Category Archives: Media

Say sayonara to former flames and annoying celebrities with Ex-blocker

August 26, 2010 – 6:34 am

by Anna Otieno WHAT’S HAPPENING Breaking up is hard to do. Avoiding an ex whose name keeps popping up all over the Internet is harder. Customized plug-in Ex-blocker looks to eradicate the heartache by providing a highly personalized Web-browsing filter. To get rid of an ex (virtually, of course), add their first and last name, [...]

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Humor, star power rally young fans to give

August 18, 2010 – 6:46 am

by Cree McCree WHAT’S HAPPENING Who says charity sites have to be earnest and goody-goody? Cause-centered social network Crowdrise, founded by actor Ed Norton and a posse of class clowns like Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd, puts the “fun” back in fundraising with slogans like “Kick Alzheimer’s in the ass.” The boldface names aren’t just [...]

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Seniors become “silver pokers” as well as “silver surfers”

August 17, 2010 – 6:27 am

by Nick Chiarelli WHAT’S HAPPENING Think social networking is just for the young? Think again.  Saga (an organisation focussed on serving the needs of over-50s) now offers a tailored social networking service for seniors. The Saga Zone service offers consumers the ability to make friends and join forums. The sample forum topics provide a window [...]

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Flipboard: An iPad magazine edited by social networks

August 11, 2010 – 6:33 am

by Robert van Alstyne WHAT’S HAPPENING Consumers can now be their own Charles Foster Kane with Flipboard, a free iPad application that produces a personalized magazine experience. Essentially a turbo-charged social media aggregator retro-fitted to mimic an online magazine, Flipboard pulls all the content being shared by Facebook friends and Twitter associates into one convenient [...]

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Plug-in gives users control over personal data

August 4, 2010 – 8:12 am

WHAT’S HAPPENING Internet users leave a digital trail behind them with every click, enabling companies to target them with online ads. Bynamite hopes to shift the balance of power by rewarding consumers for supplying personal data. Unlike ad blockers or privacy software, Bynamite doesn’t interfere with commercial data-mining. The free plug-in merely monitors what advertisers [...]

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Eulogy: The world’s first magazine to celebrate life and death

August 2, 2010 – 3:00 am

by Nick Chiarelli WHAT’S HAPPENING Fresh on the shelves of U.K. newsagents and supermarkets this month, Eulogy magazine promises something entirely new: a celebration of life and death. Editor Alfred Tong and Jim Thornton, one of the magazine’s founders, had previously found reasons to skirt the issue of death, but when circumstances brought the issue [...]

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Is Hotmail’s New Busy too busy?

August 2, 2010 – 2:21 am

by Lindsay Paterson WHAT’S HAPPENING Microsoft has been rolling out an experiential campaign to help the “new busy” manage their hectic schedules and create more time for (sometimes quirky) offscreen interests with a new, improved Hotmail service. Promotional events around London encouraged consumers to take up pursuits like Morris dancing, knitting, throat singing and extreme [...]

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The National pop up, rock out NYC storefront

May 27, 2010 – 2:18 pm

by Robert van Alstyne WHAT’S HAPPENING In-demand indie band The National helped build buzz for the release of their fifth album, High Violet, by taking a page from the pop-up retail playbook (WSJ.com 5.8.10). For five nights starting the day of their new album’s release, the Brooklyn band and various artsy pals took over a [...]

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For the right content, Millennials will pay to play

May 19, 2010 – 7:24 pm

by Cree McCree WHAT’S HAPPENING They grew up with YouTube and Hulu. But Millennials aren’t just a bunch of freeloaders. Advertising Age looks at the media habits of “The On-Demand Generation” in a 2010 report. The most wired demo ever spends nearly eight hours a day interacting with media — up almost an hour from [...]

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BYO.fm: Truly personalized radio

April 22, 2010 – 9:40 am

by Abby Shannon WHAT’S HAPPENING Internet killed the radio station? Not so fast. Michael Robertson, founder of MP3.com, now offers a next-generation customizable online radio experience with his free-to-use beta site, BYO.fm (CNET.com 3.29.10). Built on top of digital music lockers at MP3Tunes.com, BYO.fm enables music lovers to become their own program directors, allowing them [...]

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BATTLE OF THE BRANDS

April 6, 2010 – 11:27 am

by Robert van Alstyne This March marked my fourth time partaking in the insanity that is the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas. Dozens of the world’s most exciting up-and-coming acts test their mettle in the blazing sun, and brands galore engage in a battle royal to boost their cred among a taste-making crowd. And [...]

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Iconoculture’s SocialIQ gets you closer to the conversation

February 9, 2010 – 1:27 pm

We’ve been using social media analysis tools to follow online conversations, and to try to make better sense of the blogosphere. Recently, we tracked conversations centered around the blue dudes populating James Cameron’s movie Avatar (as well as examining topics around 3-D technologies and the IMAX experience). Using data from our partner, Collective Intellect, we saw [...]

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Internet streaker catches media with their pants down

November 18, 2009 – 9:27 am

by Sean Captain WHAT’S HAPPENING A New Yorker purporting to be the “world’s fastest nudist” flashed across computer screens in about a dozen YouTube videos. The story was picked up by blogs Gothamist, Gawker, and the Huffington Post as well as CNN’s Anderson Cooper. The media had egg on their faces when it turned out [...]

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TWITTER IS FULL OF TOOLS: More than just snark, the social net offers useful utilities for everyday life

November 3, 2009 – 3:29 pm

by Katie Elfering Twitter gets a lot of grief for letting people share the most mundane aspects of their lives (“I just ate a Pop-Tart”) or for being a tool that encourages self-promotion and narcissism. But lately, Twitter has started shaping up into an almost (gasp!) practical utility for consumers’ lives. One of the most [...]

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Tweet! The phone is ringing

October 7, 2009 – 6:00 am

by Anna Otieno WHAT’S HAPPENING Forget 140-character text-based tweets. Twitter users can now send audio tweets to each other using a third-party service from Internet communication provider Jajah. The service, whose beta name is Jajah@call, gives Twitter users the chance to make two-way calls with other users by typing “@call @username.” Jajah’s free service allows [...]

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