December 15, 2013

Beyoncé Redefines the Word “Quiet”


From the Wall Street Journal:

Beyoncé Releases Latest Album—Quietly

Can we please stop this? This wasn’t some kind of stealth release. It was a brilliant use of viral marketing. Beyoncé and a few of her buddies “quietly” advertised the new album to about ten or twenty million of their closest friends, all of whom thought they were being let in on a secret and immediately went out and crashed the iTunes server farm. It was genius. Even if it only works once, it’s genius.

But quiet? Only if you have a five-year-old’s understanding of human nature. To misquote everyone’s favorite America-hating superhero, it was an awfully loud kind of quiet, man.

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DECEMBER IS MAKE OR BREAK

A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

With only days left until December 31, we've raised about half of our $400,000 goal—but we need a huge surge in reader support to close the remaining gap. Whether you've given before or this is your first time, your contribution right now matters.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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