I enjoy technology as much as anyone, but I’m usually happy to wait until version 2.0 before laying out my money. But I took a leap with the Amazon Echo, a Bluetooth speaker with a voice interface and Siri-like artificial intelligence built in. Yes, I thought it would be nice to have around the house, […]
Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV: streaming away cable TV
Your cable bill: it could be more than $100 a month. Is it worth it? If you have doubts, it’s probably not. Fortunately, it’s easier than ever to become a cord cutter. There is life after cable. So let’s explore your options in a cable-free world. First, though, see if you fit the ideal profile for cord […]
Review of Dan Gillmor’s Mediactive
Dan Gillmor is giving a presentation at Loyola this week (register here). I wrote this review of his book and project Mediactive for Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 66(3), pp. 272-273 (2011). It’s no longer available online, so I’m reproducing it here. Journalism is broken, and with Mediactive, Dan Gillmor aims to fix it. But he […]
YouTube as a community (Michael Wesch presentation)
It’s easy to think about a channel only in the way that you use it for yourself. That’s why I’m sharing this video presentation by Kansas State University anthropology professor Michael Wesch. He eloquently presents YouTube as a social community (or perhaps more accurately, a bunch of overlapping communities). If you just use YouTube as […]
Improve your digital listening skills
Of all the benefits of social media for business, the greatest come from listening. Consider this: you can listen unobtrusively – no one needs to know you’re paying attention. You don’t even need to sign up for accounts to listen. This is a great place for the socially-shy business to dip its toes into social […]
Three trends for today
Name your own price Radiohead did it with their album In Rainbows; Louis CK did it with his Live at the Beacon performance video, and now Panera is experimenting with the model in its CSR initiative, Panera Cares. If you let your customers name their own price, will they pay? What principles govern this model? […]
The targeted web vs. the universal web
In 1997, the web was easy. Everyone’s Amazon home page was the same. Everyone’s Google results were the same. It was the golden age of the universal web. Back then, we were just amazed to have the web. But my, how the web has grown. Today, it adapts to us. Google search emphasizes local results, […]
You better watch out … Amazon is coming to town
Amazon’s new PriceCheck app has retailers in a lather. Mind you, local retailers already hate Amazon, and for good reason. In a scenario you’ve likely heard, a customer walks in to a bookstore, enjoys excellent customer service, is guided to just the right book by the trained sales associate, and … well, you know the […]
The digital singularity
Technologists have long talked about the “singularity,” the day when the machines can outthink us and surpass human intelligence. That day is a long way off. But we have reached another kind of singularity. In this event, our expectation is that the information we seek will be digital and easily available on demand. In the […]
Meet Flipboard, your “social magazine”
Flipboard is an iPad app that lets you create a “social magazine” from your Facebook and Twitter accounts and other Internet sources. It’s as close as I’ve seen to a “Daily Me,” the personalized news source that futurists have been predicting since the dawn of the Internet. Flipboard creates an appealing and intuitive interface for […]