the Constant Observer

• Upcoming Speaking Engagements

  Number of comments: 0
  I haven't been updating the sidebar to this blog, so I thought it might be best to post where I'll be in the upcoming months...
  
  This week, on December 11th, I will be speaking at the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship & Economic Development at Rutgers Business School in [...]
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  Posted: December 07, 2009, 5:06pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Small Business Blogs: Good for Goosing Google, Better for Customer Communications

  Number of comments: 1
  Good thing I wasn't lighting a match the other day when a guy told me that small business owners (businesses with
  Yes, this particular social media consultant told me that blogging fits in two categories: business blogging and personal blogging. According to the guy, business blogging, and business bloggers,' [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 2:11pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Why You Shouldn't Hire Someone to Manage Your LinkedIn Profile

  Number of comments: 2
  Lately, I've noticed a rash of social media consultants offering to manage the LinkedIn profiles of busy professionals. It's one thing to hire someone to help write your profile out--that's like resume writing or having some good p.r. writing done. But to manage it?? You've *got* to be kidding [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 5:10pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Wall St. Journal Disses Women in its "Future of Journalism" Twitter list

  Number of comments: 0
  My good buddy Lisa Williams (founder of Placeblogger.com) found something very interesting today when she checked out @WSJ's Alan Murray's new Twitter list for The Future of Journalism: there are no women on this list.
  
  What gives, @WSJ? There are loads of women news innovators, who are [...]
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  Posted: November 05, 2009, 3:18pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Will the FTC now help the newspaper industry get its government bailout

  Number of comments: 0
  Last week, the FTC laid down the law when it came to bloggers and others who are not just outright paid to endorse products, but who also receive products to review. There was a lot of hoo-ha about that(with some discussion on how these new regs might impact [...]
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  Posted: October 12, 2009, 12:02pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• When a P.R. Company Gets Social Media Wrong

  Number of comments: 2
  A few months back, I ended up on the mailing list of Ragan Communications, a "publisher of corporate communications, public relations, and leadership development newsletters" firm located in Chicago. I didn't get my knickers in a bunch over it, as I'm interested in knowing how the p.r. community is [...]
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  Posted: October 07, 2009, 1:09pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• MySpace: Perhaps the problems have less to do with innovation and technology...

  Number of comments: 2
  This morning at OMAA Global, Jonathan Miller, new CEO of the digital media group at NewsCorp stated that it was a lack of innovation that has tripped up MySpace the once-most-popular social networking site on the net:
  "There's no question that [MySpace] fell behind on the technology front'" [...]
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  Posted: September 21, 2009, 8:32pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• A few comments on coming back to blogging....

  Number of comments: 0
  In June, I abruptly stopped blogging--and with no explanation. I didn't hear any particular hue and cry about my not-blogging. I figured that I really didn't have all that many readers, or that people were just giving me my space.
  
  Because I really needed the space--to wrap my brain [...]
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  Posted: September 02, 2009, 3:14pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• What will you do if your local newspaper shuts down?

  Number of comments: 4
  I first heard about the dire straits of central Connecticut's newspapers when I attended a journalism conference at Central Connecticut State University last November. The story wasn't making the national news, but the consequences--the threatened closing of several central Connecticut newspapers that are the "only games in town"--were potentially devastating. [...]
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  Posted: June 05, 2009, 9:24pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• On Knowing the Rare Circumstance of Falling in Love

  Number of comments: 4
  This a.m., @agahran tweeted a link to a story in the NYTimes by Louise Rafkin on Rafkin's work interviewing couples on how they met. Amy was a bit peeved that Rafkin's assignment didn't include polyamourous couples. Yet poliamory aside, Rafkin's meditation on her work, (as it is more [...]
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  Posted: May 30, 2009, 12:34pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Busy, Busy, Busy (and then some)

  Number of comments: 0
  From time to time I have to take a blogging hiatus. It usually happens because I'm up to my eyeballs in things and can't seem to dig myself out...and that I need to engage more in the f2f world....
  
  Well, it's one of those times again.
  
  I' [...]
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  Posted: May 19, 2009, 9:42pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• SIIA Afternoon Keynote: Brewster Kahle on Universal access to knowledge

  Number of comments: 0
  This afternoon at the SIIA NetGain Convergence of Content and Technology conference, Brewster Kahle, the Founder & Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive is speaking. I am most interested in hearing what Kahle has to say, esp. with regard to the work that's done at Placeblogger, and with numbers' [...]
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  Posted: May 04, 2009, 5:30pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• It takes more than a village to protect kids online

  Number of comments: 0
  Every now and then I get to talk with college-age students about social media and all the stuff going with privacy, identity, and security on the Internet (most recently at Smith College, my Alma Mater.) More often than not, I find that they really don't know too much about how' [...]
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  Posted: April 22, 2009, 12:38pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Never Ask a Teen-Ager How To Use Twitter

  Number of comments: 5
  Update 6/1/09 A new study from Pace University and the Participatory Marketing Project shows that only 22 percent of Gen Y (The Millenials) are using Twitter The blurb on the study goes on to say that Gen Y has to be convinced of the value of Twitter Um, if [...]
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  Posted: April 08, 2009, 6:10pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Blockbuster's Woes are Local DVD Rental's Potential Gain

  Number of comments: 3
  As more old-school media business models fail, and retail takes a nosedive in our crappy enconomy, is it any wonder that Blockbuster--the company that gobbled up the local video rental business-- is facing the prospect of bankruptcy?
  
  Some of this, as Ed Oswald points out in [...]
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  Posted: April 07, 2009, 10:00am EDT
  by Tish Grier

• The death of User Generated Content may be greatly exaggerated

  Number of comments: 5
  I wonder sometimes about Sarah Lacey. On TechCrunch, she goes into great detail about how "user generated content" doesn't make money, and how its promise to help talented people hasn't come to fruition....
  
  Oh, really? Lacey's analysis doesn't make sense in that its view of UGC comes through [...]
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  Posted: April 07, 2009, 9:08am EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Small is Beautiful: PodCamp Western Mass

  Number of comments: 4
  Who said it couldn't happen in Western Mass?? Last Saturday (3/28), Morriss Partee, Jacklyn Stevenson Archer, yours truly, and a group of about 36-or-so cool folk pulled together and made the first PodCamp Western Mass happen at Open Square in Holyoke, MA.
  
  And it was' [...]
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  Posted: April 01, 2009, 6:18pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Social Media as the Virtual Ten-Foot Pole

  Number of comments: 2
  Lots of folks on Twitter this morning seemed to be shocked by this story in the New York Times informing us that not everyone is who they say they are on Twitter--esp. high profile celebrities....Well, duh!
  
  I've known for a very long time that many company blogs, and' [...]
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  Posted: March 27, 2009, 2:34pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Senator Proposes Newspapers Re-Structure, Become Non-Profits

  Number of comments: 0
  Apparently, U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin(D-Maryland) has proposed something called the "Newspaper Revitalization Act"....
  
  According to a post on the Editor's Weblog, under the Newspaper Revitalization Act, newspapers would be organizations eligible for 501(c)(3) status, the same status public radio and television have now, and could adopt the' [...]
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  Posted: March 25, 2009, 11:24pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Ada Lovelace Day--and Women In Hyperlocal Journalism

  Number of comments: 16
  This a.m. I got a reminder from some of my U.K. twitter folks that today is Ada Lovelace Day: a day of international blogging established to draw attention to the achievements of women in techology. Technology, however, is defined rather broadly to include innovators, entrepreurs and tech journalists. I'd' [...]
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  Posted: March 24, 2009, 12:12pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• How Big Corporate Newspapers Fail Community (and a little about why)

  Number of comments: 7
  I've been sitting on this post a couple of days because I wasn't quite sure how to start it--but tonight, I read Mike Masnick's TechDirt post commenting on Howard Owens' defense of GateHouse's suit against NYTimes Co. (the post has been removed.) Mike contends that if the only' [...]
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  Posted: March 03, 2009, 10:52pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Newspaper Industry pummeled while Google swipes its lunch money

  Number of comments: 2
  This week has been the "Perfect Storm" for the newspaper industry: Rocky Mountain News publishes its last edition today, Hearst threatens to close the San Francisco Chronicle and gives The Seattle Post-Intelligencer 60 days or else will be shut down; while Philadelphia News LLC, owners of the [...]
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  Posted: February 27, 2009, 11:56am EST
  by Tish Grier

• A few late words on SocComm09

  Number of comments: 2
  Last week I had the opportunity to attend Jeff Pulver's social media summit, SocComm '09....here's what I took away from it....
  
  Jeff really is, as Chris Brogan said, a true thought leader. And it's not just because of what Jeff's already done, it's how he thinks [...]
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  Posted: February 16, 2009, 12:42pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• On the Twitter Team for SocComm09

  Number of comments: 2
  I'm in New York again (my favorite city in the whole world)and this time to be part of the "Twitter Team" for Jeff Pulver's SocComm09.
  
  Along with finally getting to meet Jeff (another one of those guys I've known off and on for a couple of years and' [...]
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  Posted: February 09, 2009, 11:49pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Five Steps for Keeping Your Twitter Stream Spam Free

  Number of comments: 0
  It was bad enough that some of us have noticed a rise in "Twitter zombies"--now, thanks to a new commercial tool (tweettornado.com) you may have to block more than you follow. Dancho Danchev in ZDNet describes this pesky pollution device as having the potential to "empower(ing) phishers, spammers," [...]
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  Posted: February 05, 2009, 11:13am EST
  by Tish Grier

• Scoopt shuts down, Pajamas Media quits blogs

  Number of comments: 0
  Two upheavals in the citizen-generated media world: Scoopt, which sold "amateur" pics to news agencies is shutting down and right-wing blog network Pajamas Media is shuttering its blogging arm in favor of Pajamas TV (a talking-head video franchise)
  
  Scoopt was the first agency to sell citizen [...]
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  Posted: February 03, 2009, 12:09pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• The Newspaper Industry Can't Say They Weren't Warned...

  Number of comments: 1
  Take a look at this news report on "electronic newspapers" from 1981 (via @johncabell)
  
  
  
  I was stunned by the editor of the S.F. Examiner who said that it was just an experiment and they didn't plan to make any money from it. Well, maybe not in' [...]
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  Posted: January 30, 2009, 10:20am EST
  by Tish Grier

• Spitting incident prompts Arrington "time off" from TechCrunch

  Number of comments: 2
  Ok...the stuff we worried about a couple of years ago with the Kathy Sierra incident has crossed over into Real Life: Mike Arrington--good guy to some, really bad guy to others in the tech media space--has decided to take some time off from TechCrunch after being spat on: [...]
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  Posted: January 28, 2009, 12:04pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Social Media & Monetizing UGC panel at #SIIA

  Number of comments: 0
  This is an interesting panel,w ith Joe Robinson, CEO of A Small World; John Blossom, President of Shore Communications; Chuck Schilling, Research Dir Nielsen Online; Robert Barber, CEO Environmental Data Resources; and Shawn, Gold, Chairman of SocialApproach.
  
  Joe Robinson says that he's able to monetize the sharing of' [...]
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  Posted: January 28, 2009, 10:55am EST
  by Tish Grier

• Henry Blodget and "The Rise of Online Journalism'" #SIIA

  Number of comments: 0
  I'm here for the second day of the SIIA Summit--with Henry Blodget speaking about online journalism....and considering how much time I spend in that space in many ways, this should be interesting...
  
  Henry sez: online journalism isn't "lifecasting"--it's also not shovelling print content online. "It's fabulous to read the" [...]
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  Posted: January 28, 2009, 8:49am EST
  by Tish Grier

• Some notes on the late afternoon at the SIIA Summit

  Number of comments: 0
  Kristian Hammond's presentation on "Frictionless Information" was about how to keep Google from eating your lunch. The best thing about this presentation is that it will be available online. I can't begin to transcribe or paraphrase it--don't know if it's that I need some coffee or there's just TMI...
  [...]
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  Posted: January 27, 2009, 2:27pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Some interesting comments from SIIA panel on licensing digital info

  Number of comments: 0
  There is a perception that young people are the only ones that don't understand copyright--but that's not exclusive to young people. Lots of bloggers, and people who are trying to collaborate in corporate settings, and a whole host of others don't understand the copyright as well as other rights and' [...]
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  Posted: January 27, 2009, 1:37pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Some Observations from the Sink or Swim panel

  Number of comments: 1
  There's much discussion here about writing for the Web being different from writing for print. This is true, but there's still no answer on how to monetize...
  
  Michael Wolff talked about creating a site where one doesn't pay for content. IMO, this thinking seems to distort why we--I'm thinking [...]
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  Posted: January 27, 2009, 9:58am EST
  by Tish Grier

• Liveblogging from the Software & Information Industry Association Summit--Keynote

  Number of comments: 0
  Invited to attend the Software & Info Industry Summit as a blogger, feel like I have Arrived. Cipriani, the meeting place for the the event, is gorgeous. Someone even checked my coat for me. There's something to attending an event like this--a sense of being part of something important.' [...]
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  Posted: January 27, 2009, 9:03am EST
  by Tish Grier

• NYTCo. agrees to no longer aggregate Gatehouse RSS feeds.

  Number of comments: 0
  Update 3/2/09: Howard Owens (who used to be with GateHouse) explains the reasons for the suit. A very important read.
  
  Update Zach Seward's wrap-up q&a on GH v. NYTCo. on NeimanLab blog
  
  One of the things I predicted in the Gatehouse v. NYTCo. case was that' [...]
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  Posted: January 26, 2009, 7:32pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Gatehouse and NYTCo. Reach Settlement in Aggregation Dispute

  Number of comments: 0
  Update 1/28/09: Dan Kennedy has the full text of a memo
  from Rick Daniels, President of GateHouse Media New England explaining to GH employees about the settlement...
  
  Just in from @NeimanLab on Twitter: GateHouse v. New York Times Co. has been settled, court officials say. [...]
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  Posted: January 26, 2009, 9:24am EST
  by Tish Grier

• What Journalists Get about Twitter, Social Media "Gurus" (and others) Don't

  Number of comments: 3
  Over the weekend, I blurted out a four-tweet kvetch about journalists and social media types that went something like this: Journalists handle twitter far better than many marketers and p.r. people. And *far* better than most social media people. amazing!
  
  And: freelance writers handle twitter pretty well too. not [...]
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  Posted: January 21, 2009, 4:55pm EST
  by Tish Grier

• Today We Begin a New Era. . .

  Number of comments: 0
  
  Watch CBS Videos Online
  As I sit watching the Inauguration of Barak Obama,can't help but to think how much our country has changed in 48 years--48 years ago John Fitzgerald Kennedy became our first Roman Catholic President....
  
  My Mother always reminded me of JFK's Inauguration. I happen [...]
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  Posted: January 20, 2009, 11:26am EST
  by Tish Grier

• Gatehouse sues NYTCo (Boston.com) over aggregation: But do they have a point?

  Number of comments: 4
  Things have been buzzing over here about the news that Gatehouse has sued NYTCo, the parent company of Boston.com, for aggregating headlines its headlines on Boston.com's new hyperlocal sites....
  
  Now, in hyperlocal-land, getting aggregated is a good thing--(theoretically)it's supposed to drive traffic to the smaller, lower ranked site. But [...]
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  Posted: December 23, 2008, 11:49am EST
  by Tish Grier

• Taking the "Social" out of Social Networking

  Number of comments: 1
  Over a period of a couple of months, as the word has been spreading about how to market oneself or one's company through various forms of social media and social networking, I've noticed a few disturbing and rather anti-social networking trends. IMO, these spam-handed techniques seem to have evolved out [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2008, 10:29am EST
  by Tish Grier

• Twitter: potential terrorist tool, mainstream media marvel, or still just web wankers wasting time

  Number of comments: 0
  For some reason, mainstream media's got some kind of cyber-woodie on for Twitter with several stories appearing in the mainstream in the last two days. This got me wondering why there was so much ado about Twitter and if our mainstream media outlets just might be jumping on a new' [...]
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  Posted: October 27, 2008, 9:52am EDT
  by Tish Grier

• A Few Late Words About BlogWorld Expo

  Number of comments: 0
  Blogging conferences used to be a big thing for me. Over the years, as I've made connections with people I only see at conferences, I have less time (or is it less desire?) to blog about the conferences themselves. Lots of times I don't even mention where I've been and' [...]
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  Posted: October 22, 2008, 2:21pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Can Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook Replace the Humble Blog?

  Number of comments: 8
  Wired used to be cool--at one time it interviewed guys like Linus Torvalds. But today, it kinda sunk to a new level of link-baiting with Paul Boutin's declaration that blogging is over and how everyone who's anybody will be sharing bits and pieces of oneself all over a [...]
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  Posted: October 21, 2008, 8:40am EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Why a blog "seal of approval" is problematic....(from a blogger's perspective)

  Number of comments: 2
  I'm always surprised how in the hallowed halls of academia, and the small enclaves of conferences, conversations occur about certifying or regulating the conduct of bloggers that are well intentioned by somewhat myopic in their understanding of the effects of their proposals. The latest is a conversation started by Patrick [...]
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  Posted: October 12, 2008, 12:57pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Local Band Releases New Album for Free

  Number of comments: 0
  Perusing the local scene thru my Facebook account, I found this interesting tidbit: local band The Figments have released their new album "Twelve Belles" for free.
  
  The Figments are a bit on the down-tempo side for my taste (what can I say, I grew up too close to [...]
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  Posted: October 10, 2008, 4:14pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Magnify.net Curates "How To" Videos

  Number of comments: 0
  Just found this great announcement from Steve Rosenbaum at Magnify.net: they're going to start curating "How to" videos. Check out Steve's announcement here:
  
  
  Steve's already spotted a trend in "how to" videos--and with the economic downturn, I'm sure more people will be entering the realm of DIY [...]
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  Posted: October 10, 2008, 4:07pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Web 2.0: It was all great fun till Johnny lost his V.C. funding

  Number of comments: 2
  So, the folks at Sequoia Capitol, one of the leading VC firms in the Silicon Valley, put together this absolutely fabulous presentation that basically tells us why there ain't gonna be a whole lot of cash for start-ups any time soon....(thanx Eric Eldon @ VentureBeat)
  
  [...]
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  Posted: October 10, 2008, 2:28pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Start-up death could foster hope for innovation in hyperlocal media

  Number of comments: 2
  I'm sure that Jason Calacanis has certainly spooked a lot of start-up folks with his latest prediction (reprinted on Silicon Alley Insider) that 50-80% of start-ups will fail. Yet whenever I see this sort of thing, I have to wonder if it's something of a Chicken-Little prognostication, or just [...]
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  Posted: September 28, 2008, 3:26pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• I just flew in from Vegas and boy! are my arms tired! ;-)

  Number of comments: 4
  But seriously folks....I did indeed just get back from BlogWorld Expo which was held in Las Vegas this past weekend. I'll have more to say about that in another post, but the "just flew in" thing is kind of how I feel about coming back to blogging after taking [...]
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  Posted: September 23, 2008, 1:01pm EDT
  by Tish Grier

• Futurist Rogers leaves NYT, CNN gets Twitterized, CNBC links up with LinkedIn

  Number of comments: 0
  Two years ago, new media guru Michael Rogers joined the NYTimes Company as its "Futurist in Residence." It was supposed to be a one-year appointment--and turned into two. This a.m., Jeff Bercovici in Conde Nast Portfolio reports that Rogers is now leaving NYTCo to go back to consulting
  [...]
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  Posted: September 05, 2008, 11:39am EDT
  by Tish Grier