Follow up: Second Life strike lame, weird

Okay, I’ll chalk it up to my sense of boundless optimism for continuing to try to find a valid reason for businesses to exist in or pay attention to Second Life. When I previously wrote about the scheduled protest against IBM in SL, I thought maybe, just maybe, the protest would be unique enough to generate publicity, thus providing a legitimate reason for businesses to take the space seriously. It did get a considerable amount of ink when it was announced, and I made myself accept that from a PR perspective, this could actually work. I wasn’t the only one.

Like so many things in life, it’s the execution that matters.

Approximately 1850 avatars showed up (and commenters are debating the validity of this figure, just like any protest I guess). Included in the protest were the above-pictured banana and large green triangle. The triangle doesn’t seem to have much of a grievance with IBM, and seems to want attention more than anything else. I don’t see any John 3:16 posters.

IBM has yet to comment on the protest. Shocking, I know.

Generating buzz for a serial killer

Disclosure: I don’t have Showtime, so I’ve never watched Dexter. This post isn’t so much about the show as it is about the buzz surrounding the show.

Admittedly, I am not the pop-culture maven that my co-worker Sarah Wurrey is, so it feels somewhat awkward for me to write a post about a TV show. However, as a PR practitioner, I am impressed with the buzz surrounding this show—especially as it appears that a good portion of it is actually fan-based. The show’s promoters are capitalizing on the buzz by staging some creative, albeit icky, ideas like turning the water in city fountains blood-red. (Ew.) They’ve also set up a Flickr group so that fans can share photos taken in each of the 14 cities that Pop2Life selected for the promotion.

(The Hollywood Reporter notes that executives from Showtime state that red was chosen because it is their corporate color, not because it looks like blood. I’m not sure I buy that, but whatever…) Five of the fountains, including the one in Boston, were built specifically for this promotional effort. I’m guessing that some cities didn’t want the tourist areas that fountains are typically located in to be associated with a television show about a serial killer. Given Boston’s previous responses to viral marketing efforts, I will give this company credit for doing their legwork (and using their heads) to make sure that this went as smoothly as possible.

After reading Bostonist’s post on the issue, I did some poking around and reading some of the reader comments on items like the story in USA Today. Watchers are passionate about the show and anxious for the new season to begin on Sunday. Even more interesting is how some people indicated they’d come across the show—something I’d wondered about since not everybody has Showtime—quite a few stated that a friend with Showtime recommended it (word-of-mouth), they rented the Season 1 DVDs, and are now hooked. Others watched it via On Demand. Since neither of these avenues is a first-run scenario, it is further evidence that time shifting will continue to rise in importance both for viewers and for television producers.

Also, is it me, or do there seem to be an inordinate number of new series out there about death? Reaper, Pushing Daisies, Dexter—is this all a result of Six Feet Under and Dead Like Me, or am I just now noticing a trend that’s been around for a while?

Is there a wiki limit?

Via BoingBoing, comes news that the New Zealand police have launched a wiki, and are soliciting public involvement in revising their policing code. According to the site:

“The Police Act Review has maintained an open process throughout, and wiki technology offers a novel way for people to have a say in the law-drafting process as well. This may well be one of the first pieces of legislation ever developed in New Zealand with the aid of such an online tool.”

I had to click through and read it, as I wasn’t sure if this was a tounge-in-cheek way of poking fun at the use of wikis–or, as BoingBoing commenter Ian Holmes noted, “Another case of Life Imitates Onion.”

My next favorite comment:

Of course, we all realize what this will have to be called:

The Kiwi Law Wiki.

Classic. I love anagrams.

I do hope that the residents of New Zealand take this effort seriously and provide constructive feedback, which would reward the police for trying to involve the public they serve. Of course, it will only take a few destructive types to ruin it for the many, but I applaud the police for giving this a go.

In a participation-based sidebar, perhaps this newspaper is looking to launch a wiki for headlines?

What Happens to a Blog Post Deferred?

Answer: Other bloggers beat you to it, usually.

Are you like me? I always come up with all sorts of things when I’m in the shower. Maybe an awesome blog post idea, a link I’d want to Tweet, a fascinating Media Monitoring Minute for FIR, or a brilliant new strategy to pitch to the boss.

Unfortunately, unless I were to make creative use of a pumice stone, there is nowhere to write down all these flashes of brilliance while actually in the shower, and they mostly end up heading right down the drain with the soap suds, to be forgotten by the time I get around to picking out shoes (maybe it’s my over-abundance of shoes that’s causing this problem?).

I also always end up mulling ideas while in the car, yet never when it’s convenient to write them down, like while rotting in traffic (one thing about New Hampshire–here, "rush hour" means "three other cars on the road besides you, instead of the usual open road and occasional horseback rider"). This is especially true of blog posts. I’ll be struck with a great idea at the most inconvenient of times, and by the time I manage to fire up the old Live Writer…poof! Idea is gone.

And where does it go? Apparently, directly into the minds of other bloggers. Take my boss and excellent co-blogger, Jen White. (What, you didn’t think I’d come up with my own example, did you? For that I’d have to remember my ideas!)

Earlier this afternoon she started talking about these spiders that have created this enormous, acre-large web out in Texas. She heard about the story on NPR last month. On the surface, she wasn’t sure if this was a blog post, but thought it had a "Web (snerk) 2.0" angle in there somewhere. Yet, she’d abandoned the idea. I encouraged her to re-examine, and write it anyway.

No sooner do I sit back down at my desk and open up Twitter than Todd Defren Tweets a link to a Social TNT post about the very topic. (Great post too, check it out!) Quite a coincidence, considering the randomness of the subject matter!

This isn’t to say Jen can’t still write her own post about the spiders, but some of the magic fizzles when you see someone has beaten you to it, doesn’t it? The lesson here, I think, is to try (even if it means maybe getting out of the shower for a second to jot something down) to let your ideas grow into something, or be faced with the disappointment when someone gets there first!

Technorati: Web 2.0, spiders, Todd Defren, FIR

The OED commits hyphen-cide

I’m a big fan of using varied punctuation, so I was dismayed when I first read the headline of a Reuters piece titled “Thousands of hyphens perish as English marches on.” I thought public pressure was being brought to bear upon the much-maligned hyphen. According to the piece, roughly 16,000 words from the sixth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (OED) have had their hyphens stripped.

After reviewing a sampling of the list, I feel comforted by the fact that the most frequent use of the hyphen (to avoid ambiguity) has been preserved. I don’t think I’ve ever hyphenated bumble-bee or pot-belly (the first is now spelled “bumblebee”; the second “pot belly”), so these aren’t earth-shattering changes to me. Compound nouns were most impacted by this bout of hyphen removal.

I did find the reasons provided for eliminating the hyphen less than compelling, as they amounted to: 1) people don’t know how to use them; and 2) they don’t look pretty in ads. Ironically, the quote from the editor of the Shorter OED explaining this second factor used two (properly) hyphenated words, “design-led” and “old-fashioned.”

As long as they don’t mess with my emdash, I’ll be fine.

Participation promotes ‘Satisfaction’

I’ve spent some time looking at Get Satisfaction, which bills itself as “people-powered customer service.” It’s an interesting site and concept, one that will likely gain some attention due to a recent BusinessWeek article and a post on Consumerist.

Essentially the site works by allowing individuals to post customer service complaints or questions to company boards, and it allows either companies or other individuals to respond to the questions. Think of it as kind of a wiki for customer service issues. Companies responding to questions or complaints have their answers marked as “official,” but anyone can respond. There’s also a digg-like element in that there’s a rating system that allows users to promote topics to the top.

While there are some big-name companies listed (Google, Coke, Apple, Levi’s) there are also some that I’m unfamiliar with—like Eskwela, an invite-only social directory targeted to Filipino students and alumni, or Networth IQ, “a social personal finance tool where you can track, share, and compare your net worth.”

Currently, the site lists 439 companies and 375 products and services as having open topics. It’s another social media channel that is important to monitor, and one that welcomes (honest, open, and transparent) participation by companies.

CustomScoop Reveals the 8 Ways to Maximize Media Monitoring Results

How PR and Marketing Pros Can Go Beyond Tracking Company Mentions and Press Release Coverage to Improve ROI

CustomScoop,
a leader in customizable media monitoring and analysis services,
announced the availability of a free white paper entitled, “Eight Ways
to Maximize Media Monitoring Results.” Intended for public relations
and marketing professionals who currently monitor news and / or blogs
for their organization, this paper will help maximize the success of
their current efforts and provide insight into other best practices
they might benefit from implementing.

“While many public
relations and marketing professionals see the value in monitoring the
media for mentions of their company, products, personnel or even
competitors, many are either overwhelmed by the task or frustrated with
the results. This white paper helps those in charge of tracking news
and blog coverage get the most out of their efforts,” says Steve Bracy,
Executive Vice President of CustomScoop.

The white paper will teach readers how to:

• Discover New, Earned Media Opportunities
• Detect Early Warning Signs
• Uncover New Markets and Customers
• Solidify Stakeholder Relationships

CustomScoop’s media monitoring solution, ClipIQ, combines proprietary
technology with search consulting to deliver comprehensive, relevant
market intelligence. CustomScoop ClipIQ is a web-based solution and is
priced on a flat-fee model (no-per-clip charges), starting at $299 per
month. CustomScoop offers a two-week free trial of ClipIQ. To start,
visit www.customscoop.com/freetrial.

Is there a Norma Rae avatar?

I’m somewhat mystified (and intrigued) by the logic behind holding a union strike in Second Life. An Italian labor union is protesting pay negotiations with IBM that would result in an effective pay cut of about $1,377, and has scheduled a protest for Sept. 25. One of the organizers states that “protesting in SL is one of the means of pushing the issue forward,” so I have to guess that this isn’t the only communications channel they are planning on using.

As there are limitations on how many avatars can be in one place at the same time within SL, it seems as though getting press through the novelty of it all is the real objective.

As I’ve written before, companies should only use Second Life as a platform when it makes sense. This is an interesting way to get coverage within the tech sector, which is an audience that IBM most likely cares about–so maybe this does make sense, from a communications standpoint.

Social Media Top Ten

Time for another edition of the Social Media Top Ten.

As always, the concept (started last month by Bryan Person) is to list the Top Ten things about Social Media running through your mind in a given week, and I encourage everyone to post their own!

Social Media Top Ten

1) FEC legitimizes blogging – Okay, so this story is not exactly timely, but it didn’t make the last edition of the SMT10, so I’m including it now. This is a major move towards further legitimizing bloggers as members of the media.

2) Ad Age editor vs Joe Jaffe – Jonah Bloom writes a scathing post about the head crayonista, prompting some great responses from the blogosphere.

3) Age vs. Experience debate – A terrific blog and Twitter conversation developed last week regarding the place of young PR bloggers. See Paull Young’s blog for a round-up of thoughts from across the blogosphere.

4) Mash – Yahoo! asks the question: Do we really need another social network? And I am really bummed that I haven’t gotten an invite? Actually, while I normally suffer from raging cases of IE (invite-envy), I am not interested in Mash. There are just too many networks to keep track of at this point.

5) MySpace targeting ads with user data – This sort of thing generally creeps me out, like when Gmail “reads” my emails and puts ads relating to whatever my email is about on the sidebar.

6) Fake proposal on CollegeHumor.com – According to the blog of the prank’s main victim, he and his girlfriend are still together. Even after he shouted “I don’t want to (expletive) marry you” at her after his friend put a fake proposal on the Jumbotron in Yankee Stadium—and she said yes. He should marry her anyway on general principle.

7) Southwest Airlines vs. the Hooters Girl – After taking a lot of heat for asking a scantily clad passenger to cover up on a flight, Southwest bit back, offering a special Miniskirt Fare sale, and only increasing the ire of their “victim.” This is the sort of thing the blogosphere (me included) loves.

Unlocked iPhones – I definitely don’t speak enough Geek to understand what’s going on here, but I think all this talk of unlocking iPhones means that there’s a trick you can play on your iPhone to make it work with any carrier, not just at&t. Considering it should have been this way from the start, I can’t applaud the move more. It makes the decision to pony up the dough that much easier.

9) If you like Pina Coladas… – Ah, nothing like online love. Except when you’re married, and you’re having an online affair, and you discover that you’re online paramour is…your husband. Unlike the catchy ditty portraying a similar situation, this one doesn’t have a happy ending; the couple is divorcing.

10) Boston Social Media Club – Their event this Thursday, September 20, will feature Fake Steve Jobs! I’ll be there…will you?

Technorati – SMT10

Yet Another Reason to Monitor

Naturally, any company concerned with responsible brand and reputation management ought to be monitoring news and social media already.

But in case you needed one more reason, I offer you this.

It seems that former ABC consultant Alexis Debat had decided to pull a Stephen Glass for his articles in French political journal Politique Internacionale, publishing entirely fabricated “interviews” with such high profile subjects as former President Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, presidential candidate Sen. Barak Obama and even United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The magazine claims it had no knowledge of the fabrications, despite Debat’s sketchy history–the journalist was let go from ABC News after questions were raised about his academic credentials.

The disappearance of the news cycle and the advent of citizen journalism has made constant news monitoring a complex undertaking of vital importance; but sometimes it’s as simple as making sure there isn’t anyone out there writing up complete fabrications and passing them off as fact.

Technorati tags: media monitoring, Stephen Glass, fake news