Online publishing: how the players we dealt with changed in 2016

Above: Brave Bison’s predecessor, Rightster, left much to be desired in how it dealt with publishers, while investment commentators had concerns, too.   Twenty-sixteen had some strange developments on the publishing front.    First, we noticed Alexa rankings for a lot of sites changed. Facebook itself went from second to third, where it has stayed. […]

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Getting inspiration from Douglas Rushkoff

John Nowak/CNN I’ve had a 52 Insights interview with Douglas Rushkoff open in a Firefox tab for nearly half a year. It’s a fascinating piece, and I consider Douglas to be spot on with a lot of his viewpoints. I’ve revisited it from time to time and enjoyed what Douglas has had to say.   […]

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Building a car anorak’s encyclopædia

Above: The first-generation Mitsubishi Minica, though this isn’t the 1962 model. Now on Autocade—though hardly an iconic model. It’s the end of the Gregorian year, which means I get a bit of time to update Autocade. Since 2008, it’s mostly been a labour of love, and typically, the period after Christmas is when I get […]

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Farewell to Thomas Gad: a friend, a colleague, and a uniter

Tonight, I had the sad and solemn duty to announce publicly the passing of my friend Thomas Gad.    I’m still waiting for someone to come out and tell me that I have been severely pranked.    Thomas was the founder of what we now call Medinge Group. After working for 17 years at Grey […]

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An alternative to Instagram maps

Instagram, on announcing their cancellation, said that not many people used its maps, which is a shame—looks like I was one of the few who did. For those seeking an alternative, the Data Pack has a map that you can use here. It’s not bad, though being on another site, it’s less handy to get […]

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Facebook’s ad targeting: evidence now filed with the Better Business Bureau

As of today, I’ve sent off my evidence to the US Better Business Bureau so they can continue their investigation of Facebook. The DAA was too gutless to investigate but the BBB, by contrast, gives a damn.    Let me note here that I have nothing against Facebook making a buck. I just ask that […]

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The lies and myths of Facebook, and what the tech press is too scared to investigate

Lie no. 1: ‘We want to show you ads that you’ll find relevant. That’s why we have ad preferences, a tool that lets you view, add and remove preferences we created for you based on things like your profile information, actions you take on Facebook and websites and apps you use off Facebook.’ ‘Choose an […]

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Drivetribe will be a mecca for motorheads—Autocade readers welcome

Now that the first episode of The Grand Tour has aired, and we’re nearing the official launch of Drivetribe (November 28), we’re beginning to see just how good an investment £160 million was for Amazon when it picked up the cast of The Goodies, I mean, Top Gear (sorry, I get those BBC shows mixed […]

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How my Dad called the primary and the election for Donald Trump ages ago

FJM88NL, licensed under Creative Commons I’ve had a phone call and a lot of comments on this in the last couple of days: my Dad, who is 81 with early-stage Alzheimer’s, called the US presidential election for Donald Trump months ago. I posted it on my social networks the day he made his definitive call, […]

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What a great opportunity for New Zealand that lies before us

Above: When I refer to Hillary in the below blog post, I mean the self-professed ‘ordinary chap’ on our $5 note.   As the results of the US presidential election came in, I didn’t sense a panic. I actually sensed a great opportunity for New Zealand.    I’ve been critical of the obsession many of […]

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