Dear advertisers: Our audience numbers are garbage! And… The road to Hell is paved with pageviews. Plus, rants and raves about the iPhone parody gadget which earned one startup 1.5 million visitors a day, the Brangelina wax figure divorce, and more. This is the episode to listen to if you’re a media brand perplexed that greater scale only drives down the value of your reach. It’s episode 51 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramse

When we all create content, nobody’s left to consume it! And… Will Facebook’s new Instant Articles wreck your favorite media brands? It’s episode 20 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Plus rants and raves on topics like crap articles with brand pedigrees, a silly plea for Google to spend more money on ads, the Pizza Hut movie projector, and “I had UBER’s idea first!” Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth! C

Is online video killing the TV star? Absolutely not! Also: What does it mean when the debut novel from a YouTube star breaks records and outsells even Harry Potter? It’s episode 9 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Listen as we go inside media to reveal the ugly truth! And if you’re reading this by email, click here for the audio. For show notes go to the Media Unplugged site. Don’t forget to subscribe to Media Unplugged a

This is episode 2 of Media Unplugged, the brand-spanking new podcast created by yours truly and that one-of-a-kind branding authority, consultant, speaker, and author, Tom Asacker. Every other week, Media Unplugged will go behind the big media spin to spell out what’s really happening and what it really means to media, brands, and consumers. This week: Tom and I take on two topics: First, big media brands are relying less and less on advertising for their bread and butter. We

The battle for real estate and attention on mobile devices is even tougher than you think. This past week Techcrunch reported on a study by comScore which indicated… U.S. users are now spending the majority of their time consuming digital media within mobile applications. That means mobile apps, including the number 1 most popular app Facebook, eat up more of our time than desktop usage or mobile web surfing, accounting for 52% of the time spent using digital media. Combined

What do VC’s look for when they invest in the startups which threaten mega-industries like radio? Marc Andreessen, VC and cofounder of Netscape, spelled out the formula in an HBR Ideacast episode with his former partner Jim Barksdale. Here’s what Andreessen and investors like him look for: A large incumbent… In an established industry… With a bundled product or service offering… In the presence of underlying technology change… Where there’s an idea for an unbundled version of

Last week, Google announced Android Auto, which – like Apple’s CarPlay – aims to fully fulfill the promise of the so-called connected car. Watch this video to see an illustration of how the platform integrates music, both from Google Play and from third party apps like Pandora or iHeartRadio: So what does this mean for radio? Well let’s take a step back. Broadcasters have been obsessed over the dashboard lately because they smell big trouble. But the trouble is much bigger th

Is NPR’s performance on the digital front a sign that radio’s digital evolution has stalled? Or, worse, that it’s just a big hairy mistake? So says would-be town crier Richard Harker. Harker’s basic point is right on: Broadcasters should direct some of their innovative attention towards content on traditional radio channels and not only experiment with all things digital. I agree! But saying innovative effort should be spread around is different from saying initiatives on the

[A longer version of this post appeared in NetNewsCheck] “Podcasting” is the term describing the creation and consumption of on-demand video and especially audio. It was the “next big thing” – about six or seven years ago. And today? Not so much. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of podcasting going on out there. It doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of people making and listening to them. It doesn’t mean podcasting lacks a place in our media portfolio. But podcasting is most