Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Well, it's that time of year again, International Talk Like A Pirate Day. So don't be surprised if your tweets are filled with overuse of the letter "r", if you get poked with a hook hand on Facebook, or if Google looks just a little bit different.

What's Been Happening This Week...

International Launch A New Design Week
Apparently there was some aligning of planets in the social world that caused a gravitational pull to the "republish" button. Twitter and Friendfeed released subtle redesigns this week, sure to piss off some followers. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has been hard at work defending the "controversial" new Facebook redesign. Yawn...

More interesting this week were the redesigns that will feature added functionality. MySpace is launching a bigger, better music service that turns everyone's profile into their own Muxtape. IMDB is adding video clips and even full length movies and TV shows. And Joost has finally released a web browser version. Each release came with mild applause but mostly just a lot of cynical bloggers scratching their heads.

Odd Pairings, Sometimes 1 + 1 Equals Confused
Speaking of cynical bloggers... there was A LOT of strange partnerships announced and discussed this week that just fed a frenzy of posts. There was, of course, the on again off again Microsoft-Seinfeld rumor mill. First everyone hated the commercials, then they were warming up to them. Then, there were rumors they were dumped, when new ads were released. And just today I read that there are still plans for new commercials featuring Gates and Seinfeld. Confused, yet?

Other confusing partnerships included Best Buy's purchase of Napster and of course the whole cluster of brands who have joined the grandiosely named Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE).

The Double Standards Of Digital Intimacy
But that's all industry garbledy-gook. The REALLY interesting stuff that happened this week was along this continuing meme of "digital intimacy". When does society demand coverage and when is it deemed a threat to privacy and personal barriers.

Digital Intimacy good? CurrentTV partnered up with Twitter to get tagged (and I'm assuming selected) tweets on television screens around the nation during the presidential debates.

Digital Intimacy evil? It's up for debate whether this is evil, but the popular consensus is that Berny Morson, a Rocky Mountain news reporter, took things too far when he twittered the funeral of a 3-year-old boy. Many in the press took objection to Berny's ethics after the fact, while the rabbi who officiated the funeral saw it as "somebody sharing to a wider community [that was] interested and felt connected to this sad event."

What do you think? Where do we draw the hard lines of privacy?

Until next week...
Marta Strickland