What Would Dear Abby Say?

WHY DEAR ABBY EXISTED

The woman who wrote under the pen name of Abby, as in the famous Dear Abby column that is carried by newspapers with a combined readership of 110 million, has died. She was in her 90s. Her twin sister who wrote a similar column under the name of Ann Landers, died a few years ago. The Dear Abby column has continued with her daughter, now 70, taking the task over about a decade ago.  For over a half-century, advice has been doled out on parenting, relationships, money, careers, manners, ethics, values, and on all matters human and animal. She was a pioneer and in her hey day influenced our culture as much as she tried to reflect it.

INVESTING IN NEW MEDIA

Apple represents the best when it comes to developing the hardware tools for our mobile digital society. Just look at the iPad tablet and the iPhone. They lead the way with their inventive ways to make communicating easier and more interesting. The stock has shot way up over time. A year ago it was $411 after having gone up for many years. This past year it skyrocketed by 75% to over $700 a share and since has plunged 30%, to below $500. Most of the stock’s activity is based more on speculation, greed, fear, and rumor. But I suspect Apple will rebound and the stock price will climb back up.

81 BILLION MINUTES PRODUCED WHAT?

Americans spent 81 billion minutes on social networks and blogs in 2011 – and likely more in 2012 -- and more to come in 2013. But what did our country produce with all of that time spent online? Certainly some of it was spent to promote and market books. But for the nation to spend so much time with Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere is not a bad thing necessarily, but we know a lot of time is wasted in viewing silly You Tube videos, digitally gossiping about someone, or secretly monitoring people you’d never get to talk to. Like any medium, it can be used for good or for bad. How are you spending your time online?

Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This blog is copyrighted material by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2013 ©