Wednesday 5 June 2013
Google Beats Apple; Win Internship with Joel Stein; Researching Agents
Posted on 17:46 by Unknown
When compared to other Internet giants, Google seems to be the number one choice these days. According to this article, they beat out Apple, Amazon, and even Facebook.
A new poll by Washington Post-ABC News says that Google beats out Apple and Facebook when it comes to consumer sentiment. Eighty-five percent of American adults have a “favorable” view of Google compared to 72 percent for Apple and only 60 percent for Facebook. Apple dropped significantly with users under the age of 30 over the last year.
Before last year, it looked like Google was sliding. It had plain missed social and was mea culpa-ing all over the place about it. The stock was well off its highs, as everyone anticipated Facebook going public and grabbing the spotlight, at least when it came to investor and press enthusiasm. In fact, Facebook putting off its IPO for so long had inadvertently helped Google. There were only so many large cap, high growth stocks to invest in. In the Valley Google was looking dusty as well. TechCrunch well chronicled the outrageous cash bonuses the company was having to pay to keep engineers from defecting. Never exactly a sign of momentum. Word leaked that Page was having some serious Zuckerberg-envy. All signs pointed to Google succumbing to the natural cycle of Silicon Valley life.
The part about Apple losing people under the age of 30 is interesting. I'd like to see more surveys done to find out why that is. People under the age of 30 have a great deal of influence. They had a great deal of influence not more than six years ago. They helped elect the President of the US through online campaigning and contributions in ways that have never been seen or done before. Almost everyone I knew under the age of thirty thought Apple was God from heaven above. So why the switch now?
You can read more here.
Win an Internship with Author Joel Stein
This looks like it could be interesting. I'm half-tempted to make a bid myself because I've always been a fan of Stein's column in Time Magazine. In fact, it's the only reason I still get Time in print. Unfortunately, the thrills I'll have this Sunday will be inteviewing potential new tenants for our rental apartment.
A one-day internship with TIME journalist and humor columnist Joel Stein. Spend this Sunday, June 9, 2013, working for Joel! He will buy you a mid-priced lunch and eat it with you. (He will also buy his own lunch; you won’t have to share yours.) You can work from his house in Los Angeles with him or work via Skype from your own home. There are decent odds he will yell at you and even greater odds that you’ll witness his 4-year-old son or wife yell at him.
You can bid here, and it looks simple enough to do. Another thing I've always liked about him is that in spite of the fact that he's attractive he's also self-effacing. And, the proceeds benefit Miss a Meal, which is an organization becoming increasingly more important in the US.
I would have used a photo of Joel Stein for this post, but he's not in wiki commons and I don't want to get into copyright issues with anyone. But there's a photo of him at the link I provided.
Researching Literary Agents
It's nice to link to an article about literary agents this time. And even though this one is kind of boiler plate I think the topics mentioned are important and I'm linking to it because it's good information.
If you ask an agent what’s the number one reason they reject a query letter, most will say the same thing: The author pitched a genre that I don’t represent. So my first order of business was to define my book. OH BOY fits into several categories: nonfiction, humor and parenting. When I set out to find an agent, I focused mainly on the nonfiction and humor angles. This narrowed my search, giving me an opportunity to examine each agent more thoroughly before shipping off my queries.
This isn't always as simple as it sounds. I've had books published that crossed genres, but the books have always been classified under "Gay Fiction," no matter what the content was. Booksellers...online and in stores...do this so customers know how to shop. With a literary agents it's a little different, and many times if the agent likes your work the agent will help you classify the genre when it's time to shop the book. I always found the best way to see if a work is right for an agent is to research the agent's past clients and the books they've sold to publishers. And that information is probably the easiest to find online nowadays. It wasn't always like that. Up until agents had web sites you relied on ads and listings in HUGE print books like "Writer's Market." I do NOT miss those days.
You can read more here.
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