Are our digital interactions activities ephermeral, destined to live only until the next refresh or are they more enduring? This has been a central question to the privacy debate that’s ensnarled Facebook as more and more users of the social network are realizing those pics of last night’s party could make for headaches in the future.
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I learned two things from The New York Observer’s cover story on the problems facing Slate as it drives a Lark into its 14th year of existence. The first is that Slate, owned by The Washington Post Co., needs some PR help. At the bare minimum, it needs someone who can get all its various editors on the same page with respect to matters like, oh, the general state of affairs.
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You might call an article on The Awl about a summer spent toiling for Demand Media, one of those content farm businesses built on weapons-grade SEO and horrendously paid freelancers, low-hanging fruit. I regard it as a juicy peach. Or at least a not-mealy apple. In any event, magazine editor Jessanne Collins relates her interactions with both the automated and human sides of Demand’s management of its legions of freelancers. Read the rest at Ad Age.
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When a man who became rich and relatively famous by making ads, you have to do a double-take when he publicly proclaims to be the next Ralph Nader, which I did in this piece for Ad Age:
Along the way, Mr. Bogusky has compared himself to Ralph Nader, which, at the risk of being rude, is not just laughable. It’s ROTFLable. Mr. Nader may at this late date come off as an election-ruining clown in a flammable suit and shoes from Sears, but he’s a baller when it comes to consumer advocacy and has been since the 1960s, when he got into the game by launching a full-frontal attack on automakers’ woeful safety record.
Read the rest over at Ad Age or download a PDF.
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A strange experience with my cable provider resulted in this story. After a few days of having no internet in my home, I called Time Warner to complain. I got nowhere fast on the phone, but when I started Tweeting it was a different story entirely:
Why should I, or any consumer, have one kind of experience on the phone and an entirely different kind online? Why does a customer willing to deal with his complaint in private end up being compelled to take it public? Are companies, as they are drawn to exciting new mediums giving short shrift to the old ones, like phones, where a lot of consumer experiences are still made or broken?
Over the past few years, companies have invested heavily in human and technological resources that allow them to better listen to what people are saying about them online. And many have gotten quite good at using social channels like Twitter or Facebook to quell complaints or, on the flip side, amplify the nice things that people have to say about their brands. But savvy as many brands have gotten online, offline customer service remains a different story, as my experience with my cable provider attests.
Read the rest at Ad Age or download a PDF.
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Consider:
Since the beginning of the year, a veritable Cannes jury worth of senior creative talent has shrugged off the leashes of big agency networks for their own start-ups or for creative pursuits outside the ad industry….Longtime agency watchers will say this kind of churn has always been part of agency life, but to dismiss the trend as part of some cycle is ignoring some key questions that agencies need to answer. After all, the pressure on these companies’ business model is intense. While the economic gloom might be lifting, for most it still lingers and, besides that, agencies are getting hit from all sides: Cost-cutting, conservative clients; procurement officers; more competition from small and midsize shops; newfangled concepts such as crowdsourcing agencies; and a business model still very reliant on the production of ads, not ideas.
Read the full story at Ad Age or download a PDF.
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Today Jonathan Franzen is getting all the attention, thanks to the Time magazine cover story that is unlinkable and probably unread behind Time’s paywall. That’s all ok, but the one writer with initials J.F. you need to know is Joshua Ferris, who wrote the awesome “Then We Came to the End” and the possibly even better “The Unnamed.” The former is about an ad agency as it unravels through round after round of layoffs. It’s written almost entirely in the first-person plural, a tact that could seem gimmicky but isn’t.
His second book is about a big-shot New York lawyer who comes down with a perplexing condition. He suffers from long bouts of being compelled by his body — or his mind maybe (it’s never clear) – to walk and walk and walk andwalkandwalkandwalkandwalkandwalkandwalkandwalkand walkandwalkandwalkandwalkandwalkandwalkandwalkandwalk. He walks until he can walk no longer and passes out wherever he is: a parking lot in Newark, a dumpster in Queens and so on. The only way to stop him from walking it to physically restrain him.
click to read an excerpt
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Usually Captchas make me feel visually- or cognitively-impaired. This one reminded me that, at some point, I’m going to die.
At least, I”ll be receiving Jason Hirschhorn’s media newsletter throughout the journey.
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As the series a small subset of white people likes hurtles toward 1965, it’s time to think about what shape the historical backdrop will take. (All dates are from Wikipedia and, thus, accepted without question.)
March 10: Goldie, a London Zoo golden eagle, is recaptured 12 days after her escape.
Don turns from his newspaper, picks an errant tobacco leaf off his tongue, gazes out his office window, and thinks birds should not be kept in cages. Then, tired, he moves to his couch for a nap.
April 9: Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang appear on the cover of Time Magazine.
Cooper calls his man at Time.
April 14: In Cold Blood killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, convicted of murdering 4 members of the Herbert Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, are executed by hanging at the Kansas State Penitentiary for Men in Lansing, Kansas.
Sally reads “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Glenn puts Betty’s lock of hair in the Draper mailbox.
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