Odds & Ends

Blog Hos: “Social Media Is Special” brand Kool-Aid drinkers are all up in arms this weekends because one of their heroes - popular blogger Chris Brogan - took a $500 gift card from K-Mart in return for writing a blog post about it on his non-marketing related fatherhood blog Dadomatic. Intelligent discussion on the topic can be found over at Amber Naslund’s Altitude Branding blog. My Two Cents: Brogan’s Dadomatic - a group blog with feel-good posts like “How to Slow Down Christmas” is a perfect venue for K-Mart and for sponsored posts. (I mean it's not like anything's being compromised with the addition of a sponsored post.) That, and K-Mart has no place to go but up after their debacle last year where Wall Street Journal editor Laura Llandro was arrested for placing an errant pair of flip-flops in the wrong box, thus inadvertently saving about $9 on an $800 purchase. K-Mart was unrepentant and Llandro wrote a scathing piece on the experience that received prominent placement in the paper.

Too Many Comments?: I’ve noticed that the New York Times is trying out a solution to posts with hundreds of comments: an editor’s selections tab that’s the default comment tab. Interesting in that it once again places power in the hands of editors, e.g. people with their own agenda, rather than letting readers have the final say. Every revolution has its setbacks though.

Charlie Brown, Senior Copywriter: AdBroad is featuring this very funny video someone made spoofing “A Charlie Brown Christmas” - high production values and very funny script- brilliant spoof if you work in or around the ad business.

Mortgage Crisis, Part 2: Fund manager Whitney Tilson (a good friend of mine from back in the day, hence the plug) is on 60 Minutes tonight in a story spotlighting the second act of the mortgage crisis. If you’re really interested, you can download his presentation here (it’s in the right-hand column under “T2 Partners”)