Monthly Archives: December 2010

Grundy Television, Copyright & Social Media

TV

YouTube Grundy Television Copyright ClaimTelevision and movie companies love their copyright, rightfully so – they’ve invested a lot of time, money and energy into producing something. Unfortunately, in their rush to protect their copyright, they often stomp on a thriving community which is actually advocating their brand and product.

Case in point, back in 2006 when Bobby Flynn was on Australian Idol I posted a number of links on my blog to excepts of the television episodes that’d be recorded and uploaded onto YouTube. Those clips have existed on YouTube, copyrighted or otherwise now for a number of years, received hundreds of thousands of views, all of which help build and reinforce the brand Australian Idol, but only now, years later does anything happen with it.

YouTube were clearly given a legal letter from Grundy Television to remove the copyrighted material from their site, which they of course obliged. The thing is though, Grundy Television don’t provide a comparable service – if they did, everyone online that wanted to talk about how positively amazing Bobby Flynn was, would have linked to their excepts of the show with him singing.

I see these sorts of actions from television and media companies to be rather short sighted. People online wanted to discuss the different contestants from Australian Idol, re-watch and live their performances & the TV companies should be elated about that fact. It could be worst, much worst, everyone could be completely bored with the format, show and what it has to offer and be on Facebook instead – but they aren’t, they are actively seeking out information and videos about artists from their show.

If I were in their boots, I’d be setting up an Australian Idol channel on YouTube and uploading every song of every contestant from the first series to the latest. Then I’d start uploading interviews with each of the contestants, then the judges and more. All branded with the appropriate network logos and product placements. They’d then be in a position where they can control, more or less, what gets published online and since their is an official channel on YouTube – the enthusiastic viewer doesn’t need to upload an inferior qulality recording. All the while, they get to engage with their avid fans and target audience – seems like a win win situation for me.

I understand the copyright side of the fence but what were Grundy Television losing by allowing the songs from Australian Idol to exist on YouTube, the single biggest, most prolific source of video on the internet?

Malcolm Holt, Self Promotion & The Simple Things

Advertising
Malcolm Holt, Gold Coast Senior Executive Jobless After 426 Attempts
Picture, Michael Ross news.com.au

During my drive to work this morning, at about 8:45AM an advertisement aired on Hot Tomato which was different to the standard stuff. It was a personal advert, promoting a guy by the name of Malcolm Holt here on the Gold Coast that wants to secure a job before Christmas. By the sounds of personal ad, Malcolm is a smart bloke and has held senior executive positions in a lot of different companies & in a number of different sectors and has quite a diverse skill set.

Like all good consumers, I listened to the ad and tried to remember what the call to action was to find out more about Malcolm but by the time I got to work, I had forgotten after being distracted by Carlos Santana & Rob Thomas’ new song “Sunshine Of Your Love”. Wanting to find out a little more, I visited the Hot Tomato website but couldn’t find anything, searched Google and ultimately tweeted @1029 and asked for the information about Malcolm which they were happy to provide.

That whole ugly process got me thinking about the simple things that weren’t done, which would have made that whole process far easier for a potential employer to find his information:

  1. It’d be great if Hot Tomato kept a list of advertisers on their site. In a similar fashion to what they do with their ‘recently played’ list of songs – keeping a list of advertisers would have made finding Malcolm really easy.
  2. The call to action on the advertisement was a mobile phone number & an email address. I’m happy to be proven wrong but I suspect that very few people remember phone numbers provided on the radio unless they are 13, 1300, 1800 and also a good sequence/pattern. Given that Malcolm is an executive, he should have taken the time to put his profile within LinkedIn. For those unaware, LinkedIn is the professional social network, as opposed to Facebook being more of a personal social network. If Malcolm had a LinkedIn profile, he could have had a call to action of ‘Find me on LinkedIn’ or ‘Google Malcolm Holt’ – both easier than remembering a random mobile phone number or an email address.
  3. Buy MalcolmHolt.com & use it as an online curriculum vitae. Now the call to action could have been ‘Visit MalcolmHolt.com’ or ‘Google Malcolm Holt’. Just like LinkedIn, considerably easier than remembering the mobile and email address.
  4. Facebook & Twitter are both prolific and have tremendous exposure within the search engines as well. If Malcolm had of registered twitter.com/malcolmholt (available) and also facebook.com/malcolmholt (unavailable, but something very similar would have been), they’d have shown up in search with or without LinkedIn or his own personal site. Both of those options would have provided an easy way for him to get his phone number & email address out to all and sundry.

If you’re an interested potential employer:

Malcolm Holt
M: 0418382103
E: malcolmholt@bigpond.com

What else could have Malcolm done to make it easier for people to get in touch with him?

Affordable Fresh Flowers

General

Everyone likes fresh flowers, it doesn’t matter if they are in a garden or a vase. Unfortunately, most people don’t receive fresh flowers often enough, which is a shame since they look so spectacular and they smell beautiful.

When you visit your local florist and ask for a bunch of flowers, more often than not you won’t get change from $50 for the simplest flower arrangements and if you want something with a little more bling, $70-$120. Clearly at those prices, it isn’t something that you can typically have in your house every week.

It turns out that most people completely overlook one of the most obvious places in the world to buy fresh flowers, your local supermarket. Our nearest supermarket is the Woolworths in Upper Coomera and they regularly have an assortment of fresh flowers. Clearly they don’t stock the volume, have every flower that a normal florist might or offer gift wrapping – but they do have beautiful fresh flowers. If your intention is to buy them and put them straight into a vase, well you’re in luck – flowers from your local supermarket are just the ticket.

This week Claire picked up two bunches of lily flowers from Woolworths, with 7-8 unopened buds in each for $14 in total. The fragrance from the flowers is fantastic, they look spectacular once they open and a comparable bunch from an online retailer would set you back between $80-$100.

Next time you’re looking for some flowers for your house or apartment, make sure you keep your eyes open at your local grocery store or supermarket.