"Wow. If a person markets something, like a book they've written, or a product they are selling, it is regulated as if it were advertising published by a media company, such as a newspaper, TV, magazine, etc.

That means everyone is now a media company. And subject to the same regulations - at least in the UK. Wow."

"…each time you log a return visit to an establishment, you're registering a de-facto vote in favor of that good or service (an endorsement). Chances are you're not checking in at a restaurant that served you undercooked chicken last week. So establishments with the highest ratio of return visits by the same person are being collectively curated as well liked."

"Why do these asinine reports jump onto a bandwagon they don’t understand and why do those reporting on them relate with such glee that a service that was never supposed in the first place to be more than gossipy tittle-tattle and proudly banal verbal doodling is “failing to deliver meaningful commercial or political content”. Bollocky bollocks to the lot of them. They can found their own “enterprise oriented” earnest microblogging service. Remind me to avoid it."

"They love to make it sound like making articles available free online is what killed newspapers. After all, then the problem is freeloading readers, news aggregators, and blogs. But in the case of classifieds, newspapers are getting trounced by a product that’s pretty much better and more efficient in every way, which casts them in a much less sympathetic light. Which just underscores the point that the industry needs to redouble its efforts to find a new model, rather than preserving an old one that was bloated and inefficient in many ways."

"The ad protests a bit too much that the higher cost of electrification is actually a LOWER cost once you figure in the benefits. People are creatures of habit, and I'm sure many Ypsilantians said, "No--the gaslights I've got now are fine, thanks." An imperfect analog today is solar power. Of course it's more expensive, and similarly offers benefits in the long run. Perhaps one day every home will come with built-in panels and we will look back on DTE as something as quaint as gaslight."

What's strangest to me about this piece is the comments, which seem to be from another planet. Certainly another culture.

"Project Wonderful is an online advertising broker with an innovative model that brings fairness, transparency, and profitability to the advertising process."

"This being the case, it's entirely possible that cash-strapped advertisers will have exactly the same kind of "moment of clarity" that shopaholic consumers are reportedly having now that they've seen entire store inventories marked down 50 percent or more in pre-Christmas sales—that is, they may say to themselves, "We knew all along that this stuff was made in China for a tiny fraction of what it sells for here; we were nuts to pay so much in markup for it.""

"The time-tested response is that you're not sure, that ads are risky, that you can't tell. And for some sorts of products and some sorts of ads, you'll get no argument from me.

Digital ads are different (or they should be). You should know cost per click and revenue per click and be able to make a smart guess about lifetime value of a click. And if that's positive, buy, buy, buy.

And if you don't know those things, why are you buying digital ads?"

"Maybe someday we’ll think of soap that isn’t anti-bacterial as a high-quality, artisanal product."

Be braced:

"For someone that has been working building software for the marketing automation industry over 8 years now and is familiar with multiple solutions for finding the right prospect out of many, it was an eye opener. I’m evidencing the progression from mass email campaigns through marketing to target individuals with a matching/relevant offers (data mining, behavioral pattern, collaborate filtering, recommendation engines) to finding customers that can market for you - agents."

"Don’t expect it to last, though. As the brands recognize that they are being bilked – rather, that there is at best a tenuous link between consumption of their goods and consumption of the free content they are sponsoring, they will be less likely to foot the bill. For the beneficiaries of free content, the internet is unraveling this whole ecosystem with unwavering speed."

watch the "making of" part especially

"The ebullition of your thoughts makes me feel as if I had been attracted to within a few hundred miles of the sun and had his gas-jets in full view."

"Suppose you and your friends have a small project each. To increase traffic without spending much money, you could put up ads for each other. This site makes that a snap.

Login, create a group (public or private), and start uploading your ads. Add a link to the ad to your site and you’re done.

Best of all, Ad Mates is free."

...which are all one thing: MORE DIVERSITY NEEDED ON ALL FRONTS. That's it.

How refreshing

If content is king, why is there so little of it on the web?

I wouldn't want a Kirtas touching most of the fancy stuff I scan. Really. I don't trust me, let alone a robot.

"More Power Than Your Body Has Room For"

Bears. Hats.

"...Facebook was receiving data about my online habits while I was not logged in, and was doing so silently, without even alerting me to the cross-site communication."

Facebook is for advertising, not social networking.

I had to explain to somebody who furries are, the other day....

also via: Danny Yee

via Danny Yee

Exploration vs. exploitation in social networks. Contingent on goals, frankly.