John Carroll's Take

Ugly is the new beautiful when it comes to marketing real estate.

Media makers listen up: John Carroll has few resolutions he'd like you to attend to this year.

Sure you can sing out all of Rudolph's fellow reindeer, but can you get beyond the opening words to "Frosty the Snowman"?

Pharmaceutical makers spend roughly $4 billion a year advertising directly to consumers. But there are some parts of their messaging that they don't want you to notice.

Steinway pianos rank alongside Stradivarius violins and Les Paul guitars as the most celebrated of musical instruments. And recent media attention has made the Steinway ever more popular.

In the case of gawker.com, the Web has become a place for all the news that's not fit to print.

During an average week, roughly one-half of the top 10 Nielsen-rated television dramas are about forensic crime solving. But that's nothing new in American popular culture.

Media makers often find it difficult to simply call a spade a spade.

The State University of New York at Brockport's collection of paintings by 20th-century American poet e.e. cummings would be an amazing resource, if only it hadn't fallen into disrepair.

John Carroll visits the Paleo-Future blog.