They’ll Ruin It

So the big news is that Facebook acquired Instagram for a cool $1 billion dollars (I can't even type that without thinking about Dr. Evil). A billion dollars is a lot. It's big. To put it in context here is how it stacks up with other photo acquisitions over the years. I mean it is […]

Continue reading →
April 10, 2012  |  Comments  |  Tweet  |  Posted in Current Affairs, Social

Social Is Big, Mobile Is The Future

Over on the Nebo blog Kevin Howarth is doing a series of interviews that feature marketing thought leaders both locally and nationally. Kevin was gracious to ask me to participate and we had a fun conversation about interactive marketing. Kevin’s interview, with much better graphics than FoG, is being republished here with permission. What do you feel […]

Continue reading →
March 9, 2012  |  Comments  |  Tweet  |  Posted in Internet, Marketing, Mobile, Social

Fab

VentureBeat reported today that Fab just closed a $40 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Fab is an oft talked about company in the halls of Half Off Depot. Before today I do not know about the company's pivot from a social network for gay men. Interesting. In Fab's announcement they attributed their success to three […]

Continue reading →
December 9, 2011  |  Comments  |  Tweet  |  Posted in E-Commerce, Social, Startups

Handling Me

So one of my coworkers walked up to me the other day, evidently after perusing my social stream.  He: "Man you need a handler." Me: "I think I can handle myself pretty well." Which lead to a nice long discussion about the role of social and my role at Half Off Depot. The reality is, […]

Continue reading →
November 18, 2011  |  Comments  |  Tweet  |  Posted in Personal, Social

Deals, Deals, Deals

Nice top level summary of a really big and interesting space. So big and interesting that Google, the company with the largest market cap, is the dog. Regardless I think Jim Crowley, the CEO of BuyWithMe, pretty much got it right when he told Crain's "There is room for six of seven large players as well as […]

Continue reading →
May 5, 2011  |  Comments  |  Tweet  |  Posted in Internet, Marketing, Social

Open Social Network Experiment

So back at the beginning of Lent I did something that I am prone to do. A little online experiment. I opened up my social networks. At the time they looked something like this: LinkedIn 892 contacts, 363 requests Twitter 2,774 followers, 331 following Facebook 386 friends, 83 requests Foursquare 88 followers, 120 requests So […]

Continue reading →
April 28, 2011  |  Comments  |  Tweet  |  Posted in Social