Thanks to its beefy advertising campaign (whose reach made it nearly impossible to avoid), I recently checked out MINI Cooper’s Hammer & Coop advertainment effort.

Featuring a series of extremely well-produced ($$$) Starsky & Hutch-meets-Knight Rider-style webisodes (supported by a bunch of fun features like its Action Name Generator), MINI’s Hammer & Coop site is jam-packed with kitchy 70s retro fun.

The webisodes are Will Farrel-movie-style stupid. They objectify women. They make MINI drivers look like morons. The positioning is risky. The images are somewhat racy.

But they made me—a member of MINI’s professional, 30-something, hipster Gen-X target audience—laugh out loud. More than once. I liked it so much that I even sent the link to some friends. And most importantly, they reinforced my perception that MINIs are FUN.

Which is exactly what MINI’s brand has always stood for.

Last month’s Fast Company featured a piece promoting the idea that “if you want people to like you, first decide who needs to hate you.”

“Most marketers feel that if they make a bold statement, they risk not just alienating customers—but also their boss, and their boss’s boss,” says Charles Rosen, founding partner of Amalgamated ad agency. “That fear takes the edge off of all communications.”

So in order to create a powerful brand identity—the kind with messaging that delivers more than a flaccid “hey”—a brand must be willing to define who ISN’T in its audience. This level of targeting enables a brand to take more risks so that it can actually stand out and reach the right audience.

My dad and his friends probably wouldn’t laugh at or even like Hammer & Coop.

But my dad also wouldn’t be remotely interested in buying a tiny non-luxury car. Which is EXACTLY why Hammer & Coop is so surprisingly smart.

Marketing buzzwords and catchphrases that make me cringe:

1. Outside the Box
2. Synergize/Synergy/Synergistic
3. Low-Hanging Fruit
4. The Big Idea
5. Cut Through the Clutter
6. Monetize
7. Organic Growth
8. Integrated Solutions
9. Commodify/Commoditize
10. Unique Value

The latest word to join the list? Web 2.0.

Companies are diving into 2.0-style efforts without really understanding how to make them work. And without a strategic marketing plan and resources dedicated to implementation, these dives are quickly turning into money-burning belly-flops.

Being a relevant part of the “conversation” that so defines Web 2.0 doesn’t just mean launching a blog and updating it when you have some spare time. You can’t just create some randomly messaged wacky video, pop it up on YouTube, and expect new business to come rolling in. Web 2.0 tools don’t come with some sort of “if you build it, they will come” guarantee.

As beautifully broken down in Rob Rose’s recent iMedia Connection piece:

…many of these new technologies can indeed take our online marketing efforts to the next level. And our customers are going to come to expect these capabilities from us in the near term.

But, just as important is our ability to deliver on the promise of Web 2.0. Don’t forget the overarching lessons of Web 1.0 circa 1997 to 2000: Don’t build technology just because you can…

So before your company takes the Web 2.0 plunge, make sure you know what you’re diving in to–and know how to swim once you’re in it. Take the time to develop the kind of comprehensive, integrated strategic marketing and implementation plan that’ll enable your effort to pull off a proverbial Triple Lindy.

As I come to terms with the personal impact of the events in Blacksburg, I’d like to address the technological importance and social impact the Web had for everyone touched by this tragedy. While I struggled to comprehend the unfolding story, another part of me observed the way I received and shared information, as well as how I mourned with others; I did more grieving and reflecting online than I did at any vigil, memorial service, or bar visit. After that realization, I had to examine the role of the Web in greater detail.

In the span of a few days I relied on the Web for many things:

• Reading multiple network news sites nonstop for several days
• Following the informational evolution on the events using Wikipedia
• IMing friends and colleagues on and off campus to find out what was going on and, later, if everyone was okay (I actually communicated with one friend via IM while she was in a locked-down classroom.)
• Reading VT campus emails
• Viewing the Akamai stream for a local Roanoke television station
• Watching press conferences live online
• Googling numerous topics and people to learn more
• Using MySpace and Facebook to check on friends and let others know how I am doing
• Joining Facebook groups discussing the event and sharing condolences (largest of which is currently up to 47,000 people)
• Viewing a list of classes in Norris Hall generated from VT registrar’s automated schedule planner (Based on first-hand knowledge, VT students later added shading to that schedule indicating the attacked classes. They also compiled an almost complete list of the deceased on Facebook and launched several online memorials.)
• Changing my IM display images to the black-ribbon VT logo
• Putting the Nikki Giovanni podcast on my MySpace profile
• Signing an online petition supporting VT administrators (joining more than 35,000 people at the moment)

I used Web tools as the tragedy unfolded. I used them to contact friends and colleagues in Blacksburg. I used them to grieve with my various communities. And I am amazed that they so easily emerged as necessary coping mechanisms without my noticing. Now, I know the news media mined the social networking angle to death, but there were so many other ways the Web was involved. The Web did more than provide lazy journalists with easy sound bites. It fundamentally changed the way I was informed and how I grieved.

And there is an undeniable ripple effect. In the span of a week, I talked to more people from my youth, from high school, from undergrad, and from Tech itself than I have in the last decade. Not only did they use social networking or IM to contact me, but by their comments it was clear they had used those same resources to keep up with me. How else does a girl from my sophomore year of high school even know I am a VT grad student? When time has passed and we have come to terms with the human tragedy, I think this event will serve as a valuable demonstration of what happens when Web 2.0 meets a social crisis. It is undeniable that the way society deals with such tragedy is going to be drastically different from this point forward.

Mind & Media Strategist Jason Sonnenfelt is completing his Ph.D. in public affairs and administration at Virginia Tech. He—along with Mind & Media founder and CEO Aldo Bello, Director of Technology Alan Eisenberg, Director of Interactive Media Chris Ammon, and Video Specialist Jason Hunter—is a proud Hokie. –Eds.

See that little house icon in the top bar of your browser? That’s your home page shortcut, and most of us know we can select any site we want. For many, it’s our company, agency, or organization landing page. Often, it’s a favorite search engine, news outlet, or content aggregator (I’m partial to Arts & Letters Daily myself).

Change is in the wind, however. Now you can do more than select a home page; you can build your own from the ground up—and you don’t have to be a propeller-headed programmer. Enter NetVibes, an incredibly un-intimidating, intuitively customizable personal home page “construction site.” As explained in Reihan Salam’s recent Slate article:

What Web lovers really need is a home page that gathers all the stuff you want, whether it comes from Google or Yahoo or your Aunt Tilda. Well, I’m here to report that I’ve found that ultimate mash-up.

Sure, NetVibes has weather, sports, music, video, search engines, and news. But it also lets you change browsers as needed, snag email from myriad accounts, and clock blogs at a glance. It has a to-do list and a note pad, and it lets you manage scores of feeds. It’s basically a cyber-Switzerland, welcoming all and bringing it together in a single source of ultra-informative access.

Now, even folks who don’t know their RSS from their elbow can assemble Web points of entry that best suit their needs and interests. Think of it like a new fast-food restaurant that lets you buy a McDonald’s burger, Wendy’s fries, and a Burger King shake. You get all your favorites from one place, in no time.

The impact? Overarching Web “identities” intent on satisfying every interest might be on the outs. To wield Web influence, think about empowering users through individual features and functionalities they select and apply as they see fit.

1. 2004: Created a profile on Friendster
2. 2005: Created a profile on MySpace and Xenga
3. 2006: Created a profile on Facebook, Linked-In, Flickr
4. 2007: Created a profile on Vox, the Org

Like most Gen Xers, over the past few years I’ve built up quite a social networking track record. But after years of creating, maintaining, and reviewing so many profiles and so much content, and after participating in all those interest-driven discussion groups, I’m kind of over it.

Actually, I’m really over it. I hereby proclaim myself America’s first identified sufferer of Social Networking Fatigue Syndrome (SNFS).

Web 2.0 is supposed to be about integration and collaboration—not segmentation. Having to update and communicate through all of these different sites sucks the “cool” right out of them, which is one of the reasons why I’m so skeptical about the push to build segregated social networking components into corporate websites (see Jay’s and Jason’s past blog posts about Rolling Stone and USA Today’s efforts).

While the first batch is creating buzz capable of achieving the desired results (USA Today’s effort has been extremely successful), I have to believe that most users are going to get tired of having to create, update, and maintain separate profiles, relationships, and conversations on separate sites. I predict that SNFS is going to spread and users will drop off.

But there’s hope. The antidote could come in the form of some kind of Web 3.0-style “semantic” tool that could, in a user-customizable way, intelligently weave all of these networks back together. Imagine an RSS aggregator combined with a Yahoo! Wallet profile generator.

Until that SNFS antidote comes around, I’d advise companies to hold off on creating their own social network-driven websites, and instead focus on getting target-audience buy-in and boosting brand relevancy by crafting and developing their profiles on existing mainstream social networks. Looking forward to some of you proving me wrong….

This morning while trolling my daily feeds and tagging items for further private review, I found a familiar term that’s gaining new significance in our Web 2.0 world: lurker. A lurker is essentially anyone who visits a socially empowered website but fails to contribute his or her own content. An article on the IT discussion community DaniWeb references a recent study by Hitwise on social networking participation; lurkers are called out for their antisocial behavior:

“…as long as there has been an online community there have been ‘lurkers’ to accompany it. These are the folk who read messages but do not post them in the forums, who absorb answers but do not ask questions on support site, and who pull down whatever data is available without ever thinking about putting something back.”

A lurker myself, I was hurt and a little frightened by the implications of this statement. Are we no longer free to quietly browse the Web’s ever-expanding, better-organized content? Must we endure the disapproving virtual stare and suffocating social pressure of those who demand we increase our participation?

According to the study, I am hardly alone in my fear. There are many more lurkers out there, standing in the shadows of the new social Web. It appears, in fact, that the vast majority of users—those who swell the ranks of YouTube, Flickr, and the other booming online communities—are lurkers like me. Check out these very lurker-friendly numbers:

YouTube visitors who participate by uploading videos: 0.16%
YouTube lurkers: 99.84%

Flickr visitors who upload new photos: 0.2%
Flickr lurkers: 99.8%

Wikipedia content editors and contributors: 4.6%
Wikipedia lurkers: 95.4%

It’s nice to have so much company in my anti-social Web wanderings.

So, are you one of the less-than-five-percent who participate, or are you—like me and almost everyone else—a lurker?

Proof that the Internet is evolving: the popularity of pornography is starting to fade. Since the 90s, the reigning reason people were online was the hunt for (cough, cough) adult content.

However, according to yesterday’s Economist, “net communities and chat” are poised to overtake all things blue. Translation: We’re logging on to interact, not indulge.

. . . the proportion of site visits that are pornographic is falling and people are flocking to sites categorised “net communities and chat”—chiefly social-networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Traffic to such sites is poised to overtake traffic to sex sites in America any day now . . .

Communications common sense says reach audiences where they live. Anybody else just feel mainstream marketing lurch further web-ward?

Man, I love a lively discussion! And I really love it when it revolves around the intricacies of public service and civil society.

Throw in Web 2.0 and it might as well be my birthday, Christmas, and a Will Ferrell movie all rolled into one.

So you can imagine my excitement as I waited for Dan Forrester and his response to my recent rejoinder about the best catalyst for the development of a wikigov solution. And then I was asked to do a book report.

Bummer. I have read the suggested books (The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki and The Difference by Scott Page), and while I could do my 3rd grade teacher proud by building a shoebox diorama to explain the impracticality of distilling a diverse and smart crowd in a public policy context, I’ll save the rubber paste and stick with the original topic in this initial forum.

“Is it time for wikigov, and if so, what factors are positively or negatively affecting its implementation?”

Regarding the basics, I don’t think Dan and I disagree. The collaborative Web holds countless opportunities for sharing information and knowledge in new and more effective ways. Actually, I think both of us may be exhibiting a characteristic of a wise crowd: cognitive diversity. We have different experiences and resources that we bring to the discussion. While I would argue his position is centered on effectiveness, I am more concerned with accountability. (more…)

They laughed at Friendster, MySpace, Facebook. Who would care enough to read one person’s profile, interests, and inanity on a daily basis?

Turns out, plenty.

They laughed at Twitter. Really, does anybody want instantaneous updates on everyone else’s ultra-ordinary goings-on?

Well, yes, actually. Especially if you get to throw your own mundane musings into the mix.

Okay, but who would be interested in clocking someone else’s web-surfing history? What could be more boring? You went to Mapquest? Big deal.

Fair enough, but what if I found some super-cool site that lined up with your interests? It’s almost like you could think of me as a proxy surfer. Right?

Yeah, could be. I suppose that could be cool, but…ah, I’m all mixed up.

No worries. Check out the idea behind Cluztr. Yet another way our crazy Web community is tuning in to itself.