The River

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

Web 2.0 Insiders and Carol Bartz

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Just got — and really enjoyed — Doug Weaver’s musings on the new Yahoo! CEO in his Upstream Group newsletter, the Drift (latest not yet posted). The gist is that Carol Bartz is an outsider to the insular little Web 2.0 world, but that may be a good thing rather than a problem:


Those not part of our echo chamber “don’t get it” or “can’t possibly keep up.” Well, as Dwight Schrute famously said on “The Office” in a PG outburst: “That’s Bullcrap.”

Truth is, this a business. And business is about leadership and management. It’s about establishing a future vision for an enterprise and then hiring and empowering people to realize that vision and navigate the competitive landscape. It’s unfortunate, but many of the “experienced hands” in the internet business may have forgotten this. We become victims of our own success, slaves to our own cleverness.

links for 2009-01-23

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JG: “pick up the weight”

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My colleague James Gross got me thinking with today’s post, “Pick up the Weight. See what you can do with it.”

You see, before I took my current gig, I was something of a “thought leader.” I had a bi-weekly column (and wrote news articles) on ClickZ where I pontificated on the issues of the day — at least where it concerned interactive marketing. I thought big strategic thoughts. I talked to the major players. I updated this blog a hell of a lot more than I do now.

But I consciously chose to give up the free conference passes and the complimentary dinners at fancy restaurants hosted by PR people. Why? Because I wanted to practice what I was preaching. I wanted to do something — pick up the weight, so to speak. If nothing else, I thought it would make me an infinitely better reporter and pontificator on the space.

I’ve learned tons and been a part of creating some really amazing things. I’m too busy to talk (read: Twitter, blog, etc.) about it, mostly, and I’ve occasionally been frustrated about that. But James’ post today cheered me up a little and validated the unsung heroes of our industry (I fancy myself one of these, I guess) — those who may not speak the loudest, but those focused on doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

MTV “Alerts” TWC Customers on its Site

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Maybe I’ve buried my head in the ground regarding media other than the Internet, but I’m just learning of the dispute between Time Warner Cable and Viacom (MTV Networks) that may prevent me from seeing many of the shows beloved by my family after the New Year. The Daily Show on Comedy Central? Gone! Dora, Diego and Kai-Lan on Nickelodeon? Gone! Even our old stand-by on-demand channels will be affected, according to a statement on the Time Warner Web site.

But I’m not actually writing about the dispute. What has gotten my attention is the impressive array of online marketing tools that the companies are using to muster customers to their sides. Besides the statement I linked to above, Time Warner has even launched a Web site, TWCFacts.com, that begs, “MTV please don’t do it!” Viacom is asking “you” to pay “millions” more, the site says, adding, “Those demands would be unreasonable any time, but given the current economic conditions, they are outrageous now.” Interestingly, one of their arguments against paying more is that much of MTV’s programming is already available online for free.

Meanwhile, visitors to MTV.com are greeted by a pop-up that says “Alert! Alert! Alert!” exhorting readers to call Time Warner’s 800 number to demand they come to an agreement with MTV Networks. (Screenshot above.) Impressive.

I don’t see any search ads, and who knows whether Time Warner cares on Twitter (as @Comcastcares). But even these baby steps show some awareness of the relevance of the Internet audience — not to mention the huge impact digital media (and time shifting) are having on media monetization these days. I imagine this impasse won’t last long. I wonder who’ll be most successful in getting customers to rally to their side, giving them a possible leg-up in the negotiations. Viacom, as the home of those beloved brands, has a leg up over the most-hated cable behemoth of Time Warner. Sadly, as my husband and I discussed this evening, we have few options other than Time Warner. Thankfully, we’ve got a nice backlog of Dora and Diego taped on the TiVo and TiVo to Go.

UPDATE: They reached an agreement. And TWC is on Twitter. Over on the ClickZ Blog (thx for the link!) they comment:

Hi — I’m the digital communications director for Time Warner Cable. It may interest you to know that we’re on Twitter — follow me at jeffTWC and my co-workers at alexTWC and MsmarTWC

Posted by: Jeff Simmermon at January 2, 2009 1:44 PM