Splitsider

Of the accounts that follow me on Twitter, half are spambots. About 15% are companies or organizations whose social media interns found me on a list somewhere, and another 15% are something in between: not definitely bots, but not exactly humans. Whatever they are, they're not "listening" in any meaningful sense. Among the remaining group are some people I like, some people I like a lot, some people I don't know, and a bunch of technology PR professionals who don't really have a choice. READ MORE

It's easy to understand why people are ambivalent, or even hostile, toward ratings. The thinking goes something like this: READ MORE

When Chuck did it, we laughed at them, not with them. When 30 Rock does it, or pretty much every other capital-G Good show on TV right now for that matter, we laugh at them, but with them, too. We've learned to take the licks, and writers have learned to give them: Product placement on TV is as knowing and wily as it is ubiquitous, and it seems to work fine. But what about the Internet? READ MORE

Maybe you don't have a TV. Maybe you don't want to pay for cable, or rent a satellite dish. Maybe you don't like accommodating the odd and conflicting schedules of competing armies of shows, or maybe you just slip out of sync every once in a while. Sometimes you can't watch what you want to watch, and it would be nice to just be able to catch up online, preferably for free. Here's how to do that. READ MORE