Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

United 93: The Serial

For the regular readers out there (thanks, Cara), United 93 got to me in so many ways that I created a bunch of posts and have them scheduled to run throughout the week. I'll admit I often do this, especially on weekends, so that there's no glut of posts followed by a drought. Here, it's especially pertinent, as I have one topic to explore from a number of angles. Maybe I'll find some inspiration to tie it into a Search Insider column, though that's unlikely - these are blog exclusives.

If you did see the film, won't see it, are planning on it, or just care for any reason in particular, please share your thoughts in the comments.

United 93: No Escape

I might have to do a few blog posts on the film United 93, as I'm of many minds about it. One unequivocal take: this movie was made perfectly, and its timing was personally reasonable. I was admittedly a little bugged out by the whole concept of it, but there's no reason why it shouldn't have been made and released now. That being said, most people would do perfectly well to skip it.

This is the first time I can recall crying at all during a movie. Even during the title screens of the production companies, the silence was stirring, and I was on edge and fidgeting through the first half of the film. That was uncomfortable enough. As soon as the second plane hit the World Trade Center though (a view no different than the one shown on TV that day; I'd seen this footage dozens of times), I started to lose it. My eyes teared up, and which kept happening throughout the rest of the film. The death of real people affected me far more than I could have imagined.

There are a lot of reasons for it. One is the connection to history itself. I was in New York on September 11, getting off the subway at about 9:15am in Union Square after voting in primaries for the city election. A man who collected money for a homeless organization, UHO (in my head, I called him "Randall," though I never knew his real name), told me that two planes flew really low just overhead and emergency vehicles kept coming through. Heading to University Place, I could see the Towers on fire, smoke billowing, the top halves of the buildings clearly visible two miles south. I then headed to eMarketer, my employer at the time, at 821 Broadway on 12th St. Two weeks later, I was supposed to attend a conference at Windows on the World, the top-floor World Trade Center restaurant. I received an e-mail after the planes hit the Towers but before the Towers' implosion that the event was canceled, and I remember thinking that was ludicrous. The damage didn't look that bad. Why scrap plans so soon?

My obliviousness to what was happening is well mirrored in the film. No one had a sense of the gravity of the situation. It's nothing short of miraculous that the passengers on the plane with their vague reports from loved ones watching CNN had a much greater appreciation of what was happening than any official in the military, aviation, or anywhere else monitoring the situation with all their tracking devices, recordings, news footage, and presumably the most sophisticated technology available anywhere.

Another aspect that might have hit home more personally is that in 2001, I wasn't traveling much - maybe one plane trip a year. Now, it's an average of twice a month, mostly for business. In the past five weeks, it averaged more like a flight a week - Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, West Palm Beach, San Francisco. I see the passengers on their phones thinking this is going to be just another flight. They don't know they're part of a scheme of events that will affect the history of our civilization. Identifying with those anonymous people - I couldn't tell you the name of a single character in the film (though the movie's website helps shed more light) - gives this movie pertinence like few others can have. It is very, very real.

More thoughts coming. Share yours in the comments.

Barry Bonds, Meet the Mets

Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of catching a pre-conference Mets game with a number of close friends, bloggers, and tech geeks. Thanks in no particular order to all those who came out, including Andrew Marcus, Jeremiah Owyang, Maura Lewis, Jesse Tayler, Debbie Sharabi, Shel Israel, James Gross, Keith Kamisugi, Reno Marioni, Jeremy Pepper, Juan del Real, and special guest Steve Hall. I'd link to all your sites, but then I'd never wake up in time for the show. Thanks also to Steve Trachsel, who pitched the quickest game of his career and even gave the hometown fans something to cheer about when Bonds homered in the 4-1 loss.

Search Insider: Expandable Results

Google's testing expandable results. I remain unconvinced. It's all in the column.

I'm blogging with Ad:Tech tomorrow and need my beauty sleep here at Hotel Diva, so I'll keep this short. Send a line if you're out here.

Blogging from the West Side

I'm off to the West Coast this week, joining Steve Hall and friends once again on the AdTechBlog. If you're in San Francisco this week, send a line.

Styrophobia

For those of you who actually get to work on time, you don't know what you're missing on the morning talk show circuit. Today, for instance, I was treated to the first few minutes of "Tyra," the talk show hosted by America's last top model, or something like that. I don't know why it was on. All I know is that after hearing NY1's news for the fourth consecutive time around this morning, I needed something else.

This was definitely something else.

There was a woman who was deathly afraid of styrofoam. She even threw out her four-year-old son's Easter art project since it was made with styrofoam egg cartons. There were actually some feasible psychological underpinnings (no, nothing involving the Duke Lacrosse team; just some uncle who'd spit tobacco in styrofoam cups which she was urged to avoid as a kid). Still, I'm amazed this fear exists. I call it styrophobia.

Apparently this isn't a totally new phenomenon. A Google search on "fear of styrofoam" (with the quotes) turns up 47 results, such as this one - which tells of a woman who also fears (brace yourself) chalk.

I'm not the only one who was floored by this Ty-revelation. The entire video segment is online here.

One other fun fact: you can't spell "styrofoam" without "Tyra." However, you can spell "polystyrene" without her. Another great life lesson from Marketers Studio.

Search Insider: The Hyper-Relevant Zone

I didn't see this one go out, and no responses came in. Perhaps it's a technical glitch, or perhaps you can skip this column. Still, I think the meat here describes an issue that every single marketer engaging in search engine optimization, paid search, and feeds needs to be aware of.

From this week's column:

In a MediaPost "Just an Online Minute" column last week, writer Wendy Davis discussed a recent Merrill Lynch report that said Google may present a conflict of interest with advertisers by including links to its own content in natural and paid results. Every engine does this in one way or another, and it's arguably in the consumer's best interest. We'll explore if and how this threatens marketers, and what marketers can do.

There are several types of conflicts of interest that can present themselves, but today we'll focus on one type in particular: when engines link to content that sits above the body of natural results, oftentimes sandwiched between sponsored and natural listings. There's no universal term for these, so I'll call them Hyper-Relevant listings. Taking the engines' perspective, these are supposed to be more relevant to the user than either the natural or paid results. Otherwise, there'd be no need for them.

There are three types of Hyper-Relevant results, which I'll call Dead Ends, Flypaper, and Cross-Sells.

See what all three of these mean, and what the implications really are.

Finding Scammers on LinkedIn

For anyone who's been in touch with James Obi of Nigeria, please update your contact info. (Click the image at left to enlarge.)

Please note that if this helps you get your $20 million, I get a cut.

Hopefully There's Also a Special on Cornbread

It's funny enough seeing certain kosher-style items in the Passover section of grocery stores, but this shot, thanks to the forward by Bobbye Tigerman, shows one store that really misses the boat. This makes about as much sense as a restaurant greeting Ramadan worshippers with an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch.

The moral of the story: know your audience.

To those celebrating, Happy Passover. If you're celebrating or just curious, here are a few links relating the story of the holiday to Darfur: "Let us not rest until the people of Darfur, too, are free." Amen.

Search Insider: ISO Water Cooler

This week, I ruminate on personal-social-vertical search, whatever that is. Excerpt below with a link to follow.

For Google, social search would involve tying a few pieces together of what it's already doing. Google already personalizes results for registered users based on their previous searches. It could further personalize search results based on groups of registered users-- namely, those on a user's Google Talk list. Now, following this line of logic, assume that this group of registered users is clustered largely around one or two common themes, such as technologists in the Pacific Northwest or Bible Belt NASCAR fans or Binghamton University college students. With personalized search results based on a presumably like-minded community of users, it all starts to resemble vertical search, a concept Eurekster acknowledges about its swickis.

To recap, personalized search becomes social search. Social search becomes vertical search. All of this with the goal of making search results more relevant.

See where this is coming from in MediaPost.