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Who cares about your stories when there’s already too much content?
If there’s already “too much content,” why even bother to write anything new? It turns out, the average lifespan of a blog post or a news article is just about three days. Older than that, and your audience has already moved on to something that feels fresher. If you’re remarkable about getting traffic to your…
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The Zero Stack Startup
Most of the founders I talk with on my podcast, The Build, didn’t start their companies with huge investors behind them. Sometimes, they had a stockpile of cash from a previous “exit,” or from a nest egg they saved up from a day job. But, most of the time, they just took the resources they…
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Capturing attention and building media relationships in “The New PR” environment
A client’s investor called me to check in on the status of a communications campaign. Having made it through both “Web 1.0” and “Web 2.0,” he shared a perspective I hear often from media and technology leaders these days. Despite a seeming explosion of places where companies can get coverage—blogs and podcasts, along with newspapers…
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This room feels familiar.
Kickstarter looks and acts just like some of the 2.0 designs for public radio pledge interfaces I built for XPN back in 2001. Except, we had plenty of research to show us that you got way higher donations if you put your biggest dollar amounts at the top of the page. That way, people scroll…
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Why we never cut the cord.
I declared victory over the need to get a cable box in the new apartment in this post from a few months back. You might be among the dozens of folks who’ve been asking me about what happened since then. Turns out, it’s not as easy as you might think to totally cut the cord.…
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I’m starting my New Year’s Resolutions a few weeks early.
Attending Barcamp Philly inspired me to solidify a lot of these ideas. There’s a JFDI attitude in this town that I find myself connecting with more and more. Now that I’m settled in from our move to Center City, I’m no longer content to wait until 2011 to make some changes. 1. Add more white…
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I’m a Ghost Blogger and I’m Proud of It
Sometimes, when I’m not griping about still having to pay down my student loan, I think about what I really got for my money when I attended Ithaca College. I may not be working in either of the two media mentioned in my major concentration (“radio” or “television”), but I sure do a heck of…
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Snow’s Melting
Almost two weeks later, and the snow still reminds me more of Ithaca than of anything I grew up with around here.
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Christmas Eve in Athens, GA: Five Years Later
Five years ago tonight, I posted the original version of this image to my Flickr stream. This is what you see when you drive through the center of town at midnight on Christmas Eve: festive decorations, welcoming shop windows, and no people. I found myself at this intersection on the way home from the hospital,…
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How to Use Wawa: Four Rules for Philadelphia Visitors
A client confirmed for me what anyone who has spent time in Philadelphia knows by heart: Wawa is more than just a convenience store, it’s the nexus for peculiar Philly culture. Philly natives know the drill at Wawa. It’s full of contradictory cultural norms. The Wawa Door Hold. You must hold the door open for…
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First Snow of Winter
Even though it's our second winter back north, it still feels like a surprise to wake up to this. Especially since it was 65 degrees out earlier in the week.
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My New Kenmore Dishwasher Has Arrived!
Right now, it’s still in a box that doubles as a handy kitchen island for unloading groceries. Tomorrow, it’s getting fully installed, and the old, broken Kenmore dishwasher is being hauled away. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the havoc caused by my not-yet-six-month-old Kenmore dishwasher. I really got to that point where I…
