Archive for December, 2006
Posted December 11th, 2006 by Kevin
Back when I was studying Media Theory and Communications, required courses discussed the societal impact of the representation of women, minorities and children in the world of mass communications. Were television and advertising an accurate reflection of society, or did they create ideal images and drive the populace to fulfill them? The topic is widely debated and arguments for both sides often have merit.
Now, years later, one could ask the same questions regarding the social web.
It’s clear to most of us that consumers have embraced the power of the Internet to drive trends and expose the flaws of big business (e.g., see “Dell” or “Starbucks”). No longer are the opinions of only a few television and advertising executives influencing the world or projecting the world they see. Now, the masses are influencing the masses. The logical question here is: are we doing a good job?
Sure, Web 2.0 is still in its infancy, so one should look past the “Happy Slapping” and drunken images and confessions on Myspace and focus on the positives like this and this. Companies that take the initiative to converse with the “real” consumer should be applauded and recognized.
With the evolution of Web 2.0, organizations have the unique opportunity to listen to the people that keep them in business and operate honestly instead of just communicating via 30 second spots. It may be too soon to answer the question as to whether or not the social web is a reflection of society or driving it, but the communities are out there and everyone’s invited to discuss.
Posted December 8th, 2006 by Kelby
I thought December was supposed to be the quiet month, but not here at DIG . We’ve been busy and I thought I would give a quick update on some of the things we’re working on.
Yesterday we purchased our own island in Second Life. Many still don’t get Second Life or think it’s a fad that will come and go. We think it’s the next iteration of the Internet. Remember back in the early 90’s when companies were starting to get a feel for the Internet and weren’t sure why they should have a Web site? Well, that’s where we currently are with Second Life. Yes, it’s still in its early stages as individuals, communities and companies (both in and outside of SL) sort things out, but it won’t be too long before visiting SL is as second nature as jumping on the ‘net. We’re excited to be doing our jumping now and hope you’ll look us up.
If you don’t know, my title at DIG is VP of Digital Media Releations (DMR). What exactly is DMR? Good question. Look for more information here and on the Digital Influence Group site. We’ll be providing an overview of what it is, who’s doing it and how it can help your business. If you have any thoughts I’d love to hear them.
One last thing, we agree with individuals like Jonathan Schwartz at Sun and others who are looking for a new version of the press release that better meets the needs of businesses. Much like Shift and Tom Foremski did, we’ll be examining the press release and the tools now available to publish, post and find news (think tags, RSS, wikis, etc). Others have also talked about this project. In fact, on Tuesday Edelman released a new tool to create this release. As Foremski puts it so well in his post on Edelman’s news, it will be interesting to see how the SEC and news release services react to the growth of the new media release. I’m not so sure they’ll react as soon as Tom thinks they will, but with increased use and promotion, they’ll eventually have to respond (look for this in mid-2007 IMHO). Regardless, we’ll be looking at this further to see where we can help advance it and look forward to your suggestions and feedback as we go.
That’s it for now. More later. In the meantime, enjoy the holidays.
Posted December 7th, 2006 by Scott
August 1, 1981 marked the beginning of an era known as music television (MTV). The first music video to air on MTV was by The Buggles, their 1979 hit song “Video Killed the Radio Star.” This video was the first of its kind and sparked a trend that drew a huge youth audience for the next two decades.
The idea of music videos being played on TV 24 hours a day is a fad that has slowly begun to fade out. Now cable and satellite channels airing 24 hour music television are provided to subscribers at additional costs. Macworld recently published an article stating that the UK record label Ninja Tune will launch a music video channel in the online world of Second Life.
With the introduction of music videos in SL, come new opportunities for advertising. If someone can watch music videos all day everyday for free, what’s to stop businesses from utilizing the channels for advertising? Pontiac recently sponsored a live concert on its own Motorati Island in the virtual world. The event was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel with a performance by Jay-Z. Is this the beginning of the end for music video? Probably not, but according to CIO Insight, it’s definitely video evolution.
Posted December 7th, 2006 by Char Lyn
For the past couple of years, Googling “Martin Luther King” would return the site MartinLutherKing-dot-org* as the top result due in part to a Google bomb by the site’s sponsor—the white supremacist organization Stormfront.org. This example and others like it have pushed educators to teach information literacy to help students refine and validate the search results they get on the Web.
On Nov. 19, an education blogger named Tom Hoffman decided to do something about it. He proposed Google bombing several other Martin Luther King sites to drive MartinLutherKing-dot-org off the first page of results, or at least below the fold of the first page. The next day, a few notable bloggers, including Robert Scoble, picked up on Tom’s blog and added the Google bomb to theirs.
You can view Tom’s The Week in Review to see early results of his campaign. When writing this post, my search for “martin luther king” showed that MartinLutherKing-dot-org has already moved down to 4 on Google, 38 on Yahoo, 1 on MSN, and didn’t appear in the first 10 pages of results on Ask.com. But, it hasn’t even been two weeks, and it takes time to update search engines. I’ll be interested to check back in another week or two and see how the rankings have changed.
Most people recognize the Internet as the ultimate incarnation of the First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech. Perhaps Tom Hoffman’s exercise has shown us that the Internet can also be an expression of democracy. If enough people don’t like what they see, they can vote with the links in their blogs to change that all important popularity meter — the page rank.
* You may notice that I am intentionally not using the actual URL or linking to MartinLutherKing-dot-org in an effort not to promote the site.
** If you are interested in other sites that can help teach information literacy, see Alan November’s list of favorite “sites to validate” for educators.
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