Twitter and Fox on the Fringe
Not sure what you should do with Twitter? Are you hearing that it’s the most important breakthrough since breathing but not sure how to take advantage of it? Well, you may need to stop listening to everyone and think a bit outside the box like Fox is doing to inject some new life into a re-run of the edgy TV show, Fringe. Of course, this type of show is probably a perfect place to run this kind of experiment. PC World writes about the TV and Twitter convergence.
Fox has come up with a new way to get viewers hooked into watching repeats of two episodes of the TV show Fringe. On Thursday at 9 p.m., the penultimate episode of Fringe will be accompanied by Twitter commentary from two of the show’s cast and producers.
During the episode, a scroll bar at the bottom of the screen will provide insight from cast members Josh Jackson and John Noble and producers Jeff Pinker and J.H. Wyman. Dubbed “tweet-peats,” the Twitter messages will also be available online and viewers can participate and ask questions.
I have been intrigued by Fringe promos on Fox in the past during sports broadcasts but have not made the move to give it a try. This might actually make me take a look though. While it may seem ‘gimmicky’ it falls in line with most things as they relate to Twitter and its applications. No one has had this kind of capability in the past so why not experiment? If no one has done this on network TV (if they have please let us know) then it will be hard to screw up!
In addition to the Fringe Twitter treatment Fox will run a similar format for a re-run of the show Glee immediately following the show. While I have no idea whether that show has a chance or is simply on lie support and looking for a boost from this Tweetment of the show it again falls into the category of “Why not?”.
Here’s how to play along
If you want to get involved in Fox’s “tweet-peats,” all you have to do is follow the show Fringe on Twitter (http://twitter.com/FRINGEonFOX) and Glee (http://twitter.com/GLEEonFOX). The question streams from users will be moderated, so not everybody’s tweets will be aired.
Since I am probably the only person on the planet to not DVR anything I may or may not be there because Thursday night is also the start of the college football season. After all, Twitter’s powerful but not omnipotent.
Radically Transparent Now Available on Amazon’s Kindle!
The words “about time” come to mind, but better late than never: Radically Transparent is now available for the Kindle!
It’s been 18 months since the original print edition was published and today Radically Transparent is still the most comprehensive guide to online reputation management out there! Actually, it’s the only one out there! 
If you own a Kindle, and would like to pick up a copy of Radically Transparent, head over to Amazon immediately!
And, don’t forget to leave a review while you’re there. Thanks! 
Bing Cashback Goes Big
Admit it: when you first heard about Microsoft Live’s cashback promotion, you thought it was a kooky idea that wouldn’t last long. Announced in May 2008, the program offered to share revenue from Microsoft’s shopping partners with you, the buyer. At the time, we said it sounded like a last-ditch attempt to buy our loyalty.
But over the last year, cashback has surprised us a bit—and not just by sticking around. In October and November, the service was showing an increase in traffic, sales and revenue for participating partners. Still, the promotion didn’t really help them in overall traffic, and seemed like mostly an afterthought—until now. Check out the latest Bing commercial:
The newest addition to Bing’s marketing blitz touts the cashback program.
TechCrunch also reports that Bing was running a promotion this month for double cashback on certain purchases—and that promotion was so successful they had to end the program three days early, when they ran out of money allotted for the promotion.
What do you think? Is cashback going to put Bing over the top? Or will it remain a bit of a search oddity, little known despite the commercial?
Wolfram|Alpha’s API Deal with Bing.com the First of Many?
I given Wolfram|Alpha a hard time, but I think the service might be on the brink of finding its calling in life. After the highly speculated–but widely accepted as accurate–deal with Bing, it now appears Wolfram|Alpha will open up an API and become the provider to a host of data mashups.
At the moment, Alpha generates results that you can see on the website, export as a PDF or "play" using a Mathematica plug-in. Soon, Wolfram will be opening up its curated data that can be queried using an API, Conrad Wolfram said. This will provide yet another source of data that you can use to create projects and mash-ups with the information that we provide at the Data Store.
Bingo!
Seriously, I can’t see how WA can ever find success as a destination site, but as the data provider to other search engines? Absolutely!
Now, there’s just the embarrassing situation of why Wolfram|Alpha can’t seem to answer the following simple question:
Hmm, even Wikipidia knows the answer to that one! 
(via)
What Happens When Google Employees Are, in Fact, Evil?
Here’s something that Google might want to nip in the bud, before it becomes true via urban legend.
Over at the Google Webmaster Help forum we get an unsubstantiated claim that an ex-Google employee has turned evil:
Around May I discovered another competitors site recent appearance that looked very similar to mine, in fact even the sentences on my homepage were copied directly to his. Then by reading the press release for the company I found out it was started by a high up google employee who quit his job with google to form the company. Shorty after contacting the owner politely introducing myself, I received a threat letter back through email. I don’t know if I can publish the email on this site so I will hesitate for now. Basically the owner said he was going to crush me with his skills he had received from google…
…So at the end of all of this my page rank dropped from a two to a zero. And now my site has started showing up on malicious porn sites on the internet and in bad forums, and some seem to be in the form of hidden links that appear to be bought by someone else.
OK, so we have two reasons to doubt this is true.
- How do we know this poster is telling the truth?
- How do we know that the attacker ever was a Google employee?
The answers are, we don’t. However, this is an example of how rumors and speculation can inflict as much damage on a company’s reputation as the truth. Now that both Barry Schwartz and I have reported on this, it risks becoming an urban legend. (Yes, I’m aware that I’m helping to spread this “rumor”, but that’s like saying the cancer wouldn’t spread, if only the doctor hadn’t told the patient).
What Google should do is try and get to the bottom of this and, quickly, prove that this thread is a figment of someone’s over-active imagination. Unless, of course, ex-Google employees are venting after many years of not being able to do any evil. 
Why Hulu Could Kill LOST, Heroes, House, SNL & Family Guy
There’s just one problem with the chart below:
If correct, cable companies are likely losing millions of subscribers that are instead getting their TV fix from online sources, such as Hulu. The problem? Online TV watching doesn’t generate anywhere near the revenue of cable programming.
If we all switch to watching TV via Hula et al, what happens to the quality of the programming? If we continue down this path, we’d better figure out a way to make online video ads successful–and fast–or we may see the end of quality shows such as LOST and House.
Twitter Conferences Are In
As part of the Internet marketing industry have you done the conference circuit? Have you been to SES, SMX (put cardinal direction here), Adtech, PubCon etc, etc? On a yearly basis how many of these trips can you justify or get away with? Well, with shrinking budgets everywhere now you have to add the new spate of Twitter conferences to your hit list of things you absolutely have to do to get out of the office learn more about the industry.
TechCrunch tells us of the growing list of conferences that are starting to sprout up as a result of the use of (or confusion around the use of) Twitter for business purposes.
It looks like the trend of Twitter conferences is growing, with more events popping up around the country. As we’ve said in the past and will continue to say, there are tremendous opportunities for businesses, brands, non-profits and individuals to use Twitter as a tool for customer support, fund raising, brand management, advertising, job search and much more.
I have not attended one but I can imagine they must be pretty quiet because everyone is likely to be talking to everyone but those right in front of them. I gotta tell ya that when someone tweets that they are talking to someone I wonder if they are even listening to them or concentrating on their 140 characters of brilliance they are allowing the rest of their audience to ingest.
Of course, if you attended the 140 Character Conference in New York in June the venue itself (which was literally underground) forced Twitterheads to actually listen to others since there was practically no connectivity for the attendees.
Twitter is so fascinating in that it appears that so many folks are finding ways to monetize the service without the service monetizing itself. At least with Google (which face it, is why most of these conferences exist in the first place) makes money and knows that these conferences will only help it make more.
So if you are tired of the usual shows and you need more opportunities to ‘network’ then think about these:
- TWTRCN 09 DC- for non profits and government types. October 22 in Washington, DC.
- 140 Twitter Conference / LA – Endorsed by Biz Stone. Need we say more? September in Los Angeles (for those who didn’t get the LA part of the title).
- 140 Characters Twitter Conference – Jeff Pulver’s deal goes west coast on October 27th in Los Angeles.
- Cool Twitter Conferences- Apparently this is a traveling road show that has stops scheduled in Boston and San Francisco.
So don’t miss your chance to blow off work get out and learn more about Twitter and the future of communications. Hotel bars in the areas of these meetings can’t wait to serve you!
Google Still No. 1 Search Engine On Earth; Search Activity Way Up, comScore Says
Search activity around the world jumped 41 percent between July 2008 and July 2009, and Google remains the most popular search engine with 67.5% global market share. Those are some of the stats that comScore shared today about the global search market.
According to comScore, Google is not only No. 1 around the world, but it [...]
….
Danny Sullivan’s Preview Of Search Engine Land’s SMX East 2009 Search Marketing Conference In New York
In five weeks, our SMX East search marketing conference arrives in New York City from Oct. 5-7. The show features four to five tracks of sessions spread across three days and covers all aspects of search marketing. Below is a personal tour from me on what attendees can expect.
Our SMX Advanced [...]
….
Gulli Leaves Ask.com For Microsoft Bing, Finally Has “Resources”
Ten days ago, we reported that Antonio Gulli left Ask.com after 4 years heading up their technology team in the European R&D center. Gulli announced his new plans are to continue in search, but switch ships and work for Microsoft Bing.
Gulli said he will be “leading all the engineering development for UX and verticals [...]
….
