It's the end of the web site as we know it

I was thinking of that indelible REM song as I was consuming my usual fare on the blogosphere yesterday. Maybe it was because so many professed at how great it was to be disconnected over the long weekend, but it was odd to see two long posts in the same day putting out a call for radical changes to the approach to web sites. I guess being disconnected gives time for deep thinking. Jeff Jarvis started it out by outlining...

Social Networking Grows Up

It's very interesting watching the depth and breadth of the analysis following Facebook's event yesterday in San Francisco. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that most people think of Facebook as a social network for college kids; after all, it was only last fall that it opened up membership to anyone. And the numbers pointing to its growth trajectory have been impressive. What particularly caught my attention amidst all of the coverage was this nugget...

Making the World a Quieter Place

You know that technology has reached into all corners of everyday life when you find yourself recommending a product you represent as a PR person when you are on a weekend away with friends. During a soggy, but very fun women's weekend in New Hampshire, when I joined a subset of the group for an early breakfast on Saturday morning, they were in the middle of a discussion of the problems many had had the night before getting any sleep....

Deja Vu -- Bubble Part Deux?

To quote CSNY, "We have all been here before" or have we? Is the tech market becoming eerily similar to how it was in 1999 - 2000? IPOs are back. VCs are flush with money to invest. Companies with cool technologies and products but little revenue and no profits are garnering lots of buzz. It's Web 3.0! Adding to this frothy environment is the amount of private equity money and leveraged buyouts. Just yesterday, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke stated...

The Lotus Wayback Machine!

So what would bring 650 people to the Hyatt Cambridge on a beautiful Saturday night in May? Their former company, you say? Nostalgia, I say. The Lotus 25th reunion was quite the ticket this past Saturday and I'm glad I put aside my standard attempt to separate work from life to go to the party. In her blog, Barb Darrow had a great description of the who's who of execs who attended. For me and my colleagues, it was a...

Welcome to Beyond The Hype

Beyond the Hype conveys the opinions, insights and experiences from the senior communications counselors here at Lois Paul & Partners. We will be looking at the ways and means that communications makes an impact on a business and how a PR agency and a client should partner in a strategic way to make that happen. LP&P is a public relations agency. That includes all aspects of communications -- from good old fashioned media relations to the full spectrum of social...