July 2008 Archives
OK, reality check time. Your house is moving. You're inside it. Do you:- A. Get out!
- B. Make yourself a latte
- C. Share the experience on Twitter
Ack! Angelinos chose C in large numbers, as witnessed in this wonderful interactive graph put together by the LA Times (be sure to scroll down and mouse over the graph).
Personally, I'm going to grab my guitar and get out of Dodge. But my hat's off to you, you scrappy SoCal survivors!
Oh, one more thing. I guess Twitter is a mass medium, a news wire.
PR Squared, by Todd Defren, SHIFT Communications. Small agency that plays big, good balance between traditional PR training/technique and a solid understanding of how the Internet works.
Micro Persuasion, by Steve Rubel. He works for Edelman, a leading PR firm, and one that has positioned itself as social media-smart.
seth godin's BLOG, by, well, Seth Godin. (that's his capitalization, not mine). More marketing oriented than above, Seth is always swinging for the fences. Sometimes he connects, sometimes he whiffs. His writing has some of the qualities of Wired Magazine, always in search of the BIG IDEA (my capitalization). There's always a next BIG IDEA to push the old one out of view. But, having qualified his world view, he's fearless and imaginative, and you will learn something from him.
Find your own favorite social media/PR/marketing blog. Visit the Advertising Age Power 150 and toss some clicks. FYI, seth's BLOG is ranked #1, Micro Persuasion is #9, and PR Squared comes in at #40. This week, that is.
Tucked into the housing rescue package is a provision that would require PayPal to report financial information to the Internal Revenue Service for some online merchants. Read about it in the Wall St. Journal.
The rules change could hit millions of people who buy and sell on eBay, who, for the most part, have treated the auction site as an online garage sale. These entrepreneurs have blissfully shoved gross proceeds into their pockets and not paid income tax on them.
Why does this matter? After all, for some sellers, eBay sales are legitimate income. For others, it's just a way to get liquid, offing guitars, CDs and stereo equipment for walking around money. The IRS' operational definition under the proposed change seems fair: you would receive a Form 1099 if you have gross sales of more than $10,000 and more than 200 transactions in a year.
It's not the creeping Big Brother-ism that bothers me. Rather, it's creeping universal identifier. It used to be that people worried about your Social Security number being the universal identifier. That's still part of the equation. But the real identifier is your online identity. There's only one Internet. There's only one you. Your behavior will follow you. And remember, Google never forgets.
Social media analysts spend a great deal of time talking about your online reputation. Here's a data point that targets your financial reputation. What's next?
Steve Jobs talks about "the cloud," that online place where all your data reside. Of course Jobs frames it as all good, all progress. Good time to pause and think about the dark side: the unintended consequences.
