The past month’s events provided no shortage of opinions on what is – or isn’t – free speech. Setting aside the opinions of the President and the NFL, let’s look at what constitutes “free” speech online. No one loves The Google more than we do, but if we really think about it, is Google dictating the content you consume? The short answer is – duh – of course it is! We all as consumers understand how ad dollars and SEO works on a basic level. The more dollars a company pays, t

Now that the upfront season has wrapped (where broadcasters trot out new programming and look to strike deals with advertisers), we're seeing stories that encompass everything from “There Has Never been a Better Time to Be In TV” to “Traditional TV is Dead.” So which one is right? Traditional television consumption IS changing. In our last post, we talked about how ALL media consumption is changing. But television is a different beast. There is a huge amount of money being sp

As media becomes more ubiquitous, naturally, we consume (and crave!) more of it. The easier it is to consume, the more of it we want. Perhaps most helpful to this trend is that “the media” now goes where we go via our mobile devices. So it’s no shock that, according to eMarketer data, the average time spent per day with “Major Media - Digital” climbed to 5 hours and 43 minute in 2017 and is expected to reach 6 hours and 1 minute in 2018. Check out the chart below. What is als

Many of us use social networks in our daily lives. But isn’t it starting to feel cluttered with junk? It seems like Facebook is the new “chain letter” and Twitter has become a hotbed of snark. While that content can be fun (no one loves snark more than me), how much value is it adding to our lives? It’s very simple to make a statement why your opposed to something - “that sucks” “you’re an idiot!” “you troll!”, etc. But how does that interaction really move the needle in ter

“It's great to go on your own and discover new things just for yourself, to meet new people and all that. If you're all on your own, then there is nobody there to guide you and you have to make all the decisions for yourself. It's quite liberating in a way.” – Dido (singer, songwriter) The process of discovery helps us learn. It has since we were infants. Turns out – babies are GREAT at discovery – better than adults even. Of course, baby’s brains are little sponges, soaking

We’ve all heard a version of this riddle: A father and his son are in a car accident. The father dies instantly, and the son is taken to the nearest hospital. The doctor comes in and exclaims "I can't operate on this boy." "Why not?" the nurse asks."Because he's my son," the doctor responds. How is this possible? While outdated (and blatantly sexist – but that’s for another post…), this riddle is all about assumptions. We all have them - but many of them are just wrong. What’

Social media makes it easy to be polarizing. Black or White, Yes or No, Republican or Democrat. Often, there is little room for nuance, context and thoughtful discourse. As the “virtual” iteration of who we are, social media often gives us a one-dimensional look at ourselves and our “friends.” Let’s look at an example. Sue may have expressed support for Hillary Clinton on her Facebook page. To many, that one “thing” about Sue can tell you many other things about her (she is p

Is there an actor shortage? It seems like there are an awful lot of real reporters who are making appearances in movies and TV shows. While it’s not new to see “real” reporters in the movies, in the age of fake news and “post truth” (the unfortunate choice for the “word of the year” from the folks over at Oxford Dictionaries), all of the sudden it feels icky to see our trusted sources of information shilling for the latest Batman movie (a la Charlie Rose). Sure, it’s fun to s

This election season has brought to light a particularly virulent strain of fake news. It’s true that people promoting fake information is as old as time, but the internet has made it easy for anyone to create social media profiles and websites in order to post whatever they want under the guise of “journalism.” In a disturbing study by BuzzFeed, they found that fake election news outperformed legitimate news on Facebook. Apparently, this is the new normal for news. The debat

If there has ever been a time that better highlights the power of like-mindedness and collective sentiment, I can’t think of one. Social media pages lit up as a result of the election of Donald J. Trump as the next president of the United States last week. Neighbors, family, friends, co-workers, high school classmates, you name it, took to social media to vent their frustrations or their joy in hopes of being heard. Some turned to social media to commiserate, others turned to