Kilroy is Here… And Here… And Here

Hop around on the Web (especially Twitter) and you’ll see a common design trend: Cropped head shots–cropped for bios, avatars, for a lot.
If eyes are the window into the soul, a photo of a cropped human face is the window into Web 2.0 personal, digital branding.
Consider:
There’s the famous top half of a head (Seth Godin, [...]

Why News “papers” Will Lose

It’s not hard to see that printed news will go the way of dinosaurs, typewriters and 8-Track Tapes. Much has been written about the demise of newspapers. Much more will be debated as daily “print” journalism craters and moves to electronic only. Disastrous quarterly earnings of publicly held newspaper companies not only reflect the downturn [...]

10 Questions About the Future of News

As the news industry morphs into something different and exciting (not to mention, scary for some), a few questions:

Will the number of press passes be capped at the White House and both houses of Congress?
Will the U.S. Supreme Court allow cameras or tape recorders in the press gallery?
Will local bloggers sit through 4-hour city council [...]

The Original Twitter Qs: WWJJD?

I’ll take Jeff Jarvis at his word that he did not see these two Twitter @ questions posed to him by me @mootsman this week.
This may be a first: Posting old Tweets on a blog. Note times, dates and methods. 
Credit due to Jeff for responding rapidly to blog post/critique.
Odd that a blog post was faster [...]

WWJJD? (What Would Jeff Jarvis Do?)

It’s a brave new world full of a billion voices, tapping away, sounding off, getting snarky, demanding their due. Anyone with a computer or smartphone can jump in and say something. And somewhere, someone is listening, if just for a nanosecond. 
So does traditional “media” including newsprint still matter?
Simple test:
When I sent an @ Twitter message [...]

On Sale Now!

There’s not a morning that goes by that I don’t get a killer offer in my Gmail. Apple. Golf Galaxy. Nordstrom. Gap. Field Notes. Amazon. 
And on it goes. My head’s swimming with numbers and percetage symbols. I haven’t known whether to shop or wait for discounts to go lower.
Until now. Enter ZingSale, a zippy, nice Web site that [...]

Citizen Journalism: The Experiment Continues

Much has been made about “citizen journalists” on the ground in Mumbai typing 140-character dispatches over Twitter and snapping images with their Nikons or cellphones.
Social media, no doubt, has changed how we receive information and watch stories unfold. Om Malik watched Twitter and yearned for context. 
The volume of words sent over a “Twitter #Mumbai” feed the [...]

YouTube + Ads = ?

This item in the NYT goes to the revenue question on the $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube. Can they capture eyeballs looking for free video in a meaningful, targeted and relevant way?
Now it gets interesting.
A bit from the story: “Some advertisers remain nervous about the site, as even Google executives acknowledge. ‘There’s the assumption that [...]

Happiest Gigs on Earth

Yahoo today listed the Top 10 gigs in which people are happiest.
Number 1? Clergy.  Included in the 10: actors/directors, special education teachers and firefighters.
Conspicuously absent: bloggers, marketers, journalists, flaks and designers. Surely they are in the top 20? Helping people look as great, hit the right message points and win coverage is satisfying. Look at [...]

Keeping Track of Blogs

Wondering what to read online?
This Vanity Fair chart provides guidance on what influential blogs cover what and — most importantly — where they land on the scale of scurrilous to earnest, and from news to opinion.
Inverted pyramids need not apply.