In response to low prime time ratings, multimedia giant MTV is now creating a live talk show that uses various social media platforms during the program.  Advertisers were convinced that this would be MTVs biggest daytime talk show since TRL ended in November 2008.

As traditional media outlets battle to engage their audiences and produce relevant content, cable network MTV answered the call with the Alexa Chung Show. Read more…

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video. We’re big fans of New Influencers/Secrets of Social Media Marketing author Paul Gillin here in the MCDM.  So we’re pleased to present his Skype Chat in my COM 581 Social Production and Digital Distribution class.

I’ve also received a bit of attention recently (“Plugged In: UW is Tweeting Its Way Into a New Social Media Ecosystem”) on my encouraging students to distract themselves with open laptops and Twitter while in class.  Here’s how we use hashtag conversations such as #mcdm581 to enhance the in-class conversation while Gillin was chatting with us:

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You have labored over your film concept (the one you just came up with an hour before you had to pitch it), you have poured every emotion in your soul into the storyboards (mostly fear), and now you scurry about in the last two weeks of Winter quarter, squeezing whatever creative juices (and hard-earned cash) left in you to put out a story you can call your own into this cyberworld.

Visually, things seem to be falling into place (historically known as the crapper), and now it is time to find that perfect minor chord to send your audience weeping after they view your piece.

The musicscapes are vast and this post (in three parts) will only attempt to provide some guidance for those creating audio-visual projects to navigating the creative commons music territories (or swamps).

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Last week, I endorsed Barack Obama as America’s first “Social Media” President.

Last night, we had a scintillating conversation as to whether it was social media that produced Obama’s victory.  Our whip-smart students quickly concluded that it was impossible to prove whether one produced the other (especially because of all the other factors at play: the economy, Palin, Bush, Obama’s charisma and excellent community organizing).  One perceptive student remarked that the only accurate way to gauge the effectiveness of social media would be to create two identical candidates and track them (it’s a Research & Methodologies class after all!).

However, in looking at mybarackobama.com and analyzing a slew of articles (such as this one, and see The Digital President), we did decide that it did represent an superb execution of a social media strategy — and in that way can serve as communications model well beyond the political arena.  We then asked ourselves whether he would still use this approach once in the White House.

We have our answer today: Change.gov.  This appears to be Obama’s platform for “Open government.”

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I wanted to address Adrianna’s comment from the COM 592 Wednesday night class that advertising is a necessary cost of business that must be included in any budget.

The absolute best show on television right now is Mad Men, and it just happens to be about advertising, advertising in the early 1960s when it was experiencing a renaissance. On the DVD extras of season one, there is a great vignette about advertising, in which someone notes that the greatest feat of the advertising industry is convincing people they need advertising. If toilet paper weren’t advertised, would you stop buying it?

The segment on advertising is really fascinating and I’m unable to do it justice in a blog post. Regrettably, I could not find it on-line, but this Making of Mad Men vignette has some insight into advertising as well. If you haven’t seen the show, you are missing a truly remarkable and unique piece of storytelling.

Twitter is remaining secretive but rumors are circling around after the latest round of musical chairs cost Jack Dorsey his CEO chair. One thing is for sure though, Twitter means business. And they will tell us how next year – according to a recent article in Wired magazine.

There is still talk about an ad revenue model by analyzing content of tweets and running relevant advertising alongside the tweets. The real potential of that model will require the collaboration of third-party developers especially for smart phone clients unless Twitter wants to release its own client, of course. Because of the CAN-SPAM act, advertisers and your wireless carrier cannot, if you have not opted-in, send messages directly to your phone. However, if you willingly sign up and agree to the terms of use of a service that will occasionally advertise to you, then the twitter client can acquire geographic data from your smart phone and deliver location-based advertising directly to you in the form of tweets, or if you have the option enabled, as SMS.

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As Mark said we’ve been tweeting through out the class using the #uwmcdm tag so now we have a collaborative class note document that you can see at: http://twemes.com/uwmcdm

Is this helpful? Has it been distracting? How did you all find the twittering in class?

-Adri

Posted by Hanson:

Ok, not a scintillating post title, but you students are the star attraction here, not me.

A Top Blogger Sees an End to Blogging: the novelty of CEO’s “blogging” will end. They’ll just “communicate.”

How We Use Twitter for Journalism: “use of Twitter so far has included: the discovery of breaking stories, quality assurance, and the promotion of our work.”

Great Minute Papers, you all clearly enjoyed our speaker, Scott Ehrlich:

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