By the time Apple made its formal unveiling today of the iPad, the only real surprise was the price point.  (Jobs’ presentation is worth watching.) Read More

We pay a lot for access — think about your cable or wireless bill.  We may not like it. But that’s the way it is, and we accept it.  Could the same premise work for news? Wednesday, The New York Times announced that it would begin charging for content in 2011. It won’t affect the one-click wonder or casual viewer because The Times plans to use a metered payment system that would allow users to view a certain number of articles for free each month, Read More

American Red Cross launched a mobile fundraising effort on January 12, approximately three hours after the earthquake struck Haiti. As of 9am today, less than two days later, more than $3 million has been raised. And it keeps coming. Read More

Good article by Andrew McAfee on the Harvard Business Review blog, discussing the fallacy of centalized brand control and planned messaging in the digital age.
 HBR 11-13-09 Read More

In this age of technology it is a known fact that “they” know more about us than we would ever care to have them know.  Does that mean Big Brother is here?  In some ways you have to admit that he is, but in other ways there is an alarming lack of corporate watchdogs guarding the rep of famous, or infamous, brands.
Social media 101 tells us that you have to get in there and know what is being said about your brand.  Read More

There’s no question the traditional newspaper business model is facing profound challenges. The number of those willing to pay for home delivery is shrinking and advertising revenues are shifting as a result of increased options for local advertising… meanwhile costs are going up. Daily metro newspapers simply can’t make enough money to support their old traditions and they didn’t embrace or leverage change to their benefit.  Instead they “sold” web advertising as an add on, which diminished the value (plus most newspaper web sites stink).  Read More

Answer:  The same way you reach other human beings.  Which means that preaching at them in a dogmatic and officious manner and/or trying to scare them with dire predictions of an imminent and grueling death if they make a wrong choice is probably not going to work either for them or you.  That seems pretty logical, right?  So then why does everybody do it?
It’s like no one has taken the time to realize that the menopausal woman is a person.  Read More

We talk a bit around here about the new dialogue that happens between companies and their customers – and between the customers themselves. Things are definitely changing out there – and I don’t think anyone’s really debating that anymore. Participate or get out. What I’m enjoying right now is the proliferation of the satirical online personality and the conversations these folks are starting.

In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers.  At least those are the stats used in a story by Mark Penn, WSJonline.com   titled America’s Newest Profession:  Bloggers for Hire.
The big question posed in the story is:
“As bloggers have increased in numbers, the number of journalists has significantly declined. In Washington alone, there are now 79% fewer DC-based employees of major newspapers than there were just few years ago. Read More

Yesterday Facebook announced that it was opening up its stream — the feed of members’ status updates and wall posts via a new API for developers.  With the API, developers will now be able to create new programs that mash-up and remix the core data of users (with user permission) making it more useful and portable.  One of the first apps to take advantage of this new API is Seesmic Desktop,  Read More