From Cub to Lion – The Long Good-Bye

With the passing of Ted Kennedy, there has been much talk about the ‘end of an era.’ The kidd doesn’t believe this to be the case. After witnessing the funeral celebration at the JFK Memorial Library and the eulogies at the funeral mass, we learned a lot about a man who overcame adversity and atoned for character failings in his earlier years to live a long and successful life in support of the underdog. The legislative triumphs that transformed him from the Cub of Hyannis Port to the Lion of the Senate was based on his patience, perseverance and undying quest for a better world.

According to the kidd, the moral of Ted Kennedy’s life is intrinsically linked to a lifetime that fulfilled the promise and lived the dream. It was the gift of time that allowed this Kennedy to prove his mettle. So instead of closing the door to the end of an era, the kidd thinks it is more fitting if we talk about the “passing of the torch.”

“To carry Ted Kennedy’s torch is a honor,” the kidd humbly professed. “If we are to become lions in our own right, we need to live by his example. Ted Kennedy lived as long as he did to prove that the heartaches and failings of one’s youth is only one phase of one’s time here on Earth. The endurance of the long haul is what makes the man!”

Social Media Says Goodbye To A Voice Of Reason

kidd was in a state of shock today when he was asked to speak about Walter Cronkite and what he meant to a nation. The kidd struggled with the right words that best described what this icon meant to so many.

He reminded us that millions of people wouldn’t believe that President Kennedy had been shot, or that men walked on the moon until they heard it from Walter Cronkite. Like our fictional Uncle Sam, Mr. Cronkite was the reliable friend of the family that you could count on to let you know ‘just the way things were.’

The kidd stated, “the authority and influence of this one man can not be repeated, particularly in the world of social media. Today, the passing of a president or a spaceship launch would be blasted out to the masses in a real-time tweet.”

However, Walter Conkrite’s death is a reminder that time marches on, and the explosive expansion of media was inevitable and necessary. This is progress. But what it lacks, according to the kidd is the “warmth, sincerity and calmness that comes from hearing breaking news delivered by a broadcaster you trust.”

While social media is user-generated and elicits a direct feed from the people, it does lack the heart-felt sentiment that came from a generation that  had to grapple with a Depression, two World Wars and the fear of Communism. “That world mandated a need for larger than life figures to help America tread the uncertain waters of an uncertain time. Uncle Walter helped us do that. He was the gravel-voiced saviour of the airwaves,” noted the kidd.

Today, while the torrent of social media we are exposed to does reach the masses in a timely fashion, a lot of what we seek out on social networks is the echo-chamber of like-minded people. We want our world-view to be authenticated by our fans and followers, people that will put their stamp of approval on what we believe is right. We need the assurance that– ‘that’s the way it is.’ “The question is who do we rely on when its not?” reminded the kidd sadly.

Rest in peace Uncle Walter. You were our rock, our anchor. But today the grace of you needs to be broadcasted to a higher authority. You’ve earned the right to be heard on a higher plane.

What Would Jesus Twitter?

Jesus on Twitter

Have you ever thought how Jesus would communicate with his followers if he was alive today. Would he be MySpacing his apostles, befriending his Facebook buds in Galilee, or posting his travel itinerary on Tripit and LinkedIn? Kidd Millennium thinks he might follow in the footsteps of His Holiness, the Dalia Lama who purportedly registered for  a Twitter account recently under the moniker OHHDL (Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama) with the address of http://twitter.com/OHHDL.

For those less enlightened, Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send text message updates (aka tweets) up to 140 characters long) via the Twitter website or mobile phone text messaging.Launched in August 2006, the Twitter service claims more than six million users of its service.

On February 6, 2009. explaining the 73-year-old’s decision to join the microblogging site,his first auspicious post announced: “His Holiness thought it was prudent to make his office open and assessable to a more youth and technologically advancing audience.” Another Tweet read: “I’m sure HH will be just as inquisitive about technology as he has been over the past 14 reincarnations.”

http://www.kiddmillennium.com

The feed attracted nearly 20,000 followers within 48 hours of launching, under the Tibetan spiritual leader’s name.

But as karma would have it, Twitter was not meant for enlightenment. In a bold move. the top brass at Twitter suspended the account after evidence surfaced that the person behind it was an imposter and had no connection to the Nobel Peace Prize winner.”The account was suspended the following Monday, February 9 because it violated our Terms of Use regarding impersonation,” noted Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.

And while the imposter is today without a job, from all intents and purposes, he did appear to be well intentioned. Whenever he would tweet his followers, it was generally with either a link to a pertinent page on the official Dalia Lama website or a gracious thank you for whatever suggestion had been given. The person was fake but the responses were genuine and helpful.

Strangely enough, the appearance and disappearance of the OHHDL account underscored a major tenet of the Buddhist faith. One of the essential doctrines of Buddhism is “impermanence”. The word expresses the notion that everything we can experience through our senses is in flux, constantly changing, and ceasing to be—nothing is permanent. One day you are a twitterer and the next day, you are asked to leave the premises.

Other reported fake twitter accounts are numerous. Kanye West dissed Stephen Colbert last year on Twitter. Then we found out it wasn’t Kanye after all. A White House Twitter account, which had been updated during the Bush years and then switched to Obama right after the inauguration, also turned out to be bogus.

Well, Jesus, you’ve now got the facts. If, in your second coming, you want to quickly attract a mutlitude of followers in a couple of days, I suggest you join the twitterati and give Twitter a big thumbs up! However, you will not be able to claim the user name “God”, as of February 16, 2009, that handle has already been reserved by another impostor who appears to have assembled a following of 6.284 tweeps.

Flickr Tags: Dalai Lama,Twitter,Facebook,kidd millennium,Ron Callari,LinkedIn,Tripit

Did Satire Retire with Bush?

Now that George W. Bush has finally ‘coptered his way out’ of the White House, complete with malapropisms and Homer Simpson gaffes in tow, the kidd believes the satire industry will join the rest of the economy in recession. “It’s been a long 8 years of writing books, speaking engagements and interviews. And while I am physically exhausted,” noted the kidd, “I think I may have to queue up in the cartoon bread lines to find future work.”

Bush was a walking parody of himself; inclusive of his knack for being oblivious, his funny clown walk, and his scary world’s view of certitude. Some describe him as a modern day Trojan Horse. Apart from the obvious similarities of his stick-man demeanor and clueless innocuousness, it was his hollow head that was the perfect transport for the Neo-cons to sneak their way into his psyche and hijack our government!

We forget that Dubya wasn’t meant to ascend to the highest office in the land. Fate chose the wrong brother, and the US Supreme Court chose the wrong candidate! His term was bookended by two of the most momentous crises in world events: 9/11 and the recent financial debacle. He inherited a budget surplus of $128 billion in 2001 and left office, leaving all of us holding the bag for one trillion dollars in debt! One has to work damn hard to accomplish that feat! But I guess an unjustified war in Iraq was a  major assist!

“Surely the irony of feeling the need to keep Bush around for the sole purpose of satire is a little absurd?’ stated the kidd. “No, we’ve made great strides in electing the first African-American as Commander-in-Chief.  Just makes my job a little harder, you know? All I can say…is thank God Sarah Palin is not going away any time soon!”

Faithfully Yours, the Ministers of Satire,

Ron, Jon & the kidd!

The kidd’s book, Uncle Dubya’s Jihad Jamboree, chronicling the Bush Administration can be found at our website or at Amazon.com.  A second book, Crude Behavior is still papering our walls with rejection notices!

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McCain Exposing his Feminine Side

During a recent press trip  through Dayton, Ohio, the kidd learned that John McCain had announced that the better half of his 2008 “dream ticket” would be a 44 year-old ex-Alaskan Beauty Queen. This came shortly after Hillary Clinton flatly turned him down.

Despite being a virtual neophyte to the political arena, Sarah Palin’s chief qualification is her status as what is known in GOP political circles as “a woman.”

Eleventh-hour negotiations with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney broke down at the last minute despite Romney’s ditch-effort to undergo a sex change if that would help the GOP cause. That man just “loves being a girl!”

Since the Artic tundra people are the only ones that have ever heard of Ms Palin, the first question the kidd posed at her first press conference was: “How many igloos do you own?”

In regards to her prolific breeding habits, McCain’s VP pick is proud of her ever growing tribe, but comments if she had to do it over again she would have never sent her daughter to Juneau to see the movie JUNO. Because, as she puts it: “she is too young to be a grandma!”

The kidd was also quick to point out that Obama’s 20-month run for the presidency was just as long as the amount of time Ms. Palin has served as Governor. He also noted that she would be no match in a VP Debate with her Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. To which an Obama critic quickly retorted, “yeah, but she’ll definitely beat him in the swim suit contest!”

Ron Callari is a freelance journalist and editorial cartoonist whose work has appeared in Alternet, Counterpunch, Sacramento News & Review, Albion Monitor and the World and I. He is author of “Uncle Dubya’s Jihad Jamboree”, published in 2005, and the creator of kidd millennium’s editorial cartoons. Ron is also the Chief Marketing Officer for iOptimize Marketing, Inc., a company that provides SEO, SEM and Social Networking Services.

10 Reasons to Fight Keyword Inflation

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Spending on online advertising sees strong growth, according to a new report from market analysis firm JupiterResearch — expanding by almost 20 percent in 2008 to reach $23.8 billion. According to the report, 8.4 percent of advertising budgets in 2007 were spent online — a figure expected to reach 14.3 percent by 2013, a growth that attests to the increasing shift of dollars away from traditional media.

Paid search continues to represent the largest category of online spend, and is expected to grow to $20.9 billion in 2013.With that said, the cost per acquisition (CPA) continues to grow exponentially making it nearly out of reach for a small operator to compete against the bigger brands with sizeable advertising budgets.

How then does one compete in a recessionary climate, when the commodity of keywords is just as inflationary as the price of oil?

Here are 10 reasons to start changing your strategy:

10. Consider “long tail keywords.” They are cheaper and can draw more qualified buyers to your site.

9. Save dollars with “Dayparting,” by checking the effectiveness of your campaign at different hours of the day.

8. Why pay for membership to the GYM (Google, Yahoo, MSN), when you can exercise your keywords 24/7 at an SEO park.

7. When a paid search budget runs out, advertisers lose their presence all together on the Search Engines, where SEO continues to move you up in the rankings.

6. Geo-target your campaign with LOCAL SEARCH, and right now Google isn’t charging for it.

5. Diversify. There are search engines other than Google that charge less.

4. Studies indicate that 60 percent of searches click on organic results versus paid placements

3. Ad blockers are available now which not only block pop-ups and banners, but paid search as well.

2. Organic search has the perception of “implied endorsement.” Sponsored listings imply commercialism. In the world of Web 2.0, the customers like to be in control.

1. It’s okay not to be in the Number 1 spot on Google. Rankings above the fold bring in substantial ROI, just as well!

 
Ron Callari is the Chief Marketing Officer of iOptimize Marketing, an Internet marketing firm, and a freelance journalist and editorial cartoonist whose work has appeared in Alternet, Counterpunch, Sacramento News & Review, Albion Monitor and the World and I. He is author of “Uncle Dubya’s Jihad Jamboree”, published in 2005, and the creator of kidd millennium’s editorial cartoons, www.kiddmillennium.com

 

 

 

 

The Audacity of SEO

                    

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Well now that we have survived a grueling 16 months of Primary Elections, its time to reflect on just how “ optimized” our candidates really were. Was Search Engine Optimization (SEO) a major factor in selecting the Democratic and Republican presumptive nominees and if so, how will it play out in the General Election?

Well, based on the early exit polls, it looks like the candidates who were the most search engine savvy, were the ones that squeaked in under the wire, with keywords to spare.

Compete, a search analytic metrics firm reported that Obama consistently beat Hillary Clinton 2 to 1 in Web traffic, 4 to 1 in Wikipedia article readers, and 10 to 1 based on the time viewers spent watching their videos on YouTube.

Compete also measured something it called “FaceTime,” which tracked the amount of time viewers spent with each candidate across several leading social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and LinkedIn. Obama trounced Clinton there as well, with a 78 to 21 percent share.

In May, a month prior to Barack Obama becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee; he must have been pretty confident of the outcome of his campaign, as he posted an Internet marketing position opening, which listed the job duration as “indefinite.” The recruitment ad was posted on the ClickZ’s network, and the Obama for America Campaign listed the position as full time, where only applicants with search engine marketing, SEO, display advertising, Flash animation, and Web video experience need apply.

Obama’s campaign has been Internet savvy from the get-go. While last century, the GM assembly plants in Flint, Michigan were a mandatory destination for presidential candidates, this election cycle, a new industry giant became the requisite campaign stop. And while Obama, McCain and Clinton all visited Google’s HDQ in Mountain View, California, Obama was the only candidate who actually spoke at the Googleplex, where he outlined a detailed 21st Century technology plan.

During Senator McCain’s tour of Google, he was wise enough not to refer to the company in Bush-speak as “the Google,” but nonetheless failed when quizzed by Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman & CEO about computer memory configuration. When asked: “How do you determine good ways of sorting one million 32-bit integers in two megabytes of RAM?” McCain pleaded ignorance. Six months later, when Senator Obama was faced with the same query, he replied in fluent tech-speak (“A bubble sort is the wrong way to go”) – for which his quip brought down the house!

Benefiting from sponsored links leading to landing pages, Clinton’s and McCain’s pages made immediate and targeted requests for donations. In fact, it was hard to get away from Clinton’s extended hand. Navigating away from one donation prompt only led to yet another plea to help put her fundraising deficit back in the black!

When compared to all the rest, Obama’s was the first Internet-based campaign to win mainstream success. His online donor base consisted of about 1.5 million, one third of which also belonged to his social network site my.barackobama.com. His campaign also included opt-in mobile marketing, video content, a blog, an e-commerce site for Obama merchandise, and accounts with 16 other social networks (compared to Hillary’s 6 social networks).

Obama’s campaign also designed a number of innovations not used by his competitors. His website used wikis — online collaborative software — to coordinate and churn out precinct captains in both California and Texas. It created a counter-viral e-mail campaign to combat the anonymous e-mail smears that questioned his religious faith and patriotism. It set up policy pages that solicited ideas from supporters, and at one point, the campaign petition for letters from supporters over the Internet to lobby the undecided Super Delegates.

In 1963 John F. Kennedy was considered by some to be the first President elected through the power of television, due to his youthful good looks being in marked contrast to his perspiring opponent, Mr. Richard M. Nixon. In 2008 Barack Obama may become the first President elected in part through the power of search marketing.

Interestingly, according to a report from iCrossing, a digital marketing company, John McCain has spent more than Obama and Clinton on paid candidate-related and issues-related search engine keyword marketing, yet Obama still leads in overall searches conducted.  Now that the contours of the general election campaign are clear at hand, it will be interesting to see if Obama starts to shift more resources towards organic search, and if McCain changes up his approach to more closely resemble Obama’s.

So it looks like SEO is driving the political bus of the 21^st Century and its keywords all the way to the finish line!