What's this, our friend Ashley Dupre, nee Spitzer, has taken up yoga and is hanging with Russell Simmons developing "inner strength?" Pish posh! You need to focus, Ashley. You'll ruin everything. Ashley has a new 'blog' today! What's she been up to? Oh yoga and this and that, etc.: In great part, di...

"Is it racist for white people to shoot black zombies?" asks the prestigious Wall Street Journal. It's a touchy issue, and we all have our opinions. But are those opinions stupid? This zombie racism controversy has arisen because "Resident Evil 5" features a white hero shooting African zombies, beca...

Meet Officer Vaughan Ettienne, the bodybuilder who learned the hard way you shouldn't write like a thug online, or a jury might just suspect you of mistreating a suspect. Ettienne (not pictured above, that's Herc from The Wire) once posted the following under a video clip of a cop punching a handcuf...

Last week Rachel Maddow called out failed Clinton consigliere Mark Penn for running an evil PR firm, Burson-Marsteller. The firm is evil, and Penn should just shut up. But he didn't! So he paid: After Maddow reamed Burson for working for a laundry list of the world's dirtiest companies, Penn sent ou...

Meet the "Royal Caribbean Champions," a group of fifty prolific posters to popular online communities that Royal Caribbean rewards with special access and free cruises in exchange for their frequent and positive commentary. The Champions were outed by their creators, the Customer Insight Group, whic...

While marketing budgets are being cut or shifted, many companies are holding on to public relations — especially B2B companies.  A recent story in BtoB Magazine, “Marketers stay in the conversation with PR,� tells the story of a company that relies on case studies as part of their public rela...

“Angry phone calls are your friend,” writes Seth Godin in a blog post today. “They’re your friend because the alternative is angry tweets and angry blog posts.” I agree so completely I’ve already tweeted this post of Godin’s. But I think companies should hav...

With 400 diners now reported as suffering food poisoning from Heston Blumenthal’s fancy Fat Duck restaurant, a visit to the website shows no attempt at crisis management.  It somewhat bizarrely states: Welcome to The Fat Duck website. We are currently in the process of updating the design...

Celebrities using Twitter is all the rage right now.  Rightfully so, it gives them a hungry, always-on audience which they can control the message with.  Something a lot of them might not be used to these days.  Fan favorite, P.Diddy broke on to the Twitter-scene not too long ago in only a way Di...

Earlier this week I wrestled with a handful of social-media purists who could not/would not acknowledge my arguments on ghostwriting and blogging. If you missed it, just scroll down one post. Nothing I said or will ever say on this issue can change their minds. They’ve covered their ears, as w...