• Drinking In The New Pepsi's Social Media Strategy
    Ever since the failure of new Coke several decades ago, I've been fascinated by how much time and brain cells people are willing to invest in their choice of soda. So my curiosity was piqued when Edelman's Steve Rubel let it be known to his Twitter-verse the other day that one of the agency's clients, Pepsi, had set up a room on Friendfeed called the Pepsi Cooler, which asks consumers to "Join us as together we shape Pepsi's social media future. We're changing the way we do things and want to have you along for the ride."
  • Heads Up! We're About to Be Attacked by Androids! And That's a Good Thing!
    I'm writing today about Google's Android mobile OS (that's operating system for you Luddites, none of whom, come to think of it, read this column) because it's the only appropriate topic to discuss right now. As many of you know, the so-called G-phone, (really a T-Mobile handset called the G1). is going on sale today, and with that, the world of social computing will never be the same, even if the term "social computing" strikes me as somewhat oxymoronic..
  • After Years Of Google AdWords, Here Comes MyAds
    It's surprising it's taken this long for some major Web property to try to do in display what search advertising has long ago done for small and medium-sized businesses. And it's also surprising, given the push for open-platform, friction-less ad buying, that the new self-service ad service I'm talking about -- called MyAds -- came out of MySpace. Not that MySpace hasn't been trying to crack the code of monetizing its zillions of pages of inventory just like anyone else, but, sheesh, you would have thought that Google or Yahoo or Spot Runner would get there first, particularly since MySpace …
  • The New York Times And National Public Radio Get Social
    While you were busy watching the economy tank in late September, two major news outlets launched beta versions of online communities: The New York Times and National Public Radio. Now for a thought I hope somehow neatly melds together the financial crisis and the media world: I've actually been spending a lot of time thinking about how the financial crisis will affect the already-alarming trend downward in the newspaper business (and to a much lesser extent, things like radio), and, on a personal level, hope that, in building stronger social media tools, analog media will be able to have its …
  • What Happens When We All Become The Squeaky Wheel?
    One of the best things about social media is the ability to use it, when need be, to get results out of uncooperative corporations, particularly when customer service fails to live up to its name. Such power in the hands of average members of the consumer republic would have been unfathomable even five years ago. My personal passion for the subject harkens back to the Stew Leonard's store in Norwalk, Conn., which has, for as long as I can remember, had the following posted on a rock at its entrance: "Our Policy: Rule #1. The customer is always right. Rule …
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