In a move to position themselves as a critical strategic partner in these tough times, Ogilvy has launched a SEO-challenged Flash website with PDF’s as the primary content.
No, you are not reading The Onion.
Pownce was a once-hyped micro-blogging competitor to Twitter. I say “was” as today Pownce announced that they will be shutting down their service on December 15th.
While the demise of Pownce and other social media sites during this recession seems like dot-com bust déjà vu, there’s one key difference. We the users feel the loss as well. Our connections with long-lost friends, geo-tagged photos, witty and pithy comments, and moment-by-moment recitations of the best days of our lives are lost — forever. Along with all the countless hours invested uploading them to the world.
It’s not just the start-ups that are shutting sites down either. Yahoo! shut down Yahoo! Mash, their MySpace/Facebook competitor. AOL shut down AOL Pictures, their flickr competitor. Google shut down Lively, their Second Life competitor. Some have been kind enough to help you port your content to a similar service, but not all.
The lure of these services has been strong over the past few years. My wife and I opted to use Tumblr for micro-blogging about our newborn — fully aware that we were entrusting our efforts to a start-up service. Why? It was free and really easy set up, customize, and maintain.
Next up, Facebook. Just about every article you read about this social media darling mentions that they still haven’t announced how they’re going to make real money. With the recent market downturn some are suggesting that they figure out a way to start charging users. Others feel like that would be disastrous.
Now as some of us are counting ourselves among the web 2.0 casualties and learning the true price of “free”, it will be interesting to see what 2009 holds for start-up and user alike.
This was shot on Wooster Street in Soho. For fans of street art, I highly recommend checking out Wooster Collective.
My wife recently gave birth to our son. That spectacular event triggered a flurry of communications from our health plan — namely, plan statements. Plan statements get mailed following a provider visit. They explain what procedures were performed, what the provider billed the plan, and what the consumer’s cost is (if any).
Up until recently we really didn’t pay much attention to our statements as we rarely visit the doctor. But after the birth, larger bills started to float in — it was time we looked closer.
58 Gallery has been at the cultural center of the Jersey City arts community for some years now. Their opening receptions are frequently followed by lively parties and often showcase great local bands.