Media in the New Millennium

posted by Doyle

I’m constantly amazed by people who think that things they post online are either (a) private, or (b) won’t be found. It seems there are two categories of these folks: digital natives, who are so used to having everything online they don’t think some postings through, or neophytes who just don’t seem to understand that anyone can see/read their blog, Web site, etc.

Here’s a story about a couple of college wrestlers who got kicked off the team for posing nude (or nearly so) on an Internet site. (To all my CU friends, yes, these guys are from Nebraska… it’s how I found the article. Please note I’m willing to call a goof a goof regardless of my love of the ‘Huskers.) There’s a part of me that wants to just say, “Guys, are you kidding me?” However, these young men probably fall solidly into the first category — they grew up with everything online and think nothing of it. Compound that with the reasonably high likelihood that their parents had no idea how to check in on their online lives, so they assume no one in a position of authority can, and you end up with kids who think the public tubes are somehow private. Oops.

We watch what’s being said in the blogosphere about our clients. Some of them are responding to complaints or concerns on blogs, message boards, etc. — a practice we help facilitate. Every few days a blogger (newbie blogger, but blogger nevertheless) will get completely freaked out about the fact we offered to help with the problem. “Are they somehow watching me?” they’ll ask. We are, actually. You posted on a public blog that anyone can read. We saw you’re not happy, so we offered to help. If I’d ever get a response from United Airlines about any of my posts or tweets, I’d be happy to talk to them. But I also understand that, if United wanted to actually take the time to listen to their customers, they could see what I have to say — it’s public. (Shot at United intentional.)

We’re now in a new paradigm of communication, and we have to learn how to act. The online and offline worlds are intertwined in many ways. If you don’t want your boss to see you doing a naked hand stand on a stack of kegs live, you might think about whether that photo belongs on your MySpace page. Consider just how much you’d like your personal life and your professional life to mix, and think about how much of your personal life you’d like online for everyone to potentially peruse. I can think of two college wrestlers probably never imagined that online photos could cost them their place on the team and their scholarships, but they did.

(I want to give credit for this headline, which I wish was my line. I first saw it in this article in the Wall Street Journal, which also featured Metzger.)

posted by Doyle

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Here’s a list of things we’ve noticed people doing with the new media/technology that we’d recommend re-thinking. Quickly.

Mouse-Over Explosions

Sorry, but just because I’m moving my mouse over your ad to get where I want to go doesn’t mean I want it to take over my entire screen — thanks for the microscopic “X” in the corner to shut it down, though! If I’m interested, I’ll click (yeah, right… sorry, sometimes I crack myself up. Click through rates are so high!). But really, rather than annoying your potential customers, we’d recommend trying to come up with something compelling that interests them, not something obnoxious that pisses them off.

ADV: = I don’t care

A few of the RSS feeds I subscribe to are slipping in “headlines” starting with ADV for advertising. The good news is these are very easy to avoid. However, I’m not sure who the advertisers are that got suckered into paying for these. There are some great ways to use RSS feeds to sell products — this isn’t one of them. (If anyone has success with random ads stuck in an RSS feed, please respond. We’d love to hear about it.)

Music/Sound/Video on a Web Site’s Home Page that Launches All By Itself

If you’re a band, maybe. If you’re a business, not a chance. A variation on the thought is if you have a streaming video, make sure it’s on the screen so visitors know what’s happening and can stop it if they wish. I visited a site recently that had a video that required a fairly significant amount of scrolling to see it. I heard music, I heard voices, but I couldn’t figure out why. Remember that many users have multiple browser windows or tabs open and more and more people listen to music through the computer, so a sudden, loud “hello!” is often not welcome. Nothing worse than surfing while you’re on a conference call only to have a site start yelling at you (not that I’d ever surf on a conference call, but I’ve heard…)

Sounds on ads

Unless someone asks you to play it by clicking, just don’t. Please. Thank you.

Pre-Clicking the “Please Send Me Your Damn Spam” Button

Gotta call out Thrifty Car Rental here. I go to KC often, and I use Thrifty every time. Great prices, good cars, and the people at the counter are — without fail — friendly, helpful and a pleasure to deal with. So why, Thrifty, why must you make me pay careful attention to unclick the “send me crap” box every single time a rent from you? You do everything else so well!

And if you’re going to send me an email, how about not insulting my intelligence?

So, once Thrifty sneaked one by me. The email was something like “Save $20 on a mid-size this weekend in Miami.” Seriously. Do they expect the conversation at my house to be something like, “Honey,” Doyle said breathless with excitement. “Let’s drop what we’re doing, buy last-minute plane tickets, book a hotel, board the dogs and go to Miami this weekend… why? We can save TWENTY DOLLARS on a Ford Focus (or similar).”

Seriously.

What Country Do You Freaking Think I’m In?

I was trying to pay my son’s college tuition today online. Yes, I was trying to give my money to a college. I filled in my name, my address, my city, my state and my ZIP code. The next line was “country.” OK, last time I checked, Boulder, Colorado, 80305, is pretty damn close to dead center in Michael Phelps’ home country (aka: USA). So, why must you give me a drop down menu that lists, as far as I could tell, EVERY COUNTRY ON THE PLANET IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER?

So, I located “United States” and clicked it. While scrolling, I found myself wondering how many students this small college outside of Denver had from the United Arab Emerates? Not that I’m one of these people that thinks the world revolves around the good ol’ US of A, but shouldn’t your Web site provide convenience to the vast majority of your users first? Just a thought…

If I Just Click, I Can Be Friends with Everybody!

Yes, you can invite everyone on the planet to be your MySpace/Facebook/LinkedIn/Plaxo/You Name It friend. Trust me. No one looks at your profile and gets pangs of jealousy because you have 3,426 friends. These are great tools for expanding your network of friends in a meaningful way, but just because you have a band in Cleveland and have figured out how to invite thousands of people with Facebook pages to your next gig, it doesn’t mean they’ll rent cars from Thrifty and come to see you, even if the Focuses are on sale. Instead, work on building a meaningful network of fans in your area where you have a chance to fill the show, then let your music spread because your fans are helping you.

We have more, but we’ll rest here for now. If you have a Web/New Media pet peeve, please add a comment!

Filtrbox, a member of the 2007 TechStars class (full disclosure: TechStars is a client), came to Metzger Associates last week to give us a tutorial on their service.

Not familiar with Filtrbox? This is how they describe it on their site.

Filtrbox is the media monitoring service of choice for savvy professionals.

Filtrbox eliminates the need for multiple monitoring tools saving both time and money while increasing productivity and knowledge.

I think it is best summed up as Google alerts on crack. It provides the ability to monitor news stories, blogs, Twitter and FriendFeed in a one-stop shop. And my favorite part is that you can get RSS feeds for your searches, so it can fit into your Netvibes or Newsgator. It also has a great Google Trends feature that allows you to see the trends of certain search terms, and you can really drill down to why these search terms saw a spike or decrease in mentions. If you’re a PR professional, it is a much easier way to track the news around your clients and their industries. As a former user of Biz360, I think this offers a much more affordable option.

I’m excited to play around with it this week.

Thanks Ari and Patrick for taking the time to sit down with us, and to Bill Green for planning it!

posted by Doyle

So, I went to see The Dark Knight in IMAX today. Not that this is a movie review site, but it was AWESOME.

However, the jerks — and I do mean jerks — at Fandango really irritated me on the ticket process.

Turns out, when I bought tickets to the IMAX showing on Fandango, two bad things happened:

1. When I got to the IMAX theater, the Fandango kiosk appeared to be working, but wouldn’t recognize my credit card. So, I had to stand in line. The good news: I got my tickets right away when I got to the window. The bad news: I stood in a long line because Fandango’s kiosk didn’t work right.
2. Even though I told Fandango not to put anything on my Facebook page (I got a pop-up, which was irritating enough), they did anyway. I don’t really care that people know I went to see “The Dark Knight” (it’s not like I went to see “Mama Mia” for goodness sake!), but I’ll decide who I tell what to online.

When I signed on to my Facebook page, there was a notation from Fandango. Sorry guys, but I’m pretty good at this online thing, and I told you “no.” You put something up on my page — MY page — anyway.

Sorry, but that makes you a bunch of jerks. Shame on you.

posted by Doyle

Today, my wife got the same letter I a few days ago which prompted my rant. I like Bill Green’s comment, and he might be right. If he is, it’s no longer stupid and now a bit devious. Either way, I think it’s ridiculous.

Then, I realize that not only are they putting all these uneeded transponders into the world, they’re sending a snail mail letter, with all the costs associated, to each transponder. Geez, ever hear of cleaning your mailing list and limiting the letters to one per address? Better yet, call me… I’d be happy to introduce you to this cool thing called email. You know, the thing you use to send me my statement each month!

Unreal. Seriously. Unreal.

posted by Doyle

I use an Express Toll device in my car (of course I do, it’s just one more gadget!) to drive on the toll road from Boulder to the Denver Airport. The road saves a ton of time, and the little box I get to place on my windsheld saves me stopping at a booth every few miles. So far, so good.

But, true to many other e-government attempts, the Express Toll folks fail to close the loop, push the ball over the goal line, or, well, you can pick your favorite anology for coming up short.

I got a letter yesterday (yep, a snail mail letter, despite the fact I get my monthly statements via email) telling me that they’ve incurred “numerous additional costs for citations issued to customers with Express Toll accounts who have not updated their account information.” Here’s the rub: one of the main reasons people get tickets is you’re not allowed to move the little device from one car to another.

Maybe someone from the Express Toll Customer Service Center — the nice folks who sent me the letter telling me all about my responsibilities that will allow me to avoid these $7 charges — can comment about why I can’t have one transponder for my household, instead of one for each car. Here’s how I see it:

1. I don’t know what these little boxes cost, but I’ll bet it’s something north of “free.” So why would Express Toll want my household, for example, to have three boxes instead of one that I move around? That seems to be bad business.
2. Each box has to be tied to a single license plate number. As long as the appropriate tolls are collected, who cares who the transponder belongs to? If one is reported as stolen, simply shut it off and issue a new one. Honestly, why should it matter if we have one for our entire company — again, as long as the toll is collected, who cares about the rest? If you pull up to a toll booth and your friend offers to pay, is the booth operator going to say “I’m sorry, it’s his car, he has to pay?” I don’t think so.
3. Clearly, all these rules are making a mess for the Express Toll people, so much so that they now have to charge us — the “good customers,” according to the flyer that came with my letter — $7 every time we goof up. Seems to me that if we relax some of the rules we’d save some heartache and, at the same time, not sacrifice a single dollar in toll revenue.
4. Not only did I get a snail mail letter (costing postage), I got a nice little color brochure telling me “The Top 10 Reasons Good Customers Get Toll Violations” and two stickers with the Express Toll Customer Service information on them. All this costs money, people, and I’m guessing most of this is in thousands of recycle bins right now (but not the stickers, they’re plastic!). Maybe it would be more cost-effective to just make the process easier. (I have to admit I did love Reason #10: You drove a car without an Express Toll Transonder. Hmmm, that doesn’t sound like a good customer to me!)
5. Most importantly, the goal of the Express Toll people should be to encourage usage of that stretch of road for those that drive that direction. If letting people share transponders helps that effort, why not? (Yes, I know there’s no cost to me for another transponder, but getting a second or a third is a hassle and pretty silly for a one-time or occasional use, like when my son recently picked my wife up at the airport. Wouldn’t it have made sense to allow him to put mine in his car for one trip?) While I certainly don’t want to see bumper-to-bumper traffic on the road, as that defeats the purpose, I’ve driven from DIA to Boulder — about a 45-minute drive — and literally seen only six or seven other cars the entire trip. What equals more toll revenue: 1,000 cars at $3 each or 100 cars at $10 each?

In the end, I’d love it if someone could explain the one car/one transponder rule. That, along with a snail mail communication to explain rules rather than prompt additional usage, seems to be another example of the government getting something 80 percent of the way there, then fumbling.

And before anyone gets on me for driving, I now take the bus to the airport nearly every trip!

posted by Doyle

Jerry Lewis, formerly with the Boulder County Business Report, is now writing an interesting blog we like to follow called the Boulder Report. He joined us for our New Media Summit last week (thanks for coming, Jerry!), and wrote about what he took away on his blog. As you’d expect from a writer, it was a great piece.

Enjoy!

posted by Doyle

We were fortunate to have TV Week’s Daisy Whitney join us for the Metzger New Media Summit this past week. During a conversation about online video, we discovered that we shared a mutual belief:

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

I find myself counseling clients with that advice often, especially as it gets easier and easier to do so many things, like start a blog, make a Web site — or post video online. Daisy turned our conversation into a great blog post.

We couldn’t agree more.

posted by Elaine

Dean Rizzuto of Metzger Associates and Zena Weist of EMBARQ did a great job of outlining an underutilized application by marketers – the mobile phone.

The most salient point of the presentation to me was that sometimes simple marketing using SMS is the most poignant way to reach people. After two separate unsuccessful trips to Cherry Creek Mall to pick up the iPhone (I mean really? Four hours in line for something that will still be available in a week?), it’s hard not to get caught up in the hype that the iPhone is the only device that matters. The iPhone (or Guy Phone as Dean referred to it) is a highly touted option but represents a limited sample of the 86 percent of the US population 13 and older who own a mobile device.

It was also great to hear from Zena how EMBARQ is using Twitter as a customer service tool to stay on top of customer feedback as it’s happening. If you’re unsure about Twitter, Gwen Bell had a great point to use Twitter first as a person before you use it as a CEO or company. You get a better handle on the lingo and that @ is a way to reply to someone and  # is put before a location. Two other companies who are doing a great job with Twitter are Comcast and Zappos.

Global mobile ad marketing spend will be $16 billion by 2011, so in three short years marketers need to have a solid handle on effective mobile marketing. Dean and Zena clearly outlined the three ways that mobile marketers need to incorporate to be successful.

1. Permission (opt-in)
2. A clear way to opt-out
3. Designed to offer the consumer more choices/more convenient means

The recent launch of Loopt, a location based device on the iPhone that notifies your friends of your GPS locale clearly brings these three elements home. Loopt is quickly racking up criticism where people feel they haven’t opted in, are getting spammed for invites and can’t figure out how to opt out.  To avoid major snafus like Loopt, the Mobile Marketing Association is a great site to check out if you’re getting started in this space.

posted by Elaine

Monika Maeckle, Business Wire’s vice president of new media, gave a great presentation for beginners.  Below are sites that came up in the presentation.

Twitter.com - A microblogging service that lets you blog in 140-characters or less.  You can follow the panelists on Twitter: Brian Morrissey, Daisy Whitney and Doyle Albee. You can follow Metzger employees at Doyle Albee, Denise Smith, Bill Green, Erin Pickard and Elaine Ellis.

Twittervision – Lets you see updates from the Twitter timeline on a map as they happen.

Summize.com – A search engine for Twitter users. You can do a search on #newmediasummit to see what people on Twitter had to say.

Digg.com – American Idol for the Web. Allows you Digg items you like, and bury items you don’t. Being on the front page can lead to a significant increase in hits to your Web site.  Another alternative to Digg is Kirtsy, which has more of a female audience.

Del.icio.us – Social bookmarking that allows you to share your online bookmarks with others. Check out Metzger’s Del.icio.us bookmarks at http://del.icio.us/metzgerpr. All sites mentioned from all of the presentations are tagged. Also, this site lets you enter any URL into del.icio.us to see if its been tagged and what tags are associated with your URL.

Technorati.com – Most popular search engine for blogs.

RSS – Tivo for the Web. Allows you to choose what it coming to you. Google Reader, Newsgator and Netvibes are popular RSS readers.

Facebook – Companies are creating fan pages or groups for their companies. Check out Noodles & Company’s recent page for its asparagus dish or a Facebook contest BMW recently ran as examples of companies on Facebook.

Brightkite.com - A location based social network. Similar to Loopt, recently launched on the iPhone, but offers stronger privacy controls.

Socialthing! – Lets you aggregate your friend’s updates for YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. in one central site.