In the lobby of the Toronto Star building, just off to the side of the security desk, there stands a linotype machine, complete with explanatory plaque and black-and-white photos. The machine is a statue erected, not to a dead politician, but to a dead technology. It says to the workers hurrying by: ‘I was once important. I made a difference. But I got replaced. And then everything changed.’

Last year, hundreds of applicants rushed to the CRTC in an attempt to nail down digital channel licenses.

An 80-year-old has a newfound interest in the computer.
Sheila Cohen, who works here at HYPN, told me an interesting story about her 80-year-old neighbour; a story that highlights how computer technology is beginning to gain acceptance amongst Canada’s 70+ set.

It struck me suddenly on the morning of Friday, July 13th – the morning the site for the 2008 Olympics was announced – that the Olympics could no longer be considered a media event. It has even outgrown the classification of media spectacle. It has morphed into something new that exhibits unique characteristics. We have never seen anything like it before. The Olympics is functioning more like a medium unto its own. In fact, it is behaving like a convergent medium.

On Thursday, June 21, PMB 2001 cast a new light on Canada’s magazine readership landscape, and confusion will ensue as buyers and sellers, planners and publishers, adjust to their new surroundings. It’s like going back to your hometown and finding everything has changed. That big room now looks small. The small tree now looks big. Things have changed, but not uniformly.

Why do most of us prefer to read a newspaper article in its original ink on paper format when a perfectly good Internet version of the original is available? Why do we gravitate towards the magazine version of that recipe rather…

It’s official – at least according to The Meyer’s Report. …

My running buddy Sandy Van told me about a furniture-for-sale message posted on her lobby bulletin board – it gave a telephone number and a request that people not call during the airing of ‘it.’ …

I see hundreds of examples of bad data graphics every month. TV stations track audiences with no points of reference. Lines in charts emerge from the left and flow to the right, leading nowhere in particular. Bar charts, like silhouettes of…

They that govern the most make the least noise….

Have you seen the most recent commercial for the VW Cabrio – the one that opens with an aerial shot of a convertible travelling a moonlit road? Riding in the car are two couples, sporting late ’60s Beatles haircuts, staring up…

Rob Young is a founding partner and senior vice-president, planning and research at Toronto-based Harrison, Young, Pesonen & Newell, one of Canada’s largest media management operations….

Rob Young is a founding partner and senior vice-president, planning and research at Toronto-based Harrison, Young, Pesonen & Newell, one of Canada’s largest media management operations….

Rob Young is a founding partner and senior vice-president, planning and research at Toronto-based Harrison, Young, Pesonen & Newell, one of Canada’s largest media management operations….

Rob Young is a founding partner and senior vice-president, planning and research at Toronto-based Harrison, Young, Pesonen & Newell, one of Canada’s largest media management operations….