Sep 10, 2010
The recently acquisitive MDC Partners is at it again, with a deal that is indicative of the growing recognition along Madison Avenue of how much more interested marketers are becoming in using public relations to reach consumers. Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners in New York, which is owned by MDC, is acquiring a majority stake in Kwittken & Company, a public relations agency in New York with annual revenue approaching $10 million and clients like Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, McGraw-Hill and Thomson Reuters.
Sep 10, 2010
Taking advantage of vacant mall space, Toys "R" Us is opening 600 temporary shops—or "pop-up stores"—this fall, a move that doubles the number of its U.S. stores for the crucial holiday season. The toy retailer is super-sizing a bet it made last year when it opened 90 temporary mall-based Toys "R" Us Express stores during the holidays, many in spaces previously occupied by KB Toys, which folded in early 2009. Toys "R" Us also added holiday toy sections to its 260 Babies "R" Us locations and plans to do so again this year.
"We did it last year and it worked," said Gerald Storch, chief executive of Toys "R" Us. "Our customers told us they liked the convenience of buying toys where they were shopping for other holiday gifts."
Sep 10, 2010
Communications, whether face to face, screen to screen or advertiser to consumer, work best when people feel they are interacting with someone who understands them; someone who acts like 'one of us'. Irrespective of size, age or location, many agencies too often forget this and continue to churn out bland campaigns that claim to be 'global', when in fact they are just rehashed translations. At Amsterdam Worldwide, all our communications aim to convince audiences, irrespective of language, region or culture, that they have been produced specifically for them. This helps us achieve local impact with true global reach. One of the tools, we use to ensure local relevance, is Culture Mapping. It's a tool which enables us to understand cultural differences to make international communications and brands more effective.
Sep 9, 2010
There’s been plenty of debate lately about whether Twitter has become “mainstream” or not, but examples continue to pile up of how the social network/microblogging platform has worked its way into our lives, to the point where it has become a form of media unto itself. Whether it will ever become mainstream in the sense that it gets used by your aunt or grandmother is almost irrelevant — the reality is that, for all its flaws, Twitter is a publishing tool, and an increasingly powerful one. And it can be used by anyone, journalist and non-journalist alike.
Sep 9, 2010
At a recent conference, The New York Times‘ publisher and chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., stated that he eventually expects the “Gray Lady” will no longer be a physical newspaper.
“We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD,” he said to attendees of the International Newsroom Summit.
This type of statement is sure to cause alarmist reactions in some and will strike others as a completely obvious conclusion to the ongoing struggles of traditional media.
Sep 9, 2010
One of the Internet's greatest success stories in 2010 can be found in a former potato chip factory on Vermont Street in Potrero Hill. This is the original office of Zynga, the S.F.-based creator of online "social" games — FarmVille, a simple application in which participants plant and harvest crops, is the company's best-known product — that in three years has gone from scrappy startup to the toast of Silicon Valley. Since launching its first Internet game in 2007, Zynga has grown rapidly. The company's true earnings are unknown to outsiders, but industry observers estimate that its annual revenue could now be $500 million or more. In May, social-media analyst Lou Kerner estimated Zynga's total price tag at $4 billion, based on corporate filings for a stock issuance.
In light of Zynga's phenomenal rise, one former senior employee recalls arriving at the company eager to discover what new business practices were driving its success in a market where other popular Web 2.0 ventures struggled to make money. What was Zynga's secret?
Sep 9, 2010
We are fascinated here at ReadWriteWeb about Hadoop. It can be used in so many ways. It gives you that sense of excitement that shows how big data can open up all kinds of possibilities.
So we got a tad excited tonight when we ran across a post by Mike Pearce about "10 Hadoopable Problems: or in other words, 10 things you can do with Hadoop. But excitement turned to disappointment when it reminded us of how limiting we can be when thinking about big data in standard terms.
We won't go into detail about each of the 10 ways Hadoop can be used. You can go check out the post yourself. Instead, we'll highlight a few and provide our own little view about big data, the failings of geek culture and the role information plays in our interface culture.
