We’ve all heard the story: Content-driven industries such as publishing and music have been crushed by piracy in the past decade, so now the movie industry needs to move fast to avoid the same fate. But is this conventional wisdom true? Have content industries really been hurt by copyright infringement? Are they as endangered as they claim? And is fighting piracy with digital rights management (DRM), takedown notices, and mass lawsuits the right approach? The evidence doesn’t support the claims. … Continue Reading »

“The Today Show” is a brand that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to have all of its ducks in a row when it comes to social media. Sure, the show’s got the likes of quirky Kathie Lee and effervescent Al Roker, but it also still celebrates old folks’ birthdays with a photoshopped Smuckers logo. The stories covered on the show can be pretty cheesy (such as a segment on semi-formal sweatpants for the office), so you wouldn’t expect that this traditional, … Continue Reading »

A recent blog post on Search Engine Round Table highlighted some interesting changes in rich snippets for events-related search results, which prompted us to consider the future of rich snippets and ways marketers can take advantage of what is happening (if they aren’t already). What Are Rich Snippets? Google officially launched “rich snippets” in May 2009. In the beginning, rich snippets were used to add “rich data” to search results for things like organizations, reviews, people, recipes, and events. These … Continue Reading »