Archive for December, 2006
Posted December 21st, 2006 by Scott
The red carpet was rolled out Monday night in Second Life (SL) at the DVD release party for the movie “A Scanner Darkly,” starring Keanu Reeves and Woody Harrelson. Neither were at the event unless they went incognito as SL avatars. With approximately 50 or so avatars present and dressed to impress, I mingled among reporters, bloggers, and developers chit-chatting about everything that one would in real life (RL). One of the main topics of conversation was that no one had seen the movie in the theatre, but was motivated to watch it after participating in the SL festivities, myself included.
Besides interacting with others and listening to the DJ spin music, I had the opportunity to explore the area, buy the movie, play around with some optical illusions, listen to sound clips from the movie, and even get placed in a few photo opps! See my pics of the event.
Could this be the future of DVD releases? I think so. It made purchasing the movie an experience. Kudos to Marc Girolimetti from Green Grotto Studios and all the other players that made this event possible.
Posted December 20th, 2006 by Char Lyn
With Web 2.0 upon us, those snail mail chain letters have transformed into blog tag, a game even A-list bloggers are willing to play. The latest game of blog tag in which you state five little-known facts about yourself has infected the likes of Robert Scoble, Steve Rubel, and Amanda Congdon. Thanks to the memetag, we know that that the game some of these A-listers are playing was started by Jeff Pulver on December 10th.
The graph above shows the number of blog authors who mentioned “blog tag” and “5 things” in the same post during the past 3 months. It seems the A-listers are late to a game that peaked in early November by the bloggers in MySpace.
Perhaps the moral of the tagging story is that the bloglebrities of the world are regular people reflecting the common themes in today’s society. So go head, post five little-known facts about yourself, forward that email that asks you 20 somewhat-embarrassing questions, enjoy what you learn about yourself and others in the process, and know that you are in good company.
Posted December 19th, 2006 by Andre
I could tell it was coming, I just never figured it would be this soon. On Wednesday, Dec. 13th, TIME Magazine released their TIME’s Person of the Year: “You”. Suddenly, all around the world, bloggers and other social media aficionados could feel their egos getting just a little boost.
The article is definitely on the right track, the power of the social web is amazing. Although for a lot of people, harnessing that power may still seem like controlling a fusion reaction. It’s now up to established media and those paid journalists to figure out how to do it better than ever in 2007. Digital Influence Group has been doing just that, and is always striving to improve.
Everyday, at work and at home, I read through blogs, search YouTube and social networking sites, and I am always thoroughly entertained and appalled by what the Web 2.0 has to offer. So here’s to all of you, the pioneers of the 21st century frontier!
(a parody of Budweiser’s Real Men of Genius)
“Time Magazine Presents: Person of the Year”
(Person of the Yeeeeear)
Today, we salute you, Mr. and Mrs. Blogger-YouTube-Second Life-MySpace users
(Mr. and Mrs. Blogger-YouTube-Second Life-MySpace users)
What do you do with all the free time you have?
You post about life’s littlest things, and the most important events of the century
All from your Helio cell phone
(don’t call it a phoooone)
When the man tries to take you down,
All you have to do is show him how many friends you really have… on MySpace
(you’re not on my top 8 )
Oh, you fantasy football hero, you Second Life rock star
You don’t have the glory or the fame, but you sure can party like one
(touchdown!)
So crank up that high speed DSL connection, oh sultans of web media.
That funny YouTube video just isn’t going to blog itself.
But seriously folks, is it really “amateur hour” as Richard Stengel, TIME’s managing editor, talked about on his post? I don’t think so, yet. Let’s just say that there are some new big kids on the playground. There are real people out there blogging and posting to make a difference in their communities, online and offline. There are those those unpaid journalists who strive to get information out to the masses. Of course, who can forget all those who do it all in order to entertain, enlighten, and make our days a little brighter. And no matter how tiny “your” voice is, “our” voice can be loud. Hey, no one can really tell what the web will be like in one or two years, but I, for one, am excited to be a part of it.
Posted December 14th, 2006 by admin
I’m sure by now everyone has gotten sick of hearing about marketers being ousted for the creation of fake viral campaigns/promotions. I thought they would have gotten the message in October when a pro-Walmart blog was revealed as a “flog,” aka a fake blog.
If you haven’t heard by now, Sony was recently exposed again for attempted stealth marketing, the latest craze. The site “all I want for xmas is a psp,” initially written in phony gangsta slang and Internet lingo, was supposedly about someone helping his friend buy a PSP. Live for less than a month, the authors were finally forced into admitting on Wednesday that the blog was created as a marketing tool by Zipatoni, a consumer activation agency.
Sony then transitioned the site to showcase “cool” products and give readers “nothing but the facts on the PSP” and turned the blog’s comment function off after receiving 600+ rants from disgruntled visitors. But you won’t be reading this blog anytime soon since they shut down the site while I was writing this post!
This latest flog incident is just another Yule log on the fire that has been roasting under Sony’s derriere. Last year Sony was in hot water for their hiring of graffiti artists in major cities who were painting murals including images of kids playing with the Sony PSP.
The issue of flogs has been taken up by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As stated in the Washington Post on Tuesday, the FTC said “that companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers, must disclose those relationships.” I find that perfectly reasonable. Flogs are completely deceiving and insulting to bloggers. I personally do not want to be swindled into thinking one thing about a site and then finding out I’ve been duped. When will they ever learn?
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