Media Val

The Incredible Disappearing Media

2009-05-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

I recently bought a new portable CD player.

Backwards, I know. I felt as if I was purchasing a Betamax.

But the battery was running out on my $250 iPod, didn't feel like replacing it/didn't know how to replace it. Was tired of only getting 15-20 mins worth of play before it conked out.

Also, couldn't stand the intermediate step of loading my old CDs on the iTunes.

I just wanted something tangible and immediate.

Enter: the portable CD player.

Or the VHS.

Or the record player.

With these devices, I feel as if I have some control over the media I use. They feel real, real like when you use clay figures to portray King Kong instead of computer animation. CDs have weight. Records have even more weight.

But the defining characteristic of future media is no weight. No mass, no weight, no discernible location.

Merely code and impulses streamed from one virtual location to another.

Do we lose something in the equation?

Musings On Stale Social Media Advice

2009-05-16T15:58:00.001-07:00

I have all this social media content I wrote last year, and decided to finally get it out here on this new blog. Unfortunately, things have changed so much in just one year that a lot of the stuff I can't use anymore. In my outline of what social networking services a company/individual should use, Twitter isn't even on the list. No, Twitter was a footnote. I did mention to clients that Twitter might be something crucial to use, but was often met with skepticism.

Now, I say Twitter is absolutely essential.

MySpace is something I included on my old list, but now – unless you are a musician, comedian, or exotic dancer – it's not something I would recommend. And I'm serious about the musician/comedian thing, MySpace is at least good for that.

Where do old MySpace accounts go to die? I've left mine out there in the ether, unloved, password forgotten, blog stale, steadily accruing zombie followers with names like RYURUKF.

Finally, there's Facebook, which was all the rage in my business circles. I had a client who put their entire business's future in the lap of Facebook. Good God, I'd never recommend this to anyone. This is a post in-and-of-itself.

So my plan to repurpose a lot of my writings on social media has hit the snag known as TIME PASSAGE. It really makes me stop and think about how a good deal of one's work in social media has to be in keeping up with (and anticipating!) the trends.

picture by riot jane

Seven Tips To Get Them Commenting On Your Blog

2009-05-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

It’s the old dilemma: you’ve launched this grand-spanking new blog, you’ve been posting for weeks, and nobody has commented. Your blog is like some sort of ghost town, complete with roaming tumbleweeds and the muted sound of crickets.

Even if your hits are up, even if people are linking to you, without reader participation on the comment section you might feel like your blog is a failure.

Well, here’s seven tips on how to write posts that will have those comments flying in. And I would know because I’ve done it myself.

1. Write A “Versus” Post
Here is one of the most simple yet effective posts in the world: “What is better, A or B?” It is simply human nature to take a side. Tailor this approach to fit the topic of your blog. Gossip blog? “Who is hunkier, Brad Pitt or Matt Damon?” Food blog? “What do you prefer, grilled or fried?” And so on.

2. “What Do YOU Think?”
Here’s another really simple way to boost your comments. At the end of the post, write “And what do you think?” Yes, it’s that simple. You end your post with an invitation to a discussion.

3. Write Topical
Find out what hot topics at the moment and add your two cents to the discussion (or the drama).

4. Write Slice-Of-Life
One of the biggest responses I ever got was to a post on knitting. It was me saying “Hey, I’m trying out this knitting thing!” accompanied by a picture of me holding up my (rather sad-looking) beginning of a scarf. Tons of comments poured in. People forwarded my post to friends and family members who also knit. Why was this post so successful? It was human, it was personal, and it treated the reader as part of the community.

5. Eye-Catching Title
Hey, sometimes it works. Actually, oftentimes it works. Even for boring things. Get creative and give that humdrum post topic a hot title. It’s not “Conserve Paper” it’s “Stop Being a Tree-Killer!!!!!”

6. Comment On The Comments
Don’t let your readers do all the typing in your blog’s comments section. Interact, ask questions, thank them for kudos. It’s the Web 2.0 neighborly thing to do. Also, it can greatly increase your # of comments.

7. You Need Comments To Get Comments.
How does that quote from the Bible go? “Those who don’t have won’t get anything, and those that do will get a lot?” Sounds like a Catch-22, doesn’t it? But, it’s true. Nothing – and I mean nothing – will get the comments rolling in like a whole lot of comments. It tells the reader “Hey, this is an important discussion. I can’t miss out!"

image credit: Satan's Laundromat

Will Movie Theaters Be The Death of Blockbuster Video?

2009-05-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

In what can only be called a stunning reversal, Blockbuster recently declared that a rise in movie attendance is eating away at their video rental business.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, American box-office saw a 14% surge in 2008. Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes cites this as a reason why his company has lost money.

I would think that Netflix streaming video, Hulu, and those Media Pirates! might also be rreasons.

Stupid SEO Tricks: Patrick Swayze's Rolex Watch

2009-05-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

The following is probably one of the most despicable forms of search engine optimization for the Internet I've ever seen. It's from a webpage that, though in theory about real estate, seems to be one of those shady "catchall" sites that are just full of random keywords and Google ads. This particular post is designed to capitalize on the keyword "Rolex" - most likely to drive traffic to the keyword-triggered Google ads. It is about seriously ill actor Patrick Swayze:

"Close to the end, Patrick Swayze, 56, chose to shoot a new television show, The Beast, despite losing constant weight and undergoing rounds of chemotherapy. Patrick Swayze’s gold Rolex Daytona Cosmograph was designed to perform with precision in the most extreme environments known to man. Like a Rolex watch, Patrick Swayze represents the very best in quality and strength, both as an actor and as a human being."

Awesome. But it gets better:

"As Patrick Swayze battles with pancreatic cancer, it is gratifying to know his final work reflects the quality and joy of his entire career. Like the Rolex watch he loves that is designed to battle the most extreme elements in nature, Patrick Swayze comes through with flying colors in the most dire of circumstances, representing the very best in performance and humanity."

I'm just curious as to the writing session that must have taken place in order to knock this post out; how the author grasped to find the exact phrases that would link Patrick Swayze's cancer to a Rolex.

Irony of course is, by driving me to link to the post, its author did his or her job. But I refused to give them prime anchor text in order to drive up their ranking. So ha!

Five Tips For Blogging For Clients

2009-05-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

1. “Feel” The Subject
Whether you’re blogging for a gardening site or a company that make surgical supplies, it’s important that you honestly sit down and “feel” something about the subject matter. Really make it important to you — at least for the minutes you are writing the post. Doing so will certainly make your post sound more natural, and a naturalness and familiarity is what we are going for here.

2. Educate yourself
Along the same lines, you should research and develop a general knowledge of your subject and your client. It doesn’t have to be a PhD-level understanding. But you should know how your client’s product works or why their organization formed or something about the book they wrote (if not actually reading said book).

3. Find out the audience demographics
It is key that you know what audience you are writing for. Sometimes it will be a general audience, but sometimes it will be a specific niche or demographic. The style of writing you would use for a twentysomething college student is going to be different than the one you use for a soccer mom.

4. Understand what the client wants to accomplish with the blog.
This is also a crucial point. Why does the client have the blog up? Is it to maximize his SEO? Or to get people to sign up for his or her service? Is the main reason to educate and inform? Or make money off of the pay-for-click? The answer will determine your approach to the blog (and a lot of times it might be a combination of factors).

5. Remember: You Are Liable For What You Write
It’s true. As the client’s blogger, you are their “voice,” whether explicitly or implied. Establish with your client parameters of what is and is not acceptable content before you start blogging. Similarly, if you wish to include a blogroll, make sure the content of the linked-to sites does not conflict with the client or their stated public philosophy. In other words, if you are blogging for PETA, do not link to Oscar Meyer.

image by Satan's Laundromat

Media Val Zen #1: Good Neighbor

2009-05-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

Be a good neighbor first, and the hits will follow.

Being a good neighbor means:

Retweeting
Following other blogs
Giving shout-outs and public praise to the bloggers and tweeters you like
Sharing knowledge and experience
Not spamming

image by Satan's Laundromat

My Experience Working A Live Twitter Event

2009-05-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

I did my first live Twitter event this past Wednesday. It was for the book launch of Denise Spatafora's "Better Birth: The Ultimate Guide To Childbirth From Home Birth To Hospitals." Me and Denise did a "dry run" on a "tweet-up" a couple of weeks before that, but that was just us and two laptops in her apartment. This, on the other hand, was a huge gala party at Donna Karan's Urban Zen headquarters. You know: waterfalls, on-site massage therapy, bourbon & sweet potato-favored ice-cream, and tons of awesome people.

To be honest, I was a bit petrified when I first got there and found out that not only would I be moderating the live tweets – but I'd be conducting a steady stream of off-the-cuff interviews to fill up time for their live Ustream video feed. Basically, I was going to be on-camera, live, a lot.

But I quickly got into the swing of things, and the experience was very fun. Plus: I learned a bunch about the "next step" in social media: the live Twitter/video streaming event.

One of the first things I learned is: you need one person focused on nothing but the tweets & streaming chat. I was initially dividing my time between the interviews & the social media, and it just didn't work.

Users can get impatient with unaddressed tweets & posts – and also with too much "dead air" or gaps between conversation. What you are really looking for in a good live Twitter event moderator is somebody who has the play-by-play twittering skill of a Howard Cosell, and the care and conscientiousness of a best friend.

But there were such great moments at the book launch when the social media really meshed, when we were getting live tweets from attendees and announcing our Twitter contest winners on a live video stream. When text and video and real-time meshed, it meshed BIG.

Looking forward to the next one! :-)

you can follow Better Birth on Twitter here!

Is Twitter Better Than Social Bookmarking?

2009-05-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

Honestly, I get more cool links through Twitter (and especially retweets) than I do through most of the other social bookmarking sites with the exceptions of Fark & Reddit (Fark for fun, Reddit because they still have some great content). And this post on how Twitter can be used to enhance your Digg account has just confirmed it for me.

The post is really more about how "power-twitterer" Zaibatsu got his groove back after getting banned from Digg. There are many interesting "behind the scenes" insights on Digg here. Their "200" daily Digg limits, their power-user purgings.

Zaibatsu reflects on how Twitter became a "step up" for him:

"On Digg, I would have to wait sometimes 24 hours before the story I wanted to share could get seen...Some good stories got buried. On Twitter, if I like something, I can share it with more than 35,000 people instantly.”

Of course, with Twitter starting to impose their own limits (with the requisite confusion and annoyed users), in might be a matter of time until their own "power-users" are curbed. But we'll see. All I know right now is that Twitter is giving me more cool links and photos than I can handle.