Author: JD Rucker

SOPA was a black eye for the US government. Nothing in the last few decades can compare to the complete turnaround Washington DC had to make once the people of the internet and websites across the web made their opposition to the bill known back in January, 2012. Now, the politicians and other entities have learned from their mistakes. This time, they have been able to pull off the unthinkable. They have successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of the American people. The public outrage that stopped SOPA has been replaced by solemn acceptance by some, disinterest from others, and a complete lack…

There’s a scene in The Matrix where Keanu Reeves’ character, Neo, gets the tar beaten out of him by Agent Smith. After an extremely intense fight that has him narrowly avoiding death by jumping out of the way of an oncoming train, he is tired and staggering away. The train stops and a refreshed Agent Smith steps off, ready to fight again. This is much like the fight that the people of the internet are faced with right now. Fighting SOPA in January, 2012, took a monumental effort that called in the combined efforts of juggernaut websites like Wikipedia and Reddit to defeat. It was a long, sustained battle…

Kmart has had a tough time in recent years getting attention. They have tried to find success on social media, particularly on YouTube, but in the last year they’ve only had one video get more than 100,000 views. Five days ago, they put up a video that has had more views than the combined totals of dozens of videos they’ve put out over the last three years. This one got a lot more than anything they’ve ever seen. They’ve had videos with UFC stars like Wanderlei Silva and  Matt Hughes, country singers like Rascall Flatts and Jason Aldean, and pop stars like David Cook and Demi Lovato. They’ve tried how-to…

Facebook has been a promising venue through which to market a local business ever since it reached a high level of popularity back in 2008. Back then, it was just breaking the hundred million user level and was showing signs that it would be able to be business-friendly in contrast to its rival MySpace. Now, it’s 10 times bigger and commands more time of humans than any other website. The problem is that it’s not the easiest marketing platform to master. Unlike Google, Twitter, and other players that are used on a daily basis, Facebook has algorithms that keep businesses from finding success. Google…

Forget Apple versus Samsung or even iOS versus Android. The real mobile war is (and always has been) over capturing the attention of the users. We simply didn’t know it until Facebook released Home. Android phones can be turned into Facebook devices with Home. It’s that simple. Rather than being an Android device that has apps, Home makes Facebook the driving force of the device, moving the apps and other features of the phone under the Facebook shell. You’ll be able to get notifications and interact with your Facebook friends from any other app at any point other than during phone calls themselves….

In the digital age, there are plenty of challenges popping up for parents. The ever-connected world opens doors to risks that parents have never had to cope with in the past. The need for digital manners is just one of the major negatives associated with raising children today. Thankfully, it’s not all bad. Opening up lines of communication and bringing together resources across the internet (and thus the scope of human understanding) is a big benefit that many parents can use. Below is a sampling of a thread from Facebook that points to some of the benefits of social media for parents. It wasn’t…

It’s a different era. The digital world is molding children in a way that is completely different from their parents. Some may say that it’s always the case as technology, culture, and societal norms change, but this is different. It’s faster. This isn’t just a matter of, “I don’t understand the music you kids listen to these days.” It’s a major shift in the way that kids interact with the rest of the world. It wasn’t but a couple of decades ago when talking on the phone and passing notes was still a major thing for teens. It had been that way for a long time. Today, kids aren’t talking to each other on the…

When Facebook rolled out threaded comments last week, there was a clear lack of excitement from most of the social media blogs. It was a news item, nothing more, for most of them. Cool feature, about time, yadayadayada. What the majority of them missed is that this is arguably the most important change that Facebook has made for businesses this year. The touch factor is back. By that, I mean that businesses and organizations now have the ability to interact directly with questions and comments, making the comments made by others more useful and enabling longer comment threads to make much more sense…

Personal computers have reached a tipping point in recent years where the innovations are more about speed and capabilities than absolute technological advances. They’re getting faster and smaller but for the most part ground-breaking technological leaps are a thing of the past. That’s not to say we won’t see anything amazing come out soon. Other than tablet technology, there simply hasn’t been anything that shook the computer world recently. As we look back in history over the last 40 years, there have been true game-changers. For some, it was simply a matter of changing the way we interface…

The social media world and offices across America were joined in laughter last week when a video by Pepsi featuring race car driver Jeff Gordon exploded all over Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The video showed an unsuspecting salesperson getting put through a harrowing experience during a test drive while being recorded by hidden camera. The only problem was that it was completely fake. In reality, that wasn’t a problem at all. It’s approaching 30 million YouTube views and has been shared over 2 million times on Facebook. The ad worked even if it was completely staged, even if the car salesperson…