We are at war. Gas prices are at record highs. There are food shortages, a credit crisis, the financial markets are in hell and we are about to enter a recession. So, it makes total sense that Annie Liebovitz's photographs of Miley Cyrus are front-page news. The rumor mill is...

Last week, three of the nation's largest cable companies quietly pulled the plug on a joint cell phone venture with Sprint Nextel Corp., called Pivot. The goal of this service offering was to help the cablers compete with the Telco Triple Play (Video, Voice & Data). In theory, a Quadruple...

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) held their annual convention in Las Vegas this week and, aside from the usual angst about the digital transition next February, there was a moderate buzz about mobile TV.

In his opening keynote address, David K. Rehr, president of the NAB, opined about a...

"They'll be tried as adults for kidnapping (a first degree felony) and battery," said Chip Thullbery, a spokesman for the Polk County state attorney. Three of them will also be charged with tampering with a witness. If convicted, they could be sentenced to life in prison.

This story has been...

You walk into a retail store a few blocks from home and see something you've been eying for a while on sale. You pick it up, talk to the salesperson, put it down, walk around, think. When the salesperson is not looking, you text the UPC code to 262966, that...

This week the government of Antigua threatened to unleash hell on the information economy. Well, kind of ... they're threatening to repeal intellectual property treaties with the United States and to allow massive copyright infringement on the island if the U.S. doesn't hasten its response to pending trade disputes. In...

If she had a "type," he'd be it. Tall, like her. Dark hair, broad shouldered, well dressed and well teched. It looked like he hadn't shaved for a couple of days, but any uptown girl could tell that this was just additional proof of a refined fashion sense.

It...

By now, everyone has heard about Oprah Winfrey's webcast debacle earlier this week. Oprah, the smartest, richest, most successful person in the television business, decided to do a webcast. She promoted it as only she can. To execute, her people assembled the absolute best practices and organizations available anywhere. They...

The Oscars telecast averaged an 18.7 rating and a 29 share. That's TV-Geek-Speak for the lowest ratings since 1974, about 32 million viewers -- a 20% drop from last year. Some pundits are blaming the dismal ratings on the dark nature of the top films. Best picture, No Country for...

Scott Boyarsky, Director of Program Management at the Walt Disney Internet Group called me to chat about an extraordinary website called newsclipper.org. It's extraordinary for a bunch of reasons (which I shall explain) but the most interesting part of our conversation centered around a simple, unavoidable truth: newsclipper.org does exactly...

When it comes to file-sharing, piracy, bootlegging or whatever name you like to call the act of infringing on other people's intellectual property (IP) rights there is a general rule: Those with more time than money, steal -- those with more money than time, buy. Although it is a gross...

This week, Greg Sandoval posted a story on CNET about revver.com. The article says that Revver (the online video site) has fallen on hard times and the company, which raised almost $13 million in venture capital, is on the block for "$300,000 to $500,000, as well as the...

This week TNS Media Research announced a new service called TNS DirecTV View. The service offers second-by-second ratings data for satellite TV customers. As an analytical tool it is similar to TiVo's StopWatch, which offers second-by-second ratings data for DVR users. Depending upon who you ask, both services can be...

This article is about the flow of dangerous information in the information age -- how will we determine what is dangerous and what might we do with it? I don't believe that all people of faith are dangerous. I don't think that all Muslims everywhere are plotting to kill me....

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." -- Obi-wan Kenobi (Long, Long Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away)

Many people believe that Obi-wan was referring to the destruction...

Wireless HD, BluRay, IP-enabled television monitors and very, very thin flat screens dominated the consumer electronics show this year. Officially dubbed, International CES 2008, the show featured 1.85 million square feet of exhibition space, 2,700 exhibitors, 25 thousand international attendees and over 140,000 participants. Las Vegas, a city literally built...

If you're working in the media business today, you have to be thinking about the five most important digital consumer touchpoints: email, websites, paid search, display ads and video. And, if you're like most of my clients, this is an ongoing, dynamic, relatively expensive process.

Over the past few months...

The Writer's strike has been going on just a bit too long now. Both sides are back at the negotiating table. That's good. Talking is a good thing. However, if you are going to talk, it's better if you know what you are talking about.

Before we start, I want...

The first time Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, got into social networking netiquette trouble with his online friends was back in September of 2006. Power users of the nascent site were aghast when suddenly, every thing they did on Facebook was instantly and automatically fed to everyone of...