Monday’s New York Times featured this ad for Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite:
Which got the headscratching staff to wondering: What book is that a Prologue to?
Answer (via Books Distilled):
Currently #865 in Amazon Best Sellers.
With a bullet, we’re guessing.
Two – wait for it – very different takes on Taxachusetts in today’s local dailies.
Start with this glass-half-empty front-page piece in the Boston Globe:
Mass. tax revenues decline; budget trims loom
Looks for ways to curb spending; automatic cut in taxes ruled out
Facing weaker than expected state tax revenues, Governor Deval Patrick’s administration has curbed state hiring, halted an automatic income tax reduction, and begun identifying cuts in spending that may be necessary to balance the budget.
Recent tax collections have been unexpectedly disappointing, failing to measure up to last year’s levels. In October, revenues were $162 million short of budgetary estimates and $48 million below the level reached in October 2011.
State revenues are running $256 million behind budget and $33 million behind last year’s actual collection, officials said.
Cut to Ho-Ho-Holly Robichaud’s column in today’s Boston Herald . . .
Read the rest at It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.
Excellent Neil Swidey piece in Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine about the rolling focus group that social media networks like Twitter and Facebook have become.
Cambridge’s Bluefin Labs decodes social media chatter
Facebook users “like” things 2.7 billion times a day. People share their opinions more than 500 million times daily on Twitter. Now, this start-up is betting it can change everything from product placement to how we elect our president . . .
Read the rest at Sneak Adtack.
From the Sneak Adtack International desk
Given all the ads in sheep’s clothing we see here in America, it’s easy to think the US has a monopoly on stealth marketing. Not so, according to this post on The Wall blog in the UK:
How branded content is evolving
With branded content being a constant topic of conversation in 2012, certainly as far as the last six months were concerned, this is a timely infographic from the Content Marketing Association. It takes a look at how branded content has and is evolving. In a year, it is estimated that a consumer has over 379,000 brand experiences; in fact on a typical journey to work the average person can expect to interact with 170 brands with all of them competing fiercely for one thing: consumer attention . . .
Read the rest at Sneak Adtack.
Saturday’s Boston Globe featured a Page One piece by Billy Baker that some would say shouldn’t have been Page One, and others would say shouldn’t have been a piece (except maybe in the Boston Herald).
Regardless . . .
Read the rest at It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.
UPDATE: As Universal Hub’s Adam Gaffin points out, The Phoenix scooped them both.
Special election rules in Massachusetts are the Silly Putty of legislation, taking whatever shape best suits the Democratic majority at the time.
Back in 2004, they eliminated a governor’s power to appoint replacements for U.S. Senate vacancies, the better to keep then-Gov. Mitt Romney’s mitts off John Kerry’s seat should he win the presidency. When one of their own returned to the corner office, state lawmakers gave back the power to appoint a temporary replacement.
Now they apparently want to give Gov. Deval Patrick the power to appoint a permanent replacement to serve out an interrupted term, the Boston Herald’s Hillary Chabot reports . . .
Read the rest at It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts has some new blockbuster mojo with its Mario Testino: In Your Face exhibit, a natural heir to its Herb Ritts and Ralph Lauren hoedowns.
But something else is a natural heir: The MFA’s increasing reliance on corporate sponsorships for its so-called artistic offerings.
Exhibit Umpteen: This Boston Globe ad from the MFA’s current blanket marketing campaign.
The fine(anced) print:
“Mario Testino: In Your Face” is co-sponsored by Swarovski and Stuart Weitzman.
“Mario Testino: British Royal Portraits” is co-sponsored by Stuart Weitzman and Swarovski.
Sponsored by Sheraton Boston Hotel. Additional support provided by the Benjamin A. Trustman and Julia M. Trustman Fund.
That last is for the Kings, Queens, and Courtiers exhibit, a modest showing that “serves as a complement to and provides a broader historical context for Mario Testino: British Royal Portraits on view concurrently in the Ritts Gallery.”
See? It all fits together like a watch.
Or at least the way a watch used to fit together.
So what do the sponsors get out of this arrangement?
Major promotional opportunities for Stuart Weitzman and Swarovski, for starters.
And the MFA?
Major bucks for promotional opportunities.
Don’t get us wrong: Director Malcolm Rogers has done impressive work at the MFA, from the new American Wing to the new Contemporary Wing.
The only question is: At what price?
All this week the hardtracking staff at Sneak Adtack has been on Facebook like Brown on Williamson. And here’s more fallout from The Grate Facebook Email that changes the site from a sort-of democracy to a flatout Markocracy.
Via the Wall Street Journal . . .
Read the rest at Sneak Adtack.
Our feisty local tabloid has been keeping close tabs on ‘Round Town Scotty Brown (R-Indian Given).
Here’s the tally just from today (call it his Turkey (Day) Trot), starting with a political piece . . .
Read the rest at It’s Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town.
This tweet came across the hardworking staff’s desktop this AM:
Because she sucks? Besides, there’s a much better alternative:
Much better value for your YouTube dollar.
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