Now, I am the first person to be skeptical of Internet hype. (In fact, I was the first person to be skeptical of Internet hype. In 1996.) But I am also skeptical of USA Today (starting in 1984, when I first read a press release). And honestly, I am extremely skeptical of:
On Aug. 8, Connecticut businessman Ned Lamont defeated U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary, a triumph widely credited to the rah-rah racket produced by pro-Lamont armies stationed along the Internet.
Indeed, the bloggers had scored big. They had helped vault a local politician to national prominence and cemented the Iraq war as Issue No. 1 in the congressional elections. Not a bad day.
But their victory was short-lived. Even before the primary, Lieberman announced that, should he lose, he'd still run in November as an independent. This electoral chutzpah effectively rope-a-doped the bloggers and recharged the senator's fabled Joe-mentum. Lieberman's still the man to beat in the general election.
See, it seems to me fairly clear that Lieberman is not "rope-a-doping" the fabled bloggers, but, rather, voters in the Connecticut primary. And, while USA Today might feel confident using its, um, journalistic credibility to blithely dismiss bloggers, I feel insulted that they feel so confident dismissing voters. You know, those patriotic American citizens who participate in the democratic process. Further,
If this wasn't enough to drain the effervescence from the blogger bubbly, America's noisy Web wags were dealt an even more sobering blow 10 days later when Snakes on a Plane opened nationwide to a decidedly flat $15.3 million box office.
Before its premiere, Snakes had been the latest blogger darling, as swarms of online film geeks prematurely crowned it the summer's big sleeper. This hyperventilating fan base even convinced Snakes' distributor, New Line Cinema, to up the movie's rating to R, to ensure a gorier, more venomous snake fest.
But all that clapping and yapping couldn't put enough fannies in the seats. Ticket sales for Snakes' debut barely topped those of Talladega Nights, which was already in its third week.
Snakes was the beneficiary of what is known as "viral marketing" which was a new hot concept five or so years ago -- it included not only blogs, but also e-mail, text messaging, phone calls, and pretty much every other way that people communicate with each other. It was supposed to revolutionize marketing.
But, as the brilliant Serenity ($10 mill opening weekend) already proved, having an enthusiastic fan base of people who all know each other doesn't always translate into box office success. And I suppose that's because the people who don't all know each other have to go to the movie in order to make it a hit. It can't just be the same thousands of slobbering Joss fans three times each.
Anyway, this is all interesting data for marketing theorists, but it tells you almost nothing about blogging.
