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June 03, 2004

Action

: Mike Tucker, an American filmmaker in Berlin, has gone to Baghdad to make two movies with the soldiers there. He has a blog and trailers for the latest up here. Watch the first trailer: GI rap.

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Money makes ze veb go around

: In case you missed it, Nick Denton launched a custom-blogged site for a big-name advertiser, Nike.

It's significant for two reasons: First, and most important this is a major brand using weblogs as a branding medium. That's big, people. It took ages for major web publishers to convince big advertisers that the Internet could be a branding medium (that is, a place where you associate your brand with quality content to good effect, rather than merely going for clicks or direct response). That is why The Times' Martin Nisenholtz had to create the Online Publishers Association. But here, Denton has created an environment suitable for branding, and Nike -- a king of brands -- bought it (for good bucks). That is great for the medium.

Second, Denton gave Nike a new and creative means of advertising with a custom blog. It's a new form and needs to get its legs. It needs to learn how to involve and interact with the audience/public/consumers; it needs to find a voice that makes the blog compelling and is still compatible with the brand; it needs to surprise with links out into the Web and not just into Nike's festival. The custom-published blog also needs to confirm that the audience understands this was bought (but Gawker's content is not), which they accomplish with clear "advertising section" labels. What's important is that a premier blogger saw the need and opportunity to serve a branded advertiser in a creative way.

: Rex Hammock, custom-publishing mogul, adds:

Since Nick Denton is today announcing that Gawker Media is launching a "contract publishing" service, I have decided to announce that Hammock Publishing is doing the same. Actually, we launched it about 13 years ago, but today seemed to be a good day to announce it....

As for Hammock Publishing, we anticipate launching our first "custom published" weblog later this summer. I will keep you posted. Promise.

: UPDATE: Frank Barnako at CBS Marketwatch (whose column I can NEVER find in their byzantine architecture, by the way) just sniped at Denton's custom publishing. Frank quoted me starting off criticizing the effort and then praising the fact that a big brand is using the medium; I would have put that in the other order. When Frank called me as I wended my way to Better Burger in Manhattan (disappointing, I'm sorry to say) he complained first that Nick was a "charlatan" for putting up what really isn't a blog. I first gave the speech above on the great news about big-name branding and then said, sure, it could be more bloggish. I told him that Nick and Remy know it's a work in progress and they asked for suggestions. So I gave them a few (e.g., get other folks to review the films and blog that; link to some other things that are about the art of speed but don't have to do with Nike or film, like, say, a beautiful picture of a fast horse from the Belmont). That, I said, is the easy part; the thing just started yesterday and it needs to interact with the audience but couldn't until it went public. So I stand by what I said above.

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Shoes

: Critt Jarvis (no apparent relation) sends on an amazing post by Philip Jarvis, a master gunner serving in Iraq.

He tells of working with Iraqis who are paid $5 a day to fill sandbags. Most are teenagers.

There was one kid, Rami, who wore old sandals. One of his toenails was broken with a blood blister formed under it. He had several cuts on his feet from the jagged rocks. He asked for shoes. One of the soldiers who I assigned to supervise the Iraqis had recently purchased new running shoes. He gave his old ones, which were serviceable, to Rami. The kid told me he would come back the next day to work for us again.

The next day's batch of workers arrived in a large group. I began to search the ground, looking for the shoes from the day before. Rami was standing there, proud of his shoes, smiling when he saw me looking for them. I gave him thumbs up and pointed him into my work group....

Another Iraqi, Hassam-Sali, asked for shoes a few days ago. We only had one pair of shoes the other day; Rami's feet were in worse condition. I
called Monika, my wife, and explained the situation. Most of the Iraqis wear dilapidated sandals that afford little protection for their feet. The shoes that Americans give out are appreciated, and worn on a daily basis. Several workers show up wearing old desert boots or black Army boots. I have some old shoes in the basement that she mailed out. She also called her workplace, School Age Services, in Schweinfurt and started a shoe collection program.

I showed Hassam-Sami a picture of Monika and explained that it would be a few weeks before the shoes arrive. He smiled and vowed to work hard every day. He told me that I am his friend and made the symbol with his fingers. I just want him to fill sandbags and go home.

I wish that were the end of the story. But it's not:A few days later, Jarvis was waiting for the workers to enter the compound when he hjeard a hjuge explosion. A suicide bomber set himself off by the Iraqi workers, killing and injuring many Iraqis, only Iraqis.

My heart sank as I looked at the group of young Iraqis. Their eyes did not show emotion. I expected to see fear, hate, rage, or loss in their expression. They have been through so much in their lives; they just stood still waiting to see what we were going to do with them. I was told that one of the Iraqis lost a brother in the attack. They were supposed to feel safe with us overwatching them. It was such an ugly moment; unable to change the course that evil took.

None of the workers showed up at the gate today. How am I supposed to give Hassam-Sali his shoes?

In one breath, this makes the good work of Spirit of America seem at least frustrating: A few Americans want to help a few Iraqis but the Iraqis are still bombing each other.

But in the next breath, it makes the work of Spirit of America all the more vital. While Iraqis and other Middle Easterners are blowing Iraqis up, we need to show that we are here to help in any way we can, even small ways, person to person, American to Iraqi, with a pair of shoes or school materials or tools or business loans or sewing machines or, yes, even weblogs.

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Plogs

: Amazon uses the blog form to make recommendations in what it calls a plog -- a personalized blog.

Your Amazon.com Plog is a diary of events that will enhance your shopping experience, helping you discover products that have just been released, track changes to your orders, and many other things. Just like a blog, your Plog is sorted in reverse chronological order. When we think we have something interesting or important to tell you, we'll post it to your Plog.

If Amazon were smart, they'd really make it into a blog -- they'd encourage us -- buyers, users, readers, writers, whatever the hell we are -- to post to that "plog" ... and create content ... and generate traffic ... and generate sales ... and get a cut for those sales ... and end up in a big conversation about buying stuff at Amazon. If they were really smart, they'd do that.

But, instead, they merely used the reverse-chronological-order grammar of blogs to liven up their recommendations and make them more urgent and newsy. And that's good. That alone would be clever.

But I wouldn't call it a "blog" or "plog" unless I meant it, unless I went the next step to truly turn my customers into publishers. Otherwise, all Amazon is doing is trying to rub off on the heat/cool of blogs. And that's not smart. That fades fast.

Yo, Amazon, go by this.

: And, of course, I forgot to mention that the best thing to include would be links to a user/reader/writer/buyer/blogger/plogger's own book reviews both within Amazon and on a blog elsewhere. With permalinks to the Amazon reviews, blogers would link directly to them from their own blogs. Traffic grows. Conversation grows. Sales grow.

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