News
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Republishing Posts Without Ruffling Feathers
The Internet’s full of freely available blog posts and articles. And while this content may be free to read, it’s not necessarily free to repost on your website. In fact, it’s best to assume that it’s not free to repost. And while some blog writers may be flattered that you consider their blog post worth sharing, it’s usually good to assume that permission from the publisher is required unless otherwise stated. It can also be considered rude Generally, websites will have different policies on reposting content ranging from the very strict (and litigious), to those with an open policy on…
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Around the Office: Fostering Innovation, Unwanted Beauty Pageants, and Dazzling Kinetic Art
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. Sowing the Seeds of Innovation Andy was intrigued with an education theory put forth by Harvard technology and entrepreneurship expert Tony Wagner that emphasizes skill development and motivation. Wagner says this is essential for students to be able to get (or make) jobs by the time they enter a workforce where many traditional careers have disappeared. In his new book, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World, he reimagines the classroom…
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Around the Office: Social Content Curation, Agile Marketing, Monday Spoilers, More!
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. Curation Creates Scarcity from a Deluge of Online Content As a prolific creator of content, David was interested in the idea of social curation as reshaping the digital landscape (and even being called the Internet’s “4th wave”) by selecting what’s most useful, relevant and interesting. Obviously, curation certainly isn’t new. For instance, religious communities would create a biblical canon of books considered to be authoritative scripture, just as news editors choose what stories to cover based…
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Around the Office: The Value of Boredom, Aphasia-Friendly Websites, & the Offline Masses
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. Entertaining Ourselves Away From Creativity While it offers some entertainment in downtime, Daveed is a little worried his iPhone could be zapping his creativity. There’s a growing body of evidence to suggest that devices like the iPhone that let us text, tweet, update, call, watch, read, play, etc. prevent us from being alone with our thoughts, and this can limit our creativity. Letting our thoughts drift can often lead to the sorts of unexpected connections that…
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Around the Office: Oversharing Habits, Rethinking Remixes, & Google’s Noteworthy New Service
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. Teaching Teens to Respect Their Own Privacy The emergence of social media, video, texts, audio, email and documents have contributed to a veritable explosion of Big Data. And while there’s no doubt it’s changing the landscape of marketing and giving us valuable customer insights and growth opportunities, Caroline is among a growing number of people concerned that teens may not know the repercussions of sharing online. Many teens have grown up with the Internet as a…
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Around the Office: Facebook “Likes” Give Us Away, Google Reader to Close, More!
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. Inferring Who We Are from our Facebook “Likes” Daveed was curious what Facebook knows about him after finding out that Facebook “likes” can accurately infer race, IQ, sexuality, personality and political views only using only publicly available Facebook information, according to an online privacy study. A Microsoft Research/Cambridge University study, which involved trolling the public domain information of 58,000 Facebook users, found that it was possible to infer sensitive personal details. Of course, these details aren’t…
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Around the Office: Social Business, Content Marketing, 3-D Drawing, & More!
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. The Social Business Revolution Daveed, like Internet Evolution Editor-in-Chief Mitch Wagner, thinks the idea of social business holds tremendous possibilities and is just getting started. Instead of simply using social networks to find new customers, a social business can find efficiencies in real-time collaboration, which breaks down physcial and organizational barriers. As Wagner writes, “Social business is much more than the platform.” B2B Marketers See Value in Content Given the wonderful ways content can be used to give businesses an…
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Creating a Brand Online: Choosing a Creative Agency for Your Website
Trying to understand how your small business can become online friendly? This is the second article in our series “Creating a Brand Online”, where we provide straightforward advice for your small business as you create your online brand. Looking for an agency to design and develop your website is thought of as a stressful decision, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. Just like any other investment, it helps to be informed and have a clear sense of what makes different service providers a better fit than others. Of course, it doesn’t help that the design and development process is often obscured with…
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Around the Office: QR Codes; Strategizing Facebook Graph Search; Opera’s Next Act, & More!
Around the Office is a weekly group blog of what the Kobayashi Online team has found interesting, funny, poignant, or otherwise notable over the past week. QR Codes on the Menu Caroline was inspired by the possibilities of QR codes when hearing about a sushi shop wraps their rolls with QR codes. Diners at Britain’s Moshi Moshi can scan their food with their phone for information on the sustainable fish they’re about to eat. We used QR codes to make the products in a paper catalogue scannable and buyable using a phone, but rolling QR sushi is certainly one of the most…
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Digital Marketing Trend: The Brand Film
Eschewing the restrictions of a slick, 30-second TV spot, brand films have emerged as a tasteful and compelling way to show what a brand is about. In contrast to a more straightforward commercial, a brand film can be thought of as a merging of a filmmaker’s vision and a brand’s core idea. Ideally, it bridges the division between art and commerce to establish a brand’s authenticity. One of the many notable brand films is Un Rendez Vous, which was directed by Guy Ritchie, and made to promote the Dior Homme brand. Since its debut in 2010, it has amassed more than…