Much Ado About Zuckerberg

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Maybe I'm in the minority, but I found Mark Zuckerberg's character, as deftly played by Jesse Eisenberg in "The Social Network," to be somewhat appealing in a strange way. Jarvis, on the other hand, calls the film "anti-social."

Aside from his weirdly contorted smile, social insecurities, lack of personal empathy, and that misogynist opening scene, Zuckerberg comes off as super smart, driven and, believe it or not, reasonably grounded -- at least compared to Justin Timberlake's Sean Parker.

I had the good fortune to attend the Mashable-hosted screening of the SONY film last night on West 23rd Street where I saw editor Adam Ostrow, and his colleagues Adam Hirsch and Vadim Lavrusik, PR vet Drew Kerr, and NYU's Jay ("Why I am not a journalist") Rosen among the crowd of watered down filmgoers, including a good share of Columbia J School students. En route into the theater, we were all asked to relinquish our camera phones. No screen shots or tweets emanating from this theater!

Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker

But back to the Zuckerberg character, and all the expert predictions of how the film will have a deleterious effect on the reputations of the Facebook founder and brand.

Who can count the myriad stories and posts, including a few from this blogger, portending a Social Network-driven PR disaster for the company? And the Oprah-fueled news of Mr. Zuckerberg's $100 million donation to the Newark, NJ school system raised more than a few PR pundits' eyebrows considering its timing with the film's release.

Still, Zuckerberg denied it, as did the film's producer Mike DeLuca:

"I think he's joining the list of very benevolent philanthropic billionaires in our community and in the world, and it's only a good thing," continued De Luca of Zuckerberg, who was just valued at $6.9 billion by Forbes. "It's the honest-to-God truth. Anybody who does it."

Matthew Broderick in "War Games"

In the end, I found the Zuckerberg character in the film to be some kind of a hero, not unlike Russell Crowe as John Nash in "A Beautiful Mind" or, dating myself, Matthew Broderick in "War Games."

The public simply likes smart aleck geniuses, and Zuckeberg in this film is the smartest and perhaps most tart-tongued character I've seen on the screen in a long time. He even tempered his manic behavior by showing earnest concern when confronted with two moral transgressions in his midst (one possibly of his own making) in the early days of the fledgling social net.

On the other hand, his adversaries, the Winkelvoss twins who sued Zuckerberg for stealing "their idea," come off in a much less flattering light (and I say this with a son who's currently a varsity athlete and member of a final club at Harvard).

In the end, I wonder what all the fuss was about. Could Zuckerberg have saved himself $100 million, or minimally, have delayed the timing for his gift to Cory Booker? I wouldn't go so far to say that the company should be officially promoting this film. On the other hand, I do expect The Social Network to be a box office bonanza, and ultimately accrue positively to the company's fortunes, if not to the legend of its enigmatic founder.

Friday's Video Views

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The Digital Home According to Verizon

Verizon's Director of Consumer Product Management Ann Shaub gives her company's vision for the digital home at the 2010 Digital Home Summit (via Alan Weinkrantz).




CAPTCHA the Money

It appears I'm not alone in my frustration trying to decipher and record those squirrelly letters on many websites. They're called CAPTCHAs, and one enterprising company created considerable buzz this week with its business model that converts them into ad dollars. (via AllThingsD)


Solve Media from Solve Media on Vimeo.


The New Twitter Explained by company founder Evan Williams




Profiting from Twitter's Woes

As Twitter rolls out its new Twitter (where's mine already???), it received a shock to its system Tuesday morning with news that hackers created a security flaw on Twitter.com. Some enterprising Twitter host developer decided to exploit the hole to promote his Journo-twit as a flaw-free alternative.




Remix: Stairway to Hell

New York video producer Kirby Ferguson takes a look at Remix culture, also the title of Professor Lawrence Lessig's latest book. (from GigaOm's NewTeeVee.




Good Idea!

The good folks at TED Talks have amassed an extraordinary collection of video presentations from modern society's greatest thinkers -- ideas that literally define our times. Not only that, they're embeddable. Here's a favorite of mine titled "Where Good Ideas Come From" delivered in July by the prolific author and always thought-provoking Steven B. Johnson.




Pogue Posits

Finally, the tweet below from David Pogue led me to this video:

@pogue You guys all say that this amazing video http://youtu.be/lK7IzfLmyco was done with bluescreen--but it's a handheld camcorder! Doubt it.

From Android to Randoid

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Crossroads of the World

Claire Cain Miller, writing from the left coast for the New York Times's Media & Advertising space today, reports on a new Google campaign to draw attention to its display advertising business.

What's curious about the story -- other than the idea that relatively few knew about this dimension of Google's primary revenue stream -- is just how Google intends to display its display advertising capabilities. Miller writes:

"...it has picked one of the most crowded advertising venues to get the message out — Times Square."

Google (AP Photo via Business Insider)

Yes, folks. Google has succumbed to the bright lights of the big city (versus those short text-driven contextual ads that appear alongside and atop Google Search's organic results rankings and elsewhere).

So let me understand. Rather than a targeted search campaign (SEM) to capture prospective display advertisers, the world's most innovative online advertising company has chosen to target the random masses in Times Square to drive its future fortunes.

Maybe Google's communications team took notice of how much buzz was generated with the recent Times Square Jumbotron display of Consumer Watchdog's 90-second video castigating Google chief Eric Schmidt on the firm's privacy policies? Whatever the motivation, this initiative will not require the craning of one's neck. Rather, it'll be a hands-on affair. From The Times:

"Google will erect a billboard in the center of Manhattan that will vie for attention with the hordes of other flashy billboards. But it will stand low to the ground and invite passers-by to touch it and watch videos about the display ad business."

Here's how Google rationalizes the irony in the company's decision to go offline to promote its online offering:

"One of the ways we could express our confidence in the space is to run what is primarily a display advertising campaign around our investment in the business and what our potential is,” said Neal Mohan, the vice president of product management responsible for Google’s display advertising products."

I still wonder how the company that invented online advertising efficiencies could pick such a far-flung venue to connect with prospective digital advertisers. Sure, the 364,000+ randoids that pass daily through Times Square is impressive, but this crossroads of the world is hardly the most direct means to Google's revenue creators.

Then again, there's today's editorial pop in The New York Times (and elsewhere) that could very well justify Google's Broadway debut.

Augmented Activation

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Steve Etzler and his crew at the Business Development Institute (BDI) drew some 300 attendees to CUNY Graduate Center (the former B. Altman Department Store) in NYC last week. The Mobile Social Communications Conference featured keynoter Naveen Selvadurai, co-founder of the "fastest-growing" location-based social network FourSquare.

FourSquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai

Naveen summed up FourSquare's underlying mission in five words: "making cities easier to use." He also shared his and co-founder Dennis Crowley's initial doubts about such a service, and specifically whether "software can change people's social behavior."

These doubts have clearly been put to bed. From TechCrunch (8/29):

"While Foursquare appears to be growing faster than its main competitor Gowalla, other location-based social networks have already hit the 3 million mark. MyTown, another location-based network hit that number earlier this month, and Loopt passed 4 million users in July."

Here are some notable quotables from Mr. Selvadurai:

• FourSquare now enjoys 1.5-2M check-ins per day
• 60% of its users are from the U.S., 40% overseas with Asia leading the way
• Foursquare now available on all smart phones; Nokia plans to pre-bundle on its new phones
• The company is currently overwhelmed with trying to meet marketer demand (According to the company's website, as of August 2010, there were over 15,000 venues experimenting with Special Offers on foursquare.);
• FourSquare and Facebook had been in talks "for months" to try to work something out over FB's entry into the location game.

My primary reason for attending the conference stems from work I'm doing with a pathbreaking company that has cracked the (QR and other) codes for delivering rich content across the (previously siloed) spectrum of mobile platforms. If you haven't heard, activation codes are the hottest thing in mobile right now.

Mobile Activation Codes

A smart phone user simply snaps a photo of a code in a magazine, store aisle or even on a stadium scoreboard, which in turn activates the delivery to his/her phone optimized multi-media content in the form of promotions, additional product/advertiser info, video...

Porter Novelli's John Havens

I had a chance to talk with John Havens, SVP of Porter Novelli Digital and co-author with Shel Holtz of Tactical Transparency, and his colleague Joel Johnson about these and other mobile marketing trends. Havens gave an eye-opening presentation on the imminence of augmented reality and what it means to communications professionals. Here is a link to the audio of our conversation (RT 7:38).

360i's David Berkowitz

Following the morning presentations, conference attendees split up into roundtables, each hosted by an expert in some dimension of mobile social. I decided to audit the group with my pal David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy for digital agency 360i and weekly blogger for MediaPost's SocialMedia Insider.

Fortuitously for me, David's topic was titled "How Mobile barcodes Can Bridge Mobile and Social Media." I had a chance to catch up with him before his roundtable. Here's the link to the audio clip. (RT 4:50)

Net net, PR peeps: keep close tabs on the growing role the smart phone channel will play for advancing your clients communications goals. (Think beyond activation code recognition to face recognition.) And again, be creative in the kind of content you intend to share.

Friday's Video Views

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Kindle v iPad

Kindle sticks it to Apple's iPad with its new TV spot. I wonder how Amazon will deal with the product enhancements Apple released today - multi-tasking, printability...?




I Want My New Twitter!

The big news this week from the social spheres entails Twitter's simple redesign and enhanced functionality. Not only is the company creating cache and demand by rolling it out slowly to the anointed few, but it launched the new site by inviting some select influencers to its headquarters for the first demo. Fortunately, we had our trusty go-to guy, The Scobleizer, as Johnny-on-the-spot with his digi-cam feeding live via UStream. For some reason, the video was not embeddable, so click here to view.

Subtraction at NYTimes.com

Khoi Vinh, former design director at NYTimes.com, talks about design and news to a gathering in Zurich, Switzerland. (via NY Observer)


FREITAG am Donnerstag - Khoi Vinh (Sep 9, 2010) from FREITAG lab. ag on Vimeo.


God Save Providence

This could be the worst interview ever. Providence Mayoral candidate Chris Young talks with (sings to) a local TV talk show. (Via Village Voice; H/T to Richard Newman who assured me that The Newman Group had nothing to do with the media prep on this one.




Back to the Future with Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs cuts his teeth on the big stage, circa 1984, to debut the Macintosh. Fun to see the Apple hyperbole in its formative stages, i.e., "Insanely Great!" (Maybe I should have saved my Mac LC (Motorola 68020 processor) on which my three sons cut their teeth with apps like KidPix, MathBlaster, Reader Rabbit, etc.? (h/t Beantown video man Steve Garfield via Techcrunch.

Long Live PR (and the Press Release Too)

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Two posts caught my attention early this week. Both offered fairly dour assessments of the practice of public relations, and as expected, both were heavily re-tweeted into the media echo chamber.

The first, from a trade journalist who no doubt has been on the receiving end of myriad PR come-ons and spam, declared that the press release is dead. The murderer? Twitter, of course.

In his follow-worthy Ad Age column buzzily titled "RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) -- and Long Live the Tweet," Simon Dumenco attributes Twitter's ascendancy and the press release's failure to two events this past summer:

"The long-suffering, much-maligned press release, I'd argue, finally died this summer, thanks particularly to JetBlue and BP, with a little moral support from Kanye West and just about every other celebrity with thumbs. (Of course, press releases will probably continue to stumble along, zombie-like, for years to come, because too many PR folks are still heavily invested in grinding them out.)

There's no question that a robust and RT-happy Twitter following can help publicly propel one's musings (PR and otherwise). We've seen how Ford, Zappos, Pepsi, let alone countless celebs and others have embraced Twitter. Some PR agencies have even factored the size of one's Twitter following in their hiring decisions. (We'll save that post for another day.)

Yet the stalwart two-page press release has a rightful place in the PR toolbox...just not the one it has enjoyed since Ivy Lee's day. I mean does anyone reasonably expect a press release to catalyze and drive news coverage anymore?

The press release, unlike its 140-character cousin, offers communicators a simple-to-follow format for framing and providing context to a piece of news. Add some multimedia assets, and the recipient has all that's required to wrap his/her arms around a story. The same can be said for a blog post or drop.io presslift page. I'm not so sure about a tweet, even if it's TwitPic, bit.ly or video-infused.

The second post that stirred PR peeps' passions came from a friend and someone for whom I have great admiration -- a PR pro who ironically built his personal and firm's reputation on the premise that the traditional press release was dead. Todd Defren's edgy, all-capped title "THE CREATIVE DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC RELATIONS" pretty much summed it up:

"The distinct discipline of Public Relations no longer exists. With extraordinarily rare exceptions, the definition of PR was conflated with “Media Relations.” And while Media Relations will ALWAYS be a critical component, its standing as a standalone practice is driving towards extinction."

Both Todd's and Simon's posts missed the point about public relations. The discipline is not about press releases or Twitter feeds, or even media relations. These are just tools and tactics.

The audacious Glenn Beck in DC (for better or worse)

Public relations is more about the resonance of the message (and hence the quality of the engagement), than the channel in which that message appears. Sure, we cannot ignore how the public increasingly lives its collective lives through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, smart phones and iPads.

Yet, the real PR talent has always resided with those who could create cogent, concise, and compelling content that is accurate, authentic and ultimately action-producing. What is said always trumped where it's said or how it's delivered.

So let's forget about the press release versus Twitter or media relations versus a Facebook of YouTube page. Whether it's paid, owned, earned or shared communications, one will fail to build a positive branded "media" presence for his or her clients without words, images, graphics and/or video that resonate and connect.

Friday's Video Views

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Sergey Speaks

In yesterday's blog post we explored/exploited the PR muscle Google allocated to its search upgrade Google Instant. Here's company co-founder Sergey Brin chatting up the enhancement, Web on TV and Google's competitive advantage with Bloomberg TV's Cris Valerio. Some quotes: "It's an exciting time to be in technology..." "I'm really excited for Apple's success..."




Google Mindreader

And here's David Sifry's homemade video showing how Google Instant reads his mind.




Simply Smashing

First Newsday erected a paid firewall restricting access to its online content, resulting in a widely-reported 35 (total) subscribers after three months, then it trumpeted its hiring in the newsroom of all places to bolster its hyperlocal presence (to no doubt compete with AOL Patch), and now it has bowed its own iPad app with this TV spot that's likely to raise a few eyebrows in Cupertino.




Talking Tech Heads

It's unlikely HBO or MTV will be signing on any of these folks for their own reality shows anytime soon. Still, they include some of the biggest names in the tech and media biz. Steve Gillmor corrals them for his Gillmor Gang series, which features Mike Arrington, Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Mr. Gillmor. In one sound bite, Mr. Arrington says about MySpace: "It's the biggest site on the Internet that's completely irrelevant." So what do you really think, Michael?




Dickheads

And from talking heads to dickheads, we conclude this week's round-up on a lighter note. It appears our friends across the pond are getting tired of the digerati's fashion sense.

How Google PR Rolls

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It's no secret that if you toil in the PR departments of Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter, eBay, and a handful of the other big-named brands leading the digital revolution, the struggle to gain media share of mind seems effortless compared to the rest of us working with smaller-branded clients.

In fact, companies like Google and Apple need only create their own multi-media assets and post them on public-facing corporate and social channels to get the word out. Right? We saw this with Steve Jobs' recent manifesto castigating Adobe Flash and Google's blog post about its POV relative to China. No real need to court and massage the media filter, unless, of course, things go awry.

Still, there's something to be said about good old-fashioned media relations, i.e., strategic media interviews, press conferences, theatrics, etc. I suppose a timely tweet from Eric Schmidt or Steve Jobs could set the wheels in full-buzz motion, but if you really want to make media waves, a multi-dimensional (surround-sound) approach may still be mandated.

Yesterday, Google debuted Google Instant in an effort to cut milliseconds off search times from increasingly impatient Google users. To some, the new product may potentially kill SEO. As Wired described the product:

"Google Instant is like the familiar ’suggested search’ type-ahead, but on Javascript steroids: Typing even a single letter will fill the screen with results based on popular queries that begin with just that character."

What caught my eye, as a PR blogger, was the full court PRess Google deployed to make Google Instant instantly known. First, it should be noted that the company decided to skip the first day after Labor Day for its announcement, while sneaking in ahead of Rosh Hashanah. According to Wired,

"The iconic search site [chose Wednesday to unveil] the new feature on [both] Google.com and to a packed auditorium of tech writers in San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art."

The company also created a site devoted exclusively to the search engine enhancement and posted this video featuring Jonathan Effrat, product manager, on it and on Google-owned YouTube.

In addition to the obligatory promo video, a sponsored trend on Twitter, and more, company co-founder Sergey Brin availed himself to post presser media interviews. (Gee, Google Instant must carry great importance for the company!) The event itself was streamed live, opening with some PR housekeeping from Google's director of corp. comms Gabriel Stricker. (He did a good job.) Google's Marissa Mayer also got into the post-presser interview act with Bloomberg, TechCrunch and many others, I'm sure.

So here we are the morning after. Was the launch a success? Judging from the search results on Google News, and on Twitter Search, you bet it was.

Could the company have achieved the same kind of send-off without meaningful media engagement? I suspect not. Was the process of media engagement more meaningful given the nature of the news or the name of the company making it? Most definitely the latter. Still, Instant does seem very cool and how can you not like the Bob Dylan demo ad? Apple?

The World's Smallest and Summer's End

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World's Smallest Teen in Times Square for Ripley's ENTER IF YOU DARE!

September always takes me by surprise. Maybe it's that Labor Day was so late this year, or that the weather has been so balmy in NY, or that the hurricane hype of Earl hastily sucked the wind out of August.

Whatever the case, here we find ourselves in the second week of September, and I'm just not all that ready to jump back into the social media spin cycle. (Maybe this explains the lack of blog production of late). I also dumbly double-booked myself for two events tonight: Hacks & Hackers and the always fun New York Tech Meet-up. (Who's the keeper of the master social media calendar anyway?)

Otherwise, my firm has been consumed with a little visitor from Nepal. And when I say little, I mean little. Client Ripley's Believe It or Not! brought the world's smallest teen (and the presumed world's smallest man in one month's time) to New York City this week to promote the company's latest book ENTER IF YOU DARE!

At Katz's Deli

Khagendra Thupar Magar, 17, at 22-inches tall and weighing just 10 lbs, has a thing for blondes, if you believe the New York Post. That NYC tab dispatched Mandy, the tallest blonde reporter in the newsroom, for "a date" with the diminutive fellow.  He also took to the macaroni salad at Katz's Deli and seemed smitten with the Hindi-speaking doorman at the Empire state Building with whom he struck up a conversation. You gotta love this town!

World's Smallest Meets City's Finest

It was great of Gothamist's Jen Carlson to pick up on the visit -- the first to run the pic of Khagendra in Times Square with Officer Corales, one of NYC's finest...but not so great for Gawker to weigh in with its usual snarky tone. Even so, Gawker reportedly is now more popular than every newspaper in America, save for one (my fave), Hence the post spoke a thousand words...and clearly reached more than the 3000 readers of this blog.

We'll miss you Khagendra. (More images and video here.) What a way to end the summer. Now it's back to the endless prognostications by the pundits and pontificators I follow on Twitter...if I must.


Photos: Peter Himler w/ a Canon PowerShot SX20 IS, Jason DeCraw/AP

Friday's Video Views

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Three-dimensional YouTube

Here are eight cool 3D videos on YouTube. Pete Bradshaw, a software engineer at the world's dominant video hosting site, explains:



Here's the first clip: "3D without glasses or cross-eye HD:"




Times Square --->Twitter (and more)

I can't count the number of times I've advised clients that playing a video on the Jumbotron in Times Square NYC to generate buzz is a colossal (literally) waste of time -- New Year's Eve as an exception. I mean how can one really expect the myriad tourists passing under the Jumbotron to spread the word nationally, internationally? Maybe I was wrong. A group called Consumer Watchdog posted this 90-second clip taking a shot at Google chief Eric Schmidt, and it caught fire on Twitter and elsewhere. Go figure. Here's mainstream coverage of it from WSJ Digits.




Social Graphs -->Interest Graphs

I've enjoyed Brian Solis's various takes on trends in social media. Here's a video that popped this week , which used the term "interest graphs" for the first time (at least for me).




Chatroulette Exorcised

Just when we thought the popularity of Chatroulette succumbed to one too many penises, the service last week attempted to relaunch with a new look and new controls. paidContent characterized the site as "a fleeting internet meme." Still, some enterprising movie marketer used the service to promote the flick "The Last Exorcism." Judging from the 2.7 million hits on YouTube, it worked.




Monetizing the Double Rainbow

The YouTube phenomenon of a chance encounter with a double rainbow goes Windows commercial, much to Mashable's chagrin.



Arcade Fire "The Wilderness Downtown" (HTML5 Showcase)

Finally, Google (and Chrome) assisted filmmaker Chris Wilk in the creation of this video to (personalized) showcase of HTML5. Click here to launch the clip.

Amazon and SONY's Bite of the Apple

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Yes. I admit it. I was one of the 8999 some odd Apple-holics glued to Gizmodo's live feed of Steve Jobs's latest star turn in San Francisco today. When that feed melted down, I abandoned that gadget blog and re-fired up my Safari 4 to watch the stage show via the Apple.com site.  Then, somewhere between the hyperbole surrounding the iTouch and whatever was next, the videostream stopped flowing.

Geesh, you'd think with all the cool new functionality added to the iPod family of players, Apple could get this one right. Here's a tweet mid-stream from paidContent's Staci Kramer:

@sdkstl #apple live streaming video very erractic. Delays between iPad/iPhone, switches to pre-event video, goes all audio, stops.

Truth be told, between the boffo user stats, e.g., iTouch has a 50% market share of all mobile gaming players here and abroad (more than SONY and Nintendo combined) -- and the folksy way in which Mr. Jobs makes each new product enhancement sound like the second coming, today's event should deliver big time for $AAPL's many "publics."

Still, how can I, a lowly PR blogger, compete editorially with Apple's Twitter ubiquity and live commentary on the event feed and elsewhere? Did you catch the echo chamber of fawning Macbook Pros lined up in the back of that San Francisco auditorium?

Hence, I decided to redirect this blog to another dimension of today's news: what Apple's wannabe competitors did to try to thwart or glom onto the Apple's newsmaking bandwagon. With most Apple prognosticators (correctly) predicting 99-cent TV show-on-demand service, didn't I also hear that both Amazon and SONY would debut similar streaming video services? Was this BS or PRemeditated efforts to grab a placeholder in the day's big news, or simply to show the world that they still had skin in the game?

The Wall Street Journal carried the Amazon story today (it moved online last night) with the headline "Amazon Grabs the TV Remote." This paragraph caught my eye:

"The Internet retailer has in recent weeks pitched a Web-based subscription service to several major media companies, including General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, Time Warner Inc., News Corp. and Viacom Inc., among others, according to people with knowledge of the proposal."

Hmmm. "...people with knowledge of the proposal." I don't suppose those people were from Amazon's PR department, and that the Journal was given a non-attributable exclusive...embargoed to run on the same day as the Apple announcement? Stranger things have happened.

As for SONY, it too stirred the media pot with its own high profile story (also today) on its new audio streaming service with a name surely designed to confound: "Qriocity." From the Financial Times:

"Sony said it would eventually “deliver a variety of digital entertainment content and services that are 'powered by Qriocity', including video, music, game applications and e-books”.

So, I ask: would SONY and Amazon have served themselves better by distancing their VOD dreams from the Apple media juggernaut? Or was the timing of these two stories designed to take the thunder out of Steve Jobs' mouth...if that's even possible? I wonder.