I was on CNBC earlier today to answer the question, “Is Mark Zuckerberg In Over His Hoodie?”, facing off against Silverback Social CEO Chris Dessi.
My argument was simple: Facebook stock has been on the rise in the last six months, and replacing a founder with a manager at the CEO level is usually a disaster (just ask Apple).
Check it out and let me know what you think.
Boston Combs Mile-Square Crime Scene After Blasts – NYTimes.com.
These monsters will be brought to justice, but it’s going to take a lot of time and patience.
Posted in Media
Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S4, but will it be enough to topple Apple?
That’s the question that CNBC posed to me and my friend Colleen Taylor of TechCrunch. I took a position that even surprised me. Here’s what I will say for now: the long-term trend of growth is clearly in Samsung’s favor. Apple will have to hit back hard.
Check out the video, and let me know what you think in the comments:
Posted in Business
Tagged Colleen Taylor, Galaxy, Galaxy S4, iPhone, Mobile, Samsung, Samsung Galaxy, techcrunch
Apple has $130 billion in cash, and nobody can seem to agree what the tech titan should do with it. That’s the impression I got from Greenlight partner David Einhorn’s recent suggestions that Apple deliver more of that cash to shareholders.
Of course, I had my own opinion on the matter, so I went on CNBC today to talk about it. Check out the video above, and let me know whether you think I’m in the right or the wrong.
Posted in Business, Media appearance
New CNN boss Jeff Zucker has been making some sweeping changes over at the troubled network, and thank goodness he is. It’s been long overdue.
What has the former ABC executive done in the last few weeks? Well, he completely blew up Starting Points, CNN’s old morning show, and hired Chris Cuomo to co-lead a new morning show. CNN’s morning show was terrible, especially when you put it up against Fox & Friends, no matter what you think of the network’s politics.
Zucker ended the contracts of longtime CNN contributors James Carville and Mary Matalin. And Managing Editor Mark Whitaker stepped down in a statement that makes your ears perk up:
We have a new leader with his own forceful ideas about where to take CNN’s reporting, programming and brand. For him to succeed, I believe he deserves his own team and management structure and the freedom to communicate one clear vision to the staff.”
Zucker has hired Rachel Nichols, the longtime ESPN reporter, to host a weekend sports show and contribute throughout the week. CNN barely covered sports before. John Berman and Jake Tapper are also joining the CNN roster.
And all of these changes have happened in less than a week. It signals a shift towards bigger personalities that can build fanbases for their timeslots and an emphasis on other areas of interest beyond politics, such as pop culture and sports.
In other words, are more entertaining and engaging CNN. That’s exactly what it needs to stop its ratings disaster. Anderson Cooper, the network’s biggest star, still lags behind all of Fox News and much of MSNBC and its standard bearer, Rachel Maddow.
Some of you may worry that CNN’s commitment to breaking news and independent, nonpartisan reporting is about to go out the window. But I think that’s shortsighted thinking that would doom CNN to self-destruction. You can be entertaining AND not have your network take one side or the other in the endless political chatter. And bringing in topics like sports will broaden its appeal.
Good luck, Zucker. It’s going to be a painful transition, and a lot of people are not going to be happy by the time you’re done, but this is the way to save CNN from a slow and painful death.
Image courtesy of CNN
Holy shit, this is my favorite thing of the month.
Kid President’s got your back.
Posted in Uncategorized
Added to the Wall of Shame. Now fuck off.
By now you’ve probably heard about Graph Search, Facebook’s all-encompassing, natural language search experience that Zuckerberg calls one of the “three pillars” of Facebook (the other two being Timeline and Newsfeed).
It’s a major change for the social network (I’ll have more thoughts on it soon), but will search do the same thing for Facebook as it did for Google — aka make tons of money?
That was the question I was asked on CNBC today, along with Julia Boorstin and Social Internet Fund’s Lou Kerner. It turned into a lively debate that I’m still reflecting on.
Let me know what you think of Facebook Graph Search.
I made an appearance on Al Jazeera English today from Chicago (I’m home for the holidays). In this short clip, we discussed the top searches of 2012, including the iPad 3, Whitney Houston and even Big Brother Brazil, the 10th most searched item in the world this year.
(who knew?!)
Check it out, let me know what you think.
Posted in Uncategorized
I’m thrilled to announce the launch of “Startup Attention & PR 101: From Launch to Damage Control and Beyond“, my 19-lecture online Udemy course. I’m also thrilled to announce that half of the course’s proceeds will be donated to THRIVE-GULU, a not-for-profit dedicated to building rehabilitation and community centers across Africa, starting with Gulu, Uganda.
“Startup Attention & PR 101″ is a deeper look at how to better work with the press. This is not a course about traditional PR. Instead, it’s a deeper dive into what makes a journalist tick and how you can can take advantage of that for your company or cause.
The course covers four broad themes:
This course won’t make you a journalist’s best friend, but I hope it will give you more clarity to how journalists make decisions and how that affects you and your company.
As I noted above, I am donating half the proceeds from this course to THRIVE-GULU. Thrive was founded in 2010 by Professor Judy Dushku to assist the communities of Northern Uganda to heal from the traumatic events of war, sexual enslavement, extreme poverty and lost opportunities. It’s a charity I’m honored to have supported in the past, and one I’m thrilled I can support now with this course.
So take the course, tell your friends and send me some feedback, because I will be adding more material based on your feedback.
~ Ben
Posted in Announcements, Business, Entrepreneurship, Media, Productivity
