US home prices increased 24% year-over-year in May, the highest increase in more than 20 years. The market is in a frenzy, with some home buyers bidding six figures over asking prices and sellers selling many homes within a week of their hitting the market. What’s really going on? It’s not like the last housing…
I just bought a used car and I’m on the verge of buying a used house. Making such purchases requires lots of information. You can’t collect it all online, but it sure helps. Because I’ve been alive for more than 60 years, I am used to making big purchases with lots of personal hand-holding and…
Online advertising — and what happens next with it — will determine the future of just about everything. In 1995, I made the audacious prediction that online ads, a market I estimated at no more than $10 million, would grow to $2 billion by 2000. People were skeptical. And sure enough, I was wrong. I…
I’m planning a major piece on the problems with online advertising. And I want to hear from you. It feels to me like we’ve driven the digital world into a ditch. I don’t mind advertising that’s helping keep content free, or cheap. But I can’t figure out how these ads are supposed to be actually…
On my Facebook profile, under “religion,” it says “Red Sox fan.” So I cannot remain silent about the special set of uniforms that the Boston Red Sox and Nike unveiled for the team to wear on April 17-18. Here’s how they look. I apologize if this photo has made you come close to losing your…
It’s a truism in social media circles: brands should be more human. Of course, humans have a full range of emotions — they can be angry, not just nice or funny. Do we really want angry brands? Brands like Amazon that attack people on social media are going to find out they’re making a mistake….
Volkswagen posted, then withdrew, a press release about renaming the company as “Voltswagen” to reflect a commitment to electric cars. Apparently it was an April Fools joke — and very poorly executed at that. Here’s the timeline of how it went down: Monday, 29 March: Press release about the rebranding “accidentally” posted on VW Website,…
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Wayne Gretzky “Do you really think we haven’t heard this a thousand times? Uggh.” Weary readers For the second time in the last year, I was editing a business book that cited this overused, stale, moth-eaten, clichéd Gretzky quote. In…
So, I’m lined up to do a consultation with this guy from Silicon Valley. He’s very well connected there, so he tells me. This is a pretty typical session for me — a 30-minute discussion of needs and publishing alternatives with an aspiring author. I typically do three of these a week. And they’re free…