Labels: Celebrity Culture, Samantha Harris

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• An entire blog devoted to hot Latin weathergirls (Las Diosas del Clima)
  
• More proof that America loves an idiot: Glenn Beck tops NYT bestseller list (TVNewser)
  
• A DUI arrest video that's fun to watch for everyone but St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa (Breitbart TV)
  
• Johnny Rotten: corporate whore (Best Week Ever)
  

Labels: Glenn Beck, Jackie Guerrido, Johnny Rotten, Mary Gamarra, Tony LaRussa

A Sudanese judge has sentenced British teacher Gillian Gibbons to 15 days behind bars, followed by deportation, for inciting religious hatred. Her crime? She allowed her students to name a teddy bear after the prophet Mohammed.

Thank God we don't live there.

Labels: anna nicole smith, Dick Cheney, Jesus Christ, Kim Kardashian, Mohammed, Osama Bin Laden, Political Spin, teddy bear

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• Ashley Banfield makes a comeback (MediaBistro)
  
• News-frickin'-flash: Blogs are important (FrontBurner)
  
• Snoop Dogg creates the video to end all music videos (Best Week Ever)
  

A while back, Linday Lohan starred in a romantic comedy called Just My Luck. For the film's poster, rather than create a new image, the promotions department simply used an existing paparazzi pic of Lindsay.

It turned out to be the most interesting thing about the movie.

Which got us to wondering: Considering the current state of Lohan's career, could her paparazzi pics do a better job as an actress than she does?

Here, for example, is one of Lohan's paparazzi pics playing the Dustin Hoffman role in Marathon Man:



And here is another one (a mug shot, technically) in Sean Penn's role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High:



That girl should hire Media Orchard as her agent.

Labels: Celebrity Culture, Lindsay Lohan

[Story.]

Labels: Fred Thompson, Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus, Political Spin

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• Marketing manager for National Retail Federation poses as online shopper in Fox Business TV report (Silicon Alley Insider)
  
• How to avoid sending infuriating PR drivel to editors (PRSA)
  
• Illegal immigrants don't just mow lawns anymore (NewsBusters)
  

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• Szul.com: fake orgasms r us (Adfreak)
  
• Celeb mags going up in price; Baradell's wife about to make him broke (Advertising Age)
  
• Anonymity is for sissies (Copywrite, Ink.)
  
• Walk the talk: stop spinning (Buzz Bin)
  

Check out my latest Movie Smackdown, comparing No Country for Old Men to The Terminator.

Labels: Media News, No Country for Old Men, Terminator

Most corporate execs know that organic search results are important to a brand's reputation -- at least, in an abstract way they do. But how can you show execs the impression their brand's Google results are making on potential customers (or investors, or employees)?

I like to use TagCrowd, which creates tag clouds based on word frequency. I simply take all the words in the first three pages of the search results for a brand, dump them in TagCloud and see what it spits out. It's a great tool for visualizing the terms people see (and thereby associate) with your brand.

Think of it as "brand cloud" for your online reputation.

For example, here's the brand cloud for one of the world's most popular brands, IKEA:



This is a brand manager's dream. Appropriate terms to describe the product ("furniture," "kitchens") are supported by positive adjectives such as "best" and "personalized."

By contrast, here's the brand cloud for Exxon:



The cloud prominently features negative terms such as "Valdez," "spill," "damage," and "exxonsecrets." It should come as no surprise that Exxon is not one of America's more popular brands.

Obviously, Exxon Mobil can't make the Valdez oil spill go away. But perhaps if it did more to curry favor with its customers and the general public, the Google results would paint a prettier picture.

Finally, here's a brand cloud for my agency (based on the first three pages of Google results for the term "Idea Grove"):



Try it on your own brand. You may be surprised by what you see.

Labels: brandcloud, Marketing Views, SEO, tag clouds, tagcrowd

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• An Aleksey Vayner update (RiseSmart Blog)
  
• Hayden What's-Her-Name: closet lesbian? (The Bastardly)
  
• ABC's Carole Simpson: pinko commie? (NewsBusters)
  

Labels: Aleksey Vayner, Carole Simpson

That's our new tagline, since we're currently "ringing in the ears" of both Kevin Dugan and Lauren Vargas. Thanks for the props, guys!

Labels: Marketing Views

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• Hottest female sports reporters (Hogwild)
  
• Hottest female news anchors (Candy Smokes)
  
• The Soup is the funniest show on TV (Divine Caroline)
  
• Think you have online privacy? Think again (MarketingProfs)
  
• An anti-post for striking writers (Copywrite, Ink.)

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• The forgotten one-woman campaign to nationalize Thanksgiving (The Crone Speaks)
  
• Tables turned: Strip club traps cop in videotaped sting (Breitbart)
  
• Mac vs. PC wars heat up online (Adland)
  
• The essence of Thanksgiving (Huffington Post)
  

Labels: Thanksgiving

(A chop of a Photochop by TNOYF.)

Labels: Dick Cheney, Political Spin, Thanksgiving

The bookstores are filling up with self-important books about blogging for the holiday season, but one author has clearly surpassed the others by creating a book that can induce vomiting from the mere mention of its title: Blogging Heroes.

Do these people really need anyone else kissing their asses?

Labels: Blogging Heroes, Diedre Woollard, Marketing Views, Robert Scoble, Scott McNulty, Steve Garfield, steve rubel

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• Buy your kid herpes online for just $7.95 (Make the Logo Bigger)
  
• Republican presidential candidate hates wetbacks (Adrants)
  
• Anti-Chavez TV reporter gets slapped (Breitbart)
  
• Does Fox News hate our troops? (Huffington Post)
  
• In Kentucky, scientists aren't necessary to determine global warming dangers (DeSmogBlog)
  

As a PR person, you know it's time to focus on multimedia when daily newspapers start posting Hollywood-style trailers on YouTube to attract readers. This two-minute promo for the Dallas Morning News series "Unequal Justice" is extremely well-made, and is backed not only by a five-part print investigation into killers released on probation, but also by an excellent multimedia section on DallasNews.com.

What this should tell you is obvious: If print communication alone is no longer sufficient for print publications, it probably isn't sufficient for you, either.

Read my Simple Steps for Adding Multimedia to Your PR Program at the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog.

Labels: Marketing Views, multimedia, public relations

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• 11 ad biz-themed movies reviewed (Adland)
  
• Lucky Brand Jeans tries horror viral (Adrants)
  
• Steve Rubel: Blogging Hero (Micro Persuasion)
  
• Disney wants every girl to feel like a princess -- in other words, arrogant with a sense of entitlement? (PR Week)
  
• A history lesson from Fox News: the "good Indians" on Thanksgiving (Huffington Post)
  

Paul McCartney has been caught on tape calling ex Heather Mills a "one-legged bitch," according to Mills. She also claims that Paul's daughter, Stella McCartney, threatened to "kill the bitch".

Others alleged to have called Mills a bitch include U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, comic Frank Skinner, Tabloid Whore, Jonathan Roberts, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Adam at Radar Online, Ellen DeGeneres, this pirate, Queen Elizabeth, Madame Arcati, Gloria Steinem, Gabby Babble, the Vienna Boys Choir, Holy Moly, and Pope Benedict XVI.

To fight off the pervasive charges of bitchery, Mills has hired a new publicist.

Personally, we think it's time she brought out the big guns.



Oh, and here's a bittersweet pic from happier times:

Labels: Celebrity Culture, Heather Mills, Paul McCartney

Dear owner of http://www.spinthicket.com/results.php?q=Bill%20O'Reilly,

I'm the webmaster of http://comedianforpresident.com/.

We came across your site on the Internet and feel that it would fit perfectly into our collection of quality software-related links at http://comedianforpresident.com/.

The Google PR of this site is currently 0.

I would like to place a link to your web site along with a description at our site on the page, which we encourage you to check for accuracy.

We'd appreciate it if you place a link back to our site using the following HTML code (just copy and paste it into your links page).

On your page, the code will look like this:

Comedian For President

There once was a bad actor who ran for President-and he won. Fast forward 20 years, and an imbicile ran for President-and he also won. Maybe, in these very troubled times, we should elect a comedian for President of the United States of America. One thing is clear: he or she won't do a worse job, and most definitely will be a lot more amusing for this great nation.

If you'd like the description of your site modified, the category changed, or if you have any other cross-promotion ideas, feel free to email us.

Please link to us using the code above, and let us know where we can find the link.

Best regards,
John Rodriguez
administrator@comedianforpresident.com

This is NOT SPAM -- this is a one-time reciprocal link request. We have NO INTENTION to email you again. You can also reply to this email with REMOVE in the subject line to make sure we'll NEVER send you any more e-mails in the future.

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http://www.link-assistant.com/
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Labels: Comedian for President, Marketing Views, SEO

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• Have you verified your online identity today? (The Buzz Bin)
  
• Fox News porn gets banned on Digg (TVNewser)
  
• Why does this newspaper article have 106 footnotes? (DallasNews.com)
  
• Paris Hilton and the drunken elephants (Regret the Error)

Labels: Dallas Morning News, Fox News, Paris Hilton

According to the London Times, Romney has been the subject of a nasty telemarketing campaign similar to the one that Bush used against McCain in the 2000 Republican primary race. The telemarketers have been making outrageous claims about Romney's religious beliefs.

Media Orchard has exclusively obtained the transcript of one of these slanderous phone calls.

Anti-Romney telemarketer: Sir, as you consider your vote in the upcoming primary, I would like to remind you that one candidate, Mitt Romney, believes that, in 1827, an angel named Moroni gave a New York man a set of engraved golden plates, bound into a book and buried in a magic box. And that this magic box was found on a hill in Manchester, New York. And that the golden plates were engraved by a pre-Columbian prophet-historian named Mormon and his son Moroni (the angel), circa 400 AD. And that these plates represent the foundation of Romney's belief system. And that this man, with these beliefs, wants to be your president.

Prospective primary voter: That's outrageous!

Oh, wait -- that IS what Mormons believe.

And we're worried about Kucinich seeing a UFO?

Labels: Dennis Kucinich, LDS, Mitt Romney, Mormons, Political Spin, religion, UFOs

The critics at Movie Smackdown have offered their arguments for the one Christmas movie you should make sure to see this holiday season. Since Bryce was aghast when I recommended Silent Night, Deadly Night, I decided to go with A Christmas Story instead.

Read the reviews and vote for your favorite here.

Labels: A Christmas Story, Bryce Zabel, Christmas, Media News, Movie Smackdown, movies, Silent Night Deadly Night

Poor Paris Hilton. She gets so much grief for having a little fun just because she promised that old fart Larry King that she would devote her life to doing good. Don't people know the difference between "reputation management" and real life?

Anyhoo, Media Orchard has obtained exclusive photos demonstrating that Paris is a true philanthropist after all. For example, here she is showing Girl Scouts how to earn the newly created Paris Hilton Merit Badge:



And although she doesn't brag about it, Paris is actively involved with Habitat for Humanity as well. Here, she installs a structure in an impoverished family's master bedroom:

Labels: Celebrity Culture, Paris Hilton, strippers

You can see a few more here.

She arrived on Friday, Nov. 9, at 11:26 a.m, seven pounds and healthy as can be. Thanks to everyone -- in particular, our clients -- for your support and patience during this hectic time.

We expect to begin posting again next Monday.

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• 10 most outrageous liberal media quotes (Human Events)
  
• Alice got invited to Geoff's book party, and I didn't (Presto Vivace Blog)
  
• Colts pipe in fake crowd noise; why haven't my Dolphins thought of that? (Deadspin)
  
• The responsibility to share (PR Squared)
  

No, really -- the manufacturer is called Spin Master.

[More here. And thanks to the anonymous contributor...]

Labels: Aqua Dots, date-rape, Marketing Views