Tension: Platforms profit from infrastructure while attempting to externalize operational costs onto the legitimate users who ...

Tension: Many everyday habits meant to signal politeness now land as pressure, obligation, or emotional labor. What ...

Tension: Toxic behavior rarely looks toxic at first. It often hides inside everyday language—phrases that sound harmless ...

In December 2010, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a Do-Not-Track mechanism that would let consumers opt out of ...

Tension: User-generated content campaigns succeed when customers feel like partners, yet brands often position themselves as ...

Consider how brand extensions typically get researched today. Companies identify an audience segment that engages with their ...

Napster’s partnership with Edel Music represented a desperate attempt to retrofit negotiation capability onto a platform ...

The strategy seemed comprehensive: partner with 13 different websites, from Facebook and MySpace to Zwinky and NeoPets, ...

Direct mail achieved a 4.4% response rate, compared to email’s 0.12%. Digital display advertising performed even worse. The ...

Tension: Hotel loyalty programs have achieved record membership growth while simultaneously eroding the very loyalty they ...

Tension: We pride ourselves on rational consumer choices while loyalty programs exploit our psychological aversion to waste.

Tension: Companies rebrand to signal transformation, but surface changes often conceal unchanged systemic practices beneath ...