Holtz Communications + Technology

Part of the gap that separates digital immigrants and digital natives is based in perception. We immigrants, who struggle to learn the language of technology, look with amazement and, perhaps, some envy at the natives who so effortlessly embrace and adopt the most befuddling new offerings. Because these younger members of the online population take to the new technologies so…

Larry Sanger, a recently-departed co-founder of Wikipedia, has written a lengthy diatribe about the problems with the open-source participatory encylopedia. The primary issue, he says, is anti-elitism:

As a community, Wikipedia lacks the habit or tradition of respect for expertise. As a community, far from being elitist (which would, in this context, mean excluding the unwashed masses), it is anti-elitist (which,…

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released a study on blogs that shows readership skyrocketed in 2004. In November, 27% of online adults said they read blogs, up 10% from February. Blog coverage of the South Asia tsunami disaster is likely to increase awareness and readership even more, according to Pew project director Lee Rainie.  ‘The tsunami is one of those…

Another in the ever-proliferating series of articles on blogging for business comes from Electronic Business Online with input from Sun Microsystems and Intel, among others. One interesting comment in this piece comes for Sun’s Andy Lark, vp of Corporate Communications: “Even on my own blog, I’m not protected by the First Amendment. I’m governed by Sarbanes-Oxley.”

Thus, the article contends:

“Blogs are no different from e-mail or…

My mom lives about 500 miles away, in Los Angeles, so most of the tech support I provide is over the phone. Whenever I’m in LA, though, I’ll listen to her latest list of PC woes, most of which are easy fixes. I have found that most of my computer-savvy colleagues provide the same kind of support for their parents. Thanks to a link…

Hallmark, the Kansas City-based greeting card company, has employed online consumer research for three years now. Based on a comparison of the results with those of traditional research (i.e., focus groups), the online efforts are now a regular part of the company’s research effort. In a Marketing Sherpa interview,  Tom Brailsford, Manager of Advancing Capabilities, notes:

“You can do three focus groups and hear from…