You Don’t Have to Tweet to Twitter

Frequent comparisons to Facebook leave many confused about the true value of Twitter.

Twitter is having a remarkable year. Active users have soared to over 100 million per month, with daily actives now above 50 million. Tweets per day are over 250 million. Most top actors, athletes, and artists are all active on Twitter. Every news and sports program proudly advertises its Twitter account handle. No one would consider running for public office without a strong Twitter presence. Global news in any region breaks first and spreads fast on Twitter. Even uber-socialist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has 2.24 million followers (which puts him slightly behind Mandy Moore, but just ahead of Queen Latifah). Read More

The Probabilistic Magazine Brand in the Social News Age

I've been thinking a lot about what a magazine brand can be within our current tech-mediated information ecosystem. In the paper days, a brand's identity was fairly simple. The brand was nearly synonymous with the magazine artifact. The artifact, which was a defined printed package of coherent content, served as a clear identity marker that drew a particular demographic. Those particular eyeballs, then, were sold to companies, who would buy pieces of the publication on which they could paste their advertisements.  Read More