The River

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

I Want My Rewind Button

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I’m with Watson…. My itchy trigger finger belies my deep desire for TiVo for my radio. We’ve had ReplayTV since May of 2002 (nearly 3 years). It’s been with us at 3 different residences, through 3 different cable companies and 1 satellite TV provider. It may not be TiVo, but I honestly have no complaints. In fact, because we have an early ReplayTV, we still have the auto-commercial-skipping the company abandoned in 2003.

When we have to use our cable system (Comcast) menu for choosing programming (rarely), it drives us crazy — the interface is so slow to respond. When we can’t pause or rewind — when traveling or with radio — it’s extremely frustrating. We’re spoiled, but it just feels so right. Needless to say, we’re not alone.

This is why I desperately want one for my radio. Podcasting really won’t do. I don’t want to be totally timeshifted away from the rest of the listening public. I like my NPR in the car on the way home, and I like knowing everyone else is out there listening to the same thing at the same time. I just want to rewind it a bit if I miss something… or pause if I’m hitting some gnarly traffic. Then, of course, I want to skip ahead (through the pledge breaks?) and catch back up to the rest of the world. Is that too much to ask?

Can a Viral Campaign Gain Traction without Bloggers?

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I wrote a piece today that raises some interesting questions. Have methods of viral distribution spread widely enough so that an online word-of-mouth campaign can bypass techie bloggers? The MSN Found campaign — slammed by Scoble and dissed by other bloggers — is aimed at mainstream consumers. It doesn’t have RSS distribution, it doesn’t allow videos to be downloaded, and the “blogs” are fake (though in their defense, they are designed to be fake, from characters in an ongoing narrative).

So if early-adopter techie bloggers find MSN Found uninteresting, is that it? Does the meme go no further? Or will e-mail “forward to a friend” and more mainstream (read: teen diary) blogging save the day for MSN? Time will tell, I suppose. MSN isn’t talking about it and they’ll probably only spill if it’s eventually successful, but one wonders whether this will become one of those cautionary tales of online marketing gone wrong (like Raging Cow).

UPDATE: MSN responds to the Found controversy via its blog, saying it’s going to add RSS feeds though “very few updates” to the campaign are planned. Kudos to the firm for acknowledging the discussion that’s been going on.

UPDATE2: Scoble apologizes.

“Hitchhikers Guide” Infocom Game, Circa 1984

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BoingBoing offers a very cool link to a Flash version of the Infocom “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” game. I spent many hours playing this game with my little brother back in the ’80s — it was probably one of my most satisfying early computer experiences. I haven’t played the Flash version yet, but I’m checking it out.

Incidentally, with all of the geek interest in something like Hitchhiker’s Guide, why no creative Web marketing plan for the upcoming flick? Or is something in the works? (I DO see some paid search ads a so-called blog and some kind of contest.) Incidentally, I love that Arthur Dent is played by “Tim” from The Office.

Marketing & Obesity

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Interesting piece at Knowlege@Wharton about the obesity epidemic and marketers’ responsibilities. It’s really a fascinating area to watch, as of late.

“This is a very difficult issue,” says Wharton marketing professor Patti Williams. “In some ways, companies are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Consumers say they want healthier foods, but if you look at consumer behavior, many people choose unhealthy foods over healthy ones.” Indeed, a restaurant chain that recently tried to reduce the size of its portions was soundly blasted by its customers and has now decided to reinstate the original serving size. “How do marketers navigate their way through [things like this]?” Williams asks. “I think companies in general are sincere about wanting to offer healthier alternatives,” in part because with all the dire warnings about obesity, “they don’t have many other choices.”

RIP Mr. Thompson

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Hunter

Spent the wet long weekend in Yosemite, so just heard late last night about the suicide of Hunter S. Thompson. He was one of my journalistic heroes — because he told it like it was and because he told it so well. An amazingly adept writer, his stylistic flourishes and lengthy sentences often had me in awe. I loved especially Proud Highway, Volume 1 — an epistolary work covering the writer’s youthful exploits, from growing up in Louisville, KY to serving in the U.S. Air Force to writing Hell’s Angels. It’s fascinating to see how much raw personality was evident so early, and to see him develop the writing style to express those intense energies. Farewell, Hunter S. Thompson.

  • Tom Watson on Thompson.
  • Chervokas on Thompson.