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I am very pleased to announce that I have accepted the position of Chief Marketing Officer for the Gibson Guitar Corp. Gibson is an extraordinary organization with a visionary management team.  I am honored and thrilled that they have asked me to work with them. Media 3.0 will continue without interruption, as will the fine Continue Reading →

There have been several news items this week with prophesies of doom and gloom for Microsoft’s Vista operating system. After Steve Balmer’s quote about its lackluster launch, the sharks have been circling and, truthfully, the press (especially the blogs) have been quite amusing. I know most of you think that operating systems are boring and Continue Reading →

Britney! How could you? Oh, and by the way … I am Dannielynn’s father.  Also, I’d like to announce my candidacy for President of the United States. I’m glad I was able to cover some real news right at the top this week!        My commentary is about the “other” Digital Rights Management issue, Continue Reading →

By now, everyone in our business has either read or knows about Steve Jobs’s essay, “Thoughts on Music by Steve Jobs.” (If you haven’t read it, click here for my commentary and a full version of the original essay by Mr. Jobs.) The thesis of Mr. Jobs’s essay is that Digital Rights Management (DRM) software, Continue Reading →

On February 6, 2007, Apple co-founder and CEO, Steve Jobs posted this essay on the Internet. Steve literally takes a page out of my book, Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV when he says, “DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.” I have read many commentaries on this Continue Reading →

“For the past three months, an employee at Gawker Media has posted copyright videos sandwiched between ads for Gawker-owned properties such as Valleywag and Gizmodo.” This quote is from a very interesting article by Greg Sandoval and Stephen Shankland entitled: “Gawker Media mystery ads appear on YouTube.” If the allegations are true, a person using Continue Reading →

I remember the day, back when the Earth was cooling, when I got my first up close and personal lesson in the fledging art of business voice mail etiquette. My client’s VP Sales had left me a message that made me barking mad. He was about to interfere with a program that had literally taken Continue Reading →

George Bernard Shaw once said, “Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.” The media business is guilty as charged. I did not coin the phrase, “over the top,” but I did use it (with a brief explanation) in my column a couple of weeks ago. Apparently you do not have enough acronyms, portmanteaus and Continue Reading →

There's a business school case study about the fledgling airline business in the early part of the 20th century. According to the story, after the Wright Brothers flew their airplane, some entrepreneurs decided that they should fund an aircraft company. They thought about where to get the money and decided to seek out one of the richest, most powerful corporations in America. They arrived at the offices of a giant railroad company and made their presentation. The executives listened attentively to the pitch and then summarily dismissed the nascent aviators, telling them, "We're in the railroad business, not the airline business." Continue Reading →

If you attended the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) expecting to see the new, new thing — you probably came away disappointed. For the untrained eye, the show looked like it was filled with iPod accessories, very nice flat screen TVs, very cool GPS and automotive audio/video stuff and a few more iPod accessories. Continue Reading →