Wikis are cool. They tap into the collective knowledge of the crowd. But, most of the time the masses are asses when it comes to the Internet. As I’ve said before, even Wikipedia has policies and rules that winnow out…well, garbage.
British Government Minister David Miliband, secretary of state for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), learned this lesson the hard way. The idealistic Miliband thought he would tap into the wisdom of the crowd by setting up a wiki on the idea of environmental contracts, which outline an individual’s responsibility to the environment.
He got more than he bargained for with users posting practical jokes and even swastikas. Poor Minister Miliband had to shut down his wiki toute suite. All it took was one big practical joker, pseudonymous “Guido Fawkes” at order-order.com to get the ball rolling.
Fawkes is not the least repentant. Here’s what he had to say about the whole mess:
“Nobody was interested in his bloody wiki for weeks. Guido generously publicised the wiki and the claim that it welcomed ‘new viewpoints,’ even going to the trouble of making his own polite and reasoned contribution, as did a few fellow co-conspirators,” wrote Fawkes on his blog, claiming that Miliband had “thrown all his toys out of the sandpit.”Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 11:58 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Taking the concept of branded entertainment to a new level, Anheiser-Busch is planning to launch Bud.tv, an online entertainment network, following the Super Bowl in early February. The New York Times’ Stuart Elliott has all the details—Bud.tv will consist of six channels of comedy, reality, sports and talk programming created for and by Anheuser-Busch. The beer maker is even considering the addition of a “fashion” channel at some point (this I’d like to see.)
One other channel on the drawing board is Bud Tube, a beer-oriented You Tube-esque site, where viewers will be encouraged to “generate their own Anheuser-Busch ads, comedic in nature,” and share them among friends.
The content will come from a number of sources, including, of course, ad agencies. But some other sources cited include companies owned by Hollywood stars like LivePlanet (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon), TriggerStreet.com (Kevin Spacey), and Wild West Picture Show Productions (Vince Vaughn) as well as somall production companies like Omelet and Seed.
In pursuing Bud.tv, Anheiser-Busch is simply following its customers to the online world.
“We still have plenty of strong, traditional national TV venues for our messages such as live sports,” said Anthony T. Ponturo, vice president for global media and sports marketing at Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, part of the Anheuser-Busch Companies.
Going forward, “the Internet will be equal to or better than television,” Mr. Ponturo said, particularly in reaching the company’s target audience for beers like Budweiser and Bud Light, which is men ages 21 to 34.
One issue for the beer company is how to ensure that underage users don’t become denizens of what I suspect will be extremely popular sites. Think of the viral nature of Anheiser-Busch’s past SuperBowl ads — according to the company, the last round of SuperBowl ads were downloaded 700,000 times and viewed by an additional 22 million people at sites such as Google Video.
Anheiser-Busch’s response to this fear is to require users to register and create profiles. Information will be required (credit card? the name of Paul McCartney’s band after the Beatles broke up? what?) that extends beyond age and birth-date to verify that the user is over 21.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:57 AM | Print | Comments (0)
Silicon Valley Metro Connect, a consortium of companies that includes Azulstar Networks, Cisco Systems, IBM and Seakay, has been selected to build the largest, at least geographically, free Wi-Fi network in the country. The network will span 1,500 miles and cover at least 40 cities and communities that include around 2.4 million people.
It’s not a completely done deal — the San Mateo County Telecommunications Authority and Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network agreed to recommend the group as the area’s preferred wireless provider, but according to the San Jose Mercury News, the consortium now has to persuade the jurisidictions to allow it to provide service in their communities. MetroConnect has to hammer out a model contract and then negotiate community by community, much the way cable operators and phone companies land their video franchises today.
MetroConnect has to work with the local goverments to gain access to the public rights of way. There are around 30,000 Wi-Fi access points that have to be mounted on city poles and conduits throughout the region. A number of cities in the region already have free Wi-Fi for their citizens, including Mountain View, San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Cupertino.
The free service option delivers 1 Mbps download speeds, but premium tiers will be available, with the top tier priced at $59.95/month for 3 Mbps/download service. Few of the residents will be able to access the service indoors, unless they’re very near an access point. But MetroConnect will offer boosting gear for $80 to $120 that brings the signals indoors.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 7:31 AM | Print | Comments (0)
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