On Friday VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) announced that it had secured renewal of its contract to run the .com registry for another six years. However, the stock immediately feel by 13 percent, after revealing that the Department of Commerce removed the right to raise wholesale prices. This came after the stock dove 20 percent near the […]
Recently Gabriele and I had dinner at Proof in downtown Washington. It’s a stylish, wine-centric hot spot that has garnered a lot of praise in the last two years, including a “100 Best Restaurants” from Washingtonian. I respect any restaurant that treats wine as seriously as Proof does. One thing I’d suggest would be to […]
Today’s piece is a two-fer, bringing together both Work and Wheels. I found an interesting article about turning an old BMW E36 into a weekend track car. The story was on the Hooniverse car enthusiast site, “hoon” being Australian slang for a reckless driver/gearhead. My 1999 M3 is an E36, so obviously I was the […]
I don’t work in online advertising any longer. But I was present at the creation (more or less), as a very early hire of Advertising.com. The pay-per-click, online advertising network ecosystem that company and others built almost 15 years ago needs to be replaced by something new. The creators of content, upon which everything depends, […]
My lastest WashingtonExec column published yesterday. I was invited to attend the opening night of Vino Volo, a high-end wine bar/restaurant in Bethesda, Maryland. Since 2005 the company has operated wine bars in airports and is currently in 18 nationwide, but the Bethesda restaurant is their first freestanding location. The Vino Volo approach stresses fun, […]
Recently a comprehensive B2B content marketing survey was produced and released by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute (CMI). MarketingProfs packs a lot of good info into their post, and the entire survey is available for download with free registration. MarketingProfs and CMI received responses from over 1,400 companies for this survey. So the findings […]
Last week BMW released its October sales numbers in the U.S. The 2012 numbers continue to be impressive, with October year to year sales up 20.9 percent, and year to date sales up 6.7 percent. (These percentages exclude the Mini brand.) Compared to the first two quarters however, the growth rate has slowed. As I […]
Online privacy and how consumer data is tracked online has been a recurring theme on this site. The current Internet economic model is driven by advertising, which is targeted by tracking the online behavior of consumers. In exchange, consumers enjoy free or very low cost services and applications. I call this the quid-pro-quo of the […]
Holiday season is fast approaching, and for many it’s time to think about what wine to serve with Thanksgiving dinner. Here’s a few wines I’ve enjoyed lately that could be big hits with your holiday guests. Any of the 2009 petit chateaux bordeaux I reviewed recently would be an economical and popular choice. In addition, […]
Search Engine Land is a go to site for all topics related to search. So when I saw an article on how to create great content, I naturally assumed the focus would on how content should be organized and tagged for search engine indexing. The author Rick DeJarnette does deliver some good tips on that […]
Beginning with the E39 5 Series in 2001, BMW introduced lighted rings around the headlights on their cars. These quickly were termed “angel eyes” and became a big hit in the market. Early BMW angel eyes were powered by a halogen bulb. This caused the color of the rings to be yellow, which didn’t match […]
My latest WashingtonExec Wine and Dine column published today. The topic this month is the 2009 Bordeaux vintage, and the strong values delivered by the so-called petit chateaux. These are thousands of small vineyards that can produce very high quality Bordeaux, without the stratospheric prices of the more famous Bordeaux appellations. I review three 2009 […]