When the Internet Flapped its Wings
While preparing for a series of meetings on emedia strategy over the weekend, one thought kept nagging at me: What the hell is emedia anyway? Online and email advertising, webcasts, virtual trade shows, ebooks, ecommerce…oh, my! In the publishing world, it is the holy grail that will save us all thanks to high profit margins and easy
Building and Curating Your Community, Part I
With all of the negative news of late about the collapse of the publishing industry and the “death of print”, combined with the report that Captain America, Chesley Sullenberger, “scored a $3.2 million two-book deal with HarperCollins’ William Morrow imprint” for a memoir and a book of inspirational poetry, one might understandably think that jumping
The Force is Strong in Him
My 8-year-old son has become a huge Star Wars fan over the past several months, without overt encouragement, as he’s now seen all seven movies, and the new Clone Wars animated series has become appointment viewing for us almost every Friday night. He has three lightsabers, two of which he bought with his own allowance;
Spindle: New Content for March
Just in time for our impromptu open mic/party tonight — Spindle gets a little bit LOUDER — I’ve posted another round of great content up on Spindle for your reading pleasure! * New poetry by Celeste Doaks, Don Pomerantz and Jacob Rakovan * New short fiction by Diane Simmons and David Winter With this latest
Your Entitlement Slip is Showing
Among the most tiresome memes dominating the publishing world right now — memes that I’ve admittedly contributed to at times — the worst are the self-righteous rants about self-publishing, Amazon, and the long-rumored death of print. There are the writers who think their publishers should be doing more for them while smugly looking down their noses at the writers willing to do it
Everything’s amazing, nobody’s happy
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus] “We live in an amazing, amazing world, and it’s wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots that don’t care.” [1:30] I’ve never seen Louis CK in action before, but my favorite humor is the insightful observational kind and this clip is hilarious, primarily because it’s all so true. I say burn it all
On Twitter: Always Add Value
I find it hard to believe that as recently as six months ago, I was dismissing Twitter as a pointless ripoff of Facebook’s status update, without any of the extras that make Facebook a “real” social network. From what I’d seen, it lived up to its negative reputation of mindless updates about eating lunch, waiting
When in doubt, follow Frank’s lead
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl95eDA_uR4] …and do it YOUR way. ETA: Okay, I hate posts of videos with no real content, especially on a day Seth Godin challenges everyone to blog something interesting. I woke up this morning with Sinatra’s “My Way” stuck in my head on repeat and it was a good thing. A timely reminder to clearly
Let’s Go Mets! Let’s Go…Knicks?
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QRZnGEjNvQ] I’m thrilled that the Brett Favre fiasco is officially over and I can look forward to being a 100% Jets fan again, but right this minute, I am so ready for Spring and the baseball season to get started! Matthew Cerrone of MetsBlog.com has been whetting my appetite the past few days with his
Peter Shankman on the Future of Social Media
When my CEO sent me a friend request on Facebook last year, I had to rethink how I was using the site. When Facebook changed its Terms of Service earlier this month, before quickly backtracking in the face of a growing uproar, I started to rethink my approach to social media overall. Last night, I