As some of you know, I have been using Tumblr since 2007, and when Vox died (at least for me) in 2009, I began using Tumblr more. It was good to record brief thoughts of little consequence, but as I hunted through the archive for 2011, I realized it was quite a good way to […]
Category: media
Discussions about the media, journalism and news.
Occupy, the brand
VBlessNYC, under Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic It was in the fourth quarter of the year that Occupy became a brand. Just capitalize it, and everyone knows what you mean. The original geographical indicator of Wall Street disappeared—to be fair, it began disappearing when similar protests began happening across the United States and then, the world—but I’ve […]
Storm in a teacup on tape
The ‘tea tape’ that’s been on the news for the last week or so seems like, if you’ll pardon the analogy, a storm in a teacup. PM John Key and Epsom candidate John Banks invited the media to record them chatting, then dismissed them. One cameraman, Bradley Ambrose, left a recorder on the table. […]
Intellectual property doesn’t deserve a black mark, but some powers-that-be do
After being interviewed about the outcome of the ‘Wellywood’ sign vote yesterday (a summary of what I told Newstalk ZB can be found on my Facebook fan page) I was reminded about how a few Wellingtonians, who supported my quest to stop the sign in 2010 and 2011, were not that thrilled that I used […]
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Google Plus: the penny drops; Facebook announces it’s taking away a feature it took away two months ago
Looks like people are now being more fair and balanced about Google Plus, instead of drinking the Google Kool-Aid as they did at the site’s launch. Farhad Manjoo, in Slate, writes: Even Google’s own executives seem to have gotten bored by the site. After several public posts in the summer, co-founders Larry Page and […]
How I’m consuming social media: the October 2011 edition
I realize I’ve blogged less in general this year. Once upon a time, when I blogged less here, I was over at Vox (when it worked), writing personal, cathartic posts, sometimes directed at a limited audience. But now, and I never thought I would say this: Facebook seems to be where I’m directing some of […]
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I remember one of IMI’s scare campaigns
I came across a fascinating article in Wired’s online edition about two scammers who promote “scareware”: those inferior antivirus programs designed to rid users of fake viruses they tell you about through fake pop-ups. And once you install them, you get a virus. This paragraph struck a chord: But those troubles didn’t do much […]
The Murdoch apology does not let us off the hook
Above is Rupert Murdoch’s apology for the actions of the News of the World, to run in the UK in the wake of the resignations of Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton. They’re great words, and they’re straight out of the PR 101 playbook. Some might say they’re a trifle too late, as was […]
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As News of the World closes, we might be getting better at making business accountable
So James Murdoch has announced the end of the News of the World. It’s no biggie: as others have discovered, a domain name for The Sun on Sunday has been registered, and if this is by an agent of News International, it simply makes sense for the Murdoch Press to consolidate its tabloid brands and […]
Will we dump tabloids now we know more about the Milly Dowler hacking?
I don’t think there are too many people prepared to condone the News of the World’s alleged hacking of the cellphone of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler in 2002. Not only did the Murdoch Press paper hack the phone, but when her voicemail filled up, The Guardian alleges that the News of the World began deleting […]
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