The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing Blogs - Week 19

Yes, this one's for real.

Alexa finally updated today, so I thought that we'd all suffered enough, so I'm going to go ahead and post the updated rankings for everyone now, and we'll start again as normal next week.

1 - Seth's Blog - 5,074 (LW - 1)(+385)
2 - Gaping Void - 17,497 (LW - 2)(-382)
3 - Duct Tape Marketing - 18,390 (LW - 4)(-195)
4 - Creating Passionate Users - 20,879 (LW - 3)(-3,098)
5 - Marketing Shift - 45,885 (LW - 5)(+230)
6 - HorsePigCow - 53,115 (LW - 6)(-1,464)
7 - Church of the Customer - 59,947 (LW - 9)(+15,474)
8 - Coolzor - 65,296 (LW - 7)(-12,627)
9 - Daily Fix - 67,407 (LW - 22)(+169,621)
10 - The Viral Garden - 71,855 (LW - 8)(-6,559)
11 - What's Next - 86,890 (LW - 10)(-8,408)
12 - Brand Autopsy - 92,460 (LW - 12)(-3,930)
13 - Emergence Marketing - 96,443 (LW - 11)(-12,104)
14 - Jaffe Juice - 110,019 (LW - 14)(-2,090)
15 - Logic + Emotion - 112,563 (LW - 17)(+49,667)
16 - Diva Marketing - 120,728 (LW - 13)(-13,496)
17 - New School of Network Marketing - 122,893 (LW - 16)(+17,911)
18 - Experience Curve - 147,951 (LW - 24)(+109,451)
19 - Marketing Nirvana - 161,257 (LW - UR)
20 - Marketallica - 171,194 (LW - 19)(+35,045)
21 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 184,054 (LW - 15)(-53,849)
22 - Pro Hip-Hip - Hip-Hop Marketing - 198,642 (LW- 18)(+4,709)
23 - What's Your Brand Mantra? - 249,880 (LW - 20)(-36,797)
24 - Brains on Fire - 258,775 (LW - UR)
25 - Movie Marketing Madness - 259,637 (LW - 23)(-17,900)


First, I wanted to offer a bit of a disclaimer. Remember that these averages haven't been updated in over a month, so there's no shortage of huge moves in both directions. The biggest moves in the Top 10 go to Church of the Customer, that bounded up to #7, and as predicted, Daily Fix rocketed up 13 spots to splash down at #9. Outside the Top 10, Logic + Emotion and Experience Curve both had huge moves.

2 new entries in the Top 25, that will both be very familiar to The Viral Community. Brains on Fire touches down at #24, and Mario's Marketing Nirvana makes one of the biggest debuts ever, coming in at #19. The 'Missed it by THAT much' award goes to Studio UES.

As always, next update is next Monday...hopefully.

The power of one, the power of us

This is why Church of the Customer is probably my favorite blog. They not only blog about amazing examples of community-empowerment, they bring me similar stories from other bloggers. Today's example comes from Community Guy. Jake told a great story from BrickFest 2006(a conference for LEGO enthusiasts.), during the conference, an Asian woman told the story of how the region was 'underserved' as far as LEGO's community-building efforts were concerned. She said she approached the local LEGO office about ways that her and other customer evangelists for LEGO could work with them in community-building efforts. The office did nothing. That's right, a woman approached the COMPANY and offered to work WITH them to promote their company for FREE, and they send her home.

The amazing part of the story? The woman, who was speaking in front of over 500 people, including the company's CEO, wasn't complaining about the treatment she received, she was asking the audience to give her advice on how she could CONVINCE her local office to change their minds, and work WITH their customer evangelists!

The CEO's response? "I'm actually going to be in Singapore next week. Would you be able to join me when I meet with that office so we can work it out?".

Love it! The reason why this will be such a great move is that by having this customer evangelist with the CEO when he visits the Singapore office, it sends the VERY clear message to that office that you must embrace and LISTEN to your community-members that are WANTING to promote your company. If she's important enough to be with the CEO, she's important enough to listen to. Again, when the community is doing your job for you, you do EVERYTHING you can to make their job as easy as possible. Sometimes it takes a gentle clubbing over the head to get through to some people ;)

I have met the enemy, and he is us

I have been fighting the urge to comment on the latest A-Lister dustup. I told David that his latest series of excellent posts were the tipping point, and that I had to comment. But then I found the post below that I left on BMA back in February, the last time this 'debate' ignited, and I realized that I couldn't top my first effort. Some of the numbers are outdated, but the idea I was trying to express is just as true today as it was 6 months ago:


When I left this post last month, I did so because I thought the whole 'A-Lister' dust up was a temporary by-product of boredom, and that we'd all rant/laugh/ramble about the subject for a few days, realize it's all very silly, and get back to talking about much more important things.

Alas, I was dead wrong.

Instead, the 'debate' over the blogosphere's version of a class system has only intensified. Now it seems some have determined that the key to blogging nirvana, which of course is 3,000 links and 10,000 visitors a day, is being held by the gatekeepers known as the 'A-Listers'. All blogging goodness is in the hands of a select few bloggers on the mountaintop.

Right idea, wrong gatekeepers. The gatekeepers aren't A-Listers like Doc Searls and Steve Hall, they are the anonymous IPs that read your blog. They are the people that come, look around, and either decide that your blog sucks, or that it kicks ass, and then they tell ten friends.

Last week everyone was excited about Dave Sifry's update on the state of the blogosphere. We all got excited when we heard that there is a new blog created every second of every day. But think about that for a minute....if there are that many new blogs each and every day, how many new blog READERS are there? New readers that not only have no idea who the so-called 'A-Listers' are, they could give a damned less. Every day. If you're a Z-Lister, they have no idea, and again, could care less. They just care about what they read on your blog that they just found for the first time. What they read that first time could decide if there will ever be a second time.

See our job isn't to impress Steve Hall and Doc Searls the A-Listers, our job is to impress Steve Hall and Doc Searls the BLOG READERS. When we start worrying about getting the attention of a few bloggers that we perceive as being important, we risk losing the attention of our blog readers. And if we've lost that, we have nothing.

BMA will have been live for 5 months on the 16th. We currently have 58 links, and to the people that subscribe to the 'A-Lister' view of the blog world, that means we aren't very important. On the other hand, traffic levels have never been higher than right now, we averaged 806 visitors a day last week, and at the rate traffic is increasing, we're on pace to touch 25,000 visitors for the month. Good thing we aren't paying attention to the people that think that a blog's worth is defined by its number of links, but instead to the visitors that come here every day, and hopefully enjoy what they see.

Because that's the key. We have to stop this worrying about who is linking to me, and who won't. The time we spend bitching about how 'unfair' it is that the haves are supposedly holding back the have-nots, is time lost that we COULD have spent producing great content on our blogs, and contributing to the community. Stop worrying about why Scoble never reads your blog, and worry about giving the gal that's reading your blog RIGHT NOW a reason to come back.

Because your readers are the REAL A-listers. Treat them as such, or they'll happily leave your ass to bitch about why no one comments on your blog, and your pet theory that it's somehow gotta be Guy Kawasaki's fault.

"Music fans and musicians belong to each other."

More smartitude from the Bandwidth Music and Technology Conference, this time from Thomas Dolby(via Online Fandom):

Music fans and musicians belong to each other. The role and the obligation of the intermediary is to empower that relationship to happen more easily and more effectively without the wastage that’s sent the industry down the toilet in the last few years. Labels want to push their own brand, but the fans don’t care about that. Kids want to feel they’re being brought closer to the music and the musicians that they admire. All you, as intermediaries, should be doing is facilitating that relationship.

In other words, strengthen the community that's occurring naturally between an artist, and their fans. Exactly.

Final word on SoaP

I have yet to see a blogger that said s/he went to this movie, criticize the film, or its promotion.

On the flipside, of the bloggers that are criticizing the film and/or its promotion, none of them have stated that they attended, or planned on attending the film. Many of them stated that they thought it was a 'bad product'.

I definitely think there are some conclusions to be drawn here.

SoaP sucks, and I need to admit it....

.....at least that's what my namesake thinks.

Mack Simpson today fired off this missive at bloggers who promoted the film:

I don’t want to discuss the movie or its performance as much as I’d like to write a few words about the bloggers who talked it up. Specifically, the bloggers who sang the movie’s praises simply because they saw the Studio’s blogger-outreach as one of the Seven Signs of the Collapse of Marketing As We Know It™ (and, lo, they rejoiced in it). And specifically-specifically, their reaction after things didn’t turn out so well.

A B-movie opening at 15.3 million and #1 at the Box-Office is a BAD thing?

Apparently so.

Mack adds more:

Instead of saying, “o.k., our thesis didn’t pan out; what does this mean,” what we saw was the marketing bloggers begin to spin– spin how the opening day box office returns were actually a rousing success. Mack Collier (the other Mack, thank you very much) over at The Viral Garden actually tried to show– using statistics only an Enron accountant could love, and only after taking some time to blast the mainstream media for “turning” on the movie– how Snakes on a Plane performed better at the box office than Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest.

Excuse me?

Never said that SoaP was a 'rousing success'. I was pointing out that when the MSM gets gaa-gaa about Pirates ticket sales, they forget that the film had equally massive costs.

Then Mack just gets silly by trying to say that bloggers will say this:

“But Mack (yeah, the ad guy again), the momentum will build and it will do even better next weekend.” Oh yeah?

Again, I've never seen one blogger even HINT at SoaP having a better SECOND weekend. I think you're just trying to justify a rant at this point, Mack.

Finally Mack closes with this:

Or, for god’s sake, if your only purpose it to perpetuate and participate in the blogger circle jerk of hype without offering up anything from the other side of the coin, put a freaking disclaimer up on your site somewhere so you don’t unduly influence a poor junior brand manager into doing something that will cost her her job when it goes south.

Heh. Speaking of disclaimers, anyone notice how the bloggers that are slamming SoaP are the ones that waited until AFTER the movie opened and AFTER MSM said it was a 'disappointment' to say so? I think what happened here is that some bloggers decided early on that 'this movie is going to suck, why are people talking about it?!?', and when the MSM told them they were right, they felt 'vindicated' enough to finally post an 'I told you so!' post. Sorry, but in order to 'tell us so', you gotta say something BEFORE the fact. If you're slamming this movie simply because it irked you to see a movie being hyped that you never wanted to see, then you need to put such a disclaimer up on your blog.

But again, Mack thinks this promotion 'went badly'.

A B-movie opened #1 at the box-office, mainly due to free publicity from bloggers, and is now at around 22 million.

And this is a sign of things that 'went badly'?

Give me strength. Was this promotion perfect? Nope, and I've mentioned instances where I thought New Line missed the boat. But they did at least try. And in trying, they got some things right, and made some mistakes. And they are also well ahead of the other studios in using social media and embracing their community of fans to help them promote their future releases.

Again, I can't see how any of that can be seen as anything other than a good thing. But maybe I am seeing what I want to see. Then again, I have to wonder if those that are saying that a B-movie having 22 million after 2 weeks is a 'bad' thing, aren't seeing what they want to see themselves.

Fun with Google

I just noticed that I got a visitor referral from someone doing a Google search for the term "why companies should blog".

Love it!

But I decided to go and check the actual Google results for the term 'why companies should blog', and discovered that this post I left back in May is the #1 Google result for the term 'why companies should blog'.

Google-juice.....another reason why companies should blog ;)

Blogroll 2.0

This is LONG overdue, but I've added around 30 blogs to my blogroll. I promise I am going to stay on top of this from now on.

The Viral Community puts The Viral Garden in the Top 100

Siddiq (Change is Good), Lee (The Nimble Canvas), Jordan (Tell Ten Friends), and Marianne (Resonance Partnership Blog), are the latest 4 members of The Viral Community to add The Viral Garden as one of their favorite blogs. And they, along with everyone else, have helped put The Viral Garden in the Top 100 Most Popular Blogs, according to Technorati. Thanks again to everyone!

I've got 3 slots left in my favorite blogs, so the offer still stands, if you'll add The Viral Garden to your favorites, I'll add your blog, and also link to your blog as I did above for Siddiq, Lee, Jordan and Marianne! Just click on the logo below to add The Viral Garden to your favorities! Thanks guys!




UPDATE: Thanks to Ken at Recognize Design for adding me to his favorites!

NOTHER UPDATE: Thanks to Mike (Much Ado About Marketing) and David (Logic + Emotion) for adding me as well!

SWIFTY UPDATE: And Swifty too!

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Thanks to Tamera (3i), Kevin (Seattle Duck), and Nick(Strategic Design) for also adding me!

SUNDAY UPDATE: Thanks to Harry (Marketing Headhunter), Miles(Inner Tee), Brett(Circle Six), and John (Sparkplug 9) for adding me! Thanks guys!

'100 CDs For 100 Bloggers' featured in The Washington Post

Today Marc Fisher wrote a great article on the fall of Tower Records in The Washington Post, and also mentioned '100 CDs For 100 Bloggers':

Music blogs are coming up with ever more creative ways to replace the record store clerk--Mack Collier's 100 CDs for 100 Bloggers idea is an encouraging sign that music blogs may yet prove to be supportive of the recording artists

Thanks Marc! The buzz generated over SoaP shows that this type of promotion, one where you reward fans for activities that they are already engaging in, is a home-run waiting to happen. Companies are starting to scramble and try to find ways that they can appeal to fans using the same forms of social media that they are. But the best examples will find a way to utilize the natural flow of the community, instead of trying to re-route them in a direction they aren't wanting to travel.

'100 CDs For 100 Bloggers' not only utilizes the natural communication channels of the artist's community of fans, it gives that community the incentive to promote the artist to others outside the community. And as I keep saying, the first label to run with this idea is going to have a blockbuster on their hands.

And it seems that The Donnas have a new CD coming out soon. Hmmmm.....


Pic via Flickr user Rocco Kasby

Nettwerk's CEO fires another salvo at the RIAA

Terry's at it again.

Speaking at the Bandwidth Music and Technology Conference last weekend, Nettwerk CEO Terry McBride again took the RIAA to task for their practice of pursuing litigation against their own customers, and asked for the RIAA to stop this behavior.

"[The major labels] are using fear as a tactic [to] push these kids away from these P2P systems. You can't use fear to change these behaviors - it just isn't effective. These lawsuits have hurt my artists. We need to stop these lawsuits."

But here is the money quote:

"you should never tell the consumer how to consume your music. You should make it available wherever they want. I don't want to dictate how people buy our music."

Amen. You don't try to re-route the flow of the community, you accept their momentum, and find ways to empower them to more easily engage in the activities that they are already enjoying. This is precisely what New Line did with SoaP, and the future of marketing rests in this very simple concept.

One of the key takeaways from my talk with Nettwerk's Marketing Director Erin Kinghorn back in January, was her claim that within the next few years, we would begin to see the cultures at music labels shift toward a philosophy of empowering artists, and their fans. If that happens, it will be because the industry has followed her boss' lead.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Marketing works. Smart marketing works even better.

I'm pretty much done with SoaP, but did want to touch on something I've seen from some bloggers.

Jackie said this in her Snakes on a Plane: 5 Lessons For Marketers post:

Embracing citizen marketers reduces risk. Launching a new product is betting against huge odds: Over 80 percent of all new products fail. New Line reduced its risk by listening to fans who wanted more snakes, gore and f-bombs. Making $15 million in one weekend is disappointing how? (Silly media.) If New Line hadn't listened to fans and released a PG-13 film called "Pacific Air Flight 121," chances are no one would have talked about it, and it would have been just another low-brow Hollywood movie.

But today, Seth pops up with this:

I knew all about SOAP and had no desire whatsoever to go. I'm just not ready to sit in a theatre with a bunch of people afraid of airplanes.

I'm afraid we come back to something that marketers have been struggling with for a really long time--the best way to succeed is to have a really great product.

And another marketing truth is that you can't be all things to all people. SoaP wasn't aimed at Seth's demo, so it comes as no suprise that he never considered seeing it. Marianne and Tom didn't care for the 'buzz' around SoaP either. Course I bet they weren't the target demo either.

Teenagers and young adults, especially young males, seems like a much more likely target market for a movie about snakes on a plane, doesn't it? As luck would have it, teenagers and young adults who are social-media savvy, is the exact group that New Line reached out to, to help them promote SoaP. As the buzz grew, more and more bloggers jumped on board in support of New Line's brilliant move to empower their community.

New Line understood who SoaP's target market was, and they empowered them to market for them. That's why they reached out to Brian Finkelstein, and not Seth Godin. Brian's age group might enjoy SoaP, while Seth's probably wouldn't.

The bottom line is that Snakes on a Plane will very likely have completely covered its production and marketing costs by the time it goes to DVD. Any money made from that point on will more or less be pure profit. This happened because New Line empowered the people that SoaP would appeal to, and didn't waste their time trying to change the opinions of people like Seth, who were never interested in the product.

Some may call that 'bad' marketing, but I'm not one of them.


PS: Thanks again to those of you that have recently added The Viral Garden as one of your favorite blogs. Karl (Experience Curve), Dave (All Things Branding and Marketing), Anna (The Engaging Brand), and Lisa (Simple Essentials) have all added me in the last day. As a result, The Viral Garden is now just 3 favorites short of breaking into the Top 100 Most Favorited Blogs! If you want to help put TVG over the top, the deal again is, if you'll add TVG to your favorites, I will return the favor, and also link to your blog, as I just did for Karl, Dave, Anna, and Lisa! All you have to do is click on the logo below! Thanks guys!

UPDATE: Add my man Ryan (Adcouver) to the list! We are down to 2!

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing Blogs - Week 18

Here's the standings for Week 18, and these will be updated again next Monday.

1 - Seth's Blog - 5,459 (LW - 1)(+39)
2 - Gaping Void - 17,115 (LW - 2)(-21)
3 - Creating Passionate Users - 17,781 (LW - 3)(+262)
4 - Duct Tape Marketing - 18,195 (LW - 4)(+3)
5 - Marketing Shift - 46,115 (LW - 5)(+221)
6 - HorsePigCow - 51,651 (LW - 6)(+148)
7 - Coolzor - 52,669 (LW - 7)(+531)
8 - The Viral Garden - 65,296 (LW - 8)(+1,197)
9 - Church of the Customer - 75,421 (LW - 9)(+2,467)
10 - What's Next - 78,482 (LW - 10)(+107)
11 - Emergence Marketing - 84,339 (LW - 11)(+295)
12 - Brand Autopsy - 88,530 (LW - 12)(+1,478)
13 - Diva Marketing - 107,232 (LW - 13)(+1,203)
14 - Jaffe Juice - 107,929 (LW - 14)(-374)
15 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 130,205 (LW - 15)(-4,321)
16 - New School of Network Marketing - 140,804 (LW - 16)(+4,427)
17 - Logic + Emotion - 162,230 (LW - 17)(+1,310)
18 - Pro Hip-Hip - Hip-Hop Marketing - 203,351 (LW- 18)(-2,126)
19 - Marketallica - 206,239 (LW - 19)(+5,995)
20 - What's Your Brand Mantra? - 213,083 (LW - 20)(-3,032)
21 - Marketing Headhunter - 233,304 (LW - 21)(-9,359)
22 - Daily Fix - 237,028 (LW - 22)
23 - Movie Marketing Madness - 241,737 (LW - 23)(+8,454)
24 - Experience Curve - 257,402 (LW - 24)(+11,529)
25 - WonderBranding - 262,884 (LW - 25)(-2,021)


Yep, Alexa hosed us again. We are now going on almost 4 weeks since Alexa has updated their 3-month averages. We'll keep our fingers crossed and hopefully Alexa will get their act together by next Monday.

As always, next update is next Monday...hopefully.

The Viral Garden cracks Technorati's Top 10,000

The Viral Garden won't be 5 months old until next Sunday, but it's already crossed over the 10,000 mark, according to Technorati's link-counter.

In the past, I've said that I don't think that Technorati is the end-all/be-all of determining a blog's worth/popularity that some think, and I still feel that way. But I will admit that it does my ego good to see TVG rise as quickly as it has.

But lately I've been paying more attention to how the traffic and number of feed subscribers and links grow here. The reason why is because I think the growth of TVG validates the power of the community.

What are the ways the we often hear for growing a blog quickly? Links from A-Listers? Being a 'known' celebrity/writer/marketer before you start?

I was thinking earlier and I could remember a grand total of 2 links from the so-called 'A-Lister' bloggers. Doc linked to me once, and called me 'MaRk'. Hugh linked to one of my posts, and didn't mention me or the blog's name.

And I definitely don't count in the 'known celebrity/writer/marketer' category.

So how has The Viral Garden grown so quickly? Simple, it's because of you guys. The reason why I get so excited about community-marketing, about the benefits of marketers embracing, empowering, and joining their communities, is because The Viral Garden proves that these ideas work. The vibrant and supportive community of friends I have here is why this blog has gone from 1 visitor a day back in late March(Hi!), to one of the top 10,000 blogs that Technorati tracks.

And the truly exciting thing is, there's so many other blogs embracing their communities. Karl does it. So does David, CK, Chris, Ann, Mario and so many other bloggers. And I love how the communities intersect. How one of my readers will discover Paul's blog because I linked to him, then he links here and one of his readers finds my blog. The communities overlap and grow stronger, until it's difficult to see the line between one blog's community and the other's.

So if I could offer any advice to anyone that's wanting to start blogging, PLEASE respect the community. Forget trying to catch lightning in a bottle with a magical link from some A-Lister that's never heard of you. Go out and make friends and connections with other bloggers. Join the blogging community, so you can grow your own. The community will give you far more than you could ever give back.

Case in point, I want to thank Lyle, Spike (Brains on Fire), Asi (No Man's Blog), Scott, WitchitaRutherford(Witchita's Blog), Matthew (Caffeine Marketing), Clyde (Pro-Hip-Hop Marketing), and JD (Musical Ramblings), for being the latest friends to add me to their Technorati Favorites. Lyle and Scott, if either of you have a blog, let me know and I will link to you as well. The Viral Community has now pushed The Viral Garden to the edge of Technorati's Top 100 Favorited blogs. Right now I need just 7 more people to favorite The Viral Garden to crack the Top 100. So if you haven't already, please favorite me by clicking the logo below, and I'll return the favor, as well as link to your blog. Hey a 2-for-1 deal, can't beat that ;)

Can you spot the box-office winner/disappointment?

Amusing to see the MSM's 180 on SoaP. Friday they couldn't say enough about the movie, and most sources were saying it was the 'film of the summer'. Today it's a total disappointment.

Again, opening on top of the box-office didn't seem that bad to me. Of course I wanted it to open around double that so it could break-even on the first weekend, but that didn't happen. But I had a feeling that the 15.3 million opening wasn't as bad as the media was saying.

The production budget for SoaP has been set at anywhere from 30-36 million, depending on what source you go by. The marketing budget is another 2-10 million, again depending on what source you go by. That gets us to a cost of 32-46 million, with an opening gate of 15.3 million.

So that means that SoaP covered 33-48% of its cost on opening weekend.

I decided to pit that against what the MSM considers the blockbuster hit of the summer, Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest. The numbers for Pirates floated as well, with production being anywhere from 225-250 million, and promotional being anywhere from 100-150 million. This site quoted the total production and promotional budget for the film at 400 million.

So that means that Pirates production and marketing budget was anywhere from 325-400 million. With an opening weekend take of $135, 634,554, Pirates covered 34-42% of its cost on opening weekend.

Those numbers look pretty similar to me, in fact it looks as if SoaP did slightly better.

As Joe said, in defining how much 'success' SoaP has, the questions to ask are:

* How much did it cost to make?
* How much did it cost to market?
* How much did it earn?

Did SoaP knock the cover off the ball on opening weekend? No. Was it a dud? As the above numbers suggest, it not only wasn't, on a percentage basis it was on par with, or above, the movie that's considered the 'summer blockbuster'.

BONUS: Jackie's '5 Lessons for Marketers' from SoaP.

UPDATE: Thanks to Ken at Ad Age for picking up on this post.

Snakes on a Plane projected to top box-office with $15 million

Bloomberg is projecting that SoaP will top the box-office during its opening weekend with a take of just over 15 million. As expected, the media backlash has begun. Reuters stated that Soap 'failed to charm', and added "So much for the Internet hype.".

Again, I figured the MSM was going to take their shots at this movie if they had the chance. This was a story that originated on the internet, was created by the internet, and MSM had to sit at the kiddie table for this one. They didn't care for that, and if the opportunity presented itself to take potshots at 'internet hype', I figured they wouldn't miss the chance.

Apparently, a bad B-movie being pushed to the top of the box-office on opening weekend, is a sign that 'internet hype' doesn't work.

BTW, a Google-Juice update shows there are now a staggering 48 million search results for "Snakes on a Plane". Wow.

Random ramblings

Joe Jaffe was kind enough to briefly mention me and the Top 25 Marketing Blogs in episode #44 of Across the Sound(And Joe, your Alexa ranking is for ALL websites and blogs combined). I honestly should have caught this earlier, but I didn't. I'll simply offer the 'I'm on dial-up' excuse. Which basically means that I cannot listen to podcasts, well I could, but it would mean basically doing nothing but downloading for 30-60 minutes at a time. It's funny because I was trading emails with a blogger a few days ago, and I can't remember what we were talking about, but for some reason I mentioned that I was on dial-up, and he apologized for emailing me so much! I mean it's slow but not so slow that I can't get email from ANY of you, just so you know!

And whenever I mention that I'm on dial-up someone always says 'I can't believe you post that much', but since I'm using this blog primarily to get a job, I feel I need to post as much as possible. If I weren't in the job market, I would probably post about 2-3 times a week, at the most. Actually, perhaps my strategy for growing this blog is probably a bit of a disconnect, since I post more in an effort to grow traffic, but then I go totally 'grassroots' when trying to grow readership, in that I spent a lot of time on other blogs. I could give a damn less about their Technorati score or whatnot, I'm just interested in making friends and learning from other smart bloggers. I never wanted to go the 'just link to A-Listers' route, because I'm more interested in community, not some A-Lister who has no idea who I am, or why he should care(or who calls me MaRk). And it all works out in the end, since I've had some of the TRUE A-Listers go out of their way to help me, such as Ben and Jackie, Joe, Laura Ries, and of course Ann.

(Starting to see where the title of this post comes in, eh?)

Oh BTW, this is something I have been thinking/wondering about for a while now, but you guys DO know that if you want to leave a comment DISAGREEING with me, that's cool, right? I've noticed that while I love all the comments you guys leave, very rarely does anyone actually disagree with me. And I'd love to think that's because I am a genius with minty-fresh breath, I bet that's not always the case. So if you guys have a different opinion, PLEASE share. I'm here to learn from you guys as much as anything, so if you think I'm wrong, you need to call me on it, so we can discuss it. Personally I *love* it when someone disagrees with me, because that challenges me to re-examine my idea and look at it in a new way. And your different opinion may cause another reader or commenter to re-examine THEIR idea, and who knows where we could take this. Again, this is your space as much as mine, so feel free, to grab the 'microphone' and let your voice be heard!

Something else, I have finally caved and started using Bloglines to read blogs. As I've said before, I prefer to physically go to the blogs and read the posts AND comments, but I've found so many great blogs lately that there's simply too many to keep up with, and this will let me keep an eye on my favorites. Asi and I were discussing this on his blog recently, and I said I had about 20 or so blogs that I read every day. I added all of these to my Bloglines, and it was actually almost 60. Here is my list, and basically what I told myself a long time ago, was that if anyone was nice enough to comment regularly here, I was going to read their blog daily. That's how I came across most of that list, so it's mostly frequent commenters and friends. So if you are nosey and want to see who I am reading every day, there it is. Of course I read probably another 100 or so, but not daily as I will this group.

Oh yes and in closing, let me once again shill myself and beg you to please add me to your Technorati Favorites, if you haven't already. Thanks to my sis, and Anne for adding me, and I've added you both as well. As of right now I am just 15 more members short of cracking the Top 100, so if you haven't added me yet to your Technorati Favorites, please take a few seconds to do so by clicking on the logo below, and I will return the gesture. Thanks guys!

Early SoaP reviews are in

On both Technorati, and in the media. 'Junk, but good junk' was the review I heard on CNBC. The guy seemed to be saying that if you know not to take it seriously, that you'll have a good time with it. He described the showing he went to as 'a party'.

I think this short review says it all: "Yes, it's dumb. Incredibly dumb. It's also a hell of a lot of fun if you just turn your brain off and watch.".

Here's another comment:"Now I'm reading the reviews from last night with mad envy. Multiple standing ovations? In the middle of the movie?!"

And of course, the review we've all been waiting for, from Brian at Snakes on a Blog. As he said, the comments say it all, everyone loved it.

Again, this has become a meme. It's become the cool thing to see this movie, right now. Without these months of build-up, this movie bombs because everyone takes it seriously. But New Line steps in, lets the community runs with it, and the community is smart enough to make a party out of it.

UPDATE: CK adds an opening night review.

Nother UPDATE: Chris adds that SoaP director Dave Ellis stopped by Snakes on a Blog to personally thank all the fans for making the movie a phenomenon. Again, brilliant. And I have no idea why more companies don't do this because it took Ellis all of probably 30 seconds to leave that one comment, but read for yourself how much goodwill he got back from the fans.

PS: I've dropped anonymous comments. I simply got sick of deleting spam from anonymous jackasses. So let me know if anyone has any problems trying to leave comments, you shouldn't from what I can tell, but as we all know, what I can tell ain't much.

New Line to give bloggers Treos at tonight's SoaP premiere

In yet another in a series of smart marketing moves, New Line will set up select bloggers at tonight's Hollywood premiere of Snakes on a Plane with a Treo SmartPhone. The Treo, which is briefly featured in the film, will allow bloggers to live-blog before during and after the showing, giving bloggers the chance to get instant reviews of the film on the net.

Again, a brilliant move for 2 reasons:

1 - Bloggers are, for obvious reasons, the most likely group to give the film a positive review, so New Line just made it incredibly easy for them to do so while they are AT the theater, when their excitement over the film will be at its peak.

2 - The nationwide premiere is tomorrow, so this means that bloggers will get even MORE buzz for this movie up tonight and tomorrow on their blogs, which only further fuels the fire right at the last minute for New Line.

Again, genius.

BTW wanting a Google Juice update? There are now over 18 million Google results for "Snakes on a Plane".

Breaking News: Chris is smart

So here we are days away from the opening of SoaP. As I posted yesterday, CNBC, at least, has gotten on board and they are talking about how if SoaP is a success, it could change the way movies are marketed from this point forward. And they are right, if SoaP knocks the cover off the ball, it will definitely give studios plenty of reason to closely examine how New Line succeeded in embracing and empowering bloggers and internet users to market for them. They will no doubt want to see if they can implement similar empowerment tactics in marketing their own films from this point forward.

Which is what makes Chris' latest move so brilliant. Chris has added an 'editorial calendar' to Movie Marketing Madness.

I've added a wiki-based editorial calendar that I'll be updating and using to show people what movie's and other topics I'm planning on writing about.

My hope for this is that it will help studios and others in contacting me when they see I have something of interest to them coming up. You know, just like a real publication uses an ed cal. So if you're reading this blog and see that I've got something that touches on a movie you're producing or a topic you can provide information on or would like to weigh in on that's going it's dependent on you to contact me.

Great idea. Chris just made it painfully easy for studios to contact him so they can put accurate and helpful marketing information about their projects, in the hands of the internet's most influential movie marketing blogger.

Here's hoping studios are equally smart, and take full advantage of this opportunity that Chris has given them.