And I don’t have anything bad to say against this picture

- even the heels – hell, if that kid is wearing them and not kicking them off, go for it. Put on stilts! Get a tattoo early on! But the commentary??? Yuk, yuk, puking my guts out, yuk! I can barely copy/paste that into here, it’s that retarded. But before you go over to their retarded website and give them just one more hit on that story, I’d rather keep you here and NEVER EVER link to it. So, this is the cringeworthy commentary from INF Daily:

If there’s such a thing as a fashion icon for kids, then Suri Cruise is way ahead of any other celebrity offspring currently on the scene.

This little cutie has really got it down when it comes to putting together a cool outfit that the paparazzi wants to see.

And when Suri decided to go shopping with her mom Katie Holmes today, she showed she really has got style and taste.

Who would put high heels a ra-ra skirt and a stuffed elephant in the same ensemble? GENIOUS!

If you excuse me, I will go and post this as a comment on that retarded website now. And then never look at it again, ever, ever, ever! No matter how often Huff Post tries to get me there.

This legislation is – frankly spoken – major BS! Join in the protest!

In September of 2004, a video was posted on Engadget showing a Kryptonite bike lock which could be opened very easily with a Bic Pen. As you can imagine, this was a very bad thing for Kryptonite. The story was loudhailed through the blogosphere, people screaming for an explanation from the bike lock manufacturer. But nothing came. Not for 10 days. Why?

Behind the scenes, Kryptonite was trying manically to fix this. The PR department worked day and night assessing the situation, trying to figure out the damage, and how to best respond. In the olden days, 10 days was a fairly standard response time to a crisis. In the era of Social Media, it can cost you. A lot.

While Kryptonite was trying to come up with the best move, the blogosphere went nuts. The Bic pen video and comments were widely published, in all the right places (as for instance on bikeforums, a place for bike enthusiasts). 10 days is a long time in Social Media to stay quiet. Despite numerous requests for information, Kryptonite said nothing. They didn’t want to give a rash response. And at the time they didn’t think that bloggers were that influential. They were proven wrong.
The price they paid for reacting too late (and even then not answering directly to the bloggers in their medium, but only via traditional media channels – which is a big insult in the blogosphere) was as follows: they replaced 350,000 bike locks, totaling over USD $10 Million. They suffered damages from loss of credibility: after all, they had ignored a large pool of customers.
The lesson Kryptonite learned was that Social Media forums are full of people, who have an interest in their products, who passionate customers, and who want to exchange their thoughts with each other AND the company. And by refusing to take part in these conversations, these customers had to think that they were not that important to Kryptonite. You don’t want to come across as a company who doesn’t care about what your customers have to say, but that’s the image that was created for Kryptonite in the course of this crisis. To prevent this, you need to monitor and interact in Social Media, and you have to respond. Fast. An important lesson not only to Kryptonite, but to all of us!

Has anything like this ever happened to you? Let me know!

According to AdAge the ridiculous sign-up process is being blamed for the online TV channel’s failure by Anheuser-Busch’s executives. The content on the site is slowly emigrating to other Anheuser-Busch sites and the visitor numbers for May were so low that Bud TV didn’t even register with Internet audience measuring company Comscore Media Metrix (which supposedly means that the number of visitors has fallen to under 100,000 in May). The end is very near.

So, what have we learned so far from this debacle?

Firstly, that a sign up process that is as complicated and prohibitive as the one on BudTV is definitely going to drive your traffic away. It certainly makes it near impossible to let the content become viral and fulfil it’s purpose as an instrument of branding.

Secondly, that even the people who did sign up to watch BudTV didn’t enjoy the shows as much as Anheuser-Busch would have liked. This is an old rule in traditional Television, which is just as valid in online TV: if people don’t like it, they’ll switch channels.
And thirdly, that in order to be successful in Social Networks you need be open and involve your users. The numbers for video streaming pioneer YouTube leave little to be said on this subject.

I’m sure as this story progresses we will learn more valuable lessons on “How not to make a $30 million dollar online TV channel”. Stay tuned. I feel a mini series coming on…

Bud TV was supposed to be the prototype of this new form of branding that goes well beyond product placement. For those of you who have just tuned in: Anheuser-Busch decided to create an online TV channel called Bud TV where it would broadcast its own content. The $30 million dollar project targets mainly young males (over the age of 21… this will become important in just a minute), the genres ranging from comedy skits to reality shows.

So far, so awesome: a TV channel with original content produced by Budweiser to promote to their peers, with the potential to become viral and thereby also reaching other people who love the shows and the lifestyle portrayed. Which might just make them swap their Heinekens for Budweisers. It should have been my dream come true.

But somewhere in the very early phase of conception a mechanism was built in that would guarantee the failure of this project: a registration process involving a form of ID issued in the US. Not only does this limit the potential viewership to the US, it also by definition makes it uncomfortable to sign up: it’s bad enough having to give away your email address (and thereby making yourself vulnerable to spam), but giving details on your ID? What new hell is this?

I was keen to sign up and watch Bud TV. I wanted to know how they are communicating, the production value of the shows, how the platform looks, and get some user feedback (if there is such interactivity on the site). But all my attempts to sign up were futile. First I tried to get away with providing my real name and the only US post code I know from the top of my head (90210), but to no avail. Budweiser told me that they couldn’t place me there, and that I needed to state the issuing state of my ID. When they still couldn’t find me, I was prompted to fill out a form attaching my US ID.

Still keen, I wrote an email saying that I am well over the legal drinking age in any country, I am a resident of New Zealand with both an EU and NZ drivers licence and an EU passport, and if it was at all possible to send them a copy of either of these IDs to be able to watch. All I got back was that form where I could submit my (nonexistent) US ID. I wrote back (again) that I do not have such an ID, and if they could please look into getting me an account checking my non-US IDs, an email I am still waiting to receive an answer to over a month later.

My non-experience seems to correlate with the numbers for Bud TV: After kicking off on February 4th (at the Super Bowl) this year the visitor numbers were appallingly low, with only 253,000 visitors in February. A meagre outcome considering Anheuser-Busch’s predictions of 2 million to 3 million visitors per month by the end of 2007.

Anheuser-Busch itself states that the registration system is driving visitors away. In February they had around 20,000 visitors per day, but only 800-1000 registrations. This number was improved to 8000 per day the week following an online promotion extravaganza on President’s Weekend. Still, these numbers are nowhere near where they could be. The latest reports show steadily decreasing interest in March and April.

The main problem I think lies in the creepy registration process. It prevents people to participate in a forum that should be open. I’m not against registering per se; in order to become a member and fully participate in any Social Media forum you need to sign up, but ID details? Where are the times where they made us responsible for certifying that we are of age and thereby permitted to enter a site?

The little content I could watch (that I found on YouTube) was not only not to my taste (which is fine), but also not that crafty. I still hope that some of the stuff on Bud TV is more entertaining than “Replaced by a Chimp “. But how can I know – they won’t let me in!

So, if any of you, valued readers, have access to Bud TV: would you be so kind and possibly share your user name and password with your humble host? Otherwise I might never know what’s behind the white picked fence of Bud TV.