Unicorn Tears, Beyond Ultimate, and the Silicon Valley Hype Mentality
Back in the day we working on a press release and I was a CMO. Me: “Somebody, get Randy (the PR director) in here.” Me: “Randy, what is this press release calling our new offering the ultimate in business intelligence?” Randy: “Yes and the problem is?” Me: “The problem is it’s not the ultimate, it’s […]
Woe is Media: Lessons from Tidemark’s PR
“There are lies, damned lies, and statistics” — Benjamin Disraeli. “All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.” – Marshall McLuhan, philosopher of communications theory and coiner of the phrase “the medium is the message.” “Modern business must have its finger continuously on the public pulse. It must understand the […]
Some Thoughts on Rocket Fuel, Their Voice, and Their Recent S-1
Silicon Valley is a place built by nerds, arguably for nerds, but once big money gets involved there is always tension between the business people and the technical people about control. Think, for example, of the famous Jobs/Sculley falling-out back in 1985 where the business guy beat the technical guy. However, in part because of events […]
Facebook’s Growing Web Platform
If you want to find something, anything on the web, you "google" it…I mean how ubiquitous has a company become when it’s name becomes the verb for a common activity? Now I realize there are other search options, but according…
Video and A Love Story
e have been doing a lot of work with videos for marketing purposes, which is a new area for me. Couple of things I have learned: 1) Short is better. 2) Video engagement metrics are evolving but in general web site visitors really like video content. 3) Generalize as much as possible because changing existing […]
Congratulations to TechCrunch
TechCrunch is being acquired by AOL . I’m sure you picked up something about this in your reading today… I met Mike many years ago when he started TechCrunch and it was evident that his particular genius was identifying a segment of the media ecosystem that was ripe for disruption. His single minded focus and […]
How to Bootstrap Your PR
Inc. Magazine interviewed me on How to Bootstrap your Public Relations. There are, of course, new opportunities and challenges given how technology is disrupting media: “When you had to go through mass media, there’s really a handful of media outlets…
Forbes Blogs To Get A Big Upgrade, Every Reporter Will Have One
Every Forbes reporter will get a blog… this is smart because it forces the individual to build a distinct brand in the market and it gets us closer to a interactive model for journalism. However, having blogs is not the same as having community and if the journalists ignore the activity in the comment streams […]
Wikileaks and the Plumbing of Journalism
The web has way of asking big questions of society. And right now WikiLeaks is asking very big questions. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange describes the recent release of 90k documents about the Afghanistan war thusly, in a SPIEGEL interview: Assange:…
Paywalls Are Dumb, Statistics Prove
I don’t know how anyone could look at the traffic data coming out of Murdoch’s paywall initiative and not conclude that they are ill-advised and monumentally stupid. According to data from Experian Hitwise, which charts Internet traffic, visits to The Times of London and The Sunday Times’ Websites have dropped by 66% since parent company […]
