Step 1: Come up with an (unusual) idea.

I love to write stories, and I dream about one day becoming a successful TV or movie producer, but unfortunately I don't have the money or inside connections to do that right now. So to pass the time, and to satisfy my creative muse, I write audio dramas--character driven or science fiction stories, mostly. I write the scripts, find voice actors and musicians, mix in sound effects on my computer, and put it out on the internet for people to hear. It's fun, and I put a lot of work into it, trying to make it sound as professional as possible. (If you want to hear some of my work check out Silent Universe or Red Monday).

Step 2: Cook up a stupid publicity stunt to promote it.

Like a lot of independent content producers on the web, I came up against a conundrum: I had some cool stuff I wanted to share, but I needed a way to find eyes (or in this case, ears). I wanted to reach a ready made audience for my audio dramas, and so it seemed logical to target one of the largest podcasting conventions in the country: the Podcast and New Media Expo in Ontario.

Since this event draws tons of podcasters each year, it can be difficult to stick out amongst the crowd. I mean, granted, there are about two other black people doing podcasts out there (besides myself) but I mean "stand out" in the sense of "please come check out my show."

Lacking a couple extra thousand dollars laying around in my sofa to buy a booth at the convention, I decided to try something inventive. Since my new podcast, Red Monday, is about terrorism and political intrigue, I figured it might be clever to play the "mystery" card and dress up as a "Secret Service" agent at the expo. I bought a pair of 11-dollar aviator shades from Wal-Mart, dusted off my only suit and hit up a local prop store to find a twirly ear-dongle...like the kind Agent Smith wears in The Matrix. I ordered some red envelopes off the internet (red envelopes, Red Monday, get it? Uh, yeah), stuffed them with a cryptic-looking "classified" message, and was off.

I didn't realize what I was getting myself into...

Step 3: Go too far with the stunt and get in trouble with the authorities.

I guess I sort of went overboard with the whole "Secret Service" shtick.

After casing the keynote interviews of Howard Lindzon (Creator of WallStrip) and Jim Louderback (CEO of Revision3) and conspicuously passing out my "red envelopes" to random people, there was a buzz going around about my presence. I felt like I had created some waves and gotten some people's attention. I took a seat in a vacant booth in the exhibit hall--where the expo organizers had setup coffee tables for people to sit at--and within a few minutes people were approaching me, asking what I was about. It seemed like I was making some good success.

That high promptly ended when I was "happily" accosted in the hallway by Tim Bourquin, the Founder and CEO of the expo. Apparently I had created a buzz... but according to Bourquin, it was for (get this) scaring women.

What?

Stay with me, here. Apparently my "Will Smith Men-in-Black" impression had rubbed some people the wrong way, and they had complained to security. It's strange, because I hardly talked to anyone, and the people whom I did talk with were all impressed with my imaginativeness. But after I had been sitting in the exhibit hall for a few hours, getting as much (if not more) attention than some of the people who had dropped thousands of dollars for a booth, I was quickly identified as a "problem." Go figure.

After expo reps threatened to confiscate my badge (three times!), and I was ejected from the exhibit hall, I finally managed to pass out all of my envelopes and chalked up the incident as a learning experience.

Step 4: Blog about the incident on the Internet.

A few days after this all happened, I blogged about it. I figured it was an interesting (and amusing) story. But instead of going through a lot of redundant detail, I'll just link the post here.

Step 5: Come up with a catchy title. (IMPORTANT!)

I'm an occasional reader of Copyblogger, so I have to give props to Brian Clark and everyone over there for inspiring this step.

The Copyblogger folks talk a lot about how to write effectively, but one of the articles they put up that stuck with me was titled "How to Write Headlines That Work." In it, Brian talks a little bit about something called a Question Headline, which must "do more than simply ask a question, it must be a question that...the reader can empathize with or would like to see answered."

As I was considering my article, I figured I would give it a toss at Digg. I recalled from earlier visits to the site that I had seen several stories having to do with government abuse of power, the NSA wiretapping scandal and the like. So somewhere along there, I got a snappy idea for a pretty sensationalist title:

"Is the FBI spying on Podcasters?"

It seemed simple and provocative enough. After all, that was the whole point of the "mystery" stunt. Satisfied, I... moved onto Step 6.

Step 6: Submit it to Digg.

With my story in hand and my title finalized, I sent the story to a friend of mine and asked him to digg it.

Step 7: Tell your friends.

Then I told my friends to digg it. I logged onto Skype and started messaging all sorts of people, pointing them to the digg link and asking them to vote up the story if they liked it. I don't have a lot of close personal friends online, so this only got me to 8 or so diggs. (By the way, here's my Digg profile if you want to friend me).

Step 8: Tell people who are not your friends.

Afterwards, I gathered up the business cards from all the people who I had traded info with at the podcast expo, and I e-mailed them about the story. Since they were all there, I figured it would be relevant to them. After that, I proceeded onto my Bloglines account and looked up the term "podcast expo" to see if people were blogging about their own experiences at the convention. When I found some people posting about the expo, I e-mailed the authors, told them who I was, and pointed them to the story. Some people told me to leave them alone, other people thought the whole incident was hilarious. It was pretty much hit or miss, but I got to over 30 diggs that night.

Step 9: Pray.

At this point, the whole incident was pretty much out of my hands, so I prayed about it (I'm a Christian and I'm religious, sue me).

Step 10: Go to sleep.

It was getting kind of late, so I hit the hay. But in all seriousness, this is important: you have to know when to stop and let things take off on their own. There comes a point where the soufflé will either rise or it wont, and obsessing over it usually doesn't change that. So get some rest.

 

Post Mortem:
The next morning I awoke to quite a surprise: my story had over 160 diggs and had made "popular" sometime during the night. I was ecstatic. But after I calmed down, I took a closer look at things and realized my story had been buried a few hours after making popular. "Why?" I wondered. It turns out my super-sensational title was just that. After the initial flurry of interest that propelled the story home, more weary-eyed diggers pushed the story down because it was too sensationalist... the answer to the question "is the FBI spying on Podcasters" was "no,"  and it was just a funny story about a guy who bit off a bit more than he could chew with a viral marketing bit.

So the moral of the story is, I guess: Be sure to come up with good content (of course), and a good title (this is key), but don't go overboard with it. If you setup huge expectations with your title, you better be prepared to fulfill it, otherwise (sooner or later) it will probably come back to bite you in the arse.

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If you were at the Podcast and New Media Expo this past weekend in Ontario, you probably caught a glimpse of this guy in the "secret service"-type outfit.

He was hard to miss, floating up and down the halls during the keynote addresses of Howard Lindzon, Creator of WallStrip and Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3. He turned up in some of the smaller sessions throughout Friday and Saturday, but was also seen sitting at an empty table in the exhibit hall as well.

Some people speculated that he was special security for the expo, or perhaps even secret service or the FBI (given the twirly ear dongle he had on).

Those who were brave enough to approach him were offered a choice of 1 of 5 red envelopes, interestingly marked "CLASSIFIED." It's generally not known if all the envelopes contained the same message, or variations, but they made oblique references to a website, "Red-Monday.com," and a password needed to access it: "Gabriel."

Obviously a marketing stunt of some kind.

But shortly after the 2nd keynote address on Saturday, several people saw Tim Bourquin, the Founder and CEO of the expo, approach and grab this "mystery agent" by the shoulder in the main hallway. Based on the tone of the conversation, it appeared that Tim was upset about what he was doing. The "agent" did, however, show up again later at the exhibit hall.

There, another group of people saw a different (unidentified) member of the expo staff approach the mystery man at his desk. By now, there were a conspicuous number of red envelopes in people's hands, and some buzz floating around about the whole thing.

After a quick discussion with this new staff member, the agent was ejected from the expo floor and reported to security. The reason for these confrontations? According to Tim, he "frightened several women who were concerned enough to contact show management." I guess one should never underestimate the power of a scary black man wearing reflective sunglasses, because there is no evidence he verbally or physically threatened anyone.

Of course he didn't. I should know. The agent guy was me.

Even after the expo ended, Tim has made it a point to follow me around the 'net, informing me of how I am the "perfect example of marketing gone bad."

He's absolutely right. If you try a marketing stunt that gets enough attention from attendees and staff to have the expo organizer himself talking to you and helping to create buzz for you on the web... then you obviously failed miserably at your job. ;)

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I'm at a loss for words.

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The story is extremely light on details, but Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci, writers for the next Trek flick, throw out some tidbits that I just can't resist commenting on:

"The movie will be titled, simply, Star Trek"

RED ALERT, notify all the Star Trek fan associations immediately! No semi-colons or subtitles this time! But on a more serious note, thats an interesting 180 from the stance they took with "Enterprise," where they tried to remove any reference to the shows Trek heritage in the title. Maybe it represents a turning around on the part of the Paramount Hollywood elites, and a recognition that the Star Trek franchise is actually a powerful and valuable brand?

Not likely.

"it will take place aboard a starship"

This one is just too easy, so I'm going to leave it alone.

"and they're OK with Matt Damon playing Capt. James T. Kirk...Not that the writers confirmed that Damon had been cast, as rumored."

Is this what we're reduced to in Star Trek fandom these days? Wondering if MATT DAMON will now be the face of the new Battlestar Galactic--err--Star Trek? What about focusing on engaging stories with space-bound metaphors that challenge us to think about our own lives? What about characters that we care about? What about real risk and a sense of adventure, the kind of thing that set our hearts on fire as children and adolescents?

Alas, no. We get this:

"The writers wouldn't discuss details of the story, other than to say it is a reimagining of the franchise that will remain true to its history, but aim for the broadest audience possible. Kurtzman promised: 'There will be more action in this movie than any Trek that's preceded it.'"

Because, you know, that's really what Star Trek needs. Maybe if we just water it down to better appeal to the Dawson's Creek audience and fill it with more fighting and explosions, that will solve the franchise's problems. I mean, heck, it worked for Enterprise, didn't it? It worked for Star Trek: Nemesis, didn't it?

Both Enterprise and Star Trek Nemesis were (to one extent or another) predicated on the false assumption that what's "wrong with Star Trek" can ultimately be fixed by straying farther and farther from Gene Rodenberry's vision. If we fill it with tighter skirts, more action, and less character development, then every 13-35 year old in America will flock to it, right? Wrong.

This movie is going to fail. Just like Nemesis failed. Just like Enterprise failed. Why? Because it's just another attempt to re-write Star Trek from the ground up. It doesn't need to be re-written, it doesn't need to be remixed. It's an established brand that millions of people appreciate and are comfortable with. People seem to forget that Star Trek TNG was hugely rated, and it didn't have to resort to the kind of nonsense that we've seen recently in the franchise.

You don't bring Star Trek into the 21st century (in the entertainment sense) by re-writing it from the ground up. No, you ADD something to the already familiar mix. Starting over from the ground up is what caused so much trouble for Voyager, and what doomed Enterprise to failure before it began. TNG didn't go off the air because of bad ratings, that show went out with a bang. Start back there, and build off of it. What about having a story where the crew is joined by the first Romulan Starfleet officer? Or Cardassian, for that matter. What if the Breen want to join the Federation and there's a plot to stop it from happening? These people have gone through several bloody wars, and the mixing of cultures is going to cause tension on personal, community, and galactic levels. There's a lot of opportunity for drama in that situation alone . . . but somehow it's better to hire people to work on Star Trek who can't tell if Geordi LaForge is an alien or not, and have no concept of what "continuity" means.

Yeah, good job, Paramount.

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In it, contributor Mike drops the following: "In fact, it's almost amazing to find out that theaters are just now starting to think about more actively responding to demand by using digital distribution systems that not only allow them to boot out bad movies after just a few showings, but also bring in more independent films for special showings for smaller audiences. Being able to better target more markets is a huge step up -- but it's something that the theaters should have started preparing for a decade ago, rather than today."

It's good to see that finally another part of the Entertainment Distribution Machine is starting to pick up on the good stuff Web2.0 has provided us with. In fact, just ignoring all the good techy-goodness kind of feeling that this fills me with, it's just a SMART business practice. The fact that this is starting to catch on is an early sign that the cartel that has controlled mass distribution channels is beginning to crack. Ideally, the next big one will be a low-budget movie (possibly from the web) that gets caught up in this "digital democracy" and voted up to the top, ala the front page of Digg.

Or maybe not. Who knows.

Here's to hoping.

The one for the USA . . . I have a friend who likes to say "it's funny cuz it's true." I don't think I could put it any better.

Check out the rest on BrazilianArtists.net.

For those folks who are familiar with the Blue Dog concept, you might say that I'm becoming a "Dimo" - a Democrat In Name Only. Now, let's get down to the meat of this. Why have I made this decision? And what does it mean about my political views?

What this means for me, politically:
Well, my political leanings haven't changed much at all. I don't want to go into an exhaustive analysis of where I stand tonite, because I want to work through what my political opinions will be, now that I've managed to ground myself with a label. In other words, I need to think about some things, logically. But rest-assured, I'm still very much pro-life, and very much on the side of traditional Christian values when it comes to the "culture wars."

Why did I make this decision?
I like alot of what the Republicans say, in principle. Balanced budget, limited government, more freedom in commerce, etc. You might even say I have a libertarian slant in some of my ideas ... but the Republican Party lately seems to have a bit of a problem with "follow through." They talk a good game about conservative ideals, but that's not what we've observed during President Bush's tenure. There may be reasons for it, but frankly, it feels like a bunch of empty talk, to me. I don't hate large businesses (they provide jobs and help fuel the economy), but I'm more interested in the middle-class getting a bit more of the "pie" when it comes through to legislation and policy. I don't hate on Chevron of Pfizer too much, but I'd rather see people in my income bracket get more tax breaks, too.

But what really appeals to me about the Blue Dogs is something admittedly immature ... they're a rebel coalition in a political party that is (sometimes) completely whacked out and subject to the same kind of "groupthink" that stifles the Republicans. The difference here is . . . all the Republicans have is John McCain, the Democrats have an entire coalition to Rage Against their Machine :) I find the idea of being a huge stick in the Democratic Party's side--and a force for moderation within this wing of the government--very very appealing. Maybe it's because I'm a kid, but I like it.

It gives me a kind of freedom to think about and consider ideas in a more intelligent manner, than to feel like (as I did when I was a Republican) there is something wrong with me if I don't "tow the party line." The Democrats have alot of problems . . . but they're not entirely bad. I think a force like the Blue Dogs, who are for fiscal conservatism, and for social conservatism on many points, could do very well in uniting the country, and brining us all back from that brink of ultra-partisanship that the parties at large have made it for the rest of us.

"...the system does much more than what you describe being able to do in Technorati, so your posting is inaccurate ... Specifically, authority is not a proxy for influence, because authority is based on total links across all topics to a site. We look at links, frequency that someone writes about a topic, popularity of the site, probability that the author or site will pick up links based on the specific topic, among other things. We also provide extensive analysis of content and relationships between blogs, mainstream media and other sites; there are a whole set of features that allow measurement of changes in the market once you engage with someone."

This is what I get for shooting my mouth off.

I have to admit, I only read a summary of what the product did, and responded with my first gut reaction, which was that only people who don't use Technorati would find any use in this. Mr. Ratcliffe's email definitely gave me a better understanding of what this product is really about, and I have to admit I did not give Buzzlogic a Fair Shake. It does a lot more than rehash information that you could basically get through Technorati.

With that said, however, in my experience, a lot of blogs tend to cluster posts around a certain topic, or class of topics. If you filter out the BoingBoings and TotalFarks of the world, I'd argue that there is a notable (but far from perfect) correlation between aggregate authority and influence.

That, however, doesn't dismiss Mitch Ratcliffe's Buzzlogic, it's higher-quality analysis, or other features, and as such I apologize for my original snark.

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***

I found a post on bloglines today pushing this company called BuzzLogic, which basically offers a tool to let marketers know which blogs are the most influential. "Rather than look at thousands or tens of thousands of blogs, we say here are the 10 or 20 most influential," says BuzzLogic CMO Bob Schettino.

What's amazing about this is that you can do pretty much the same thing for free. What do you have to do? Goto Technorati, and click on Advanced Search. Goto the "Blog Directory Search" area at the bottom and type the subject you're looking for into the "Find blogs about" field.

Hit "search" and go make yourself come coffee.

When you come back, make sure the drop down at the top of your search results says "blogs about (whatever) sorted by [Authority]."

Congratulations, you now know which blogs are the most influential in your subject area. Want to know about other areas? Rinse, lather, repeat.

Simple, isnt it? Don't pay some company cash for something you can do easily and for free.

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You can pick up details in the article that seems to have started off the firestorm, but I think most people are missing an important fact, brought to light by the whole controversy: One of the stories that is now dominating digg is doing so without the help of the "uber-evil" core user group who everyone is hating on... so who really "controls" digg?.

Talk about irony... what's the point of busting your butt to get to the high-level positions on a site like digg, if it doesn't come with a certain amount of prestige? You worked harder than everyone else, and have made contacts with people who respect your journalistic expertise. What's wrong with that? Sure, this creates a barrier of entry to newbies who want to prove themselves, but is this really a reason to "behead" the royal family, as it were? If some newbie wants to work his way into the digg limelight, then let him, but let's not hang the digg aristocracy simply because we're jealous of the influence that they wield. That's communism, boys and girls.

"[Steve Irwin] was believed to have been killed by a stingray barb that pierced his chest...He was filming an underwater documentary off Port Douglas when the accident occurred, the report said...Sky Television also reported that Irwin had been stung by a sting ray."

So there's still a bit of confusion about what's going on, but it sounds like the part about him having died is true. I hope it isn't. I liked his show, and though I never personally knew the guy, it's jarring to suddenly hear that he's died. He's 44; that's not old at all. Guess it just goes to show you that anything can change in an instant.

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised though. Irwin made his brand off of the "shock value" of the things he did. Running around and wrestling crocodiles is a sure-fire way to get attention (and so is dangling your child in front of one, anyone remember that?) but there's a certain amount of risk involved. It's a shame though.

My regards to his wife and child.

As one of those "hardcore internet nerds" it astounds me how much the entertainment industry can blithely disregard common sense and insist that people like me hold the keys to what's popular among 18-25 year olds. The internet is about niches: it gives a voice to literally thousands of unique and varying groups of people. SoaP was one of those mass market artifacts that tripped over the internet and accidentally went viral among a certain niche group online: nerds who thought it was unbelievably cool to hear S.L. Jackson say "I am tired of these mutha------' snakes on this mutha-----' plane!" If you thought that line and a bunch of snakes was worth $10 and a drive down to the local cinema, then you got on the bandwagon. If not, you didn’t.

New Line mistakenly interpreted this grassroots interest as chatter among "opinion leaders" who would ultimately influence their non-internet friends and colleagues to go and see the movie. That bubble finally burst to the lackluster opening of $15.3 million this weekend. Why? Netizens are usually only opinion-leaders among other netizens, and there are far more young 18-25 males who are not hardcore bloggers/podcasters/netizens than who are. The internet effectively gives a loudspeaker to netizens, and makes it easy to overestimate how much viral online will reflect sales offline. Mix this all together and what do you get? Unfulfilled expectations through and through. SoaP was great for the niche it appealed to, but was pretty much a collective yawn for the rest of us. They probably would have done better just going straight to DVD.

In an effort to reach a hipper audience of teenagers, Wal-Mart has launched its own version of a social-networking site, called "The Hub," at walmart.com/schoolyourway. Although it has adopted all the visual cues of a social-networking site, Wal-Mart screens all the site's content, tells parents their kids have joined and forbids users to e-mail one another. The retail giant calls its users "Hubsters" -- a moniker that has already subjected Wal-Mart to criticism for being painfully uncool even as it tries to be cool for children.

A large corporate entity trying to be cool and failing miserably at it, who would have thought?

Apparently leery of the problems with MySpace.com, Wal-Mart's site disqualifies any video with "materials that are profane, disruptive, unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, vulgar, obscene, hateful, or racially or ethnically-motivated, or otherwise objectionable." Members of its target audience -- teenagers -- have already been among its harshest critics. Do you think such a highly sanitized and controlled environment can successfully build word-of-mouth among young web surfers? Is Wal-Mart going in the right direction or has the retail giant and its agency made an embarassing blunder?

I think I once said to an old co-worker, that money doesn't make a bad idea good . . . it just makes it funny. Throw money at a bad idea, and humor usually ensues.

The reason the kids hate this is not because it's "Wal-Mart," but because it's sterilized. Younger kids might be more tolerant of those kind of controls (and Lord knows the parents will appreciate it), but the teenage market (which Wal-Mart is ineptly trying to target) is going to eat any sort of censorship for lunch.

In short, good idea, wrong target market. If Wal-mart focused this on a younger skew, I think they'd do much better. But there's NO REASON for a teenager to choose this poor imitation over MySpace...