Innovation + Opinion = Innopinion

We share discussions, ideas, and opinions taking place at the intersection of technology and tradition.

Here are some opinions for you to respond to or reflect on:

Have You Heard About This New “Mobile” Thing?

If you haven’t heard about this new “mobile” thing, here’s the general idea… The thing about mobile is, mobile has been mobile for mobile mobile, with mobile and mobile leaving mobile with almost no mobile mobile! Ironically, mobile is mobile, mobile, mobile, and completely mobile, both because of mobile’s mobile mobile, and because of mobile’s […]

Should Tweets be Eligible for Pulitzers?

I’m a sucker for a good meal. Living in Washington, D.C., such an affliction can be a recipe for financial ruin. Nary a day goes by without another restaurant from yet another up-and-coming, as-seen-on-TV celebrity chef. My girlfriend, bless her heart, keeps a running tab of all the places she can’t wait for me to […]

6 Lessons from the Aspen Institute Dialogue on The Future of Content 2020

When Walter Isaacson, Marcus Brauchli or Ken Auletta speak, you listen. And when the three of them get together and talk about the future of content, you sit down and take notes. Which is exactly what I did the other day at the Aspen Institute Dialogue on The Future of Content 2020. Here are 6 […]

How to Predict the Future of Content: An Interview with Stephen Cass

Stephen Cass sees the future before most of us even know it’s happening. With so many new technologies promising to change the way people engage and interact with content, how do publishers determine which ones to follow and which ones to ignore? I caught up with Cass, special projects editor at MIT’s famed Technology Review, […]

This Is the Language We Have Chosen. Here Are the Rules.

Here’s the thing about grammar: it’s weird, sometimes difficult, and can be full of seemingly redundant and unnecessary rules. But you know what else is weird, sometimes difficult, and full of seemingly redundant and unnecessary rules? Life. Monopoly. Economics. Dog parks. Nothing is perfect. Such is the curse of our flawed reality. Does this mean […]

F U GRAMMER PO PO

Lois Lane is a horrible speller and she’s considered a world-class journalist. Okay, so she is a comic book character. So what? (Not to mention it’s a bit questionable how good a journalist she was considering she couldn’t figure out that Clark Kent was Superman, but that’s another debate all together). Journalists tend not to […]

Why Content Eats Advertising’s Lunch

There’s a decades old saying in advertising that bears repeating: “People don’t read ads – they read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.” The man behind those words – Howard Gossage – was right. Sometimes it is an ad. Sometimes. Every other time, it’s content.

Video Storytelling Lessons from “The Umbrella Man”

An important rule of thumb I live by in developing online video content is: would I rather watch this or read this? Video can certainly enrich the content experience, but for every great online video I’ve seen, I’ve seen just as many that would have been better off as a standard article. Because the best […]

The Best Year-End Lessons Don’t Come From Top-10 Lists (An Office Meditation)

Don’t resist. Relax and let it happen. It shouldn’t hurt, though you might feel a tugging sensation. It’s okay to stop—just for a little while—the striving, planning, strategizing, evaluating that make your work so successful, that you hope makes you notable and valuable. It’s fine to step away from the carefully wrought echo chamber of […]

A Magazine is Not a Broken iPad (No Matter What Your Baby Says)

Homer Simpson understands children. Well, his children. All right, maybe just Maggie because she rarely speaks. But he knows enough about the relative predictability of kids to have once uttered, “You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.” Bravo, Homer. This is why you […]

5 Things I Learned at the FOLIO Show

Earlier this month a group of us traveled from TMG in D.C. to the Marriot Marquis in New York to “join the media revolution” at the FOLIO: Show. The event had tracks on monetization, content, management, and marketing—and great key notes from the likes of Mashable’s Pete Cashmore and Time Inc.’s Fran Hauser. Here are […]

Harvey Levin: Sensationalist or Soothsayer?

old newspapers never die, they just fade away

“Leave the heavy stuff. Just go.” That’s what the voice inside my head said when I read in The Washington Post (WP) that TMZ founder and celebrity gossip peddler Harvey Levin recently addressed journalists at the National Press Club about the future of news media. It wasn’t the first time I’d considered hightailing it. I […]

Is Your Twitter Account a Ghost, a Witch, a Pirate or a Vampire?

Halloween is the one day every year people can dress up as anything they want and not be stared at strangely in the grocery store. So we put a lot of thought into what we might wear to capitalize on the opportunity. But we don’t always think about what kind of costume our Twitter account […]

A Letter from Mark Zuckerberg*

Editor’s note: OK, so this is not a real letter from Mark Zuckerberg, but it’s a real satire of what could be in a letter from Mark Zuckerberg, hypothetically speaking, of course. Hey there! It’s Mark Zuckerberg, everyone’s favorite socially awkward billionaire! I am here to walk you through our latest exciting changes at Facebook. […]

Finding Inspiration in the Written Word on the Anniversary of September 11th

I was inspired today, and also humbled. I was moved, saddened and carried away by storytelling. As we reach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, The Washington Post published a series of articles featuring individuals who had been directly affected by the terrorist attack. The articles may be too difficult, too heart-wrenching, for some to read. […]

Magazine ‘App’-titude

When CNN announced plans earlier last week to acquire Zite, an upstart creator of magazine apps for Apple’s iPad, it wasn’t exactly Earth-shattering news. The East Coast was still sweeping up after Irene. In the wake of a disaster that almost was, the acquisition caused nary a ripple in the blogosphere. Understandable. The announcement didn’t […]

Mr. Editor, Tear Down This Wall

You know what word I hate? Advertorial. I’m not alone. For those of us who cut our journalistic chops in the newsroom, the division of editorial and advertising is as sacred as the constitutional separation of church and state. My first reporting gig out of college was covering the use of technology in education. Eager […]

If This Post Were a Search Engine Results Page

And each phrase was a result (18.2%) With a percentage next to it (10.1%)

Should This Blog Post Have Been Written in Cursive?

I recently learned that Indiana, my beloved home state, is no longer requiring schools to teach cursive writing, focusing instead on printing and typing. I remember struggling to perfect my cursive writing in Mr. Biltz’s fifth grade class. But I never came close to the beautiful script of my teacher. If there were an Olympics […]

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