By Andy Marken

Anonymous and LulzSec made themselves infamous by hacking highly visible organizations.

They thought it was cool to disclose information from private/protected databases. They outed millions of people's very personal/private data, making them prime identity theft targets.

By Andy Marken

Bet you've said (or heard it said), "Kids today have it so good."

Every generation says the same thing because they're not dragging a bunch of experience and habits into the next century.

By Andy Marken

A few months ago, we read a mouse type news item – with our glasses on – that noted we had just passed the seven billion mark of humans on the planet.

We were a little worried, being in the boomer category until we heard Dr. Peter Diamandis, co-founder of Singularity University (check Wikipedia), give a presentation on Abundance.

The truth is, boomers are not only a huge segment of the world population.

by Megha Rajagopalan, ProPublica

Cellphone companies hold onto your location information for years and routinely provide it to police and, in anonymized form, to outside companies.

By Andy Marken

We sat through a recent DEMO Conference that bills itself as focusing on emerging technologies and new product innovations.

It's hard to miss the eagerness, the lust in the eyes of the presenters who put their hearts on their sleeves and money on the table to be tomorrow's cutting-edge technology marketplace winner.

By Andy Marken

Pulling $10M of ads out of Facebook was only chump change for GM (0.5% of their ad budget), but it was enough to scare Zuck into selling $100M+ of stock just before it began its slide...pure coincidence of course.

Actually, it took guts for the GM ad folks to tell the world that Facebook people didn't like their ads.

by Lois Beckett, ProPublica

Microsoft and Yahoo are selling political campaigns the ability to target voters online with tailored ads using names, Zip codes and other registration information that users provide when they sign up for free email and other services.

By Andy Marken

Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud.

There, aren't you excited?

Just saying the word is enough to make the hair stand up on the back of an IT executive's neck.

By Andy Marken

You've seen kids in the playground right?

They play, fight, participate, sulk, skulk, share, unshare, befriend and bully.

You know, sorta' like today's social media.

In the social media playground, folks check their numerous site pages and Twitter accounts, sometimes before they're out of bed and several times during the day. They constantly check on events, grab coupons, share club/sports/things stuff, find/chat with new friends around the globe and vote on/grade news, information, ideas and products.

By Andy Marken

One of the reasons we don't play videogames is that our attention tends to wander ... look, there goes another flock of ducks!

Listening to Jen-Hsun Huang, the boss at Nvidia, give his impression of the changing world during the keynote at the company's recent GPU – graphic processing unit – Technology Conference (GTC), we should have been focusing on how the breathtaking technology is making videogames and animation totally look and feel like real life.

It didn't work.

By Andy Marken

Today, we're overwhelmed with news, information and entertainment options.

Whether you're at home or away, broadcasters are all vying for your attention, your time, your money

That's the evolutionary shift the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show participants and attendees struggle with these days.

It isn't easy to move into new, uncharted areas.

By Andy Marken

We're quite certain John Wanamaker – who some consider the father of marketing – would be amazed if he saw the potential and the chaos of social media today.

He'd be amazed at the potential because he would see the fantastic benefits of reaching very specific customers any time, any place.

He'd also be amazed at the chaos and waste that's taking place in so many companies as departments shove, push, jump and holler to lay claim to this brave new frontier.