Big Tech and advertising: the con is being revealed

People are waking up to the fact that online advertising isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.    Last month, Bob Hoffman’s excellent The Ad Contrarian newsletter noted, ‘I believe the marketing industry has pissed away hundreds of billions of dollars on digital fairy tales and ad fraud over the past 10 years (in fact, […]

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A couple of days before it became official: thoughts on PSA and FCA linking up

Companies in FCA’s and PSA’s histories did once produce the Plymouth Horizon, so historically there is some precedent to a trans-Atlantic arrangement—not to mention the type 220 and 179 minivans and the commercial vehicles currently in PSA’s and Fiat’s ranges. This is a few days old, but it’s nice to know that these hurriedly written […]

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The latest round of Facebook lies

I believe one of the Democrat-leaning newspapers in the US compiles a list of lies by Donald Trump. I really think we should be doing one for Facebook, as it would make for impressive reading, though it would also take some time to compile.    Founder Mark Zuckerberg claimed he talked to media from ‘across […]

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Has Google My Business ever given you business?

I had a call from a nice gentleman working for Google called Shabhaz today. No, he wasn’t about to tell me that I wasn’t on the ‘first page of Google’: he worked for Google My Business, where they want to verify businesses and suck them into the ecosystem, complete with dashboard and social features.   […]

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Surely, it can’t be this hard

Is it just me, or are companies getting more stupid by the day? July 25, 2019 Marshall Freeman Collections (NZ) Ltd. PO Box 302-218 NHPC Auckland Ladies and Gentlemen: I am in receipt of your letter dated the 19th inst.    If you are indeed an extension of Plumbquick’s credit control department, you should check […]

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Reflections about Lee Iacocca—unfortunately, not all of it is positive

The car Lee Iacocca will be remembered for, the 1965 Ford Mustang on the right. Before I found out about Lee Iacocca’s passing, on the same day I Tweeted about one of the cars he was behind when he was president of Ford: the 1975 US Granada. Basically, Iacocca understood that Americans wanted style. That […]

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Huawei without Google: isn’t that a good thing?

I see Google’s going to stop supporting Huawei as a developer. How is this a bad thing?    First, Huawei can still get the public parts of Android, since they’re open-source. Secondly, if they don’t get updates ahead of time, so what? When have western software companies rolled out bug-free updates? Based on my own […]

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CSR is already woven into Māori leadership

I was fascinated to read a New Zealand Herald story on the Māori asset base, though it wasn’t the financial part that hit me. What was more significant were the principles behind Māori businesses.    About 15 years ago, when chatting to a woman representing a Māori winery, I said that she had an amazing […]

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Life inside Google—an ex-Googler airs the dirty laundry

In amongst all the political fallout of the National Party this week—what I’m dubbing (and hashtagging) ‘caught in the Rossfire’—was a series (well, over 100) Tweets from Morgan Knutson, a designer who once worked for Google. Unlike most Googlers, especially the cult-like ones who refuse to help when you point out a fault with Google, […]

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The decline continues: Facebook pages no longer accept YouTube links

Many of you know that I no longer use Facebook for my personal stuff. However, there are still work things to do, although I’ve noticed Facebook pages get more and more useless by the day. Here are the stats for my Facebook page:    Strangely, I can see the stats on a page that’s not […]

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