The Sternberg Effect
joshsternberg
Silicon Valley's best cover band: Facebook
Playing other companies’ greatest hits is a strategy. Facebook has become Silicon Valley’s best cover band, playing the greatest hits of other tech companies. Today, the company will introduce Instagram Reels, a TikTok carbon copy, to the U.S. and other nations after slowly rolling it out in other regions. Per NBC News: Like TikTok, Instagram … Continue reading
USA Today runs dangerous op-ed
Trump official trashes Dr. Fauci This morning, USA Today ran an op-ed from Peter Navarro, an assistant to the president, and the director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. This, on its face, is unremarkable. Publications run op-eds all the time, and often from high-ranking government officials. What makes this one different, and … Continue reading
How media companies approach structural racism
It’s a long and winding road. On Friday Fox News’s Tucker Carlson’s head writer was outed as posting racist, vile and hatred anonymously on message boards. On Monday, Carlson read from a script: “What Blake wrote anonymously was wrong, We don’t endorse those words, they have no connection to the show. It is wrong to … Continue reading
The Washington NFL team will get a new name and logo
For many, it’s been a long time coming. When Dan Snyder bought the Washington football team in 1999 for $750 million, it was a dream come true. Sure, Snyder was already a multi-millionaire, making his money through his marketing firm Snyder Communications, which went public in 1996 and then was bought by Havas in 2000 … Continue reading
Cancel culture creates a storm
Hello, Friday! I’ve noticed over the last couple of weeks that readership drops a bit on Fridays; average Friday open rates are in the low 30s compared to weekday rates north of 40, so I’m going to take the foot off the gas pedal on Fridays. Instead of one deep dive into a topic, I’m … Continue reading
Can transparency actually come to ad tech?
“This is programmatic 2.0 This is the future.” One of the criticisms levied against ad tech is that it’s designed with opacity in mind. Sure, the frame from the beginning was that programmatic platforms would make media buying more efficient than traditional buying, but transparency was never a feature baked into the product. All the … Continue reading
Report: 'Facebook’s ad system can lead to biased or discriminatory results — may be well placed.'
Now let’s see what happens After two years of digging into Facebook’s policies and practices surrounding civil rights, auditors, in a 100-page document, find that “Facebook’s approach to civil rights remains too reactive and piecemeal.” The report comes out a day after the company’s leadership met with civil rights groups, who railed against Facebook for … Continue reading
Who's down with PPP?
Many media companies. When the government handed out its $669 billion Paycheck Protection Program (of which, $521 billion has been doled out), it was designed to help small businesses (companies with fewer than 500 employees) make sure they didn’t lay anyone off due to the financial impact of the coronavirus. Media companies have been hit … Continue reading
Why an organizer of the Facebook boycott continues to advertise on Facebook
Like all things Facebook: It’s complicated Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend; or whatever constitutes “good” or “holiday” or “weekend” these days. We are now six days into the Facebook boycott-that’s-not-quite-a-boycott. And while it won’t be easy to tell the financial impact on the company, there are a few signals to see if it’s … Continue reading
Sliding into a holiday weekend, 2020-style
Red and white, blue-suede shoes. A little housekeeping: In the before times, today would be a day where people duck out of work early to get a jump on the July 4th weekend. Now, well, who knows? Certainly not I, as I don’t have a workplace to duck out of. But even though every day … Continue reading
How the Facebook boycott is bad news for publishers
With brands pulling spend, what happens to the sponsor content arbitrage game? Today is the day when 400 advertisers or so pick up their ball and go home. Just two weeks after the #StopHateForProfit Facebook boycott began, advertisers today put talk into action as they pull their ad spend. It’s been the biggest story in … Continue reading
The Great De-Platforming
Companies trip over themselves to ban hate speech. Took long enough. Yesterday will be remembered (if we remember such things) as De-platforming Day. For years, social platforms all took a very public, if not very wrong, stance that they are not the arbiters of truth. They are just conduits for people to exercise their voices, … Continue reading
The P.R. side of the Facebook boycott
Hopping on the bandwagon is a no-brainer, but more needs to be done. At a moment when our collective eyes are focused on the dual society-shifting events of a pandemic and protests against racism, a third event has also managed to grab our attention: Facebook. Last week, we talked about the efficacy of such a … Continue reading
Are the NewFronts worth it?
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty; let’s get the show on the road. Today wraps up the NewFronts, the dog-and-pony show where agencies sit through hours of presentations from digital media companies about any and every video offering, often wondering to themselves, “who cares?” This year, it’s a bit different because of the coronavirus, the … Continue reading
You no longer need a Facebook account to run Instagram ads
Talk about fascinating timing. Timing is everything. As the drum beat for companies to pause ad spend on Facebook grows stronger (this week more brands have hopped on the #StopHateForProfit July boycott), the social platform made a curious move: letting advertisers spend on Instagram without having a Facebook account. In a blog post on Monday, … Continue reading
Unnecessary Journalism Phrases
- How about “lifeless body” when describing a dead person? Here’s a good (bad)...
- bobbymacReports: A growing number of stories with a growing number
- Alliterative Journalism Phrases
- Apologies on the lack of posts
- While not necessarily an unnecessary journalism phrase, friend...
- 50. Old Man Winter - 11/7/11
- Push The Envelope Submitted by unretrecissement and her...
- 49. A.M. in the Morning/P.M. in the Afternoon/Evening, at Night - 11/3/11
- 48. Emergency Situation - 11/2/11
- 47. Roll(ed)(ing) in his/her grave - 10/31/11
