Author: JD Rucker

When it comes to advertising today, things have changed. In some ways it’s due to social media. Searching for “I Love Zappos” yields 2,000,000 results. Searching for “I Love Dow Chemical Company” yields 3, according to Bob Garfield and Doug Levy at the SXSW panel titled “Cant’ Buy Me Likes”. Thanks to their presentation, this number is sure to go way up as people discuss it (such as this blog). By contrast, searching for “I Love Satan” yields 293,000. It’s not a good thing to be loved less than the prince of darkness. What has happened? Why is it that billion dollar ad branding campaigns get usurped…

Given the options of sitting far, far away in the mezzanine or trying to sneak up to the front with the journalists, I opted to take a shot. You can’t blame me for trying. The result was that I got to hear the first 10 minutes of what sounded like an interesting beginning to Vice President Al Gore talking about “The Future”, the name of his new book. In it, he talks about technology and how the advancements as well as our actions will affect the climate and a bunch of other things. If it sounds ambiguous, it’s because less than ten minutes in, I got tapped on the shoulder and asked to leave the area set aside for…

The world of dating is going to get easier – and more complicated – thanks to Google glass. It’s already so easy to find out about various topics or to learn about a person in particular just by using our smartphones, but when Google Glass arrives, it will make it easier to go covert with the date-impressing research. Okay, so it won’t. So the video below is satirical and you can’t really get away with being on a date in the middle of a political discussion while watching football. It doesn’t matter. The funny nature of this video should be taken at face value but the real implications of what Google Glass,…

The technology that Microsoft has been envisioning for the future is astounding, realistic, and will give us the opportunity to be more productive. That much is true. What’s not true is that they say these technologies will help bring families together. Judging by the recent history of technological advances, that’s the exact opposite effect of the technologies they describe in their video, “Microsoft’s New Envisioning Center: Live, Work, Play.” Take smartphones, for example. They are technological wonders that allow multiple methods of communication from face-to-face video interaction…

Back in the days when Yahoo was fighting against Alta Vista, when Bing was still called Microsoft Live, and when Google was trying to get the big Y to buy them, onsite content and meta tags were search. It was a day of keyword stuff, of hidden text, and of content scraping that helped porn sites rank for the term “toys” while male enhancement drugs could be found on searches for “big fun”. Google emerged as the leader in part because of their pure design, but also because they started looking offsite for signals about search rankings. The days before Google’s innovation were the peak of onsite SEO. Google…

It was probably just a statistical anomaly. There’s not chance that a social network that is comprised 3:2 women over men would intentionally invite a shockingly high percentage of male journalists to their biggest press event in a while, right? They sent out invites to the publications and by strange coincidence, the ratio of male journalists covering it versus women was a staggering 18:1 according to Buzzfeed (who by sheer fate ended up sending one of the women who attended the event). As you can see in the image below, the event to announce the new Facebook news feed redesign was more male-dominated…

Google hasn’t forgotten about its Google+ ambitions after all. It also appears they might have read my article from last month as they integrated a couple of the changes I recommended. Oh, who am I kidding. Google doesn’t read my writing! It started last week when they made the push for Google sign-in capabilities through the API (suggestion #1 in last month’s article). Today, they made three more changes: Public Google+ reviews are linked from the profile page. The image above was taken from such as review list. Your story, places, and links are now visible on your About tab. The cover photo behind…

In the first Iron Man movie, Tony Stark was clever and bold. In the second, he was confused but arrogant. In The Avengers, he truly emerged as a hero amongst heroes, growing up while maintaining his wit and charm. If the trailer is any indicator, Iron Man 3 has Tony Stark turning into a bitter, grumpy man. The quick one-liners are gone,  replaced by depression, vitriol, and selfishness. He is vengeful. His nemesis seems powerful and philosophical. This is nothing like the trailers for previous Marvel movies. In short, it should be exactly what fans have been wanting – a Tony Stark that takes advantage…

Most infographics are designed to convey a message in a visually stunning fashion that allows the viewer to digest large amounts of information through the fastest method of transfer available: visually. Sometimes, the results can have a different effect. When you view the infographic below from Confused, you’ll see that it’s intended to give useful tips to those who want to save on gas. It’s a worthy effort, visually pleasing, and with enough tips to make it useful. However, there’s one other effect that comes from viewing it. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get a fuel-efficient vehicle rather…

It’s not just a question of privacy. It’s not simply a question of civil liberties. The technological capabilities and mandated powers that the United States government currently has will be used on American citizens because perceived requirements for homeland security will always supersede the rights of a free people. History has shown this. It’s happening right now. According to records obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center through the Freedom of Information Act, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection are currently operating ten Predator B drones designated for…