Viral marketing at it’s best:

– Simple concept
– Gets passed on by word-of-mouth / email
– Usually funny

Check it out, and see what kind of signs you can make up. Link.

What the heck is this craziness? So, now you can beam your blogs RSS feed into space via bloginspace.com. You know, I can’t admit to believing in aliens, but I still had to throw my feed up there. It’s a great PR stunt by MindComet for their new BlogStar Network, they’re all over the news, so you have to hand it to them. I’ve even added one of the cool little gifs to my blog:

Swoosh,
I have always wondered if there is alien life out there. I mean, I am
not saying that I believe in alien abductions or little green men,
but I have to believe that there is someone else out there…. and
maybe they are watching us. Anyway, I found a new site that lets you
transmit your blog into deep space for free. You gotta check it out.

http://www.bloginspace.net

Later,
HASH

When I first looked yesterday, they had 100 RSS feeds signed up. By tonight, the number is up to 830! This is the definition of “Viral Marketing” folks. Without one bit of advertising, they are getting crazy amounts of referrals from people just telling their friends.

PS. Swoosh’s reply to my website generated email:

no i won’t send my blog into space.
i told you to stop jaweezing at work, hash!

-swoosh

Tomfoolery at it’s finest, Good stuff!

NOTE: as of 7/21 at 7:45 AM EST they now have 1000 feeds. I’m going to keep following this to see how it grows over time, maybe I’ll make a graph too.

I couldn’t believe this article in the St. Petersburg Times that a guy was arrested for using an open network in someone’s neighborhood. My computer, like most, finds any and all networks that are open. Why is it my responsibility to make sure that someone has secured their network. It’s their network true, but it’s imposing itself on public property. When it leaves their property, it is no longer private, and they should be responsible for securing it.

This article by Dvorak in PC Mag, I believe makes the best and most clear argument.

Let me jump in and propose a simple, logical public policy…. We must put the burden of responsibility on the broadcaster, not the end user. It has to be made clear that people sending open connections all over town should be responsible for them. (Full Article)

Am I missing something, does this whole “owner responsibility” idea only make sense to me and Dvorak?

Have you had discussions about web logs (blogs) at work? Probably not. Could your VP of Marketing/Communications tell you what a blog is? Maybe. Does your company president, another executive, or even an “insider” in your company have a blog? I certainly hope so.

Voice
The power of a blog is two-fold. First, it gives personality and warmth to your organization. Second, it opens a dialog channel between decision makers in your organization and the end-user, constituent or customer.

Your partners and competitors have already started, just look at the blogs for Maytag, Microsoft, Hill & Knowlton, the Dallas Mavericks, and GM. You might think your industry is unique and that blogs don’t really fit into a realistic marketing strategy. Think again, someone is blogging in it. Here’s a list of known Fortune 500 companies that blog. Would you like their views on your organization and industry to be heard, or yours?

How would you like to grapple with difficult issues in real-time? Would you like to hear opinions of your newest product or service? Want to create buzz around an initiative? Would you like to be known as a thought leader within your industry? Are you interested in a direct, syndicated pipeline to the media and the public?

If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, then you should start thinking hard about getting a blog off of the ground. It’s time to decide which blogging tool to use, rules for its use and who will be responsible for it. It’s time to take control of your online voice, but be prepared; your writer(s) need to be open, honest, timely and interesting.

As you move towards your first blog, make sure you formulate a strategy: will it be an executive or “insider” blog, or will you empower all of your employees to blog by providing a blog engine for them (like IBM and HP)?

Want some more perspective? Here’s an article from the USA Today about CEO’s not wanting to get involved in blogging, but that many SVP’s do as well as promoting it among the rank-and-file employees.

Though I might have hesitations and reservations regarding Live 8, mainly because I’m not convinced that it is the right solution (see post below), the event yesterday was a lesson in the power of the web.

To say that the Live 8 concert(s) was big would be an understatement. There were performances going on in London, Paris, Rome, Philadelphia, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Barrie, Berlin and Moscow – a truly world-wide event. Traditional media outlets, like TV, couldn’t keep up with the show. Big name musicians, actors, politicians and businessmen came out in droves to show their support causing further splintering of the TV medias effort to bring the event to screens worldwide. Coverage teams had a difficult time trying to follow each performance, while simultaneously interviewing stars and trying to fit the commercials in.

Meanwhile, the perfect medium for an event of this size and magnitude came of age: the Web. AOL did an amazing job of allowing viewers to watch any act they wanted to see, at any time they wanted to see it. Users could click from one geographic location’s live-feed to another. Instead of being forced to watch the TV medias linear coverage, AOL viewers could jump around to whatever concert they wanted to.

Think of this event as a showcase for the future. As the media center in your home becomes more plugged-in to the web, and media companies realize that they need to embrace this convergance of old and new media, large events like Live 8, the Olympics and the soccer World Cup will be streamed directly to your livingroom. The line between TV and the Web will become blurred and you will be the one who decides what you want to watch during a program.

This is the age of the end-user. The masses are becoming the ones who decide what will succeed or not. Corporations, the media, agencies and governments are quickly realizing that products and services are succeeding or failing because of the end-users choices and word-of-mouth, not just because of marketing budget size. It’s a changing world, and an exciting one to be a part of.

I posted this on my company blog yesterday (MindComet). I’m to lazy to write another commentary on it, so here it is:

The US Supreme Court has been quite active over the last two weeks, handing out decisions on a number of high-profile cases. The most important ones to us in the interactive arena are MGM vs Grokster and Brand X vs FCC.

Does P2P = Illegal?
In the MGM vs Grokster case the Supreme Court had a unanimous ruling that stated:

We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.

At first look, this ruling makes sense. The outright and overt theft of media content will no longer be tolerated. There are a couple of questions that arise from this though. First, will this actually stop the file sharing, or does it just drive it further offshore and underground? Second, how will this ruling affect companies like Google and Yahoo! that end up financing illegal websites by the use of their ad serving technology?

Fewer Choices and Higher Rates
Brand X vs the FCC and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) has a different, but equally far-reaching effect. The final decision by the Supreme Court said that cable companies don’t have to share their lines with rival providers of high-speed internet service. The firm duopoly of cable and DSL continues. However, there might be a silver lining to this ruling for the end-customer. The higher the rates go for broadband and DSL, the more investment there will be into the wireless market. As technology gets better, and investor support increases, the third option will be wireless networks that preclude the use of cable and phone lines all together.

I can’t help but get the feeling that big business is getting their way here, in both cases.