Today is Monday. This morning, news about television seems to be dominating the social media space. First, there's this report about TV Guide's social media effort as reported in Adweek. It opens with this:

TV Guide late last month launched an estimated $20 million ad campaign to reintroduce its 54-year-old brand as as a multiplatform provider and celebrator of TV culture, rather than a weekly listing of television shows.

A multiplatform provider and celebrator of TV culture? Television and culture in the same breath? Now there's an oxymoron if ever there was one. Honestly, I can't imagine how bored I'd have to be to actually pick up a copy of TV Guide and read it. But I'm a snob. You?

A significantly more interesting and relevant piece about television is in this article from The New York Times by Brian Stelter. It's about Al Gore's media project called Current TV. In the 'About' section, this is how Current TV describes itself:

Current is a peer-to-peer news and information network.

A more apt and understandable description in my opinion comes from Mr. Stelter:

…Current is something like having a cable channel dedicated to high-quality YouTube videos.

That's more like it. I call it Me TV. Will it change television as we know it? Don't know. But I'd say that what Mr. Gore is trying to do has much more cultural relevancy than anything TV Guide is trying to do. Just my two cents…

Meanwhile, someone hand me the remote please?

Share This

To Whom It May Concern:

Hi, I'm your website. If you don't object to bit of interaction here, I hope you won't mind me telling you I'm lonely. While a few people come to visit, they don't stay. I don't have any real friends. No one stops to actually talk to me. They poke around, ignore most of me most of the time, ask no questions, and take their leave. Do you think we could do something to make them feel more at home and give me something more important to do that just sit here, open the door, watch them wander around for less than a minute and go away?

I feel like they perceive me as something akin to a really junky yard sale sprawled out on the lawn of some lousy neighborhood. They look around with their noses in the air and as if they can't wait to go wash their hands as soon as they're done here.

Most of the people who stop here never come back or are gone for long intervals of time. Presumably they go to more interesting places? That polished monologue you told me to keep repeating and repeating is piped into every nook and cranny but all to no avail. I'd say our visitors are deaf except for that cynical smirk they make when they obviously hear my non-stop sales pitch. They look and act as if to say, "Cha, right… that's what you say."

I was thinking… and please don't take this personally… could we ask them what they think about the site, about the products I display here? Yes, I know, you're the expert. People don't know what they want. We say the customer is always right, but we all know down deep they haven't a clue, right? Still, maybe if we asked a question or two or gave them a place here to leave a comment, they might come more often, stay a little longer, and get more out of the session? How about we let them meet one another? Maybe if they got a chance to talk amongst themselves, they might talk to me… and you?

What's that? You don't want to hear it?

I know I'm just a lowly website that cost you a fortune to build, renovate, SEO optimize, color-coordinate and design and maintain and…  I know most websites, like people, never change. But I want to change. I really, really, really do.

Respectfully yours,

Lonely Url.

Share This

The blogosphere is ginormous. Tons of new blogs are born daily and lots drop dead, too. So why waste space here talking about yet another new blog from someone?

Well, this one, launched today, is from the leading provider of online college courses in Massachusetts and one of the biggest in the nation. Called UMassOnline, this online education consortium co-exists and operates in conjunction with all the traditional campuses within the University of Massachusetts system. A first of its kind for UMassOnline, this blog, unlike all the others Dave and I have been associated with, will  likely be more widely, actively, and vocally scrutinized by people who make their living scrutinizing things and offering their critique. Contemplating this at the start of this project gave Dave and me the heebie geebies. Dave and I aggravated our fair share of professors while in college. Dave terrorized Amherst and I led a life of academic depravity on Commonwealth Avenue.

We were wrong to feel that way. Unlike all the many blogs and bloggers we've been associated with for corporate clients, the UMassOnline faculty and staff were more interested, more receptive, more participatory, and more comfortable with the presumed risks than anyone we worked with previously. For the first time this blog effort not only had a tremendous champion in the marketing department, but it had the strong endorsement of the institution's CEO as well… and the CTO… and… it's a long list of important people.

Here's what they understand at UMassOnline that isn't that well understood in the corporate world yet: It is better to give your constituencies a place to voice their issues than to block them, go deaf, pretend no issues exist whatsoever and that everything is perfect, and to maintain total control as the authority figure in charge of everything. While a lot of companies today still fear the implications of an open conversation outside of their control and moderation, UMassOnline more easily welcomes it, wants it. Sure, there are some rules of behavior. But this is by any standard a big, bold, wide-open, global, online community. And I think we can all learn something from that.

Share This