Holiday Reading For The Geek In You

A few years back, my most erudite #2 son admonished me for spending too much time with short form real-time media. He explained that books — digital and otherwise — offer context that one simply can’t extract from the ephemeral world of streaming media.I thus decided to periodically post links to those books that generated…… Continue reading Holiday Reading For The Geek In You

Media Luminaries Bezos & Kamen

Photo: Courtesy of AmazonIn spite of its recent misstep regarding its flawed reporting on Benghazi, CBS News’s venerable “60 Minutes” continues to have the capacity to drive the national conversation. And, sure enough, last night my tech-centric Twitterstream suddenly was consumed by drones — and not the killing kind – following the prolific Charlie Rose’s…… Continue reading Media Luminaries Bezos & Kamen

Those Five-Star Reviews

How important are consumer-generated reviews in your purchase-making decisions? If you’re like me, the answer is VERY. When assessing hotels, the write-ups on Virtual Tourist and Trip Advisor invariably make or break my booking. The reviews on Yelp play the deciding role in tipping the restaurant scales. Same with Fandango for movie reviews.Then there’s the…… Continue reading Those Five-Star Reviews

Trusted Reviews?

Influential veteran tech journalist John Dvorak took Amazon (and the PR profession) to task in a PC Mag piece posted yesterday that asked “Are Amazon Reviews Corrupt?” His beef lies in the system through which so-called third-party reviewers are incentivized to share their so-called unbiased opinions. Dvorak cited a study in which a Cornell professor…… Continue reading Trusted Reviews?

Friday’s Video Views

Kindle v iPadKindle sticks it to Apple’s iPad with its new TV spot. I wonder how Amazon will deal with the product enhancements Apple released today – multi-tasking, printability…?I Want My New Twitter!The big news this week from the social spheres entails Twitter’s simple redesign and enhanced functionality. Not only is the company creating cache…… Continue reading Friday’s Video Views

Friday’s Video Views

This week’s edition of Video Views looks at opinion journalism, Woot/Amazon, and a collection of iPhone 4 videos.Op-Ed Anyone?The Journalism of Opinion in which Columbia University hosted a conference on opinion journalism Daily News columnist and author Stanley Crouch, Bitch Media founder Andi Zeisler, New York Times op-ed page staff editor Mark Lotto, and BlueMassGroup…… Continue reading Friday’s Video Views

Caught with My Head in the Cloud

Here’s how last Thursday started for me (via Twitter):PeterHimler Gmail is like so misbehaving right now!11:05 AM May 14th from Power TwitterPeterHimler I’m wondering today what’s worse: a cyber-terrorist attack or a Google tool fail?11:26 AM May 14th from Power Twitter This was the paralysis that I (and millions of others) felt when Google’s productivity…… Continue reading Caught with My Head in the Cloud

Citizen-Kindled PR

This morning Saul Hansell, in the New York Times’s “Bits” blog, draws our attention to Amazon’s “Holiday Customer Review Team,” or as Saul calls it, a “user-generated public relations” program.In his post he describes how the online retailer has deployed ordinary citizens, i.e., prolific product reviewers on the Amazon site, as “third-party” company spokespersons. The…… Continue reading Citizen-Kindled PR