CK's Blog

The 'Sphere Grows Smaller (and more private).

While I've always looked at the BIG ol' blogosphere as a series of small networks, we may be trending even smaller...and more controlled.

Take Six Apart's new "personal blogging service" VOX, launched officially in late October. According to VOX: "Putting material online used to mean putting it up for anyone to see, search, criticize, record, or repurpose. Not anymore. With Vox, you can choose the privacy level for every post, every picture, every sound clip, every video. Put up posts for the world. Put up posts for just your family. Or just your friends. You can control everything."

Or take all the internal blogs that Paul Gillin penned about in his recent "unseen blogosphere" column for BtoB Magazine. According to Gillin: "IBM Corp. has more than 3,000 internal blogs. Procter & Gamble Co. has about 100 internal blogs and is expanding their use to private communications with business partners. Talk to companies that sell blogging software and they'll tell you that most of their corporate business is internal. It's not that big businesses don't "get" blogging; they just don't see a compelling need to do it in public."

Control is key with VOX, or I should say control is key with VOX's users. Control is also key with companies. Between family photos and proprietary corporate information, I understand the desire for confidential communications (but I do advocate that brand and R&D initiatives should invite public involvement).

The sweet spot then, for both of these consumer and corporate segments is that blogging is a superior alternative to e-mail--but only when conducted privately.  So maybe internal and "invite-only" blogs will be a small step to braver, open blogs. Or maybe, just as with websites, intranets and extranets, the blogposphere will continue to grow smaller as it gets bigger.

When the guest star gets spun-off.

In this age of authenticity and accessibility, it's no wonder that it's hitting the stars. Take the FX show Nip/Tuck. I've been watching the show for all the years it's been on. Not for the gore (there are lots of surgeries and such) but for watching the show's Miami Plastic Surgeons work to improve themselves from the inside while their work involves improving everyone from the outside.

It was an edgy drama that did much for the F/X network. "Was" is underlined because, since Season 3, it's been a slippery slope from edgy into poor-form.

Still, from time to time, I tune in. The biggest score this season? A 2-part guest spot that's spun into a series all her own. Rosie O'Donnell had a 2-show guest spot where she played a white-trash, Montel-lovin' woman who won the Lottery.

Once she got monied up, she traded her trailor for a McMansion, tons of cellulite removal, diamonds and men. In gaining millions, she lost her family. Oh, she also lost an ear (she was sporting 5 karat earrings and got "ear-jacked"). But the thing is, through finding out what really matters--family and ears definitely; money and looks not so much--she not only moved viewers, she moved the network into a TV deal. You go, girl.

None of the program's others stars--including those 3 hotties up there who headline the show--have, to my knowledge, been offered any spin-offs, decent movie roles or ad spots. Why oh why on a show about beauty, money and sex does Rosie O'Donnell shine as the most bankable beauty of all? Because in two episodes she connected with viewers. She's given us steak not sizzle. Let's face it, we've been starving for meaningful dialog.

Marketers Listen Up: in this authentic era, start looking for more guest stars to steal the show. In TV and all other media. Now that's hot.

P.S.: Rosie's For All Kids Foundation has been doing tremendous work for the kids of Katrina. She's helped to move the kids out of the government-sanctioned trailors and give them more of a sense of permanency.  So Rosie has trumped both the Headliners...and FEMA. She'll be presenting her model to Congress to teach them how to be better prepared in the future. I'll say it again: You go, girl.

Going Really Green.

I'm not saying you kids should inhale...but research is suggesting that maybe grandma should have. Findings just released from the Scripps Research Institute in California show the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the Alzheimer's disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function.

So the drug that makes you forget and unable to function in the short term winds up making you remember and able to function in the long term. Poetic justice, no?

Yep, marijuana's active ingredient, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, can prevent the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from breaking down more effectively than commercially marketed drugs. Hang on, now the green marketing movement gets really interesting.

Is it me, or between relieving glaucoma, helping reduce side effects from cancer and AIDS treatments and now guarding against Alzheimer's....is marijuana/mary jane/weed/pot/grass/dope/cannabis/chronic/whatever Snoop Dogg wants to call it on any given day...becoming evident as not the "gateway drug" but the wonder drug?

While Vioxx, Celebrex and its chemical siblings are getting recalled and, uh, killing people left and right? Big Pharma might do itself a favor and start buying grow lights because if these results hold water, they're going to need to replace some revenue streams--as there's a market here. It just needs time and tipping points like these.

Having worked projects in life sciences and biotech I can tell you that the costs for drug discovery (pinpointing the next Zanax or Ambien) are astronomical. Millions upon millions. Yet, all the while, the answer might have been growing in our own back yards. I simply must interview the lobbying agency that's surely already on retainer for this initiative: imagine the creative and the tactics for those campaigns. Hmm, maybe it's 'high' time to revisit the egg...

Disclaimer: The marketer behind this blog does not endorse, agree, promote, validate or otherwise concur with Marijuana usage, for medicinal purposes or otherwise. Unless she gets hired to consult on such a groundbreaking movement (then you can puff away since it will drive my client's ROI).

The Power Nap as Profit Center: turning zzz's into $$$'s

Having run out of ways to monetize every minute of our conscious time, marketers have now turned to squeezing sales out of the so-called "sleep economy", purportedly a $20 billion-dollar sector.

Folks, we're just working, partying and blogging too much, sleeping too little. It's a real problem...but every problem is a marketing opportunity just begging to be exploited. And I just love watching new businesses scramble to slice, dice and innovate a newfound marketspace.

Marketers are already making a killing on "sleep aids", the $3 billion we spend popping pills like Lunesta or Ambien to rest our restless minds (not only are we getting to bed too late, we're also having a hard time shutting our minds' down once there).

But those pills are for inducing a full 8 hours. The super-size of sleep. Why limit ourselves to just one offering when a mid-day quickie holds such profit potential?

Now, for $14 a shot, you can pop into MetroNaps for a power nap anytime of day. The company's premier sleep center is in the Empire State Building. How's that for the city that never, er, sleeps? They've recently added a facility in the hustle and bustle of Wall Street.

While I couldn't imagine going into one of these pods to take a mid-day snooze, I know of enough people who take a catnap in their cars at lunchtime--or corporate raiders who crave a late-day snooze before they burn the midnight oil.

Smart marketers indeed, they're actually not marketing peace. Or quiet. Just the opposite: they're marketing alertness, vibrancy, productivity. Smarter still, they're even promoting the following "nap strategies":

• The Recovery MetroNap 11am. After a late night a mid-morning nap will help you function for the first half of the day.
• The Mid-Day MetroNap 4pm. To avoid the mid-day slump, nap in the mid afternoon or approximately 8 hours after you wake.
• The Coffee MetroNap Any time. Boost your energy quickly and substantially by combining a nap with coffee. Drink coffee right BEFORE your nap. Nap during the 20 minutes it takes for your body to metabolize the caffeine.
• The Disco MetroNap 5pm. If you know you’ll have significantly less sleep tonight, prepare with an early-evening nap.

If successful, they'll make naps relevant across younger demos (this ain't your grandfather's afternoon snooze) and perhaps even convince employers to advise their slumping workers to "take 20". Hey, other nations have been taking siestas since the dawn of time, so perhaps we're behind the curve.

And yes, they even feature gift certificates...novel idea for your office Secret Santa this holiday?