SocialCASTER:

MarketSmart Interactive Closes (and why it matters)

MarketSmart Interactive has closed it's doors, kept a handful of staff, and rolled up into MarketSmart Advertising. This is a pretty big story considering MSI was heir to a respected seo/sem legacy from Keyword Rankings/Websourced. But the real story is the conversation going on about this in the b'sphere.

Seems as though MSI has been doomed for a while. Much of the top talent has been leaving the company for some time now. After a broad stroke layoff exercise at MSI this week, many bloggers and former employees (including top search talent like Andy Beal, Garret French, and Adam Shultz) started posting about all the talent that was now jobless.

This whole story is important for a few reasons...

Perfect example of blogging, a brand, business, and a human story coming together organically. This conversation is not a PR or marketing effort, it's natural and it's happening right now.

Perfect example of how an out of touch company can lose control of it's identity. MSI was a titan of an SEO firm with respected talent, but most of the talk about the company got worse as years went on. Why did we only hear bad news for so long? Why was MSI so unusually silent about their problems and criticism?

Perfect example that talented bloggers can be the face of your company (if you have them). I have been reading many blogs of former MSI employees and didn't even know it until I started tracking this story. I find all these bloggers to be more of an authority on search than the company they all came from.

Perfect example of sales side vs service side antics at a web/tech firm. Just read the comments.

BOTTOM LINE: Pay attention to the blogosphere. We have watched this company go slowly downhill for quite sometime. We have all seen former employees move on to better things (and followed them there). We have watched bloggers try to help laid off talent. We saw all this through the Internet, through blogs, through a virtual conversation. What did MSI see?

LINKS:

My del.icio.us tag roll for this story.

Evan K. Roberts- Why MSI/WEBSOURCED/KR failed

SEARCH:

I have used Google Co-Op to make a search engine tailored for this topic. Try it.                                  

Google Custom Search

 

       

 

Microsoft Vista Laptop Scandal (not really)

Microsoft and their PR firm Edelman recently provided 90 bloggers with free Acer Ferrari laptops loaded with Windows Vista 64bit edition, no strings attached. There is a lot of buzz about how unethical this tactic is, especially since Edelman is building a track record of blog PR goof ups. Along the way I think a few key points have been missed, much like they were in the Walmart/Edelman fiasco.

Did anyone (besides this guy) notice that the laptops alone would cost around $150,000?? That's a lot of money to be spent on a campaign focused on bloggers. That is actually a GOOD sign!

Why didn't Microsoft just send Vista? Why did they need to send it pre-installed on high end laptops? Why is this guy the only one asking this question? If i had to guess, it's because they knew it would take a long time for anyone in their right mind to motivate themselves into going through what I imagine to be a nightmare of an install (that in the end probably won't work).

I think most of us pee-pee standing up like big boys now. Basically, everyone knows their shit. You can smell a bogus review. You have your list of bloggers you trust, you know when someone is goldbricking. I don't like the idea of "gifts" or "bribes" and I doubt I'm alone on that. But as long as you are getting the product with the explicit agreement you will review it, and disclose where you got it, I don't care of you keep it or give it away! Print journalists can't accept that kind of stuff, but I'm not sure that same rule should apply to everyone online too.

Microsoft didn't pay anyone to blog about Vista. They sent the laptops "no strings attached" and suggested it would be nice if the recipient blogged about it. Major goof there. Why didn't Edelman ask their target bloggers if they were interested in doing a review first? Why waste time and money sending out laptops for nothing? Doesn't seem like much thought was put into this. (Listen to the FIR Podcast for more on this)

Am I the only one who would actually value a few blogger reviews of Vista? I recently bought a new laptop with a free Vista upgrade, but I am very hesitant to do it. I would love to see some reviews from people like me (not CNET and other ubertech experts).

RANDOM GREAT IDEA: How about instead of keeping the laptops, or selling them, or giving them away we try something NEW and EXCITING?!? I think it would be cool if a game of tag was started with these laptops. Here's how it works- original blogger who receives laptop plays with it and reviews it, then they pass it on to another blogger they trust and have them play with it and review it. Then that blogger passes it on again to someone in their network, so on and so forth. A wiki could be started just for this. Every time the laptop gets passed along, so does the password to edit the wiki.

BOTTOM LINE: Much like the Walmart/Edelman goof this story is getting the wrong attention. I am more interested in knowing what's the internal view at Microsoft on Vista (must not be great) that they opted to send it already on a laptop. I am also more interested to know from a PR firm standpoint why this campaign was so sloppy. Why didn't they communicate more with these bloggers to see who would give Vista a timely review? Why didn't MS launch a landing page outlining who got the laptops, why they were chosen, and links to the reviews?

LINKS:

List of 24 bloggers with said laptops and what they plan to do with them.

Review (with lots of updates) from Laughing Squid.

Excellent post from notgartner.

John Edwards Announces Presidential Candidacy via YouTube

John Edwards is joining the Presidential race and making his announcement via YouTube. His public announcement will be made from New Orleans today, but Edwards decided to leak on YouTube first. Edwards seems to be one of the more social media savvy politicians these days. His YouTube announcement was filmed by the crew of the popular vlog Rocketboom and his YouTube channel has 9 videos and 196 subscribers (as of 10:44 AM EST). Rocketboom anchor Joanne Colan also got an exclusive interview with the Presidential hopeful. Not only that, but PodTech is following Edwards too. Robert Scoble will be covering the campaign trail for The Scoble Show.

Although John Edwards is embracing social media you have to wonder what other politicians think of it (some are really sweating). As of 10/17/2006 Facebook.com had 1,400 candidate profiles and counting. Political candidates are putting themselves in the social media mix with varying results all in an effort to hit the youth of America (In the 2004 election, 17% of voters were 18-29).

BOTTOM LINE: YouTube, Myspace, and Facebook are crucial for candidates trying to hit the youth of America. #1- highly targeted. #2-VERY cost effective. #3- gets your good press.

LINK: Google News on John Edwards and YouTube.

Technorati Tags: social media politics presidential john edwards youtube

Odonnel, Trump and Cuban. Need I Say More?

You probably already know about Rosie and Donald and their harsh words for each other after the Miss USA debacle. Rob Safuto points us to someone else who has entered this royal rumble: Mark "Blog Maverick" Cuban!! Rosie had started this with some smart*** comments on "The View" including a great comb-over impression.

Trump shot back with some really great stuff like "she's a slob","she talks like a truck driver", and something to the effect of hiring someone to go steal her girlfriend. By now you are wondering why I am blogging this and what this has to do with marketing or social media. Turns out, Trump and O'Donnell both have blogs. Rosie recently quoted a wikipedia entry in her blog as a slap back at Donald. Donald, instead of blogging his thoughts on Rosie, shot back via TV.

This is where Mark comes in.

Mark calls out Donald for having what amounts to a pretty shitty blog, and I have to agree. Mark doesn't like the fact Donald only authors half the posts himself, the ads are scammy, and Rob Safuto hate the unclean URLs (which do totally suck). The real kicker is that Trump actually has some pretty interesting things to say. I went through all his blog posts and found him to be a more down to earth blogger than I expected. He covers current events outside of business, give short but sweet advice, and on occasion even rants a bit.

I'm gonna give Trump himself a pass because I don't really expect him to "get" blogging and new media, he's a bit old school compared to rest of us. The fact that he's even writing blog posts at all is pretty amazing considering he could be selling those blog posts to suckers in some sort of "Daily Success Tips" newsletter at some ridiculous price. Sure, he doesn't put links in his post, or trackback to other blogs (looks like he doesn't read them), and his posts have really corny pictures of himself in bad book cover poses...but at least he's trying. And the other authors of the blog aren't too shabby.

However, I am not giving a pass to whomever built Trump's blog, which has a very unnecessary connection to Trump University. Trump could be a blogging superstar right off the get go but has somehow got himself a solid spot in blogging mediocrity.

BOTTOM LINE: Trump isn't supposed to understand blogging. He has thoughts, opinions, experience, and between him and his editor the writing ain't bad either. That's all he has to do. The blogging "gurus" around him should know better as far as all the other goof ups.

UCLA Student Tasered

WARNING: This has nothing to do wth marketing, business, or advertising.

Last Tuesday at around 11pm in the Powell Library CLICC computer lab at UCLA, a 23 year old student named Mostafa Tabatabainejad was tased by campus police. He had no I.D. on him and was asked to leave the library. Upon trying to leave one of these cops put his hands on him. Mostafa didn't like and told him not to touch him. Mostafa was ON HIS WAY OUT OF THE BUILDING and I suppose the cops felt his exit wasn't as fast as it should have been. They begin to cuff him, tase him, never put him under formal arrest, never read him his rights, after ordering him ask him to stand up, and when he can't (or won't) they tase him again. Most of this happens right inside the computer lab, near the exit, infront of a few dozen students.

Student begin to tell the cops this uneccessary and brutal. Student begin to ask for names and badge numbers. Sprinkled between all these question is Mostafa, either screaming in pain from being tased, or shouting at the cops. Afterwards, when one student asked a cop in the hall for badge numbers he was threatened to be tased as well.

Most of this incident was taped, and on YouTube.

Of course, I have my own opinions about this. I am not going to share all of them here. I don't think this issue needs my input. I think it's fairly obvious what happened was wrong and that UCLA needs to deal with these unprofessional and brutal cops IMMEDIATELY, PUBLICLY, and WITHOUT MERCY.

LINKS...

LA Times- UCLA orders outside probe of Taser arrest

Blake Ross Blog- Detailed report with 119 comments as of 11/20/2006

The infamous YouTube video

Daily Bruin-[BREAKING NEWS]: Student shot with Taser by UCPD officers

Daily Bruin- Community responds to Taser use in Powell

Technorati Tags: ucla violence civil rights student police activism

FTC Pushed by CDD to Probe Ads on WWW

I don't have an opinion on this yet. So I'll just give you some links.

Group asks FTC to probe Web ads (via USAtoday)-The Center for Digital Democracy is expected to file a Federal Trade Commission complaint asking the agency to investigate online advertisers. It also wants the FTC to force companies to halt what it calls deceptive practices and encourage Congress to pass legislation bolstering consumer privacy protection.

Center For Digital Democracy-The Center for Digital Democracy is expected to file a Federal Trade Commission complaint asking the agency to investigate online advertisers. It also wants the FTC to force companies to halt what it calls deceptive practices and encourage Congress to pass legislation bolstering consumer privacy protection.

Microsoft adCenter Targeted (via MarketingVox)-Two consumer advocacy groups have filed a complaint with the F.T.C., claiming Microsoft and other web-based companies are using "unfair and deceptive" business practices to collect data about their customers.

Technorati Tags: ftc adcenter microsoft marketing cdd