Publications
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
A mathemetician, a librarian, and a web strategist walk into a bar…
The power of Boolean logic, coming soon to a sentence near you.
How your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0: Part 3 – Earning revenue with advertising
If your site attracts a lot of visitors — or even a niche community of visitors that advertisers want to reach — you can place advertising on your site to generate revenue. This post looks at three types of advertising to consider.
YouTube views as a proxy for web success
We're often asked how organizations can measure the return on investment from social media. Frank Rich's column in today's New York Times effectively uses YouTube views as a proxy for the overall success of the Obama and Clinton campaigns in tapping the power of the...
New look & feel, kind of almost there
The new and much improved look of my blog is based on the blog style template at Open Designs, created by fellow-Canadian Collin Grasley. Rob hacked it into Wordpress-iness for me, a process that's still being debugged. Open Designs is a very cool site that offers...
Please standby while this leopard changes its spots
We're retheming alexandrasamuel.com tonight. Could get funky, people!
Good parenting 2.0
Why you should make sure your kids have a unique username.
Wrap your brand in reflected glory
Someone needs to tell the folks at Glad: Unless your customers pay for the privilege of wearing your logo, don't build an online community around your brand.
How your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0: Intellectual property
How can nonprofits pay for their online community endeavors? One answer lies in intellectual property. The creation of a sophisticated web site involves the creation of a lot of intellectual property — property that has financial value. This blog post looks at some of the ways that property can be monetized.
This iPod weighs four pounds
Today is the 8-day anniversary of my iPhone, and in those eight days a whole bunch of people have asked if I’ve lost weight. Turns out that the iPhone has magical weight-shrinking properties.
Will the real Alexandra Samuel please stand up?
I knew this charade couldn't last forever. Like lonelygirl15 and fake Steve Jobs before me, I went to great efforts to create a compelling illusion: not only an Alexandra Samuel blog, but a consistent profile on every online community site from del.icio.us to Facebook. Even a complete fake company with me as the fake CEO.
But today, the illusion is at an end. Darrell Houle has unmasked m
e as…..Suzanna Cavatrio, copywriter for Enormicom.
That's right, Darrell came across my alter ego on the tour page for Highrise, a CRM product from 37Signals, the makers of Basecamp. Check it out:
I'm happy to take this re-purposing as a sign that someone at 37Signals saw my obsessive blog post about Basecamp workflow. Or maybe it's a tribute to the talented man behind the camera — Kris Krug, who took the original photo. Maybe this is kk+'s chance to become official photographer for 37Signals?
The Harvard Business Review
A mathemetician, a librarian, and a web strategist walk into a bar…
The power of Boolean logic, coming soon to a sentence near you.
How your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0: Part 3 – Earning revenue with advertising
If your site attracts a lot of visitors — or even a niche community of visitors that advertisers want to reach — you can place advertising on your site to generate revenue. This post looks at three types of advertising to consider.
YouTube views as a proxy for web success
We're often asked how organizations can measure the return on investment from social media. Frank Rich's column in today's New York Times effectively uses YouTube views as a proxy for the overall success of the Obama and Clinton campaigns in tapping the power of the...
New look & feel, kind of almost there
The new and much improved look of my blog is based on the blog style template at Open Designs, created by fellow-Canadian Collin Grasley. Rob hacked it into Wordpress-iness for me, a process that's still being debugged. Open Designs is a very cool site that offers...
Please standby while this leopard changes its spots
We're retheming alexandrasamuel.com tonight. Could get funky, people!
Good parenting 2.0
Why you should make sure your kids have a unique username.
Wrap your brand in reflected glory
Someone needs to tell the folks at Glad: Unless your customers pay for the privilege of wearing your logo, don't build an online community around your brand.
How your non-profit can earn revenue with Web 2.0: Intellectual property
How can nonprofits pay for their online community endeavors? One answer lies in intellectual property. The creation of a sophisticated web site involves the creation of a lot of intellectual property — property that has financial value. This blog post looks at some of the ways that property can be monetized.
This iPod weighs four pounds
Today is the 8-day anniversary of my iPhone, and in those eight days a whole bunch of people have asked if I’ve lost weight. Turns out that the iPhone has magical weight-shrinking properties.
Will the real Alexandra Samuel please stand up?
I knew this charade couldn't last forever. Like lonelygirl15 and fake Steve Jobs before me, I went to great efforts to create a compelling illusion: not only an Alexandra Samuel blog, but a consistent profile on every online community site from del.icio.us to Facebook. Even a complete fake company with me as the fake CEO.
But today, the illusion is at an end. Darrell Houle has unmasked me as…..Suzanna Cavatrio, copywriter for Enormicom.
That's right, Darrell came across my alter ego on the tour page for Highrise, a CRM product from 37Signals, the makers of Basecamp. Check it out:
I'm happy to take this re-purposing as a sign that someone at 37Signals saw my obsessive blog post about Basecamp workflow. Or maybe it's a tribute to the talented man behind the camera — Kris Krug, who took the original photo. Maybe this is kk+'s chance to become official photographer for 37Signals?
OneZero
On Oprah.com: How to find online inspiration and set goals online
From an online inspiration feed to an affirmation password, this post for Oprah.com shares 6 ways to find inspiration and set goals online.
6 ways to prioritize your friends online (for Oprah.com)
This post for Oprah.com shows how to support your friendships by making and keeping real friends online.
5 solutions that clean up your address book
Don't limit your spring cleaning to tidying your linen cupboard and sweeping the dust bunnies out from under your bed. You computer needs cleaning too! Why clean, you ask? With hard drive space getting cheaper every day, the time it takes you to clean will be worth...
Spice up your dates with technology
The new Italian restaurant in our neighborhood was the perfect place to celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary. We settled into a cozy table for two and turned our attention to the menu. It wouldn't be easy to decide on our courses: The menu included almost too many...
How to use your iPad for family multitasking
Yesterday's blog post about the merits of buying an iPad provoked some questions about overconsumption, as well as a shout-out from a fellow sofa commuter. In the tug-of-war between buying a device that is sofa optimized, versus buying one less thing because we...
Syncing Contacts: The Impossible Dream
Of all the problems that plague the plugged-in, social worker, one of the simplest remains the hardest to solve: Syncing…
Should you buy an iPad?
Last weekend we made the great pilgrimage across the border so that we could get iPads on the day of their release. The iPad won't be available in Canada until the end of the month, and it seemed unfathomable to wait 20 days for a product that actually describes...
Even in a virtual world, where you live still matters
One of the fantasies that comes from living online is that it doesn't matter where you are based if you're hooked into the net. But in the process of disentangling my online address book -- arguably essential to living life online -- I came across a great interview...
JSTOR DAILY
On Oprah.com: How to find online inspiration and set goals online
From an online inspiration feed to an affirmation password, this post for Oprah.com shares 6 ways to find inspiration and set goals online.
6 ways to prioritize your friends online (for Oprah.com)
This post for Oprah.com shows how to support your friendships by making and keeping real friends online.
5 solutions that clean up your address book
Don't limit your spring cleaning to tidying your linen cupboard and sweeping the dust bunnies out from under your bed. You computer needs cleaning too! Why clean, you ask? With hard drive space getting cheaper every day, the time it takes you to clean will be worth...
Spice up your dates with technology
The new Italian restaurant in our neighborhood was the perfect place to celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary. We settled into a cozy table for two and turned our attention to the menu. It wouldn't be easy to decide on our courses: The menu included almost too many...
How to use your iPad for family multitasking
Yesterday's blog post about the merits of buying an iPad provoked some questions about overconsumption, as well as a shout-out from a fellow sofa commuter. In the tug-of-war between buying a device that is sofa optimized, versus buying one less thing because we...
Syncing Contacts: The Impossible Dream
Of all the problems that plague the plugged-in, social worker, one of the simplest remains the hardest to solve: Syncing…
Should you buy an iPad?
Last weekend we made the great pilgrimage across the border so that we could get iPads on the day of their release. The iPad won't be available in Canada until the end of the month, and it seemed unfathomable to wait 20 days for a product that actually describes...
Even in a virtual world, where you live still matters
One of the fantasies that comes from living online is that it doesn't matter where you are based if you're hooked into the net. But in the process of disentangling my online address book -- arguably essential to living life online -- I came across a great interview...
THE VERGE
6 solutions to the sadness of social media
Is social media making us sad? On the UK's Channel 4 News website, Benjamin Cohen is concerned that social media is changing the nature of friendship, and has adjusted his use of social media in response: I’ve stopped sharing as much, full stop....I’m not suggesting...
Why I like to check my email
Recently I've been trying to follow my friend Leda's advice on taming the compulsive need to pull my iPhone out any spare moment: the eight seconds in which the grocery clerk is running a price check, the twenty seconds it takes to walk to the bathroom, the...
The 10 best tips on how to write an online dating profile
It was inevitable that one of my single friends would get the hint. I go on and on about my fascination with online dating, and how tragic it is that I missed out by getting married before it was really a thing, and how much I would like to learn more about how it all...
Jobs of the future
It has been widely reported that for most of today's elementary schoolchildren, the jobs that lie in their future don't even exist yet. While that may be terrifying for those of us in the parenting or education game (how do you prep kids for a future you can't see?),...