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Re-syndicated from MediaBizBloggers.com Trying to leave the disastrous Buzz and Wave launch behind, Google, THE search company, is formally making a pitch to become a major social networking force. What is Google+? Contrasting Facebook, Google+ doesn’t focus on a massive friend list. Instead, users collect each other into groups, such as family, work and friends, Continue Reading →

Over the past several years I’ve worked with dozens of digital media companies who were trying to attract marketer dollars to their platforms. Virtually every single one said they wanted to be a partner to agencies and brands, because partners tend to have more loyal customer bases, and higher margins. A partner gets compensated in Continue Reading →

Wired called it last year: “The Web is dead. Long life the Internet.” Sounded a bit silly at that time but facts speak louder than an attention-grabbing headline: Flurry just released a study indicating that people spend more time on mobile apps than on the web. Mashable reports: “Flurry compared its mobile data to stats Continue Reading →

Re-syndicated from MENGonline. It’s All Lies, & That’s the Truth, by Bernie Brillstein, is my favorite business book.  It gives remarkable advice about successfully dealing with people. How can you not love a book that presents fifty rules from fifty years of making a living in Hollywood that are concurrently insightful, universal, outrageous, and usually Continue Reading →

Re-syndicated from NY Videogame Critics Circle To spend tens of millions of dollars on a brand new adventure game, one that evokes everything from Grim Fandango to Police Quest: Open Season, is a big gamble these days. But when I played about eight hours of L.A. Noire yesterday, I felt the gamble had paid off. Continue Reading →

The thieves who made off with more than $2.5M from Citibank and caused the bank to issue 100,000 replacement bank cards have highlighted an alarming trend. Hackers are evolving. And, they are organizing and uniting. They even have a Twitter account. Before the advent of the Internet, we called these hackers “robbers” or “criminals” or Continue Reading →

What can possibly follow an extremely active first six months of 2011? Try these observations out for size: ***Original programming on cable networks continues its summer dominance over broadcast networks. We’re now at the point where on some weeknights other than Friday or Saturday, the combined ABC/CBS/NBC share of households is 16 or 17 percent, Continue Reading →

This all seems a little bit like déjà vu, doesn’t it? First there was Google Buzz, now Google+. What makes the search giant’s latest effort to take on Facebook any different? If you remember, Google Buzz’s launch strategy was not very well planned. All of a sudden a link appeared on millions Gmail accounts, which Continue Reading →

For years, digital start-ups looked to advertising as the magic bean that would pay the bills and drive their valuations. Over time, many people, especially VCs, began to sour to the concept. After all, it’s no secret that banner ad rates are pretty darned low. The natural response for many pubs and start-ups was simply Continue Reading →

A system that is over-reliant on prediction through leverage, (like the banking system before the recent crisis), hence fragile to unforeseen “black swan” events, will eventually break into pieces. –Nassim Taleb I don’t read many business books anymore. For years I devoured them voraciously. But something happened to me as I began to realize that Continue Reading →