Monthly Archives: August 2015

Will Content Blocking push Apple into advertising’s wheat business?

Posted on August 29, 2015 by Doc Searls

[Update on 3 January 2016: Buzzfeed reports that Apple is killing iAd and getting out of that business, ending the conflict I detail below. And Apple confirms the decision, here. For a look at what I am sure is behind … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, marketing, problems, Research, Technology, VRM | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Dig the Aurora

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Doc Searls

Here’s what the current geomagnetic storm looks like right now, data-wise: The visuals are in the sky, in the form of brilliant auroras, visible all over Canada and as far south as Michigan. The near-full moon doesn’t help, but the … Continue reading →

Posted in Science, weather | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The greatest western I’ve ever read

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Doc Searls

— is John McPhee‘s Rising From the Plains. It’s one book among five collected in Annals of the Former World, which won a Pulitzer in 1999. In all five, McPhee follows a geologist around; and all five of the geologists … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, history, Journalism | Leave a comment

Apple’s content blocking is chemo for the cancer of adtech

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Doc Searls

The tide of popular sentiment is turning against tracking-based advertising — and Apple knows it. That’s why they’re enabling “content blocking” in iOS 9 (the new mobile operating system that will soon go in your iPhone and iPad). Says Apple, … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, Technology, VRM | 46 Comments

Separating advertising’s wheat and chaff

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Doc Searls

Advertising used to be simple. You knew what it was, and where it came from. Whether it was an ad you heard on the radio, saw in a magazine or spotted on a billboard, you knew it came straight from … Continue reading →

Posted in advertising, Business, Internet, marketing, privacy, problems, Research, Technology | 29 Comments

What should we call the selling of our digital body parts?

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Doc Searls

In a provocative OuiShareFest talk titled You Are the Product, Aral Balkan says this: I think we are at the point where we have to ask ourselves the very uncomfortable question: What do we call the business of selling everything else about … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Health, Ideas, Internet, marketing, problems, Technology | 12 Comments

What’s the best way customer love can help a brand?

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Doc Searls

In “Cool Influencers With Big Followings Get Picky About Their Endorsements,” Sydney Ember of the NY Times writes, The more brands that use influencers for marketing campaigns on social platforms like YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, the less impact each influencer … Continue reading →

Posted in Berkman, Business, Ideas, Internet, Personal, problems, Technology, VRM | 1 Comment