• ONLINE SPIN
    Best Practices For Your Social-Media Strategy
    I'm beginning to hate the term "social media" more everyday. As David Pogue, tech columnist at The New York Times once said, "What is social media? A bunch of televisions talking to one another at a cocktail party?"
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Newspapers, Time To Disaggregate!
    My view is that the answer for newspapers today is pretty simple. They should forget trying to find the one thing that they do best and taking it online. No; instead, they should disaggregate their businesses.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Mobile: 3 Years Away? Again?
    As we enter into 2008, I have to ask the question: When will mobile become a real consumer platform? For the last five years or so we've heard that "Mobile will mature into a viable consumer platform within the next three years." It's sort of like a sign I saw once in a bar in Truckee that says, "Free Beer Tomorrow"; needless to say, tomorrow never comes!
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Strike's Impact On New-Media Economy
    Last week's post on the writers' strike potentially leading to a boon of quality digital media touched off some great conversations. One commenter, David Jaeger, who had left a well-informed comment disagreeing with a structural shift toward new media, later came across a great article in the L.A. Times about VCs looking to fund professional digital content ventures. While this article really embodies the potential for change, it only suggests that there will attempts. VC and other funds follow the potential for revenue; whether there can actually be enough revenue generated to support systematic change will be a question of …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Looking Back At 2007 Brand Extensions Behaving Badly
    As much as I'd like to play the wish-I'd-thought-of-that game I like the what-the-heck-were-they-thinking game. You know what I mean. Ever sit in front of a television (or any media vehicle for that matter) and think, what a bad ad? How do you look at brands? Well, as you may know, my world revolves around eating, sleeping and breathing brands. Not to mention, I spend a fair amount of my time looking at brands that are damaged, about to be damaged, or on life support. Many of those are attributed to bad brand extensions.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    10 Principles To Inspire Your Brand (And Maybe Save It)
    Here are 10 key principles that should guide brand strategy. They've become top-of-mind in my own brand situation at a startup, but they certainly apply to all. Sure, some are obvious, but too many are forgotten or omitted.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Answering your Questions: Ad Budgets Will be Big Enough for Digital
    I'm going to start something new with this column today. Rather than just writing about things that I happen to think are important and relevant to the digital advertising and media industry, I'm going to write about issues that you have asked questions about in the Comments to my previous week's column. Last week, Colin Gillis from Canaccord, one of the top digital media equity analysts out there, posted in the Comments: Items I would like to hear addressed include 1) The comments from Publicis CEO Maurice Levy that ad budgets are not able to support the rapid expansion of …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Will The Writers' Strike Drive Down The TV Upfronts?
    As the year winds down, the press releases dry up a bit and the new topics are few and far between, but one of the interesting tidbits of news this month is that the Hollywood writers' strike continues on. As many of you know, the writers' strike is a bitter dispute between the studios and the Hollywood screen and TV writers, and the dispute is over a very valid point; digital distribution royalties
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Writers' Strike: A Digital Media Boon?
    Forgive me. I live and work in West Hollywood. I hadn't realized that the writers' strike isn't the lead story on everyone's local news. And while the strike might not be geographically local to everybody reading this, if you work in advertising and/or digital media, then believe me when I say that the repercussions of the ongoing ballyhoo and the outcome of the strike will be hitting very close to home.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Politics Of Online Advertising?
    Have you begun to feel as if political advertising has saturated broadcast media? It seems as if every time I turn on the television there is an ad sponsored by a presidential candidate endorsing his/her message. I've never been one to delve into political advertising. Why? I guess there are so many people out there that specialize in it already. Would I work on a campaign nowadays? Sure. Why, you ask? Because most political advertising is horrible in message format and content -- let alone media placement.
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