Format wars are commonplace in the modern history of electronics. Even Thomas Edison had to deal with political and corporate wrangling for the format of his early wax audio cylinder records invented in 1877.  The dispute over which audio recording format would become the standard continued until 1...

If you were an early bird like me and on your computer circa 5:30-5:45 a.m. EST this morning, or on the other side of the world when this would be a reasonable time of the day, you too may have participated in the “Great Gmail outage of February 2009.” Yes, Gmail was down, and mass panic...

This post is part of a 5-part series. How can we all be successful with the next wave of video on the Web whether you are a show producer or a brand? Creative Marketing Models are one of four important priorities.  Previous posts talked about getting the show and the audience engagement ...

Though Charlie’s Angels and Big Fish screenwriter John August’s web pilot The Remnants was beloved by fans and NTV Station alike, as of this writing August says the series is more or less dead in the water.  This week, he addressed the outpouring of positive fan response on his blo...

Back in 2003, when I started working for AOL, there was a race to launch a digital music store for the Windows platform. The company to beat was Apple, who launched their Windows port of iTunes in October 2003. At that time, AOL was still claiming to have over 24 million subscribers. Clearly, if AOL...

I spent a few days last week at Advertising 2.0 New York. As if virtually every advertising-related event isn’t in New York City. In my previous job, I found myself traveling the globe on a regular basis, but now that I work in digital media, it’s a trip to New York every couple of weeks...

A few days ago I posted the requirements I deemed necessary to upgrade to a 3G iPhone. While the good folks at Apple decided to ignore all of my requests they did one thing that superceded all my other demands - dropped the price in half. For $200 I can get a new iPhone with 3G and GPS that I did...

The question has been posed - will digital replace Blu-ray? Yankee Group’s take in Will Blu-ray’s Victory be Short Lived?  concluded the impact will be minimal on sell-through but massive on the rental market - if only a company could solve the puzzle of hardware and service integra...

The Bay Area and LA are a mere five hours away if you average 80 MPH on I-5, but I've long been struck by how the division between the Valley and Hollywood is even greater than the one between Techland and DC. The New York Times takes (another) look at this dynamic in an anecdote-laden piece today. ...

Clicking the above will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about my tastes In the movie Groundhog Day Bill Murray's character is faced with the same daily fate no matter what he does.  After a while, he figures that driving himself off a cliff with the Punxsutawney Phil in tow is the on...