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Tuesday, July 10, 2007 |
Snicker, laugh, chortle, chuckle gaffaw, hmm, wait, what'd he say? That seems to be the overall reaction to vlogger Ze Frank's keynote address this morning at Affiliate Summit 2007 in Miami.
Editor's Note: Ze Frank is known for his humor, and the keynote at the Affiliate Summit in Miami was not short on laughs, even if some say it was light on substance. But maybe the cackling covered up his point that marketers must give the audience a reason to spread the message - getting them to do the work for you. Any insight on how to do this? Let us know in the comments section.
Speaking to the Web 2.0 outbreak, sources say it wasn't clear if Ze had a point, but he was entertaining. And maybe that was the point, after all, a living analogy of the topic.
 Or maybe this was it: In a changing Internet world, get the audience to do the work for you.
This a twist on old approach to communicating with the audience, like, for example, in-flight safety cards, where the audience works to decipher illustrations about how not to die.
Ze Frank did a walk-through of Anna's In-Flight Safety Page, a resource he attempted to use to overcome a fear of flying. You'll note from the webpage that fiery crash pictures and instructions about how to slingshot Grandma with a paper cup just aren't all that helpful.
And that's not what Ze Frank meant about making the audience do the work for you. It was more like what is meant by viral marketing, which is what launched Ze Frank into notoriety, which is why he gives keynotes at conferences now.
One zany video was circulated, and he continued to feed the Internet upon request, each of the morsels passing through the system and dropping into the "crapucopia" that is Web 2.0.
In a twisted way then, like what Thomas Crapper did for indoor plumbing, technology is a facilitator for the human experience. That experience is now more universal in an age of user-generated content as there are no longer barriers to entry in the realms of content production, or relaying your life experience to others who smell and understand.
And then they talk about it, bringing us to point number 2 (get it?), putting everyone square in the earshot of marketers who don't have to work as hard to know what the consumer is thinking.
See how that works?
Oh, and apparently "he got lots of penises." Thanks for letting us know, Brad. Next time, we could do with an explanation. Nobody said the audience should work that hard.
| Article by Jason Lee Miller, a WebProNews editor and writer covering business and technology. |
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By Doug Caverly 
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