Carl Natale

Why Al Diamon is wrong about news aggregators

by Carl Natale on May 18, 2010

I’m working for the site MaineNewsSimply.com as a content consultant. It’s a fun gig. Creating strategies and working with news. So it’s no surprise that I disagree with Al Diamon’s analysis in his Media Mutt blog. I know this is a bit late to be a response but I’m going to point out a few […]

The right kayak can save your life

by Carl Natale on May 17, 2010

I hate to talk about the for two the kayakers missing in Casco Bay without all the details. But my column on buying a kayak was published in the Maine Sunday Telegram. Before I go further, the Coast Guard reports that they have been found. UPDATE: They were found alive floating in Casco Bay – […]

Anyone know where all the MySpace users went?

by Carl Natale on May 6, 2010

The Nielsen Company has some interesting stats on social network growth. Facebook and Twitter Post Large Year over Year Gains in Unique Users . Facebook dominates Twitter and LinkedIn in users and growth. It’s hard to feel sorry for MySpace – never liked it. I have to wonder where all those users are going. I […]

Twitter has been around long enough that I forget that there are people who don’t much about it. They may know enough to be interested in its potential though. If you’re new to Twitter or trying to explain it to a client, start with Tweeting 101: A Twitter Cheat Sheet from Web Worker Daily. It’s […]

And the kayaks are wet

by Carl Natale on May 2, 2010

Elaine and I got the kayaks out Saturday for the first time this season and paddled a bit up the Nezinscot River. It was a wonderful way to celebrate May Day. We spotted a beaver, a turtle basking in the sun and several water fowl. The muscles didn’t complain. My strokes felt natural. My legs […]

What do you need to ride the Trek Across Maine?

by Carl Natale on May 2, 2010

Well you need to register and get the handbook. Yeah, there’s a handbook for all participants. Apparently it’s pretty comprehensive. So comprehensive that almost every question that I asked of Kathryn Libby, director of development for the Lung Association of Maine, she responded with, “That’s all in the handbook.” I was talking to her for  […]

Grannie’s got a gun

by Carl Natale on May 1, 2010

Police always can use help fighting crime. They may need new weapons or assistance from the citizenry. So when I saw this tweet from the @PressHerald, I wondered if they got both: @PressHerald: Maine State Police say they need more firepower; all troopers are getting AR-15s. http://bit.ly/dqGxWD Which leads to the story New AR-15s give […]

Are writers about to become obsolete?

by Carl Natale on April 30, 2010

There is a kind of scary story in BusinessWeek about a computer program that writes sports stories. Feed the scores and stats into it and it will spit out a story. Not a great story but a story nonetheless. Does this mean I’m in danger of becoming extinct? I don’t think so. It’s all pretty […]

Here’s a creative definition

by Carl Natale on April 25, 2010

I must thank Arthur Fink for answering a lingering question: What is a creative worker? I don’t mean creative as in “That’s such a creative display you made.” I mean a person who is part of the creative economy. In short, a creative. Arthur defined the creative as anyone who creates intellectual property. And that […]

Good lessons to learn about managing communities

by Carl Natale on April 22, 2010

I was a community organizer before President Obama made it cool. While he did it to make poor people’s lives better, I was doing it to build page views for online newspapers. Now we know why I never will be president. I must admit that I made a lot of mistakes and had some successes. […]