In the past 48 hours, I’ve seen no less than four front page articles from newspapers across the world, referring to the Instagram deal as “ushering in the age of mobile.” In other news, I’m going to write an article about the coming age of jet travel. Are you kidding me? The Instagram deal has NOTHING to do with “the age of mobile,” it has EVERYTHING to do with the age of CUSTOMER CHOICE. Mobile isn’t new. You think that just because we now have the ability to take crappy sepia toned pictures of crap, 24 hours a day, that “all of a sudden, we want to be a mobile society?” We’ve ALWAYS wanted to be a mobile society. The [...]

A bit over a month ago, I was contacted by Facebook, asking if I’d like to “merge” my “fan” page (I’m STILL not comfortable calling it that) with my “personal” page on Facebook, and turn my “fans” into “subscribers.” Facebook’s logic there was that I’d only have to post all my content in one place, and could determine which content was “public,” (i.e., subscribers, the world, etc.,) and which I kept only for my “friends.” I volunteered to give it a shot, even after being told there was no turning back – i.e., my “Fan page” would disappear, and I couldn’t bring it back. After asking a ton of questions (and to Facebook’s credit, the person who reached out to [...]

Today, Woody Harrelson’s PR agent decided to “kick things up a notch.” Instead of a typical press event for Woody’s new film “Rampart,” this press agent decided to show his level of “internet prowess” and offer Woody Harrelson up for interviews on Reddit, one of the most “real” Internet sites out there. (By “real,” I mean that it’s pretty much full of people who have their bullshit filters on a constant “ten” and can pick out when something is hype in about two seconds. So, of course, they did. You can read the post, and the resulting crap that Woody Harrelson got here. It ain’t pretty. While it’s fun to try new things, you have to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE! When [...]

While I’m sitting in my room at the W London, looking out the windows and also zoning out to CNN, it occurs to me – Why don’t hotels simply install flat windows that also have TVs in them – They use illumination-blocking technology that came out ten years ago and is hella cheap now to darken the window a bit the moment the TV is turned on. They save on precious room space, and it looks super-cool. Allows for much, much bigger screens, and when people want to go to sleep, they just shut off the tv, and the curtains come down and darken the room. Am I the only weirdo who thinks this way? What “weird” things can you [...]

On today’s lesson of “What did we learn?” we examine one Ashton Kutcher – Twitter’s biggest cheerleader, short of Lady Gaga. A Twitter hero from the start, his eight-million followers boasts a mighty big audience. As I’ve said many times, for many, social media is simply a better way to screw up to a much larger audience in a much shorter amount of time. Ashton proved that last week, when he defended Penn State’s fired coach without knowing all the facts of why he was fired. Kutcher immediately took a ton of grief for his defense, and backpedaled, realizing what he did, and admitting that he screwed up. He did the complete and total right thing. He screwed up, he [...]