The River

The personal professional blog of Pamela Parker -- musings on marketing, advertising, media and technology.

Current Affairs

Hillary’s Conversational Marketing

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Well, Hillary is in, and it looks like she’s kicking things off with an experiment in what we, at FM, like to call “conversational marketing”. She announced her intentions in an online video, using phrases like “I’m beginning a conversion, with you, with America” and “let’s talk,let’s chat, let’s start a dialogue.”

She’ll follow up with a series of live, online video chats starting Monday.

I think this is an especially smart way to approach her run. She isn’t stepping in saying she has all the answers, but she’s seeking — like good marketers do nowadays — input. I suppose we’ll all see how it goes.

Problem loading page (The LonelyGirl15 Phenom)

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I can’t believe I care enough about this LonelyGirl15 unmasking that I keep hitting refresh despite a Problem loading page error (generated by site overload?). I’m too much of a Webhead to be any indication of popular sentiment, but the spawning of these YouTube “celebrities” really does seem to be happening with some regularity nowadays.

One thing we’ve learned from LonelyGirl15… production values and scripting and everything that goes along with a Hollywood production do matter. Even if some of the artifice in this case went to making it all seem like a home production job… the quirky narrative, the fast-motion photography, the editing and the music all added up to what we viewed as entertainment. Then again, home-grown editing and media creation tools are almost at the level to where this seemed plausible to a lot of people. But not quite.

UPDATE: The LA Times story on the unmasking. Turns out it was a $150 Webcam.

On Joining FM

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Fm_logo
Yes, it‘s true (as if you doubted it). I’m joining FM Publishing as author services manager, to work with John Battelle and his team on developing this next-generation publishing company.

Why? One of my earliest experiences in the Internet ad world was as intern/writer/ad sales person at @NY. I got the ad sales part of the job (and all the rest) courtesy of Tom Watson, who I’d met while finishing up my masters in journalism at Columbia. One of the more important things I learned (besides that I was not cut out for selling) was how difficult it was for agencies to buy ads across niche Web sites. No matter how engaged and influential their audiences, it was just plain logistically difficult to buy across all those sites. And that was 1998, before the explosion in blogs, and their accompanying engaged, influential (but niche) audiences. That’s one of the issues FM is looking to address.

Why else? I’ve spent the years since that experience thinking and writing about interactive advertising, watching the boom, the flameout and the subsequent rise. Joining FM is an opportunity for me to apply everything I’ve learned over the years about advertising and about managing writers. It’s also a great chance to work with brilliant, dedicated people who have a strong vision of the future of publishing. Needless to say I’m especially looking forward to getting to know the authors, many of whom I feel I know already through reading their compelling writing. I’m really eager to start helping them realize their dreams for their sites.

One of the things I had to really look at when considering this opportunity was whether I’d miss writing. I’ve helped with writing news and authored a bi-weekly column since 2001. I looked back recently over the archives of what I’ve written for ClickZ, and the sheer volume is amazing. Thankfully, FM, as you might expect, is supportive of my blogging, so I’ll have The River as an outlet for my musings. Not sure exactly how often I’ll be posting or what shape it’ll take, but give me time to get my feet wet and together we’ll see what emerges. (Feedback is always welcome, of course.)

I’m still at ClickZ for the next week. Then I’ll take a whole day (!) off to do yoga and nap (or something equally relaxing), and I start at FM on August 1. To all you FM authors out there, I look forward to working with you!

Connected = More Involved

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Nice post from Gary Stein at the ISOBAR client summit. He quotes data from a Yahoo!/Isobar study called “Fluid Lives” that found that putting wireless/broadband technology in people’s homes made them:

More involved politically: 26%
More involved with my community: 29%
More involved with organizations related to my interests: 55%

Gary mentions his ability to “drop in” to his neighborhood Yahoo! Group. I feel the same. It’s only via the Internet that I’ve been able to keep up with a huge debate racking our little East Bay city.

Unfortunately, technology doesn’t create hours in the day, or enable less sleep at night (which, as a mom of a 9-month-old, I’d welcome heartily), but perhaps it lets us dip our toes into many more waters, so we can determine where to dive in.