Here’s what you need to know about authors: they spend a lot of time on their books, care about them, and think that they and their books are special. If you respect what they created, they’ll be happy to talk to you about anything reasonable. If not . . . well, they’re very witty smartasses,…
Friday’s post about the Donald Trump statues got quite a reaction. Surprisingly, it restored my faith in the Internet as a place for discourse. My objective was simple: get people to think twice about whether we’re ready to accept public, naked, exaggerated depictions of our political candidates as part of the dialogue. And I think…
Facebook determines which of your posts get through to your friends. Your emails, on the other hand, all go through. But what if they didn’t? You’d have to write email to make it clearer, more compelling, more engaging. And that’s what you ought to be doing anyway. While Facebook’s algorithm is mysterious and ever-changing, we know…
Customer knowledge is the most valuable business commodity in our future. Facebook already knows your heart, Google your intentions, and Amazon your purse. With LinkedIn, Microsoft will know your brain. You don’t get a say in the matter. Why did Microsoft agree to buy LinkedIn for $26 billion? If you listen to their CEOs, Satya Nadella and Jeff…
Facebook increasingly defines our ideas about truth and news, so they really ought to work a little harder to block completely fake and misleading advertising. If you aspire to be the safe playground everybody plays at, you don’t leave broken glass lying around — let alone take money from the people who scatter it there. What are…
To comprehend the absurdity of 2016, just think how it would appear to an observer from 2000. I remember 2000 — it was an intense five years into my tenure as an analyst. We could see where things were going. The Web had vanquished walled gardens like AOL and was about to become universal. People were…
This blog crossed 1 million page views this weekend. It got there in ten months of blogging every weekday. Not bad. I try to spend my time looking outward, not inward, but I thought you’d be interested in how I got there. Steady growth with spikes Things first took off in May with one popular…
An open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook: False news is out of hand. People read lies and obliviously share them on Facebook. You can solve this problem. Not only that, you can solve it in a scalable way, without censoring anything and without changing your main sharing algorithm. Let’s see how….
Mark Zuckerberg yesterday announced “Reactions,” a set of six emoji that will join “Like” as ways to indicate what you thought of a post. For instance, you can now tap “Yay” or “Wow.” Zuck’s not thinking big enough. When I read a post, the set of emotions I feel isn’t covered by this meager list of…