This is my low-rent, quick-and-dirty green screen set in a corner of our basement. Annotated flicker image is here. Lighting and video pros can probably offer a dozen ways to improve on this but –like so much in life– I stop as soon as I hit good enough. I probably have no more than $50 bucks in this set-up. Next project is a graffiti mural on one wall.
“Not only will Google now target ads at you based on your interest, but it will also let you target yourself. Anyone can go to Google’s Ad Preferences Manager and see exactly how Google is categorizing their interests. Now, here’s the really smart part: Google lets you add or remove any interest. In effect, it is inviting you to declare what kind of ads you want to see. You can also opt out of the program completely.”– TechCrunch
It took me less than 3 minutes to update my interests for Google. And I’m sure I’ll go back from time to time to tweak them.
A little preface here: Most of the food I ever put in my mouth was paid for –directly or indirectly– by radio commercials. My father was a radio guy and for many years I wrote and produced radio “spots.” Lots and lots of them. Some were good, some were just the right length, if you know what I mean.
So when Seth Godin –one of the keynote speakers at the recent Country Radio Seminar in Nashville– refers to radio commercials as “spam,” it’s a problem for me. I’m a regular reader of Mr. Godin’s blog and have purchased and read a number of his books. I think he understands marketing in the 21st century as well as anyone.
So what’s spam and what’s not?
When you get your hands on my email address and send me an unsolicited email trying to sell me something (or get me to give you money, or visit your porn site, etc) …without my permission, we call that spam. You invaded my inbox without my permission.
When I turn on my local radio station, I know there will be commercials. They pay for the music/news/weather programs for which I tuned in. I’m giving tacit permission for the the station to try to sell me something on behalf of their advertisers. Value for value. That doesn’t sound like spam to me.
And if every commercial I heard was talking about something I cared about, something of interest… I’d probably pay more attention and the commercials would be worth more to the advertiser.
This is how cable TV programs work. If I’m watching HGTV (House & Garden), there’s a pretty good chance the commercials will at least marginally relevant.
I’m sure a lot of radios stations attempt to do this when and where they can. But it’s tough. They’re trying to reach the largest audience they can and will sell a spot to damn near anyone (preachers and politicians pay in advance).
Given the choice, most of us will choose NOT to listen to a poorly produced or irrelevant message. Commercial or otherwise.
So are are radio spots spam or not?
Only the listener can answer that. And he or she does, every time they punch the button to another station. And keeps punching it until they find a song or talk show they like (at least more than the commercial). Or pull out the iPod.
J. T. Gerlt (Program Director at KTKS, Lake of the Ozarks) recently attended the annual Country Radio Seminar in Nashville, where Seth Godin was one of the keynote speakers. From Country Aircheck:
“Best-selling author, entrepreneur and self-proclaimed “agent of change” Seth Godin delivered one of the best received keynotes in seminar history. Beginning with the premise that “ideas that spread, win,” Godin detailed the changing realities for mass media. “It isn’t ‘mass’ anymore,” he warned. And he laid out a new approach. “Music isn’t in trouble,” he said. “The music business is. The good news is, there’s a huge number of opportunities.” Those can only be met, however, by those willing to commit to innovation. “Timid trapeze artists are dead trapeze artists,” he joked.
The business model, Godin explained, is shifting to the point where the radio business will look a lot more like the magazine business. Fragmentation of mass media, in Godin’s view, means building strong and self-perpetuating communities he calls tribes. “More isn’t the point,” he said. “Tighter is the point.” The “television industrial complex” is being replaced by the “fashion/permission complex.” He suggested that stations will know they’re reaching their tribe with the crucial “anticipated, personal and relevant” messages when they get complaints from listeners when it isn’t sent out. Getting there means a break from the pattern of demanding success before making a full commitment.”
“Demanding success before making a full commitment.” We’re not going to try something new (risky) unless we’re sure we can make a lot of money doing it. Man, that sounds familiar.
“After finishing a serious interview with a trio of reporters on various topics, Sen. Claire McCaskill suddenly whipped out her own mini-cam to turn the tables. McCaskill apparently wanted to put Tony Messenger, Jo Mannies and I in the uncommon role of answering questions. Then, I begin filming McCaskill’s experiment shooting us. The Senator asked for quick soundbites and hit me with a tough criticism about my own blog — that it’s video heavy.”
— Springfield TV reporter David Catanese
Tessie Hubbard (aka Panty Mython) has produced more than 80 videos that have been viewed more than 34,000 times by a thousand YouTube subscribers. Along the way she managed to watch some 25,000 videos.
We bumped into each other online and she was kind enough to meet me at the Coffee Zone this morning to talk about her work/play/art. For someone who is so comfortable in front of the camera, she seemed a little shy but that’s common with most of the people I stalk. It is my fondest desire to someday collaborate with her on a project. And for goodness sake, watch some of her videos.
“This is a bit of a strange request. My name is James Finlay and I’m in a band called ‘Fists’ who’re based in Nottingham, England. We make ramshackle-y, lo-fi pop music and are about to release our debut 7” single on a small independent record label (also based in Nottingham) called Hello Thor (not much on their web page at the moment unfortunately)
The reason I’m mailing you is because everybody in our band has become obsessed with your Flickr photo set for the Basement Diaries blog and we wanted to find out if you would be willing to grant us permission to use one of your photos for the cover of our single? We’re releasing the single as a download on iTunes and as a strictly limited edition vinyl pressing of 500 copies. Naturally we would credit you for the photo on the record, we would obviously send you over some copies too and we could also offer some money as well but are pretty limited financially as we’re a small DIY operation who is paying for almost everything ourselves from our day jobs.
The photo we’d love to use if possible is the one of the gorilla in boxing gloves taken at a Halloween Party in (1980). We love the grainy 35mm quality, the colour palette and the sense of fun and mystery. The song we’re releasing is called ‘Cockatoo’ (I’d be very happy to send you an MP3 of this so you can have a listen and decide if you think it’s appropriate). Thematically it’s about fantasies of freedom and escape as seen through the eyes of a caged bird (the ‘Cockatoo’ of the title). Obviously this doesn’t really have any obvious relationship with the photo particularly but I don’t think that matters too much. If you are happy to let us use it we’d obviously send you over the design before we got the covers made up for approval.
If you’re not interested then no worries and thanks so much for your time and also for sharing the photos in the first place. If there’s anything else you’d like to know first then please give me a shout.”
Kind regards,
James
This is what I love most about the web. The man behind the gorilla mask is Barb’s brother, Lew. Don’t recall who is sitting the chair. And I’m pretty sure the beer is a Stag (shudder).
Pal George flew into San Antonio for a meeting today (yes, his arms are tired). Shortly after checking into his hotel –and before posting a single tweet– he received the following email:
> From: Twitter
> Date: March 3, 2009 4:44:23 PM CST
> To: [George’s email address]
> Subject: Visit San Antonio is now following you on Twitter!
>
> Hi, georgekopp (georgekopp).
> Visit San Antonio (VisitSanAntonio) is now following your updates on Twitter.
> Check out Visit San Antonio’s profile here:
> http://twitter.com/VisitSanAntonio
> You may follow Visit San Antonio as well by clicking on the “follow” button.
> Best,
Others will figure this out before I do, but it would seem that the VisitSanAntonio (CVB?) folks were able to access the hotel’s dB of guests as they register. Then search Twitter and start following any successful hits.
Anyone see another way this could be accomplished? Not sure I’d be okay with the hotel sharing even the fact of my registration. Reminds me of something similar that happened to Barb and me on a visit to Las Vegas.
UPDATE: The mystery has been solved.
Hi Steve,
I hope that your friend George was pleasantly surprised with our follow today. When he mentioned that he was “heading to San Antonio today. Waiting in the airport,” I thought he might have a few questions about what San Antonio has to offer.
As a part of SACVB’s efforts to engage individuals who are considering or on their way to San Antonio, I monitor Twitter daily. Through this monitoring, I have been able to help travelers find great margaritas on the River Walk, recommend which historic sites to see on a quick trip through town, and help one visitor find where a not-so-popular soccer game was going to be shown on TV.
We’ve really enjoyed the interaction that Twitter has allowed us to have with our visitors.
Hope you consider visiting us soon. You too can find out about all of San Antonio’s great sites by contacting me @VisitSanAntonio.
Have a great night,
Taylor @ SACVB
Why didn’t it occur to me that someone with the San Antonio CVB was monitoring the Twitterverse for references following? It was just coincidence he checked his Twitter feed when he hit town and got the message.
This is a great example of how to use Twitter and and the blogosphere. Taylor found my post and commented. Wonder how many other CVB’s are this clued in?
I received a cryptic overnight email that simply asked, "How much for it?" It was signed 'Steve Mays.' At first I thought it was one of the frequent reminders I email myself. But then I noticed the email was different.
Oh. It must be Steve Mays (West), the Seattle attorney who owns the domain SteveMays.com. He's decided to sell the domain? That seemed unlikely, so I pinged back:
"Nope…. Steve Mays from New Jersey. I did a whois on smays.com and found this e-mail address. Let me know of a price that would interest you. I should say now I'm not willing to pay more then 50 bucks for it. I don't think you'll let it go for that much, but let me know."
I hope to learn more about New Jersey Steve Mays. Why, for example, does he (sort of) want to purchase smays.com. Does he blog or have an online business.
If he's poked around here he knows I've been at this address since February, 2002. Why would I move for $50?
I might not hear back from NJSM. I responded –nicely, I hope– that I wouldn't sell smays.com for $100K. Not sure I can explain why. This little blog doesn't make me a dime. And I could pack up and move to www.DigitalLoveMachine.com (which appears to be available) and some of you would find me again. But it wouldn't be the same.
If New Jersey Steve is reading this, I hope he gets back to me because I'd like to learn more about him and his online plans. Maybe an interview?
PS for Steve Mays West: I notice your site appers to be down. Hope all is well.