Tag Archives: technology

Danny Dunn

La machine Dujardin donnant la force motrice

Image by zigazou76 via Flickr

One book I remember vividly from my childhood was called Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine.  It was published in 1958 and I think I read it in middle school several years later (I’m not THAT old!).  The book is about a kid who finds what was an early computer (probably filled a room and didn’t have the processing power of one of today’s cell phones, I’m sure).  He uses the computer to do his homework but finds out that to do so he needs to program it.  In order to program it, he needs to understand the subject matter which, kids, is the point.  It’s also today’s business thought. Continue reading

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Filed under digital media, Helpful Hints

Whose Brand Is It Anyway

Her’s a question to start the day:  Does a brand belong to the company or to the customer?  Before you give me a knee-jerk reaction, think about it for a second.  Does “New Coke” ring a bell?  The company put out what it believed to be a better product and customers demanded that they restore the product to its former state.  That’s the best example in my mind but I’m sure you can think of others.

The reason I bring it up this morning is a video I watched from Shore Communications in which John Blossom and Peter Propp discuss the Microsoft acquisition of Skype and how it might affect both brands.  I’ve embedded the video below and you might want to spend 10 minutes to watch.  In the interim, here’s my take. Continue reading

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Filed under What's Going On

The Shotgun Approach

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry this morning about a situation one of my clients is having. They, like many other sites, get a fair amount of traffic from Google. In their case, because they’re a news site, Google News is a key traffic driver as well. A week ago, with no notice or changes to the site, their articles disappeared from Google News and their traffic dropped precipitously. What’s really weird is that the site is still fully indexed in regular Google – only News is affected.
Why am I telling you this? Because while the cause is still unknown we have an idea of what’s doing it and there are larger thoughts beyond our specific case that I want to share. Continue reading

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Filed under digital media