Emerging Media & Politics Part 2

Those staunch, staid Republicans keep getting all interactive on us!

First there was the live web tour of the convention facilities I wrote about a couple of days ago.

Now they're sponsoring a contest to win a free trip to the convention. All you have to do is make a video of yourself, 2 minutes or less, about why you're a Republican. The winner will get to attend the convention as part of the press corps, and will see their video played on the convention floor. Pretty cool, although I don't have the time, energy, or interest to actually make a video and post it. Which got me to wondering: are these types of promotions really aimed at (or even successful at) attracting new devotees who are drawn by the interactivity? Or are the party faithful the only ones who are really participating?

I noticed while I was at the contest site that the Republicans have 27 other convention related videos on YouTube, including an archived version of that lunchtime chat web tour of the convention center from last Friday. One of the most watched videos is a spoof of a costumed donkey visiting the convention headquarters to deliver a singing telegram (and then being mock "arrested"):



When something as old school as a GOP convention can get into the new media act, you know it must be mainstream!

Randy Pausch & the Power of the Internet

Randy Pausch 1960-2008

If there ever was an example of how social media can spread an important message virally -- Randy Pausch's story has to be it.

Randy died today at age 47, 11 months after giving an academic lecture that was seen in person by several hundred people, but thanks to the Internet, has been watched by millions more.

Randy was a ground-breaking professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University here in Pittsburgh. He co-founded the university's Entertainment Technology Center and developed Alice, the university's innovative educational software for teaching computer programming. He was at the top of his professional game, when, two years ago he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given less than a year to live.

On September 18, 2007, he delivered his "Last Lecture" at CMU -- I've capitalized the words "last lecture," because that's the name of a special lecture series at CMU. Speakers are invited to talk about what they would say if indeed, the lecture was their last.

For Pausch it truly would be his last lecture at his beloved alma mater. Entitled "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," the lecture was Pausch's funny, upbeat and self-deprecating look at his own life, punctuated by his sage advice for living -- even as he knew he was dying. If you haven't watched it you should (click here).

Randy's lecture was posted on CMU's website, then on YouTube, and has been watched by at least 6 million people, probably more. It was turned into a best-selling book. It lead to invitations to testify before congress about funding for pancreatic cancer research, to appear on Oprah, to work out with the Steelers, even to appear as an extra in the upcoming Star Trek movie. As one colleague put it, Pausch lived more in his last year of life than most of us will live in a lifetime.

For those who knew Pausch today is bittersweet: he is gone, but his legacy will live on, thanks to his courage, humour, and a lecture that, thanks to the Internet, has touched people around the world.

Watch one of KDKA's obituaries on Pausch by clicking here.

Watch Pausch's address to CMU graduates in May by clicking here.

Watch a version of the Last Lecture with running commentary by Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal who co-authored Pausch's book by clicking here.

Emerging Media & Politics

As a journalist, political junkie and marketing student, I've been fascinated to see how the 2008 presidential campaign has embraced emerging media and social in such a big way.

It's a given that candidates large and small will have websites, and of course McCain, Obama and Clinton have them -- all let you switch from English to Spanish -- very smart, since Hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. These websites are not only places to disseminate information and connect with voters, they're fundraising powerhouses. How else to explain how Hillary Clinton raised more than $1 million in less than 24 hours after she urged supporters to visit her site during her victory speech in New Hampshire in January?

E-mail has also become a huge tool for the candidates to communicate -- including with those of us in the media. I'm signed up/was signed up to receive e-mail releases from both the Obama and Clinton camps. During those long six weeks of campaigning leading up to the primary here in Pennsylvania, I was inundated with at least a few -- and often dozens -- of press releases and position papers every day.

Today I learned of yet another way that politicos are using new media. I got an invitation from the people who are organizing the 2008 Republican National Convention to participate in an on-line "Lunchtime Chat" tomorrow at 1pm, which will take participants on a live walking tour of the convention headquarters in Saint Paul, and give us a chance to meet the people behind the scenes of the convention. The chats use technology powered by a company called Ustream.tv, the live streaming provider of the convention. The fact that the Republicans actually have a live streaming provider tells me that we're probably in for 24/7 streaming of both of these conventions for those who just can't get enough!

P.S. No surprise, the convention homepage also has a blog, wallpaper, and a social networking site where people going to the convention can hook up and make friends even before they get to Minnesota. The Dems have their own page with some of the same features, plus an invitation to make a "why I'm a Democrat in 2008" video and post it to YouTube!

Breaking Up is (less) Hard to Do

Under the category of what will they think of next, a new phone service called Slydial is making it easier to get through those awkward moments (like breaking up with someone) by connecting directly with their cell phone voice mail.

You call 267-Slydial either from your cell phone or a landline, enter the other person's cell phone number and voila. The only caveat is that your phone has to be caller ID enabled, to prevent people from anonymously harassing other people on their mobile phones.

Gavin Macomber, co-founder of MobileSphere Ltd., the Boston-based communications company behind Slydial says the idea for the service while developing a service to lower the cost of international roaming on cell phones. And it actually does have some great business applications: business people wanting to leave reminder messages for clients, or leaving messages for people traveling in faraway time zones without having the phone ring at an odd time of day or night.

That said, the ability to leave really bad news on someone's voice mail box without having to actually TALK to them seems like the most intriguing benefit of Slydial! And isn't that lack of face to face contact the way we like it in these days of e-mailing co-workers who are sitting an office away, and texting people that we could call on the phone?

The Birth of a New KDKA Blog

It’s always fun when the things I’m learning in my Master’s Degree program dovetail with things that are going on at the TV station. It feels good when my learning allows me contribute to the success and health of my company in new ways. And it gets me excited again about the possibilities for the future of a business that a lot of people say is dying.

For the past several months we’ve been talking a lot about how to make our website, kdka.com, even better. Right now our site traffic is consistently second in the chain of CBS owned and operated TV stations, coming in ahead of giant markets like LA, New York, Miami and Chicago. But we’re always being challenged not only to increase traffic, but to increase time spent at our site.

One of the ways we’re doing that is by encouraging more of our reporters and anchors to blog. Right now we have 12 blogs on the site, 10 local, 2 produced by CBS and distributed to all of the owned and operated stations. Our local blogs range from one that answers viewer health questions written by our medical reporter, Dr. Maria Simbra, to a blog about road construction and transportation issues written by our traffic reporter Jim Lokay. Even producers are getting in on the act: web producer Angela Taylor writes about her passion for the Young and the Restless, and sports producer Mike Vukovcan keeps readers up to date on the latest scoop from inside the Pirates organization.

One of the things I don’t like about our blog page right now is that it isn’t engaging. The way it’s set up, the blogs all appear by title, but in no particular order. There’s no way of knowing which blog has new information posted, or even what’s inside the blog. In other words, there’s nothing to guide you. How would you know from the headline on reporter Mary Robb Jackson’s blog called (duh!) “Mary Robb Jackson’s Blog” that inside you would find the emotional story of Mary Robb’s adopted daughter Mariel’s travels to meet her birth mother for the first time?

Contrast this with one of my favorite company blogs, Direct2Dell, a “blog about Dell Products, Services and Customers.” Like the KDKA blog, it’s written by Dell employees, including everyone from vice-presidents to customer service reps. But the set up and layout of the site is, in my opinion, much more intuitive than the kdka.com blog page.

Sign on to the Dell blog, and you’ll find one or two main posts of the day – almost like a lead story in a television newscast (see where I’m going with this?). To the right of the main blog is the list of other categories where employees may also be blogging or answering customer questions. Someone (probably lead blogger Lionel Menchaca) has decided, of all of the blogs written that day, which are the most newsworthy or of the most general interest to be the main blog, and Menchaca writes the lead post on days when it needs to be an over-arching message that’s not specific to a particular subject category. He also writes a week in review on the weekends, summing up the discussion at the blog that week. My guess is that Menchaca also prods his colleagues to write posts when he believes that the most important story of the day for Dell is something in their area of expertise. He may even be the one who makes sure customer service is monitoring the blog for consumer complaints and answering their questions.

My hope is that the future KDKA blog will look a lot like the Dell page, with a “lead” story relevant to the day’s news or to what people are talking about, and the list of all blogs marching from top to bottom on the right. For example, expect me to blog early on about the avalanche of viewer e-mail I get about why television newscasts “tease” so much. I’ll probably also blog early on (or get my consumer reporter Yvonne Zanos to blog) about the frequent viewer e-mail we receive related to on-line scams. When there’s a big court case going on, I’ll certainly get our veteran reporter, Harold Hayes, to blog about the behind the scenes scoop he observes. When a big weekend construction project threatens to cause traffic nightmares, Jim Lokay’s blog will be featured that day. And if I had been chief blogger when Mary Robb wrote the blog about her daughter, that would certainly have been front page news!

The Bling in "Ning"

I’ll admit to being really late to this social networking thing. This year I finally signed up for LinkedIn (only because a bunch of my business acquaintances kept asking me to join their networks), and created a presence (I can’t really call it a “page”) at FaceBook after my husband and some other friends joined there.

So it’s no surprise that I had never heard of the social networking service called Ning until my friend and classmate John introduced me to it. You might describe Ning as social networking page crossed with a wiki crossed with a blog, where people create customized websites to host on-line communities around just about any subject (in any language) to connect with like-minded people.

There’s GAX for gamers (2700+ members) and “Mamas Fallen Angels” for people who love “hair metal” music of the 80’s and 90’s (3700+ members). Hip-hop mogul 50 Cent has a Ning site with more than 100,000 members! Launched in February 2007 by Gina Bianchini and Marc Andreesssen, Ning was recently valued at half-a-billion dollars (yes, that’s a capital B!) as reported by TechCrunch, and the company predicts by 2010, it will host 4 million social networks.

In an article on FastCompany, Adam Penenberg describes Ning as something called a “viral expansion loop”:

"It's a type of engineering alchemy that, done right, almost guarantees a self-replicating, borglike growth: One user becomes two, then four, eight, to a million and beyond. It's not unlike taking a penny and doubling it daily for 30 days. By the end of a week, you'd have 64 cents; within two weeks, $81.92; by day 30, about $5.4 million. Viral loops have emerged as perhaps the most significant business accelerant to hit Silicon Valley since the search engine. They power many of the icons of Web 2.0, including Google, PayPal, YouTube, eBay, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Flickr. But don't confuse a viral loop with viral advertising or videos such as Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday" or the Mentos-Diet Coke Bellagio fountain. Viral advertising can't be replicated; by definition, a viral loop must be."

That’s all way too technical for me. All I know is that Ning offers a lot of cool features, like total customization of the page (including the ability to use company logos) and the ability to insert widgets from other websites. It provides the opportunity to create individual member profiles and discussion groups within the Ning page, and helps users to display photos and slideshows, even allows them to integrate their FaceBook pages into the network.

CMS Wire asks if Ning is the next FaceBook or MySpace. I think that’s selling Ning short. I’m really looking forward to getting to know Ning better now that I’ve discovered it. I can think of lots of applications. I’ve just agreed to be co-chair of the committee that will plan and fundraise for my college class 25th reunion – why not create a Ning page for that?

Maybe we need a Ning social network for harried graduate students ;-)!

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Dear family, friends and colleagues--

I know this doesn't have anything to do with TV news, marketing or emerging media (unless my "digtal" camera counts as new media), but I had to share. My son's North Hills (PA) tournament baseball team won the Bauerstown 8-year old tournament last night against a tough team from Deer Lakes, 11-6. Given that our boys were at one point down 6-1, they learned a valuable lesson about never giving up. It's a lesson for all of us -- whether we work in the challengeing worlds of news and marketing, or are studying challenging subjects like new media in graduate school!



You're Kool and the Gang if you started singing the song my headline was inspired by!

Homepages That Try To Do Too Much

One of my pet peeves is home pages that try to do too much. I'm not talking about the psychotic pages you run across every once in awhile, like this one for an organization called Havenworks that will make your head explode (kudos for the folks at Web Pages the Suck for coming up with that one).

No, I'm talking about major corporations who should know better -- and have plenty of money to do website design right. I've always thought this about the website for Heinz. Depending on who you are (a consumer, an investor, a reporter), it can be really hard to figure out which parts of the website are for you. The Sara Lee website has the same problem: it's a melange of information for investors, consumers, reporters, business partners -- even job seekers.

Award winning website designer Derek Powazek admits, the process of designing a website is "anxiety-inducing" for even the best companies. It's your first impression, and you only get one chance. He offers four goals for homepage design that will insure a winning impression:

Goal 1: Answer the question, "What is this place?"

"This is, and always will be," says Powazek, "the number-one job of any home page. The first thing a new visitor does when they get to an unfamiliar site is ask that question. If the site does not do a good job of answering it within a few seconds, the user will feel dumb, leave, and never come back." Only companies like Google, where people already know how to use the site, can afford to be user hostile, says Powatek.

In my opinion both Heinz and Sara Lee don't do a great job of fulfilling goal #1. The Heinz homepage doesn't say anything about what the company does. Sara Lee's says "our mission is to simply delight you... every day" which tells me nothing about the company. Perhaps can get away with violating this rule because everyone already knows what their brands stand for.

Goal 2: Don't get in the repeat visitor's way

Powazek says one good way to do this is to make a homepage dynamic. New visitors get an explanation; return visitors who log in get information specific to them. That helps achieve goal three.

Goal 3: Show what's new

Powazek says: "Too many sites stop after addressing goals one and two. But once a user's gone through the trouble of figuring out what you do, and then actually coming back, you owe them something: what's new." Heinz does an OK job here: one of the boldest items you see when signing onto their page is a come-on for their latest "TopThisTV" make-your-own-commercial campaign. The only new thing on Sara Lee's homepage are the press releases posted at the bottom -- and who cares?

Goal 4: Provide consistent, reliable global navigation

Heinz's navigation is consistent and reliable, but by gosh there's a lot of it. There are 26 different links on the tabs that make up the top navigation bar, another 13 that run down the right side of the page, and another four on the bottom navigation bar!

Here's an example of a website that I think hits on all of Powazek's goals: the website for the language learning company Rosetta Stone. Call up their home page and there's goal number one, right in the upper lefthand corner: "The fastest way to learn a language. Guaranteed" cycles with "Comprehensive language learning for individuals, organizations and schools." Goal number 2 is met with their "sign-in" feature on the homepage that allows those who are already subscribers to sign in and get immediately to their personal content. Goal 3 is also met right on the home page, as the "who are we" phrases share space with "NEW! Rosetta Stone's Personal Version 3: Language Learning Just Got a Whole Lot Better!". Finally -- my favorite part of the website -- its crystal clear navigation. Right below the top line animation and photographs are three links "Personal, Organizations, Schools" that direct the user immediately to the content that's relevant to them.

Merci, Rosetta Stone!

TV + Direct Marketing + Website = Good IMC (but no sale)

Lately I've had a chuckle from the ongoing series of advertisements for Fiber One cereal. Perhaps I've paid closer attention because my husband is hooked on this brand thanks to word of mouth from a friend.

Or perhaps I just enjoy the interaction between the characters in the ad:

There's the generic "customer guy." He doesn't believe the Fiber One product actually contains fiber, so much so, that in the latest commercial he's caught writing an "N" in front of the "One" on a store's cereal boxes to create the name "Fiber None."

There's the blank-faced,confused "stock boy" who can't answer the customer's question: where's the fiber.

And finally, my favorite character, the smooth "store manager," a handsome older man (actor Ajay Mehta) with an intriguing accent, who demonstrates how delicious the cereal is by eating it on camera. "Cardboard no. Delicious, yes," he says.



A newer version of the "Fiber (N)One" commercial takes the company's marketing effort fully into IMC: it offers a free sample if you visit the opt-in landing page on the company's website.

I clicked lower left on the free offer section and was taken to an opt-in landing page where I was invited to create an "Eat Better America" profile that asks for name, address (of course to send the free sample). It also asks for my e-mail address and birthdate (so now they're creating a database with some basic demographic information about me). In return I get the free sample of cereal and a Fiber One bar and an automatic sign-up for the "eatbetteramerica" newsletter.

So, in one fell swoop you've got mass media advertising (TV), a direct marketing offer (the free product), and Internet marketing (the driver to the website and sign-up)all rolled into one.

That said, I didn't end up signing up. I'd love to get the free samples, and I wouldn't mind receiving additional discounts. But I already get a lot of e-mail pitches from companies and I'd rather not sign up for another.

It got me thinking about how they could have made the offer better so that I signed up. Keeping the offer the same, maybe if they told me up front how often I would receive e-mails would have calmed my fears about being inundated with more unwelcome e-mail. They could have changed the offer to increase the value of it -- for example, driving me to the website for a coupon or code to get a free full-sized box of Fiber One the next time I go shopping. In terms of campaign cost, eliminating the need to mail me the sample might have been a wash with the increased cost of giving a full-sized box. They could have simply sent me a free sample in the mail or included it with my Sunday paper. This might have increased trial of the product, but it wouldn't have helped them build their on-line presence and customer database, and there might have been media waste, since some of the mass market that receives the free sample might not be interested and throw it away.

I'm going to assume that the company has really smart marketers who thought long and hard about how to structure the offer and then tested it beforehand. Bottom line: in my opinion it's a great example of what integrated marketing can and should be.

The Avalanche of E-mail

I have to vent. I returned from a week of vacation yesterday to find 494 e-mails in my work in-box (where were you other six slackers who could have helped make it an even 500?).

My volume of mail is somewhat unique to my situation, as yours probably is as well. As a manager, I'm copied on any e-mail of importance, including messages from our corporate offices. I get copies of quality control reports on each and every one of our newscasts (so that's an automatic 9 e-mails a day). I field all of the e-mails from viewers that come to our investigative mailbox from our website, which range in volume from one or two to upwards of 10 a day. And for some reason, I got labeled in the PR community as the station's arts and entertainment news coordinator, so now I get probably a dozen press releases each day on everything from movie openings to book signings. I can't imagine how I'd be tearing my hair out if I owned a BlackBerry!

An IBAC survey survey of more than 13,000 members in 2006 found that 47% say they receive too much e-mail, 44% admit sending too many messages, those in larger companies (5000+) reported e-mail overload more often than their small-company counterparts, and 61% felt that outside news sources and professional subscriptions was the main source of the e-mail overload.

While e-mail has certainly become an indespensible part of communicating in many workplaces -- mine included -- I think it's almost become a hindrance that wastes a lot of time, and allows people to avoid face to face interactions. When a colleague who's sitting a few feet away e-mails me instead of getting up to come and talk, you know things have gone too far. And when you obsessively check e-mail to avoid doing other work, you know you've got a problem.

One study out of King's College in London found that our "infomania" or obsession with e-mail and texting actually lowers our IQ as much as 10 points, or more than smoking pot! The researchers theorize that you can't fully concentrate on a task when you have one eye on the in-box, and long term, they say, this constant distraction can cause damage to our mental ability. Yikes!

So, what to do?

We can start by looking in the mirror: if I send fewer e-mail messages today and deal with my co-workers face to face, at the very least I won't be contributing to their overload. But when it comes to managing the e-mail I get, here are some tips that those in the IABC survey say they use:

@deal with a message only once: read, and then delete or respond immediately

@triage your e-mail account, removing the irrelevant and low-value messages

@organize messages by deadline, subject or assignment

@schedule regular times to deal with e-mail and close the browser in between

@shut off the pop-up window and audio that come with the arrival of a new message

Survey respondents also had some great suggestions for how companies can help their employees deal with the avalanche of e-mail and clean up workplace "nettiquette." They include:

@use clear and correct subject lines, and indicate if the message is for action now or FYI

@eliminate distribution lists of more than five names.

@outlaw the use of the cc, bcc, forwarding and "reply to all" functions.

@ban e-mails that are intended only as "butt covers"

@for short messages, put all the information in the subject line, ending with "EOM" (end of message) to indicate that the reader doesn't need to open the rest of the message

@use e-newsletters which can eliminate many e-mails from a particular source (my parent company CBS has done this by sending out regular regular newsletters encapsulating multiple subjects, instead of sending out memos on each one)

@create an "e-charter," a formal, companywide set of policies, rules and guidelines about e-mail use.

The experts also recommend the use of alternative forms of electronic communication, like wikis for collaborative projects (sure beats all those e-mail strings forwarded around and around your group), and text messaging for short messages or urgent matters.

Excellent suggestions all. But even though we all moan and groan about getting too much e-mail, given our obsession with it, I wonder if we'll really take the advice.

P.S. That IABC survey? It was sent to members... via e-mail!

Designed to Sell

OK, I'll admit it. I'm nebby (that's Pittsburghese for nosey). I'm especially nebby when it comes to other people's houses. Is the inside glamorous or run down? Kitchen cluttered or high tech? Yard pristine or overgrown? Bedrooms cramped or spacious?

It's why, when I have time I love to watch HGTV shows like "Designed to Sell" and "House Hunters." I also religiously read the real estate listings in the Sunday paper, and like to surf realtor websites to see what's for sale locally and what people are asking, even though my husband and I are not in the market.

You've probably noticed, real estate companies have made the process of finding a house a lot more interactive than it was even 5 years ago. Most for sale signs include an MLS (Multiple Listing Service) number code, which is also included in any newspaper listings. These codes allow curious homeowners to find out more about the house on the spot, either by calling a hotline, plugging in the home and hearing a recording about the features, or going to the realtor website and using the code to find an on-line listing for the property, including in most cases, photographs of the inside of the home. But getting a recorded message telling me about the inside of the house is certainly not the same as seeing actual pictures of it. And it's awkward and time consuming to have to write down the MLS number or drag your newspaper over to the computer to check out the home on line.



So when one of my classmates introduced me to an emerging marketing technology called Quick Response codes (QR codes for short) a light bulb went on. I had never heard of QR codes before he introduced them in a discussion post thread. These are two dimensional bar codes, invented by a Japanese company back in 1994. While they're popular in Japan, they've never really caught on here in the U.S. They were first used to track car parts, but today QR codes are used in applications aimed at mobile phone users. QR codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, even business cards. Someone with a camera phone that has the correct reader can scan the QR code, sending the phone's browser to the URL.

So, I'm wondering, why couldn't realtors attach QR codes to the sign outside a home for sale (or on the brochures that they often provide in a plastic box attached to the sign) allowing someone passing by a property to get to the URL for the property and check it out on line on the spot? The realtor could even put a QR code in newspaper listings, allowing the reader to scan to the URL for a property as they sit back in their easy chair, cup of coffee in one hand and enabled mobile phone in the other on a Sunday morning. Not only would the potential home buyer get to see photographs and even videos of the inside of the house instantly, the QR code could direct the phone to the realtor's phone number, ready to dial, or even give directions. A Seattle realtor is already using MLS codes to send photos, virtual tours to the cell phones of leads -- QR codes can't be far behind.

The only drawback here, of course, is that most Americans don't know what QR codes are. Any realtor attempting to use the codes to market houses would have to do some pretty heavy duty consumer education. This could include putting everything from "how to" instructions in property brochures and in Sunday newspaper listings, to pitching stories about the new technology to local newspapers, radio and television stations. It would be a challenge. But if QR codes become a successful component of marketing property, the realtor who tries it first could get a leg up on the competition in building brand loyalty with consumers. And isn't that's what every marketer is looking to do?

Are You Selling a Groundhog?

Self-described online thought leadership and viral marketing strategist David Meerman Scott recently wrote a funny (but of course completely relevant) blog post in which he described how many times -- when he gives a speech or seminar -- people will say "But my buyers aren't online. My buyers don't use Google to find answers to problems or to research products."

Meerman Scott says when he hears this he immediately thinks the person is just afraid of social media and is making an excuse so they can stick to traditional marketing. That's when he reminds them that nearly everyone -- from corporate CEOs to the janitor who cleans the CEO's office is probably on line. He makes his point with a great juxtaposition: he's suddenly discovered the one industry where the buyers are not on line, the camel market in Riyad, Saudi Arabia (watch his sandstorm enhanced video here).

His point got me thinking about my favorite on-line marketing effort of all time: the series of viral videos created by the Pennsylvania Department of Tourism for Groundhog Day 2004. If you don't know what Groundhog Day is then you must be hibernating: it's the event, every February 2nd, where Punxsutawney Phil (the event happens in the north central Pennsylvania town of Punxsutawney) is dragged from his burrow on Gobbler's Knob to see whether or not he sees his shadow -- if he sees his shadow, that means there will be six more weeks of winter.

The online marketing campaign entitled "Groundhog Chase", features a series of eight short videos that chronicle the exploits of "The Groundhog" and "The Shadow" as the groundhog (a guy in a groundhog suit) attempts to catch his shadow (another guy in a black groundhog suit) by chasing him all over town with hilarious results. The first video was launched in early January 2004 with more videos released over the subsequent weeks leading up to Groundhog Day in an effort to build buzz about the annual event. People were encouraged to sign up to receive e-mail alerts about the release of a new video. In my house, my son and I eagerly awaited the newest installment and got on-line immediately to view it.

Groundhog Chase was fairly cheaply made: two guys in groundhog costumes, a handful of additional actors and a couple of guys with a handheld camera made this video in less than a week in Philadelphia (but notice how they try to keep the locations somewhat generic so as not to make this a "Philly" thing).

It created great buzz, so good in fact, that PA Tourism followed up Groundhog Chase with Groundhog 202 a take-off on the Jack Nicholson film "The Shining" that was written up in everything from AdRants to the Philadelphia Business Journal. 2007 brought Groundhog Crossing, in which Shadow has fled Punxsutawney and Groundhog must track him across the country (read the critique of this campaign at imediaconnection.com). This year Groundhog and Shadow went celebrity in a new series of viral videos called Groundhog Duel complete with a companion blog site, Celebrity Plush.

My point being: maybe camel sellers in Riyad don't go on line or use viral marketing. But if an organization as venerable as the 122 year old Punxsutawney Groundhog Club can be dragged into the emerging media of the 21st century, then anyone can -- and should!

P.S. if you only have time to watch one of the series of videos, watch the first one. The videos might seem a little bit "last year" but keep in mind, this idea was hatched four years ago (a lifetime in viral marketing) and on a shoestring budget. My favorite episode is the one in the laundromat (check out how Shadow flirts with the girl doing her laundry). And see if you can catch the continuity mistake in the one that's shot in a men's room.

Social Networking & TV News

It’s amazing to me how social networking has crept into the normally staid world of TV news, especially when it comes to news story research. Three years ago most people in our newsroom had probably never been on a FaceBook or MySpace page or searched YouTube for information; now these social networking sites are among the first places we go when certain types of stories break.

For example, getting photographs of victims of accidents and crimes used to be a terrible chore – no reporter likes to knock on a family’s door in times of tragedy. Today we often find the photographs we need on a person’s social networking page. While this may seem like it’s made our job easier, there are still challenges. The biggest is usually the fact that many pages are private; only friends allowed. But we have a 20-something assignment editor in our newsroom who is an expert at getting information by working backwards through the networking sites of a person’s friends whose profiles aren’t private.

Once we’re in, another challenge is to make sure we have the right person -- it’s not like people put captions on their pictures on a social networking page! Our final challenge is often finding photographs that are appropriate -- many of the pictures people put on their social networking pages are, how can I say it nicely, irreverent? These wouldn’t necessarily be right to use in a story about a tragedy, although I do recall using a gangster-like photograph of a girl a young of instigating the shooting of five basketball players on a local university campus a couple of years ago, along with her MySpace description of herself as “half lady half thug” (not surprisingly her page was pulled down a couple of hours after we reported this).

Yesterday the station may have reached the pinnacle (so far) of the use of social networking in a single newscast. During our noon news, we pulled video from a murder suspect’s MySpace page of his 2-year old daughter – who he is accused of killing, along with the little girl’s infant brother and the children’s mother. And in a story about the impending indictment of former state lawmaker Mike Veon in a staff bonus scandal, we pulled video from a YouTube page of Veon answering questions about Bonusgate during an interview a year and a half ago (he has rarely been in public over the past year to be questioned about the scandal).

It will be interesting to see how the practice of using material from social networking sites continues to develop, especially as it applies to copyright laws. So far the most public battles over copyright have involved major content providers suing over use of their copyrighted material on networking sites – my employer Viacom (now CBS) is currently suing YouTube over the posting of material from shows like “SpongeBob Squarepants” and “The Daily Show.” But there’s been no legal activity – that I know of – involving news outlet’s use of material taken from social networking sites. I’m not a lawyer, but it seems as if, once you’ve put material out there in cyberspace it’s becomes fair game. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some guy who took a candid photo or video of someone and posted it on MySpace suddenly claim ownership and try to sue a TV station for using that photo or video in a news story.

Stay tuned!

Now that I M txting will I B spammed?

I’ll admit it. I’ve been slow to this mobile phone texting craze. I have an old Verizon phone that doesn’t have the fancy keypad that most savvy texters are using these days. I’m also in the generation that generally views mobile phones as something to make a phone call on, not to type on (although one of the TV station’s 50-something reporters has become a whiz at texting information to the newsroom from closed courtrooms where he’s covering trials – shhh, don’t tell the judge!).

Last night I felt like I had truly entered the texting generation. My husband and our 8-year old baseball-crazed son attended a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game, and I experienced something that up until then I had heard about but never witnessed: in-stadium texting. From what I understand from my friends lucky enough to get tickets this sold-out season, the Pittsburgh Penguins do it too.

The premise is simple really. The Pirates have taken over one of the electronic message boards around the rim of the stadium that used to be reserved for baseball statistics and turned it into an instant message board. The board invites you to dial 282-26 and text a message to someone else in the stadium. After what I assume is a process of weeding out those messages with profanity or other inappropriate content, the message is posted on the big board for all to see. As we sat there waiting through what would be the first of two incredibly long rain delays (the game didn’t finish until after 1am), I couldn’t help myself: I texted a “hello” message to my son. When my message finally appeared on the message board we both got a big kick out of it.

I got a different “kick” out of the experience this morning when I checked my cellphone and discovered that the message board (to be exact, the Pirates) had texted me back with the following message: “Thx for txting. Get a taste of All You Can Eat Seats at PNC Park this season, just $35 in advance! Visit pirates.com/allyoucaneat. Std msg rts aply.”

I was taken aback. Did sending the text to the message board mean that I’ve opted into getting marketing text messages from the Pirates? Is this the only one I’ll receive or will I suddenly be bombarded with mobile spam from the team?

This reminded me of the ongoing debate about opt-in, not necessarily whether to do it, but how to define it. The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) code of conduct requires all mobile marketing to be opt-in, as does the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) license agreement for the use of short codes (those 5 digit numbers like the one the Pirates used to text me). Yet a 2006 study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 18 percent of cell phone users report getting spam on their cellular phones, and two years later, you’d have to think that this statistic would be higher. If opt-in is required, how can this be?

As Issac Scarborough of Chappell Associates writes there could be a couple of issues at work here. The first is the fact that as in every industry, there are those marketers who will not behave ethically or follow the rules. A second issue, says Scarborough, is the fact that cell carriers are initiating a lot of what’s perceived as spam, “leveraging their existing relationship with the consumer” to get around the rules (kind of like the FCC allowing companies to telemarket to current customers even if those customers have signed up for the do-not-call list). The third, and probably most problematic, is the differing definitions of spam:

"Those of us with experience in email marketing," writes Scarborough, "know that consumers often talk of "spam" very differently than do advertisers. At the end of the day, what counts as SMS spam? From a cell phone users' perspective, this seems intuitive-- if I didn't ask for it, it counts as spam. For many industry participants, however, the question is less about whether an advertisement has been "asked for," and more if the consumer has opted-in to a SMS marketing campaign. The MMA defines wireless spam as "Push Messaging that is sent without Confirmed Opt-In." Since "Push Messaging" is the equivalent of un-requested or unsolicited, this does allow marketers to send SMS ads that consumers might not have directly asked for."

Scarborough's feelings about his experience with mobile marketing spam echoes my experience with the Pirates: it wasn’t obnoxious, but it was unexpected, and thus a little bit disconcerting. But I agree with him that if the industry continues to keep its focus on avoiding spam and nailing down what true opt-in should mean, most of us may come to accept the fact that our mobile phones are another marketing channel.