By Danny Sullivan
BBC technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, posts an interesting piece on the dot.life blog about the slating of the new BlackBerry Storm by English comedian, Stephen Fry. No, this wasn’t part of a stand-up routine, but rather a series of messages on Twitter, where Fry apparently has a following of thousands.
I note Fry’s comment at the end of the post, essentially stating that he thought one of the results of the Net and social networking has been to make everyone more equal in their influence. But has this truly been the case?
Certainly in Fry’s case it is partially true, but while his newfound influence in the field of gadgets and consumer technology can be attributed in part to the social networking revolution, it is also true that he is a man who had a considerable public profile before the Internet was even considered a medium of any significance.
The web and its associated technologies have certainly given a voice to millions, but in terms of real influence, the masses still invariably turn to those who have commanded attention beyond the four walls of the internet. Of course there are some exceptions to the rule, but the notion that we all have equal influence is generally only as true online as it is in the world at large.
By Leo Valiquette
Say what you will about the mindset of Hollywood executives, they do like to reuse and recycle, even if the concept of “reduce” remains beyond their grasp.
We’ve seen the bigscreen reboots of such classics (I use that term loosely) as Charlie’s Angels, Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes of Hazard, Get Smart, The Fugitive, Bewitched and Shaft, with The A-Team on its way in 2009. It’s seen to be a safer bet to hang your hat on a franchise with some pedigree, than try to woo consumers with something entirely fresh and unique. Of course, there’s no shortage of examples where such caution has resulted in a bomb at the box office. Treading the line between attracting older consumers nostalgic for classic television and engaging younger consumers with something updated and current in the same package can be a risky proposition. As is always the case in product marketing, trying to be too many things to too many people can backfire.
All this to introduce the reboot of the mother of all franchises – Star Trek. Yes, I contend, it is bigger than Bond. All that’s left after this is the return of Gunsmoke.
After six television series (including the animated one) and 10 theatrical releases, the entire franchise is being rebooted with a new movie and new actors in the roles immortalized by the old series, anchored around the characters of Captain James T. Kirk, Dr. Leonard McCoy and Mr. Spock. They have dared to recast these pop culture icons with fresh faces who portray them a few years prior to the time period encompassed by the original TV series. The first trailers have just hit the Internet. This isn’t your daddy’s Star Trek. It’s fast, slick and the starship interior looks like it was designed by Apple engineers. There’s even a clip in the trailer where it looks like Spock loses his temper with Kirk and takes a swing at him. (Where’s the logic in that?)
The studio is obviously hoping to engage a younger audience, after a somewhat feeble response to the last television series and theatrical movie. It remains to be seen if they are beating a dead horse with an offering that will only serve to alienate the core fanbase that has stood by the franchise all these years. With the release date still far off in May 2009, the studio has lots of time to kick the marketing and promotion into high gear (no doubt with the affiliated merchandising to pad any softness in box office revenue).
Whatever the outcome and the general audience reaction to this franchise reboot, I think there will be interesting lessons learned about marketing and managing audience expectations when meddling with such an iconic brand, much like Coca-Cola’s experience with New Coke.
By Danny Sullivan
Over on the BBC web site, readers have submitted their personal choices for the most-hated cliches in current circulation. Reading through the article was a painful exercise, and I’m sure most of you will also recognize many of the expressions as appearing frequently in your own day-to-day vocabulary.
The technology sector is rife with such cliches, and I’ve summarized a few of these into a Top 10 list, some of which I must admit I still use “on an ongoing basis”, so to speak.
1: Going forward
2: Leading (as in “a leading provider of…”)
3: At the end of the day
4: Touch base
5: Mission-critical
6: Value-add
7: Downsizing
8: Out-of-the-box
9: Best practices
10: 110%
Got your own “favourites” or, better yet, can you truthfully say you’ve never used any of the above? Let me know.
By Francis Moran
More words will be written today, perhaps, about yesterday’s presidential election in the United States than have ever been written about a single event in living memory, but I feel compelled to add my own few since rarely in my life have I seen something transpire that I frankly never expected to witness.
U.S. president-elect Barack Obama will enter the White House in January arguably the least experienced person that office has ever seen. He will take up power atop a nation that has been wounded, perhaps irreparably, by grave errors of judgment and downright malicious intent at almost every level. He has ridden a wave of expectation, entirely of his own deliberate manufacture, that no human could ever fulfill, and this may eventually be his undoing.
But this morning, as the world awoke to a tectonic shift in the geology of human endeavour that few thought possible, Obama must be recognized for achieving the unimaginable, for forging a campaign and a connection with millions of Americans that overturned our every expectation about race and its supposed immutable place in the politics of that amazing, capricious, expansive and divisive country.
I lived in southern Africa for many years as a child and never thought I would witness the emancipation of South Africa this side of a bloody and protracted uprising. My parents are Irish, and I went to school in Ireland for two years, and never thought I’d witness the laying down of arms and the embracing of democratic means in Northern Ireland by men wedded to the gun and the laws of violence. And I never, ever thought I’d see a black man in the Oval Office.
The audacity of the human spirit, a force that Obama harnessed to his own equally outrageous personal ambition and rode to the most powerful job in the world, is boundless. Whatever he manages to do with the power he now has, this one man has demonstrated that anything we dream, we can accomplish.
