Friday's Video Views

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Project Cascade

So what does my pal Michael Zimbalist and his digital cohorts really do over there in the New York Times's R&D labs? Here's one cool data visualization project called Project Cascade that captures how New York Times stories are shared across the web. Two videos. (via Mashable, AdWeek. journalism.uk.com, others:






Les Trends in Social Media

Given how quickly social media trends rise and fall, one would think this December 2010 interview with the prolific Brian Solis from Le Web (a Paris) would be outmoded by now. It isn't, given that its subject posted it to his Posterous page this week.)

Brian Solis at LeWeb about Trends in Social Media 2011 from 99FACES on Vimeo.

Bossypants at the Googleplex

Tina Fey and Eric Schmidt, need I say more? (RT: 56 minutes)




Future Gazillionaires

Google co-founder talks to the troops on a TGIF circa 1999. I suppose the sudden surfacing of this video coincides with Larry Page's re-ascendence as Google CEO, a position previously occupied by the man featured in the video above (who, btw, just received a $1.25M raise.) (Via AllThingsD)




iPad Pre-Visaged

While we're taking a stroll down memory lane, let's travel back another five years to 1994 when plans for the iPad first took shape -- at Knight-Ridder's Information Design Lab in Boulder, CO. Huh? (via Buzzfeed.)




Biz Card Engagement Strategy

Is your business card working for you? Does it inspire engagement? Should you place a QR code on your biz card? Brandon Prebynski caught up with Kevin Mullett ("with two t's") to learn about his business card strategy. Hey, Hashable wonders, why do you need a business card in the first place?




SETI Come Back?

Just as SETI shutters, Kara tweaks our fascination with the extraterrestrial by posting this moving movie trailer for Sundance winner "Another Earth."




Jersey Shore Gone Wilde

Before you get all dewey eyed, take a look at this most inconvenient mashup of two iconic cultural offerings. (Via The Daily What).

PR for Startups

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Packed House at April NY Tech Meetup

One can't help but get excited by the energy and inventiveness percolating in the Big Apple right now. Back in the dot-com days, the drivers of the digital revolution were often such weenies that it made it difficult to buy into, let alone satisfactorily service their shtick.

They simply did not know what they did not know...at least when it came to crafting cogent and compelling communications. Today it's palpably different. More on that in a minute.

I'll never forget the pre-Millennium presentation we did for a team of smarties from the dotcom govWorks. A week before the new biz pitch, they called to ask if they could videotape the gathering. We (fortuitously) declined, but they agreed to meet anyway.

This particular dotcom had the lofty, if not prescient goal to webify all government functions -- from renewing driver's licenses to paying parking tickets to securing building permits. Sounded awesome, but getting from point A to point B left much to be desired.

Following the pitch, the prospect more or less offered us the assignment with the caveat that the senior execs at the table unconditionally work on the account. We couldn't make that commitment, and walked away. Two years later, the documentary film Startup.com bowed at the Sundance Film Festival. It chronicled the rapid rise and fall of govWorks.

It's different today, at least in New York City. Many of the entrepreneurs I meet here are unpretentiously thirsty for that secret recipe that will help their dreams take root. Just attend any NY Tech Meetup, NYEBN Startup Pitch Series, TechStars, or UltraLight Startups event, and make a point to engage some of the presenters. You'll find a fresh receptivity to what we as communications pros have to offer.

Following the April NY Tech Meetup, I heard from one of the presenters whose three-year-old ed-tech startup had already elicited 110,000 downloads for its range of apps in the iPhone app store. Andrew Cohen, with an undergrad degree and foreign service experience in international relations, had an epiphany a month before he was to start his Masters program at Yale in International Relations. He had devised a better and more efficient way for people to retain facts, and wanted to see this idea to fruition. Brainscape was born.

Brainscape's Andrew Cohen

Andrew did a little research and stumbled upon Columbia University's Graduate Program in education technology. He convinced the Dean that his distinct approach to this most universal need warranted his acceptance even though the application process had long since closed. Today Andrew is presiding over a company that's poised for big doings in the ed-tech marketplace. (Move over Princeton Review, Stanley Kaplan and Rosetta Stone.)

I grabbed breakfast with Brainscape's boss at Balthazar today and asked him about his company and the challenges he faces in getting the word out. (After all, this is a PR blog.)

• What tactics work best?
• What advice does he have for others in his ilk?
• Hire an agency or not?
• How hands-on involvement in PR can better prepare a CEO when the time is ripe for retaining outside PR counsel.

Click here to hear what Andrew had to say. (RT: 7:22) Forgive the background noise.

Looking ahead, I hope to make this a regular feature given the extraordinary need that exists right now among the myriad startups in New York and elsewhere. If you are or represent a startup that's getting results by doing things differently in the PR space, ping me.

Friday's Video Views

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Water Water Everywhere, but...

April 22: Earth Day. This video comes from my friends (and that rugby-playing Aussie) over at Charity: Water. Cool to see @APlusk tweet a link to it too!




Google Gets Its Group On

And if your inbox is not sufficiently stuffed with coupon come-ons from the likes of Groupon, Living Social, Gilt Group and a plethora of newspaper sites, this week our friends at Google get into the game with Google Offers - for NYC and Bay area residents. If you can't buy 'em, try to beat 'em. Here's the first TV spot (via adweek)




Google Doodle

And while we're talking Google, the giant search/ad/coupon/location/mobile O/S monopoly took to its home page to celebrate Charlie Chaplin's (122nd) birthday. No static Google Doodle here, but rather a film shortie. (HT @guykawasaki)




In the Plex

Kara grabs veteran tech scribe Steven Levy over at the Googleplex to chat him up about his new book In the Plex, which is about, what else. (via AllThingsD)




Facebook's Future?

The folks at the Future of Facebook Project have embarked on an ambitious journey to capture on video the essence of the world's dominant social network. Here's the teaser trailer.




Where College Humor Gets Its Mojo

Twitter, Facebook, news sites, Google... What are the drivers of traffic to the College Humor site? Social Times probes College Humor's Ricky Van Veen. (via Social Times)




So Who Should Buy Whom?

No doubt about it. The New York tech scene is hot hot hot. Here's a real imagined conversation between NY tech influencers Rex Sorgatz and the Observer's Adrianne Jeffries via xtranormal)




Apple Prank Call

Not much of a fan of British humor (excluding Monty Python, Ricky Gervais, Mrs. Bucket, Mr. bean...), but you gotta love this exchange.

Ford's Social Media Black Belt

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I first met Ford's social media chief Scott Monty in 2008 at a blogger meet-up (or was it a Tweet-up?) at the PRSA International Conference in his hometown of Detroit. Oddly enough, he kind of already knew about me, or rather about an issue I was having with my Lincoln MKX.

Basically, my car's roof rack ripped off while car-topping my #2 son's sailboat en route to a regatta. It created a gash in the roof, which the dealer and Ford customer service refused to repair even though the roof rack had a load-rating well in excess of the weight of my son's boat.

I became so frustrated that I took to these pages, a la Jeff Jarvis, to express my displeasure and decry Ford's short-sightedness. Apparently, Ford contacted Scott -- who hadn't even started in his new job there -- to ask him how best to handle. He advised them to do the right thing. And they did. (It was the only time my wife was impressed that I was able to monetize my blog.)

Ford's Social Media Chief Scott Monty

I reconnected with Scott last night in New York's massive Javits Center a few days before the start of the New York International Auto Show and a good three years into his role as social media strategist/evangelist for one of the world's most esteemed brands. He appeared courtesy of the Social Media Club of New York and its chief Howard Greenstein.

Who could have predicted even three years ago how much this practice would evolve since those early days of listening to the online conversation and engaging potential detractors? (Or that Scott would have 53,000+ Twitter followers who include virtually every automotive journalist, industry analyst and Ford enthusiast, not to mention a broad swath of social/digital pundits.)

Scott and the Ford Explorer product manager made their presentations and showed some videos. I dashed off a couple of tweets:

PeterHimler @ScottMonty "Can you sell cars on Twitter? I'm here to tell you that we can." #ford #SMCNY
16 hours ago

PeterHimler @ScottMonty re: Ford's social media strategy: "We won't put all our eggs in Facebook. We don't own it and can't control it"
16 hours ago

I then muscled my way in to grab some sound with Scott. We talked about:

• What has changed since 2008.
• Does listening and engaging remain a core competency for social media professionals?
• Where does mainstream media relations fit in the communications mix today?
• How much digital content does Ford create?
• How big is Ford's social media department, and how can it scale?
• What plans, if any, does Ford have to empower rank & file employees as SM evangelists?

Take a listen to the clip here. (RT: 6:13)

When Twitter Isn't Enough

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A couple of weeks back, I stopped by PBS MediaShift's first social mixer in NYC. It was held at a restaurant in the East Village, a vibrant neighborhood once known for the local squatters in Tompkins Square Park. I enjoyed seeing SF-based editor Mark Glaser and his New York-based marketing lead Dorian Benkoil whom I know from his days toiling at Media Bistro.

Others on hand that night included Craig Newmark, Stowe Boyd, Poynter's Bill Mitchell, Mo Krochmal and TrylonSMR's Lloyd Trufelman. They were all in town for the Miami-transplanted WeMedia conference skedded for the next day. I took the opportunity to probe Lloyd on the state of the PR biz. Lloyd being Lloyd didn't mince words.

Lloyd Trufelman

He suggested that those in our biz who rely exclusively on Twitter or Facebook to advance their client's communications goals are fooling themselves. The most buzz-worthy news memes still originate with mainstream journalists (an ecosystem that admittedly has evolved). According to Pew's 2011 State of the Media

"News organizations—old and new—still produce most of the content audiences consume. But each technological advance has added a new layer of complexity—and a new set of players—in connecting that content to consumers and advertisers."

Now Lloyd's a fairly social-savvy fellow (albeit one w/o a personal Twitter feed). He produces the NYConvergence site and feed, and, like me, is one of the few in the biz who has embraced digital as a complement to traditional PR competencies.

I mean who can deny the power yielded by those in-house social media leads with huge followings? Don't they add value as conversation catalysts for their respective enterprises?

I insisted to Lloyd that someone with tens of thousands of Twitter followers and FB friends can really be a boon to the client's communications goals. He countered by saying that the reach of someone with tens of thousands of followers still pales in comparison to even the lowliest readership of most industry trade publications.

But what about the reverb, i.e., followers who share with their followers who share with their followers? His answer: how often do you re-tweet a corporate or branded-inspired tweet? Hmmm. Rarely.

I gave this a little more thought and began to realize that our world, or at least a portion thereof, has gone Twitter and Facebook crazy at the expense of more mainstay tactics. In fact, I've noticed of late an increasing number of digital start-ups that have relegated their PR chores to individuals on the sole basis of these individuals' engagement with the social graph. No PR experience required. Just lots of followers and some modicum of fame in the tech bubble.

It's almost akin to mounting a media relations program and only using HARO and Profnet for story leads. It's even mildly reminiscent of the dot-com era when newbie CEOs celebrated when their company press release posted...on one of the paid wire services!

Now don't get me wrong. Today's PR professionals who choose to ignore the "shared" and "owned" dimensions of the communications paradigm (as complements to the tried-and-true "earned" and "paid" pieces) will do so at their own peril. But putting all your eggs in the social media basket absent the competencies that still define the profession would also be a mistake. Even Twitter's "influence" is said to be waning (while Facebook's is ascendent.)

Net net: My clients' goals haven't changed. They continue to seek a positive, branded presence in "the media" -- one that creates action or advances POVs. What has changed are the means to those ends, and the nature of "the media" itself.

Friday's Video Views

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iBoy

"Will he come from God?" "Almost...from HIM."




The Power of Words

So what is the true differentiating communications competency? This video speaks for itself.




#TwitterTV

Who'd a thunk that TV and Twitter would be such fast friends? Here's Twitter's director of media partnerships, Chloe Sladden, discussing expert hashtag tips for TV shows. (via Fast Company)




IBM's W3

Anyone who's anyone in the communications field knows what IBM's early adoption of social strategies has meant for the successful engagement of influencers in the company's external vertical businesses. Here's at IBM's Intranet chief Ben Edwards chatting with the always effusive Mark Ragan about that other vital public in IBM's world - its employees. (via Ragan)

Paul Allen Sneak

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen ruffled a few feathers, including those of the company's other co-founder, with the publication of his controversial new book on the founding of that iconic company. AllThingsD's Kara Swisher posted a preview clip of Mr. Allen's appearance this Sunday on "60 Minutes." Good job, Keven T. Via AllThingsD




In Search of SxSW

Just when we thought we've had enough with 2011 SxSW, the always entertaining and insightful David Meerman Scott teamed up with Tim Washer and took to the streets of Austin for an MOS on what makes the gathering so special. Loved the QR Code reference.




You're Fired!




Dusty the Cat Burglar

This closing video went totally viral last week. (via KGO-TV SF)

Geeks in the Pool

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Few will dispute how the social media revolution has spawned a range of new communications competencies, if not industries. These burgeoning industries feature companies that specialize in SEO and SEM, Facebook engagement strategies, online listening and measurement tools, digital video production, mobile engagement solutions, and the list continues to expand.

Of all the industries created by the digital disruption of the public, private and non-profit sectors, there's one whose revenue may very well exceed that generated by the firms actually conducting these chores. I'm talking about conferences of course -- that booming business that profits from a plethora of pontificating pundits.

A quick check of social media's movers & shakers' Plancast schedules will reveal a dizzying array of "professional development" gatherings in which they have speaking roles. Virtually every magazine and tech-oriented website has delved into the conference-organizing business, let alone the start-up showcases that range from the rival Launch and TechCrunch Disrupt confabs to the monthly New York Tech Meetups and Ultralight Start-ups.

One new development, or rather an old development taken to a whole new level, are virtual conferences that do not require a physical presence or even an avatar. Two caught my eye recently and I thought it would be fun to do a tale of the tape:

"Social Media Marketing Bootcamp"

Dates: June 8-July 28
Sponsors: MediaBistro, SocialTimes & AllFacebook

Price: $399 (before May 11) $499 thereafter

Instructors:

Mark Drapeau, Director of Strategic Dialogue, Microsoft; Editor, SECTOR: PUBLIC @cheeky_geeky and @SectorPublic

Sarah Evans, Owner, Sevans Strategy
@PRSarahEvans

Shel Israel, Author, Twitterville; CEO, SI Associates
@shelisrael

Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder, Alltop.com; AUthor, Enchanted
@guykawasaki

Alan Levy, Co-founder and CEO, BlogTalkRadio
@alanllevy

Charlene Li, Founder, Altimeter Group; Author, Open Leadership @charleneli

Thor Muller
Co-founder and CTO, GetSatisfaction
@tempo

Jennifer Neeley, Social Media Strategist, JenniferNeeley.com
@jennifered

Erica Reitman, Blogger
@effedparkslope

Robert Scoble, Tech evangelist, blogger, author
@scobleizer

Lockhart Steele, Founder, Curbed Network
@lock

Social Media Success Summit

Dates: May 3-May 26
Sponsor: SocialMediaExaminer.com

Price: $297 before April 14, $597 thereafter

Instructors:

Jeremiah Owyang, partner of customer strategy at Altimeter Group

Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of Alltop; Author, Enchanted

Brian Solis, partner, Altimeter Group: Author, Engage

Frank Eliason, SVP of social media, Citigroup

Mari Smith, co-author, Facebook marketingh

Erik Qualman, Author of Socialnomics; MBA Professor, Hult International Business School

Michael A. Stelzner, founder, Social Media Examiner

Dan Zarrella, award-winning social, search and viral marketing scientist at HubSpot; Author of two books: The Social Media Marketing Book and The Facebook Marketing Book.

Andy Sernovitz, CEO, SocialMedia.org; Author of Word of Mouth Marketing

David Meerman Scott, Author, Real-Time Marketing & PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now and The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

Jay Baer, a tequila-loving, hype-free social strategy consultant

Steve Garfield, author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business

Hollis Thomases, author of Twitter Marketing: An Hour a Day; Founder WebAdvantage

Mario Sundar, senior global social media manager and chief blogger at LinkedIn

Ann Handley, co-author of Content Rules; Chief content officer for MarketingProfs

C.C. Chapman, co-author of the book Content Rules and founder of Digital Dads

Todd Blecher, communications director for Boeing's corporate office in Chicago

Kelly Feller, social media strategist at Intel's Social Media Center of Excellence

David Germano, GM, Barefoot Proximity for P&G's ManoftheHouse.com online magazine

Stephanie Marx, social media marketing manager at Cisco Systems

Kevin Heaps, social media strategy consultant with Verizon

Pia Baker, brand director at Timex Shripal Shah, SVP, Digital at Catalyst Public Relations

Dean Hunt, an Internet entrepreneur from the UK

I personally am not a huge fan of webinar-fueled "conferences." Sure, they save time and travel expenses, and you may even learn a thing or two. But there's nothing that can replace face-time with those friends & followers whom you've heretofore only met virtually. I'll never forget chatting up Scobleizer at a New York City steakhouse dinner in the days when blogger meetups were ascendant. And no one can tell you that South by Southwest doesn't get its mojo from its social events (on steroids).

Summit at Sea (Photo Raymond Leon Roker via Flickr)

Perhaps this is why the most recent incarnation of the digital/social media conference was such a hit last weekend. Organizers of the Summit at Sea Series invited 1000 digerati aboard a cruise ship from Miami where the likes of Richard Branson, Craig Newmark, Ted Turner, Russell Simmons and others too fabulous to mention schmoozed it up with those whose number of Twitter followers exceed most mortals.

Judging from the Twitter chatter and resulting media coverage, I'd say this concept has some very strong sea legs. One possible drawback: geeks in bathing suits.

Friday's Video Views

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Holy Kaw!

Amber Mac sat down with Enchanted author, Alltop founder and all-around digital maven Guy Kawasaki for a Fast Company video interview. The topic: working smarter, being more productive.




Tac Talks at HBS

Social media influencer and business consultant Tac Anderson shares his impressions of John Kotter after hearing him speak at Harvard Business School about leadership and Kotter's new book Heart of Change.




Scoble Talks Media Careers

Most of my readers have benefitted from seeing one of the many videos I've posted from Robert Scoble in his role taking some promising tech start-ups through their paces. Our friends at PBS Mediashift, which threw a fab mixer in NYC this week, turned the camera on Mr. Scoble who talked careers in media, among other things.




Micro-living in NYC

Remember those Japanese hotels where the guests slept in pods? Well, this video of a woman living in a 90-ft apartment in the heart of New York's upper west side is definitely not for the claustrophobic. The clip has nearly 2.5 million views. (The rent: $700/month)




Timescapes

I'm a sucker for visually captivating video, especially when it has to do with nature. This is among the best I've seen.


TimeScapes: Rapture from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.


The Next Text Thing

Looking for an alternative to texting? Try this.




N-Spired

At SxSW, I was taken by the posters Ogilvy's illustrators created from the content presented in a number of the sessions. Now we have a crowd-sourced platform called N-spired through which people can share their stories, which are voted on and then created into inspirational t-shirts. Neat idea, and a hat tip to Ogilvy's John Bell for tweeting the link.


The N-spired Story: Writing the book of the world one t-shirt at a time! from The N-spired Story on Vimeo.


The Film Canister

With all the tumult happening around the world, here's a clip that restores faith in humankind.




The Governator

We heard that Arnold was conspiring with comic genius Stan Lee on "The Governator." This week, the first glimpse of Schwarznegger as super hero posted.




When Harry Met Sally: Revisited

So glad they didn't re-create the scene from Katz's Deli!

When Harry Met Sally 2 with Billy Crystal & Helen Mirren from Billy Crystal

April in Tech New York

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Here's an exchange with my dentist during a recent visit:

Dentist: "My son will soon graduate from college and he still doesn't have a full-time job."
Me: "What did he study?"
Dentist: "Computer programming."
Me: "So he's a hack?"
Dentist: "I guess you can call it that."
Me: "Does he plan to reside in New York?"
Dentist: "Yes"

Hmmm. This kid doesn't realize it, but he's got it made! One of the speakers last night at the always-uplifting New York Tech Meetup stoked the programmers in the SRO audience of 850+/- with an invite to tomorrow's New York City Start-Up Job Fair. Many of the companies seeking talent had their public debuts on this very stage.

Another interstitial presenter wanted to make sure that the digitally discerning audience was aware that today starts NYU Start-Up Week, while yet another from Collabracode cajoled savvy programmers to up their JavaScript and jQuery games with a six-week crash course starting April 20.

(He baited the group with the fact that New York City has more programmers than any other city anywhere, the Valley included.) Then there was Readability's API contest with its $5000 grand prize and a deadline of May 15.

NYTM's Jessica Lawrence

With its 17,500 members -- the largest of all the Meetup groups -- and a new full-time chief in Jessica Lawrence (no girl scout) who took the podium to gush at the prospects of working with a community that really "makes a difference," the New York Tech Meetup should probably be the first stop on my dentist's son's post-college networking itinerary. And I told him as much (in between rinsings).

#NYTM Moderator Nate Westheimer

Of course, the evening's main attraction could be found in the hand-selected group of start-ups that each were bequeathed five minutes or so to showcase their digital apps and platforms. All had their allure, and the presenting styles varied, including one guy who tried moderator Nate Westheimer's patience with exceedingly long answers to seemingly simple questions.

Some of the companies that drew the admiration of this blogger, and this most-sophisticated audience, were as follows:


Message Party - a geo-blogging service incubated at Y-Combinator that pivoted for launching yesterday in NYC. The app aggregates web content and tags it to specific locations. I asked presenter Amanda Peyton whether she envisions collaborating (a la 4Sq) with the (commercial) venues getting tagged, and what about negative posts. She said it was too early to project what if any interaction will exist with these venues, but that she does not see moderating the location-specific content.

Atavist - As media companies, mostly from the print journalism side of the content-creation equation, grapple with how best to integrate text, video, graphics, stills into their product, it was refreshing (and exciting) to see a boutique book publisher bring its rendition of this new paradigm to life for the literati.

Lemonade Makers

Lemonade Stand - anointed "hack-of-the-month" and incubated on the bus-ride to SxSW, this "neighborly commerce platform enables people to buy and sell goods quickly and painlessly within their communities." Not a good idea to diss Craig's List with Craig Newmark in the audience last night. Best moment: when an audience member asked if the platform could also work for "services." (I wonder if the Craig's List reference sparked that question?)

Brainscape - "a web/mobile reading platform that helps you learn anything faster based on the latest cognitive science." Gee, I wish I had this on those long car rides with my boys doing SAT vocab words! But then again, the IPhone and IPad weren't around either.

MeeGenius - This one's for the 2-8 year-old crowd according to David Park, MeeGenius's co-founder who I chatted up following the event. Any young parents in the audience? If not, there should have been. They would have learned about an app that allows users to customize and personalize a selection of early childhood books, which can play out on virtually any digital platform.

MeeGenius

Best audience suggestion: Contacting the armed services to let soldiers read to their kids virtually from afar. David's answer: we tried, but can't seem to get a response.

Runens - Loved these guys. Maybe it was their Brazilian (i.e., Portuguese) accents. In either case, they've got the social running scene figured out. Geo-based with all kinds of bells & whistles to improve your personal running goals, and maybe even allow you to meet like-minded hoofers while doing so.

Dumb audience question: does it work on the treadmill? Smart audience question: Could it work with the cycling crowd?

Other showcase start-ups included Ex Fm, Readability, ImUp4, Addieu, Ask Local, and Corkboard. Not a loser in the bunch IMHO. Be sure to check them out.



Photos: Peter Himler, Canon PowerShot SX20 IS

Bad Behavior's Rewards

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In the nascent days of this blog, I penned a post on Donald Trump and the catalyst that thrust him onto the national stage. That small, but powerful gesture singlehandedly paved the way for a credible conversation about a Trump Presidential run. Do you remember what it was? I'll remind you.

After years of neglect and municipal ineptitude surrounding the rebuilding of Central Park's dilapidated Wollman Skating Rink, Mr. Braggadocio publicly boasted that he could re-build the rink in a few short months and under budget. Guess what? He did, and his legend was born.

For my readers in the reputation-minding biz, there's nothing like a simple, compelling act for driving such a narrative. Countless examples abound from Sully Sullenberger's heroic feat on the Hudson to Angelina's Jolie's U.N. refuge work to Tiger Woods' flagrant indelicato. These acts -- some calculated, some from the heart and some unforeseen -- all have served to indelibly define their perpetrators in the eyes of the public.

In recent years, the capacity for a single act to forever forge one's persona has succumbed to the gushing firehose of news and information that quickly enters and exits a fickle public's consciousness. Actions that once built lasting reputations, fueled by a media in lock-step, today get snuffed out by the natural or celebrity disaster of the day. Hence the reason for today's post.

What level of edginess or outrageousness is required to break through today's media clutter? And does the public (and the media that supposedly serve it) any longer decipher between good and bad when anointing celebrity status?

Take a look at Trump. Was his (and his consiglieres') embrace of the widely discredited, but still incendiary birther platform a calculated gambit to reinvigorate his lagging public persona? As distasteful and ill-conceived as it was, it did result in boffo "Apprentice" ratings and a regular stint on Fox News. Right?

What about Charlie Sheen? If there ever was a poster boy for psycho behavior, he would be it. (Joaquin Phoenix, step aside.) Yet Sheen's decision to socialize and publicize his craziness led to a Mark Cuban offer for his own HDTV series, a possible truce to return to CBS, and a national tour.

Of all the public personalities who've recognized that bad behavior can have positive results in a media culture that doesn't distinguish, few can rival Lady Gaga. From the meat dress at the MTV Video Awards to the bizarre outfit at her sister's high school graduation to the drunken exhibitionism at The Mets game, Ms. Gaga has profited handsomely (did I just say that?) from these outlandishly choreographed public appearances.

Most of us don't have the pleasure (or displeasure) of working with such personalities. We're charged with building brand esteem for more middling enterprises. Yet, we still have to compete in a media ecosystem where only the most controversial or edgy can rise above the din to create more redeeming buzz.

I'm reminded of Crispin Porter's purposely edgy Super Bowl campaign for Groupon, which resulted in the agency's termination, but also a boost in revenue for Crispin's former client.

Currently we're witnessing the CEO of GoDaddy, no stranger to concocted controversy, rapaciously defend his elephant-slaying stint caught on video. As egregious as it seems, Go Daddy has reaped millions in free exposure for its leader's bad behavior, and may ultimately take it to the bank.

As painful as these controversies are initially, some in our line of work have (sadly) recognized that a little pain can also produce a lot of gain.

Friday's Video Views

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News Certified?

Over the years, I've seen countless efforts to bridge the respective, yet often symbiotic needs of PR peeps and journalists. Journalists seek independent expertise during the reporting process, while PR people can be a reasonable source for such expertise. Rare is the platform that succeeds in pulling journalists to a site for this qualified content or expertise. Crowd-sourced models like ProfNet and HARO come to mind.

Yet, as much as I want to, I've never been bullish on platforms that post PR-generated media assets e.g., experts, video, stills, graphics, text) and expect journalists to pay a visit.  The NewsMarket comes to mind, and more recently Flacklist, an idea from soon-to-depart CNET reporter Natali Morris. Frankly, there are way too many other ways for reporters to find what they're seeking...starting with Google.

Here's one more example called News Certified Exchange, which was "...founded by veteran journalists, NewsCertified provides the global news media with a searchable database of credible, interview-ready experts and story ideas that are accessible 24/7." Judging from the promo video below, I'll continue to reserve judgement.


Experts-Final from Henry Diller on Vimeo.


Journalists & Facebook

As was evident from my series of posts from SxSW last month, the conference was so overwhelming that it was simply impossible to drink all the nurturing nectar it had to offer. One panel I missed featured a chat on how journalists can use Facebook to engage audiences with NPR's Andy Carvin, the Wall Street Journal's Zach Seward and CNET's Caroline McCarthy. (HT Lost Remote)

Watch live streaming video from facebookguests at livestream.com

The Times's Corporate Embed Plan

As Beet.TV celebrated its 5th birthday this week, founder Andy Plesser posted a clip with The New York Times's digital editor Len Apcar, someone whom this blogger helped Andy land an interview back in the nascent days of the must-visit site for anyone in the media and comms biz. Apcar exclusively reveals that NYTimes.com "has decided to link to corporate sites as a means to provide an extra dimension to its staff reporting."




Talk Show: Sree & Ali

Columbia Journalism Professor and Dean of Student Affairs Sree Sreenivasan grabbed some time with CNN's prolific Twitterer Ali Velshi at this year's Shorty Awards. Here's how it went down.




GMail Motion

April 1, 2011




Elaine, Make Room

As The Times's Bill Keller turns his weekly magazine column to the topic of secrets and leaks in the reporting process, our friends over at the BusinessInsider took a different tack by posting this video clip showing a strobed Julian Assange on the dance floor of a club in Reykjavík. Shades of Elaine? Maybe this is one secret Mr. Assange should keep to himself.




Mr. Chow, Leslie Chow

Late yesterday, TheWrap posted the full trailer to "The Hangover Part II." Some 350 people had viewed it at the time. This morning the clip was nearing 300,000 and counting. Where's Doug?