Citysearch at Rorke's Drift

Its an amazing thing to watch a company shoot itself in the foot. You'd think that there would be some sense of perspective inside a company that gathers opinions like Citysearch does, but when the promises of social media don't save your ass entirely, you feel like placing the blame somewhere and the hippies writing tweets and creating "community" seem like the perfect place to clean house. It seems to be a trend for companies to cut out their heart in an effort to save the body. The highest profile example of this was MySpace as they tried to be more like facebook and twitter, they slashed their music and comedy staff, the ONLY parts of MySpace that were actually working for them. Comix, the comedy club in NY, is in a similar boat having rid itself of the innovative Ochi's Lounge and holding "Club Nights" in the space in order to make ends meet. Who knows if that will work? My guess is that half a nightclub and half a comedy club make for a whole mess. Pabst Blue Ribbon after being bought by Los Angeles businessmen, is going through a similar rehashing where their Social Media reps are being slashed and community outreach is being curtailed in lieu of more traditional advertising. Ballsy, considering that PBR's success has been largely in part to its grass roots, divey, image. Now, Citysearch is getting rid of its editorial staff. Facebook pages, twitter accounts, and outreach are at a standstill.

The thing that all of these companies have in common, aside from their clumsy willingness to do away with the things that define them as unique, is the ominous and crushing competitor that looms over their very existence. MySpace had facebook biting at its heels, Comix has 3 more established Comedy Clubs in NY hoping for its demise, PBR has actual beer to compete with, and Citysearch has the behemoth known as Yelp.

All of this reminds me of on of my favorite movies- ZULU!



When faced with overwhelming odds (Ten thousand Zulu Warriors Vs. your 150) , you button up the top button your tunic, straighten up your pith helmet, and do what you do best. You are, after all, you. No one is a better "You" than you are, so you become the best "you" that you can be.

So who is Citysearch if not their content? They are no Yelp. Yelp's user generated content is a fearful and vengeful beast compared to the insightful tips generated by Citysearch's staff. Yelp is so big, that an attempt to compete rather than finding your niche and growing there, could result in the utter ruin of your brand by playing catch up where there is no need in a playground that's too big. This of course is assuming that competition with Yelp is behind the seemingly suicidal moves at Citysearch. Even if there is a just a tech readjustment, the personality crisis will probably be too much. Who wants to reimagine Citysearch as Citygrid when you can just "Yelp it"? All of this smacks of the manic "Changes" at Myspace before it settled into its current and smaller role. Unfortunately with the loss of E-Vite (Yes guys, e-vite is done, just admit it.) can "Citygrid" get any smaller before disappearing? Again, this is just assuming that it might be some sort of misguided rebranding. It could be, most horribly, a vicious cost cutting of full time professionals for cheaper part time labor which is illegal in places like France.

Whatever the case, I'm sure that this decision was not come to suddenly, and I'm sure the powers that be are well aware that they are risking a lot by switching gears rather than by reinforcing the strong points.

The lesson from this, I suppose, is yet to be seen. Rather than buckling down and relying on what works for them, like the men at Rorke's drift, Citysearch has doubled down that reinforcements and a new strategy will win the day, much like another heroic stand at a mission.

The Streamy Awards: Accelerated Growth

Imagine going from a toddler to a teen in all its ghastly awkward horror, in one year. Forget the buildup of hair growth and hormones, voice changes and acne. Imagine you go from playing in a sandbox to a full-on first semester of college. I mean you wouldn't have the accumulated experience of dealing with idiots in Middle School, or disappointment in PE class, or even your victories at speech and debate in High School or the bizarre sexual tensions of glee club and marching band. Hell, those who lack the maturity for college even after HS, end up dropping out after their first semester, with syphilis, a terrible tattoo and trying to figure out who will take half a semester's worth of failing credits for their abortive Philosophy degree. The Streamy awards flung themselves into that very situation last night as they experienced for the first time what precisely it is to hold a major event where people have expectations of you.

Let me just say, that this is not a Streamy bashing post. It's not. Anyone expecting me to make comparisons of last night's show to the Polish President's airplane will be disappointed.

All of us who love Teh Webz, have a vested interest in seeing the Streamy awards succeed. In fact, many of us were there not because we were entirely familiar with the content or the talent, but rather because we are part of the online community to who it is beneficial to be elevated by the prestige that comes with a well publicized and industry-wide awards show. The value of the Streamy awards is undeniable. However, the lack of self worth was evident in the production last night. What is a Streamy? Who is "The Academy"? Why did the kid from Wizards of Waverly Place present an award, and how is it that I know what Wizards of Waverly Place is?

The very first Academy Awards were a small dinner. The winners were announced a month before so they would show up, and they later agreed to not divulge the winners to the press until 11 PM the day of. From such humble beginnings came the lunatic 4 hour telecast we see today. The prestige and time commitment was earned from the 15 minute radio announcement that covered it early on ,to the 2 hour shows of the forties, and to the 4 hour monsters we have today

To say that the Streamy awards grew quickly is an understatement. 3.5 hours is difficult to fill, and as someone who works with Venues, I also know how trying it can be on audiences to sit still. Oscar night overnight, is not easy to do, and next year's Streamy awards need to fulfill the high expectations, quickly.

We all want the Streamy awards to succeed, we want the online community to have their awards show, but we are running against the clock and its only a matter of time before The Emmy Awards decide to add online categories thereby making the Streamys irrelevant. If we want to keep this as part of our community, and we should, then it is up to everyone who can to help The Streamy awards grow, and for the producers to call on the multidisciplinary talents of the web to produce a show worthy of the web.

And to find a liquor sponsor so there's an open bar at the after party. I wouldn't have ordered an "Atomizer" if i didn't think it was free.

If you want a review of the show itself, THIS ONE about sums it up.

"Professionals"

This is why I avoid "Mixers" and "Networking Events".

Amazing Concept

Flattr.com - How Flattr Works from Flattr on Vimeo.

Appreciate content? Say so with $.

Bad Habits

"I’m starting to wonder if pop culture is in its dying days, because everyone is able to customize their own lives with the images they want to see and the words they want to read and the music they listen to. You don’t have the broader trends like you used to...Now, everyone basically is their own microculture, their own nanoculture, their own generation."- from a recent Douglas Coupland interview


Yesterday morning, Google released the "buzz". Its latest attempt at digging into the social media phenom, and forcing its way into your life even more-so than knowing everything you do.

Google wants to know who you do with it too, and with all signs pointing to social searches and curating as the next big step in online social media evolution, it would make sense that our favorite search engine would, in their attempts to keep it all so very real and do no harm, want to dip into the nourishing, feel-good pond of social media.

So, WTF?

Why is it, in less than 24hrs, being considered the "Meh" heard around the world when earlier posts were referring to it as "Facebook Killer" and "the next step"? Suddenly the web is largely in agreement that "Buzz" is a stillborn endeavor. Bloggers who were screaming and shouting in excitement at the launch are now ashamedly admitting that there's not that much to Buzz about. The excitement from the announcement is now turned to red faced embarrassment.

Again.

Social media is young. Very young. The power is not fully tapped,and many if not most people are not fully connected. In fact, the major players in SM are still learning the basics. Is anything more painful than watching Facebook's growing pains?

Those of us who have found a niche in the world of SM can be swept away by the amazing connections we can make with each other, the elegant beauty of finding our brothers and sisters can be mesmerizing. Yet, to our horror, we can find horribly tacky or worse, easily manipulated trending topics on Twitter. I'm still repulsed by every "For every person that posts this on their profile, so and so will donate whatnot to blah blah." that i see posted on a FB status. The much loathed "Post this to receive a free Mac (It really works, really!)" still makes an appearance, and I can only assume that Nigerians are still at the scheming because it still works from time to time, and so we must look at ourselves as the first generation of Social and Online Media Pros and accept our limits.

Yes, this is no longer the community that ruined MySpace by friending every bot and spammer out there, yes we are a wiser more careful audience with potential. However, the biggest obstacle to Social Media is not so much unlocking its potential which continues to astound and evolve almost daily, but rather the breaking of bad habits.

One one end, we see the astounding shortsightedness of Music Labels and their continuing and losing fight against file sharing / their illogical sense of ownership to their music, and on the other end of the spectrum we see the bizarre and dare I say, delusional, example of "Ronna and Beverly". I've never seen Ronna and Beverly, so I'll reserve judgment on the quality of the show itself, but rather heap thunderous, Olympian, judgment on the blogosphere and SM pros who got caught up in the excitement once more.

The story is a pretty common one in Hollywood. A pilot gets made, everyone involved loves it. For reasons unknown (Most likely it tested poorly with audiences), the network doesn't allow it to see the light of day or fills in some empty air time and that's the end of it. In certain situations, producers will shop the product elsewhere, and in more extreme situations there will be a public whine about the show. Long ago, an ad on Variety would do the trick. Now, social media is the stage. The writer of Weeds / Ronna and Beverly, along with some of the producers, decide to harness the power of Teh Webz. So, with the help of high profile Twitter users like The Office's Rainn Wilson they generated a mild buzz. Buzz enough to get the attention of blogs like the WSJ article linked above, and enough buzz to get a modest number of sycophants and hangers on to do their bidding, show unseen. The result? Well, what result? Showtime has been quiet on the subject, and the sudden flurry of attention about a grass roots online movement being able to change programming seems to have been like excitement over the iPad, and Google Buzz, premature. Showing the true Achilles heel of social media is its susceptibility to influence by MSM and corporations.

The majority of us, bloggers, SM pros, and users alike, are still very tapped in to the corporate mindset. For every Mac Air, there has been 2 amazing innovations, so its easy for us to hope and want to believe that Mac has some magical trinket that will transform our lives up its sleeve. Who isn't a fan of the Office? When Rainn Wilson tells me to support something, maybe he'll give me props. So goes the mindset of every generation, till now.

Those of us who grew up with the influence of corporate America in our after school and Saturday morning cartoons, in our toys and lunches, must be more vigilant than those kids who are now growing up with the added influence of the web, with the far more powerful influence of peers, family, and personalities.

The most powerful connections, the lifelong connections, for SM professionals and corporate accounts, are those made at a personal level with the consumer.

NBC may have made the decision to keep Jay Leno over Conan O Brien based on hard numbers, but they fail to consider the generation that will remember "I'm with Coco" over who was the successor to Carson. NBC is not investing in its future, rather it is allowing the conversation to be had without its active participation. It will take NBC years to recover from its decision to be so unfeeling towards the sincere expressions of love towards "Coco", as will it take Google some time to recover from the stupid "Buzz" release and even less time for Apple to recover from the iPad.

We must be weary of manufactured hype and emotions. They are the fossilized remains of insincere and manipulative marketing tactics that are slowly fading away to a true connection to the consumer. Tomorrow's consumer will be able to spot those a mile away, and they'll reward your help and sincerity tenfold. We best be getting used to it. In the meantime remember:

Vice is all groweds up.

For all the pithy comments in Vice Mag about how people dress, cocaine fueled nights, and boobs, this report from Liberia is one of the most relevant and pieces of journalism I've seen in a long time.

Announcing The Cheese of the Year!

In observation of National Cheese Lover's Day I am happy to announce my choice cheese for the New Year.

2008 was the year of Manchego. The sharp and stout Spanish cheese was a great way to introduce everyone to the world of finer cheeses without insisting on the soft and aromatic goats and bries that everyone considers "Fancy". Manchego is what I describe as a "stealth sheep" so good, that the green can't fathom its complexity. We can also say that 2008 was the year of Humboldt Fog. A fine California cheese with layers of taste AND ash that made it a particularly exciting cheese when cut right.

2009 was completely owned by Roaring Forties Blue Cheese which is widely accepted as the most exciting Blue Cheese in years. To eat a sliver is to have a dance in your mouth of almost a minute as the complex veins and flavors dissolve on your tongue.
I'm salivating just thinking about it.

2010 is a challenge for all my From-Friends. It is a commitment to adventure, and a financial investment in a cheese that is a landslide of complexity. Mimolette the cheese made to order by Louis XIV, is my new love of the year. Albeit a touch pricey, Mimolette, like Manchego , has the rustic base that appeals widely, but a refinement that cheese lovers can really hang on to. The nuttiness makes it an ideal "Beer Cheese" but you can pair it with any strong wines.

Go get em.

My Grandpa

My Grandpa is 92 and still writes a daily trivia and advice column for the biggest Newspaper in Mexico.

He does this every day by hand and gives it to my grandma, who then types it up and E-mails it. Then, Grandpa gets fussy about e-mail until we receive the confirmation, at which time Grandpa starts research for the next day's column.

Smarty-Pants Moustache Man Tumblr

Mustache Patronage

Of all the kooky bizarre things the Catholic Church has to offer, the veneration of Saints has to be my favorite. Just like a pantheon of pagan gods, saints are assigned patronage to specific things and praying for their intervention in their area of expertise or causes of which they are the patron is a time honored tradition, in spite of common sense.

We are all familiar with Saint Patrick the patron saint of Ireland, snakes and toothaches, and of course Saint Valentine, the patron saint of affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travelers, and young people. I know. Bee keepers, right?

Saint Nick? Patron of bankers and pawnbrokers, I shit you not.

National saints? Sure thing. England has Saint George, Scotland has Saint Andrew , Wales has Saint David. Austria gets five with Joseph, Maurice, Coloman, Leopold, and Florian. Italy tops out at six, with Bernardine of Siena, Catherine of Siena, Francis of Assisi, Our Lady of Loreto, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and Our Lady of the Snows.
What about the U.S of A? The Blessed Virgin Mary herself is our patron, while Papua New Guinea gets St. Michael the Archangel, who also happens to be the patron Saint of Paratroopers, which is pretty badass.

The whole thing is fascinating if nothing else and you can get your saint fix anytime at CATHOLIC ONLINE .

Why all this sudden fussing about saints, you may ask? Well, after our team of four were declared "World's Greatest Santa" at the LA Santa-con yesterday for trouncing everyone in the Scavenger hunt, i figured i should refresh my knowledge of the actual Saint Nick, and see if I was wrong when I claimed he was the patron saint of beards and facial hair. Not only was I wrong, since there is no patron saint of facial hair, but i was giving the title to someone far less deserving. Saint Nick's beard holds nothing to what I stumbled on.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give ye Saint Wilgefortis.



Betrothed to a heathen king by her father, so the story goes, Wilgefortis who's name is a derivation on the latin "Virgo Fortis"or "Strong Virgin", prayed to god that she would become hideous and therefore be spared the unhappy marriage. Sad, right? So the next day, she wakes up to find that she's grown a full beard!

God is hilarious.

The pagan king is grossed out, and the marriage is cancelled. Hooray!

But Wilgefortis' dad is so pissed off that she and her god did this, that he has her crucified. Boo!

THE END

Talk about your joke backfiring, huh? You'd think God in his omnipotence could have seen that coming, right? Whatever.

The cult of Saint Wilgefortis was all sorts of popular in the middle ages, so much so that the monks at the abbey where her wooden statue was, had it plated in silver to prevent erosion from all the pilgrims kissing her feet. It is said that when a poor minstrel played at the statue, one of the silver slippers came off as a reward from the saint. Which is a nice way of saying "It was stolen". However, that explains why she has only one shoe in the statue above, but it does not explain her enormous Sasquatch feet in the same sculpture.

Needless to say,that Wilgefortis with her sad story of a heavenly practical joke gone horribly awry, should absolutely without a doubt be new patron saint of mustaches and beards in general, as well as the patron saint of bearded ladies, which she already is. I encourage the Vatican's commission on gobbledygook and totes ridiculousness to look into the matter as soon as possible.

Now enjoy this lovely music video i found of a song by Rebecca Clamp about Wilgefortis.

War is over

More Art from The Lady who designed "Mad Men Me"

Fallen Princesses

As I look forward to seeing the much ballyhooed and newest "Disney Princess" in THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG I find myself tickled by photographer Dina Goldstein's less than idyllic take on what the future holds for our fairy tale heroines. The super saccharine characters are easy enough to lampoon, but Goldstein manages to add just the right amount of sympathy to the general sense of comeuppance that we all crave, to make it almost as poignant as it is clever.

See the whole set HERE

Cogito ergo DM

Or should it be "DM ergo sum"? Regardless of the Latin, there's a point to made. As a marketing professional, i often have forbidden fruits dangled before me.

"I've produced an algorithm."

Is usually the first sign of trouble in Social Media. Followed quickly by the words "Viral" and "Blast". All of those connote a detachment from the wondrous teeming, bubbling, and ever evolving mass that is Teh Webz and how, despite the technology and ways of "tricking" people into receiving your message, there is nothing as powerful as a loyal customer spreading your message of his/her own accord. As my dear friend mAcslost said, "What is the ROI on a friend that helps you move? What's the price on that long term relationship?"

So true. Like any friend, a SM professional needs to know what favors to ask and what is too much of an infringement on their relationship with their followers. We often walk a fine line, understanding the necessity of mass e-mails but not wanting to go into the SPAM folder. Needing to reach out, but not be so callous and so to the point that your customers learn to disregard your message.

Two things reared their heads this previous week that I'd like to address. Both were tempting in their effectiveness and both I ultimately passed on, simply because I am personally uncomfortable with how intrusive they are.

Firstly, i had myself an apoplexy when i received a DM to my company's Twitter account from one of our competitors. "You have been invited to (EVENT DETAILS)"

I was livid. I received that message on my phone, in my E-mail, and on my Twitter. 3 messages at once from my competitors made me angry at the invasion, and jealous that their message had infiltrated so entirely. I looked to my SM peeps to validate my outrage. By a huge majority we all agreed that a mass DM was considered "Twitter Spam" and would ultimately damage them more than help. Officialy, you give people who you follow the right to DM you, and they are within their rights to do so. However it is in bad form, and a breach of "Twettiquette". Though I sit here in my SM tower and cast judgment on their SM fumbles , though our SM community dwarfs theirs in numbers and community involvement , I also know that their one Spammy, BS, DM was seen by every one of their followers. The temptation to follow suit is enormous.

The second was similar in nature. Text message marketing. I know people must opt in, I understand that its highly effective, I just don't like it. I think our brand needs as much goodwill as possible and douchey marketing like Texting, overzealous E-mail "Blasts", and "Twitter Spam" are harmful to our image.

Ultimately, it's a personal decision for SM professionals. For my money and many of the people that i work with, goodwill, respect, and a knowing nod to our community acknowledging that we "Aren't like THAT" is worth more than the potential returns from such direct and aggressive advertising. There are people who market by wrapping a building in their message, there are people who buy electronic billboards, there are those who blast and spam and plan to "go viral". I am not one of them, and my brand will not suffer those indignities. We aim to build a community out of respect and goodwill. We will talk to our customers when we e-mail them, and direct message them, we will not be talking at them.

That's just how we roll.

Social Media ROI (God. Just writing that makes me sweat)

At an astoundingly douchey mixer held by the club promoters of the digital world (Digital LA), I was approached by a very pushy young man who was hocking applications. After figuring out my position in our Company and my affinity for Social Media, he posed the question "What is your ROI?".


I thought about it for a moment, and I responded. "We don't speak ROI, we speak relationships and community."

He laughed nervously, and i ran away.

ROI? Good grief, doesn't he know that social media is all about Teh Gudwillz and teh Relashunshipz? I have since obsessed. The positive impact of our SM campaigns is evident to me, but our bottom line would still seem unaffected. How do I convince the boss folk that this is a good investment?

Below is a starting point. Obviously for a small business like ours, it's not necessarily all applicable, but its a start on what I'm sure will be a lengthy discussion as SM begins to settle into its place as in the world of brand management, public relations, and marketing.

Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi

View more presentations from Olivier Blanchard.

I am increasingly Opposed to our involvement in Afghanistan

An exchange in the WH Situation room with The VP and the President's advisors.

"Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?" Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. "And how much will we spend on Pakistan?" Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. "Well, by my calculations that's a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we're spending in Pakistan, we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?" The White House Situation Room fell silent.


Read more at: The Huffington Post

Barack's Nobel

It is a shock, no doubt. Nobody expected our President to receive the Nobel Prize. What has he done? He's only been in office for less than a year? Hell! He was only eligible to win as president for 2 months before nominations were closed. Is this the Nobel committee's way of giving a final insult to the Bush administration, who's critics (Al Gore, Paul Krugman) seemed to be winning prizes left and right for the last few years? Or is it more important than that?

I think the key to the Nobel Committee's decision lies in the brevity of time that Barack Obama has spent as President. Just as it is the most shocking part of the announcement that mere months into his presidency he's won a prize given to MLK and TR, the fact remains that President Obama has turned the global conversation back towards unity, hope and diplomacy in a VERY SHORT TIME. A few years ago, this country was still coping with the fact that we tortured detainees. We were mired in conversations about whether or not Waterboarding was considered torture, and dealing with a war fought under false pretenses. Remember the awful images of Saddam Hussein being executed? Remember? It seems a world away. We are now debating taking care of each other (Health care), our focus lies in bettering this world and not in creating tactical nukes and alienating friends with missile shields.

President Obama, through peaceful political means changed the entire direction of global politics by inspiring the world's most powerful nation to hope and better ourselves. We are now talking to Iran, with a heavy hand and backed by all our allies, including those who previously supported Iran. The world is already a safer, and more united place because a Hawaiian-born African American man from Chicago decided we still could. Imagine this world under McCain and Palin. Remember this world under Bush and Cheney think of how much has changed in a year, and then ask yourself in 2009 who else has done so much to bring people together? I can't think of a single more powerfully uniting figure.

Congratulations, President Obama. Well deserved.

Twitter Killers?

I know. I know. This is my second post in a row about Twitter that has a question as its title. I know the posts have been Social Media heavy lately, and I know I owe you all my analysis of Chicago's failed bid for the 2016 games, but bear with me my dears, as I spin a yarn of greed, ego, and the powers that our personal accounts and engagement are up against.

Gather round Tweeps, and Facebook friends. Tumblrs and MySpace pervs.

The whole thing began about a month and a half ago when one of the top 6 agencies in town sent over someone who referred to himself as a "Social Media Agent" to meet with the celebrity I work with from time to time. Astounded at the notion, since social media doesn't pay off directly, and talent agencies are very aggressive in monetizing everything, and 10% of nothing is bupkes, I was eager if not thrilled to see what this guy knew and what his insight might be into monetizing SM.

When he arrived, I was a touch shocked. Was it possible that a man well into his forties could have insight into SM ? I'm in my early thirties and I can barley keep up, could it be that this man had the tech savvy that I lacked and therefore some sort of insight into monetization that would make everyone very rich? I listened to his pitch with five people present in the room.

The pitch went as follows:

There is a huge amount of money to be made by celebrities who Tweet.

He has a Company that is willing to pay per commercial tweet according to the amount of followers a celebrity may have.

The company hosts a variety of brands that the celebrity can choose from, so the celeb could choose brands that are applicable.

The company requires every fifth tweet to be a commercial with up to 40 tweets a day for it to be profitable.

With the formula pitched, Ashton Kutcher could make over one million dollars monthly.



Naturally there were questions to be asked.

Firstly, the Celebrity in question has an honest but unimpressive 5k followers. Not nearly enough for it to be worth it.

"That can be easily addressed with a service we employ that can artificially boost your numbers. We could have you up to 50k in 2 weeks."

They don't pay per click, they pay per follower?

"Yes, but who knows how long they'll be doing that for. So we have to get on this right away so we can get the numbers up and the tweets going."

Is the tool you use to boost the numbers Ok by twitter?

"Well, not exactly. Which is another reason why we would need to get on this right away."

Who else is doing this?

"Well, if say Ashton Kutcher would do it.."

Is he?

"No, but if he were.."

Why wouldn't he want an extra 1 million a month?

"I don't know."

Ok, so Ashton doesn't do it, but you haven't told us who. So who else would be interested in doing something like this?

"Well, we want to keep clients protected."

At this point the celebrity interjected. "Do I have to tweet and choose the ads myself or can my guys do it?"


"Oh for sure your staff can do it, 40 daily tweets is a lot."

The celeb's assistant sank into his chair. But the feeling of all in the room is that this bit of sketchiness would not see the light of day. I was glowing at being able to thwart something that would be detrimental not only to the celeb's brand, but to the Twitter community as well. After all, posting for a profit defeats the idea of sharing. Its filling a quota and manipulating. It goes against what the Twitter community is all about, and leaves the door open for the profit hungry "Man" that drove MySpace into the ground. I had come head to head with the capitalist machine and managed to defend my online socialist utopia for another day. God bless the EFF and Creative Commons, keep your filthy corporate greed out of our web, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

This was 45 days ago.

Yesterday it all resurfaced with the acquisition of 2 interns who's duties include Tweeting. Calls were made and the whole mess is a "go". Now it is up to the Twitter community to react. Do we reject advertisement as a part of feeds altogether? Is an individual endorsement more valuable when not contractual? (See? It does connect to the previous post.) All this remains to be seen. I have faith that something so sneaky and ill conceived has little to no place in the twitterverse. However, i have noticed something that insists on a caveat for this sort of marketing on Twitter.



Which leads to this site.



Although i believe that weight loss products and Acai Berry drinks are beneath LAist, their tweets are transparent, and we do not expect a personality or a connection to a website like we would a brand. Their twitter feed is simply links to their blog and their blog makes money off of ads, ergo this is fair play. This cannot be said of corporations and celebrities who use twitter to further their personal brand. Their unspoken contract with the web and in social media participation is to provide the public with information about themselves with goodwill and without trying to make a cynical buck off of us. However, if we find ourselves following celebs, and clicking on their every link with the same blindness with which we accepted hookers and club promoters as our MySpace "friends" then the FAIL Whale is upon us and we can only watch the potential of yet another Social Networking site diminished and destroyed by corporate greed. It really is up to us.

A sucessful contractual Twitter feed?

"The ways of the Living Force are beyond our understanding... But fear not. You are in the hands of something much greater and much better than you can imagine."
―Qui-Gon Jinn


A Protocol Droid fluent in over 6 million forms of communication, and able to communicate with binary loadlifters has only NOW discovered the value of Twitter? So it would appear, as Twitter-friendly nerdery everywhere welcomed Anthony Daniels, who is better known throughout the galaxy as C3PO, to the world of Social Media. His newly minted Twitter account handle bears the name ADaniels3PO and he boasts a modest following of 1700 accrued in the short time of 5 days.


It would make perfect sense that someone who owes his career to the genre of Science Fiction would be tapping into the Nerd/Geek rich world of social media, where no matter how mainstream things are, they retain an air of geeky innocence. However, such has not been the case for Mr. Daniels who's recent discovery of Twitter happens to happily coincide with a new website and the beginning of his national tour with Star Wars in Concert. Is it possible that someone in the marketing department for Star Wars In Concert was prescient enough to see Mr. Daniels as an indirect marketing tool? Contractually obliging him to a twitter feed seems contrary to the "Feel-Good Community" of Twitter, but the opportunities for the concert can hardly be ignored. When a visual music and lights show starring your favorite movie rolls into town, who better to be a spokesperson than one of the stars? It takes the notion of celebrity, product, and word of mouth to a whole new level.

Do I think it was a draconian marketing person who put him up to it as a part of some awful, greedy contract? No. Should Marketing people encourage it and make available all resources to those who are promoting their goods? You bet! Anthony Daniels should have the full support of the enormous companies affiliated with Star Wars and the concert, and they should all be touting his Twitter feed. I bet they could pump those numbers well past the 2k mark they have now, and in turn give Mr. Daniels a powerful tool for his personal brand as well as allowing him to maximize his role as a spokesperson for their brand.

Let me put it this way:

I wouldn't know about Star Wars in concert if it weren't for Anthony Daniels. Anthony Daniels would never have told me about it unless it was through his Twitter feed. His Twitter feed inspired this blog post, which in turn, touts Star Wars in Concert. The force is strong in that.