Category Archives: Social Media

Diggnation in St. Louis

Posted on by

Me and a couple of pals drove over to St. Louis this week and stood in line in the bitter cold for most of an hour to watch a taping of Diggnation. If you’re not familiar with Diggnation, think Wayne’s World for the Internet with lots of beer. And in this case, a live audience of 300+ screaming, twenty-something fans. Almost all male. I’ve seen less rowdy hockey crowds.

I found this video of the pre-show (we had much better seats) on Digg (appropriately enough). As I watched the taping, I had the sense we were seeing a new kind of entertainment for a new audience. This is not your father’s TV. Freed from the constraints of networks and the FCC, the hosts can guzzle beer and say whatever comes to mind. And the crowd was very much part of the show.

90 Day Jane (The Movie?)

Posted on by
2

I really hope this is a promotional gimmick for a movie (I think of life in terms of good movies and bad movies). Here’s how I see this one unfolding.

“I am going to kill myself in 90 days. What else should i say? This blog is not a cry for help or even to get attention. It’s simply a public record of my last 90 days in existence. I’m not depressed and nothing extremely horrible has lead me to this decision. But, does it really have to? I mean, as an atheist I feel life has no greater purpose. My generation has had no great depression, no great war and our biggest obstacle is beating Halo 3. So, if I feel like saying “game over”, why can’t I?”

Jane starts a blog to chronicle her final 90 days. Along the way she meets someone (or something happens) to change her mind. At least that’s how my “Old Yeller can’t die!” movie ends. I sort of hear a voice-over reading her blog posts, a la You’ve Got Mail.

The thing that makes me suspicious is the video of Jane shopping for her “suicide dress.” We get a good look at Jane in her undies and she just looks too fine to kill herself. (Yes, I am naive and sexist)

Moral dilemma: Do I follow Jane’s blog? Will I feel like a chump if/when this is revealed as a marketing scam? Will I be depressed if she does “it?”

PS: One last thought on this. Jane says she is an atheist. In the unlikely event this is legit… is it ironic that religious nuts kill half a dozen strangers before killing themselves…while an atheist goes alone?

UPDATE: Not a movie tease. An art project. The site has been taken down. [Thanks to John for letting us know]

Podcast Audience Continues To Grow

Posted on by

The Diffusion Group reports that, based on their latest research, 11% of adult broadband users (some 12 million US consumers) listen to podcasts at least once per month. They also predict that the podcast audience will more than double in the next five years, to 24% of broadband users (38.5 million Americans) by 2012. [Podcasting News]

Clear Channel launches social networking sites

Posted on by

“Radio giant Clear Channel is getting into the social networking business. The company’s online music and radio division is introducing a dozen station-branded social networks in the coming months. Each social network will function essentially as mini-MySpace, but will be focused on the local community served by the station running it.

Not only can Clear Channel monetize the sites with targeted online spots from local advertisers, he says but also people using the networks have a better chance of making lasting connections with other users because they will share more regional affiliations. By contrast other social networks are focused on national and even international audiences.

Each social network will have a user experience similar to MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and others offer. Users can create profiles, customize them with HTML codes and widgets, upload photos, music and video, blog, and add friends. Users will also be able to customize their profile pages with videos from Clear Channel’s catalog of over 6,000 music videos licensed from major and independent labels.”

— Billboard

Why social media is important to marketers

Posted on by

I don’t know how old this info is (or how accurate) because I can’t find the original post, which is somewhere on the Church of the Customer Blog. Bart Cleveland includes these factoids in a recent post at Small Agency Diary (AdAge.com) to underscore why social media is important to marketers:

  • By March 2006, 84 million Americans had broadband at home, a 40% jump from 2005 figures
  • By March 2006, Pew estimated 48 million Americans were regular online content creators
  • By the end of 2005, 139 million people in the world had a DSL (broadband) connection
  • In 2005, $6.7 billion worth of digital cameras were sold in the U.S.
  • About 41% of all cell phone owners use them as content tools
  • By the end of 2005, just over 1 billion people were online — that’s 1/6th of the world
  • Asia represents the world’s most populous online segment
  • By July 2006, 50 million blogs had been created and their number was doubling every 6 months
  • About 7,200 new blogs are created every hour
  • By 2006, 10 million people were listening to podcasts in 2006; by 2010, it’s expected to be 50 million people
  • About 100 million videos are viewed every day on YouTube; about 65,000 videos uploaded every day
  • In 2006, MySpace had over 100 million registered members, most of them from the U.S.

Podcasting candidate endorsements

Posted on by
Reply

Just listened to the latest podcast from the Missouri State Teachers Association. They call it The Pulse. Co-hosts Todd Fuller Gail McCray broke a little digital ground (I’m guessing) by using the podcast to announce the canidates the MSTA is endorsing in the November election. They spent the first part of the podcast explaining how their endorsement process works. Then they mentioned a few specific endorsements and pointed the listener back to their website for the full list of candidates.

Why do I think this is worth a post? As I listened to Todd and Gail explain this process, I kept thinking they would NEVER get airtime (radio or TV) for that kind of “deep dive.” But it’s important to their audience (teachers, candidates). And by using their podcast to make the announcement, it raises awareness of their podcast. (You now know about it because you read this blog which has nothing to do with education or politics.)

If you want to see/hear how to do an “association podcast,” check out MSTA’s The Pulse.

9/11 and the Dawn of Video Citizen Journalism

Posted on by

I made a conscious –or unconscious– effort to not think about the attack on the World Trade Center Towers. I didn’t think I could stand to watch the video again. This evening I stumbled across never-before-seen video shot from 500 yards away and 36 floors up. I can’t think of any words to describe this video. I could not look away. It was somehow more horrible and more compelling without the mindless chatter of news goofs telling us what we are seeing.

Steve Rubel (I found this on his blog) says we should watch this that we never forget. There will be no forgetting the anguish in the voice of the woman shooting the video when the first building collapsed. I can understand why the couple never released the video. And why they finally did.

Forget all the news specials, docu-dramas and made-for-TV movies. This amazing account will sear your brain and break your heart. It’s a long download but, as Steve says, something you should see.

Seth Godin on comments

Posted on by

“I think comments are terrific, and they are the key attraction for some blogs and some bloggers. Not for me, though. First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them. And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way I write. Instead of writing for everyone, I find myself writing in anticipation of the commenters.”

—  Seth Godin blog post

 

Robert Scoble: The value of “influencers”

Posted on by

“I’ll tell you what executives from big companies (like Kraft, Procter and Gamble, GM, and others) who were at MSN’s OWN ADVERTISING CONFERENCE told me. An influencer is worth THOUSANDS of times more than a non-influencer (influencer is someone who tells other people stuff, which is why blogging is getting so much advertising attention lately). That’s why Google is charging more per click than MSN is (Google has more influential users).”

— Robert Scoble via Gaping Void