Twitter pushes the near future to look more bipolar than multipolar

Dave Troy’s analysis of the Elon Musk takeover of Twitter makes for interesting reading, since Troy has actually spoken to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and has a bit more of the inside track than most. For starters, Troy reminds us that Dorsey trusts Musk, in order to keep Twitter away from Wall Street investors. Dorsey […]

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Lucire at 25: how things have changed

The below was originally posted in Lucire. We have made it to 25 years of age there, and rather than reinvent the wheel, this little piece—as well as the one I uploaded yesterday hours after we turned exactly 25—reflect how I feel upon reaching this milestone.   Olivia Macklin, photographed by Josh Fogel, make-up by […]

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Stanley Moss’s latest Global Brand Letter out now

Finally, a happier post. For many years (since 2004), my dear friend Stanley Moss has been publishing his Global Brand Letter, which is not only a wonderful summary of the year (or the last half-year, since he often writes every six months) in branding, but an excellent record of the evolution of culture.    He […]

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Amazon: as dodgy as the rest of them

Jane Pendry in the UK Tweeted this in response to a Tweet about Amazon, and I had to reply: Refuse to use them. They breached my data and have a policy of blaming the customer. — Jane Pendry (@senseabilityUK) November 26, 2021 Agreed. They claim I let someone into my Associates' account as their reason […]

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Have you driven a Ford … lately? Probably not

Ford’s Brazilian line-up, 2021. Once upon a time, there were locally developed Corcels and Mavericks; even the EcoSport was a Brazilian development. Today, it’s Mustang, a couple of trucks, and a rebadged Chinese crossover.   We heard a lot about the demise of Holden as GM retreats from continents at a time, seemingly in a […]

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You can’t bank on the Wales (or, why I closed our Westpac account)

At some point as a young man, my Dad worked at a bank. He had a formal understanding of finance—despite his schooling being interrupted by the Sino–Japanese War and then by the communist revolution, he managed to get himself a qualification in economics, and had some time working for a bank.    I was taught […]

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Nissan’s own documents show Carlos Ghosn’s arrest was a boardroom coup

I said it a long time ago: that the Carlos Ghosn arrest was part of a boardroom coup, and that the media were used by Hiroto Saikawa and co. (which I said on Twitter at the time). It was pretty evident to me given how quickly the press conferences were set up, how rapidly there […]

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Online advertising dollars: Google’s cut from your work is 40 per cent

From Bob Hoffman’s The Ad Contrarian newsletter of May 24: ‘two weeks ago a study by the ISBA and PcW that reported that half of every “programmatic” ad dollar is scraped by adtech middlemen’ and ‘According to a paper written by Fiona Scott Morton, an economist at Yale University, Google pockets about 40¢ of every […]

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Cautiously optimistic about Boucher

When I ran for office, there was often a noticeable difference between how I was treated by locally owned media and foreign- owned media. There are exceptions to that rule—The New Zealand Herald and Sky TV gave me a good run while Radio New Zealand opted to do a candidates’ round-up in two separate campaigns […]

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Live from Level 3

Finally, a podcast (or is it a blogcast, since it’s on my blog?) where I’m not “reacting” to something that Olivia St Redfern has put on her Leisure Lounge series. Here are some musings about where we’re at, now we are at Level 3.    Some of my friends, especially my Natcoll students from 1999–2000, […]

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