Tech Biz

On a Labor Day weekend a few years ago, I had a crazy idea that labor law might be an alternative path to meaningful data privacy regulation. Now, with several organizations working on blockchain-based, SSI (Self-sovereign identity), what was a real stretch of the imagination is inching closer to practical application. Think about this… There Continue Reading →

According to a Nielsen report, "Streaming claims largest piece of TV viewing pie in July," we have reached the inevitable future I (and many others) predicted 17 years ago when I put pen to paper. Continue Reading →

iRobot, the company that makes Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, has agreed to be acquired by Amazon for $1.7 billion, according to a joint statement. If the deal closes, Amazon will have access to the maps a Roomba makes of each room it cleans. Continue Reading →

There's a relatively new acronym in the media business: FAST. It stands for Free Advertiser-supported Streaming Television. For all practical purposes, FAST is good, old-fashioned broadcast television delivered over the public internet (as opposed to via an antenna or cable or satellite). In the not-so-distant past, this kind of delivery was called "over the top" or OTT, but the defining differences are that FAST is free (except for the cost of your internet access), and the programs are scheduled at specific times, exactly the same way linear, broadcast TV channels are scheduled. Does it matter how the signal is delivered to consumers? Think about this... Continue Reading →

Ever wonder how misinformation goes viral? Let's follow a typo made by CNBC as it propagates across the Web. The story quotes a post from Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner about the recent Instagram redesign. It's an object lesson about the truly revolting lack of journalistic standards that pervade our digital lives. Continue Reading →

For non-Big Tech businesses, when you want to do proprietary market research about a product or service, you go through a process. You start with a testable hypothesis, then you design an experiment to test your idea(s). That's followed by the selection of target personas, identification of the pool of potential research subjects, etc. For most of us, this is a well-established, time-consuming, resource-intensive process. That's not the case for Instagram. Continue Reading →

First-party cookies are important. They help web publishers customize your experience. Third-party cookies are important for advertisers – and Google wants them gone. Continue Reading →

Okay, this is admittedly a clickbait headline, but I can't find anyone (other than Mark Zuckerberg and people who work at Facebook) that has anything nice to say about Facebook's redesign. Continue Reading →

On yesterday's investor call, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that Netflix is perfectly positioned because linear TV will be dead in "five to ten years." Continue Reading →

Elon Musk and Twitter are probably going to court over whether he should be forced to buy the social media company for $44 billion. He's trying to back out of the deal because he thinks Twitter is lying about the number of bots and fake accounts on the platform. But it's not just about the bots. Twitter has not had a substantial increase in users since 2016 – which makes you wonder why Elon ever considered buying the platform. But the story gets worse, because Twitter's woes are not even a little bit new. Continue Reading →