Altyrian View

Larry pointed me to a blog that’s a new one to me called “Business Communicators of Second Life.” Seems that they have an SL group that is meeting Tuesday, August 22 at 7 p.m. EST.

Here’s a link for more information. I’m excited about joining some fellow professional communicators in Second Life. Hopefully I’ll see you there tomorrow!

I have not seen Snakes on a Plane, but I have been the target of their viral marketing. I got an email from my wife just last night that had a special message from Samuel L. Jackson just for me. Pretty cool. I listened and then sent cards to a few of my closest friends. I got a good chuckle out of it, and hey, maybe I’ll see the movie someday.

This morning I wake up to a blog post from John Wagner of Wagner Communications. Seems that the opening weekend was a bust. Among other interesting facts, this one jumped off the page at me:

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On the surface, things appear to be going really well in Second Life. In addition to having an Altyris building there (I had to drop that in…), Adidas Reebok, Toyota and TELUS (a large Canadian telco) have all announced (or begun building) an upcoming presence in Second Life. Text100, a large public relations agency, has a build opening tomorrow. NOAA has a build that’s pretty cool. The American Cancer Society raised about $40k in the SL Relay for Life. Couple that with more media than the Mideast conflict, and you have a thriving environment.
But is there trouble brewing?
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The Washington Post is inviting “readers” to participate in an online interview of sorts. Participants download a video with questions from a report who is interviewing a political candidate. But instead of getting answers from a real candidate, you are supposed to insert your video responses. There is no judging or prizes, just good, clean new-media fun.

I think this is going to be great fun to follow, but it’s obvious that the Post is trying to reach a different audience than their typical reader. I’d guess that most of the responses will come from the same demographic as most of the YouTube self-video posts (agency.com vids notwithstanding). Most of the submissions will find their way to YouTube sooner or later. You’ll also notice the big “washingtonpost.com” sign behind the interviewer – great way to get your Web address in viral videos.
You’ve got to hand it to the Post. They have really thought outside of the box for this one.

Thanks to Shel Holtz for bringing this to our attention!

If you hadn’t heard of a video news release (VNR) before 2004, you certainly heard about it then. The government issued some VNRs that were aired by the networks without revealing the source of the report. It became a big deal then, and the FCC is making VNRs fight for their lives again. Yesterday, I read that the FCC has announced that it is going to fine 42 stations for not disclosing that news reports came from VNRs. It seems that the FCC regulates all video that is paid placement – it should; those are called ads even if they are in a news show. If the video is distributed freely (as most VNRs are), the FCC mandates attribution if the content is political or controversial. One could make an argument that that includes 99% of all VNRs. Hence, the FCC has all but killed the VNR.

PRSA issued a press release a few months ago telling us their stance on VNRs and their regulation. Makes sense to me, but clearly not to the FCC.
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I’m wondering how people get their stuff into Advertising Age (I guess I could find out at their site… nah). Anyway, today I read a viewpoint column by Scott Johnson titled ”Electronic Media: Altering Our Intelligence”. In it he actually states “The media-induced diminution of human intelligence is very real. The good news for those of us in the advertising industry is that, slowly, an entirely new form of intelligence is being born to replace it.”

Let me get this right: We humans are getting more stupid and more intelligent at the same time? Neat trick! Let’s see, I can use the “I’m getting more stupid” part to keep me out of decisions I don’t want to make. Then I can use the “I’m gaining an entirely new form of intelligence” part to win arguments with my co-workers. This is fantastic! If only I even remotely agreed with his premise.

I don’t. In fact, I think it’s a silly and embarassing article to come from someone in our industry.

Microsoft is set to release a free software development kit for the Xbox 360. The development kit is targeted at professionals as well as novice game designers. This is a huge deal because usually only major games studios are given development kits.

So, do marketers now have a new, easier way to create console video games around their products?

After a week away, I saw a blog post about a new viral ad created for Smirnoff Raw Teas. Very, very funny.

The video got me so intrigued about Raw Teas, that I figured I would visit the Web site to check them out. That’s what they told me to do at the end of the video: “Please drink responsibly and visit teapartay.com.” So I pop by the Web site to find that I’m bounced to the Smirnoff Ice Web site and the only mention of Raw Teas is a little banner ad telling me that it’s coming soon. Coming Soon!? More than 550,000 people have watched the video. They missed a great opportunity.

In the end, they have a great viral campaign without the “payoff” for those that want more information. At this point, all they have is a funny video that mentions their product.

According to this Fox News story published yesterday, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has started blogging. 

And this morning it appears that he has stopped.

I went to the blog yesterday to check it out. Fortunately, I had the option to read the post in Arabic, French or English.  His first (and only at that point) post was really, really long by blog standards (2k words). It allowed for comments though you couldn’t read comments that were submitted. No trackbacks.

It did have an survey: “Are the United States and Israel pulling the trigger for another world war?” As of yesterday at 5p EST, about 10k people had responded. 65% responded to the survey with “no.” It seems that Ahmadinejad was reaching people outside of his point of view. Isn’t that the point of blogging? I believe, however, that he didn’t like what he saw. Today, the blog goes to a default page and appears to have been taken down. Oh well.

A great lesson for those who are thinking about taking our companies into social media: You will quickly reach those who disagree with you. Sometimes it’s more fun to read blogs from people that you don’t agree with. It’s social because it’s a great medium for a debate. That’s the point. Does that mean we shouldn’t encourage companies to blog? Of course not! They just need to be prepared to take some criticism and learn from their detractors.

I recently Googled “spam defininition” and learned something amazing - there are tons of different definitions for spam but none that seem to cover it well. The ones I clicked into talk about “unwanted e-mail” and, true, this was the original application of the word. But ”spam” has expanded into other uses, so the definition should expand as well. To rectify this situation, I now offer what I feel is the true and meaningful definition of spam.

Spam: Any intrusive, annoying and unwanted communication delivered without permission to a large audience.

Consider this - you’re engrossed in your favorite TV show when your TV is taken over by low-quality video and a screeching voice telling you to “apply directly to your forehead!” Think that’s spam? I sure do. Ads for new and used car dealerships (on both TV and radio), pop-ups on Web sites and all other intrusive, annoying and unwanted messages sure seem like spam to me. Likewise, I recently read a post on AdJab and clicked to read the comment someone had posted - but it wasn’t a comment at all. Instead it was a sales pitch for cell phones. Spam? Absolutely.

In this month’s Media magazine, Faris Yakob has a column titled ”Are All Ads Spam?”. In it, he makes a similar argument for the broad definition of spam. He also offers advice on ways to make your message NOT spam. It’s a good article (hey, it agrees with my point here!) and I recommend it. I also recommend that we look at all ads, releases and other communications and ask “is this intrusive, annoying and unwanted?” If it is, I say we call it spam and toss it out.