The Internets can always be amusing, or interesting or just plain frustrating. It really just depends on what side of the fence you are, on any given subjects. Today, I was reading some of my Twitter stream when a few came across about Ford Motor Company and Cafe Press , and a calendar. Okay, not exactly ground breaking, blogworthy news, but some people already jumped on a bandwagon so I had to check it out. Full disclosure: I was born in Detroit, and we had a Mustang, and I've bought stuff on Cafe Press. This reminded me of a conversation I had a few weeks back with a well-respected reporter: there's truth, and then there's blogosphere truth. And, rarely do they meet. (Hey, look at my great graph illustrating it). What do I mean? What happens usually in the blogosphere is that something is glommed onto as truth, and that might not be the full truth or even the half truth. But, with the blogosphere, things can spiral out of control quickly, and then the blogosphere truth ...

A panel on the changing face of media, albeit a lot of old sounding theories and practices. But, you have to love Ze Frank for his show, Philip Kaplan for shaking up the industry with Fucked Company and potentially with Spottt , and Jeremy Allaire pushing the video against the grain of YouTube and for professionalism with Brightcove . Kaplan: there are no more networks anymore, we are all our own networks. It is causing a problem with the large brands - such as MTV - because content is available Ze Frank: Media is anything you can advertise against or put a brand against. Anything is media. The challenge is that there is a fragmentation that is causing confusion. There are conversations, media online is a conversational tool with more capital. Allaire: The behavior of media is as valuable as media itself. It is about how to monetize media, or just the metadata. It can sometimes be more valuable than just the content itself. Ze Frank: There are boundaries in where companies can operat...

The way that MTV looks at its audience is that they are BFFs, and with the understanding of that, that tastes change and that BFFs do have fall-outs. They recognize that not everyone is going to enjoy the shows, but they do want to have that relationship with their audiences. While teens are "beyond televisions" as the single medium in their life. It's an important part of their life, and MTV has adapted to be more than just a channel. On the service, it is the bands that is the message for MTV. And, it is about integrating advertising messages in a new way, in a different way. It's a way for the advertisers to connect with their audience - it becomes a part of the show. So, listening to MTV, all I can think is ... wait. This is just exploitive in a way marketing to people that are not mature enough to differentiate between content and advertising. It's taking advantage of kids that are not mentally mature enough to understand what they are seeing (because, let...

Every company is a media company now - so sayeth Richard Edelman during his presentation. Now, full disclosure, I used to work for a competitor, but also interviewed both Richard and the head of the US, Pam Talbot and have a view on the firm (it's below). His presentation is on how PR is changing, and how we need to change with it. For those basic rules, he points out: Transparency Dialogue Honesty Immediacy Depth of content Updating as you learn Journalistic level of accuracy Okay, it has been an interesting speech. While I don't agree with all the hires for the ME2Revolution, Edelman (the man and the firm) has pushed the boundary much, much more than any other agency out there. During my round of interviews with both PR firms and start-ups, I was often asked which agencies get it, and I would say three firms immediately: Edelman, MWW and MS&L . While Edelman gets a lot of the press out there (it's the good stuff you don't hear about, just the Walmart crap), th...

From the Playboy perspective with Christie Hefner - that true brands represent attitude and a point of view, that can be moved from one product to another. It can play in different spaces. It is about evolving and expanding the brand, as the media landscape has continued to change. Embrace and leverage new opportunities. How do you expand a brand that has gone into television, online, mobile - what is the next step for Playboy that will continue to expand and transform the publication. Online is the democratization of content - the diminishing of authority has been the result, though. It is becoming more dynamic, more interactive. The original fear was that online was going to devolve where people did not interact in the meat world anymore. For Playboy, though, it has been the opposite where they extend the brand online and in the real world with the sponsorships of events. It is about creating an experience around the brand with Playboy destinations - going for high tech and high tou...

And, from History of the World Part I ... of course they are, they're ugly. (Rim Shot). For corporations, the fear is that the consumers/customers are talking and not listening, but pushing their own agenda. Corporations do believe that they are speaking to consumers - feedback forms, etc - but without realizing that they are just engaged in one-way dialogue, and not really listening to the customers. Example one is CBS and Jericho: CBS was listening - at the beginning - to the fans. They had a CBS-based message board, and were working to augment and support the community. But, then the show was pulled off the air for the NCAA tourney, and then rescheduled against American Idol ... which killed the show. Then came the nuts campaign - and CBS saw the real groundswell at work. CBS took the revolt, and turned into reform. It was no longer arm's length, but embracing the fans. The reformatted the home page, offering Widgets and a Wiki, and a production blog for behind-the-scene...

And, a little bit of love to J Dilla and Stones Throw. RIP Jay Dee. Update: Okay, J Dilla was too loud. In a nutshell, I left Weber Shandwick, I took a job at The Point , and I will be doing my longer post about leaning against windmills (or what it's like being on a Quixotic mission for a year and a half).