The Skeptic's Guide to Social Media:
Navigating the Frontier
of New Media
Life Magazine Praises the Typewriter
Life Magazine has a terrific collection of photos that show a certain love for the typewriter. I’ve known more than a few writers that attempt to continue the romance of these machines. The romance isn’t what this is about. It’s just looking at these photos you realize that people are affectionate toward their typewriters because they are small and portable. When these photos were taken, small portable typewriters were Read more
Bing It…? Seriously?
Microsoft’s Bing search engine has a tagline: Bing and Decide. Get it? Bing as a verb. Just like Google! But have you ever heard anyone say it? I haven’t. Google’s brand equity is enviable but that’s just sad.
I understand what Microsoft is trying to do with Bing. They’re late entering the search engine market and they want to take a bite out of Google. Their ads are critical of today’s solution Read more
I have seen the future of TV…
…and it is Conan. It’s actually Team COCO or teamcoco.com. If you haven’t heard, Conan got the boot from the coveted Tonight Show spot earlier this year when NBC decided (unwisely?) to place Leno back in late night. Now Conan’s back on TV…sort of. He’s on TBS. But the whole approach to launching this new show has been nothing but an all out social media blitz. Conan and TBS have Read more
Foursquare Dead? Lessons in Evolving from Toy to Tool
For a while, Foursquare was the hot new app. You could feel a kind of “it’s the next Facebook” buzz as people used the app along with their GPS enabled smart phones to check in to various restaurants, bars, and cultural venues like museums and opera houses…OK mostly restaurants and bars.
The idea is kind of seductive. You can bring social media to real time and let people know where you Read more
I’m Mad As Hell and I’m Not Going to Take This Anymore!
I’m really not that mad and I think I could take quite a bit more before I shout anything our my window. But I did just watch the movie Network, though about 35 years after the fact. For those of you who haven’t seen it here’s the quicky plot synopsis: Aging newscaster from the golden age of television goes off his rocker and begins to curse on the air. The Read more
Logos Smogos
If you look around, everyone’s has a logo. And this is a good thing. Logos are a short hand for the human mind and contain information that is more intuitive than mere words can communicate.
And yet, when we need a logo to post on a website or use in print, they are almost impossible to find. It’s like they’re hoarded away for use by professionals only.
The problem is that we Read more
Lowering the Bar on Reading
CNN recently posted a story about Obama’s speech to the American people regarding the BP oil spill. They quoted a language guru Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture. Here’s a quote from the piece:
He singled out this sentence from Obama as unfortunate: “That is why just after the Read more
Prezi vs Powerpoint
OK — so this may seem to be beyond the jurisdiction of social media, but it’s not really. We don’t think about PowerPoint as a tool of social media, but its become the ad hoc way of communicating complex ideas. In fact, I would say that it occupies a huge amount of that communications space. If you think about the progression as tweet, email, blog post, PowerPoint, and novel, you Read more
Note to Newspapers: Look to Boingboing
I kind of wish that boingboing.net had a different name. It’s consistently ranked as one of the most read blogs on the planet and may be the model for the future of journalism…but that name. It just doesn’t fly with the suits. Or anyone else that is interested in a serious conversation about online media strategy.
Not that it needs to. Or even wants to. I don’t know if they have Read more
BtoB Business or Just Broke?
I grew up in BtoB. It may sound strange but it’s true. When kids would talk about their what their Dad’s did for a living, I would say that he wrote for a magazine. He also wrote a few books. But you couldn’t find them on newstands or bookstores or even in most libraries. He wrote for Machine Design Magazine and later for Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) both at Read more