People

This might be the world's first high-profile live-tweets of an entry-visa denial.

New York Times columnist Nick Kristof (@NickKristof), who knows how to use social media in smarter ways than most journalists (see my April 2012 post about his fans using social media to mark his birthday), found himself denied an entry visa into Bahrain earlier today. He took to Twitter to complain and bring attention to the situation there.

Kristof has written a lot about human rights abuses by Bahrain, an ally of the U.S., so that's why he was denied a visa at the airport. … Read more

These days, lots of folks are talking about apps and how they might join what looks like the app gold rush. Unfortunately, like the gold rush of yore, most people will come away deeply disappointed.

A recent New York Times article by David Streitfeld, "As Boom Lures App Creators, Tough Part Is Making a Living," showed the reality of trying to make it in the app-making world. In the piece, one unscientific survey of developers showed these stats: "A quarter of the respondents said they had made less than $200 in lifetime revenue from Apple. A quarter … Read more

Update: AllThingsD reports that Apple is simply acquiring Color's talent, leaving the rest of the company to be wound down.

Everyone seems to be getting mixed signals about Color, the controversial and high-profile startup that started as a photo-sharing app but never could find its groove.

Color is well-known for three things: founder Bill Nguyen (a veteran of the tech industry with a history of exits), raising $41 million prelaunch, and its failure to turn Nguyen's knowledge and that cash into traction.

The rumor mill started with a VentureBeat article claiming that Color's board had voted to … Read more

With Facebook's stock price crashing and employee morale sinking, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stepped up and delivered a home run he would never have been able to hit even just a year ago.

As you may know, Zuckerberg has been under fire the last few months for Facebook's plummeting stock price. A darling of Wall Street before its IPO, Facebook fell to half its IPO price in just a few months. As a result, a growing chorus of critics have called for new leadership at Facebook. Some have even called for Zuckerberg himself to resign.

While I've … Read more

All is not well at Facebook. Some have even started calling for CEO Mark Zuckerberg's head. But the panic is premature, and the social network has plenty of time and opportunity to turn things around.

Facebook's stock price has traveled south since its flashy (and disastrous) debut in May. Facebook closed at $19.44 per share on Wednesday, barely half of its $38 IPO price.

Why is Facebook's share price dropping like a boulder off a cliff? M&A specialist Marty Wolf provides an excellent explanation, but I'll summarize the key points:

Nobody wants to admit it, but building a personal brand is essential if you want to thrive in a business world dominated by social media. This is especially true for entrepreneurs and even venture capitalists who have only recently stepped out from the shadows and into the spotlight.

I became intrigued by the rising role of personal branding in the VC world by a New York Times article last week that discussed how more VC firms are hiring PR specialists to help brand their firms.

Here's a quick excerpt from that article:

"Now, Sand Hill Road in Silicon … Read more

Outspoken (which might be the gentlest thing anyone's said about him) Miami sports journalist Dan Le Batard has a show on ESPN2 (4:30 pm ET weekdays; back on the air Wednesday, June 20), "Dan Le Batard is Highly Questionable" and it consists of him answering sports questions from viewers. Nothing unusual so far, except for the title.

But it's unusual for a lot of reasons.

USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: One of them is how well it uses social media. It was the first show I saw to display its Twitter hashtag, #DLHQ, on the screen … Read more

Dear Ross Levinsohn,

Congratulations on being named Yahoo's new interim CEO. We all wish it had come under better circumstances, but now it's your job to stabilize Yahoo and turn the company around. You have a difficult road ahead, but I hope you have better luck than your predecessors.

I know you have a lot of work to do in order to clean up the mess Yahoo is in. There is no way the company can recover, though, if you don't deal with the albatross around Yahoo's neck. I propose that you make one of your … Read more

Some of our readers have commented on the striking computerized illustrations that sometimes accompany my blog posts. They are the work of Winston Huff (@WinstonHHuff), a Connecticut-based CGI artist and creative writer, who does a great job blending the physical and the digital. As you will see with his images below, he brings alive social media using what he calls a "fun blend of technology and whimsy."

Above is what he created for my students' #SilenceSree Day (a fundraiser that kept me off Twitter and Facebook for a day; here's what I wrote about the campaign in … Read more