Wade Rockett : Media

Amazon responds to BoingBoing post on "crazy-ass" MP3 problem

Wade Rockett — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:36:00 GMT

This is how it's done.

At 7:30 AM Cory Doctorow writes a post on BoingBoing about a reader's difficulty with Amazon's MP3 downloads, and the bewildering response from customer service.

At 3:17 PM, an Amazon employee on the MP3 development team leaves a comment apologizing for the poor service, explaining a bit about the technology, and offering to help with the issue.

Did an Amazon marketing or PR person spot the entry and ring up the dev team? Or did the developer hear about it and take the initiative? Any bets?

Paid for by the Committee To Elect This Campaign Poster President

Wade Rockett — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:37:00 GMT

Now will you just look at this campaign poster? It's a thing of beauty.

The candidate is turning away from the shadows and looking directly toward the light and warmth of the sun. He's dressed all in white, but not in a way that makes it look like a costume. He looks as if he's about to say something - maybe he's going to call the people who are still in the shadows to look toward the light as well.

But it's not really about him, the poster tells us. It's about us. "Our" moment is NOW, the phrase, typeface, and size making it an encouraging pep talk and an urgent call to action. The "O" in "Now" draws the eye down to the O-shaped Obama logo containing that bright sun that the candidate is looking toward. The logo separates "Vote" and "Obama '08", giving each more weight than they'd have if they were next to one another.

Well done, anonymous designer, well done.

A Fine Frenzy...of social media!

Wade Rockett — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:35:00 GMT

Okay, that was dorky.

But I was just looking at the Web site for a musician who performs under the name A Fine Frenzy and was intrigued by how it ties together various types of social media. A lot of the site's content consists of feeds from various external services - her Web site is largely an aggregator.

Home page: Features an embedded YouTube video.

News: Fans can subscribe to the News section's RSS feed and share items on Facebook.

Photos: Piped in from the artist's Flickr stream.

Journal: Piped in from the artist's blog on MySpace.

Twitter: Check it out, her Twitter feed gets its own page.

Wiki: Yep, she has her own fan-created wiki built with Wetpaint.

Nice work.

Facebook users surprised to find themselves in ads

Wade Rockett — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:10:00 GMT

Marketer David Berkowitz was surprised (and none too pleased) to discover that Blockbuster was using his name and likeness in advertisements that appeared on his friends' Facebook profiles. Berkowitz later found himself unintentionally endorsing an application he feels only so-so about; and another friend of his appeared in a Blockbuster ad for the movie Jackass 2.5.

True, Berkowitz had registered as a "fan" of Blockbuster's Facebook page, but he didn't know that this constituted an agreement to appear in the company's ads. Who would? If I say that I like a particular product on my blog, why would I think that gives the manufacturer a license to turn me into a company mascot?

Muddying the waters a bit is the nature of Facebook's News Feed. When I declare myself a Fan of a company's Page, that event is displayed in all of my friends' feeds. As the description of Pages says:

When your fans interact with your Facebook Page, the actions they take are automatically generated into social stories. These stories are published to News Feed, which friends may see the next time they log into Facebook. The stories link back to your Facebook Page, inviting more people to interact with it, which generates more social stories and drives even more traffic to your Page. Think of it as word-of-mouth marketing, only completely free and happening online.

Much like Jim Carrey's life in The Truman Show, my interactions with brands on Facebook are broadcast to others as part of a marketing campaign. However, those "social stories" are told through actions taken on my initiative: "Wade just did X on Page Y. If you love Y too, get on board!" Furthermore, I can hide those interactions from the News Feed using Facebook's privacy settings. I do not have any control over social ads: no way to prevent companies from putting my name and face in ads, and no way of preventing them from showing those ads to my friends. When I lose control this way, it doesn't make me feel like a valued customer. It makes me feel like a serf.

It also potentially wreaks havoc with our reputations online. It's not as if I present myself as some sort of John Houseman figure here, but I most definitely don't want my personal brand associated with Jackass 2.5.

Looking at this from a user perspective, the solution to protect myself is simple: don't join groups, add applications, make myself a fan of anything, or interact with anyone but actual people. (Or quit Facebook altogether.)

But from a marketer's perspective, I'd like to see Facebook users continue to do those things, and I'd like to see companies engage those users in fun, creative, and empowering ways. So how about Facebook requiring companies to get people's explicit approval before using their names and faces in ads? It seems like a fairly reasonable thing to ask.

Instant community

Wade Rockett — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:27:00 GMT

One Twitter, one blog post, and one good idea equals instant community.

Jeremiah Owyang (there ought to be a limit on how many times I can refer to him on one day) urged social media/marketing enthusiasts with Twitter accounts to leave a comment on this post if they wanted to connect with others.

This morning I got an e-mail from Geoff in London. Yesterday he added comment #230, and he woke up this morning with 12 new followers on his Twitter feed.

There are now 363 comments!

Well, we all shine on...

Jeremiah does your Open Social homework, Cisco goes Facebook

Wade Rockett — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:19:00 GMT

Um, hi guys. I'm on deadline, and I probably shouldn't even be blogging right now; but I wanted to tell you about a couple of things.

First, you might be wondering how you're going to talk about Open Social to your agency's execs without sounding like Professor Frink. Jeremiah Owyang has wrapped it up for you with a nice bow on top in "Explaining OpenSocial to your Executives". Someone send that man a nice basket of fruit.

Also, Garrett Smith talks about how Cisco Systems is using Facebook in a post titled "How a Fortune 500 Should Use Facebook" (via Teresa Valdez Klein).

Given the title, it's not much of a case study on the surface: on a contest Web page, Cisco posted a link that says "Meet Guido on Facebook". The link takes you to the Facebook search results for Guido Jouret, Cisco's CTO for Emerging Technologies. Thanks to Facebook's privacy settings, you have to create a Facebook account and invite Guido to be your friend before you can actually see his profile. (I'm assuming that he will accept any and all friend requests.)

That's it. Just a link.

But remember that the normal course of action would have been for Cisco to create a profile for Guido on its own site, and perhaps a Web form that you could use to send him a question. A Fortune 500 company has abandoned a major function of its Web site to an external social network. That's huge.

I wonder if Guido has a Zombie that I can attack with my Undead Slayer?

Anyway, if my account managers ask, you haven't seen me today. Cool? Thanks.

Virgin America ads feature well-known bloggers

Wade Rockett — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:21:00 GMT

From the Life of Leo (Laporte) blog, a link to Virgin America's new online ads featuring cartoon versions of well-known bloggers.

Pictured: Xeni Jardin, Cory Doctorow, David Pescovitz, Mark Frauenfelder, Pete Rojas, Alex Albrecht, and Kevin Rose.

I like that Kevin and Alex look sort of shifty.

The Friendly Ghost's online tool tracks PR social media knowledge

Wade Rockett — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:45:00 GMT

Tech PR copywriter The Friendly Ghost has created a "relentlessly functional" tool using free Zoho Creator online database software. The Friendly Ghost Social Media Resource tracks PR social media knowledge, both theory and proof, and the Friendly Ghost encourages you to contribute.

Some cool features: You can subscribe to an RSS notifications feed for updates (using the Export Data button) and, if your blogging/website software supports it, display the tool's data view and entry form on your site.

In its post about the first version of the tool, FG writes,

I realise some people might think this is the kind of thing most companies would jealously guard. I’m sure a lot of you already have your own little secrets, won through hard work, trial and error and clever lateral thinking. That’s fine: you don’t have to contribute them. Or, contribute them anonymously. Or, if you would like to contribute but don’t want people to borrow the ideas wholesale, then simply add them as theoretical, unproven cases.

The point is that, in the best traditions of new media, everyone can refer to it. It levels the playing field. It ups the ante for everyone who wants to make the most of PR with social media. In other words, everyone wins.

This is a great idea and a pretty nifty piece of software. Well done, FG!

500 extra points for the phrase "relentlessly functional".

Something's happening! Summon the New Media Squad!

Wade Rockett — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 22:36:00 GMT

In his post Covering an Apple press event, Robert Scoble offers sage advice on how to get your coverage noticed. The bad news is that it requires a team of four to five people:

"TechMeme will never link to video, streamed or otherwise, so if you’re hoping to get on TechMeme and you’re at a hot news event you better have at least one person live blogging it. To get noticed, though, you’re going to have to do something better than Engadget does. For me that means you’ll need to have a team covering events like this. One person blogging. One person taking pictures and pushing them up to Flickr. One person videoing and pushing those up. And one person chatting with all the peeps. Oh, and doing marketing during the event. Twitter, Pownce, Facebook, etc.

"In other words the single blogger or journalist doesn’t have a chance. If you can get a team to photo/video/chat/market/and blog all at the same time then you’ll be able to attract an audience and stay relevant to the conversation."

Note that as of this writing Pownce is still in private beta, yet Scoble includes it in this list of essential media. Why? Because Pownce is the current playground of the people that Jeremiah Owyang dubs the Pebbles and the Swimmers.

Does Coca-Cola have a "look, don't touch" blog policy?

Wade Rockett — Wed, 02 May 2007 20:18:00 GMT

I hate to interrupt the grownups when they're talking about implementing customer reference programs, but I need to take a moment here to discuss soda pop.

I recently wrote that a throwaway post about My Coke Rewards on my personal blog had gotten a surprising amount of attention. The post was getting as many as 20 hits a day, many of them from a message forum devoted to discussing the rewards program. Wow! Twenty whole hits per day!

That post is now getting nearly 150 hits per day. Why don't I link to the post, you ask? Why bother? If you search Google for "my coke rewards", my post is now the fifth result. The message forum closed up shop in response to a cease and desist order from the company, so many of its participants took the conversation to my blog (also Matt Volk's.) As of this writing, that post has 64 comments.

What are they saying about the program? (Here's a fun game: try and figure out how many of these are real customers, and how many are undercover marketing agents!)

A couple of people are pretty happy:

"I have recieved several free magazine subscriptions, movie rentals and an entire month of Blockbuster Online! All without any problems! It’s been easy and free."

"The new site is fantastic! I really love the “Grab your drink” section including a kick-ass Pibb Xtra bull-riding game. The guy who came up with this is a pure genius."

But then people started to report problems:

"YeA well I havent been able to get on in over an hour. Sux 4 me, probly sellin out of everything I want..."

"Taking part in this contest has been the most frustrating experience! I think I’ll just switch to Pepsi or maybe even water, it’s a lot healthier."

"I received a text message telling me to enter the code they just sent me to earn 10 points. When I tried entering the code, the site said it was invalid. Got another text saying they updated thier system and to try re-entering my code. Now I can’t even get on to their site. What will they think of next?"

"You all should just drink PEPSI, it’s a million times better than Coke anyway. I only looked here after buying a sprite at some dumb store that didn’t sell Pepsi. I was just curious what the code thing was about. PEPSI would never, ever do something so totally & completely retarded."

Rage begat rage. People lashed out in all directions, complaining about the 1985 switch to New Coke, ranting about the RIAA (??), and for some reason reposting a June 2006 Motley Fool article about the Diet Coke/Mentos video.

Who's voice is missing amid the clamor? The Coca-Cola company of America's.

Come on, Coke--this bitchfest is the number five Google result for your promotion. Matt's blog entry is number four. Would it kill you to have an intern pop in just once to tell these unhappy people that you hear them? Or better yet take a page from Dell, who abandoned its "look, don't touch" policy toward blogs and set up one of its own.

Because all of these negative comments on my blog are bumming me out, man. And if there's one thing I learned from my childhood in the early 70s, it's that Coke is not a bummer.

Tags: My Coke Rewards, Coca-Cola, Coke, customer relations, Google, Dell, comments

Monday 23rd April is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

Wade Rockett — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:05:00 GMT

SF author Will Shetterly sparked a passionate discussion about how Web technology is changing the business of writing when he posted a rant by Dr. Howard V. Hendrix on a LiveJournal discussion board.

Dr. Hendrix, the vice president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), referred to writers who give their work away for free online as "Webscabs". He blasted what he called "the downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch." The resulting comment thread is good reading.

(Examples of writers who give at least some their work away online in order to drive print sales include John Scalzi and Eric Flint. There are many others, lot of them baffled, angry, dues-paying SFWA members.)

I agree with Dr. Hendrix when he says, "...I persist in insisting that people have a right to push back against technology they perceive to be destructive to their ways of life and their beliefs." But are specific marketing strategies and business models really "ways of life" to a writer? To a publisher, sure. But a writer's way of life consists of writing and being read. The Internet doesn't stop anyone from writing, and dramatically increases the likelihood that your words will be read.

It does change the business around writing, though. It changes customer behavior and expectations. These customers increasingly do their reading, sharing, and talking online; but so far, they've shown little interest in paying to read something online.

Dr. Hendrix isn't interested in reaching that audience. "...I won't blog, wiki, chat, post, LiveJournal, lounge or lurk -- and I'll be the happier for it," he writes. "I'd rather be chopping wood for my woodstove, maintaining my own well, and working endlessly on our twelve acres of pines, oaks, and cedars than futzing with these electrons."

I wonder how many other people are thinking the same thing, who've spent the last several decades making, say, toasters and are now being told that they have to talk to their customers on computers if they want to remain successful?

Meanwhile, author Jo Walton has declared a holiday:

In honour of Dr Hendrix, I am declaring Monday 23rd April International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day. On this day, everyone who wants to should give away professional quality work online. It doesn't matter if it's a novel, a story or a poem, it doesn't matter if it's already been published or if it hasn't, the point is it should be disseminated online to celebrate our technopeasanthood.

Whatever you're posting should go on your own site. I'll make a post here on the day and people can post links in comments to whatever they're putting up on. If you are a member of SFWA, or SFWA qualified but not a member (like me) you get extra pixel-spattered points for doing this.

John Scalzi adds:

If you're not a pro-level writer, April 23rd might be the right day to submit work to pro venues, because, after all, the pros are going to busy elsewhere. And if you're a reader, well. International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day should be a lot of fun for you, now, shouldn't it?

Tags: Howard Hendrix, SFWA, writing, writers, publishing, marketing, pixel-stained technopeasant

Back from SXSWi 2007 - mad scientists, venture capitalists, and of course barbecue

Wade Rockett — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:10:00 GMT

Sadly, I wasn't able to post to this blog from South by Southwest Interactive 2007. However, I did update Twitter frequently using my mobile phone. So if you were watching Twitter you knew, for example, that I was at one point tossed into the back of a battered red pickup truck and driven across Austin to an unknown destination. Fortunately, delicious tacos awaited me at the end of the ride and not a horrible death at the hands of a drug cartel. (Always a possibility at these tech conferences.)

Here are a few scattered observations:

There's more to the Metaverse than Second Life
SXSWi opened my eyes to a variety of online virtual realms, such as the delightful game-powered world of Puzzle Pirates, Three Rings' Whirled project, and MTV's virtual space that lets fans of the shows Laguna Beach and The Hills interact with their world (and smooch their stars.) Hot topic for discussion: should companies market to users, or to their avatars--the online representations of who the users would like to be?

There are good notes on the panel "Avatar-Based Marketing in Synthetic Worlds" available at Blast First (summary) and 3pointD (full).

Alternate Reality Gaming is on the rise
How would you like to take thousands of smart, talkative, excitable people and immerse them completely, obsessively, and joyfully, in your brand? Alternate Reality Games, or ARGs, have been doing this since 2001 when subtle clues in promotional materials for the movie A.I. led audiences down the rabbit hole where they collaboratively solved a genre-crossing interactive murder mystery. Since then ARGs have been employed by sponsors such as Microsoft, Audi, and ABC to promote their products. Panelists at "ARG! Attack of the Alternate Reality Games" reported that the flexible costs and measurably positive results of ARGs are causing companies to beat a path to their doors.

Notes on the ARG panel at Licence to Roam.

Check out this presentation on the Audi ARG "Art of the Heist".

SXSWi is a fantastic place to meet people
After the aforementioned pickup ride, I got a lift back to the conference from Tom Merritt of CNET. While I was waiting to get into the awards show, Patrick Norton of DL.TV gave me advice on editing podcasts. A trip up to the roof at the Yahoo! party put me next to Ze Frank, days before he was due to post the final episode of his yearlong project The Show With Ze Frank. Lunch at Stubb's resulted in a chance meeting and great conversation with folks from Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Wieden + Kennedy. And I spent most of the conference in the company of an interactive strategist and the senior manager for information architecture at The Designory. And that's the short version of the list.

Many business cards were exchanged and LinkedIn connections made.

The Discovery Channel wants you
Representatives from the Discovery Channel were at almost every panel I attended, and they were HUNGRY. They really, really want to get into the interactive space, particularly interactive video, ARGs, and virtual worlds.

Mad scientists and venture capitalists make good co-panelists
After the first panel I saw with pioneering blogger and PMOG visionary Justin Hall on it, I decided that whither Justin Hall goest, I will go. Especially rewarding was "Online Games: Beyond Play and Fantasy" (notes at 21apples) where he and venture capitalist Joi Ito dropped science on the convergence of games, life, work, and education.

Stubb's does barbecue right
Ben, one of our global writers, told me that I had to eat at Stubb's when I was in Austin. Now, I'm of Southern descent and I have very particular ideas of what constitutes proper barbecue. I am pleased to report that Stubb's serves its barbecue with slices of white bread on the side (as God intended), and--shockingly alone of all the restaurants that I visited--has sweet tea.

See y'all next year?

Tags: SXSWi, alternate reality games, Justin Hall, Joi Ito, Twitter, Patrick Norton, Tom Merritt, avatars, Ze Frank, Whirled, Puzzle Pirates, Virtual Laguna Beach, Stubb's, Austin, sweet tea

Search the Web and win with Kevin Federline!

Wade Rockett — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:46:00 GMT

Branded search gets seriously weird. Dancer/singer/model/wrestler and, as Britney Spears' husband, tabloid fodder Kevin Federline has his own search engine. The hook: users win prizes.

Figure 1. K-Fed dares you to search for Popozao

Says the site, "Every day we pick random winning times. If you are the first person to search after the selected time, you win a prize - instantly!"

Prizes include Kevin Federline t-shirts, autographed photos, and copies of his CD.

Interestingly, this concept sounds similar to some of Justin Hall's ideas about what he calls "Passively Multiplayer Online Gaming". Sure, some people spend eight hours a day playing World of Warcraft and are rewarded with experience points, levels, and magic swords. But what about those of us who spend eight hours a day on the computer performing searches, writing e-mail messages, browsing to new and interesting sites, and so on? Who's to say that we shouldn't get rewards, too? Why can't online life and work be more like a game and less like...life and work?

I suspect that Justin Hall is not considering Kevin Federline swag as potential PMOG rewards.

Tags: Kevin Federline, search, Justin Hall, PMOG

Guerrilla marketing in a national security state

Wade Rockett — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:22:00 GMT

In my last post about the Aqua Teen Hunger Force/Boston bomb scare, I declared the campaign a "win for the client". That, of course, was before the client's parent company paid $2 million in restitution and compensation to the affected cities and various agencies. Today CNNMoney.com reports that the head of Cartoon Network has resigned over the incident. So, uh, not so much of a win after all.

In Slate's Political Gabfest podcast for today ("The Nonbinding Gabfest"), David Plotz and Emily Bazelon explain why they thought the campaign was a terrible idea. Plotz says something that I found really striking:

"You don't have to like living in a national security state. I don't like living in a national security state. But the fact is that we live in this state of heightened alert and when you do things like what the Cartoon Network does, you disrupt people's lives. You know, you can't just sit around talking about, 'Well, it was all in fun' or 'There were levels of irony in it'--well, irony still makes people mess up their commutes and causes panic."

This follows a suggestion by Bazelon that from an official perspective it didn't matter whether the devices looked like bombs or toys, because terrorist weapons could take any guise, even weird light displays.

I heard this after reading Dion Dennis' essay "Fear and Loathing in the Bay State" (via Boing Boing), in which he analyzes the reactions of Boston officials, media, and citizens to the incident. Dennis believes that we're seeing a mix of the city's Puritan heritage, neo-liberal obsession with uncertainty, and the generational warfare startegies of a graying populace.

This may be the most sobering lesson that we take away from this event: In America today, artists can be terrorists simply by creating and displaying certain types of art. By virtue of being married to an artist, I've heard a lot of different views on what art is all about and what (if anything) it's for. Often I hear that the purpose of art is to unsettle people, to challenge them, to jar them from their everyday assumptions and put them into a place of uncertainty. I've also heard some agency creatives says the same thing about guerrilla marketing: Grab people's attention by introducing something surprising into their environment.

Interference Inc. introduced something surprising into the environments of 10 American cities. In 1 of those 10 cities, the resulting uncertainty led to panic and chaos--in other words, terror. If Bazelon and Plotz are correct, given the national climate we should expect people to see unexplained objects in their vicinity as a threat to their lives. I would like to believe that this isn't true; but in light of the Boston debacle (not to mention the 2006 Ohio Super Mario bomb scare), I wouldn't roll those dice when the consequences are arrest and millions of dollars in restitution.

The bad news for guerrilla marketers is that if any public disturbance could be considered a terrorist attack, their activities will be severely limited.

The good news for artists who want to be subversive is that the bar is set really low right now.

(Seth Godin, meanwhile, is annoyed at what he describes as "invasive...unanticipated, impersonal and irrelevant spam".)

Tags: guerrilla marketing, Boston, Mooninites, terrorism, art, national security, national security state, subversiveness, Cartoon Network, Slate, David Plotz, Emily Bazelon, Dion Dennis, uncertainty, control

Boston police mistake advertising light displays for bombs

Wade Rockett — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:54:00 GMT

Behold the new face of terror!

These battery powered light displays were installed at public locations in 10 American cities two weeks ago as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign for the Cartoon Network show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Yesterday Boston police, believing the displays to be bombs, shut down highways and major bridges in the city.

Representatives from marketing company Interference Inc. contacted the authorities to explain the true situation, and gave them the locations of the other ads. Turner Broadcasting issued a statement assuring the public that the packages in question were merely magnetic lights, and expressing regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger.

News reporting on the event has been strange, seemingly designed to provoke terror and outrage. Early stories kept referring to the ads as "devices" and "suspicious packages", but didn't describe them in detail or show photos of what they looked like. When it was discovered that they were battery powered light displays, the campaign was described as a "hoax". This description doesn't make much sense: it would only be a hoax if the perpetrators had claimed that the devices were bombs.

(Judge Paul K. Leary expressed the same opinion in the hearing that followed.)

This photoset on Flickr shows the display in detail.

Here's the latest from the Detroit Free Press.

Instructed by their attorney not to discuss the incident, Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, who installed the ads, told reporters at a news conference that they would only answer questions about 1970s haircuts (video).

So the target audience takes wicked delight in watching city officials and journalists harrumph and look foolish; and millions more people are made aware of an obscure late night cartoon show. Sounds like a win for the client to me.

(Via Boing Boing, photo by Vanderlin)

Tags: Boston, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, bomb scare