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, […]
Read More… from Big Tech and advertising: the con is being revealed
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 […]
I would have loved to have seen this go to trial, but Facebook and the plaintiffs—a group of advertising agencies alleging they had been swindled by the social network—settled. Excerpted from The Hollywood Reporter, ‘The suit accused Facebook of acknowledging miscalculations in metrics upon press reports, but still not taking responsibility for the breadth […]
After all that bollocks from the Hon J. Rees-Mogg, MP about banning the metric system from the Commons, I thought the Brexit-loving Tories would at least get this right. That #Brexit bill is typeset in Palatino. That was designed by a German. Come on, people, don’t you want to use British typefaces? Tell Johnny Foreigner […]
When I wrote this post in May 2018, ‘People are waking up to Wikipedia’s abuses’, even I didn’t expect that Wikipedia would act so harshly when it gets criticized on its own platform. One editor decided to create a page on Philip Cross, who (or which) received a great deal of attention that month, […]
Read More… from Wikipedia acts swiftly when criticized, bans an editor for life
One mayoral candidate recently asked me for my advice. I won’t name who it is, since I want those who contact me to know I’ll keep their communications in confidence. Now, the first thing to do is to get a time machine and ask me the same question 18 months earlier. But I […]
Ken Clarke has been around long enough (indeed, as the Father of the House, he has been in Parliament for longer than my lifetime) to see through political shenanigans, and Bojo and Brexit are no exception. (Yes, Minister is also instructive.) Ken Clarke nails Boris Johnson's oh so transparent strategy 👏 1. Set conditions which […]
Read More… from On Boris Johnson’s strategy, Ken Clarke nails it
Studio Incendo/Creative Commons 2·0 As an expat, I’ve been asked a few times about what I think of the Hong Kong protests. There’s no straight answer to this. Here are a few thoughts, in no particular order. The British never gave us universal suffrage, so the notion that it was all roses before 1997 is […]
Thanks to my friend Bill Shepherd, I’ve now subscribed to The Ad Contrarian newsletter. Bob Hoffman is one of the few who gets it when it comes to how insignificant the FTC’s Facebook fine is. Five (American) billion (American) dollars sounds like a lot to you and me, but considering Facebook’s stock rose on […]
Read More… from Facebook is getting away with it again—even though it knew about Cambridge Analytica
If I think so little of Big Tech, why do I remain on Twitter? Because of some great people. Like Dan, who Tweeted: If Boris Johnson’s Leadership campaign slogan isn’t ‘Give Britain a BJ’ then he’s not the man I though he was. — Dan (@AceMcWicked) June 24, 2019 Followed by: […]
Read More… from I’m still doing election campaign posters, just not what you thought