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From the Boston Globe:

For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. Dr. Zinn’s best-known book, “A People’s History of the United States” (1980), had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers — many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out — but rather the farmers of Shays’ Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s.

Howard was a real nice guy. Back when I was in book publishing we knew we could ask him for a nice back-cover quote and he’d always say yes. He was just that kind of person, supportive of the whole movement, the real deal.

He also had some of the best eyebrows on the Left!

An interesting scenario from the NYTimes blog:

Mr. O’Brien argued last week “Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet, a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the ‘Tonight Show,’ I believe nothing could matter more.” I’m sure nothing could matter more on spreadsheets and in traditional advertising meetings. But with the 18- to 34-year-old crowd, who have shown undaunted support for Mr. O’Brien, a time slot is as relevant as which brand of frying pan your favorite restaurants use to cook your meal — maybe it makes a difference in the kitchen, but 99 percent of the patrons just want good food.

Merlin on the fakery behind personal branding. I think I need to save his check-list as an email template:

1. I said something.
2. You disagreed.
3. I’m fine with that.
4. I’m pretty sure you’re not.
5. I’ve tried to respond like a gentleman.
6. I truly hope you’re okay with that.
7. I cannot change it if you’re not.
8. Happily, I now know you as more than a compressed computer graphic and a funny internet name, and that is good.
9. I am now going to string Christmas lights and stop arguing with people on the internet.
10. I hope everyone is okay with that.
11. Again. I cannot change it if you’re not.
12. Again, I’m fine with that.

New MartinKelley.com designed site:
Michael Oliveras is a long-time union carpenter making the entrepreneurial jump and starting his own business: Mike’s Precision Carpentry. He came to me looking for a webpage to advertise his new enterprise.

It’s a simple design, a typical small-business site of half-a-dozen pages. The color scheme matches his business cards for a bit of branding. Oliveras faced a problem typical for new businesses: a lack of good photos. The work he’s done for many years is not technically his own (per the employment contracts) so for now the pictures are a mix of the few jobs he has done on his own and a few stock images. I’m sure he’ll have a well-rounded portfolio before long and we’ll be able to fill out the site with his own work. In the meantimes, he added a couple of great pictures of him and his family on the “About Us” page to give it that personal touch.

See it live: www.mikes-precision-carpentry.com

One of the great things about Web 2.0 is the empowerment of average users. With Twitter and Facebook pages, individuals can now respond back to companies and organizations with a few strokes of the…

Its size, scale, and powerful brand image are attracting not just the region’s but the world’s attention. It may just be that some of the most important urban innovations in 21st century America end up coming not from Portland or New York, but places like Youngstown and, yes, Detroit.

Via scdemark.

Excerpt: “This means significant changes are happening across the Facebook ecosystem that marketers and brands need to be aware of and account for in their products and strategies.”

From the article, Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome:

In the second half of 2010, Google plans to launch the Google Chrome OS, an operating system designed from the ground up to run the Chrome web browser on netbooks. “It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be,” Google writes tonight on its blog.

The NYTimes also runs an article, Google Plans a PC Operating System.

Martin’s commentary: Google releases its share of junk that it never really supports (Froogle, Google Notebook) and it buys companies that it lets whither away Yahoo-style (Feedburner), but when there’s something they want to go after they’re completely serious.

A Chrome OS makes a lot of sense and explains why they went to so much trouble to make a Google branded browser even though they already pretty much had one (Firefox development is more or less paid for by Google). It’s often been reported that Google employees have their own Linux-based operating system and now they’ll clean it up and release it widely.

Smart move, though I wonder why they didn’t go the Mozilla route: fund a third party to do the development work as an open source project and keep it officially at arm’s length. Kind of hard not seeing the anti-trust government units not getting nervous when the operating system, browser and user data all has “GOOGLE” stamped on it.

Who’s behind corporate fraud on Wall Street?
[√] Google!
Who’s behind the real estate bubble?
[√] Google!
Who’s behind high gas prices?
[√] Google!

Microsoft new Bing.com search engine is here to help us “feel right” again. They will help freckled-faced red-headed twelve year old girls buy expensive video cameras and freckled-faced red-headed nine year old boys purchase plane tickets (the black amputee doesn’t seem to need a computer but maybe it’s sufficient that he looks so hot working out at the gym!!!).

All those things we WANT and we DESERVE that we can’t afford because GOOGLE ruined our WAY OF LIFE by giving us the WRONG search results can be OURS again if we put our trust in Microsoft.

Yes, you see rising gas prices have nothing to do with dwindling reserves, over-consumption and spending of trillions of dollars in wars to get our oil out from under their sand. Detroit isn’t in trouble because of two decades of crappy cars with terrible mileage that people didn’t want. Real estate prices haven’t fallen because of vaporous numbers games played by Wall Street insiders and Americans who thought their $25,000/year jobs entitled them to half-million dollar McMansions. The real reason is that too many Americans have spent too much time typing search queries into Google, which sometimes returned humorous viral videos.

In past economic crashes it’s usually been the Jews that get scapegoated for being at the root of the problem. Microsoft is clearly (and rather ridiculously) blaming Google for just about everything. The ad is certainly of the genre of old-fashioned scapegoating. The ad is totally tone-deaf but it’s disturbing that Microsoft thinks it will motivate people. Surely, they’ve done the requisit consumer testing?

The Microsoft commercial was created by JWT, maintainers of the Anxiety Index and purveyors of “Brand Answers for an Anxious World”. Fear sells.

Personally, I think it’d be refreshing if Microsoft brought back the old gonzo style that  current CEO Steve Ballmer demonstrated back in 1986:

Adam Ostrow looks at the successful Facebook campaign by the makers of Vitamin Water.

Although there are a few risks of building a campaign that directs users to a social media site versus your own property, the benefits are likely to far outweigh them if you can successfully get people engaged. Not to mention – what’s the last memorable corporate website you visited? Vitamin Water’s site – though impressive graphically and informative if you’re looking for details about their sports drinks – has absolutely no compelling reason to come back to it.

On the other hand, users will keep logging into Facebook for the foreseeable future, and in turn, seeing updates from the brand on their homepage. Vitamin Water’s approach makes sense, and turns what would otherwise be a difficult-to-measure branded advertisement into an interactive one with tangible results.

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See also: my recent O’Reilly Media piece, Will Facebook (all but) Replace Corporate Websites?

The reason for all this? Surprise, surprise, the democratisation of the Web and the rise of social media. According to the authors, brands by and large haven’t shifted gear still keeping hold of 20th…

So GM ditches Saturn, the brand developed to compete w/sensibly-sized well-built foreign exports? Huh? http://bit.ly/MAv7d

Terror gripped us as we realized we had unwittingly entered enemy territory. We immediately branded these “Friends” as heretics placing them under the subcategory of New Agers, which was another way…

Terrellita Maverick, on John McCain. The Mavericks are a famously progressive liberal family whose name entered the vocabulary after Texas rancher Samuel Augustus Maverick refused to brand his cattle in the 1800s. Via the NYTimes.

Holy browser wars, Batgirl! Google announces it will release a brand new open source web browser tomorrow, called Google Chrome. Whaa? Yeah, that’s what we said.