Category Archives: Business & Marketing

Missouri Lottery blogging

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The Missouri Lottery is blogging. According to the release, you can "ask questions about games and promotions, watch videos from the new Reel Lottery video series, get updates on Lottery winners, and read posts from Lottery employees and players."

Chief Blogger in Residence is John Wells. He’s been with the Missouri Lottery for some time as Videographer/Satellite Coordinator. John has been wading in the blog pond since October of 2005 and has managed to turn it into his day job. Good for him. From time to time, John does part-time work for The Missourinet (a Learfield company).

The lottery should have been blogging years ago, but for many (most? all?) state entities, the blogosphere is a mysterious and scary place. I have to believe that John lobbied long and hard to help make this happen. On the other hand, it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the Power of the Blog. Good luck, John.

“Child-safe and Disney-friendly”

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“the future of any audio entertainment that is financed by advertisers is a future where the content is child-safe and Disney-friendly – a future specifically monitored by agents with agendas to ensure that the inoffensive, the harmless, and the docile float to the top of what’s “acceptable.” – Mark Ramsey (Hear 2.0)

Which only means that we’ll have to pay for the good stuff.

NBA taps into Second Life

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“The NBA has launched an elaborate series of interactive milieus in the popular online virtual world Second Life, including a 3D NBA store, a mock NBA arena and even a press center where Web users can roam and play using video-game-like avatars.

Second Life, which claims close to six million registered users worldwide and is visited by more than a million or so every two months, has increasingly become a testing ground for marketers and media companies. The new NBA Headquarters in Second Life is the first such exploration of the virtual world phenomenon by the league.”

[MediaWeek.com]

Clear Channel launches social networking sites

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“Radio giant Clear Channel is getting into the social networking business. The company’s online music and radio division is introducing a dozen station-branded social networks in the coming months. Each social network will function essentially as mini-MySpace, but will be focused on the local community served by the station running it.

Not only can Clear Channel monetize the sites with targeted online spots from local advertisers, he says but also people using the networks have a better chance of making lasting connections with other users because they will share more regional affiliations. By contrast other social networks are focused on national and even international audiences.

Each social network will have a user experience similar to MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and others offer. Users can create profiles, customize them with HTML codes and widgets, upload photos, music and video, blog, and add friends. Users will also be able to customize their profile pages with videos from Clear Channel’s catalog of over 6,000 music videos licensed from major and independent labels.”

— Billboard

Best vet blog

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A good blog is: personal, informative, timely, passionate, focused… and, yes, I do have an example in mind. Following excerpt is from yesterday post on Your Pet’s Best Friend:

“When we welcome a new client to our practice, part of the process is a questionnaire about their pet’s health history and environment. The last question is: “Do you consider your pet to be a member of the family?” and most people answer “Yes”. The human-animal bond is very strong. It’s very common for people to say that the pet is like a child to them. Cat-lovers often say that the cat owns them, rather than the other way around. Certainly many (most?) of us consider our pets as companions, as opposed to property. Thus it would seem that referring to ourselves as the “guardians” of our pets is just a nice way of saying how we really feel. [Trade Secret: the real key question is “Where does your pet sleep?”]”

If you come across what you believe is a better vet blog, send me the link.

Google will sell ads on Clear Channel

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Google has broken into radio with a multi-year advertising sales agreement with the largest U.S. broadcaster, Clear Channel Radio. Clear Channel said it has agreed for Google to sell a guaranteed portion of the 30-second spots available on its 675 radio stations in top U.S. markets, in a bid to expand the universe of local radio advertisers to Google’s online buyers.

A Clear Channel executive said Google has access to less than 5% of the radio broadcaster’s overall inventory of advertising air time. The U.S. radio industry generates $20 billion in annual sales. [USAToday]

Magazine publisher launches broadband network

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Magazine publisher and media/marketing company Meredith Corporation has launched Better.tv, its first-ever broadband network.

Better.tv offers a range of video programming on twenty “channels”, based on Meredith’s magazines, television stations, books, websites, and live events.

Better.tv topics include food, family, home, style, remodeling, entertainment, relationships, fitness and health. Programs and videos featured on Better.tv range in length from 2 to 30 minutes, and are targeted at “better serving younger customers,” according to President-CEO Steve Lacy. [More at Podcasting News]

One hundred million iPods sold

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“Apple today announced that the 100 millionth iPod has been sold, making the iPod the fastest selling music player in history. The first iPod was sold five and a half years ago, in November 2001, and since then Apple has introduced more than 10 new iPod models, including five generations of iPod, two generations of iPod mini, two generations of iPod nano and two generations of iPod shuffle. Along with iTunes and the iTunes online music store, the iPod has transformed how tens of millions of music lovers acquire, manage and listen to their music.”