Reading List for This Week

Here a couple of articles I read this morning...and thought you might like them too.


The PRoblem with Startups - The Flack Blog. This is a nice round up of the Mark Cuban - PR industry rumpus. If you didn't know, shy Mark poked a stick at PR people by saying that startups didn't need trained professionals to generate editorial coverage and that all a CEO had to do was send a quick email to the editors of trade magazines to generate any coverage needed. This might work if you are Mark Cuban (and even then.) PR practitioners, obviously, are a little peeved at Mark pooping on their profession and have generated a fair number of blog posts defending the value they bring. All of this ignores the whole decline of trade media and rise of content marketing trend that I've been talking about for years, but there you go.

Richard Clarke on Who Was Behind the Stuxnet Attack - Smithsonian Magazine. Think cyberwarefare is a big problem. You have no idea...

The story Richard Clarke spins has all the suspense of a postmodern geopolitical thriller. The tale involves a ghostly cyberworm created to attack the nuclear centrifuges of a rogue nation—which then escapes from the target country, replicating itself in thousands of computers throughout the world. It may be lurking in yours right now. Harmlessly inactive...or awaiting further orders. 

A great story, right? In fact, the world-changing “weaponized malware” computer worm called Stuxnet is very real. It seems to have been launched in mid-2009, done terrific damage to Iran’s nuclear program in 2010 and then spread to computers all over the world. Stuxnet may have averted a nuclear conflagration by diminishing Israel’s perception of a need for an imminent attack on Iran. And yet it might end up starting one someday soon, if its replications are manipulated maliciously. And at the heart of the story is a mystery: Who made and launched Stuxnet in the first place? 

Richard Clarke tells me he knows the answer.

The Myth of Mobile Content Marketing - Copyblogger. I love Copyblogger. Almost every post I read there has gobs of valuable information and is a pleasure to read. Here is a story on the power of browser based mobile websites and the advantage they have over mobile apps.

The world has changed. We’re carrying powerful computers around in our front pockets. We consume the content on our mobile screens while grabbing a coffee, walking the dog, and waiting in line at the DMV.  

And yet, I started this post with a somewhat bold declaration: There is no such thing as “Mobile Content Marketing”. With the introduction of accessible responsive design, mobile content marketing has become simply … content marketing.  

To be a player — a publisher — in the mobile space, you now need only one website, distributing your content on the open web, and displayed perfectly on the little computers so many of us carry.