Your PR Architect

Perhaps the one memorable line from the weakest Star Trek film -- Star Trek V, The Final Frontier -- was uttered by William Shatner's Captain Kirk: "What does God need with a starship?" I asked a variant of that question last week, when online retail juggernaut Amazon demonstrated a re-usable rocket that, after completing its mission, returned safely to its launch pad. I'm not sure who's ordering Adele CDs on the moon, but it's impressive to know that Amazon's been thinking about this. Jeremy Clarkson, By Ed Perchick (flickr) ,  via Wikimedia Commons Then I asked: What does Amazon need with a rocket ship? Next, over the Thanksgiving holiday, Amazon posted a video of ex- Top Gear bad boy Jeremy Clarkson, using his wry sarcasm to provide an update on the Amazon delivery-by-drone technology , called Prime Air. Looks like it'll be a hit, assuming you have few trees or overhead electrical feeds. (Clarkson, along with Top Gear alumni Richa...

Two companies recently took steps to change how they approach the female demographic. Target took a step forward. BIC took a step backward. Target announced it would remove in-store signs that categorize products as gender-specific. Good move; it should be up to the parents and their kids to determine which toys sons and daughters prefer. While a minor issue -- no one had filed a lawsuit over the "girls' building sets" signs -- it's a simple change that shows the big retailer's listening to its customers. The company earned positive media coverage for it. BIC's faux pas was a hastily launched and withdrawn online ad tied to Women's Day in South Africa. You can read about it here.  Bad form, BIC. Objectifying women and telling them to "think like a man" insults every woman who's ever had her suggestions batted down by a lame-brained male executive.  BIC, you'll recall, launched a line of pink and purple "BIC for Her...

The dance about net neutrality has barely begun. And it's going to affect what crawls across your computer. Unless you start asking questions. By NASA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons First, Common Cause says this about net neutrality: "network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be able to access any web content they choose and use any applications they choose, without restrictions or limitations imposed by their internet service provider." You can learn more at http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1234951 What this means: think of the internet as a collection of pipelines through which media content flows. Verizon, Comcast, or Time Warner are some major owners of those pipes. They can "throttle" downloads of content providers like Netflix if they don't pay for increased bandwidth. Or, you might see Walmart's online shopping pages load more quickly than Amazon's, if Walmart buys preferential pi...