Category: Media

  • “Future Tweets: Amazon knocks out Ticketmaster” now live on Medium

    My latest Medium post — “Future Tweets: Amazon knocks out Ticketmaster” just went live on Medium.  Here are the first few paragraphs: After my eight year old son accidentally set the clock on my computer forward things got weird on Twitter. Tweets had the time signature from 2019 complete with links, but when I clicked…

  • “Don’t cold call me, Bro” now live on iMedia Connection

    Quick cross-post: I’m pleased to report that my latest post — “Don’t cold call me, Bro” –just went live on iMedia Connection.  Hope it sparks some comment!

  • Ecosystem Shakeups: Q&A with Urban Airship CEO Scott Kveton… Or… Amazon, Apple & Android: Oh My!

    Matthew Ingram’s GigaOm article last week, “Amazon shows media companies the future of the web,” provocatively argued that the e-commerce giant’s Kindle Cloud Reader was more than just a way around the 30% cut that Apple charges for books purchased via the Kindle app on the iPad or iPhone.  What the e-book retailer has also done…

  • Netflix’s Big OOPS– didn’t these guys take Psych 101?

    Topline takeway for this post: Netflix has screwed up, turning unconsidered background choices into front-of-mind considerations. They don’t understand how pleasure and satisfaction work. I’m on vacation and somewhat unplugged, but I was still connected enought to receive a surprising email from Netflix yesterday saying that if I want to retain both unlimited streaming and…

  • The Death of Media Channel Loyalty: What the New Pew Data Shows Us

    Over the holiday weekend the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released data showing that 24% of internet users have placed calls online, up from 8% of internet users in 2007. The precise wording of the question was: “Please tell me if you ever use the internet to make a phone call online, using…

  • Simile Search: Please Help This Writer!

    I’m looking for evocative comparisons that talk about how one thing so automatically comes with another that we take the pairing for granted. Like, “the juice comes with the meat” (except it often doesn’t) or “the warmth that comes with the fire” but preferably less flabby.  Something taste or smell related (for its Proustian oomph)…

  • Short Post: There’s More to the Amazon story than Fast Company conveys

    Kit Eaton over at Fast Company (a must read in general) blogged today about Amazon’s announcement that it now sells more e-Books than physical books.  Here’s a relevant snippet including a link to the Amazon press release: Since April the first, for every 100 print-and-paper books Amazon has sold, it’s also sold 105 e-books, according…

  • Super Storytelling Smackdown: “Smallville” vs. “Thor”

    This is a post about the difference between experiencing a story and remembering it later, a distinction that we pay too little attention to in the media world.  I’ll talk about theater, movies, TV, Superman, Thor and Shakespeare, and there will be spoilers… lots of ’em about the “Smallville” series finale, but I’ll be careful…

  • Missed Advertiser Opportunity: Fortune Mag’s “Kindle” Strategy

    The May 9th issue of Fortune Magazine contains a terrific 22 page article by Adam Lashinsky called “Inside Apple.” As has been much reported, Fortune withheld the article from its website. To read Lashinsky’s article, you have to subscribe (magazine subscribers get free iPad access), haul yourself to a newsstand or pay 99 cents at…

  • Interesting Tidbits for March 16th

    Things worth reading for March 4th through March 16th: The State of the News Media 2011 – Here’s the direct study from Pew that Reuters summarized in the next link. Online readership and ad revenue overtake newspapers | Reuters – Reuters Summary: “For the first time, online readership and advertising revenue has surpassed that of print…