Some thoughts for new bloggers

Ian Schafer has some thoughts on the blogosphere:

Anytime the editorial content of blogs is tainted with cash, it de-legitimizes the medium. Even the promise of links is promising traffic which translates into potential ad revenue for the blog. Getting bloggers to create their own ads seems to take them away from what they are (probably) doing best: writing content for their readers. Collectively, readers are smart. They can smell a rat a mile away. Once they realize the content of the blog they are reading is influenced by money, they will move on.

Just to pile on, here are a few other things bloggers shouldn't do:

• Reproduce editorial content without linking to the author.
• Reproduce more than three paragraphs of content.
• Reproduce any photos or art without permission.
• Steal bandwidth by using an existing URL to post hijacked art.
• Fail to hat-tip to a blog that pointed out a story.
• Delete or substantially alter a post, unless you're deleting the whole blog.
• Cross post without linking to the crosspost.
• Astroturf. Seriously, nothing pisses me off like astroturfing.

When I started blogging, I probably violated all these rules. (Except the last one, which I consider almost unforgivable.) You have to give neophytes some leeway. And as more people and more brands enter into a Web 2.0 world, the code of ethics which has bound good bloggers is bound to be stretched a bit. Hopefully the medium won't get so corrupted it becomes worthless.

UPDATE: Here's another thought. Know the difference between anonymous blogging and pseudonymous blogging. It is important.

Internet celebrity, Flannery O'Connor and MakeFive.com

One of my favorite quotes is this from Flannery O'Connor:

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

If O'Connor could see the flood of crap that we consume today, she would have enrolled us in private classes at Andalusia. And stifled us all. To death with a pillow, if necessary.

The traditional media gatekeepers are gone or leaving, victims of technology, lethargy and their own poor taste. But they withered away ostensibly attempting a great service: filtering out the bad, the amateurish and the tasteless.

One of the great myths of the adolescent is that there is a huge raft of talented filmmakers, actors and artists out there, ignored by the mainstream and forced to create genius in and for the underground. But there's not. And today all the world has access to YouTubes and MySpaces and Seesmics, content creation encouragers that have enabled a wave of celebrities whose only claim to fame is their own shamelessness.

I keep waiting for a killer critic to do for Internet celebrity what Pitchfork does for music and Josh Spear does for product design. But the deluge of wannabe celebrities is probably too great for anyone to comprehend, let alone manage.

Maybe if we all put our heads together, we can figure this thing out.

I've been playing around in MakeFive, a new online community based on lists. The site was launched by smashLAB on November 5, 2007. Its irresistible tagline is "You are what you think." And at the risk of stating the obvious, making lists at MakeFive is less time-intensive than at 43 Things.

My first list is of the five Internet celebs who actually deserve it. Join the community, vote on my choices and add your own, if you're so inclined.

TD50 2008 judges I'd like to see: Gareth Kay

The Denver 50 2007 judging panel was maybe the greatest ever assembled for a local show. Mike Lescarbeau, Mike Byrne, Rob Rasmussen and Kevin Roddy. I defy you to name four more influential creatives in America. I'd love to keep the bar high for 2008. One person I'd like to see is Modernista! planner Gareth Kay. This presentation from his Slideshare page explains why:

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You must participate

Even though I'm a writer, I have a thing for Web 2.0. Social networks, blogs, SMS, widgets, that sort of thing. I like them because they're marketing tools that "don't just show life to people, but make them live."

To invoke Guy Debord in an essay on marketing tactics is to dare the wrath of a hundred thousand college sophomores. Situationist International wasn't known for purchasing Nikes. But maybe it should have been. After all, "Nike killed the three martini lunch." (And who am I quoting there? Fenske?) Without a raft of ads encouraging us to "just do it," those who can take lunches would probably spend them hitting the bar instead of the barbell.

Nike got rich using traditional media to promote an active lifestyle. But everything top-down advertising does, Web 2.0 does better. It lets people connect based on affinity instead of proximity. It lets local actions take place on an international scale. It gives the people access to the powerful. Perhaps best of all, it tests the concept of juristic personhood by daring brands to live up to their legal status.

And for all the good it does, Web 2.0 only has two real downfalls. It immortalizes everyday language, holding it to an impossibly lofty standard. And it encourages content creation so much that it has confused shamelessness and celebrity. (I wrote a despondent essay on the latter issue; someday I may even post it.)

I think most marketing people buy in to the idea that Web 2.0 is an opportunity for brands to engage with consumers. But how many understand the flipside? Web 2.0 is an obligation. Because consumers now expect brands to make life better. And so Burger King creates a game and Target builds a Facebook group and Adidas shoots a practice film and ESPN makes a widget.

See what I'm getting at? Traditional advertising asks consumers to pay a premium for a product based on brand equity. Web 2.0 asks consumers to pay a premium for a product based on brand utility.

Web 2.0 marketing is perhaps something Debord would have welcomed, if he could have forgiven the spectacle of it all. Because while a brand can't make you live, it can now give you tools and opportunities. That's something that a print ad simply can't provide.

Crossposted on Karsh Connect.

Tuesday morning concurrence

• TD50 is one month away. Get your tickets. And join our Facebook group.
• Scott Goodson thinks that copywriters are more important than ever. I concur.
• Andy Bosselman is psyched for the Denver International Film Festival. I concur.
• The Denver Egotist is high on Texture. And I concur.