Boomerang

Alicia Keys invited vocalists to audition to be her backup singer via video submission to MySpace. It sounds like a fantastic opportunity to leverage social networks in a new way – Keys can reach a global audience of hopefuls and can gauge, by video, the talent, appeal, and “shake-it” ability of each candidate on her own time.  

But what about that “certain something” that makes a top performer? Stage presence – a necessary ingredient for the thrill of live performance – is a quality not easily captured by video. Can the confidence and poise required for an onstage performance with a powerhouse songstress like Alicia Keys be encapsulated in a 30-second video? Maybe… maybe not. 

The Internet levels the playing field when it comes to intangibles like stage presence, charisma, interpersonal chemistry and overall people skills. MySpace and other social networks allow people to connect to opportunities that, before social media, might never have come their way.  Dancers from all over the globe can audition with Alicia Keys in the comfort of their own home – no pressure for stage presence required. 

Filmmakers can enter their work for the chance to be part of Paulho Coelho’s new social media-enabled film project – no interpersonal chemistry between collaborators necessary. Match.com members can establish clearly defined profiles designed to attract those that might not be interested if the pair were to initially meet in person – no pressure about a first impression since it’s done over e-mail! 

Social networks not only connect people to people, they connect people to opportunities. As we use online media to supplement (and often replace) what goes on in the offline world, I wonder how we will develop a virtual equivalent of physical chemistry and personal interaction – the magic of the human-to-human experience. I guess we can post a comment to Alicia’s MySpace page and get her insights once her auditions are over…

(Photograph by Chris Buck,  which appeared in New York Magazine in October 2006)

Ever see an unknown musician at a club and predict that he or she is “going to be huge” and it turned out you were 100 percent right?  When I saw Dave Grohl at the 9:30 Club back in 1989 – he was brutally abusing his drum set for Scream – I turned to my friend and said, “The band is average, but he’s one of the most entertaining drummers I’ve ever seen.”  A year or so later, Dave was in Nirvana.  Now, he’s “all that” for the Foos.   

In my 10-plus years in tech PR and journalism, I’ve had the chance to “call it” early and accurately on things like Napster going legit and using tiny TVs to sell airline tickets.  But only rarely have I had the chance to be “in on the ground floor” of a publication, be it online or in print, and accurately predict its future.  When Business 2.0, Brill’s Content, and The Industry Standard hit the scene, many of us (me included) thought they’d be around for a long time.  Oops.   

I got this one right though: I was one of the first people to make HuffingtonPost my primary stop for snarky political opinion and news.  I was initially led to the site just days after HuffPo went live by then radio commentator and current Senatorial candidate Al Franken, who mentioned on his Air America Radio show a post he did. I went, I read, I returned (daily). I told all my politically active friends: “This is the site we’ve been waiting for.”   

The formula for keeping me coming back every day is simple.  The content – from the minds of Christie Hefner, Harry Shearer, Hilary Rosen, Bill Press, and John Zogby even in the earliest days – was as plentiful as it was wonderful. It’s only gotten better; now the site boasts more than 1,800 bloggers (all of whom are unpaid) writing on an ever-expanding universe of topics.   

HuffPo last week celebrated its third year online and is now a force of nature (consistently top-ranked by both Technorati and Alexa), but back when I first discovered the site it was a tiny little island of ideology.  Most posts had just a handful of comments; nowadays, just about every post has hundreds (sometimes thousands) of comments.  The publication’s new tag line “The Internet Newspaper: News Blogs Video Community” is the perfect descriptor. There’s something there for just about everyone.  

Arianna Huffington, one of the most powerful people on the Internet (and in American political discourse) is seemingly everywhere, selling her new book The Right is Wrong, and spreading her particular, peculiar brand of independent political thinking.  To wit, Arianna will speak on May 19^th at the Commonwealth Club here in San Francisco and you can bet I’ll be there, with the same excitement I had when I first saw Dave Grohl play that little stage at 930 F Street.   

On a recent trip to a cruel and shallow money trench, known to some as Las Vegas, I was photographing the classic Flamingo Hotel when my friend asked, “Why are you taking pictures — you’re not even on Facebook?” I was shocked that she didn’t think my noteworthy life was worth documenting if strangers couldn’t see it. I recently took myself off the web to avoid being available to strangers and now I’ve become a “social-media pariah” among my friends.  

It seems as if candid photos have gone from a form of preservation to personal promotion. An individual’s online profile has become a free peep show for anyone to gawk at from the other side of the glass. Keep in mind that your pictures are available to everyone and that privacy features aren’t always dependable and should never be seen as a surefire way to protect your anonymity. Look at Facebook’s recent security system incident that involved a computer technician hacking into Paris Hilton’s private photo album.  

The more one reveals about their personal actions on the web, the more they strip away the mystery of their private lives. However, that can be to our advantage as well. We have the ability to shape how people perceive us through the photos we upload and share with everyone. The only problem is how do we control the use of our personal information and photos when in the hands of other people?

Ashley Alexandra Dupré, the prostitute associated with Gov. Eliot Spitzer, is a perfect example of how openness on the web can backfire. In a just a few hours after the scandal broke, journalists were able to discover an array of information about her — from a photo of her in a bathing suit to private details of her difficult childhood. She may have never expected immediate infamy, but she made the journalists’ jobs a lot easier. Millions of people have made all kinds of personal details available online via social networking sites, perhaps without thinking it could be used against them. My advice: Imagine that everything you type online is being read by a potential employer. Or, better yet, by your parents.  

If anyone can turn a social media experiment into a cinematic mosaic of imagination, it’s Paulo Coelho. Arguably best known for his novel The Alchemist, Coelho is an internationally acclaimed author and lyricist who has sold over 100 million books. He may not have the most experience in film making and music composition, but plenty of his fans do. That idea sets the stage for The Experimental Witch Competition, a collaborative film project announced by the beloved Brazilian author last June.  

Coelho’s last novel, The Witch of Portobello, was told from the viewpoint of 15 different characters. For his film competition, Coelho asked filmmakers to choose a character from the book and shoot all of the scenes told from that character’s perspective. Filmmakers are asked to submit their movies via YouTube, while music composers will submit their contributions/theme songs through MySpace. Coelho will work with a professional editor to sew 15 winning films together to recreate the book, and will show the final version in film festivals throughout the world. He communicates this all through his blog. The Experimental Witch is, in essence, an experiment in social media. 

With his unique storytelling style and his passion for the Internet, Coelho is a huge advocate of social media - just check out his website, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube activity! He is also the first best-selling author to support free distribution of his own work online. Some say this makes him an advocate for piracy, but really it’s just about being “with the times” and giving readers what they want. Besides, distributing his work without cost has actually boosted his book sales.  

At the very least, the film will provide contributors, viewers and fans with a new experience and a screen capture of the plurality of interpretations on one of Coelho’s novels. The project, if pulled off successfully, has the potential to illustrate how the countless interpretations of an idea can be seamlessly woven together to illustrate fifteen visions and one story simultaneously. As Coelho states on his blog, it will be a bit of “cinematographic history” – in addition to being a social media experiment on the grandest scale. I just hope it’s as good as the book.    

I’m what most people would call an RSS junkie. It’s a bit similar to the more commonly used pseudonym “news/media junkie,” though my addiction is blogs. I love receiving the feeds of a really good blog – and a person’s RSS feeds can say as much about them as what’s on their iPod does. For example, here’s a bit about me (based on my RSS profile):

• Rolling Stone Rock and Roll Daily , Mashable = I love music and social media
• Webware = I’m always looking for new web applications to enhance my productivity and sociability
• Seth Godin’s Blog = I believe innovation is a key to success
• TechCrunch = I’m a fan of new, innovative tech companies
• The Bad Pitch Blog = I believe pitching the media is an art form
• Wired Blogs = I’m really into gadgets
• FabSugar, Perez Hilton, ValleyWag = I believe a bit of humor and pop culture awareness does a heart good

Moreover, I love reading really good blogs – big ideas in bite-size pieces. Blogs are usually what I turn to first when I want to get the gist of a thing and I don’t have the time to sort through the detailed specs.

So when it came to searching for a PR agency, where I could plant my feet and continue growing as a PR professional, the Cohn and Wolfe Boomerang blog provided me with a small peek into the agency’s culture and people. After reading a few posts, and checking out how the company approached PR and social media, I felt that C&W had assembled a smart team and a work environment that was a fit for me.

To say the least, I’m extremely excited to join Boomerang as a contributing writer! I look forward to bringing my experiences working with clients in the technology, healthcare, media and entertainment fields, as well as my love of music and social media, to my posts. More so, I look forward to dialoguing with the Boomerang community, discovering more good blogs, and expanding my RSS roll call.

What do your RSS feeds say about you?

Since moving to San Francisco six months ago, my roommates have had the average shelf life of a fledgling social network. I have lived with 16 different people, some of whom were merely nameless faces I passed in the hall on the way to the bathroom. Looking for perfect housemates requires hours of forced conversations among complete strangers. Through my experience, I have learned that there is one universal question at the end of every craigslist open house post: “What kind of music do you listen to?”

Music is a powerful faith, chock-full of devotees brought together by their mutual loyalty to some hip-hop disciple or rock god. You are what you listen to. The online community imeem.com revolves around the world’s passion for rhythm, and that is why it’s not just another social network. imeem is a craving.  

The best part about imeem is creating personal streaming, music playlists from its vast and diverse free library. Pull up your imeem page and you have all your favorite music at your fingertips to listen to at work or share with friends.  

The thousands of users from around the globe sharing their personal collections make discovering new music easy on imeem. Other music sharing Web sites like Pandora and MySpace are limited by its selection. And though imeem leans toward personal use, companies and business professionals can create blogs, upload photos and calendars to share with clients and colleagues. As you can tell, I’m an imeem convert, despite my progressive hearing loss, under a music spell.

Life is constricted to all types of boxes: Our apartments, our cubicles, even our computers entrap us. For many of us, traveling has always been the great escape from life’s restrictions. Lonely Planet, known for its insightful travel guidebooks, is a company that has been fostering the idea of exploring the world and soaking up its beauty and different cultures like a sponge. Recently, I came across LonelyPlanet.tv and knew I had found one of the best-kept secrets of online video content.  

LonelyPlanet.tv inspires the adventurer in all of us through video clips accumulated by daring, off-the-beaten-path travelers. Of course, nothing surpasses the actual experience of  eating an exotic piece of fruit from a street vendor in Peru, or dipping your feet into the sultry water of the Red Sea. But when the box constricts and responsibility calls, LonelyPlanet.tv allows you to visit a new land each day, virtually, without a passport. 

I love “Travel Tales,” a compilation of short documentaries created by amateur and seasoned travelers.. In less than 10 minutes, you can make a virtual pilgrimage to the Virgin Mary’s Wall of Wishes in Turkey and feel forgiven …well, virtually forgiven.  Another highlight is Bluelists, a collection of trekking recommendations.. It’s not your typical boring grocery list of tourist sights, but an anthology of inventive travel ideas for richer life experiences.  

So when the traveling bug starts to bite, soothe the itch with LonelyPlanet.tv—at least until you can go there yourself!

After a band puts the finishing touches on a newly completed album, the music gets “shelved” for a few months while the PR machine works its magic. The subsequent three or four months are spent generating buzz and building anticipation. That may have been the case for quite some time, but not anymore. Radiohead is set to release its new album next week – without the help of a label – via digital download at http://www.inrainbows.com/

In a move that illustrates the band’s defiance of convention, and signals a departure from the major-label model, Radiohead plans to “sell” the download for as much (or as little) as fans are willing to pay. That’s right – Radiohead is allowing fans to pay whatever they see fit. That means fans can purchase the music for as little as a penny. It makes sense. CD sales have been going down steadily with the popularity of online file-sharing and the like. Why not give fans what they want, build interest in the new music and get on with the live tour?

Most of the buzz about Radiohead’s strategy revolves around the idea that the band is moving away from traditional methods – from pricing strategies to distribution. What I’m curious about, though, is how these changes will affect communication channels.

With the ability for bands to sell their goods as they create them, I wonder how we’ll keep on top of all the music news out there. Will we need to check the websites of every band we like for new music? Will those websites send us updates about what our favorite bands are working on? How will they do that? Through a blog? Through email? For groundbreaking bands like Radiohead with a strong, loyal fan base, word of mouth marketing and viral communications may just be enough.

Word has it that Jamiroquai and Oasis will follow Radiohead’s lead. As more musicians take control into their own hands, we’ll see how marketing and PR practices change along with it. We’ll see these shifts soon enough, but for now, let’s just enjoy Radiohead’s new album. As far as the music goes, it’s Radiohead as usual – simply fantastic.

Many green advocates say it’s easy “go Green.” Try buying organic. Try bringing reusable bags to the grocery store instead of plastic. Try taking the bus. It’s simple to do! Or is it?

The No Impact Man blog paints a clear and vibrant picture of what it looks and feels like to go deeply Green. The blog describes Colin Beavan’s experience with a “no net environmental impact” lifestyle. He asks real and practical questions: “What would it be like to try to live a no impact lifestyle? Is it possible? Could it catch on? Is living this way more fun or less fun? More satisfying or less satisfying? Harder or easier? Is it worthwhile or senseless?”

Beavan’s “experiment” will go on for a year and includes the following: “no trash, no carbon emissions, no toxins in the water, no elevators, no subway, no products in packaging, no plastics, no air conditioning, no TV, no toilets…” Not an easy task for a New Yorker and his family!

Community leaders like Beavan catalyze experimentation, discussion and awareness about Green alternatives. We will surely learn a lot from Colin Beavan because he is making a huge jump – actually redesigning his lifestyle around Green.

What impresses me most about the blog is Beavan’s honesty. He doesn’t simplify anything and he is sincere in describing the challenges of being eco-focused. You’ll learn a lot about how easy or hard it is to integrate green ways into your life – and for any marketer, that’s invaluable!

The Beauty Brains blog puts the power of knowledge in the hands of consumers. Today’s consumers want to know how personal products affect their body, their healthy, and the environment. Gone are the days of simply buying into advertising messages. With the ability to look up anything on the net consumers just need to make a few clicks in order to learn more about products and their ingredients. The Beauty Brains blog is one place to do just that.

The Beauty Brains found a sweet spot at the intersection of science and beauty, providing unbiased information about personal care products. The blog is run by cosmetic chemists who love science and cosmetics and are not afraid to explain, from a scientific perspective, what a product actually does, how it does it, how it differs (if it does) from its competitors, and what the advertising behind the product means. Most importantly the bloggers explain how cosmetics are made, giving consumers a better idea of what they are using on their bodies.

As consumers continue tune into personal wellness, sites that model themselves after the Beauty Brains blog will be better positioned to build trust and become valuable resources. And the blog will be a hit with all those brainy beauties out there too!