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
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
Three Tips for Curating the Community #TOC
This week’s Tools of Change Conference ended yesterday and even though I wasn’t in attendance, thanks to the laudable efforts of several Tweeters (@thewritermama, in particular), I felt like I was there the whole time. As is typically the case after a good conference, I’m simultaneously mentally exhausted and recharged by the ideas and opinions
The Future of Publishing in 4:33
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g] We have to rethink…everything. (h/t: HarperStudio)
Rise of the Publetariat
If you’re a self-published author or independent micro-press, these are very interesting times we’re living in as Amazon officially announced the new Kindle, major publishing companies are in meltdown mode, and the entire industry is scrambling to figure out what’s next. While following the Tools of Change Conference on Twitter, I came across an intriguing tweet from @indieauthor: #TOC
Building Communities Around Content #TOC
Today kicked off the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference here in NY, and while I wasn’t able to attend, I was following it throughout the day on Twitter (#TOC), particularly via the Tweets of @annmichael, @RonHogan and @thewritermama, the latter of whom practically transcribed what appeared to be the highlight of the day: Building
The Problem With Self-Publishing
HarperStudio — one of a handful of publishers who really seems to understand how to use the internet and social media — is running a web poll on their home page right now that asks: “Are you less likely to read a book if it is self published?” As I write this, there have been
Free Chapbook: Crazy White Devil
It’s been years since I created a chapbook. Six, to be exact. I released Selected Squares of Concrete — a de facto “best of” poetry collection of new, revised, never-before-released and old favorites — back in March of 2003, smack in the middle of the razor-thin slice of time between my return to the NYC
How the Internet (and Advertisers) Killed Journalism
The Atlantic has a must-read essay from James Warren, “When No News Is Bad News” (h/t @guykawasaki), that does an excellent job of putting into perspective how the Internet played a role in the death spiral of newspapers. Most interestingly, he makes it crystal clear how precarious the road ahead is for real journalism’s survival as a result, while
Is the Future of Publishing…GOOD?
The bad news in the publishing industry didn’t let up last week as reports of cutbacks and layoffs and dramatically decreased revenues continued to pour in, and TheMediaIsDying tweeted every depressing bit of it, from major publications to small local radio stations, the rare bit of positive news they offered up paling in comparison. One