LB's Rambles

eMail in the Bathroom?

No matter how hard I try, I just can't see this report as heralding a welcome trend...

Surprising Video Trend

eMarketer has a report today on what I would call a fairly surprising trend in online video. It has long been a truism that viewers of online video prefer short clips - the kind you generally find on sites like YouTube. While some people do view longer clips, the advice usually given to people trying to get advertising or PR messages out online, for example, has been: keep it short, preferably under 4 minutes.

Maybe not so much. According to eMarketer, a couple of recent surveys indicate that viewers are anxious to watch longer videos - particularly TV shows - online, if/when they are available. Nearly half of all users told Harris Interactive that they felt the same way about movies.

eMarketer says that's good news for producers, fearful that their audiences might dwindle overall if more online viewing starts cutting into TV and movie watching. That doesn't seem to have happened.

eMarketer also says that a surprisingly large percentage of viewers realize "the money for longer programming has to come from somewhere." They seem willing to watch ads for long form videos - more so than they are for the short videos that make up such a large percentage of today's viewing. That's a new trend, to me - and I think an interesting one showing good possibilities as online video continues to mature.

Dumb Move for Hasbro

I had to weigh in on Hasbro's heavy-handed move in forcing Scrabulous off Facebook. Hasbro, of course, created the original game - Scrabble - and has all the rights, etc. Scrabulous really had only its popularity and playability going for it. And Facebook says it was Scrabulous's developers who made the decision to pull it.

Of courseit was. As Peter Shankman points out on his blog, if you're facing the possibility of multi-million dollar lawsuits, you are likely to cave. But take a look at what he says - and at the (as of this writing) more than 60 comments on his blog alone, mostly from angry Scrabulous players. That's echoed in a lot of other places online - not least on Facebook itself.

Today, on the Social Media Insider blog, Catharine P. Taylor makes a very good argument for what Hasbro should have done: buy Scrabulous and re-brand it. Instead, they've managed to generate a lot of negative buzz and bad will for themselves among current and potential customers. Ask some record industry execs how well that strategy has been working for them.

Target or Opportunity?

eMarketer has a smart and balanced article today on public reaction to behavioral targeting that I think manages to avoid some of the extreme positions on both sides of the privacy debate.

On the one hand, according to a Harris Poll cited in the article, more than half the respondents to the survey consider themselves very or somewhat comfortable with sites that allow targeted advertising. On the other hand, of course, that means nearly half - 45% are not comfortable with it, and that's hard for marketers to ignore. And, despite what they say about their comfort level, more than half are uncomfortable with the actual implementation of advertising targeted to reflect their own browsing habits.

What does all this mean? eMarketer concludes that advertisers and publishers are going to have to rely more heavily on informed consent, and allowing Web visitors to opt in to receiving targeted ads based on their behavior. I have no problem with that - my problem is with the self-styled "privacy advocates" who want to protect me from receiving ads that may, in fact, be relevant to me. I'll take relevance - but I still want some degree of control over who gets to know what about me.

What's Not to Like About Good Service?

Last week, my home Internet service had a bad stomach ache and refused to work.

So I picked up my phone and called Comcast, which agreed that the service wasn't working, and scheduled a tech for the next day.

OK. In the past, that would have been the end of it, at least until the tech showed up.

But this time, I also had Twitter, and it was still working. So I sent out a tweet, noting the problem.

A few minutes later, up popped a reply from Comcast's digital care manager, Frank Eliason. I gave him some info (again, via Twitter) and he was able to check further on my problem. And, when the tech was due, Frank stayed in touch until the problem was resolved.

I mention him because today's Daily Dog has an article about how Comcast and other companies are using social networking to reach out to clients. The Dog quotes an article in last Friday's New York Times which goes into greater depth - and has the usual obligatory warnings about how it all feels like "Big Brother is watching you."

Nonsense.

If good service is good customer relations - and it is, and if Comcast has always had what might be termed politely a less-than-perfect record for good service - as it has, then I fail to see anything wrong with their reaching out via Twitter and blogs to improve their service and their image. Hell, as a beneficiary of it last week, I think it's great. Thanks, Frank!

"Detection by Gaslight"

This week's podcast is a review of the anthology "Detection by Gaslight," edited by Douglas G. Greene. Subtitled "14 Victorian Detective Stories," it's an anthology of short stories, featuring both well-known detectives such as Sherlock Holmes and The Man in the Corner and far more obscure ones.

Full details about the book and the podcast may be found over at the Classic Mysteries blog.

Podcast Predictions

As a podcaster myself, I am always trying to do whatever I can to spread the word about podcasting in general. You know, "a rising tide floats all ships," and so forth. And - possibly because of the circles in which I travel - I do seem to be encountering more people who don't just stare at me and ask, "a pod-WHAT?"

It's encouraging to find that I'm not alone. Steve Smith, writing in MediaPost's Mobile Insider blog, says podcasting remains a niche - but a big one, with perhaps 10 million people - but it is beginning to attract serious amounts of audio and video advertising. A lot of it, he says, appears to be created especially for web use, rather than just repurposed TV ads.

That's good news - and the dollars will be welcome. Smith quotes industry people who say they think podcasting is set to break out of its niche and become mainstream. As a podcaster, I'd say it can't happen soon enough.

Social Overload

So on Tuesday morning, I posted a status update on Facebook complaining that I was "starting to have trouble keeping up with all the updates on too many services."

Apparently I'm not alone. One of MediaPost's myriad newsletters has pointed me to a Monday article from MSNBC called "Beware of social networking overload." Got THAT right! Bottom line: you - we - need to be a part of at least one network, probably a couple. But don't start loading it up to the point where you can't keep track. Which is about the point I think I've reached...

HAROs of Journalism

I've written here before about Peter Shankman's wildly successful service called HARO - Help a Reporter Out. What started out last fall as a small Facebook group has grown into a website and mail list with more than 15,000 people, and the number increases faster than I can possibly keep up with it.

It's a remarkably simple concept: there are two lists. One group, the journalists, submit queries when they're looking for experts on virtually any topic. The other, larger, group consists mostly (but not exclusively) of PR people - the experts who can answer the journalists' questions. Neither group pays a penny for the service.

I rehash all this because Shankman, who is a friend, has now scored a really great article from The Industry Standard. It details HARO's brief history - and the way that PR Newswire, which has made a great deal of money from its own expert source system called ProfNet, suddenly finds itself threatened by a free upstart. If you're interested in the birth, gestation and incredibly quick growth of a good idea, take a look at this story.

About Writing

There's a fascinating column in today's edition of the Bulldog Reporter's "Daily Dog" newsletter by Kim Perez, a freelance writer and PR consultant. She explains why she writes: because she loves writing. Yes, it's how she makes a living, and it's unbelievably hard work. But she loves it, and that's her main motivation.

As another professional writer, I understand what she's saying, and I agree with her completely. I too am fascinated and occasionally frustrated by people who seem to think that writing isn't really "work." Surely we must do something else as well.

Wrong on all counts. See what Kim Perez says, because she is saying it extremely well. And I would echo her advice to those who think they can just sit down and start writing: if you don't love it, and aren't willing to work at it - please don't bother.