May 2012
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Lessons
When our kid started using a computer in the seventh grade, I got him a copy of Mavis Beacon so he’d learn how to touch-type. I didn’t see him using the program, but I did see him typing. So I asked him what was up with that. He said “I looked at it a couple of Continue reading
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After Facebook fails
Making the rounds is The Facebook Fallacy, a killer essay by Michael Wolff in MIT Technology Review. The gist: At the heart of the Internet business is one of the great business fallacies of our time: that the Web, with all its targeting abilities, can be a more efficient, and hence more profitable, advertising medium Continue reading
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The Real Story of Send
With The Story of Send, Google follows a single email as it travels through wires, under streets, through an ISP’s high-rise, in and out of Google’s various gear, including one of its vast data centers, and finally up a tower and out via a telco’s data system into a smartphone. What happens in the data Continue reading
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So long, and thanks to the bird
Independent commercial alternative rock radio in Boston is heading to the grave. The Boston Phoenix‘ WFNX has been sold to Clear Channel, which — says the press release — will expand its “footprint” in Boston. (Bambi vs. Godzilla comes to mind.) Boston Business Journal suggests the signal’s fate will be to carry country music or Spanish programming. But it doesn’t Continue reading
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An AR treat
Enticed by Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald (aka @DutchCowboy) in this tweet, I fired up Layar (an AR — Augmented Reality — browser from the company by that name, which he co-founded), and aimed it at the cover of my new book. What followed is chronicled in this Flickr set. Start here, then follow the links at the Continue reading
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Tsé Bitʼaʼí
That’s the Navajo name for what everybody else calls Shiprock. It’s a rock spire that rises out of the desert southeast of Four Corners in the far northwestern corner of New Mexico. Elevation at the peak is 7,177 feet, with a prominence of 1,583 feet. Technically, it’s what geologists call a monadnock, an inselberg, or Continue reading
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Department of Corrections
One nice thing about blogging is that you get to correct what you write. Tonight I put up a long post that I had second, third, fourth and fifth and additional thoughts about, and finally decided to kill. I do that a lot, actually. Just not usually with stuff I’ve already put up. But I Continue reading
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Take us to The Rivers
News rivers were a brilliant idea in the first place. Perhaps, now that at least one high-profile publisher has embraced them, the rest might follow. But first, some history, in the best chronological order I can muster — Sometime way back there, Dave Winer created rivers of news for the NY Times and the BBC Continue reading
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Radio news (and vice versa) in DC and Baltimore
A few days ago RadioInk reported that WTOP, the all-news radio station in Washington, D.C., is now the top-billing station in the nation. Two surprising things there. One is that Washington is the #7 market (behind New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston-Galveston), and that in the latest ratings WTOP is #2 overall, Continue reading
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Book week
The Intention Economy came out on Tuesday, and coverage has been spreading. Meanwhile, while I’ve been busy at IIW, where VRM mojo has been major. Notes from the many VRM sessions at #IIW14 will appear on this page soon. Meanwhile here are some excerpts pieces that ran this week. From Selling You: Not Just on Facebook, by Haydn Shaughnessy in Forbes — Continue reading
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Off to a good start
Today is the official release date for The Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge, my new book from Harvard Business Review Press. It’s been available from Amazon for the last couple of weeks, and is already doing well. There are two reviews there so far (both 5 stars), and yesterday Oliver Marks gave the book Continue reading