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Showing posts from 2009

What's Wrong With The Magazine Business (Or, Biting The Hand That Feeds Me)

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True confession: I don't really read magazines. Haven't for ages. Well, that isn't entirely true. I do read, or rather look, at magazines when they are hand-me-downs, or when there is a copy available for free at the office (that office being Condé Nast). But it has been ages since I subscribed to a periodical, and ages more since I bought one on the newsstand; my last clear memory of doing so was four years ago, well before even the possibility of working for wired.com was real, when I bought my daughter a copy of Wired . Something on the cover grabbed her. I was horrified that the single-copy price was nearly the same as a 12-copy subscription. I mentally hemmed-and-hawed (being out of work, and all) but I didn't want to stifle her interest, so we took a copy home. More recently I intercepted (*thanks, @MarketingVeep :) a list of magazine dreams my wife had intended to mail to Santa. And working through that list I realized that the traditional magazine fulfillment

It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's ... The Cloud!!

This week's Digital Life. Shelly Palmer and I talk about cloud computing, Chrome and all that, at about 3:50.

Digital Life with Shelly Palmer

I'm making regular appearances on a new TV show on "Digital Life with Shelly Palmer," a program on WNBC's (New York) NYNonStop, their digital channel (and off course, online). This is the premiere program, which ran last Tursday, though we've taped a few others.

Fake AP Stylebook Steers You Completely Wrong — With Style

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Like many proper news organizations, we at Wired.com use the venerable Associated Press Stylebook as an arbiter to determine whether we write “one” or “1″ or whether it’s “Calif.” or “CA.” But the trouble with venerable is that it gets old and boring. So we were delighted to learn of a disruptive newcomer to the writing style game. And the best part is that it’s on Twitter. The Fake AP Stylebook (I can just see the AP lawyers falling out of their Aero chairs) tells us that we should “Precede basic statements of fact with ‘allegedly’ to avoid accusations of bias: ‘the allegedly wet water,’ ‘the allegedly poisonous poison’” — well, that rule tracks pretty good (or is it “well?”) with that other style guide. Full story on Wired.com's Epicenter Blog

Turning Audiences Into Advocates

Power Lunch appearance as part of a discussion on social media and the enterprise.

Wired-o-Nomics: Is E-Mail Dead, Dying or Here to Stay?

In an article in Monday's Wall Street Journal Jessica Vascellaro argues that the tipping point has arrived for the heirs apparent of e-mail, one of the internet's first, most defining — and most abused — applications. Can this be? In an appearance on CNBC's Power Lunch today I got the chance to bat this idea around a bit, but not enough, so the conversation continues here. Vascellaro has it just about right , i think, and although reports of the death of e-mail are obviously premature it's fun to look for signs of a paradigm shift within a paradigm a mere 38 years after the first e-mail was sent . After all, haven't many of the other original internet protocols already been shown the door, like Usenet , WAIS , Gopher and Archie ? What makes e-mail so invincible? Continue reading on Epicenter

A Milestone for Facebook

Facebook blogged that it had gone "cash flow positive" in the previous quarter, achieving a target it had set for itself sometime next year. We didn't touch upon it in this CNBC Power Lunch interview, but I wonder what all the public companies that have a $10 billion market cap ( Facebook's imputed value ) think of the strict SEC rules about disclosure they must abide by, when a guy who is basically a grad student can get away with doing a post and no analyst telecons?

A Brief Remembrance of Ted Kennedy

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Back in '91 or '92, when I was in Boston for Reuters , I got to participate in an annual event that was legendary among journalists in the area: The Kennedys threw open up their Hyannisport compound to reporters and their families for a summer day of eating, playing and casual schmoozing. And when I say "threw open," I do not exaggerate: We had the run of the place. When Ethel Kennedy's front door is ajar and you wander in and she looks up from her paper to tell you a story or two about Bobby and point out John's favorite chair in her house, well, that says something about the manner of this remarkably gifted political family. It was like a company picnic and the entire management team was there to make us feel like family. We were greeted with a receiving line, with every hand shaken by every single Kennedy, even those whose ages were in the single digits, because it's never too early to learn about the family business. There was no pressure or spin but t

Social Media Restrictions at Sporting Events?

An 'Instant Panel' discussion on CNBC's Power Lunch about recent attempts to restrict what fans can do with the pictures and videos they take at sporting events, by event organizers. Good luck with that, guys.

Social Media Account Security on NBC Nightly News

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy A hit on the NBC Nightly News, pegged to an uptick in attacks on social media sites.

Big Game Hacking on CNBC

I was the convenient time-zone mouthpiece, but the work on this story has been done the inestimable Kim Zetter on wired.com's Threat Level blog . So, guys, hope you liked it. Please don't drain my bank account.

August 17, 2000: Internet Crosses 50-Yard Line in U.S.

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2000: Half of United States households have internet access, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Nielsen is best known for measuring the popularity of a certain other mass medium that went viral a half-century earlier. How fitting that this paradigm shift came with fin-de-siècle serendipity to a millennium that had already witnessed staggering technological advancement. Not since television transformed the world in the early 1950s had anything entered the collective consciousness as quickly or pervasively as the internet, which began its life 40 years earlier as " Arpanet ," a relatively humble military experiment. (In Wired.com style, BTW, "internet" — even "the internet" — is lower case.) Like television, experiencing the internet initially required the procurement of expensive, finicky equipment. And as in TV's earliest days there wasn't much to see. One internet service provider (ISP) even playfully reminded us of the limits of the net in a TV a

Text Etiquette On Today — Or, How I Survived 5 Minutes Without My iPhone

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy I've become quite the mouthpiece on digital etiquette lately — specifically the rights and wrongs of messaging when you are with people. It's all tied to Wired magazine's August issue dedicated to the subject, and I am standing in for Brad Pitt , as usual. In a recent appearance on CNBC's Power Lunch I argued that there was no sensible rationale for regulating texting from the boardroom. Not too much controversy there. But an impending hit on the Today show about texting from every place other than the boardroom spurred a good-natured mini intervention at home, where I was reminded that I'm addicted to love for my iPhone. Yes, my name is John A., and I use my iPhone all the time. And, I am not alone, I do not think: With every new mobile means of communication comes a new opportunity to shut out people in the world that's right around us and engage in some sort of conversation with ot

Ode to Noodle Soup

For sniffles and snuffles Here's the straight poop There's no better tonic Than hot noodle soup Try apples, you’re thinking Or nice canteloop No no, that won’t do it Just hot noodle soup I know you’d like liquor Imbibed on the stoop But don’t let that blind you To hot noodle soup The brain cells are mushy You might have the croup No matter. There’s nothing Like hot noodle soup Away, I could sail now Aboard my own sloop If only my first mate Was hot noodle soup This isn’t their problem That helpful friend group But blessed are they who Bring hot noodle soup I’d like to perk up now I do hate to droop I know! I will find me Some hot noodle soup! The dreams are subsiding Now there’s a big whoop The rantings are waning Thank you, noodle soup

Twitter TMI

Embedded video from CNN Video A brief appearance on a CNN piece about Tweeting TMI. Don't blink!

Contessa Brewer: All is Forgiven

It took a year, very nearly the end of the world as we know it, and perhaps pity for some sincere remorse . But if every dog has his day mine came Thursday as I finally got face time with Contessa Brewer. She would certainly have no idea of my embarrassment for having failed to recognize her in our first interview in the same studio back in September 2008 — a faux pas she handled with grace and self-deprecating humor. This time we were soul mates, mourning even a brief interuptus with Twitter, the emotional impact of which we each implicitly understood. Ms. Brewer is an avid Tweeter as @contessabrewer , which she casually mentioned. When I told her that I followed her, she offered to reciprocate, and I am sure I blushed. On air, it was more of the same. Near the end of the interview, when I allowed as I had "misted" when Twitter failed this morning, she offered me a tissue and laughed when I told her friends had immediately e-mailed me to ask how I would be spending my &qu

Financial Times iPhone App Worse Than Trialware

The Financial Times released its iPhone app Tuesday, touting it as free. But the not-so-small print reveals that this is severely crippled trialware app that could very well be useless in first few minutes you use it. Until the clock starts again in 30 days, that is. ( Continue reading on wired.com's Epicenter blog )

I Want My Mmmmm ... TV

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Update, Feb. 19, 2010: I review the Slingbox iPhone 3G app on Epicenter: " Hands On With the Slingbox 3G iPhone App: Ahhhhhhhhh… " For me Independence Day came a day late but not a day too soon: like my forefathers I have exercised my right, my duty to throw off the shackles of terrestrial television. That is to say, I finally got my Slingbox iPhone app working. It took a long holiday weekend to get to this task, even though I was among the first to buy this shamelessly overpriced bit of software. My love affair with the Slingbox and all that it represents began at the discount table of a Staples many years ago, where I scored what is now an ancient device which seemed to offer greater freedom than proprietary alternatives which were in great numbers then, particularly one from Sony. My model SB220-100 has served me well, as has the company (in the main); last year, when the device was well out of warranty (even if it ever was for me) they sent me a replacement power supply

Three Cheers for the Lori Drew Acquittal, But Not for Drew

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The directed acquittal of Lori Drew is the only sensible disposition of a depressingly sad case in which the suicide of a 13-year-old girl was linked to the bad behavior of a grown woman, the mother herself to a teenage daughter. Drew could be ostracized, she can be sued for damages in a civil proceeding, she can become a pariah. I would not like to know her. I am not a lawyer, but for the state to deny her liberty for lying when she created an account on a social network would be excessive and chilling and imperil hundreds of thousands of people who, while doing the TOS version of jaywalking, set themselves up for selective prosecution if some chain of evidence or events can associate them to someone else’s tragedy. ( Continue reading on Epicenter )

We Drive the BMW Mini E

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WHITE PLAINS, NY — The BMW Mini E is a solid little electric ride that provides a comfortable, effortless driving experience with all of the usual small-car perks, plus an ultra cheap operating cost and a carbon footprint approaching zero. But as a $50,000 two-seater with no head-turning quotient, the pitch for this first cousin of the Mini Cooper won’t be so much to our inner rock star as our inner Al Gore. Tooling around a busy interstate and the city streets of White Plains, it is easy to forget this is a pure electric vehicle, and something of a prototype at that: There are only about 450 Mini E’s on the road, driven by an unusually generous band of volunteer beta testers who pay $850 a month for the privilege of helping BMW work out the kinks before the car’s anticipated launch in 2012. They have no dibs on their cars and will not be allowed to buy them when the lease ends. All maintenance, and car insurance, is paid by BMW. And, of course, nobody pays for the gas. ( Continue rea

Facebook, shmacebook: What’s the next great thing?

Facebook is the 800-pound gorilla in the social media space, with some 200 million members, a valuation of perhaps $5 billion and a base that has expanded well beyond its early roots as a private hangout for bored Ivy League students. But, like the ad says, life comes at you fast — and there is nothing more unforgiving than internet time. So, are the best years ahead for Facebook, or is the finicky mob of cool kids — and now their parents and grandparents — already peering down the road for another Next Great Thing? One thing is for sure: Nothing lasts forever. Continue reading 'Facebook, shmacebook: What’s the next great thing?' on the Reuters 'Great Debate' Blog .

Waiting for Steve

First, the good news: I got to do this interview from a studio-for-hire a couple of blocks from my office, on a workday, so no long trip on a day that I would otherwise have been off (still — not complaining MSNBC!). But these things always seem to end in a 10th of the time you think you'll have. Still, as @samerfarha advised, I said nothing to draw fire from John Gruber. Also, you'll see I have much longer hair than my profile picture, which was taken a year ago almost to the day. My last haircut? Sept. 30, 2008.

Things Aren't Tough All Over: Hedge Fund Elites Reap Billions in '08

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Despite a year-long global economic meltdown that only got worse as the year wore on, the world's 25 most successful hedge fund managers raked in a total of $11.6 billion in 2008 — their third best haul this decade. The secret to their success? Well, some of it is a secret. But if you guessed big bets against banks and the housing market you'd be on the right track. Topping the list is former math professor James Simons, won’t discuss his strategy (really?) except to say that it is based on "rapid-fire trading across almost every possible market and that it relies on computer-driven programs designed by an army of more than 100 PhDs," according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine , which has kept this score for eight years. Simons, who runs Renaissance Technologies Corp., made $2.5 billion in '08, a year in which even most hedge funds lost money. Forget about trying to get in now; it's been closed to new investors since 2002. (Continue Reading at

Test Ride: Even in New York, the Aptera Stops Traffic

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If the Tesla Roadster is sex on wheels, the Aptera 2e is like making out with the cute woman down the hall: It's a lot of fun and you want to do it again soon. Tooling around New York in the funky three-wheeled EV is an odd experience where everything on the road slows down to check you out, when cab drivers not only obey traffic laws, they let you violate them at their expense, and New Yorkers — who pride themselves on being nonchalant about everything — stop dead in their tracks and ask, "Does it fly?" No, the 2e does not fly. But it might as well for all the attention it draws. The thing is, everybody knows the dirty little secret about cars: The real test isn’t how much tech it has or how fast it goes or how green it is or how many cup holders there are. The real test, especially for something so outlandish as an EV with three wheels and two seats, is this: Is it really a car, would you be caught dead parking it at work and what is the head-turning quotient?

Media Death March: Seattle P-I Stops Printing, Goes All-In Online

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The Seattle Post-Intelligencer publishes its last dead-tree edition Tuesday, the latest newspaper to succumb to the harsh realities of an internet economy where delivering bits is an increasingly inefficient way of delivering the news. News of the P-I's decision to publish online only was telegraphed for weeks , and it follows the decision of the Rocky Mountain News to shutter completely, the Christian Science Monitor to publish online only starting next month and deep concessions by staff at another Hearst newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, to keep that newspaper afloat. The owners put the newspaper up for sale on Jan. 9 and said they would shut it down if a buyer did not step forward. With a daily circulation of 117,000 the Seattle P-I is the largest daily to cease paper publication. The Christian Science Monitor is in 50k territory. "Tonight we'll be putting the paper to bed for the last time," editor and publisher Roger Oglesby told a silent newsroo

What's Your Name Again, Fella?

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Another cruel reminder. Via TweepRoll .

Baby, You Can Drive My Carr

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There's going to be plenty of pushback on Alan Carr's NYT piece about how to save the newspaper , so I'll keep this short and sweet: Any industry which says it can only be saved by collusion is suspect on its face. Any decent journalist would scream bloody murder if that was suggested by, say, the financial services industry or the airlines or — closer to home — a Starbucks/Caribou cartel. The excellent examples of fee-based online services Carr cites cover niche topics, not geographical communities (except for The Arkansas Gazette, which gives away aggregator-length snippets). Odd argument, since these publications are doing exactly what newspapers aren't doing, by organizing around subjects rather than territory and not making me subsidize sports coverage I don't want. (Carr left out the Financial Times , which charges more than any of his examples and has an even more narrowly-defined clientelle.) Google doesn't need you. Repeat: Google doesn't need y

Talkin' Webcams on MSNBC

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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy I talk about webcams with an easily-amused David Shuster.

Brand Panel at Social Media Week: Problem Solved.

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I was delighted to moderate a panel this morning as part of Social Media Week. The topic was " Making the Brand: Social Media for the Long Haul " and the panelist were Ian Shafer, CEO of Deep Focus ; Brian Morrissey of AdWeek and Gary Vanerychuck of Wine Library TV . We trashed a few brands, challenged a few pet notions and figured out how to solve absolutely everything, in about two hours. Don't believe me? Watch the video of the proceedings at Ustream .tv , and then continue the conversation on Twitter at #mtb09 , or comment below. We got the ball rolling with the Powerpoint above. History will pass before your eyes in fewer than 30 seconds, or more, depending on your click rate. Cross posted at Epicenter . Related articles by Zemanta Making the Brand - Social Media for the Long Haul (webmetricsguru.com)

25 Random Things on GMA

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My recent appearance on GMA . No sightings of Regis, Kelly or any of the "The View" girls.

Questions for the Social Media Week Panel I'm Moderating

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I'm moderating a Social Media Week panel tomorrow called " Making the Brand: Social Media for the Long Haul " and I'm trolling for questions. The panelists are: Gary Vaynerchuk, Host of WineLibrary.TV Ian Schafer, Founder/CEO of interactive marketing agency Deep Focus AdWeek digital editor and "notorious twitterer" Brian Morrissey Check out the link for details. And, anybody have an questions you want put to this braintrust?