Video Caption: Companies do not want to play games with their market research surveys. One wrong management decision based on inaccurate information could break a brand.

Have you recently gotten an e-mail, been graced with a pop-up window, or been asked nicely at the bottom of a sales receipt to please go to a website to take a marketing research survey? Online surveys are becoming more and more popular because they quickly and economically collect an immense amount of information.

Internet surveys have several advantages specific to that methodology, according to Professor Carl McDaniel of the University of Texas at Arlington and Roger Gates, president and CEO of DSS Research, authors of  “Marketing Research Essentials:”

• Rapid development and real-time reporting because marketing researchers can send thousands of Internet surveys simultaneously and tabulate and post results as soon as returns arrive.
• Dramatically reduced costs of between 25 and 40 percent compared to a traditional telephone survey because online surveys eliminate data-collection labor costs.
• Personalization that speeds up the response process because surveys are more flexible and relevant to each respondent’s situation.
• Higher response rates because respondents complete the surveys at their convenience, and surveys are much more engaging due to graphics, interactivity, links to incentive sites and real-time summary reports.
• Ability to contact the hard-to-reach like doctors, high-income professionals and top management in Global 2000 firms who are well-represented online.

Disadvantages of validity do concern marketing researchers, and they are designing tools that make sure that Internet survey respondents are who they say they are, engage in the survey, and are not counted more than once, said Douglas Quenqua in his November 30, 2009, “Marketing News” article, “Survey Says: New Tools Aim to Ensure The Integrity of Online Surveys. Better Surveys Would Help Too.” Several organizations have created tools in response:

• The Advertising Research Foundation’s (ARF) Online Research Quality Council’s Quality Enhancement Process is a set of best practice templates that clients and suppliers can use when structuring an online panel. Microsoft, Unilever, Coca-Cola, General Mills and four other marketers are piloting the program.
• The CMO Council with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has “Pause to Support a Cause,” a program that rewards respondents whom complete surveys with opportunities to make charitable contributions in their names so they are not tempted by personal gain.
• Research companies like Peanut Labs Inc. draws its survey respondents from Facebook and LinkedIn to confirm that potential respondents are real people and the age and gender they say they are. The company combats the incentive problem with “virtual currency” that respondents can use to play games on the social networking sites.
• Software solutions like TrueSample from MarketTools Inc. filters duplicate or false respondents and weeds out the disengaged.

The solutions Quenqua shares are a good start to make Internet surveying more accurate, but they might not be enough to make the methodology more than a quick, easy inexpensive way to get a preliminary pulse on a marketing research problem. Although online surveys are better than no research at all, let us hope that companies use a variety of marketing research methodologies to decide their marketing strategies.

In fact, a study in the February 2004 issue of “The Marketing Review” found that most United Kingdom marketing research agencies who participated in an Internet survey believed that the online survey is not the most effective primary research tool, and its use should depend on the marketing research objective. The study also reports that marketing researchers believe that respondents are less likely to answer online survey questions “truthfully” than they are when using other research methodologies.

This lack of truth could be a result of a flaw in the online survey design. Online surveys that do not have options like “other” with explanation or “I don’t know” force respondents to pick an answer to move forward even if they find no answer appropriate. Respondents in this position unintentionally skewed the results because they could not talk to a person administering the survey live or via telephone or make a note on a written survey. Thus, if resources allow, marketing researchers should consider using more than one methodology to get the most accurate results for management decision-makers.

—Laura Phillips Garner

Companies can take the pulse of their target audiences and get their messages out through unofficial corporate blogs like "Miss Moss The Home Shoppingista," which covers the home shopping television industry and its big three networks: QVC, HSN and ShopNBC.

A blogger makes a particular company’s brand the center of his universe. He writes about every official and unofficial (rumor) development. What should the company at the focus of all this attention do?

Embrace these wonders of the digital world! Bloggers are doing the brands they write about a favor.

Most bloggers who write about specific brands are brand loyalists. They love and feel connected to their favorite brands, and they get pleasure representing themselves as brand experts to the masses. These unofficial corporate blogs often build followings because other brand loyalists also are hungry for information, and they appreciate the more informal insider perspectives they get from what they see as non-traditional (not the company) sources. Also, the information often is given the same credibility as any other news outlet because the reader often does not distinguish between the two.

Companies can learn a great deal about their brands’ audiences from unofficial corporate blogs. Scanning comments reveals nuggets of valuable intelligence about what consumers like and dislike about a particular brand, what they might like the company to modify or add, and any questions or suggestions they might have. A string of negative comments about any one issue with a brand might indicate that the company should think about addressing the problem. Without these unofficial blogs, companies might be blind-sided and not have as much control over the issue as they would like.

Two great examples of unofficial corporate blogs are the five-year-old “Google Operating System: Unofficial News and Tips About Google” and “Miss Moss The Home Shoppingista.” Alexa Chitu started the former in October 2005 as an “unofficial blog that watches Google’s attempts to move your operating system online.” Linda Moss founded the latter in October 2009 after being laid off from “Multi-Channel News,” a cable television industry publication where she covered the business side of home shopping networks like QVC, HSN and ShopNBC.

Chitu is Google watchdog, Google fanatic and Google teacher as his posts often explain how to use Google tools in simpler terms than explanations available from Google itself. For example, after a post, “Google. No Configuration Needed,” about the lack of user settings on Google products including Google Buzz and privacy concerns yielded grumblings about lack of privacy and intrusiveness, Chitu wrote a follow-up post, “How to Disable Google Buzz.”

Moss said she decided to write about one of her guilty pleasures: home shopping because “she’s a chick: She likes to shop.” Thus, posts are about all aspects of home shopping “from gossip on the hosts and stars who appear to financial news about them.” The home shopping industry has become much more interesting now that major designers like Isaac Mizrahi, Dolce & Gabanna and Badgely Mischka have realized that they can make money from sophisticated girls who consider home shopping television “a guilty pleasure.” The HomeShoppingista is a fun and informative read.

–Laura Phillips Garner

Consumers expect information from companies where, when and how they want it, and they want to be able to act on that information. Photo by Francesco Marino

The world today refers to any form of media that is not traditional media (print, television, radio) as new and emerging media. Yet, at some point, what we now consider new and emerging media will no longer be new or emerging. Think about it: The Internet is 40, and the World Wide Web will be 20 in December.

What should the world call “new media” when the current forms of digital media are no longer “new” or “emerging”? If I were the Queen of Nomenclature, I would decree it be called “custom media.”

Merriam Webster Online defines the adjective “custom” as “made or performed according to personal order.” The types of new and emerging media in the market—podcasts, Webcasts, social marketing, mobile marketing, banner ads, blogs, pop ups, pop unders, email, and short films—all focus, in some aspect, on sharing what the company needs the consumer to know in the context of what the consumer needs. Thus, I would define custom media as all forms of media that need digital technology to create tailored interactive marketing communications experiences based on information consumers offer, with their consent to take part and results in an action within the medium that builds a relationship between the company and the consumer.

In both custom and traditional forms of media, consumers choose whether to take part in the marketing communications experience. No one forces a consumer to look at print ads, watch television commercials, or listen to radio commercials. Consumers can move on to the next printed page, leave the room, change the channel or station, or skip the commercial with a digital video recorder. In the case of custom media, consumers can block the pop-up, ignore the banner ad, choose not to sign up for Facebook or MySpace or decide not give their permission or information so that the company can contact them.

The difference between new media and traditional media is that, once consumers choose to take part in custom media experiences, they tailor these experiences to fit their individual preferences. Traditional mass media pushes communications at consumers and usually requires them to take actions via another medium (i.e. a print or broadcast ad that directs a consumer to a Web site or telephone number for further action). With custom media, consumers pull messages through the communications channel when and how they want them, tailored to their needs and with opportunities to act within the chosen medium.

Nowadays, consumers get information about products how they want, when they want, and where they want it. Companies must share that specific information anytime and anywhere with the click of a mouse or the touch of a Smartphone. If that isn’t customization, I don’t know what is.

–Laura Phillips Garner

DQ launched a new YouTube Channel on April 1, 2010, as part of The DQ Blizzard 25th Birthday Tour. Notice the blue wallpaper on each side of the page includes DQ brand icons like the Dairy Queen logo, Blizzard 25th birthday logo, lips, Blizzard cup, and ice cream cake. DQ posted the video (below) on April 23, 2010.

Content—and a lot of it—is key to any successful social media presence. Dairy Queen has come up with two creative online promotions as part of The DQ Blizzard 25th Birthday Party Tour integrated marketing communications campaign that will generate content for DQ’s social media sites, give Blizzard loyalists the opportunity to show their love for the brand, and sell ice cream.

User-generated content drives “Operation Happy Birthday” and “Capture the Cup.” User-generated content is exactly what the term says it is: content generated by users of social media. User-generated content is valuable to a company because it is an authentic expression of its brand by the consumer and a more credible touchpoint to consumers who might have not yet experienced its products and services.

“Operation Happy Birthday” invites bloggers, video bloggers, families and anyone with a camera, camcorder or mobile recording device to submit a video clip of 60 seconds or less of their most original, creative or funny version of singing “Happy Birthday” to the Blizzard. The promotion launches Saturday, May 1, 2010, with submission details on the Dairy Queen blog. The challenge ends Aug. 1, 2010, when DQ will select 100 videos to feature on the Dairy Queen Facebook Fan Page and the Dairy Queen YouTube Channel. Winners receive a $25 Dairy Queen gift card.

“Capture the Cup” is a photo contest that kicks off June 1, 2010, on the Dairy Queen Facebook Fan Page. DQ will ask Blizzard fans to share photos of themselves interacting with a Blizzard in fun and unique situations and places. Fan voting throughout the contest, which runs June 1 to July 31, 2010, will decide the best photo. The prize for the winning photographer: Free Blizzards for a year.

Blizzard fans get out those cameras. Dairy Queen is counting on you.

–Laura Phillips Garner

Editor’s Note: Create That Content, Blizzard Fans is the third post in a three-part series on The DQ Blizzard 25th Birthday Party Tour integrated marketing communications campaign. Read the first post in the series, Dairy Queen Takes Party to the People With Blizzardmobile, here and the second post, Meet the Blizzmanns and Have Some DQ, here.

Virtual Butterfly is on a brief hiatus but will return. Please check back for more views on new and emerging media and their role in integrated marketing communications. Thank you!

Blizzard Fan Club fans voted on the Blizzard 25th Birthday logo.

The DQ, like many other well-known brands, is recognizing the value of digital marketing and fully integrating it with traditional means of reaching the consumer.

The 70-year-old International Dairy Queen (IDQ) is running a fully-integrated marketing communications campaign for the first time with The DQ Blizzard 25th Birthday Party Tour, DQ Chief Marketing Officer Michael Keller told Comet Branding Radio. The Blizzardmobile “drives through the marketing mix” as all national television advertising, social media, public relations and in-store point of purchase displays reflects the on-the-street experience the Blizzardmobile brings to consumers, Keller said. Grey New York, part of the Grey Group of WPP, is the DQ’s agency for the campaign, which celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Blizzard and the August introduction of the 6-ounce Mini Blizzard, reported Stuart Elliott of The New York Times.

Dairy Queen is big business. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owns Minneapolis, Minn.-based IDQ, which services a system of more than 5,700 Dairy Queen stores in the United States, Canada and 22 other countries. Hoover’s reports that the nearly 5,000 Dairy Queen franchises in the U.S. had $91.5 million in sales in 2009. The company is part of a fast-food restaurant industry that had $184 billion in revenue and $8.3 billion in profit in 2009, according to IBISWorld’s Fast Food Restaurants in the US Industry Report.

DQ is promoting The DQ Blizzard 25th Birthday Party Tour with a series of four 30-second national television commercials featuring the Blizzmanns, a wacky family of four that loves Blizzards so much that they follow the Blizzardmobile across the country. In the first commercial, which started airing on national network television when the campaign kicked off April 1, the Blizzmanns race to get into their car as it is washed at a car wash so they can try to catch the Blizzardmobile before it gets away.

DQ also will treat (pun intended) those hungry (again, pun intended) to follow the Blizzmanns on their quest to catch the Blizzardmobile to a series of Webisodes that chronicle the adventure that will appear on the DQ Facebook Fan Page and DQ.com. A second production crew shot the online videos during the filming of the commercials with the funniest material improvised by the actors and shot with hand-held Flip-cams on breaks from the scripted Webisodes, Keller said.

For those not close enough to one of the 25 cities on the tour, or crazy enough to be like the Blizzmanns and follow the Blizzardmobile across the country, DQ is providing tour updates via Facebook and Twitter. The DQ folks also are creating videos and shooting photos of every stop and putting them up on Facebook, and DQ Chad is recapping every event on the Dairy Queen Blog.

The only element missing for some is a DQ Blizzard Treat, and DQ is betting that those who can’t make it to a Blizzardmobile will be at their local Dairy Queens. Measurements for the campaign are sales growth throughout the DQ system, television target rating points, and the impact on digital assets including increases in traffic to Web sites, the size of the Blizzard Fan Club, fans on the Facebook Fan Page, and the number of Tweets the campaign gets. Nielsen’s BuzzMetrics will measure digital buzz for DQ, Keller said.

–Laura Phillips Garner

Editor’s Note: Wait. There’s more. Learn about how DQ has integrated user-generated content into the campaign in the last post in the series on The DQ Blizzard 25th Birthday Party Tour. Read the first post in the series, here.

DQ is celebrating the Blizzard frozen treat's 25th birthday with a 25-city tour in the Blizzardmobile.

The Dairy Queen Blizzard is 25, and DQ is taking the party to the people to celebrate, and, of course, sell ice cream.

The modus operandi is the Blizzardmobile. Dairy Queen Chief Marketing Officer Michael Keller told Comet Branding Radio that the inspiration for the BlizzardMobile is a mix of the “Where The Hell Is Matt” videos on YouTube, T-Mobile’s flashmob advertisement at London’s Liverpool Street train station, and the Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go truck that travels around Los Angeles to feed late night revelers.

The 25-city 75-stop DQ 25th Birthday tour in the Blizzardmobile began April 2 in Milwaukee, Wis., and ends Aug. 13 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. DQ analyzed the geographical locations of its 2.2 million Blizzard Fan Club members to decide where to send the Blizzardmobile. Blizzard Fan Club members in each city are voting on the DQ franchise that will be the third stop, Keller said.

The folks at DQ plan to give away 75,000 to 100,000 mini-blizzards to adoring fans, and, well, those who might never have had the pleasure during the course of the Blizzard birthday tour. All the details are on the DQ Facebook Fan Page. Look under the “Party Tour” tab.

DQ also is offering a promotion of “Buy One Blizzard Get One for 25 Cents” to celebrate. The offer ends April 25th. My favorite blizzard of all time is French Silk Pie. What’s yours?

–Laura Phillips Garner

Editor’s Note: Dairy Queen Takes Party to the People With Blizzardmobile is Part 1 of a three-part series about Dairy Queen’s marketing campaign for the Blizzard’s 25th birthday.

Beauty product afficianados from all over the country converge on QVC's Studio Park headquarters for its yearly Beauty Bash. This year, the multimedia retailer added a 24-hour preview on QVC-TV and QVC.com.

For beauty product lovers, the QVC Beauty Bash every spring at the company’s worldwide corporate headquarters, known as Studio Park, in West Chester, Pa., has become legendary. Those lucky enough to score tickets at $75 each spend a glorious three hours moving from booth to booth meeting beauty newsmakers and scoring often full-size samples of their favorite beauty brands.

QVC is a multimedia retailer with a 24-hour live television broadcast that reaches 98 million viewers in the U.S. and QVC.com, a e-commerce Web site that attracts more than 6 million users each month. The tickets for this weekend’s event (April 17-18) went on sale in January and sold out quickly. Demand has become so great that QVC has divided the Studio Park event into three shifts to accommodate as many as possible.

That’s why it’s so great for beauty product lovers (and those who appreciate integrated marketing communications) that QVC has extended Beauty Bash with a 24-hour on-air and online (qvc.com) event today (April 16) for those who couldn’t get tickets. That gives the home shopping network the opportunity to sell lots of beauty products while giving those who are not lucky enough to travel to Studio Park for the weekend event the chance to commune with representatives of favorite beauty brands from afar. QVC has more than 100 beauty brands in its merchandise mix.

Also, QVC is updating its nearly 140,000 QVC Facebook Fans and more than 10,000 Twitter followers, so they can find out the latest about their favorite beauty brands and ask questions of beauty newsmakers like Chaz Dean, Laura Geller, Kate Somerville and the folks from Philosophy and Bare Escentuals. Vanessa The Beauty Editor is blogging about Beauty Bash and gives a full rundown of what’s going on at Studio Park here. The event includes meet-and-greets, Q&As, demos and one-on-one time with “popular personalities and vendors” in the beauty industry. Behind-the-scenes videos on the QVC Channel on YouTube will be available for those who don’t get enough or haven’t been able to tune into the 24-hour television event today. There’s also a Web cast from the Beauty Bash event at Studio Park on QVC.com at 12:30 p.m. Saturday with a special giveaway for viewers.

Beauty Bash is a great touch point for the QVC brand as it cultivates and maintains relationships with kings and queens of home shopping who often are beauty product addicts. Twenty-four percent of QVC’s merchandise mix is accessories, which includes beauty products. With consolidated revenue of $7.4 billion and adjusted Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization (OIBDA) of $1.6 billion in 2009, that’s a lot of cash being spent and profit being made on beauty products for QVC, especially since two of the leading brands sold on QVC are philosophy and Bare Escentuals.

One has to wonder how many packages with the Q logo will be delivered to households across the United States within the next 10 days? Cha-ching for QVC as it integrates QVC-TV, QVC.com and the Beauty Bash live event at Studio Park to bring the faces and products of popular beauty brands to the masses.

–Laura Phillips Garner

A video that goes viral informs, provokes and/or entertains. It captures attention and makes people talk.

The new commercial by Nike featuring the voice of Earl Woods almost chastising a black and white video of a forlorn Tiger will be a viral classic. It’s been all over television news and the Web today with people questioning the taste of appropriating Woods’ dead father’s voice to query his son’s actions. The commercial debuts as Tiger plays in his first golf tournament this week—The Master’s no less—since his gross infidelity became the fodder for nightly cable television news, entertainment and opinion shows.

The big question for Nike is, “If the brand will continue to associate itself with Tiger Woods, why do a commercial like this?”

The answer: It’s going to allow Nike to get on with the business of selling golf shoes and golf clubs and golf hats and golf shirts. Although some would argue that Tiger is golf, it’s well known that Tiger is Nike Golf. As Barbara Lippert of “Adweek” tells Maggie Rodriguez of “The CBS Early Show,” Tiger is like one of the banks on Wall Street….He’s too big to fail. Nike has to prop him up. They have to show he’s learned his lesson.”

Besides, the Nike brand is known as a little bit irreverent and in the face of authority. Nike knows everybody knows about the scandal, Tiger’s apologies, his sex rehab. Now, Tiger is getting back to business, and it’s been said, that if he wins The Master’s the public will forgive him. But first, Nike must tell Tiger that he’s been a bad boy via the voice of his dead father. Is nothing sacred?

The viewer hears Earl Woods voice, but it’s almost like it’s Nike saying, “Tiger, I’m more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was. I want to find out what your feelings are and did you learn anything?”

It’s got people talking and commenting, and they most likely are invoking the Nike name almost as much as the nearly 1 million hits the commercial already has gotten on YouTube. Nike is betting that Tiger’s fans will forgive him and continue to buy Nike Golf products. For those who don’t care one way or another, they just hear the “Nike” brand and see the iconic swoosh over and over. “It’s like the church of the holy swoosh is granting him absolution and exonerating him so they can move on,” Lippert tells Rodriguez.

The ad is polarizing, Lippert said. If people love Tiger, they’ll love the ad. If they don’t, they’ll hate it. But, boy, either way, people are talking about Nike.

Jimmy Kimmel sure had fun with this new Tiger Nike commercial. Others also are parodying it on the Web. Is forgiveness really this easy?

It also makes you think: Who does the commercial really exploit? For what purpose? Does anybody care as long as Nike sells shoes? They should.

–Laura Phillips Garner

It’s a given that marketers already are out there trying to figure out how to best use the features of the iPad to market their products. They are ready to pump out Apps, ebooks, videos and advergames and jump on buying ad space on Web sites designed for the iPad–like MSN’s Glo–as soon as they are available.

That’s not surprising since Apple sold more than 300,000 iPads in its first official day on the market. Also, iPad users downloaded more than 1 million apps from Apple App’s store and more than 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore on that first day.

What brand doesn’t want to be part of the iPad phenomenon? Any type of marketing designed just for the iPad immediately has cool associated with it.

Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail. All of these media for iPad are wonderful opportunities to promote brands to their target audiences. The kicker: Research. Marketers needs to know if their brands’ target audiences are using iPads. They need to know how their target audiences are using iPads and why so they can create media that not only reminds consumers of their brands and associates it with cool via the iPad but also benefits the consumer, so they will:

a) use the iPad media,
b) not be annoyed by the iPad media, and
c) share the iPad media with their friends.

Bottom line: Go ahead, marketers. Have fun playing with iPads and dreaming up great ideas for showing off your companies’ brands on the device, especially since your CEOs probably are inquiring about when your companies are going to show up in the Apple Apps store. But, like with any other form of digital or traditional media, be sure to conduct the proper marketing research and planning that integrates this one communications channel into an overarching integrated marketing communications plan with goals, strategies, tactics and measures of success.

Reinforcing the brand while driving results is the point of any marketing tactic. Being able to say the company has a fancy new iPad app is not ROI.

However, it is great cocktail conversation. Especially, if you are carrying an iPad with you so you can show everybody.

–Laura Phillips Garner

Before I watched the season finale of “Kell on Earth” on Bravo this week, I had never heard of a DKNY Cozy.

For those of you who have yet to have the pleasure, a Cozy is a cardigan/scarf/wrap that women can wear at least 12 different ways. Multiply 12 with the gazillion colors it comes in, and, well, that’s a lot of looks for women who want to look polished and trendy and be comfortable at the same time.

I’m not here to sell the Cozy. Heck, I don’t even own one—yet. It just seemed to me that the Cozy’s appearance on “Kell on Earth” is a great example of how to freshen up the marketing of a fashion staple that apparently has been around for years with a new media strategy promoted on cable television.

Some background: Kelly Cutrone is the “Kell” in “Kell on Earth.” Cutrone is a fashion publicist and founder of People’s Revolution, a public relations, branding and marketing firm known for its New York Fashion Week productions. In Episode 8, DKNY hires Cutrone to executive produce a video for the Cozy. About 30 minutes of the show chronicles the guerrilla video production as Cutrone, a camera crew and a gaggle of models run around New York City to film the footage for the one-minute video over a span of nine hours, on a shoestring budget, and without permits from the city. Then, Cutrone shows the completed video to the People’s Revolution staff (Viewers see just enough to make them curious.) and talks briefly about how everyone in the fashion industry is trying to figure out how to best use digital media because it has almost no distribution costs.

So, by DKNY having Kelly Cutrone produce its branded content, the company got 30 minutes on a television show on a popular cable network geared to its target audience—women who care about fashion. Don’t forget, Bravo runs its shows over and over. Cutrone talking up that the video’s appearance on the DKNY Facebook fan page and the DKNY Web site during “Kell on Earth” didn’t hurt either. There’s even a ‘Kell on Earth” icon in the Special Features section at the top of DNYK.com that takes consumers right to the Cozy video, links them directly to the Cozy Web page and offers them 10 percent off their first DKNY.com purchase if they register.

Also, bloggers like The Frisky, Coquette, Stylecaster, and Purseblog.com wrote about the DKNY shoot on “Kell on Earth,” so there’s more PR. All the producers of “Kell on Earth” would have had to add was a call to action to order the Cozy at DKNY.com and an 800 number, and it would have been a really savvy infomercial.

When I went to the DKNY Facebook fan page to see the video, I instead saw a post for the DKNY Cozy App for iPhone that launched in November 2009. It features a stylist who takes the user through the myriad of ways to wrap a Cozy. The Cutrone-produced Cozy video actually is behind the DKNY Facebook fan page video tab. It’s the first one, but there’s no caption to tell the viewer that. Once viewers get to the video, they find out that DKNY reloaded the Cozy video on the DKNY Facebook fan page on Tuesday, March 30, 2010, and it is making a return appearance due to “popular demand.”

Hmmmm. Is the Cozy is about to become an “overnight” sensation? DKNY: Don’t forget your 93,000 fans over there on Facebook. They are talking you up! Word is getting around. Viral marketing via social networks has a way of doing that.

Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got to go buy a Cozy.

The possibilities of cyberspace match that of galaxies far, far away. Those born digital expect infinity, according to blogger and trend spotter, Josh Spears, founding partner of Undercurrent, a digital marketing firm.

Imagine a world without limitations.

That’s what consumers who were “born digital” do every day, according to Josh Spear, the 25-year-old founding partner of Undercurrent, a digital media think tank and consultant to companies from CNN to Ford. Blogger and trend spotter Spear wrote a commentary about born digital consumers and the concept of infinity in the March 2009 “Revolution” magazine, published by London-based Haymarket, a global media company.

These digital natives, often called Generation Z or Millenials, were born in 1980 or after. They grew up with computers and the Internet. Most do not know a world without digital, and for them, the possibilities are as endless as the vastness of cyberspace.

This lack of boundaries on “space, time and energy” as a worldview could have a profound effect on companies and how they market their brands in the future. The discretionary income of digital natives will continue to grow as they age. However, it is unlikely they will turn away from the concept of infinite accessibility anymore than earlier generations (aka digital immigrants) are going to fully embrace it.

That means, according to Spears, that marketing tactics that focus on scarcity don’t have much effect on digital natives, and may well go the way of the dinosaurs. Neither do marketing campaigns with start and stop dates because digital natives live in a world that is always on. They just don’t care if marketers want them to buy products or engage services now; they will buy them when they darn well please because they know they will be able to find whatever they are looking for somewhere in the infinite vastness of cyberspace.

Marketers that do not have digital media strategies or decrease their importance should think again. It’s not hard to deduce that eventually digital media will be the main marketing channel because the digital natives as a population will continue to grow in numbers and monetary influence. Computers, the Internet, and mobile are the media digital natives innately gravitate to, so marketers must be there or miss out.

Half of the world’s population is age 29 and younger, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s International Database. With those kinds of stats, Buzz Lightyear’s (“Toy Story”) catchphrase, “To infinity and beyond,” just took on a whole new meaning for marketers.

–Laura Phillips Garner

Set and attain four homepage goals to create easily navigable Web sites.

The axiom that it’s important to make a good first impression extends to companies and their Web sites.

Veteran Web Site Designer Derek Powazek says ease of navigation is integral to users all-important first impressions for corporate Web sites as it drives how they perceive the sites’ products, services or ideas and determines if they become repeat visitors.

In “Home Page Goals,” Powazek, who has worked on the Web since 1995 at pioneering sites like HotWired, Blogger, and Technorati, outlines four goals designers of Web site homepages must set and meet to give a good user experience that communicates clearly, sets expectations early and delivers on its promise:

Answer the question, “What is this place?”: To make good first impressions on new visitors to Web sites, design homepages they understand within three seconds, so they don’t “feel dumb, leave, and never come back.” It’s okay to briefly say, “This is who we are, and this is what we are about,” at the top of homepages, Powazek said. However, keep the directions plain and short in exciting, positive language that makes the reader feel important. Then, sites should link to an “About” page or a tour for a more detailed explanation.

Don’t get in the repeat visitor’s way: Though homepage designers must keep new visitors in mind, they also must make sure to stay out-of-the-way of users who already know what they are doing. One way to carry out both is to make one area of the homepage dynamic, so it can explain the purpose of the site to new users. However, once a user logs in, the dynamic area can share information specific to the user. Flikr, with different homepages for logged in and logged out users is an extreme example not getting in the repeat visitor’s way.

Show what’s new: Web sites owe repeat users something once they understand the sites as new users, or they will not come back. Since designers know their sites better than their users do, they should suggest places to visit on the homepage like a tour guide would. A good place is to start is with what’s new. Blogs that have their newest item first are a good example.

Provide consistent, reliable global navigation: Attention to detail counts. Put links in the global navigation of the homepage in about the same place on every page.

Powazek suggests that designers start by designing the “atomic element” of their sites, which is its smallest, deepest element, the page that the user is most likely trying to find. For example, if the Web site is a search engine, the atomic element is the search results page. Or, if the Web site is a store, the atomic element is the product page.

Designing from the atomic element backwards to their containers, and then, the homepage ensures that each container adequately sets expectations for what it has, according to Powazek. Also, this design process allows for any lingering anxiety about the site design to come to a head when the designer is working on the homepage.

Tweaking the atomic element is important because most traffic on a site—60 to 75 percent of all page views—is accounted for on this particular landing page, Powazek said. The remaining 25-40 percent of the traffic belongs to the homepage.

—Laura Phillips Garner

A bill of rights for online advertisers would protect them in the uncertain world of cyberspace much like The Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments of the U.S. Constitution, protects citizens from the tyranny of government.

In the “Wild West” of new media, online advertisers just might cotton to a Harvard University professor’s proposal of a bill of rights to protect them from the increasingly powerful online advertising networks.

Dr. Benjamin Edelman, assistant professor in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit of the Harvard Business School, has outlined this bill of rights on his Web site, benedelman.org, and in an editorial in the December 2009 issue of the “Journal of Advertising Research.”

Online ad networks originated to help Web site publishers with ad space and advertisers with specific target audiences find each other in the vastness of cyberspace. At first, they brokered remnant ad space and were few. However, online ad networks have become big business, and with more than 300 now online, publishers are starting to fear that they are commoditizing online ad space.

U.S. Internet users viewed 4.3 trillion display ads online in 2009, according to Reston, Va.-based comScore, which provides digital marketing intelligence and measurement. Eight different online ad networks reach at least 75 percent of the U.S. online population. AOL Advertising is the top online network with 91 percent of the audience and 187 million Internet users. Rounding out the top eight are Yahoo! Network, Google Ad Network, ValueClick Networks, Microsoft Media Network US, Specific Media, FOX Audience Network and 24/7 Real Media.

The opportunity for online advertising “is staggering” if online advertisers can specifically target the audience that receives the ads and precisely measure their effects so they can tailor their interactivity to offer just the right marketing experience, according to Edelman. Yet, the challenge to online advertisers is that they often don’t know where the network is placing their ads or how the network is charging them for that placement, Edelman said.

Thus, Edelman proposes that when dealing with online advertising networks, online advertisers should have the right to:

1. Know where networks are showing their ads. Web sites vary in user quality and context, and online advertisers have a right to know where the network is placing their ads so they can maximize exposure of and protect their brands.

2. Meaningful itemized billing. Advertisers have the right to know the details of each charge, so they might assess any potential problems without having to rely on the online advertiser that is billing them in the first place for information.

3. Use their data as they see fit. Some online advertising networks make it difficult for advertisers to move their campaign configuration details and performance records to other online advertising networks, keeping advertisers from expanding the reach of their campaigns and increasing their advertising costs.

4. Enjoy the fruits of their advertising campaigns. Once an online ad unearths a user who clicks on it, the network—because of behavioral targeting—can sell further exposure of that user to the first advertiser’s direct competition. Such a move makes the network money, but is a poor value for the original advertiser.

5. Resolve disputes fairly and transparently. Ad networks generally dictate the terms of contracts with advertisers. When advertisers do report a concern to the network, they often receive an answer that is non-negotiable. Furthermore, non-itemized billing data makes it difficult for the advertiser to figure out how severe the problem is. Even if they do, advertisers often are not technically equipped to handle these issues because terms and conditions differ with each ad network.

Edelman advises online advertisers to take steps to protect themselves. “Get technical teams up to speed on types of fraud and ask them to find ways to search logs and headers for signs of malfeasance. Get lawyers focused on this too and ask them to revise contracts to protect advertisers’ interests,” Edelman said. “Seek guarantees from ad networks and agencies and hold them accountable when things go wrong. Complain to regulators when policies are restrictive, anti-competitive, or just unfair. There’s ample room for improvement, and advertisers need not blindly accept the world as it stands.”

–Laura Phillips Garner

A half a million Facebook fans encourage Saturday Night Live to offer hosting gig to veteran comedic actress, Betty White.

EDITOR’S NOTE: NBC has announced that Betty White will host “Saturday Night Live” on May 8, 2010.
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A Facebook movement of nearly a half a million fans calling for veteran comedic actress Betty White to appear on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” has been granted its wish.

“People” magazine and CNN.com are reporting that the actress who played Sue Ann Nivens on the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” on CBS in the 1970s and Rose Nylund on the “Golden Girls” on NBC in the 1980s has signed to appear in a future episode of SNL. White had scoffed at the possibility less than a month ago.

Betty White Superfan David Matthews organized the Facebook fan page, “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!” December 30, 2009, in honor of White’s 88th birthday January 17, 2010, and it continued to flourish with White’s comedic turn with Abe Vigoda in a Snickers commercial that aired during the Super Bowl February 7. The page encouraged the producers of SNL “to honor White’s career, comedic timing and her life by inviting her to host Saturday Night Live.” White co-starred with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds as Grandma Annie in 2009’s “The Proposal.”

Hours after the news broke, hundreds of fans on the Betty White Facebook fan page were expressing their jubilation at the news and talking about Betty White Meetup parties, flash mobs and other ideas for how they can make White’s SNL episode the most watched in the history of the 35-year-old show. They also were suggesting ideas for sketches and potential cameo appearances by Vigoda and Rue McLanahan, who played Rose’s roommate, Blanche Devereaux.

“And Betty White fans rejoice with the news that she confirmed SNL! Never underestimate the power of Betty White fans in large numbers.;)….,” commented Jose L. Medina to other fans on the “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!” Facebook Fan page.

An indication of the power of Facebook and its capacity to bring people together to precipitate change came with this exchange on the page:

Amie Selecman commented, “YEEEHAAWWWW!!!! Just shows what people can do when they work together!!” to which Linda Alcardo replied, “You are right, should we set our minds to fixing the economy, too??? LOL.”

Lauren Dugan of allfacebook.com predicts that pages like Betty White to Host SNL (please)! could spark a trend where the audience determines the entertainment they want to see.

Hint to SNL writers: Check out the posts on the page! Give the Betty White Facebook fans what they want!

–Laura Phillips Garner

Companies must measure their interactive marketing communications to create better Web site experiences for their consumers.

How can companies find out if their Web sites are effective? That’s easy. They should ask the consumers who use them.

Yet, in a medium that has the capacity to gather information so easily, consumers do not seem to be polled often on the subject.

It’s a simple premise. If consumers take their time to visit a company’s Web site, the company should give them the chance to provide insight into the information and services it offers on the site and how well it offers them. If consumers do not want to be surveyed, they can opt out. If they do agree, the information they provide is golden. After all, what company would not want to know what they are doing right and what they could be doing better?

So, what kind of information can marketers find out? It goes beyond Alexa and Overture rankings though those do tell a company—an anyone else for that matter—how many people are visiting a site during a given time period and the demographics of those visitors. It also goes beyond click through rates, hit rates and click streams often used to measure online activity.

According to the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism Integrated Marketing Communications Program at West Virginia University, interactive marketing communications researchers have validated a set of eight measures that specifically evaluate Web sites. It all started in 1999 with Qimei Chen and William D. Wells of the University of Minnesota and their Attitude Toward the Site (AST) scale, which evaluates consumers’ attitudes of the personality and design features of corporate Web sites based on their entertainment, informational and organizational features. Since then, researchers have designed interactive marketing scales that measure:

Consumer attitudes—These scales evaluate how consumers feel about the advertising messages presented to them through the site and whether or not they are satisfied with their interactions. They signify willingness to interact with the site again although they cannot predict that attitudes toward the site will last.

Efficacy and effectiveness of interaction—These scales evaluate the consumer experience with the site. They involve ease of use and productivity for the consumer, the intuitiveness of the site design, the productivity of the online shopping experience, the speed of response to a consumer’s action, and the safety of transactions by and individual attention paid to consumers. They indicate trust, intention to purchase, shopping performance, intention to purchase and return, future customer relationships, overall purchase satisfaction, perceptions of flow, and customer loyalty.

Informativeness—These scales assess how helpful the information on the site is to consumers and if it is presented in a way that supports their decision-making. It involves the richness of the audio and video experience on the site (vividness); whether or not the consumer found the site annoying, confusing, messy or deceptive (irritation); and the level of product information and ease of comparison shopping (product choice). Indicators of informativeness tell whether or not a consumer is into the site and interested in its information, trusts that information, and will consider the information in a current or future purchase decision.

Intensity and quality of interaction—These scales measure how efficient, individualized and accessible online interactive purchasing experiences are compared to similar face-to-face interactions. Rich, accessible, personalized interactive experiences signify high perceived involvement or connectedness between company and consumer, receptivity and openness to online interactions, service quality, security, and confidence in the online shopping process.

Decision outcomes—These scales measure whether or not a company’s products, customer service such as billing and delivery processes, marketing messages and information are valuable to the consumer. They can indicate a high level of convenience, decision quality, and trust by the consumer.

Intention—Scales regarding intention to click, customer loyalty and intention to return measure the likelihood that a person will behave a certain way with the site in the future. They show willingness to provide word-of-mouth encouragement to peers and correlate with the site’s speed of interactivity, navigability and service quality.

Behavior, usage and gratification—These scales measure the consumer’s level of stimulation in response to an interactive marketing message (arousal), absorption by the elements on the site (focused attention), and captivation (flow). They also discover how fun, playful or entertaining a site is as well as how enjoyable, exciting or interesting any shopping experience on the site may be. They demonstrate the consumer’s level of perceived involvement in the site and their likelihood to return to the site or purchase a product.

Presence—These scales measure how much the consumer feels like the online environment is like their physical world. Either consumers feel the virtual environment is more real than their physical environment (telepresence), or they feel that they are in the virtual world and their physical environment at the same time (social presence). These measures indicate how captivated consumers are with the site and how satisfied they are with their interactions on it.

Perceived control and vulnerability—These scales measure how much in command people feel they are of their online activities, how much they trust that marketers will not take advantage of them, and how much they trust a Web site with their personal information. They examine the competence, reliability, honesty, sincerity and integrity of the site, how well consumers believe the site will fulfill their expectations, and how successful the site will be in protecting their information.

–Laura Phillips Garner

NPR Music is offering a 100-song streaming mix of South by Southwest artists at NPR.org.

Rich media like “The Austin 100: A SXSW Mix for 2010” is just one of the many reasons I enjoy all the Internet has to offer. As I write this post, I am sitting here listening to a 6.5 hour live stream of 100 songs culled by NPR Music experts from the nearly 2,000 new artists playing the South by Southwest Music Festival March 17-20, 2010, in Austin, Texas.

NPR Music staff spent weeks sampling more than 1,000 songs so you and I could listen over and over and think “NPR Music, NPR Music, NPR Music” as we prepare for NPR Music’s “exhaustive” coverage of the SXSW festival. It’s also a great way to promote NPR Music’s two festival events: “NPR Music’s Opening-Night Showcase At Stubb’s” on the 17th and “NPR Music’s Day Party At The Parish” on the 18th. The full schedule is on the NPR Music Web site.

Thanks to the NPR Music folks, I am able to link the mix for SXSW 2010 into this post, so you can start listening too:

The Austin 100: A SXSW Mix for 2010

You’ll jump into the continuously playing stream, and an announcer comes on every once in a while to name the songs just played so you know where you are in this glorious feast of new music. NPR Music lists the 100 songs in alphabetical order of play on its Web site. My favorite so far is Suzanne Vega’s “Gypsy” from Close-Up, Vol. 1, Love Songs. It’s No. 85, but the songs are not ranked in any order. In fact, the criteria for choice were a six-word litmus test: “Yeah, I’d listen to that again.” There’s also a much smaller free SXSW sampler courtesy of NPR Music available to download on iTunes.

You can download the sampler here:

SXSW Sampler on iTunes

I learned about this ultimate mix from a Facebook posting, as I am an NPR Facebook fan. Being a good Facebook friend, I immediately sent the link to the mix to all I know on the social media site. Virtual Butterfly gave me another way to share the mix and the sampler through what integrated marketing communicators call viral marketing.

The mix and sampler is a prime example of a viral marketing strategy because it:

• Gives away new products or services. (The SXSW mix and the sampler are both free.)

• Provides for effortless transfer to others. (You can e-mail the links, or use Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, Yahoo! Buzz, Redditt or Digg to share with fellow music lovers.)

• Scales easily from small to large. (National Public Radio (NPR) internet servers support the mix, and the sampler is on iTunes.)

• Exploits common motivations and behaviors. (Finding and sharing new music is cool to do.)

• Utilizes existing communications networks. (My forwarding the links to my Facebook friends and this article with the links on Virtual Butterfly are two examples.)

• Takes advantages of others’ resources. (I know NPR Music wants to thank all those bloggers and NPR fans on social media networks and e-mail for taking their time to spread the word!)

If you cannot be in Austin, check in with NPR Music as it is offering Webcasts and Podcasts with RSS feeds of all the SXSW performances it is sponsoring, so you’ll have many ways to interact with the NPR Music brand and, hopefully, the NPR brand in general.

After all, from a marketer’s perspective, Isn’t that the point?

–Laura Phillips Garner

People with like interests can meet each other in person through Meetup.com.

It’s hard to strike up acquaintances and friendships in large metropolitan areas. People come and go, spend hours commuting, and work such crazy hours that it is tough to get to know the neighbors.

Meetup.com just might be the answer. It is a Web site that capitalizes on that oldest of forms of social networking: Meeting in person.

A review of Meetup.com showed more than 3,200 Meetup groups within 50 miles of my city and 81 within five miles. There are photography groups, writers groups, new media groups, dining out groups, book clubs, volunteer groups and a myriad of other groups in 15 categories like arts and entertainment, business and career, parenting and family, pets and animals, and sports and recreation. After joining a Meetup group, members create a profile and communicate with each other online to set up a time for the group to meet. Then, they actually go to a meeting in a real place where they discuss what they have in common face to face, learn from each other, work together or have fun.

Meetup.com is quite popular with nearly 73,000 Meetup groups worldwide and more than 6.6 million members. Almost 5.5 million Meetups have taken place, and more than 61 million RSVPs to future Meetups are pending. The top 10 Meetup cities are New York, London, Chicago, San Diego, Washington, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, San Francisco and Seattle.

The most popular topics for Meetups are business strategy and networking, entrepreneurship, personal growth, women’s social, small business, stay-at-home moms, fitness and dining out. However, groups about cake decorating, storytelling, Monopoly, play dates for toddlers, preschoolers, and investment education are gaining fast.

It looks like people are starting to use social networking on the Web as a way to personally meet people who have common interests. So, what’s the difference between Meetup and Facebook? On Facebook, people look for people they already know and keep in touch with them. On Meetup, people look for people who live near them that they don’t know but might want to know and then go meet them in person.

Eventually, Meetup friends might become Facebook friends, but it’s not likely to happen the other way around.

Just wait until the ads from local businesses start showing up.

–Laura Phillips Garner

The intermission between periods with no streaming video on NBCOlympics.com is a great time to check out the interactive banner ads at the top right of the screen.

I really, really wanted to watch the Canada v. USA men’s hockey game Sunday night.

I tuned to NBC Olympic coverage and got ice dancing instead. Now don’t get me wrong. I love figure skating too. But, this was Canada v. USA, the much-anticipated, sold-out men’s hockey game. How could it not be on the flagship network broadcast?

I have loved hockey, especially Olympic Hockey, since the Miracle on Ice at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. What teenage girl didn’t have a little crush on Jim Craig or Mark Johnson? These guys and their coach, Herb Brooks, were amateur hockey superheroes. Their wins against the Russians and Finland for the gold medal gave U.S. citizens a sense of pride we hadn’t felt in a long time.

Although Sunday night’s game might not have been another Miracle on Ice, it still was a big deal. So, I was ready to watch. NBC did show the hockey arena prior to the start, but the network didn’t go back. I panicked. I didn’t know the game was on MSNBC.

I did recall that NBCOlympics.com had streaming video, so I went straight for the Web and found the game live—and a lot more. When I expanded to full screen, I also got banner ads in the upper right hand corner of the screen that reinforced the live action commercials interspersed within the broadcast. Most of the ads just pointed to the brands’ Web sites, but a few were interactive and pretty cool.

Not only to I get to watch all the live action of the 5-3 USA win over Canada, but I also got to visit McDonald’s McNuggets Village, send a thank you to my mom that was displayed in the P&G family home at the Olympic Village, create my own “Athletes of Cruising” Carnival banner ad, and enter to win free footlong subs for a year from Subway.

P&G sent an e-mail that showed how they displayed my message at the P&G Family Home at the Olympic Village and offered the chance to sign up for e-mails from P&G.

Since the banner ad placement was not actually on the video, it didn’t seem intrusive or annoying but did hold my attention while I watched the game. That’s good news for advertisers who are trying to find ways to get consumers’ attention on the Web.

As an Olympic fanatic, I kept the NBC network primetime broadcast on my television while I watched the live streaming video of the hockey game on my laptop. So, I saw when NBC cut away from two-man bob-sledding to show the very end of the first USA Olympic men’s hockey victory over Canada since Squaw Valley in 1960.

Although it was apparent the network was trying to rectify its bad decision to bury the hockey game on cable, it was too late. All viewers of the televised broadcast on NBC got to see was the two teams shaking hands and one interview with a USA hockey player.

I did, however, appreciate NBC Olympics’ Facebook announcement the next day letting me know that, if I missed the hockey game on MSNBC, I could watch it in its entirety on NBCOlympics.com. I would have appreciated it more if I would have gotten the Facebook announcement prior to the game telling me that the game was on MSNBC or I could watch it live on the NBCOlympics.com Web site. Maybe I missed it.

I do see the future of interactive advertising. Someday, I bet, graphics for television screens will include a banner ad once advertisers figure out ways to engage viewers with these ads and not annoy them.

You just wait. The televised interactive ads are coming. I wonder what else we’ll be able to do while we watch sports on television?

–Laura Phillips Garner

NBC is suffering from growing pains as it integrates new and traditional media.

Give NBC a break.

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are the first of the new media age. Twitter and Facebook have just tipped in popularity. Mobile marketing is only coming into its own. As broadband grows, Web site content becomes more interactive.

Consumers have many more ways to share the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat of the Olympics than ever before.

NPR Blogger Linda Holmes pointed out in a post today that NBC needs to change its Olympic coverage because the way people take in media content has changed. She’s absolutely right. However, I don’t think NBC could have anticipated much of the criticism it is receiving. NBC had to produce integrated coverage of these Olympics, so it could learn what works and what doesn’t work for the future.

Maybe commentating the old way no longer works. Maybe NBC can no longer televise events that happened earlier in the day on its primetime broadcast because, by then, people already know the results via social media. NBC certainly shouldn’t hold up broadcasting the Olympics to the West Coast for three hours, especially since the games are in Pacific Standard Time zone. That just doesn’t make sense.

NBC is suffering from new and traditional media integration growing pains on a grand scale in a very public setting. Yet, the communications company is getting a lot right. NBCOlympics.com has more content on it than anyone could ever view, and people have that content fed to them via Facebook and Twitter. Folks can watch the Olympics on their mobile phones, or, at the very least, get updates on the games. Finally, I’m sure some of NBC’s audience really enjoyed the ice dancing, short-track speed skating, skiing and bobsledding that made up most of the primetime network broadcast on NBC Sunday night. Personally, I would have preferred that NBC show the live broadcast of the Canada v. USA hockey game that it buried on cable on MSNBC.

In less than a week, NBC, you’ll be through the first Olympics broadcast with a connected audience that expects much more than a few hours of television and a Web site. In many ways, you delivered. Congratulations! Now, I hope we see growth with in London in 2012 and even more in Sochi in 2014.

Here’s a hint: A much-anticipated, sold out hockey game between the host nation and its closest geographical neighbor who share the National Hockey League belongs on primetime network broadcast television, where the public expects to find it. NBC probably could have sold that advertising at a premium, and the social network buzz would have been much more favorable.

–Laura Phillips Garner

WordPress uses social media to keep subscribers apprised of Thursday's outage.

Thursday, February 18, 2010, is a day of infamy for WordPress.com as its 10.2 million blogs—including Virtual Butterfly—went down for 110 minutes from about 2 p.m. to 3:50 PST.

The outage was WordPress’ worst in four years and took down VIP blogs like GigaOm, TechCrunch, and WSJ Magazine.

WordPress fostered much goodwill by using social media to keep its subscribers apprised of the situation. WordPress Creator and CEO Matt Mullenweg sent out two Tweets and made a post to the official corporate blog that was the basis for news stories on sites like DigitalBeat, PCPro, TechCrunch, Mashable, and BBC News. However, WordPress did not offer any information to the 58,113 fans on its official Facebook Fan Page.

In “WP.com Downtime Summary,” Mullenweg explained that an unscheduled change to the WordPress network’s core router broke the Web site and all the mechanisms for failover between WordPress’ locations in San Antonio and Chicago. He assured WordPress bloggers that all of their data was safe and secure; WordPress just couldn’t put it up on the Internet during that time.

Mullenweg did note that the affected blogs lost an estimated 5.5 million page views, which is a big deal for blogs big enough to sell advertising. Quantcast estimates that 237.3 million people around the world look at WordPress.com blogs every month.

Mullenweg assured all of WordPress’ users—from the VIPs to new blogs like Virtual Butterfly—that WordPress is looking into what happened and coming up with a plan to make sure it does not happen again. “I know this sucked for you guys as much as it did for us — the entire team was on pins and needles trying to get your blogs back as soon as possible. I hope it will be much longer than four years before we face a problem like this again,” Mullenweg said.

Judging from the 350 comments left on Mullenweg’s post, WordPress users appreciated the transparency and the updates via social media. For example, shamballa9944, author of Exquisite Traditions, said, “I, for one, truly appreciate your transparency about this problem. We all have things happen and nothing works 100 percent of the time. But it’s a rare organization that will step up, own it and learn from it! That’s that these things happen for–to learn! Kudos WordPress!”

Another blogger acknowledged Mullenweg’s assessment of the situation. “Yeah, it did suck. Twitter (and Huff Post) was a-twitter with comments, updates, speculations and conspiracy theories,” said 06880 Blogger Dan Woog. “The upside is you guys communicated pretty quickly and well — and though we couldn’t access our own blogs, all of us banded together in other ways, and held each other’s hands! Also: Who knew there were 10.2 million WP blogs in the world?! Thanks for solving the problem quickly. And yeah, four more years without an outage like this would be cool.”

Yet, VIP blog GigaOm.com was less enthusiastic. “It seems the company [WordPress] has enough goodwill to spare a couple hours of failure,” GigaOm.com’s Liz Gannes told the BBC. “But one thing’s for sure, people won’t be so friendly if it happens again.”

–Laura Phillips Garner