Clerks II Launches MySpace Promotion

Fans of the movie Clerks will have an opportunity to make themselves a permanent part of the sequel, Clerks II. The first 10,000 Myspace users who add Mooby Presents Clerks II as a MySpace friend will have their names listed in the end credits of the new movie.

Seems like a great word of mouth marketing stunt to me. Tons of people will quickly add Mooby as a friend to get in the end credits. And then those peoples’ friends will stumble on the Mooby MySpace, which includes trailors and other promotional materials about the movie. Very smart.

Attack of the Digg Clones

In the last few weeks, we’ve seen the news aggregation site Digg expand its’ focus beyond Technology news in an effort to reach more eyeballs. We’ve also seen Netscape launch a Digg competitor that is also aimed at a wide audience, covering just about every topic you can think of. The macro approach of Digg and Netscape is a pretty clear attempt to compete with large, traditional media websites. Digg is no longer a niche website aimed at a small community of users. It has grown beyond that and is trying to go big time.

What’s interesting to me is that while Digg and Netscape go macro, you have new super-micro Digg clones popping up every day. There are now Digg clones for sports fans, women, marketers, alternative rockers, American Idol freaks, Spanish speaking astronomy enthusiasts, Mozilla addicts, celebrity gossip fans, the MySpace generation, web designers, medical news junkies, soccer fans, environmentalists, video karaoke enthusiasts and PR 2.0 types.

Anyone reading this can use sites like Crispy News to create their own Digg clone in a few minutes. For free.

This space will be interesting to watch in the coming months and years. For Digg, I guess the question will end up being is bigger really better? By expanding its focus and presumably bringing in lots of new, potentially less savvy users, will Digg end up alienating its’ core community? Will people migrate to more focused, micro communities?

I don’t really have an answer here, although I think it is inevitable that Digg will lose some of its soul by expanding so aggressively. We’ll see.

<Came up with the idea for this post by reading this blog entry by Rohit Bhargava.>

Wal-Mart’s Certain Something

Those polling maniacs over at Rasmussen Reports released a study today that claims that 69% of Americans still have a positive opinion of Wal-Mart, while 29% do not like the superstore. The report revealed the following:

• Americans who are in the lower or middle income brackets are more likely to have a positive opinion of Wal-Mart than those in the upper income bracket.

• Of the 25% of Americans who claim they rarely or never shop at Wal-mart, 35% percent think positively of Wal-Mart.

• Those surveyed say that if given a chance to shop at either Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart, 48% would prefer to shop at Wal-Mart, 30% would go to Target and only 9% would go to K-Mart.

I’m curious to see if there’s a difference in category. For instance, if someone was asked if they would prefer to buy clothes from Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart, would they still choose Wal-Mart? Or, if they were given the chance to have a shopping spree at either Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart, would they still pick Wal-Mart?

Football Recruiters Invade MySpace?

College football recruiting is followed obsessively by lots of folks and the recruits a school pulls in each year often make or break a coach. Entire businesses, like Rivals.com and Scout.com, have been built around keeping track of the decisions made by 17 year old kids around the country. And coaches that can connect with kids during the recruiting process are just as valuable as coaches who, can, well, actually coach.

So it should come as no surprise that coaches are using MySpace as a recruiting tool (or at least appear to be). I give you the MySpace profile of Texas A&M assistant football coach Van Malone.

I really don’t know if this is real or not. If it is, it seems like a great move by Coach Malone. It’s another way for recruiters to connect with high school recruits. Oh, and, Hook Em’ Horns.

Eye on Customer Service

Jackie Huba of the Church of the Customer blog shares how stories spread, with the help of YouTube and audio. As you may have heard, an AOL customer tried to cancel his account and dealt with a CSR who pretty much wouldn’t fulfill his request. The customer, Vincent Ferrari, who is also a blogger, has been on a number of broadcast programs and clips of his interviews (as well as the conversation he recorded with the CSR) are available almost everywhere online. Continue reading “Eye on Customer Service” »