Author: Amy Vernon

Amy Vernon is vice president of strategy for Hasai, a digital marketing firm, and a 20-year veteran of daily newspaper journalism. She blogs on many sites about many subjects, including NetworkWorld and Parentables.

How Digg left its tech geek roots behind and embraced the mainstream

Dec 29 by Amy Vernon | 5 comments

I was struck by something when I began reading Digg’s list of its “Ten stories you’ll be sorry you missed this year.” None of the stories had anything to do with tech. Oh, how times have changed. When Digg launched in 2004, it was almost completely a tech site, much like its predecessor, Slashdot. It was a place where more »

Amido Releases Laugh Synth App for iOS

Dec 1 by Amy Vernon | add comment

Laugh synth for iOS has just been released, compatible with both iPhone and iPad. Laugh Synth makes it possible create laughing sounds with a simple touch of the screen to control different characteristics of the laugh. Users can even sample their own sounds to create custom laughs. This is as easy as recording any more »

In the Open Source Community, the Platform Rarely Matters Anymore

Nov 23 by Amy Vernon | 1 comment

In the not-too-distant past, Macs were a relative rarity in the laptop bags of those attending open source conferences. Not so anymore. I recently had the chance to go through some download data from SourceForge for an article on the site’s blog and talk to Community Hacker Rich Bowen about what the data meant. more »

E-Readers: Making Readers Out of More People Than Ever

Nov 15 by Amy Vernon | 4 comments

There’s a lot of hand-wringing over the so-called “dumbing-down” of America. We don’t read, we can’t write except in and LOLcat-speak, we barely know who’s president. Technology often takes the blame for some of this, with video games and the abbreviated speech of texts and Twitter squarely more »

Monkey see, monkey sue? Or, can a monkey hold a copyright?

Jul 13 by Amy Vernon | add comment

Remember the amazing self-portrait of the monkey that was making the rounds the other week? The Cliff’s Notes background: A photographer, David Slater, left his camera unattended for a little while while he was in the forests of Indonesia. A female black macaque got curious, as monkeys are wont more »

App use surpasses web browsing

Jun 21 by Amy Vernon | 3 comments

For the first time, we’re spending more time in mobile applications than surfing the web via desktop or mobile browsers, according to a new report. It’s worth noting that this report comes from Flurry, whose business model rests on ever-increasing mobile app use. (From the company’s site: “Flurry increases the size and more »