Holtz Communications + Technology

(c) Can Stock PhotoA survey of some of the stories from the last week that caught my eye as they passed by in the stream

Research group Gartner raised eyebrows with its projection that half of organizations that manage innovation processes will apply gamification to those efforts by 2015. A year earlier, Gartner said, more than 70%…

I review a lot of content during the week. Much of it comes from curated collections I follow, such as Smart Briefs. I get email updates from several sites, like AdAge and ZD Net. I subscribe to the RSS feeds of hundreds of blogs. I check the links that cross my Twitter stream, thanks to my Paper.li daily. I click…

Media, social and mainstream alike, are abuzz with Google’s acquisition of ZAGAT, which was a curator of diners’ reviews of restaurants (along with hotels, theatears, golf courses andmore) before the World Wide Web existed. According to Local, Maps and Location Services VP marissa Mayer, writing on the official Google blog:

Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering—delighting people with their impressive…

Since the advent of public relations, there has been an easy way to explain the profession and differentiate it from marketing and advertising. In fact, I used this method many years ago when I first described what PR to my daughter. My explanation went something like this:

“Advertisers and marketers pay to get their messages to their audiences. In PR, we don’t pay. We…

I was struck by Shmulik Weller’s introductory statement in a recent Search Engine Land post on search engine optimization (SEO) for video:

This is the year in which we will see video grow from a “frill” some businesses occasionally include on their websites, to an essential, competitive differentiator that drives SEO and increases brand identification.

I agree unreservedly. Video is becoming a critical element of…

Not everyone agrees, but I’ve always loved newspaper headlines that employ the art of the pun.

Not every headline writer should try their hand at this technique. A special skill-set is required to pull off a really dynamite pun. Most headline puns are stretches, ill-conceived or repetitive. (Many travel writers have worn out their welcome with headlines like Czech It Out and…