This one has bugged me for some time, but I've not had the time to write it. Now that I'm on a plane for the next four hours, and it has Wifi, I can finally get around to bitching out loud about the photo below: ' Now this photo was…
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Now this photo was widely discussed when it was released by the White House, a few weeks ago. Folks speculated on who the people were that we couldn’t see (the woman with her back to us? The guy next to Zuckerberg?!), and while I may know who those folks are, that’s not my point.
Read More(image) I flew to Detroit today, and thankfully Delta had wifi. Since I'll be speaking at a GM conference later in the week, and the fine folks from Pandora will be there, among others, I went and checked in on the site, which I'll admit I haven't visited in…
(image) I flew to Detroit today, and thankfully Delta had wifi. Since I’ll be speaking at a GM conference later in the week, and the fine folks from Pandora will be there, among others, I went and checked in on the site, which I’ll admit I haven’t visited in some time (I still consume music the old fashioned way – I buy CDs and rip them to iTunes). Now, the theme of GM’s internal conference is all about “the app economy” and fortunately, lately I’ve found myself thinking a lot about this samesaid phenomenon. Given that, allow me to digress. As usual, I have no idea where this is going, but at least I know where it’s going to start: With my first visit to Pandora in some time.
Here’s what happened. Pandora has done a “deep integration” with Facebook since my last visit (yeah it’s been a while), meaning that when I showed up (and was logged into Facebook already), Pandora went ahead and filled out my profile using Facebook data. To the site’s credit (and I hope based on some terms of service from Facebook), the service notified me of this, and asked me if using my Facebook profile was OK.
Read MoreIt was fun to open last week's event with Robert Stephens, who has grown Geek Squad from 2 people to more than 20,000 in the past 15 years. Highlights include his view of advertising ("a tax for poor products") and his confirmation that yes, every Best Buy employee will, in…
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1
I posted earlier about my conversation with Matt, from that post: When WordPress.com was split off into the for-profit company, many were concerned it would quickly become clogged with ads, but Mullenweg and his partners have been extremely careful in how they've introduced marketing into the community. Experiments include FoodPress,…
When WordPress.com was split off into the for-profit company, many were concerned it would quickly become clogged with ads, but Mullenweg and his partners have been extremely careful in how they’ve introduced marketing into the community. Experiments include FoodPress, EcoPressed, and others in partnership with my company, Federated Media, as well as one-off sponsorships with Microsoft around IE9, and some clever use of Google’s AdWords and other ad networks. Clearly media is a business WordPress will get into more, especially with the traffic and uniques it attracts (see chart at bottom).
Instead of advertising, so far WordPress has focused on tools – including a “freemium” model for key plug ins such as backup, polling, and spam protection. But as the platform has grown, it has taken a considerable amount of investment capital, and those investors will at some point demand a significant return. Furthermore, WordPress has earned the dubious honor of being large enough to become a target for hackers with less than honorable intentions (not to mention ongoing battles with black hat spammers).
Below is the conversation I had with Matt at Signal Austin.
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1
Google announced deals and checkin incentives last week in Austin, I was the first to speak to Marissa live on stage. Here's the interview:…
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1
I'm a bit late posting this, but the rest of the day is great, so here you go! Video clips at Ustream Enjoy!…
http://www.ustream.tv/flash/viewer.swf
Video clips at Ustream
Enjoy!
On Thursday at Signal Austin, and then again on Friday at SXSWi, I'll be having an onstage conversation with WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, who continues to be the driver of the Wordpress community. WordPress is a unique platform – Matt works for Automattic, a for profit company that owns the…
On Thursday at Signal Austin, and then again on Friday at SXSWi, I’ll be having an onstage conversation with WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, who continues to be the driver of the WordPress community. WordPress is a unique platform – Matt works for Automattic, a for profit company that owns the rights to the hosted version of WordPress, at wordpress.com. There’s also WordPress.org, which is an open source, not-for-profit foundation that boasts a vibrant community of developers and hackers who merrily create hacks, plugins, and any number of patches to the WordPress code.
When WordPress.com was split off into the for-profit company, many were concerned it would quickly become clogged with ads, but Mullenweg and his partners have been extremely careful in how they’ve introduced marketing into the community. Experiments include FoodPress, EcoPressed, and others in partnership with my company, Federated Media, as well as one-off sponsorships with Microsoft around IE9, and some clever use of Google’s AdWords and other ad networks. Clearly media is a business WordPress will get into more, especially with the traffic and uniques it attracts (see chart at bottom).
Instead of advertising, so far WordPress has focused on tools – including a “freemium” model for key plug ins such as backup, polling, and spam protection. But as the platform has grown, it has taken a considerable amount of investment capital, and those investors will at some point demand a significant return. Furthermore, WordPress has earned the dubious honor of being large enough to become a target for hackers with less than honorable intentions (not to mention ongoing battles with black hat spammers).
Read More(cross posted from the FM Blog) In just a few days I'll be welcoming 200 or so digital marketers to Signal Austin, the second edition of FM's Signal conference series – regional, "mini" versions of our highly-acclaimed annual New York event. Our first Signal – based in LA -…
(cross posted from the FM Blog) In just a few days I’ll be welcoming 200 or so digital marketers to Signal Austin, the second edition of FM’s Signal conference series – regional, “mini” versions of our highly-acclaimed annual New York event. Our first Signal – based in LA – focused on content marketing. I’m proud to say it was both oversold and very well received.
This week’s Signal in Austin will focus on the impact of location in marketing. Given that Austin – home to the legendary SXSW conference – is where Twitter, Foursquare, and Gowalla all broke out, I’m expecting quite a program. To that end, I wanted to give readers a bit of a “curtain raiser” on what to expect for the day. As with all our shows, the conference is limited in attendance (we thought we’d cap it at 150, but nearly 200 are already registered) but we’ll be livestreaming it and putting the audio online as well.
Read MoreThis is a story of a radio station – you know, those old school, pre-Internet media outlets that folks my age grew up listening to. I've always been rather fond of radio, in a nostalgic way, and I've had an off again, on again relationship with it over the…
This is a story of a radio station – you know, those old school, pre-Internet media outlets that folks my age grew up listening to. I’ve always been rather fond of radio, in a nostalgic way, and I’ve had an off again, on again relationship with it over the years. For the past few years, it’s been mostly off – I only listen to AM sports radio (my beloved Giants) and NPR on FM. Whenever I get a new car, I get six months free of Sirius, and I check into Howard Stern, but then the trial period ends, and I just don’t feel like the subscription price is worth it, particularly given it’s not transferrable to any of my other cars.
Now, back in the day, radio really meant something. Remember the FM radio boom? If you’re over 40 or so, you probably do – the peak was the 1970s, where, according to Wikipedia “FM radio experienced a golden age of integrity programming, with disc jockeys playing what they wanted, including album cuts not designated as “singles” and lengthy progressive rock tracks.”
Read MoreA couple of days ago I was speaking with Reuters reporter Connie Loizos, who's been covering the Internet space since the days of the Industry Standard (she worked at the Red Herring). She was working on a story questioning whether there was a new bubble brewing in our space,…
A couple of days ago I was speaking with Reuters reporter Connie Loizos, who’s been covering the Internet space since the days of the Industry Standard (she worked at the Red Herring). She was working on a story questioning whether there was a new bubble brewing in our space, a question that many have asked in the past few months, in particular as it relates to private financings of startups. You can find that story here, on PEHub.
As readers of this site know, I don’t believe we’re in a real bubble, at least not the kind that popped in late 2000 (or the housing bubble, which seems still to be popping). But that’s not the interesting part of our conversation. Connie asked if I thought the press was in part culpable for our collective obsession with sky-high private company valuations, “hot new startups,” and the like.
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