August 2007 Archive

I should have perhaps written this post a bit earlier. A few months ago, while explaining some basic strategies of good web design such as trying to keep the most important information as few clicks from the homepage as possible, out of my mouth came a new term: "Click Laziness".

I meant to write about this term earlier, but I think I can still lay claim to it. A Google search shows that the term has been used only in a few web forums. There are no book titles with the name, no movies or animations.

So there, I’m piking my flag into the soft soil of eLanguage. May it be official that Justin R. Buchbinder, senior content strategist and lead copywriter of Ruder Finn Interactive, has claimed creation of the term "Click Laziness" and all other uses (including, but not limited to, "Click Lazy" "Clicking Laze", etc.)

Now - what is Click Laziness? I’m not going to say it speaks directly to the tried and true three-click rule. I think it’s more along the lines of a personal aversion to clicking patterns that you are so used to performing. I do NOT think that Click Laziness has to do with clicking through a new site. So long as the copy and design and structure make sense and let you know where you’re going, Click Laziness does not apply.

Click Laziness applies to the instances when we’re doing something we’ve grown accustomed to doing ad nauseum. This can include filling in near-identical web forms (ordering tickets, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer merchandise). It can also occur when treading a familiar route on a website to find information we found once before. It might take place in the office, when you’d rather run a 10-minute mile through a bad part of town than click to the 15th level of your current client folder directory to pull out an SOW.

Now - is there an answer to Click Laziness? Maybe not. I think it’s more a part of nature than it is a problem we can solve; Just like Restless Leg Syndrome (sorry Pharma! Sometimes legs like to bounce a bit!) We get lazy sometimes. We might go to the gym five days a week, but wouldn’t we just love our roommate to take out the pizza boxes? (All those stairs to the garbage!) Same thing here.

So we get click lazy. Instead of visiting a site, and copy-pasting its URL into an email, instead we call them and tell them to Google it. Or we abandon a website with a great deal just because we can’t begin to fill out our billing and mailing addresses. So what’s the solution to Click Laziness? Maybe it’s just an intern, or someone close enough to your office that you can bark a command for them to go to a site and copy some text for you. Other than that, I’m out of ideas.

I feel like Click Laziness doesn’t apply only to me and a few people on Mac message boards. Rather, I think we all suffer from this condition, but just simply don’t have a name for it. Do you find a similar Click Laziness in you? I bet you do. I’d ask you to leave a comment, but I really don’t have the energy to approve it on our backend management system.

I am a dog person. No, I am more than a dog person, I am person who is obsessed with dogs. Much like women who experience baby fever, I have a dogological clock that is ticking inside of me.

I crave puppies. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and the first thing I think is, “I need a dog, oh God, I need one!” I stop on the street and pet almost any dog with a patient owner. I talk to them when I see them. When my coworker brings his dog, Virgil, into the office I spend at least 10% of my day walking by and waving at the dog or on my knees rubbing his puppy belly.

Oh it gets worse too. I look up puppy images during my free time, and sometime when I am really busy. Obviously I have an RSS feed from Cute Overload! (that smiley is part of the Official Name of that site). I send links of my favorite puppy pics in e-mails and AIM conversation…and I know what you are thinking, and YES that dog does look like Jake Gyllenhaal!!!

This is a big part of who I am and what I do. I love puppies! In high school I even wrote a song called “I love puppies” with my best friend, it was heavy metal, I am 100% serious.

So I think I have fully illustrated my love of puppies now. So you can understand how excited I was when I found out you can rent dogs, right here in NYC.

FLEXPETZ offers a solution for dog lovers who are unable to commit all their love and attention to a dog full-time by granting FLEXPETZ members access to a dog of their choice for a few hours, up to a few days. And not just here in NYC, “your FLEXPETZ membership is valid at any FLEXPETZ location. Just imagine visiting New York, Chicago, Paris or London and strolling through the city and parks with a FLEXPETZ dog!”

If I ever walk along the streets of Paris how could it be without a dog?

It sounds like a great idea. They take rescued dogs and match them up with lonely city dwellers who are looking for puppy love. They do not euthanize old or ill dogs, which is sweet. It’s a mutually beneficial service.

But in the back of my mind a little, attention starved, voice keeps saying, “It’ll never be yours.”
“Shh,” I say, “it doesn’t matter. I just want companionship.”
“Oh, who do you think you’re kidding?” the little voice replies. “You know the thought of that puppy’s paws all over someone else would eat away at you. You want that puppy all to yourself. Don’t deny it!”
I break down, “Ok, ok! You are right! I want a puppy that is all my own. A puppy I can wake up with in the morning, and I puppy I come home to a night. I could never share my love, and I deserve a dog that won’t share his.”

It’s dramatic I know, but it’s a moral issue. I couldn’t parade around town in a fake pet/owner relationship.

But it’s a damn fine idea.

Once again, viral has made headlines! What’s the next viral sensation? More soda antics? Did Alanis do another remix? Did those Cebu prisoners learn the dance moves to Footloose?

No! This time we owe our thanks to none other than Miss South Carolina 2007. She was asked an intriguing question: Why can’t 1/5 of Americans point out the United States on a world map?

The answer COULD have been about:

• No Child Left Behind.
• Or the focus on math and science, therefore not on geography and history.
• Or maybe it could have been about the rise of pop culture uselessness and a wildly decreasing attention span.
• Or about our US-centric world where you don’t need to know where your country is on a map.

Instead her answer had something to do with Iraq, Asian countries, and the sad reality that many "U.S. Americans" don’t have maps.

Counting all versions, we’re already well beyond 1 million views in a span of one day. And, thanks to my emailing, we’ll reach 2 mill by quittin’ time.

I’m sure there will be a Miss South Carolina remix before the week is out. Maybe they’ll even juxtapose what she said to one of George W. Bush’s speeches on education. The sky’s the limit, and you know that the Internets will find the rocket shoes to get soaring.

Quick, corporations! Contact Miss America and get rights to this video. It would be excellent for:

• moveon.org (anti- No Child)
• Kaplan study aids
• Revlon brown hair dye
• McDonalds (they just buy viral anyway, I’m sure they’ll figure out how to use it.)

So what makes this viral? Humor, of course, that’s key. But there’s more - the unbelievability factor. Is it really possible that someone could say something we wouldn’t even believe coming from Elle Woods in Legally Blonde?

Also there’s Mario Lopez, formerly known as A.C. Slater from TV’s Saved by the Bell. I’m pretty sure Lopez can make anything viral. He just has that sort of power.

In a world of viral video where no movie or celebrity or old TV show is safe, I’m surprised it took someone so long to get the idea for an interesting new movie. Thank heavens, the time where User Generated Media takes the spotlight is at hand! Behold Be Kind, Rewind - the new movie directed by Michel Gondry.

Be Kind, Rewind stars Mos Def as the owner of an old-fashioned VHS video store, and Jack Black as his mysteriously magnetized friend. One day Jack enters the store and somehow erases the information on every video in the store.

Onoes! What are we going to do? Won’t Mos Def have to close the store down and hit the streets in search of a new job or a lucrative multi-million dollar rapping career? No, not quite. Jack Black comes up with a brilliant idea: all they have to do is refilm all the movies! And that is exactly what they do. With nothing but a video camera and some cheap costumes, they begin to remake everything from Ghostbusters to Driving Miss Daisy.

Just watching the trailer, it becomes obvious what Gondry’s vision of User Generated Media is: he seems to be very much for it. The video store patrons become enamored of the new movies, and begin demanding them. The trailer shows what seems to be a future fame for the two main characters.

But not all User Generated Media gives way to happy-slappy comedy. JJ Abrams, Producer of Lost, is utilizing UGM for a far more disturbing purpose: a horror film. The movie currently titled "1-18-08" and also known as "Cloverfield" MIGHT be a monster movie (no one’s sure yet - it could be a disaster). What we do know is that the majority of the movie will be delivered in video camera, camera phone, and webcam footage. That’s right - an attack on New York City where the citizens let you know what’s happening as they face the horror. Check out the trailer for "1-18-08"

I’m excited about these new User Generated Media-focused and -lensed films. It seems to be opening up the craft to all new possibilities. Who knows what other inventive stories will come from this?

I was reading this article, Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch, in the New York Times and I got seriously freaked out.

Basically the article is about these “posthumans” who, through advances in technology, could build computers with the processing technology that would be stronger than all the brains in the world and they would create virtual worlds with virtual people who have virtual nervous systems. They explain that it’s like The Matrix except no Keanu, so it might be better or worse depending on which pill you would choose.

So like I said, reading it and thinking about is a little unsettling, but then that turned to annoyance. If they are projecting that we’ll have this “computing power” by the middle of the century then why the hell aren’t things cooler right now? I mean if we are on the verge of virtual life why does my computer always forget the printer settings? Or why is my mailbox always over the size limit no matter what I delete?

So I have a message for all you smart people out there thinking of this stuff. Forget about making a cool virtual world, make this one better! I want vending machines that take debit cards, because I don’t think that is too much to ask. Let’s figure out a way to get rid of batteries and send energy through the air to my Blackberry and iPod. Oh I know, let’s make moving sidewalks for everywhere, not just theme parks and airports.

I am throwing out gold here people. Hop to it! No more coins! No more batteries! No more walking! And then we can work on no more breathing.

Hey there, dudes and chicas!

I think you all know who I am, but, just in case - I’m Lindsay Lohan, and Justin totally let me take over his Blog today. Like my friend Paris says: that’s hot.

Anyway, he told me to write about cool ways people are using marketing on Blogs. But that was SOOOOO snore-zo. I told him I’d do it, but I think I’ll talk about my new movie, I Know Who Killed Me. I don’t really know what it was about (I was very tired when making this movie. I came in late a lot, and people were always crashing into my car.) Anyway, it’s out, so you should check it out! I say the F-Word in it a lot - and you can totally see that on some YouTube video that Justin won’t let me link to.

Ugh. Justin’s whining now. I can’t stand this guy. All he does is talk about the Internet. "Lindsay! Write about that Jet Blue thing we talked about. Boo hoo. Wah Wah." How DO you people deal with him every single day?

FINE! Whatever. Okay, so he won’t leave me alone until I talk about how Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons took over Jet Blue CEO David Neeleman’s Blog. I don’t really care either way. What I care about is finding out who’s jeans I’m wearing today. There’s stuff in these pockets that… yeah. Nevermind.

Who cares if a CEO did something "risky" like letting an old cartoon dude write his Blog for a month? Big deal that it’s "edgy" and "crazy" and "totally wouldn’t work with most companies"! That’s not risky. Believe me, I know risky. Try downing a pint of SoCo and speeding away from the papparazzi at 4:30 in the morning. THAT’s risky.

Jeez. He won’t shut up! "Blah blah Lindsay, I can’t believe I let you do this. My boss is going to kill me. Can’t you talk about how smart it is to do risky things like that, especially in marketing? How trailblazing it is, and how it totally fits the branding of Jet Blue?"

I’m SO done! Where’s my agent? Did I sign a contract for this crap? I’m out of here. Go see my movie.

I gotta go find out whose pants these are.

xoxoLinds

Viral videos continue to amaze me to this day. Just the idea that any type of video, any type at all, could suddenly garner such attention, to the tune of millions of views, without a lick of advertising (and don’t fool yourself, if you’re advertising your viral, you’re cheating).

But the viral video fairy has swooped by once more! After sprinkling her user-interest dust on:

• men with bottles of diet coke and a few mentos,
• Alanis Morisette and a bit of Fergie-licious teasing, and
• those two improvisors who are "into nuggets y’all",

she has picked yet another strange online video on which to lavish her affections…

Feast your eyes on the 1500 inmates of Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, in Cebu, Philippines!

I have to admit, when I first heard of the video’s basic conceits - prisoners en masse, I feared for the worst. Maybe I can blame Gitmo and stories of prison abuse. But of course it doesn’t matter what I blame, because the video is not the least bit offensive, and absolutely amazing.

The 1500 inmates, you see, are trained to perform the authentic Michael Jackson’s "Thriller" dance. Complete with the beginning vignette where Michael and his girlfriend wander through the cemetary after seeing a horror movie starring Vincent Price.There is nothing like the visual of 1500 orange-clad men dancing and leering to one of my favorite Jacko numbers.

How popular is it, Justin? So popular! No, seriously, this version of the video was posted on July 17th and has already earned its weight in users with over three and a half million views. Exactly. Two weeks. Three point five million views.

So what is it that makes it viral?

• For one, I see the "unbelieveable" aspect to play a role. Much like the online world couldn’t believe that a bottle of diet soda would blow up from the mere introduction of a tiny piece of candy, I imagine they can’t fathom the thought of 1500 prisoners being allowed out into the open air together, and then those prisoners getting together to do a spot-on rendition of a dance without breaking out into knife fights.
• Two, we’re dealing with an international pop favorite. Despite the social downfall of its creator, Thriller, and its accompanying zombie dance is still remembered fondly by many people in many generations. To this day you stand a chance of seeing a newly released movie where the actors are more than willing to lift their arms and teeter back and forth together.
• Three, it’s brilliant escapism. I mentioned Gitmo, and I stand by it. We hear so many horrendous things about prisons the world over, so isn’t it wonderful to see a prison where the detainees are schooled in the finer art of crotch-grabbing and moonwalking?

Are there more reasons for its popularity? I’m sure, and I’d love to hear other opinions. But what I do know is that there is no advertising budget behind this video. It wasn’t done to increase the popularity of the Cebu detention center. And it wasn’t created to usher in a new type of product. And here it is, with three and a half million views.

So what to do? Maybe follow the McDonalds idea. Don’t make your own video, buy someone else’s! What company would benefit from this video? Maybe it will make a great advertisement for Michael Jackson’s upcoming reunion tour.

Or, maybe, just reconsider viral. Realize the trends that are evident here, especially the art of impossibility:

• Did Alanis REALLY just spoof fergie?
• Did these guys REALLY write a rap for McNuggets?
• Does Mentos REALLY make soda explode?
• Does the Cebu detention facility REALLY make their inmates learn dance numbers?

In this confusing state, users then learn that, yes, it is all really, really true. So embrace the unbelievability, and craft yourself a really intriguing, funny, and impossible viral.

Or call the Cebu detention facility, and ask them if anyone beat you to the punch.