Bentley Green, that is.

Labels: dallas, golden state, mavericks, nba, playoffs, warriors

Last week, we published the first of our series of posts on Web 2.0 buzzword abuse, running the term "Web 2.0" through the search engines of about 40 marketing bloggers to determine which of you used this term the most (and the least).

Today, we're going with one of the Web 2.0 buzzwords that we find most annoying: "mashup."

"Mashup" started as a musical term. But as adopted by the software world, it means (per Wikipedia) "a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience."

The evolution of the usage of "mashup" is a classic example of how marketing and MBA types slip onto the technology bandwagon; typically, they do this whenever the bandwagon begins to resemble a gravy train.

The object is simple, really: If you can co-opt the hip new technology term in your business pitches, you seem much more "with it" when presenting to potential clients -- even though you don't know the difference between PHP and PCP.

As Oliver Paradis put it in a rant to Wired:

The truth is, mashup is a manufactured buzzword, and like any buzzword, it drips with tacky artificiality, marketing innuendo, and vague implications. I have lately observed the application of this metaphor to the most unlikely subjects, including art, video, laptops, cell phones, movies, sneakers, cars, toothbrushes, and who knows what else. I look forward to the moment your writers properly address this particularly trendy and overused word by jettisoning it from your hallowed pages.

'Nuff said. The median upon which the index was based was three uses of the term since 2006. The results:

Micro Persuasion: 19.0
jaffe juice: 15.3
Marketing Profs Daily Fix: 7.3
Adrants: 7.0
a shel of my former self: 5.3
Brand Noise: 4.7
Online Marketing Blog: 3.7
NevilleHobson.com: 3.7
Marketing Pilgrim: 3.3
Seth's Blog: 3.0
Diva Marketing Blog: 3.0
What's Next Blog: 2.0
Church of the Customer: 2.0
Make the Logo Bigger: 1.7
PR Squared: 1.3
Blogging Me Blogging You: 1.3
Brand Autopsy: 1.3
BlogWrite for CEOs: 1.3
Bad Language: 1.0
PR 2.0: 1.0
Brand Sizzle: 1.0
Beyond Madison Avenue: 1.0
Todd And - The Power to Connect: 0.7
Emergence Marketing: 0.7
Pronet Advertising: 0.7
MIT Advertising Lab: 0.3
Marketing Begins at Home: 0.3
Copyblogger: 0.3
Presto Vivace Blog: 0.3
The Buzz Bin: 0.3
Common Sense PR: 0.3
Communication Overtones: 0.3
Media Orchard: 0.3
POP! PR Jots: 0.3
The Flack: 0.3

The following blogs should be saluted for not using the term even once (at least according to their search engines): Duct Tape Marketing, Open the Dialogue, Strive Notes, Marketing Whore, Occam's RazR, On Message from Wagner Communications, adgoodness,Copywrite, Ink., The Copywriting Maven, Chaos Scenario, and Into PR.

As you can see, Steve Rubel tops the index for the second week in a row. Frankly, maybe it's not fair to include Steve, since he posts more often -- and more often about technology -- than the rest of us. What do you think?

Labels: buzzwords, mashup, web 2.0

(Via Brandflakes)

• Will digital image manipulation destroy photojournalism? (Black Star Rising)
  
• Everywhere you look (and don't), there's a branding opportunity (Drew's Marketing Minute)
  
• Once again, Andrea Mitchell doesn't let the facts get in the way of a good story (Talking Points Memo)
  
  

Check out Spin Thicket for more media, marketing and PR links.

Technorati tags: Branding Strategy, PR, Blogs, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Media

• The law of division: Forget "convergence" and "synergy" -- categories are dividing, not combining (Branding Strategy Insider)
  
• Dell and Kryptonite -- back from the edge of PR disaster (Strategic Public Relations)
  
• Company uses Virginia Tech tragedy to frame idiot news release (PR Newswire)
  

Check out Spin Thicket for more media, marketing and PR links.

Technorati tags: Branding+strategy, PR, Blogs, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Media

As loyal readers of Media Orchard know, we've long had a strange fascination with the schizophrenic branding efforts of True.com. It's the virgin/whore paradox of online dating services.

Well, we may have finally found a True banner ad that True itself is ashamed of (at left). There's no True logo -- just the logo of an online ad network called CPX Interactive.






Click the ad, and you're sent to a special page within True where there's a Flash video of a woman lying in bed in her underwear, pecking away on her laptop, chatting with a True.com suiter she calls "hotstuff."

Oh well -- at least she's not holding a teddy bear.

Labels: online dating, true.com

• The five attributes that drive consumers to insist on specific brands (Branding Strategy Insider)
  
• FBI searches for crazed sports fan demanding more TV coverage of skimpy-outfitted cheerleaders (AwfulAnnouncing)
  
• Fox rips off To Catch a Predator, then one-ups Dateline by hiring Miss America to pose as jailbait (The Flack)
  

Check out Spin Thicket for more media, marketing and PR links.

Technorati tags: Branding+strategy, PR, Blogs, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Media

Most working journalists have to deal with hundreds, if not thousands, of press releases that cross the transom every year. That's more than they're going to read, of course. And of the ones they "read," all but a few are destined to receive a half-hearted skimming, followed by a click of the delete button.

In the world of Web 2.0, some PR agencies have tried to address this issue with newfangled formats. But ultimately it's not about the format, it's about the content. And I can tell you from experience as both a reporter and a public relations consultant, there are eight ways I can usually tell that a press release is bullshit.

Read about them at MarketingProfs.

Labels: press releases, public relations tips

As we mentioned in a previous post, when we took a six-month hiatus from regular postings, our rankings suffered. For example, our Alexa traffic rank fell from 45,000 to 396,000. Even factoring in how inaccurate Alexa is as a ranking system, that's a big drop.

But there is a glimmer of hope, a ray of sunshine in the Alexa details: We've held our audience in Bahrain.

That's right. According to Alexa's rankings by country, Media Orchard is the 47,863rd most popular Web site in Bahrain.

Bahrain is the smallest Arab nation with a population of about 700,000. (Can you imagine the sample size issues for Alexa? This ranking is probably about as accurate as your estimate of how many jellybeans are in the big jar at the county fair. Oh, wait -- nevermind.)

Thank you, Bahrainian people. Just as you demonstrated your warmth, generosity and, um, nonjudgmental nature in welcoming Michael Jackson into your homeland, so too you have demonstrated these traits in standing by Media Orchard during difficult times.

• It's official! PRWeek says we've moved to PR 3.0. Does that mean PR 2.0 has to change its name? (PR 2.0)
  
• Turnabout is fair play -- for the paparazzi (College Humor)
  
• Why use fields to grow food when you can sell them as advertising space? (Trend Hunter)
  
• What do you get when two has-been companies form a strategic partnership? Um, two less-lonely has-beens? (Daily Dog)

Check out Spin Thicket for more media, marketing and PR links.

Technorati tags: Web 2.0, PR, Blogs, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Media

Voice 123 made a boo-boo in an e-mail blast that it subsequently felt the need to correct. Unfortunately, it's human nature for your readers to examine the corrected version even more closely for errors. That's just the way people are.

Of course, when the mistake is in the first three words, it kind of takes the fun out of it.


Yeah, we know -- it's all part of our secret strategy to be removed from electronic mailing lists.

Labels: email marketing, voice 123

If you've noticed a few very old posts being resurrected in our RSS feed, please pardon us.

For SEO purposes, we decided to add mention of our branding strategy workshop in some of our more popular posts touching on branding issues. (We finally ponied up for WebPosition 4 and WordTracker, and playing with them has been as fun as playing with Technorati back in the day.)

Anyhoo, when we republish the old posts on Blogger, they often pop up as new posts in our feed. So excuse moi.

• The Katie Couric death watch continues (NewsBusters)
  
• Asian-American journalist says there's been too much emphasis on Cho's race (Poynter)
  
• Technology is bought by committee (Presto Vivace Blog)
  
• Life lessons from a National Enquirer reporter (Huffington Post)
  

Check out Spin Thicket for more media, marketing and PR links.

Technorati tags: Web 2.0, PR, Blogs, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Media

Labels: cho, katie couric, national equirer, tabloids

We just had a call from someone from a company that did not like what we said about them in an earlier post. The company representative was very gracious in acknowledging our criticism, even offering a service discount as a way of making amends.

Then ..... HE ASKED IF WE WOULD TAKE DOWN OUR BLOG POST.

When we explained this wasn't possible, he was genuinely mystified: "I don't understand why. I mean, we apologized."

Folks, it just doesn't work that way. If you're unaware of this, you need some serious PR counsel -- stat.

Labels: media relations, media training, public relations

Since we're back on the horse now (as in, back in the saddle, not back on heroin), Media Orchard realized we had a bit of catching up to do on all the marketing and PR blogs out there. And what better way to catch up with marketing blogs than to track their relative levels of Web 2.0 buzzword use and/or abuse.

So we decided to take a list of Web 2.0 buzzwords and enter them in the search engines of 40-or-so marketing bloggers to determine the number of instances each blog used one of the buzzwords. To level the playing field a bit between older and newer blogs, we counted only the period from January 2006 to the present.

We'll present the results of our research one buzzword at a time over a series of posts -- building up to a deafening crescendo with a comprehensive Web 2.0 Buzzword Abuse Index, incorporating all results to determine which marketing blogger uses or abuses buzzwords the most.

For our first report, we'll disclose the results for -- what else? -- the buzzword "Web 2.0."

We found that the selected blogs used this buzzword a median of 14 times during the period (about once per month), so we set that as "1" in the index and gave everyone else a score based on that average. The higher the score, the greater the use/abuse of the buzzword "Web 2.0."

The results:

Steve Rubel is the biggest user/abuser of "Web 2.0" by a wide margin -- using the term an average of three times per week, more than twice as often as the nearest challenger. In Steve's defense, he does post more frequently, and has more of a tech focus, than most other marketing bloggers.

The full rundown:

Micro Persuasion: 13.9
Marketing Profs Daily Fix: 5.7
Online Marketing Blog: 3.8
PR 2.0: 3.3
Seth's Blog: 2.6
a shel of my former self: 2.6
Marketing Pilgrim: 2.4
NevilleHobson.com: 2.4
Media Orchard: 2.4
Pronet Advertising: 2.1
Diva Marketing Blog: 1.8
BlogWrite for CEOs: 1.4
The Flack: 1.4
Adrants: 1.3
Communication Overtones: 1.3
POP! PR Jots: 1.2
Emergence Marketing: 1.2
What's Next Blog: 1.1
Duct Tape Marketing: 1.1
Open the Dialogue: 1.1
Strive Notes: 1.1
Church of the Customer: 1.0
jaffe juice: 1.0
PR Squared: 1.0
Chaos Scenario: 0.9
Copyblogger: 0.8
Beyond Madison Avenue: 0.7
Todd And - The Power to Connect: 0.7
Bad Language: 0.7
Blogging Me Blogging You: 0.6
Brand Autopsy: 0.6
MIT Advertising Lab: 0.5
Brand Sizzle: 0.5
Make the Logo Bigger: 0.4
Copywrite, Ink.: 0.4
The Copywriting Maven: 0.3
Marketing Begins at Home: 0.3
Into PR: 0.2
Presto Vivace Blog: 0.2
Brand Noise: 0.2
On Message from Wagner Communications: 0.2
adgoodness: 0.1
The Buzz Bin: 0.1
Common Sense PR: 0.1
Marketing Whore: 0.1
Occam's RazR: 0.1

If you're not on this list, we're sorry -- our fingers got sore. But please feel free to put your own blog's results in comments.

Overall, we were surprised how seldom many marketing bloggers use the term. Of course, a number of you may have gotten off easy because your search engines didn't return all the results they should have.

Running the same query on different blogs really makes you appreciate blogs with good search. We were particularly impressed by the ExpressionEngine-powered search used by Shel Holtz and a few others. We also noticed that some slackers who shall remain nameless don't even have a search engine on their blogs.

Next up: "Mashup".

Labels: buzzwords, marketing blogs, pr blogs, steve rubel, web 2.0

• Alec Baldwin is an evil bastard (Make the Logo Bigger)
  
• Have a virtual coke and a virtual smile (adfreak)
  
• Kami Huyse interviewed by Geoff Livingston (Buzz Bin)
  
• Hayden Panettiere has a history of public licking (What Would Tyler Durden Do?)
  

Check out Spin Thicket for more media, marketing and PR links.

Technorati tags: Web 2.0, PR, Blogs, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Media

Labels: alec baldwin, geoff livingston, hayden panettiere, kami huyse

If Virginia Tech reminded us of the fragility of human life, public discourse in the wake of the shootings has reminded us -- once again -- of the frailty of human logic, particularly for those who find it necessary to buttress their religious belief systems whenever senseless tragedies occur.

For example, this is from a blog post last night by Dinesh D'Souza:

Imagine if there was divine intervention to prevent Cho from doing what he did. Leave aside the issue of what happens to human free will. Just focus on the consequences. Cho would have been--let us say by miraculous intrusion--disarmed, the shootings would have been prevented, and life would go on.

In short, life would proceed as if God had not intervened in the first place. So God in this view becomes a kind of cosmic errand boy, who is supposed to do our chores and clean up our messes and we then wish him a very good day and return to our everyday lives. But perhaps God's purpose in the world (I am only thinking aloud here) is to draw his creatures to him. And you have to admit that tragedies like this one at Virginia Tech help to do that!

Once again, it's absurd to blame God for what happened. Blame guns, blame Virginia Tech's security system, most of all blame Cho. But not Allah or Brahma or Jesus. Even so, it's not unreasonable to suppose that there's a providential purpose behind history, and if human horrors show us our dependence on God's love and restorative powers, that's not such a bad thing, is it?

Let's analyze the elements of this argument for a moment:

1. D'Souza assumes that people must expect "miraculous intrusion" by God in order for human tragedies not to occur. What if, instead, we asked why God would conceive a world where such tragedies could occur in the first place? That seems the more logical question to address.

2. D'Souza says God would be reduced to a "cosmic errand boy" for preventing such tragedies, implying that it is almost silly for us to ask him to intervene in our little lives to ease our suffering. If that is the case, what is the point of Christian prayer at all? Isn't the idea that if we pray hard enough, he just might intervene on our behalf?

3. D'Souza says that -- even though God had nothing to do with the massacre itself -- such tragedies may "not be such a bad thing" because they bring us closer to God.

Let us get this straight: 33 kids were brutally murdered to teach us, as one of D'Souza's commenters put it, a "Bible lesson"? That's the best you've got, Dinesh? What a base (not to mention baseless) insult to the victims, to our intelligence -- and for that matter, to the Bible.

OK, now back to our question in No. 1, which is really at the heart of the matter: "Why did God conceive a world where such tragedies occur?"

D'Souza hints at the answer he would give: "Free will." God gave us free will, which is the basis of that heaven-or-hell judgment at the end of our lives.

Unfortunately, that's the most hollow argument of all -- particularly in a case like that of Cho Seung-Hui.

Cho was mentally ill. He did not choose to be mentally ill. So he will go to hell for eternity for that?

We're reminded of the tale of Phineas Gage, the 19th-century railroad construction foreman who was nearly killed when a tamping iron passed through his skull in a workplace accident. Gage survived, but because the iron pierced his brain's frontal lobes, he was never the same.

Basically, Gage, formerly an all-around nice guy, became a jerk. His doctor called him "fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity ... pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating ... In this regard his mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was 'no longer Gage.'"

So, did Phineas Gage go to hell?

Ultimately, here's the only truth that stands up to analysis: We don't know.

About Phineas Gage. About Cho. About God.

Dinesh, you are free to believe what you want -- but don't try to justify your beliefs with logic. The whole point of faith is that it doesn't require logical proof or material evidence. I'd suggest you take advantage of that loophole and stop making a fool of yourself.

Labels: cho, dinesh d'souza, faith, god, logic

• Crisis lessons from JetBlue and Taco Bell (iMediaConnection)
  
• Cho was a Democrat (Wonkette)
  
• Rapper Akon dry-humps 14-year-old girl on stage (The Superficial)
  

Check out Spin Thicket for more media, marketing and PR links.

Technorati tags: Web 2.0, PR, Blogs, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Media

Labels: akon, cho, crisis communications

Wow, that IS cool.

Labels: pr.com, press releases

Shady's back, friends. And we have a little work to do.

Back in the day (and by that we mean Summer 2006), Media Orchard had the following rankings --

Technorati: 2,800
Alexa: 45,000

Today, we're at:

Technorati: 23,000
Alexa: 396,000

See what happens when you don't post for six months? We blame our clients -- so needy!

In any case, we love a challenge. We'll provide regular progress reports on our blog rehab efforts.

Hey, we've got an idea: Why don't you welcome Media Orchard back with some welcome-back link love? Here's how it works --

1. Scroll your mouse down to where you see the time stamp, and click on it;

2. Cut and paste the url that appears in your browser;

3. Insert that url as a link in your own blog post;

4. Then, publish your post! It's that easy!

Yep ... we're already getting back into the swing of things.

(Oh -- and as for Orchardman up there, he seems to have an irrational fear that Isaiah Washington is going to appear out of nowhere and kick his ass. So if you see him coming, please let us know.)

Labels: link love, media orchard

To discourage motorists from taking a whiz along the highway, Austrian officials have been planting signs that warn of roadside snakes (and not just of the trouser-based variety).

Since East Europeans are deemed to be the worst offenders (didn't the Russkies teach them anything?), the signs read "BEWARE MORTAL DANGER, SNAKES!!!" in Polish and Czech as well as German and English.

Hmmm. A government intentionally lying to its citizens because its leaders think the ends justify the means -- stop us if you've heard this one before.

Warning to Austrians: It's a slippery slope, friends.

(Via PharmaGossip)

Labels: austrian tourism, lying in the public interest, lying politicians

• Naked Conversations author refuses interview with adult business (Marketing Whore)
  
• Miss Mexico agrees to tone down her Miss Universe pageant dress -- which features images of Catholics being hanged and a man being shot by a firing squad (AP)
  
• Virginia Tech: instant communication in a crisis (Communication Overtones)
  
• Imus controversy: the second most heavily covered story of 2007 (Romenesko)
  
• Your company blog sucks; now what are you going to do about it? (MarketingProfs)
  

Check out Spin Thicket for more media, marketing and PR links.

Technorati tags: Web 2.0, PR, Blogs, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Media

It might surprise you to know that, of all the workers in the world, hairdressers are the happiest.

Hairdressers are happier than lawyers, doctors, accountants -- and marketers. They're happier than the screaming heads on cable news, our swift-boating politicians, and the corporate suits who kowtow to other corporate suits -- the ones two floors up and in nicer offices.

They're obviously happier than journalists; after all, journalism and neurosis are "inextricably caught up together," research shows. Which means they're also happier than the PR practitioners who kiss up to these grumps.

And what of Hollywood celebrities -- the object of more public envy than any other occupational group? I have two words for you: Britney Spears.

So then -- why are hairdressers so darned happy?

Seven reasons.

Labels: career advice, hairdressers, happiness, marketing

Traditionally, PR people have been trained -- and have taught their clients or employers -- to be careful about what they say to the media. "Controlling the message" has been a central tenet of the public relations business.

This approach ensures a jackhammer consistency in public statements and protects against media bloopers. But it is also the single biggest complaint that journos have against flacks.

Like the cop who thinks a suspect must be guilty because he's hired a lawyer, many journalists wonder, "Why does a company even need a PR person if it has nothing to hide?" And of the PR person, the journo asks, "Why can't you just be candid and spontaneous, and not be so guarded in what you say to me?"

It's a nice thought; but is that really what journalists want?

On Tuesday, Jim Louderback, the editor in chief of PC Magazine, blogged about a comment made by Steve Rubel, the prominent blogger for Edelman PR. Rubel had Twitter-ed that his free subscription to PC Magazine "goes in the trash."

Louderback's response to this candid, spontaneous remark was less than forgiving.

Should I instruct the staff to avoid covering Edelman's clients? Ignore their requests for meetings, reviews and news stories? Blacklist the "Edelman.com" email domain in our exchange servers, effectively turning their requests into spam? If we're not relevant to Edelman's employees, then how could we be relevant to their clients?

He concluded that "in the future, if I'm on the fence, I'll probably be somewhat less inclined to take a meeting with one of Edelman's clients."

Louderback's comments are flawed logically. Why assume that if one Edelman employee doesn't read PC Magazine, others don't, either?

The truth is, Louderback was simply offended by Rubel's offhand jab -- and, as payback, threatened to use his organizational power as a cudgel against Rubel's employer and clients.

That's a real argument in favor of honesty, isn't it?

As you would expect, Rubel quickly assumed the position and apologized to Louderback, explaining that he only meant to say that he reads the online version of PC Magazine instead.

Is that the truth? It doesn't matter, does it? It was the response demanded by Louderback, if Rubel and Edelman knew what was good for them.

In other words, be careful what you say in the media, guys. Watch your language and control your messages, or pay the price.

One final point. Even if you believe that Louderback is justified in wielding his power in this way, does this best serve his readers?

Essentially, the editor is saying that he'll decide what his staff writes about, and what his magazine publishes, based on the standing of his personal relationship with a particular PR person or agency.

Hmmm. Shouldn't Louderback be pursuing the best story ideas that come his way -- without prejudice, no matter the source?

Candidly, yes.

(Other thoughts on Rubel v. Louderback here, here, here and here.)

Labels: journalism, media training, public relations, steve rubel, twitter

Labels: deep thoughts, twitter