Taking Hitler Down (Again)

I never thought I’d be writing a blog post where I would be protesting the removal of Hitler videos, but stranger things have happened.

I’m actually angry that Constantin Film, producer of Downfall (a great German movie that depicts Hitler’s madness during the last hours of his life – worth seeing if you like history) has idiotically ordered the takedown of all of the parody videos that have basically been free advertising for them.

I’ve actually referenced these parodies in previous posts – recently with Conan and Michael Jackson. You can’t view them anymore though, because YouTube had to comply with the DMCA takedown notices. See the story here.

This is stupid on so many levels. First off, this should be Fair Use under Parody – YouTube admits as much and is encouraging users to fight back on these takedown.  It’s stupid that YouTube can’t fight on your behalf, but they have no choice but to comply with the studio – thank you DMCA!  Secondly, these videos have been free advertising for your movie. I can’t tell you how many people have watched these parodies and then asked “What is this movie, I should actually check it out”.  Lastly, the Movie’s Own Director loves the parodies, saying “you can’t get a better compliment as a director”.

Of course, this situation wouldn’t be complete, if it didn’t have its own parody-a pretty classic one at that (warning: offensive language).

These videos will be back up soon enough. As much as these studios would like think they control all of this, you can’t stop fair use.

Who needs the time?

Just a quick hit: I’m really excited to go see Muse on Tuesday, but needed to figure out when we should probably head down to Broomfield. I figured I would go check out the show listing on Muse’s web site, but can you look at this page and tell me what time the show starts?

muse

Don’t get me wrong, this is a really cool design. Whoever’s doing their web work has some really cool things going on, but at what point was it a good idea to not list the start time?!? I thought this maybe was a fluke, but sure enough none of the other pages list their show times as well.

Normally I would go home and look at my tickets, but these tickets were using this “Flash Seat” where I simply wave my credit card that I used, and we seemingly have seats – pretty hard to print the start time on that.

It’s not like I’m squeezing the Muse concert between activities, but you’d think at some point it would be a good idea to tell people when they should make their way down.

Facebook Fail: How to ruin a year’s worth of burritos

Ah, Social Media.  Every company wants to get in on the action, using tools like Twitter and Facebook, finding new ways to engage customers and drum up interest for their company.  Some companies do it well, and for others: their good intentions blow up in their faces.  I talked about Motorola’s mismanagement of their Facebook presence, the Denver-metro area Qdoba also now has an unfortunate Facebook story to tell.

Last weekend I got ping’d by a friend on Facebook, who was taking part in a contest put on by Qdoba with the prize of a year’s supply of burritos.  In order to win, Qdoba wanted you to get your friends to “Fan” them on Facebook, then write their name and Qdoba Card # on their wall.  On paper this seems like a great way to build Facebook currency (friends/fans) and drum up buzz for your company.

Introduce the chaotic variable known as the Internet into the equation, and your contest is now FUBAR’d.  While my friend was lobbying people through his Facebook contacts, his two main competitors were packing their own ammunition.  The first is allegedly a “Professional Contest-Player”, and quickly rallied her other “Professional” colleagues on the various contest and giveaway sites (I Googled her name + her card number and got these search results:
QdobaScreen

The other competitor, has some association with ThePensBlog and his plea for help got picked up there, rallying their army and ultimately bringing him the victory.  However, along the way, the blog got wind about the “Professional Contest-Player” and lobbied some attacks in the form of: “Do you hate this bitch’s face already? Want to bring pain to her ego? After the jump, a call to arms.” Of course, when you take prideful Pittsburgh fans and pour gasoline on your story, your commenters are going to light the think of fire with hate and vitriol. Say what you will about “Professionals”, no one deserves the mud this poor girl was slung.

Qdoba’s once great contest idea was fast becoming a platform for slander, so they had no choice, but to post the following on their wall:
QdobaResponse

Of course, you can comment on anyone’s fan page, so the people who were perpetrating this slander were now acting like their candidate was the victim in all of this, and made threats about what would happen if Qdoba didn’t award the contest to him.  Ultimately Qdoba made the most of their bad situation: gave the prize, then awarded the runners up with generous prizes of their own.  Still the proponents of the winner are still whining – nothing like looking a gift-burrito in the mouth.

To be fair to the guy who won, he didn’t make any public disparaging comments about the other contestants.  At the same time, there is definitely an association of guilt, and I’ve always found it fair to judge people based on where/who they build their community.  Responsibility should be taken up, especially since the guy is now 52 burritos richer.

Ultimately I feel bad for Qdoba. We’re all still trying to navigate this social media river, and when you have something like this blow up in your face it doesn’t encourage you to get back on the boat.  They ended up giving away nearly 2 years worth of burritos, and all they have to show for it is a page full of slander and intimidation.

Companies like Qdoba, please don’t lose heart in this. I think if they were go back and do it again, they could have made one tweak to the rules and avoided much of this mess.  Simply add a rule to the effect of “No promotion or lobbying outside of Facebook is allowed. We will be running searches on the leaders and if we find any external lobbying, you will be disqualified.”  I used Google to get that above screen shot, and discovered the blog post by doing a similar search on the winner.  That way you keep your promotional efforts within Facebook (which is what you want), and ensure that your winners are using the same platform to campaign.  People may try the winner’s excuse of “I can’t control what people do”, but let’s be honest: if I wanted to win that badly I’d make damn sure people kept it as word-of-mouth.

So sorry Qdoba, I still think you’re great. Better luck next time!

Motorola – how to screw with your customers

As you know I’m a Droid user, and for the most part am happy with my device.  Since the announcement of Android 2.1, us Droid users have been anxiously awaiting an update to our devices.  Google’s anointed phone, the Nexus One received the update back in February, and the Droid users have been anxiously awaiting news on when we will be updated.

2010-03-15 12.17.04

Out of the gate, Motorola said all the right things, issuing a post on their Facebook page on February 9th that the update was coming “this week”.  That was then met with refuting news a few days later on their forum.  After that. silence.  Motorola remained completely mum on the issue, both of their Facebook page, on the forum, through news sources – there was no word about when the update would happen. Motorola customers, including myself, have been complaining on their Facebook page about the lack of details.  I actually uploaded my own subtle protest on their “Motopic Monday” feature on Facebook. Finally Motorola shares the news: the upgrade will be rolled out on Thursday to a few test users, then will be going out to all customers over the new few days.

Thursday comes. and goes. It turns out that Motorola delayed pushing out the update again, reported by Engadget. Of course, Motorola’s own Facebook page has been indirect and mum on the issue. Motorola never actually comes out and says the update has been delayed, yet they allude to it with their last two posts:

Thanks for your continued patience. We aim to answer each and every question; if your post isn’t answered immediately, please know that we’re looking into your question so that we can provide the most up-to-date information as possible.
Hi Everyone – We are looking into this new update and will definitely share with you what we find. Please patient with us! Thank you!

Rightfully so, Motorola’s customers have been hammering their Facebook page non-stop with complaints and comments.  Motorola has just continued to botch this situation up – I can’t imagine how else they can screw this up from a PR front.

Motorola, I understand these technical these technical issues come up and it’s completely fine – but be direct and transparent when you’re communicating this!  This business of putting out a statement, then letting weeks go by without any word – is completely unacceptable.  It’s great they’re using Facebook as a platform to put out this information, but by not following it up with any direct announcement or posts about the problems is only confusing people more.  Also when they try to be coy with the mistake with “How embarrassing! We jumped the gun” but then offer no additional information is only infuriating.  I’d much rather appreciate “We apologize, but we mistakenly communicated the wrong date. Please look for an announcement early next week” – then actually follow up like you promised!

We’ll see how long it takes for the Motorola & Verizon to finally get their stuff together and actually be direct with their customers – it’s the least they could do.

EA’s Brass Stones

I was playing Madden on my X-box the other day (but let’s face it, that’s all I ever do with my X-box from August to Christmas), when after choosing my play I saw the following on my pre-snap screen.

DSC00382

Wow EA, talk about ballsy.  Is it not enough that Madden is the most popular sports franchise of all time, and that suckers like me continue to shell out $60 each season for the equivalence of roster updates?  Now you’ve resorted to showing me ads on the game that I paid for that obstruct the game experience?  Thanks jerks!

Look, I’m fine with you inserting ads into the game where it’s realistically done so.  I’ve come to accept the “Sprint Recap”, and the “Snickers Chompion Coin Toss” for two reasons: 1) It doesn’t interfere with my actual game play; 2) Because this is done during regular NFL games and is a sad reflection of the level of sponsorship in the NFL.  The league is pretty bad when it comes to in-game ads, but I don’t see ads streaming across the jumbotron before the QB is going to snap the ball.

Seriously EA?  I understand you’re not a charity, but there has to be better ways to get revenue than this.  Quit killing your golden goose, or before you know it it’ll stop laying eggs.