As gaming giant IGN switches directions and consolidates properties, layoffs have hit the gaming industry in the wrong places: blogging. Two of the gaming network’s biggest properties, GameSpy and 1UP, and entertainment upstart Ugo.com, are being shut down. This news comes after the big sale earlier this month when IGN became part of the Ziff Davis, Inc. when the network was purchased by J2 Global. At the time, it seemed like a doubling of their properties to add them to PCMag, Geek.com, and Toolbox.com, but now only IGN.com remains. According to Casey Lynch at IGN: I also believe that just like…

There are plenty of articles, blog posts, videos, and testimonials out there demonstrating that businesses are having tremendous success using Facebook and other social media sites to communicate successfully with their customers. Those aren’t the stories that you ever hear about, though. Instead, many are terrified of a major Facebook misstep such as what recently happened to Applebee’s. Those are the stories that are told, the ones that gurus discuss and warn about in blog posts to keep pageviews going to their websites. Just as the real world news has always had an attitude of, “if it bleeds,…

Those who follow my cynical posts about over-inflated social site valuations know that it’s hard for me to agree with numbers. I giggled when Facebook hit $70 billion before going public at much higher. I stared in disbelief when Google offered $6 billion for Groupon then realized that I had to be in a persistent dream state when Groupon turned them down. I cringed when I heard that Digg wasn’t taking a rumored $200 million offer four years ago or the subsequent $80 million offer two years ago before selling off at $500,000 last year. I coughed a little when Instagram sold for a billion dollars, then…

Twitter is still the most used social network by businesses. This surprises some, but the latest statistics showed that 77% of businesses were on Twitter versus 74% on Facebook. It’s not a big difference, but it’s still at least a little surprising to many who view Facebook as the big social network and Twitter as the other guy in the field. Twitter is easier. It requires less time. It’s more about communication than popularity and there are no algorithms that can make your efforts meaningless like they can on Twitter. I’m not suggesting that businesses should be on Twitter and not Facebook. On the…

“Never” is a bold word. It is absolute and endless. To say that something can never happen is one of the most ignorant things that someone can say (or blog) in public. Thankfully, I tempered my statement with the word, “may”. “Impossible” is word that is similar to “never”. I’ll invoke it now: it isn’t impossible for social media to continue in one form or another indefinitely because of its nature. As long as there are humans, there’s a good chance that there will be some variation of social media. It’s a hard cat to put back in the bag. The folks over at Dashburst put together a graphic that explains five…

Do you remember the person who consulted with you about social media and told you that brands are having tremendous success on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest? That’s the type of person that you’re reaching the most according to a report by NBCUniversal Integrated Media. The report is designed to show how consumers who are part of GenX and GenY are digesting their influences. It took a split approach to the study which consisted of 2,500 people – 2,000 were average respondents age 18-49 and the other 500 were “digital trendsetters” in the same age group which represent 5% of the national…

Anyone who lives in a large metro area has experienced the trouble of finding a parking spot close to your destination. If you drive a large truck or SUV, the problems are multiplied by the fact that not all spots are made for larger vehicles. Designer Michael Brandt has a solution: the Honda Type E Concept. It’s not a car, nor is it a motorcycle. In essence, it’s a pod, a very sleek and attractive pod that looks as stylish as it looks unsafe.  While we won’t get into the practical applications of safety by wondering what would happen if it got hit by a Toyota Landcruiser, we can definitely focus on the positive…

The good news for tech companies is that America seems to like them the best. Amazon topped the list, followed by Apple at #2 and Google at #4. The bad news for all American corporations is that nearly of Americans feel that corporate America in general is “poor” or “terrible” while two-thirds of Americans think that corporate America is “fair” at best. Only 9% perceive corporate America as “excellent/very good”. What does this mean? It says that tech companies are easier to trust, to like, and to do business with, likely because most of the interactions with them are online. Once face-to-face or…

We are vane creatures. LinkedIn has been on a roll, lately. They seem to have come to grips with their status as a resume- and professional-connection-distributing social network (even though they still look too much like Facebook). They are beating The Street’s profits and revenue expectations and they haven’t had any major scandals lately. 2012 was a good year for them and they’re starting off 2013 with a bang by getting many of its most active members to promote the service by promoting themselves. In a perfectly designed email, LinkedIn informed their top members last week that they were…

Firing employees can be hard. There are emotions at play and emotions can lead to bad decisions. They can also lead to funny consequences when the people in charge aren’t cognizant of how the new world of social media works. Such is the case for embattled British music retailer HMV. The company, already embroiled in a form of bankruptcy protection (see image from their website below) due to the shift towards digital music downloads, fired 190 employees today. At least one of those employees had access to the company’s Twitter account and gave a blow by blow report of the events as they unfolded. The…