Nov 08
Back in March, I wrote a piece here on Marketing Musings called, “Is Green Marketing a Trend… or a Cycle?“, in which I predicted that the current wave of environmentally-conscious marketing would soon fade away, but probably leave some good things (such as demand for re-usable bags) behind. As you might expect (since I’m writing …
Sep 10
This article is a foll0w-up to my earlier piece, Zynga: A Company to Watch, or a Company to Fear? A lengthy investigative article on SFWeekly titled “FarmVillians” alleges that Zynga, the company behind FarmVille and Mafia Wars, among other viral Facebook games, has always been about stealing other peoples’ ideas — from the start, the …
Sep 01
Back in July, I noted that Blockbuster, the video rental chain that used to be synonymous with Friday nights at home, was on its way out. And, lo and behold, Blockbuster is entering into Chapter 11 in September. The plan? Blockbuster is going to eliminate 500-800 of its 3,245 stores within the next five months …
May 20
Dear AT&T Executives, You might remember my last letter to you griping about the inefficiency of your customer service. I didn’t think you could top that experience, but last night… wow. You managed. I received a knock on my door around 7:45 PM and saw two young women (~25 years old) standing on my porch …
May 11
Follow-Up on: Zynga: A Company to Watch, or a Company to Fear? and My Facebook Sabbatical (and Other News) Facebook has been in the news a lot lately due to their recent redesign, poor privacy protections and alienation of third-party developers. I talked about Zynga a few weeks back (the company behind FarmVille, Mafia Wars, …
Apr 28
Follow-Up on: Blippy: The Most Dangerous Social Networking Tool? So apparently, Blippy (that social networking site that divulges all your spending to your peers) has had a slip-up over the last week: a few users’ credit card numbers somehow became indexed by Google. It had to do with some sloppy coding that actually embedded users’ …
Apr 27
Follow-up on this article: Thank You, Gizmodo, For Reminding Us About the Reality of an Internet-Enabled World So, the news broke last night that Gizmodo contributor Jason Chen had several computers and servers (as well as some other items) confiscated as evidence by the police last night. He had some letter from the CFO of …
Apr 19
Awhile back in an article entitled, “Is Green Marketing a Trend… or a Cycle?,” I posed the hypothesis that the entire “going green” concept has more to do with a cyclical pattern that emerges every decade than a real change of heart on the part of the people. I felt that the good thing about …
Apr 06
Follow-up: Topic [Twitter] A crafty fellow named Tom Scott saw a lot of stupidity on Twitter, and he decided to do something about it: He built an application that will tell you which users have the dumbest fans. So, for example, let’s say you want to know who has stupider Twitter followers: Fox News pundit …
Apr 01
Follow-up on this article: Why I’m Not Excited About Apple’s iPad. ThinkGeek is known for its great April Fool’s Day listings. One year, they listed a Star Wars TaunTaun sleeping bag so the kids could climb inside their wintry beast of burden, just like Han Solo! (As it happens, the idea was so popular there’s …