Grounded In Reality

I think this is amazing.  The capabilities of Google Earth continue to stack up, creating what I believe will change the way that history is kept moving forward.  This is Part 1 of 6 videos of a speech given to introduce Google Earth’s work with the United States Holocaust Museum to do similar mash-ups of Germany and Dafur representing history and loss of life in each region (Germany- past, Darfur- current).  I can only assume that Iraq will be an in-depth project like these pretty soon.

Video series and more information available through the United States Holocaust Museum Web site  http://www.ushmm.org/

I want to give a big shout out to our favorite pint-sized wrecking crew – Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen – for creating a marketing executive’s dream demographic – the evolving female consumer TWEEN. The idea is to hook them when they’re young.

The recently coined “tween” demographic has been oft studied by many a guru, and now Bonne Bell cosmetics is featured in USA Today highlighting (or exploiting?) its marketing strategy – and then some. It isn’t stopping with the tweens – it’s going younger. Start ‘em off early with the flavored lip balm, ease ‘em into the fruity lip gloss, then throw in some sparkles, and next thing you know, they’re sportin’ full-on, cotton candy-colored pouts during recess. 

According to the article, the general strategy behind marketing to the tween set is simple, really:  

1. They’re spending power is phenomenal. (Thank you, parental units, for just giving away allowance. Now make ‘em earn it!)
2. They follow trends but need the ability to customize them. (i.e. they look for layers, different color ranges, etc.)
3. They revel in excess – as in 10 of everything.  According to the article, the average tween has 10 Bonne Bell Lip Smackers. (This doesn’t stop at 12 years-old or with Bonne Bell!  A lady’s lip potion (in any form) is a necessity – and one can NEVER have enough. Period.)
4. Apparently – the tween is environmentally aware. The point here is the new lot of tween consumers are socially conscious. (Nice green messaging!  I’ll fall for it, but I find it hard to believe that an average tween really cares if the products are tested on animals. But hey, if they do, that’s really cool, and I’m very supportive.)
5. Lastly, the tween is self-conscious, but likes attention. (Huh? I guess bright colors without the plumber’s butt is always a super solution.) 

There really isn’t anything new here – but the positioning of Bonne Bell is brilliant, and I applaud their PR team for orchestrating (or fielding) this opportunity and leveraging it the best way possible for the sake of a marketing trend.

However, it’s a bit scary to think about how far this strategy will evolve by the time I have a daughter. Is she going to come out of the womb clutching Bonne Bell’s Dr. Pepper Lip Smacker in her tiny hand, ready for her first tube of lipstick before solid foods?? Oh. Dear.

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4/12 UPDATE:

MSNBC pulls the Imus in the Morning show, and it replaces with news. Imus pushes forward with Radioathon; what happens with CBS to be determinedafter his 2-week suspension, which starts next week.

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For those of you who follow the news on a regular basis, the names of Don Imus and Katie Couric need not be explained. They are two of the biggest names in radio and television and this week they are linked together for things gone awry.

Imus got himself in trouble when the now-suspended radio show host called the Rutgers women’s basketball players “nappy-headed hos” on his April 4 show. He’s lost sponsors and has been on every news show from coast-to-coast and on the web. He’s number two (Imus) and number five (Don Imus) on Technorati top searches and there are 20,913 results on blogs with any authority.  April 8-10, his name was getting mentioned in 500+ blogs a day, and as of April 11, he’s over 4,000 mentions. Mind you some folks are mentioning that it’s all getting blown out of proportion, but most are calling for his head.  

While Imus is dealing with his fun, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric is putting out her own fire for a producer who plagiarised from a Wall Street Journal column on the fading allure of library books.

 Newsweek has a great piece on the story where they say:

The problems began when an April 4 installment of  “Katie Couric’s Notebook”—a daily essay by the anchor that appears in video and audio form on CBS News’ Web site, among other places—was uncomfortably close to musings by Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow on the fading allure of library books.

Newsweek’s story goes on to say that the story came to light “when a Wall Street Journal reader who’d read, heard or saw “Katie Couric’s Notebook” alerted the newspaper, according to an insider at the Wall Street Journal.  Zaslow, the author, said two CBS officials phoned him to express regrets.”

What’s incredible is how the web plays a role in both of these cases.

Imus has been spouting off about all kinds of issues for years. He’s crossed the line many a time, but the world we live in isn’t the same as when I was growing up outside of New York City and he was just on WNBC-AM (you younger folks, you know what AM radio is, right?). 

Couric’s issue is deeper in the sense that plagiarism is deemed “journalistic suicide” and the producer in charge of the ‘Notebook’ has been fired. But once again, it’s an issue that can explode because of the mob on the web. 

 The sad part about Couric’s problems are that, I think, CBS News and Couric have done a wonderful job embracing new media into their broadcast and into their site. If you haven’t checked out their site, I recommend you do at: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/eveningnews/main3420.shtml 

It will be interesting to see when Imus comes back in two weeks if he has any sponsors left and if he will still have a job. The Couric issue will be gone in two weeks. It will be talked about, but they have fired the producer and now onto bigger and better things. The one interesting factor in my mind about CBS News is that they brought in Rick Kaplan to be the Executive Producer.

From Wikipedia entry for Kaplan:

Kaplan was at the helm of ABC’s Prime Time Live in 1991, when they aired an expose against the Food Lion supermarket chain using undercover producers who falsified their resumes and staged events. Food Lion was awarded $5.5 million by a jury in 1997. The award was later reduced by a judge to $316,000. The verdict was then overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, VA. According to the court, even though ABC was wrong to do what they had done, they felt that Food Lion was unable to show that they had been directly injured by ABC’s actions.

Just something to keep in your mind as CBS News tries to move out of the number three spot. They wish people were watching their televisions instead of watching the people and things that they do wrong.

I naturally assumed (as did TechCrunch) that this would be a push by MySpace to target a new demographic…but in reality, it is a boost for one of their most popular advertising groups — films. 

SearchEngineJournal says:

A study was published yesterday by Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield estimating that MySpace is now generating over $30 million per month in advertising revenue.

Recently, MySpace has taken advantage of movie promotions to increase (from 10 to 300) the number of photos one can store to their personal page, based on sponorship from the film 300.  Following the increase of photos was the ability to create albums (and later removed) that was sponsored by a movie (maybe X-men).  At this very moment, the photos are being sposored by ‘The Transformers: Transform your photos’…which I assumed would be an editing feature, but its not.

I digress from photos, back to video.  

I think this is a wise move by MySpace (Fox) to take advantage of the large amount of interest they receive from the film business to show trailers on log-in pages and in the ‘Featured Movie’ columns at the ‘Home’ view.  MySpace TrailerPark feels like a mashup of YouTube and MySpace SecretShows page and a real trailer park.  I do think it is nice for MySpace to finally provide you with the coding to embed the video or image (rather than having to find one yourself).

However, I have yet to see a video on the page because every attempt shows a very sad, crying face, similar to this one.   Not to mention my personal problems with MySpace…(the accusation that my account has been phished, and the lack of ability to prove that I am me, in order to unlock it)

MySpace is also dabbling in politics…

“It’s always easy to comment from the cheap seats.”

Many people in professional and collegiate sports have said those words at least once or twice in their athletic lives. Many times it’s said in anger or frustration after a tough loss or game.

Well, we received this document from a former reporter, who sent it to someone we work with in the world of public relations. It is as honest a view into a reporter’s soul as you will ever get.

When I was working at USA Today and CNN, I would say that many of us shared this view of the world of public relations.

The one thing I would add is a comment that works in your everyday life - “It’s the relationship, period.”

I have many friends in newsrooms across the country, but I won’t call them just to call about a press release. You have to have respect for what they do and not just call them with a bad pitch for something that doesn’t fit their needs.

Now, what I will do, is call a friend and ask them their opinions and ask who they suggest I talk to in their newsrooms about a pitch. Yet, if it’s not a good pitch, I am not going to waste anyone’s time.  Do that a few times and see how quickly you get voicemail on a regular basis.

Common sense isn’t common, anymore. Use your common sense before picking up the phone to call your reporter friend. This way, you will still be friends for many, many years to come.

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Update: Michael Arrington reports that Technorati has launched a CEO search.  Dave Sifry notes that he will remain with the company in a product role.

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Though many of my clients are surprised to learn that blog search engines exist, they warm up quickly to the concept, particularly when I encourage them to think of it as Google for blogs instead of the Web in general.

My colleagues tend to cut to the chase and inquire about which one to use–the context being “just tell me which one is the best available.” My response: A combination of Technorati and Google Blog Search ought to suffice for most clients.

As a heavy user of both engines, I have qualitative experience to account for Google Blog Search’s increased accuracy and timeliness of results. Plus, the fact that most of my clients are more comfortable and familiar with the Google user interface means that I need to pre-empt and manage their expectations of results from a Google Blog Search.

However, Google’s advancements beg the question of why and how Technorati, the ‘granddaddy of blog search,’ would give up its mantle to Google. Because corporations are hungry for data about the online chatter pertinent to their brands, one would think that it is in Technorati’s advantage to monetize their data. Two speculations for Technorati taking their eyes off the ball:

1. Online ad sales, Google’s forte, is a natural extension to monetizing this live data stream but it is not in Technorati’s DNA to execute.
2. Though still championing cool new technologies such as microformats, the reality of running a sustainable business is hitting home, thus inevitably causing a pause in the business and a slow down in commitment and dedication to improving the tool.

David Sifry’s State of the Live Web, April 2007, report was well received but came with speculations about a pending sale, fueled by this statement:

“Sifry says Technorati is now very much a media company, and that the growth in social media and use of the blog search engine’s tagged media pages has contributed to this growth.”

That said, I have nothing but respect and admiration for Tantek, CTO, Technorati, and his team for the free tool and for the good work of enabling my clients to search and make sense of the “live web.” 

Google Earth is great for its push-pins and multimedia geo-tagging but not the most accessible application, as it is still a necessary download and install.

Now, Google Maps’ new “MyMaps” feature is going to help storytelling get more visual and interactive. Check out this customized map chronicling and pinpointing my journey from Singapore to Austin.

Feeling inspired? Add a YouTube video, an image or other Web content with the help of an HTML editor. If you can operate a MySpace profile, you can customize MyMaps.

From the Reuters coverage:

MyMaps is initially available in the United States and the national versions of Google in nine other countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and Spain.

The interface is intuitive and maps can be set to Public or Private. However, because I couldn’t figure out how to reorder the push-pins and lines, the flight lines in my journey map is non-sequential.

The possibilities are exciting: Students and teachers can use it to present a class project, field trip or teach a class; Dell (a GCI client) can map the making of a laptop; a fair trade store can trace the origins of organic coffee; civil rights leaders can map the journey of MLK; memories of vacations or road trips can be uploaded; parents can narrate their life stories to children, etc.

Hello and welcome to the digital world of the voice of the web.

Back when I was just a young lad in school, I always carried around two books with me. One was (and still is) the AP Stylebook. It is the Bible of any writer. My old boss and dear friend, Steve Klein, used to make me keep one in every room in my house, including the bathroom.

The other book is William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. It was given to me by another old boss, Tom Eherenfeld. The subtitle is “An informal guide to writing nonfiction.” This book is important because he brings a very simple mantra of keeping it simple.

And there’s the rub about writing for the web – it’s the KISS method – keep it simple, stupid.

No one is going on-line to read War and Peace. If you have something to say, say it. Don’t clutter up your site or blog with a lot of words that you don’t need to tell your story. Say what you have to say and get out of it. Just like I am doing here…

Another thing to keep in mind is that writers in the digital world have two paragraphs to capture your reader. If you don’t give the reader what they are looking for in a short amount of time, you will lose them. People don’t have all day to read – so get them in, give them what they want and get them out of it as quickly as you can.

That’s not to say if you have a book or a white paper that people want to read, they won’t take the time to read it. Most of the time, they would print it out to take with them, or they will bookmark it and read it when they do have the time.

Mary Madden published a fascinating report for Pew Internet & American Life Project on “Social Media and Libraries.” What struck me the most is the portrait of today’s “wired” teen.

Consider the life of the teenager born in 1990 - the year that Tim Berners-Lee wrote the World Wide Web program and the PC was 15 years old:

- First Grade - Palm Pilot hit the market
- Fourth Grade - Sean Fanning created Napster
- Middle School - Wikipedia, iPods and Skype are introduced (can you imagine having Wikipedia in middle school?)
- High School - Podcasts, YouTube and MySpace arrive on the scene

Today’s teen grew up in a truly wired world, and they don’t know anything different. They get their information from many different non-traditional sources, and marketers must be comfortable with these channels to engage them in a relevant way. For example, the same report finds that more than half (55%) of online American youth ages 12-17 use online social networking sites. We’re talking to several clients right now about the right way to have a presence there.

We’re posting because we have editor rights and you don’t! Very soon a whole team of talented digital media professionals will flood this blog with posts that are grounded in reality. Until then, stay tuned.