Holtz Communications + Technology

Lawyers are getting more involved with issues surrounding employee bloggers. An article in the global edition of the UK’s Legal Week explores several options organizations have to protect their brands and and reputations. Firing employees could be dicey, particularly if the damage done by an inappropriate blog posting is minimal. Author Naomi Branston suggests reviewing employment contracts and disciplinary procedures to…

Blogging will be light—I’m flying early this morning to Toronto, and tomorrow evening to LA. I hope everybody in the US has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

By now everybody has seen the footage of a U.S. Marine shooting an apparently wounded and unarmed Iraqi in a mosque in Falluja. NBC correspondent Kevin Sites, who shot the video, has since been labeled an anti-war activist. He insists that he works hard to “play it straight down the middle,” and in order to prove it, he has used his blog to

Blogs abound in China. The software is available to the Chinese and they have taken advantage of it, according to a piece by Dan Gillmor in today’s San Jose Mercury News (free subscription required). Gillmor, travelling through China, spent time with bloggers in Shanghai. One tried to emulate Western blogs, graphically chronicling her sexual exploits. The government shut her down, then went…

I’ve spent the last 12 hours in hybrid focus groups-usability tests with teenagers. Three teens participated in each 90-minute session. From behind a two-way mirror, I watched and listened to a total of 18 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds talk about their online experiences and expectations. They covered a range of backgrounds and socioeconomic circumstances. Most spend hours online every day; all of…

First Philadelphia, then Alexandria. Back on Monday. I’ll post from hotels and airport terminals as time and connections permit.