[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY8wD0H3VZI] During San Diego Comic-Con 2010 Day 2, I interviewed Fat Rabbit Farm creators Patty Variboa and Jason Ponggasam and writer of the first book Nicholas Doan. Cramped space in the booth made for tough […]
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The Roles We Play
I am catching some down time in the Press Room at the San Diego Convention Center. Outside in the hall, Comic-Con rumbles on with a crowd I would estimate to be at least three times the size of Day One. The noise and bustle makes taking good photos or conducting video interviews difficult. So I’m shacked up with my laptop in this quiet place, contemplating what Comic-Con is all about: Role playing.
Many attendees have come here as someone else. For a day, or even a few, they take on another persona. They become someone else—perhaps whom they would rather be, but most certainly not who they are. They can be heroes and even stars, for most anyone well-costumed will be repeatedly stopped for photos. Comic-Con lets them be not just someone else but someone special.
Mollycules
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnqMEn7qaIw] In my first San Diego Comic-Con 2010 interview, artist and illustrator Molly Hahn shows off some delightful monsters and offers tips for aspiring storytellers. She’s bright and articulate, Mollycules is superb branding […]
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San Diego Comic-Con 2010
Three more days to go! Please follow the action at my Comic-Con 2010 Flickr set.
The Web We Weave
The Net’s interactivity gives us powerful new tools for finding information, expressing ourselves and conversing with others. It also turns us into lab rats constantly pressing levers to get tiny pellets of social or intellectual […]
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Does the Net Necessitate Social Media?
It’s the question I seriously ask in context of web users’ constant state of distraction and increasing inability to concentrate for long periods. Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains looks at this state of distraction. I’ve blogged posts: “Internet Attention Deficit Disorder” and “Of Course, Technology Changes You.” Are people losing their minds, so to speak, only to gain another—group mind—through online social interaction?
China's 'Unimaginable Riches'
Along the eight-hundred-and-fifty mile border with China, everybody knows someone who knows someone who has been to China, and has heard the tales of the unimaginable riches on the other side. Barbara Demick For Americans […]
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Journalist Burnout is Symptom of Sick Newsrooms
When I started my online-only news career at CNET (1999-2003), the metrics for success largely extended from print: Scoops (and for me, provocative analysis). Now, as Jeremy Peters writes for the New York Times (“In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger”), the measure is pageviews—and scoops, too, for some news organizations. Journalists are burning out fast and young, and for easily discernable reasons. Too much is demanded of them (and for too little compensation).
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Apple’s iPhone 4 Booboo has Etsy Fix
I am in storytelling mood—and marketing is all about storytelling in very few words (for the best even tweets are too long). This little ad—taking advantage of Apple’s so called “Death Grip“—is smart storytelling in just so many ways.
iPhone Antenna Song
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKIcaejkpD4] Yes, this is the same video Apple showed during its July 16th iPhone 4 media event. Like Song-a-Day man Jonathan Mann, I’m generally satisfied with iPhone 4, despite all the negative press about […]
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Journalists, Don’t Fall for Predicto’s Flack Attack about iPhone 4 Recall
This morning, I received a PR pitch from social networking survey service Predicto, which existence I had no prior knowledge. I’m simply aghast by the flagrant misuse of data and assertion that based on a Predicto survey, Apple will likely recall iPhone 4.
Beauty Scarred, But Taken
The iPhone 4 antenna issue is a scar on a beautiful woman. You don’t break up with the woman because of it, you work around it because of her other attributes. She might even put […]