Last week, Kenneth Cole himself posted this very icky tweet, evidently trying to jump on Twitter’s #egypt hashtag in order to promote his spring line.
Of course, Twitter members then the mainstream media jumped all over it, and today Advertising Age used it as a shining example of the Seven Stages of Comitting a Social Media Sin.
Here is a fantastic video detailing a study about what motivates us at work. Turns out it’s not money.
“If we start treating people like people, and not assume that they’re horses; you know, slower, smaller, better-smelling horses… we can actually build organizations that make us and our work lives better off, and I think they have the promise of making our world just a little bit better.”
Last Sunday, I read an articledownload Wolfen movie in the NYT about the rise of “cell phone novels” in Japan. You read that right: entire novels pecked out on cell phone keypads, written in the abbreviated language of text messaging, with little plot or character development, uploaded to web communities.
The big news is not that these cell phone novels have gained popularity among young people; it’s that they’re beginning to be republished in book form and making money. In fact, of 2007′s top 10 best-selling Japanese books, five are republished cell phone novels. It’s officially a cultural movement.
Predictably, the value of this new genre of writing is hotly debated, with opposing viewpoints falling squarely along generational lines. The younger generation would like the novels to be recognized as a genre, and older folks dismiss the works as “comic books.” It’s understandable how the novels’ language, replete with emoticons and Leet, might befuddle anybody over 25 who isn’t Merlin Mann. Read the rest of this entry »
Last month, Facebook introduced a new ad program, Beacon, that tracks users’ activity on external web sites in order to serve up targeted advertising on Facebook. The program also broadcasts to the users’ friends what they’re buying.
Sounds great – especially for advertisers – except that Facebook made everybody opted in by default, requiring them to opt out if they didn’t want to participate. Hunh? Needless to say, it was a privacy hot mess. Naturally, users revolted, speaking up all over the blogosphere and even involving online lefty heavyweight MoveOn.org.
Facebook wisely reversed its op-out policy yesterday and apologized to users. Users must now opt in to the program, and no response is considered opting out. The reversal is a smart move by Facebook – after all, what is a social network without a satisfied community? Unlike ad-riddled MySpace, Facebook has now established itself as not only the fastest riser in the social networking game, but also the one that respects its community.
