this morning:

subject: Important information about your Google Video account
from: Google Video Team
reply-to: checkout-support@google.com
to: (removed)
date: 10 Aug 2007 21:43:37 -0000

Hello,

As a valued Google user, we’re contacting you with some important
information about the videos you’ve purchased or rented from Google Video.
In an effort to improve all Google services, we will no longer offer the
ability to buy or rent videos for download from Google Video, ending the
DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program. This change will be effective
August 15, 2007.

To fully account for the video purchases you made before July 18, 2007, we
are providing you with a Google Checkout bonus for $5.00. Your bonus
expires in 60 days, and you can use it at the stores listed here:
http://www.google.com/checkout/signupwelcome.html. The minimum purchase
amount must be equal to or greater than your bonus amount, before shipping
and tax.

After August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased
or rented videos.

If you have further questions or requests, please do not hesitate to
contact us. Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

The Google Video Team

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Neat - not only does the video that I purchased no longer work, but instead of a refund, I get a Google Checkout credit. And to top it all off, the Google Checkout purchase must be equal to or greater than the credit before shipping and tax, so I actually lose money on the deal.

Slashdot has more coverage: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/11/1253237

Eric Mattson from MarketingMonger recently interviewed Frederic “Suizo” Mendler, VP of Customer Care at Rackspace. You can listen to it here.

There is an article in the November issue of Fortune Small Business about Rackspace. The article focuses on our commitment to the financial concept of Economic Value Added (EVA).

Some of the facts in the article are a bit off, and it completely glosses over the reason why Rackspace can set prices that allow for 15% true profit in an industry where most are competing on price, but overall, it’s a good read.

Also, my picture is in the article.

The break even point for ESPN’s cell phone service, ESPN Mobile, was estimated to be about 500,000 subscribers. After seven months, they had just 30,000. So, they did what any high school coach would do facing fourth and long … they punted.

ESPN annnounced that they are discontinuing ESPN mobile as of December 31, 2006. Why did this venture fail, when so many other Mobile Virtual Network Operators are succeeding?

According to this BusinessWeek Online article, there are four lessons to be learned:

• Not everyone is Steve Jobs
• Sports fans have other lives
• Make sure you blow people away
• Know when to cut your losses and move on

The article also mentions that ESPN has had a history of following failures with success before, as seen with ESPN: The Magazine, ESPN 2, and the ESPN Zone restaurants.

Which raises the question - will we see ESPN venture back into the mobile content game? History tells us that they will, hopefully a bit wiser for the wear.