I figured I’d take the Twitter plunge despite my skepticism. I’ve been at it a week to help promote FinReg21.com our new media property on financial services regulation and its reform. Here’s a preliminary report. The good news is that it is fun and easy. Knocking out 140 character comments is pretty easy and the […]

The email I received from Virgin Airlines yesterday announcing their “Day in the Cloud” scavenger hunt reminded me of a question that many have been asking recently: when is digital, social?
The rise of online digital media, like YouTube, and even Twitter has given marketers new tools to ignite viral messaging online. Often, their […]

Interesting interview in yesterday’s WSJ with John Malone. The topic: how to get web visitors to pay for content on the web. The conclusion: advertising as a business model won’t cut it but there is a way to get consumers to ante up for content if bundled with what Malone describes as community and connectivity.
Interesting […]

Positive feedback effects are one of the most important sources of growth for businesses in many industries from new ones like social networking to old ones like telephones. It turns out that, like leverage, what’s really good on the upside is also quite bad on the downside. Malls and newspapers are two interesting recent […]

Really interesting article in yesterday’s NYT Magazine on the value (or lack thereof) of reader-posted comments to news websites. The author makes her case that reader generated comments are nothing more than the rehashed rants of the fringe who don’t really read the post but instead use the comments section as a forum to posit […]

There’s some irony in one of the first major daily papers going down the drain being a major daily in Seattle with San Francisco close behind. The Hearst Corporation couldn’t find a buyer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and plans to build an online property from its ashes. Tomorrow, St. Patrick’s Day, 2009, is its […]

Nope, you read it right. The new year started with some old news: the newspaper industry is dying because fewer people are buying its product, those people are moving online to get their news and online ad revenues don’t fill the revenue gap. And, the industry’s death spiral is gathering momentum now that the […]

Ten years after its founding, the search giant has not one, but three books, that are nicely reviewed in last weekend’s Financial Times. Randall Stross has the business history which according to the review nicely describes the evolution of the company and benefits from “rare insider access.” Then there’s another one by a French intellectual—the […]

In the latest sign of an industry that is headed for oblivion, a new study released by the Pew Research Center concludes that 64% of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did three years ago citing editor’s opinions that foreign news is not “essential” to their business any more. And, right behind the […]

The Internet is killing yet another traditional media outlet—alumni magazines—according to a recent NY Times article. Social networking technology was just about made for doing what these university publications have been doing for decades—keeping alumni connected and engaged so they will hopefully donate money someday. What’s happening with alumni magazines is also a great […]