Gone to the Beach, See You September 2nd

Benny and I have gone to the beach til Tuesday, September 2nd.

No Computer. No email. No Twitter.

Just a glorious unplugged break to re-charge body, mind and soul.

Have a wonderful week. See you soon.
Love,
B.L.

Blogger Sued for $20 Million for Calling Company a Scammer

Leslie Richard, owner of the small home-based eco-fashion business, is being sued for $20 million over a blog post.

Richard was contacted by Vision Media Television, a production company based in Boca Raton, FL, who said they wanted to include her and her clothing store in a segment on eco fashion. It would be seen, they told her, by 84 million people, on PBS, CNN, and all over Europe.

It all sounded great until VMT asked for almost $26,000 to cover production fees and travel costs for filming. Richard thought it sounded fishy, and she started doing some investigating.

She learned that they're not affiliated with PBS or CNN. In fact, PBS includes a disclaimer in the FAQs on their website that reads in part: "PBS wishes to clarify that it is not associated with and does not endorse, distribute programming for, review underwriting for or otherwise have any business relationship with the following production companies: VM Television, Vision Media Television..."

In a post titled Scam Taking Advantage of Green Businesses, Richard detailed what had happened, and included some of the emails that had been exchanged. In July, Vision Media responded with a lawsuit. They objected to her use of the word “scam.”

A major issue the case brings up is that bloggers First Amendment rights are not as clear as those of mainstream media. A bully like Vision Media counts on a lone blogger not having the resources to fight a lawsuit, even a frivolous one like this one.

The posts of many bloggers are shedding light on the situation, and that always helps because bullies count on having their victims turn tail and run.

Over the past several years, Media Bloggers Association has offered legal support and successfully resolved scores of similar cases. MBA's website says it soon will offer affordable liability insurance to its members, along with media law training.

A Love Song to New York City

Sunset at the River Flicks showing of "The Blues Brothers" on Hudson River Park's Pier 54 at 14th Street in Manhattan was another great reason to love New York.

The Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood Blues with Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Cab Calloway and Ray Charles, still mad crazy after all these years. Seen with good friends and pleasant strangers, on a perfect late summer night, after a magnificent sunset; a bright moon blazing in the starry sky and free popcorn. Really, what more could you want?!

"It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses."

Dear Agencies: You Can't Control the Message, Get Over It!

Sometimes, the conversation in comments about a post shouldn't be left below the folds. This is one of them.

I praised the the terrific OfficeMax Penny Pranks campaign, but called out the agency because the headline of each video begins "HILARIOUS HIDDEN CAMERA PENNY PRANK" and that's heavy-handed.

Vinny Warren, creative director at The Escape Pod, the agency that created the campaign wrote in comments

"... when you're fighting for clicks on youtube you find that subtlety is what closes on saturday night. you have become a programmer, not an advertiser. so funny becomes HILARIOUS. and interesting becomes FASCINATING.

You can't dictate what people will find funny by labeling it "hilarious". People have brains and are smart enough to figure out what they like without being hit over the head. Labels like "hilarious video" or "viral video" that are not created by viewers are bogus.

You don't tell us what's hilarious or viral. We tell you.

Escape Pod did a great job on the campaign. People are talking: the videos have already had more than two million views. But it's not because the word hilarious is in the headline. It's the content and the concept that matter. No overkill required.

What do you think?

Hilarious, the New Hype Word of the Week?

Ad agency hype word of the moment - "hilarious" - rears its head in an email pitch from Cornerstone, whose own home page is a disaster. They're the agency promoting the new HBO animated series, "The Life and Times of Tim", premiering September 28th.

Just yesterday, the agency for OfficeMax called its videos for the new Penny Pranks Campaign "hilarious." And today, in comments on my post about Penny Pranks, someone from that agency defended the use of the word as an SEO technique. Umm, nope, that won't help.

The "Tim" series is created by Steve Dildarian - the Clio-winning ad man behind Budweiser's 'Lizards' campaign. It follows an everyday working guy from one awkward moment in his life to the next. The preview videos don't seem exactly hilarious, but it does look like Tim might be good, snarky fun.

OfficeMax Penny Pranks: a Funny Viral WannaBe That Actually Might Sell Something

OfficeMax, who, for the past two years has brought you the very weird and silly ElfYourself campaign, is back with Penny Pranks, in which red-haired comedian Matt McCarthy runs around New York City trying to use truckloads of pennies to pay for everything from diamond rings and steak dinners to horse-drawn carriage rides through Central Park. Just about nobody will take the pennies and just about everyone gets pissed at him. He can't even give pennies away on the street.

OfficeMax claims that the very strange Elf Yourself , site has had 65 million visits, during which 35 elves were created per second. Has that sold any office supplies? Dunno.

Since the Penny Prank campaign is tied into a back-to-school items for pennies campaign in OfficeMax stores, this campaign might actually drive traffic and sales to the site. And as someone who has refused Susan B. Anthony coins in change, it's easy to appreciate the humor.

The heavy hand of an ad agency mars an otherwise fun campaign with the "HILARIOUS HIDDEN CAMERA PENNY PRANK" headline on every YouTube video in the campaign.

Dear OfficeMax: Knowing when to shut up is often the better part of creativity. And I can't help but wonder: can't agencies get a teeny little credit in the small print?

Related: The Formula for Successful Viral Campaigns. Not!

Apple Silence on iPhone Issues Likely to Bite Its Ass

Analysts predict nearly 5 million iPhone sales this quarter, and the Wall St Journal reports that the iPhone Apps Store averages a million dollars a day in sales. But the damn things don't seem to be working for a lot of people, droves of whom as reporting iPhone 3G connectivity problems, dropped calls, and blue screens of death (hey, i thought that was a WIndows thing?) For example:
Twitter
Google Trends
Google News
Chris Pirillo and others on YouTube

And what has Apple said to its customers? Nothing. Nada. Silence is deafening. That's long been Apple's way of responding to information requests, and this time, I think it's going to bite them.

Steve Jobs doesn't do interviews, neither do his lieutenants, much to the consternation of just about every tech writer on the planet. Apple products are generally great, but silence when a product isn't great has cost other companies dearly in the past and Apple is not exempt.

Ask Dell. Ask Kryptonite.

Even giants of American industry have been humbled by the power of customer-driven media. Yet Apple has always gotten a pass. It's always been because the products are great. But teaming up with AT&T may have been a big mistake. I know I'm not alone in waiting until AT&T isn't my only choice of carrier. Partnering with AT&T means Apple, for the first time, can't call all of its own shots. Google cell phone anyone?

Dear Apple: We're not sales stats waiting to be marketed to. Resisting the voice of the customer is futile. We're already talking about you. We’ll keep doing that whether or not you respond. We'll cost you money. Just wait and see.

But if you do respond, you have the opportunity to surprise and perhaps even delight customers who might otherwise never have bought from you again.

Business Week: Blogs are Opinion, Not Objective Reporting. Jeez!

On the one hand, I'm happy to be invited to participate in the private alpha of BusinessWeek's new Business Exchange network. When I added a topic, up popped this form, asking me to categorize my content as either

News: objective reporting and analysis on current events from news sources,
or
Blog or opinion: information from a unique perspective from blogs.

Bloggers still can't get no respect from dead tree media. I'd expect that from the NY Times, but not from Business Week - who ran the first cover story about the importance of blogging. And updated it to include social media's importance to business just a few months ago. Yet the Business Week Exchange maintains, by virtue of its content categories, that bloggers write only opinion, while News is factual.

What a crock.

UPDATE: Roger Neal, SVP/GM BusinessWeek Digital, emails: "You've pointed out something we need to fix and is in queue to be altered based on the feedback of other alpha users..."

Related: Mainstream Media is Objective, and I'm Queen Elizabeth
- AP vs Blogger BrouHaHa - New Realities for Old Media
- TechNewsWorld: The Top 10 News Stories Broken By Bloggers
- Drinking From the Media Firehose - News is Right Now; the Rest is History

Branding in a Recession

I love Tom Fishburne's cartoons, and his point of view. He drew this cartoon in response to the "recession will bring disaster, gloom and doom" worries so many companies are engaging in now. And I couldn't agree more with his recommendation: "... the key is to keep your cool, avoid the temptation to drastically cut budgets, and take a fresh look at your brand in the light of the recession. Rethink the role your brand can plan for your consumers now."

Benny Bix Ochman Labradoodle in "This is the Life"

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