Social Media and Business Ethics Prior to my involvement in social media and new media, customers were exactly that – just customers. Rows in a database, indexed by various criteria, points of data making a beautiful line, so to speak. As an online business, my company, the Student Loan Network, never had to really deal…
I saw this article in USA Today – community colleges, many of which are commuter schools, are cutting classes, typically on Fridays, to help students save money on gas. Here’s the question I have: why wouldn’t professors start assigning distance learning opportunities in class? Let’s say you’re taking a course on biology, an intro course.…
I’ve been looking again at MySpace, as a recent blog post detailed. One of the things I’ve been looking at is the depth of engagement. Is a friend relationship enough to market on? What is the value of a MySpace friendship? Over the last five days, I’ve been sending out 200 messages a day or…
What is worth paying for? In the world of an information economy, information is effectively free. This, of course, has broad implications for anyone generating intellectual property, such as writers, musicians, and media makers. Effectively free means this: it is possible to mass produce and mass distribute information at near zero cost, laws and artificial…
Why Old Media Matters More Than Ever There’s a persistent dangerous meme in new media, the idea that old media (television, radio, and newspapers) is irrelevant and dying. It’s not. In fact, if anything, old media is more relevant than ever. Why? In the old days – and by that I mean pre-1996 – old…
I had an epiphany of sorts in the shower. What a lot of new media folks talk about – audience building, impressions, and the dreaded M word, monetization – is not marketing. Marketing is the sharing of ideas. So what is all the stuff we in new media talk about? Sales. Whether it’s pay per…
Where do the veterans of new media go? A theme that has cropped up in discussion lately about PodCamp is this: Where do the veterans go to learn new stuff? PodCamp, BarCamp, NewBCamp, BootCamp – there are so many conferences, sessions, and opportunities for new folks, from Zero to Podcasting at PodCamp Toronto to all…
For those who didn’t head out to PodCamp Toronto this weekend, another UnConference launched in New England – NewBCamp. Very closely aligned in concept (though no connection) to PodCamp Pittsburgh‘s BootCamp PGH, NewBCamp was created by Sara Streeter, a student at Johnson & Wales University, to achieve the dual goals of introducing new people to…
I got a promotional email from Big Machine Media today cc’ed to a list of 340 podcasters and bloggers, promoting their musicians. Good try, gang. Look, a lot has already been said about blogger outreach by better minds than mine. Here’s where this campaign really fell flat. First, please, please, please if you’re going to…
