• I got too busy to blog and tweet with work and personal life over the last while
• The Shill podcast fell into the same rut, but that was only partially my fault, major blame goes to my co-host
• I am not working with Social Media Group anymore and now doing a fair bit of freelance work

So all that leaves me a keen need to re-establish my social media presence and having no recent material, I am stuffing some sawdust into my social media sausage maker…

I am not going to make a mid-spring resolution to blog everyday, but I will try to do more.

Just so this post isn’t a complete waste of time, I have been thinking about the notion of exclusivity in social media.

On the surface this seems like a bit of a paradox, since social media is usually about being as inclusive as possible. However, in the case of luxury brands (which I have been doing some work on lately), the notion of exclusivity is a core part of the brand, product and experience and not likely to be abandoned solely due to increased use of social media.

So can you use social media to be exclusive?

I think so, but upon doing some investigation, it is tough to do on Facebook (and Ning has put up the pay-wall). Fan Pages and the new Community options are designed to be completely open, the only way to be exclusive is to have a Closed or Secret Facebook Group. Facebook is ironically becoming a mass media (close to 15 million Canadians are members), but just because you can let anyone play, it doesn’t mean that quantity of users is more important than quality. Luxury brands traditionally target their audience more tightly and spend more per person on acquistion and retention – hard to do when everyone is invited.

So to the few people who still subscribe to this in their blog reader or still swing by the site, I ask:

Does exclusivity have a place in social media?

Show Notes

0:00 Doug explains the difference between being funny and being Dave

0:24 Dave introduces another live Shill debacle and Shill’s first (and likely last) guest the cackling Tamera Kremer [this would be where Tamera's blog link would be if we ever bothered linking - Google it you lazy ass listener!]

0:57 Doug coins the Shill T-shirt slogan “I am the listener”. Girlish giggling ensues and it isn’t coming from the girl.

2:40 [TEXT REDACTED - Due to wives who only read the show notes]

3:01 Dave surprises everyone with (Gasp!) a topic: “Blogging: Who gives a shit?” Tamera says there is no value left to add. Dave says it has all been written. Doug injects his personal bias into Dave’s words thus breaking into the conversation, calls blogs the class notes of the douchebag.

5:40 Dave doesn’t read blogs anymore, Doug hardly does either. Tamera pitches for Friend Feed, Doug and Dave scoff audibly at Scoble’s prize adopted child. Dave brings up Rubel again (yawn), Tamera brags about her shiny Chrome. Dave says that Twitter is now the fishbowl and off-handedly wishes Dave Fleet’s crotch a speedy recovery.

7:45 Dave says Facebook isn’t dead. Tamera chimes in on the overlooked value of MySpace for minorities. And a new term is coined… “Whitebook”. The graveyard exhumations continue with Doug unearthing Forums.

11:15 Tamera spits out a cheap shot at Shill. Doug and Dave are ill-prepared to raise the monster from the depths – The Tamerant! Direct Mail takes a few punches from the group – fighting spam with spam.

14:00 Dave strokes “true” Vancouverites and bashes the imports to Vancouver. Dave tries to stir shit with people’s bosses, Tamera suggests recruiters might want to think about the actual purpose of Linked In. Dave and Doug wonder where all the douchebags will come from to fill demand. Dave hits upon Doug’s secret fear.

17:55 Tamera breaks in on the social media “experverts” who haven’t learned the lessons from Web 1.0 communities. Dave pleases himself by finding a way to insert the word “wang”.

19:55 Dave has a problem with Customer Service via Twitter being a new media fasttrack for the old boys club. Dave tries to pin a cowboy hat on Doug, but it doesn’t fit. Doug comes to the defence of companies paying attention to Twitter, since the consumer bitching is done in public and therefore a branding issue.

25:10 Tamera compares her dick size to Dave, Dave gets touchy and Doug sticks his Twitter between his legs. The conversation devolves into should famous people get better service. Doug quotes himself and calls bullshit on the democratization of media because he chooses to take the long way around. Dave confirms the A-listers as the new mass media.

29:00 Forecasters call for a hurricane force tamerant, but instead get a minor breeze of sniggers.

And like a drugged up lead singer, Shill spills its stomach onto the stage, gives the finger to the audience and pulls down the mic stand on top of itself as it faceplants with a sickening crunch.

Thanks to Sammy Lovelace for all her hard work on editing and production.
Music:

“I Want To Hear What You Have To Say” by the Subways via the Podsafe Music Network.

Comments:

Let David and Doug know how dumb they are at shillpodcast@gmail.com or visit the blog at shillpodcast.com

Show Notes

0:00 Doug and Dave attempt to calibrate Skype lag and introduce Sammy Lovelace Shill’s new producer

0:50 Dave and Doug bicker like a couple considering an open marriage, Doug opens the Spinal Tap doors which leads to an obscure reference contest.

2:12 Doug promises to bring his AAA game (minor league and beefy). Dave introduces Shill’s new sponsor The Flavor Wave and then proceed to gush all over Mr. T.

3:20 Doug and Dave beat the Twitter horse senseless. Doug laments the human race and gives up on Twitter when Ashton beats out CNN for biggest posse. Doug lamely tries to justify his elitist distaste for Twitter going mainstream.

4:58 Dave admits to following celebs, but draws the line at counting the days he was on Twitter before Oprah. Dave likens Twitter to be of equivalent value to watching re-runs. Doug hopes lunch time tweets are finally off the menu.

9:24 Doug hates re-tweets and nearly exposes his fears of the schoolyard bully and his sidekick. Dave disagrees in a characteristically wishy-washy way.

11:48 Dave says that he can dive in and out of the twitter stream, enjoy being snide while he’s there and jump out when his privates are sufficiently shrunken. Dave name outs Toronto’s top 10 Twitterers as a bunch of PR Flacks.

14:00 Doug reveals anti-social tendencies by wondering of the value of cocktail parties, Dave reveals the obvious and suggests that Twitter is no place to get laid. Dave suggests, Warcraft isn’t either, ouch, that smarts! Dave suggest followers are just another form of experience points.

16:57 Armed no more info than a screenshot, Dave and Doug try to bluff their way into an opinion on Google Wave. Doug dons the tin-foil hat and gets spooked by Google having everything. Dave goes post-apocalyptic.

22:20 You heard it hear first: Dave has no time for Bing and Doug isn’t smart enough to work Wolfram Alpha.

24:45 Doug and Dave have a Stoner’s moment. Corporate social media response time and Dominoes pizza debacle briefly mentioned.

28:20 Doug gets up a head of steam on how customer service is most important for crappy products. Dave promotes listening and drops the call, Sammy drops in the sad trombone.

31:00 A word from our sponsor: Mr. T. vs The Flavour Wave.

33:35 Dave comes alive briefly, Rogers is mentioned and conspiracy theories abound and sinisterly Dave drops off again.

And like a newb at the punk show, Shill is tossed around the mosh pit before falling down in the broken beer bottles and slowly kicked into bloody unconsciousness by Doc Martens.

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Thanks to Sammy Lovelace for all her hard work on editing and production.
Music:

“I Want To Hear What You Have To Say” by the Subways via the Podsafe Music Network.

Comments:

Let David and Doug know how dumb they are at shillpodcast@gmail.com or visit the blog at shillpodcast.com

***It has been a long while since I posted anything here. I posted this yesterday on the Social Media Group blog and thought I would re-post here as well***

It seems like every week we hear about another nail in the coffin of traditional media, especially newspapers. According to NewspaperDeathwatch.com, the print editions of The Tucson Citizen, Rocky Mountain News download oh god book ii movie , Baltimore Examiner and many more have fallen victim to some combination of Craigslist, free-online news, blogs, Twitter and the recession. In Canada, Global TV, CTV and CBC Television are petitioning the government for a “Save Local TV” fund (or “TV tax“, if you are in the Rogers Cable

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and Shaw camp).

There are few people who would deny that news publishers should get paid somehow. Hopefully fewer still  would deny that journalists should get paid for their work. However, the ad-supported model just isn’t providing enough revenue to justify the traditional news gathering infrastructure and casualties are mounting.

Anyone with a basic grasp of economics knows that if advertising space (supply) is exploding on every  social media site, then without an equal increase in advertisers (demand) the price will drop sharply. Some might see this as the necessary process of the broadcast media snake shedding its skin and hope that a new model will emerge. One could point to initiatives like the New York Times possibly issuing Kindles instead of print editions as potential models for the future, but I think there is an even wider effect beyond the future of news gathering.

The Associated Press and Wall Street Journal have taken a particularly strong stand as seen from this CNet article:

“There is no doubt that certain Web sites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the Internet,” Robert Thomson, the Journal’s editor, was quoted in Australian newspaper The Australian on Monday. “It’s certainly true that readers have been socialized–wrongly I believe–that much content should be free…And there is no doubt that’s in the interest of aggregators like Google who have profited from that mistaken perception. And they have little incentive to recognize the value they are trading on that’s created by others.”

In my limited investigation, a sizeable portion of the stories I see from blogs, tweets, and social networks have an original source in a traditional media outlet and in many cases social media provides a series of filters, commentary and summarized version of this content, which is certainly valuable. This is not to undermine the amazing work of some bloggers in crafting original news content and providing commentary, but the big question to me is this: If the pay walls go up on all of the news media we used to get for free online, will it negatively impact the quality or quantity of social media conversations around those news items?

Time will tell, and likely tell us sooner than we think.

unstable fables tortoise vs hare movie download Show Notes

0:00 Doug acts like a pompous ass while ordering a single malt, while Dave’s thought train derails. Looks like another Shill is off to the races.

0:58 Doug opens the show and Dave announces ShillstivalTO 2.0 in session.

2:30 Doug discloses his former career as a social media douchebag, apparently he has graduated to a colostomy bag or something. Dave claims that not updating your blog is a badge of honour.

3:10 It’s spring again, the natural meetup season of the geek. Twestival holds little appeal for Dave as he is a natural misanthrope. PodCamp, Mesh, Third Tuesday, SXSW, are all on the horizon, expect TwitterLynching.

6:40 Doug admits to having no idea where the cool kids treehouse will be relocated now that Twitter has gone mainstream. Dave narrowly avoids saying that there are no mountains left to climb, Doug calls Dave shallow-brained.

9:00 Dave and Doug agree that Facebook needs another look since they mercifully buried the bloody Zombie apps and turned it back into a slightly interactive contact list. Dave comes out in favour of walled-gardens.

11:25 Dave says it doesn’t matter what clients do anymore so long as they have a community manager.

12:29 Doug questions where the line is drawn between corporate brands and personal reputation.  Dave tries to drag the conversation back to @scotmonty, but Doug wisely avoids the bait. Further musing on corporate twitter accounts and podcast dress codes.

16:55 Why would anyone follow a corporate twitter that wasn’t backed by a person. Dave says that a little client shilling is okay, so long as it is not the only reason to be on Twitter.

18:45 Exciting guest appearance from the waitress and the Scotch list.

19:25 EDIT ALERT – several minutes of discussing Scotches with the bartender was mercifully cut from the podcast. Don’t worry we promise not to make editing a habit or anything.

19:37 iPhone interference makes a guest appearance. Good think no one listens to this podcast.

19:45 Dave brings discussion to client’s paying for strategy versus paying for execution. Doug leaps to the defence of his companies business model and warns clients of the risk of expecting ideas without paying for development of them. Dave brings up the ghost of “spec creative” and that you get what you pay for, so cough up cheapskates or you will get the agencies who have nothing better to do.

24:15 Conversation drifts to pitches and the sometimes dumb expectations of clients, like “cheat the other clients and pass the savings on to us.” Dave tries to justify the client perspective (or perhaps his own past behaviour).

27:45 Doug tries to steer the HMS Shill back on course by saying any jackass can have an idea, but will the idea work for a given cleint at a given time. Dave tries to pose a question, but Doug interjects with Norse mythology.

31:25 Dave spits in the eye of everyone who calls him a cheap bastard over the years, by grabbing the cheque, while Doug quietly regrets not opting for the expensive hooch.

34:40 Stay tuned for next year’s Shill for the most excting rose ceremony yet! And a little more iPhone interference to round out the show.

And like a squirrel crossing a bare spot on the electrical lines, Shill stops, jitters a bit and then falls to the street below waiting for a passing car to turn it into a stain.
Music:

“I Want To Hear What You Have To Say” by the Subways via the Podsafe Music Network.

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Comments:

Let David and Doug know how dumb they are at shillpodcast@gmail.com or visit the blog at shillpodcast.com

Show Notes

0:00 The Shill Podcast complaint line

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1:08 Doug opens the show, tips a wee dram to the great Robbie Burns and  compares Shill to a pubescent prank involving fecal matter. Dave isn’t quite awake yet.

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2:11 A comment from Sally Goetsch (rhymes with something) puzzles Doug and fails to make an impression on Dave. Moving on.

3:10 The Pope launches a YouTube Channel and Doug accuses Dave of being an osmotic Catholic, Dave blames his family.

5:00 Dave compares the Pope to President Obama at least on YouTube and the Shill Research Department has taken inauguration year off again.

6:30 Doug and Dave discuss the consistency of the Papacy by allowing comments (like prayers) to disappear into the ether. Doug asks about Blogma and Dave proves the audiences suspicions by admitting he knows nothing.

7:35 Dave breaks it down and wonders why Vatican content isn’t going viral, only to answer his own question: they turned the viral switch to off.

8:51 In a grand display of contradiction Doug and Dave start to actually figure out that the Vatican may have some legitimate reasons for their choices. Dave shameless crowbars in a client reference.

10:30 Doug and Dave agree that YouTube commenters have roughly the intellectual capacity of slime moulds.

12:00 Doug speaks as a Catholic (which he isn’t) and marvels at how nice it would be to preached at by his laptop rather than schlepping to the Church. Dave stops just short of calling Doug a “moran” by pointing out that mass has been on TV for years.

13:20 God has His own .com address.

13:50 Doug calls an early close to Shill. Dave threatens the audience with more frequent episodes of Shill.

14:45 Dave closes the show with an unintelligible comparison of podcasts to Catholic mass.

16:28 Rasta Doug erupts on the offbeat and Dave smacks him down by calling him a glory-hounding drummer at the end of the show.

And like a urethral swab, Shill is over quickly, with excruciating pain, and leaves you uncomfortable for a few days.
Music:

“I Want To Hear What You Have To Say” by the Subways via the Podsafe Music Network.

Comments:

Let David and Doug know how dumb they are at shillpodcast@gmail.com or visit the blog at shillpodcast.com

Show Notes:

0:30 – Dave admits to flaking out on Shill (again) and so begins Shill like a rafter of turkeys released from a helicopter.

1:22 – Discussion of Microsoft’s recent “ads” elicit a characteristic F-bomb response from Doug. Dave verbally scratches his head in confusion and starts trying to conjure up bad celebrity mash-ups with no help from Doug. The Shill boys regret even drawing attention to it.

4:30 Dave rails at Apple for not allowing podcast updates via WiFi on the iPhone. Doug passes the Mac Fan Boy hat to Dave only to have him set it on fire, leaving both hatless and showing some embarassing bald spots.

7:55 Dave hands over the rights to Shill to Apple for free (which is still a sucker’s deal). Doug uses one of his three wishes for his car to synch up with his WiFI, but the genie in the bottle gives flips him the bird.

9:09 Doug waves from the anti-DRM bandwagon and discusses how the totalitarian DRM on the video game Spore resulted in a user comment backlash on Amazon. Meanwhile Dave sits on his life-preserver, preferring to watch Doug drown in his own drivel. Doug attempts to discuss the financial consequences of misguided mobs, but Dave thinks gaming the system is part of the system.

16:30 Dave crowns the new heavyweight YouTube Champion, Avril Lavinge, but has issues with the auto-loading website landing all the punches for her. Dave wonders if the rules need to change,

19:44 Doug booze-addled brain splutters out, while Dave reveals his inability to take an editing cue. Apology to Shill audience: Shill Bloopers Vol. 1 will not be issued – we used up all the outtakes in the content. Doug struggles to get the chain back on his mental tricycle.

21:20 Dave tiptoes through the big ad agency minefield and struggles to find meaning in Cossette’s Bloom. Doug makes a truly pointless scatological reference and pleads with agencies to have an opinion on the future, or at least a point. Doug and Dave long for some specifics and wave their favourite protest sign: “Community not Campaigns”.

29:30 Dave wonders aloud how ad people get money from clients for Social Media. Doug believes agencies need to find a way to make money or production instead of media. Dave believes that agencies have managed to wedgie themselves with their own business model and thinks digital people should be driving the bus.

34:35 As if Shill weren’t long enough, Dave tries to squeeze in a discussion on Social Vibe. Doug laments that advertising is more than slapping a logo on a charity sponsorship.

37:20 Dave drops his mic, Doug loses his train of thought again, while the audience wonders why he continues to listen. Adding insolence to injury Dave gets lost in Facebook’s facelift, while Doug calls 700,000 Facebook users “ingrates”.

39:55 Dave gives the agencies a thanks-for-coming-out participation award, while waxing poetic about the good old sexist days of MAdvertising. And like a salaryman getting the pink slip, Shill is not allowed to clear out its desk before being escorted from the building.

BONUS HIDDEN TRACK (after theme music): Dave fails to be funny, Doug reverts to an old standby joke. Girlish giggles ensue.
Music:

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Let David and Doug know how dumb they are at shillpodcast@gmail.com or visit the blog at shillpodcast.com

Show Notes:

00:00 A key insight into how the show is made is revealed or Doug takes a cheap shot at Dave? You be the judge.

1:14 Results of Shill’s first and last ever focus group with our listener. Turns out you hate the show and the feeling is mutual and thus Shill lurches out of the gates, like a sprinter with a gammy leg.

3:25 Dave brings out the obligatory Glengarry Glen Ross reference and then tells Doug he has the worst haircut in his whole office – Doug works from home and his dog feels insulted. Dave reveals that the Shill research team have yet to show up for work.

5:16 The frequency of Shill episodes is discussed and soundly blamed upon Jones and his alcoholic neighbors. Dave pointlessly name drops Steve Rubel, admits to swilling domestic suds, and sleeping around. Doug barfs.

8:01  Dave finally gets to the point of the episode: NBC Olympic-sized media research project. NBC unleashes the research hounds on how people consume the Olympics in a desperate (or perhaps brilliant) effort to figure out how audiences gorge on the content. Will it prove NBC’s inevitable irrelevance?

10:45 Doug believes that the Olympics is an interesting case, but may be too unique to be applicable to back episodes of Everybody Love Raymond.

12:30 Dave gets cynical about whether NBC will actually reveal their soiled underpants. Doug says one way or another the stench will reach everyone’s nostrils.

14:30 Doug reminds the listener (needlessly) that even though most TV sucks, there is still a lot of money growing in the analogue trees and quotes someone much smarter saying “don’t trade analogue dollars for  digital pennies yet”- UCG still needs to push out some greenbacks. Dave figures there have been no winners yet in the Social Media lottery.

17:01 Doug suggests that the Olympic media coverage should be amateurs-only event with the likes of Robert Scoble and his cell phone camera broadcasting to the world. Let’s see how long before we all start screaming for big budget mass media pros.

19:00 Dave claims his favourite Olympic sport is the 24 Hour Cash Grab Relay and proceeds to crap all over the Olympic ideals. Research again lets down the hosts, by being unable to answer basic questions. Doug admits to being current affairs ignorant, culturally obtuse, and perhaps somewhat less than a man. An on-air spat ensues regarding topics sprung at the last minute on unsuspecting co-hosts.

22:40 Dave and Doug profess their loathing for opening ceremonies and other forms of half-time shows. Dave refuses to watch any half-time shows unless they show some nudity and proposes synchronized swimming as a pre-requisite for watching the rest of the Olympics.

24:31 Doug beats the “amateurs should cover the games” drum again and Dave pops his bubble resoundingly by reminding him of the amateur podcasts they listen to – Doug tucks his tail between his legs.

25:30 Another spat breaks out over tonight’s topic, where Doug cleverly lures Dave into making a sexist comment. Please send complaints to shillpodcast@gmail.com.

26:35 Dave apologizes to Shel Israel for running out of time and being unable to play his comment. And like a mammoth going for a dip in the tar pit, Shill struggles helplessly before marking its demise with a few oily bubbles on the surface.

Music:

“I Want To Hear What You Have To Say” by the Subways via the Podsafe Music Network.

Comments:

Let David and Doug know how dumb they are at shillpodcast@gmail.com or visit the blog at shillpodcast.com

I can’t believe that I am going to say this, but here goes: Comic book artist Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, really gets it.

For the record, I am not talking about his comics. I have always found the Garfield strip obvious, insipid, and frankly boring. But the comic book artist knows something good when he sees it and in this case it was the hilarious parody Garfield Minus Garfield.  I only discovered G – G a couple of months ago, but have been a big fan ever since. It is exactly what it says it is, Jim Davis’ Garfield comic with all of the visuals and dialogue of Garfield (and other characters, except the owner Jon) photoshopped out. The result is a more human and darkly insightful comic of an exceptionally lonely man – and it gives me belly laughs.

So if this were the usual story, this is the part where the big, bad lawyers come in and try to take Dan Walsh’s house because of this clever parody (which is obviously in violation of the original author’s copyright). The heartening twist here is the original author appreciates the parody:

Garfield creator Jim Davis was intrigued by—and pleased with—the concept. “I think it’s an inspired thing to do,” Davis said. “I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield. Some of the strips he chose were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left that out.’ It would have been funnier.”

In fact Davis’ appreciates the parody so much that Ballantine is now publishing a book based on the Garfield Minus Garfield concept comparing the originals and the versions doctored by Walsh.

I don’t know what the revenue or advance split on this book will be and I hope it wil be fair to both artists in this endeavour. I am just really glad that for a change something innovative, yet derivative, is going to be shared with the world rather than crushed under the voracious caterpillar treads of the Intellectual Property Lawyers.

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Thank goodness for people like Michael Wesch digging into the fossils of our collective present and reminding us that YouTube is more than cats and people getting hit in the nuts.

It clocks at about 55 minuts long, but a crash course on the anthropoligical impact of YouTube is worthwhile for any of us Social Media pointy-heads.
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