Saturday April 27, 2024

Silly Argument

Crowd size is an argument that flares in Washington DC constantly.  Here it is again.  The argument is a function of spin.  Supporters want the crowd to be larger.  Opponents want it to be smaller. Both sides guess because neither side has a quick way to determine how many people were actually present.  There is […]

Network Of Misinformation

I may not agree with President Obama on everything but his comments about a network of misinformation on the internet are accurate.  The web is a major source of misperception and inaccurate statements, especially about Obama’s birth and religion.  In spite of evidence to the contrary, conspiracy theorists continue to boil new allegations and commentary.  It […]

Transparency?

This is interesting.  Amazon has boasted about its Kindle sales for a long time but it has never revealed the number of units sold.  From a PR point of view that is an unpardonable lapse in transparency. From Amazon’s point of view, it appears to be a competitive strategy.  Amazon doesn’t want Apple or anyone else […]

Interesting PR Problem

Attorneys General are pushing Craigslist to drop prostitution ads from its service.  The head of Craigslist resisted at first but is sounding more conciliatory now.  It is an interesting PR problem whether to tolerate an activity that almost always has criminality associated with it or to exclude it.  What would you do? Tweet This Post

“Updating Your Status” | A Twitter Parody Tune ♫ ♪

I like Cake — the food that’s spawned a ton of TV shows and, more importantly, the band. I like Twitter too. So why did I take the Cake song “Going the Distance” and create this Twitter parody? If we can’t laugh at ourselves, what’s the point? Just be thankful I didn’t pick “Tweet It” and I’m not into […]

Down And Dirty

How partisan have issues become between Democrats and Republicans?  Before a ranking Republican House member gave a speech, he was attacked for what he might say in it — what the Christian Science Monitor called a prebuttal.  That is, the Democrats didn’t wait for what the man was going to say but tried to spin […]

1984 – not an instruction manual

Preparing for an upcoming presentation, I was considering the documentation vs. experience trend and its impact on consumer consumption habits. As Ricky Van Veen notes, people are more into recording the trip to Disney World than the trip itself. A socially-inclined, smartphone-toting park guest could check in on Foursquare, record their mouse-inspired lunch on Foodspotting and […]

Caught In The Middle

Kenneth Feinberg, the US Government appointee to run the Gulf Coast Claims facility to pay for BP’s pollution damage, is a man caught in the middle and running his own PR campaign.  He is trying to get claimants to settle for direct cash disbursements rather than sue BP.  Already a state attorney has called him […]

The Ultimate Social Media Site is Onsite

The final stop on Day One of the #140conf found @jeffpulver and team in Cincinnati for a Sunday evening RoadTrip TweetUp. The attendees, the stories and the entire experience remind me that no social media platform can replicate the original social network – meeting live and in person. Putting faces to names and Twitter handles […]

Too Much Communication?

Our family has just finished a week camping, biking through a national park and visiting towns and villages on an island off Maine.  There was something disturbing about it when one heard a 6-year-old ask his father if there was WiFi at the camp site.  (There was but it didn’t work well.)  It was bothersome […]