Blog | Virginia Miracle

Virgle: Branson and Page Invite you to Mars

By virginia.miracle | April 1, 2008

Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google founder Larry Page have decided that, having conquered the whole of the planet we call Earth, they need to identify more territory to conquer. What’s next for 2 such big thinkers? Why, Mars of course. Thus, they bring you “Virgle“: the open source planet that claims to be the adventure of many lifetimes.

The best part is that you can test your fitness to apply to be one of the first colonists on Mars as part of the Virgle project. Why wouldn’t you you want to go? As they say on the site “Earth has issues“.

(Larry & Richard – thank you for fooling my husband into think this was real for about 30 seconds this morning. It made by day. Happy April 1!)

Rick Astley: Cool at Last

By virginia.miracle | March 26, 2008

OK, maybe that’s stretching it, but this interview with Rick Astley and the LA Times on the topic of “Rickrolling” may surprise you. If you’ve ever been reading a blog or message board conversation and been led to a link claiming to be something relevant that turned out to be a YouTube video of Rick Astley singing “Never Gonna Give You Up”, you’ve been Rickrolled. Cute, but even funnier when the pranks are taken offline and the song has been played live at Scientology protests then captured on video.

The interview reveals that Rick Astley is not living in the past, has a sense of humor, thinks Rickrolling is hilarious, and strongly believes that him taking part or trying to capitalize on it falls somewhere between killing the internet magic and being quite sad:

“If some DJ wants to remix Never Gonna Give You Up and put it out as a record, if he did a good job, I’d be flattered…I think the artist themselves trying to remix it is almost a bit sad, really…Either that or I’ll get myself a pseudonym and remix it.”

It’s BlogHeriffic!

By virginia.miracle | March 24, 2008

It’s hard to believe that BlogHer Business ’08 is just around the corner. BlogHer, the community for women who blog, is bringing together leading social media practitioners from across industries and Ogilvy 360 DI will be there. We are sponsoring the track on Successful Social Media Creation and, with trusty videographer in tow, we’ll be interviewing attendees throughout the 2 day event.

Per the Catch Up Lady’s post here, we’d like to get your input on what we ask of the attendees. In her words, like any good 80’s movie – we need a montage! So, what would you like to ask leading female social media creators? What do you want to ask the brands who want to connect with these powerful voices? We’ll be there and we want to bring you the most valuable output possible, so let us know what you’d like to hear.

Small Business + Blogger Experiences = Gold

By virginia.miracle | March 18, 2008

This is cross posted from Ogilvy’s 360 Digital Influence Blog.

Check out some wonderful examples of small businesses getting a boost from the blogosphere in today’s WSJ. Bean Bag chair maker Sumo Lounge International was able to work with technology uber-blog Engadget to achieve a chain reaction of business success that that $60k in trade show exhibitions hadn’t produced – getting exposure for his product with the audience that would most appreciate it. 2 years after the initial deal with Engadget, Sumo Lounge has been reviewed by 250 bloggers and has tripled profits.

The article maps tightly to our evolving Blogger Code of Ethics, but also illustrates the golden rule for blogger outreach efficacy – inviting a blogger to participate in an experience is infinitely more powerful than sending a press release. Inviting a blogger to review your product, attend a demonstration, live chat with your engineers, enter your contest, tour your headquarters, etc, is a better course for blogger outreach for 3 major reasons:

An experience is something that the blogger/social media creator can capture and interpret in their own style, chosen medium, and on their own time.
Experiences provide bloggers with conversational capital that they can in turn share with readers.
The final benefit of inviting bloggers to participate in an experience is that, because it is more involved than sending a press release, it will force you to tightly focus on building relationships with the bloggers most relevant to your offering.

What type of remarkable experience can you offer your key constituents?

Neither Harvey Dent Nor Eliot Spitzer

By virginia.miracle | March 15, 2008

Yesterday, brand Husband (also my blog stringer) called in a tip from our Georgetown neighborhood that a van with Aaron Eckhart’s photo on it, and campaign signs reading “I Believe in Harvey Dent”. He suggested I check out the faux campaign website.

I then mentioned this to the Catch Up Lady who clued me in to the elaborate online program surrounding Harvey Dent’s campaign that has been tiding over moviegoers for months. I am not conversant enough with Dark Knight mythology to recognize that Harvey Dent is Gotham’s crusader DA, but Husband knew immediately that this van was all about Batman. So like, the commercials for Oceanic Air that led to a website priming the enthusiast audience for the return of Lost, Harvey Dent street teams are popping up in neighborhoods in big cities all over the country, building buzz among insiders on the grassroots level – and confusing the heck out of a lot of other people in the meantime as I Watch Stuff amusingly chronicled in NY. This will be clutter to many, but powerful for the core few.

Maybe the Batman movie will get a boost out of this week’s news of Client 9. After becoming the supervillain Two Face, Harvey Dent, the former crusader against police corruption flips a coin to decide whether to do evil or fight it. Maybe that’s how the former Governor of New York was setting his daily agenda too. To quote Harvey’s campaign platform “Too many cops have become criminals themselves.”