There’s a certain set of consumers who don’t just passively consume goods and services; they proactively seek them out, help to produce them and help to propagate them. Alvin Toffler coined the term Prosumers in his 1980 book The Third Wave to label people similar to the leading-edge consumers we were studying at Euro RSCG Worldwide, the parent company of the PR agency I head up. When we started using the term later, it [...]

Real Love
Social media is affecting intimacy, as romance and sex increasingly go online, get appy and even meet us in our own homes

Our white paper “Love (and Sex) in the Age of Social Media” reveals that SoMe is a hotbed of flirting, mating and cheating. And that’s not even the dating sites. Turns out respondents prefer Facebook as a means to meet romantic prospects. Then there are new apps, such as Grindr and Skout, that allow people to scope [...]

Balancing Act
With all our gadgets and social media interactions, our work-life equilibrium seems to be more out of whack than ever—even if we’re working less

So many of us are connected to work via our “CrackBerrys,” laptops, etc.—not to mention connected to our SoMe 24/7/365—that the idea of the perfect work-life balance we’ve so long been dreaming of seems to be even more out of reach. In fact, these days, “perfect” isn’t even in the picture; we’d all settle for [...]

E-Reading Is Fundamental
As the Kindle gets some much-needed updates, e-readers are becoming commonplace—and finding new markets at a speed-reading pace

Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle, is getting page numbers (finally!) and sporting some new social features, in an upgrade that many are happy to see. E-reading gadgets, in general, have been on an upswing for at least the last year and are becoming de rigueur, even gaining popularity with…tweens. That’s right! Since the holidays, teen fiction has seen several sales spikes—which [...]

Fun with Funds
The social aspects of online funding have created a network of people who need people…to lend them some money

First there was microlending, a business model that was met with great huzzahs around the world. (Muhammad Yunus, the brain behind the movement with his Grameen Bank, received a Nobel Prize for his work.) But even the best intentions can go awry, illustrated by recent claims that some predatory microlenders have pressured poverty-stricken borrowers to the point of suicide. [...]

No Kidding
Parents are becoming increasingly alarmed at how easy it is for children to use real money to buy virtual merchandise

Apple recently denied Sony’s Reader for iPhone app—causing speculation that the company was taking a harder line on apps that didn’t traffic through the App Store. And now, quickly following is another app storm brewing: what some parents are calling credit card bait apps. Technically called in-app purchases, they frequently attract kids playing games (the games themselves are often [...]

The Wikimedia Foundation’s study of Wikipedia’s contributor base has hit the Web—and it doesn’t look good for the ladies. According to the survey, women comprise a measly 12.64 percent of Wikipedia’s contributors, while a whopping 86.73 percent of contributors are men (.63 percent identified as “other”).
The gender gap in public forums is widely recognized, but Wikimedia’s research had the potential to start the conversation about why such a substantial gap exists and how it can be closed. Unfortunately, the study [...]

Failure to Communicate
Groupon, with its widely criticized Super Bowl ad, joins Kenneth Cole on the list of brands unsuccessfully mixing politics with commerce

It’s the world’s largest social-buying service—by far—and yet Groupon seems as if it still has a thing or three to learn about brand building. Ask most people who witnessed the company’s Super Bowl commercials (its very first TV ads!) if the spots (the most criticized one stars Timothy Hutton and equates political issues in Tibet with a [...]

A Refreshing Take
Pepsi’s winning bet on SoMe over a chance to peddle its wares in the Super Bowl ad lineup continues to reap rewards for the brand

Last year, when Pepsi boldly did not go where so many brands were headed, it was the non-spot heard round the world. Specifically, the brand’s decision to use the money it would’ve spent on a Super Bowl commercial to instead fund a charitable enterprise made news—last year, and again this year. It’s certainly [...]

Super Ad Day
Everyone’s talking about Super Sunday—one of the biggest TV commercial days of the year—and, oh yeah, there’s a football game, too

Sure, many fans actually care about the grand sporting event pitting two teams of titans, clashing for the right to claim a golden ring. (It sounds so mythic—or Tolkien-esque—when it’s put like that, doesn’t it?) But for many, the commercials being unveiled on Super Bowl Sunday are as thrilling as the gridiron action. And indeed, the anticipation [...]