When you are prone to measuring yourself against others, like I am, and when you both work and live out chunks of your life online, as I do, the Internet can be a bitch.

It's easy to get caught up in measuring your impact online, and...

Last week I signed on for the Comcast triple play, which brought our triumvirate of phone-internet-TV under Comcast's wing. It also simultaneously catapulted us back to the Land of DVRs (Digital Video Recorders), a place from which we had reluctantly decamped after our last TiVo box died months ago.

With...

The bailout of Bear Stearns could be the first of a wave of financial lifeboats. US housing is overpriced. Retail sales are in the dumps. And the consumer spending spree that fluffed up the economy for a few years? Done.

"In short," enthuses Jack Neff in yesterday's...

If April is the cruelest month, March has to be the strangest. At least, this March: What a strange few weeks it's been. Silda Spitzer stands by Eliot; Gilligan's Mary Ann is a stoner.

Then, last night, as I was watching my daughter thumb through a new catalog from a...

Around Christmas, I met TomTom. We've been inseparable ever since.

TomTom, if you don't know, is a portable GPS navigation system. It mounts on the car dashboard, and its voice commands guide you to your destination. For someone like me--I get lost finding my way back to the table...

Bloggers often get a bad rap. They are nerdy types without friends. Loud mouth know-it-alls lounging at home in their pajamas. White. Young. Male. Too liberal--or too conservative. No real job other than "talk, type, tag, text & Twitter." (Or worse, like this.)

But the reality is different...

Almost a year ago, I set up a Facebook profile and began greedily gathering armfuls of friends like Dorothy gathering poppies in Oz, plucking them from the various flowerbeds of life. But now, what I loved about Facebook is also what I'm starting to hate about it.

It...

Being a parent for the better part of two decades, I've gotten used to accepting the fact that my kids are attracted to things that I don't like.

When my son Evan was about four, he was shopping with me in a second-hand children's shop. Rummaging in the forgotten...

I'm not sure whether to say that the business world--not to mention kids everywhere--lost a giant of an inventor or a giant of a marketer this week, when the man responsible in part for the Frisbee, Silly String, and Hula Hoop died at the age of 82.

Richard Knerr,...

Here in the Northeast, the only thing that makes the death march toward winter tolerable is the brief respite that Halloween brings each October 31. It's the only time you can temporarily forget the shortening days, the ending of the year, the inevitability of cold and dark and aging... and...

I'm agreeing with Jeffrey Weiss of the Dallas Morning News, who says, "with the greatest of respect," to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling: "Shut up. Please."

Now that Rowling has outed the brave and brilliant wizard Albus Dumbledore, Weiss wonders, will she leave nothing to the imagination?

In...

Baby Boomers are a curious bunch. And by "curious" I mean "unexpected," not "inquisitive."

After a recent survey of 26,000 Boomers, Mediamark Research called those born between 1946 and 1964 - which includes me - an "optimistic group." But are we optimistic - or just delusional?

Almost...

My 10-year-old's public elementary school sent home a notice this week:

"As many of you may already be aware, a significant number of children are at risk for medical conditions related to increase in weight, poor nutrition and allergies. In an effort to promote continued health and wellness, we are...

What happens when you have too many friends on Facebook? Facebook boots you off -- swiftly, permanently, and without a chance of appeal.

At least, that's what happened to Harry Joiner. Harry is a marketing recruiter who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and he is also a friend....

In what is being billed as the first-of-its-kind collaboration via the Internet, a group of marketers two weeks ago published The Age of Conversation, a book that offers advice on ways businesses can engage consumers through conversation -- in short: "shaddup already... and listen more."

The 103 authors...

In time for this month's release of the new Harry Potter movie (today) and book (another 10 days), Jelly Belly recently launched its new sausage and pickle flavors in the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans line. Meanwhile, last week, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon's Kwik-E-Mart came to life in 12 locations in North...

Blog, folksonomy, wiki and other words coined by geeks and netizens are among the most irritating new "Weblish" words, according to a recent poll. Meanwhile, such words inspired by the Internet age are creeping into dictionaries, making them a more permanent chafe.

The poll -- conducted by the British...