Hello there, and welcome to this week’s Quaintise Briefing. My name is Raquel Baldelomar, Managing Director of Quaintise Communications, and I’d like to welcome you back after a brief summer hiatus. As a refresher, the purpose of this blog is to share with you news, analysis, insights, and trends in the area of marketing and technology. Specifically, this blog will discuss how to blend the art of marketing with the power of technology and articulate ways in which we at Quaintise can help you create a compelling “Web 2.0� interactive marketing strategy.

In fact, our brief hiatus has proved fortuitous, as we’ll soon see, the past few months have provided us in the marketing field to take a step back and objectively assess the successes and failures of marketing in the “Web 2.0� landscape.

A wave of data is in, and we’ll take time today to analyze the findings and put things in perspective; after all, companies, advertisers, and marketers alike are the first to admit that we are all exploring unchartered waters here—with the proliferation of user-generated content, users are calling the shots. And companies are following. And by examining those who came before us, we can hope to learn from their experiences.

To that end, many companies adhere to a strategy not often taught in business schools: the “Spaghetti Theory.� Given the ever-unfolding and unknown nature of these challenges, where new technologies surpass the old with stunning speed, and where the “next big thing� changes every week, its not surprising that many marketers simply “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.�

And a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, shows that is precisely what many marketers are doing with regards to “virtual world� advertising:

“Put off by high costs and uncertain returns, marketers who had rushed to establish a presence in the three-dimensional online computer gaming space are beginning to look elsewhere…The shifting sands of virtual reality show how hard it is for marketers to keep pace with fast-changing consumer habits on the Internet.�

And what attributed to this early rush? According to Marc Schiller, chief executive of digital-marketing shop Electric Artists, a “herd mentality� which triggers a great deal of spaghetti-throwing:

“There is always this pressure of saying we weren’t early enough on MySpace. We weren’t early enough on Facebook….Suddenly there is this herd mentality and people are doing it because they feel like if they are not there they are missing out.â€�

Of course, marketers cannot be blamed for wanting in on the “next big thing,� for essentially, throwing spaghetti at the wall. But for many companies – especially small businesses aiming to establish a foothold in the Web 2.0 environment – they don’t have much spaghetti to work with. And over time, the cost of all that wasted spaghetti sure adds up.

Forrester Research corroborates this theory in a recent report documenting the projected rise in interactive marketing spending:

Interactive marketing spend in the U.S. will grow to $61.3 billion in 2012, from $18.4 billion in 2007 - a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27 percent.

According to Forrester, “the increases will be “driven by marketers who will leverage a distribution of channels rather than pour new spends into a single place� – ultimately, an articulate way of saying “throwing spaghetti at a wall.�

The sheer proliferation of channels – from virtual worlds to Facebook to e-mail to mobile marketing – leaves marketers with no choice but to blanket each channel, and hope something sticks.

Or is there another choice?

We at Quaintise think so. We provide services in all aspects of interactive marketing, production, and mobile marketing to help you generate the highest return on your advertising investments. We think the “Spaghetti Theory� can quickly lose its novelty when its your dollars at stake.

So let us end on a bright note and a theme that we at Quaintise continually harp on and can help you with: the importance of knowing your customers.

And as we’ve tried to show on these blogs, companies who “crack the code� generally adhere to this principle. Getting back to the first theme we discussed – advertising in “virtual worlds,� the Journal article documented a preliminary success story.

To promote its Summer Slam pay-per-view wrestling event, World Wrestling Entertainment launched its first virtual-world promotion on Gaia Interactive’s Gaia Online, a community site with anime and videogame discussions, among other features. Gaia Online registered 1.3 million unique U.S. visitors last month. WWE says it was pleased with the campaign and plans to continue marketing through virtual worlds.

Though the article failed to speculate, we wondered: why was this effort so successful, while other companies failed? Well, for starters, its somewhat intuitive that most WWE fans are young males. And it’s also not a coincidence that fans of anime and videogame discussions – the hallmarks of Gai Online – are also young males. A natural match, some would say.

To stretch the analogy to it’s logical (and arguably absurd) conclusion, WWE knew enough about their target audience that they didn’t need to see if any spaghetti stuck to the wall. In fact, they didn’t even need to throw it.

And with that, we bid you areverderci. As always, we encourage you check out our services at www.quaintise.com for more information on how we can help you create an interactive marketing strategy.

I’d also like to throw this question out to you all: “What has proven successful to your organization in objectively assessing the returns of various marketing channels?�

I would always take an ugly truth over a beautiful lie.  Anonymous

As you may know, previous blogs have examined a wide range of topics, from the recent high-profile industry players and how they may influence your company as you work to create an integrated interactive marketing strategy. We’ve also looked at more theoretical concepts, from positioning Web 2.0 as a metaphorical democracy, to how companies can leverage the power of aesthetics as a competitive differentiator.

Today’s blog will be entirely different.

Yes, we’ll talk of metaphors and talk about traditional and emerging marketing concepts, but ultimately, today’s discussion will be a manifesto, if you will, on how we at Quaintise - and myself in particular - view the art of marketing.

It’s a highly personal view, shaped by experience, time, and working with clients, and I hope that it provides greater context around Quaintise and how we can help you develop a cutting-edge marketing strategy that marries traditional advertising concepts with the technological promise of Web 2.0.

At the most basic level, marketing, like magic, is just a great illusion.

To some, that’s a cynical assessment. But most of us who deal with it on a daily basis know that, at the end of the day, it’s an accurate assessment.

Companies that are good marketers are good illusionists. Most specifically, they are good at the art of indirection, using words, images, and stories to manipulate illusions. With marketing, you can say whatever you want about your brand, products, and services. With marketing, you can define your perception of reality versus that what actually is. With marketing, like some of the great artists of optical illusion like Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher, you can create amazing feats of visual trickery.

Just look around your house and see the things you bought that honestly, you don’t need.

But illusion alone cannot sell a product - at least consistently. You need substance, backbone, and depth. If a company, person, or entity does not have the substance to back up their talk, no amount of marketing feats, glamour, or glitz will help convince consumers otherwise.

Of course, consumers could be fooled initially. But without substance, they won’t come back.

I speak of these concepts because as a marketing agency, we help companies create the ‘illusion’ that they are larger than life, helping make their entity and brand have a life of it’s own.

However, we cannot help them achieve substance and depth, if they don’t have it already because true depth (whether for a company or an individual) comes from real commitment to something - whether it’s to a hobby, or a business, or a relationship.

If a company does not assert itself to be committed to its product or service, no amount of marketing mania and glitz will help them much in the long run. People will see through the smoke and mirrors eventually.

This is why there must be order, a plan, a strategy behind the illusion.

Let’s run with this metaphor for a bit - the idea of an illusion. If a magician performs a successful illusion or trickery, the audience becomes enthralled, almost as if the impossible has been performed.

But of course, there is a method, a plan to these mere illusions.

Likewise, a magician may perform a spell-binding feat to win the audience’s hearts and minds, but will he or she follow it with the same trick? Of course not. The illusionist is always thinking of what lies ahead, what’s next, how to top the previous feat, how to secure audience participation and trust and build upon it.

To look at another analogy, having a great strategy is like the game of pool.  Pool is one of my favorite games. And the reason I like it so much is because it is all about angles. First, there are simple angles, as you must hit the cue ball to either side when you are not straight on. This is often not as easy as it seems. Then, there are the angles you take when you bank the targeted ball off the sides of the table, an entirely new game in and of itself.

There are the angles of the combination shots, and even more slippery combinations, when you use a stripe to slide off of a solid and knock in a stripe.

Then there is the whole new set of subtle angles that comes into play when you are thinking ahead and trying to keep the cue ball in solid position, working with the open spaces of the table.

Finally, there are the abstract angles in psychological space and time: playing with your opponent’s mind, letting him get ahead, but cornering him in relation to the final balls on the table, or playing him into impossible positions or seeing the entire table and how you will run it in short order. In other words, there are layers of angles, all more subtle and nuanced as you go up the ladder and improve your game. I will add that I’m not pool shark yet, but I am not a sucker, either.

Having a good marketing strategy, like a good pool player, it’s about always looking a step ahead, about seeing beyond the immediate horizon, and about thinking about the big picture.

Which brings me to a final concept - that of the power of words. The actual delivery mechanism - the words that comprise the message, the theme, the idea you are trying to convey, are critical to achieving a great illusion.

I will admit that words are my weakness. As a writer and a romantic, I am seduced by words (which is why I love marketing, because the key to good marketing is engaging your viewer on all five senses, including words).

However, words, as well know, are also deceptive. What I am about to say goes 100% against that which I do for a living  -  use words, images, and stories to persuade audiences - but it’s the truth.

You must judge people by the results of their actions and maneuvers, not their words. Machiavelli calls this “the effective truth,” and it is his most profound concept, in my opinion. It works like this: people will say almost anything to justify their actions, to give them a moral, self-righteous, or successful pretense.

The only thing that is clear, the only way we can judge people is by looking at their actions, and the results of their actions. That is their effective truth. And that truth shall liberate you.

Now I’m sure we’ve all had instances in our lives where we’ve been blinded by words, only to find out the hard way that actions were what we should have really paid attention to. It could have manifested itself in a relationship, for example. The other individual may have seduced you with his intelligence, poetry, and power of language - so much so that your mind became clouded by their ‘effective truth’ - their actions. This illusion, in turn, clouds your judgment, and leads to inevitable disappointment. By placing judgment on mere words, rather than actions, it makes it harder to respond in way that is strategic and smart.

I’ve learned that whether you are dealing with someone in business or pleasure, judging people by their actions rather than their words and not taking them personally will allow you to keep your emotional balance and keep you from setting false expectations.

So, how does this all tie into our philosophy on the art of marketing?

Well, marketing is a great illusion. Yet all good magicians have a plan - there’s a method, a strategy to the illusion that captures that audience’s heart and mind.

But illusion, or manipulation, or magic alone is a dead-end street. It doesn’t matter how beautiful, attractive, and eloquent your words are, if you can’t back it up with your subsequent actions, you can only get so far.

I’ve learned to judge people by their actions, to look at their ‘effective truth’. And in marketing, your customers will quickly learn that as well. Because if they are not satisfied, if they feel they’ve been had, if they are in any way misled or disappointed, they will surely look elsewhere.

All of these factors, therefore, must be considered as you develop your marketing strategy. And again, I admit, there are fine lines to navigate, tightropes to walk across.

A sound strategy, predicated on a powerful brand with a powerful message, must form the core; the illusion itself must be compelling to grab the customers’ attention, as should the words.

But at the end of the day, you will be judged by your actions, by the quality of your product, your ability to effectively provide a service that fills a void in the market, and how well you can make the consumer feel important and valued.

We at Quaintise are uniquely positioned to help you address these complex challenges.Our team of experts can help you in the traditional areas of marketing ‘ creating a powerful brand, designing compelling ads, and conducting extensive and measurable market and demographic research to identify your ideal customer base.

But we also bring to bear expertise in interactive media technologies and tools to create a community among your customers, so that they feel important, valued, and empowered.

So, I’d encourage you to check out our site, www.quaintise.com, for more information on these and other services.

So with that my friends, I’d like to thank you for joining the conversation, and until next week.

This week we’d like to spend some time talking about a concept that weaves its away across all dimensions of your marketing and advertising efforts: the idea of aesthetics. It’s a topic we’ve hit on before, but only at a cursory level.

This topic is about understanding what appeals to people, what stimulates them, what gets them engaged, and it is a critical input to your marketing strategy.

Today we’ll explore the concept of aesthetics, how it’s applied across marketing disciplines, and take a look at how companies are applying these principals to their own campaigns.

Because ultimately, all aspects of your advertising campaigns – the content, the images, the wording, the color of your site – relies on aesthetics. And, if understood and harnessed properly, your company’s aesthetic power can ultimately differentiate you from your competitors.

So, Aesthetics can be defined as “the branch of philosophy dealing with such notions as the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, and the comic.” It literally means perception through the senses. It is applicable across a range of fields, from the fine arts, to city planning, to interior design, and to, naturally, marketing.

But judgments on “aesthetic value” – ultimately, what makes something beautify, ugly, sublime, and comical range from the intuitive to cultural to simply arbitrary.

For example, let’s explore the concept of disgust.

A recent article in Time Magazine looks at a recent study exmaining the concept of disgust, and how marketers are applying it to their advertising strategies.

The study specifically examined the concept of “touch transference” – the idea that if something repulsive touches something benign, the latter object, even if it’s physically unchanged, becomes “infected” and therefore, undesireable.

Two marketing professors took this concept even further, theorizing that this phenomenon had implications for the consumer marketplace. In a series of studies, the researchers found not only that some products–trash bags, diapers, kitty litter, tampons–evoke a subconscious feeling of disgust even before they’re used for their ultimate purposes, but they can also transfer this negative connotation to anything they come in contact with.

For example, if a box of cookies came in contact with the aforementioned undesirable objects in a shopping cart – trash bags, diapers, kitty litter – individuals were less inclined to purchase them.

It’s a fascinating concept, and ultimately, it makes sense to all of us on a conscious and subconscious level.

The research has practical implications in, say, product placements at grocery stores. Retailers need to be cognizant of where “undesirable” products are placed, and how their placement influences the purchasing patterns of other products.

But can this concept also be applied to your interactive marketing strategy?

Because the concept of “touch transference” refers to just that – the sensation of touch – but the field of aesthetics spans all senses, from taste, to hearing, and naturally, to sight.

Which leads us consider the idea of, for a lack of a better term, “sight transference” – quite simply, can a poorly-designed Web site or advertisement subconsciously drive people away?

Well, we argue that this idea is valid. It is, in essence, why companies labor over their superstar spokesperson – if the spokesperson or the message is undesirable in its message or tone or presentation – customers will clearly be disinclined to consider the product. And that feeling of undesirability stays– it creeps into customer perceptions of other products, it influences their perception of that brand.

Which leads us to the concept of positioning aesthetic power as a means to competitive differentiation. Companies are taking note.

A recent Wall Street Journal article looked at how telephone companies and cable operators in the U.S. are developing – quote – “cool” Web sites – as new weapons in their battle over the high-speed Internet business.

Now, to be honest, we rolled our eyes slightly at the words “cool” when we saw this article –after all, what is “cool” and who defines it? – but a deeper read reveals that these companies are rolling out of videos, games and other features that work best with high-speed connections. Some of these operators are primarily making these offerings to convince consumers still using dial-up service to upgrade. But others are hoping to turn their sites into profit centers as well.

For example, Verizon launched an interactive movie-making game, called ActionHero, that allows users to produce their own short animated film about saving the world from mad scientists, killer bugs or robots.

Comcast, meanwhile, has launched FearNet, a site for fans of horror movies, and Ziddio, which sponsors video contests such as “WWE’s Biggest Fan,” for followers of wrestling, and, capitalizing on a popular U.S. television program, “Lines You Would Never Hear on ‘The Sopranos.’ ”

Executives say the primary purpose of their new Web sites is to showcase the power of broadband and persuade consumers to upgrade from dial-up connections. “This helps with Verizon’s brand awareness,” says Brian Price, executive director of Verizon’s Online Center for Excellence.

Now, we won’t try to convince you that Comcast’s FearNet is “beautiful” in an aesthetic sense. That’s a very difficult argument to make. But consider that aesthetics – and what we call “ good taste” – can vary over time, and particularly by culture. For example, Victorians in Britain often saw African sculpture as ugly, but just a few decades later, Edwardian audiences saw the same sculptures as beautiful.

The point here is that, naturally, aesthetics matter, and your marketing and branding strategy takes considerable thought and effort. And it underscores the importance of knowing your audience and how they’ll react. What’s “beautiful,” or “cool” to one group may not be to others.

Which brings us, lastly to Anheuser Busch, who’s received a crash course in getting aesthetics wrong.

Like the aforementioned cable companies, they are using aesthetics as a tool to differentiate themselves from their competitors. But instead of trying to be “cool,” they’re going a step further: where there is to be “edgy.”

Just three months ago, the St. Louis brewer made a big splash in advertising circles with the launch of Bud.TV. The network, which includes 2,000 minutes of original programming, was aimed at getting the attention of beer-drinking young men, who are spending more of their time on the Web. But traffic to the site has plummeted as viewers complained about poor content. In response, the company is revamping the site to make it, yes, “edgy.”

The changes to Bud.TV will include a variety of new features, such as a social-networking component and shorter videos — about one minute each — rather than the longer programs (usually about six minutes) that now dominate the site.

But the changes also underscore a deeper challenge: the difficulty that non-Web-based businesses — and even some of the biggest companies in the world — have in driving traffic to their Web sites.

Once again, “edgy,” like “cool,” is a loaded word. But it’s used countless times in marketing planning sessions and boardrooms all across America.

“Edgy” is particularly applicable here, in the sense that Anheuser Busch is aiming for a specific demographic: young men. And what’s “edgy” for young, beer-drinking men is most likely not “edgy” for, say, 60 year old women. And, as we all know, there is a fine line between “edgy” and offensive.

So, stepping back, we see many big companies making huge investments in content aimed at specific demographics, with the hopes of differentiating them from their competitors. But at it’s core, they are all undergoing exercises of aesthetic judgment: what is beautiful, edgy, or cool.

Truly understanding the power of aesthetics, and how it can be translated into a compelling advertising campaign is critical to integrating traditional marketing concepts with emerging interactive technologies.

We at Quaintise Communications have the tools, expertise, and experience to help guide this transition so that you get the most out of your Web advertising efforts. Our team of analysts are experienced in all facets of Web advertising, from the strategic groundwork of brand management and development, to the nuts-and-bolt technical implementation.

So I’d encourage you to check out our site, www.quaintisecommunications.com, for more information on these services.

And also, we encourage you to check out our blog and comment on our message board, where these topics are discussed.

So with that my friends, I’d like to thank you for joining the conversation, and look forward to speaking with you next week.

Last week we explored the metaphor of Web 2.0 as a sort-of-a democracy. Pushing the analogy, we equated companies to our government, bending to the will of their constituencies, in this case, average consumers like you and me, armed with tools like You Tube and social networking sites. We even talked about “lobbyists” – technology companies that try to game the system by, for example, rigging the rankings of certain products or articles on user-generated content sites. We also looked at “checks and balances” – how upon reaching a certain tipping point, companies step in to try and neutralize efforts to manipulate the system.

Today we’d like to revisit another tool in the Web 2.0 landscape – blogging – and how it fits into this analogy.

Research indicates that blogging is irrefutably growing by leaps and bounds.

And companies are taking notice. Yet blogging’s allure — and its risks

– are a byproduct of this information-driven age, where data is instant and

oftentimes unfiltered. In the blogosphere, the urgency of generating and

publishing new content, to stay ahead of competitors and to keep interest

high, is far more important than in other mediums. This blog will

explore strategies for balancing the need for fast-cycling content, while

keeping your message consistent and powerful.

More and more companies are turning to blogs as a marketing option, a way to efficiently advertise product, and by extension, the brand.

Technorati is now tracking over 70 million blogs, with about 120,000 new blogs created worldwide each day - or 1.4 blogs every second - according to the latest State of the Blogosphere report.

Since the previous State of the Blogosphere report, in October 2006, the blogosphere doubled in size from 35 million blogs to 70 million in 320 days.

Posting volume is also growing, but more slowly more slowly, at about 1.5 million postings per day. That’s about 17 posts per second. In October 2006, Technorati was tracking about 1.3 million postings per day, about 15 posts per second.

Of course, it’s not news that blogs continue to become more and more viable news and information outlets. As of April 2007, the number of blogs in the top 100 most popular websites has risen substantially. There are now 22 blogs in the Top 100 news and info sites.

So the data indicates that blogging is irrefutably growing by leaps and bounds. And companies are taking notice.

So, pushing our Civics 101 analogy, perhaps to its logical extreme, it’s not out of the question to consider your blog as your spokesman, constantly on the podium, articulating its message to the masses. And working off that analogy, it’s worth applying some practical reminders to how you, as a company, address your blogging strategy.

For starters, unlike Web sites or press releases, your blog is on 24-7. It’s a perpetual reminder of your product, your brand. This is good because it keeps your company “in the news” as it were – much like, say, a presidential press conference.

A press spokesman also takes questions from reporters. Similarly, your blog must be interactive, with room for comments and feedback. It’s obviously good to open these lines of communication, but as we all know, the lines of questioning can get adversarial. It’s important to monitor communication on the blog while simultaneously keeping an air of open and constructive dialogue.

And timing is important. It’s no secret that the White House is prone to release bad news on Friday evenings, just in time for the slow weekend news cycle.

Similarly, you must strategize when your content hits the Web for maximum exposure.

All of these considerations warrant even further examination, because as we previously noted, this medium of communication differs greatly from on-time, on-way methods such as, say, television, radio, and print advertising.

It’s a manifestation of our always-on news cycle, where the CNNs and Fox News channels are angling to break stories before quickly moving on to the next one.

Similarly, blogging is so unique because it’s a byproduct of this information-driven age, where data is instant and oftentimes unfiltered. In the blogosphere, the process of editing, for example, is often curtailed due to the urgency of generating and publishing new content, to stay ahead of competitors, to keep interest high.

But the instant nature of the medium is also its drawback. Editing is important and given the criticality of creating a unified message, it shouldn’t be discounted. It’s even more important since blogs create an automatic audit trail, if you will, that can come back to haunt its author.

By dispensing that period of further introspection at the expense of urgency, they may simultaneously call into question their credibility should they change their position over time.

This is particularly relevant in the politically-oriented blogosphere, where authors react to the news with immediate fervor. Of course, people are entitled to change their minds, but the nature of blogging makes it easier to identify inconsistencies.

Naturally, companies need not be concerned with political considerations. Yet the lesson is important: consistency in eyes of the market is key.

We here at Quaintise Communication provide a full suite of blogging services to help get your blog off the ground, or expand an existing one. In working with you, we will examine a broad range of considerations, such as the blog’s theme. What type of message is it trying to convey? Who is the audience? Does the blog’s format and layout support and build out your brand?

And again, frequency is key. It may not best serve the White House to have eight press conferences a day, but given your company, your product, and your readership, it may.

Similarly, the White House and politicians rely on a solid network of allies – from media outlets to magazines to journalists – to help get their message out. Your blog must create a similar network of like-minded blogs to ensure steady and consistent traffic.

Information traveling across these networks are two-way – the White House, for example, may brief a key constituency about a current legislative priority, and get immediate feedback, good or bad. Similarly, its critical that your blog acts not only as a communications tool, but also as an intelligence-gathering device.

Once again, this is another area where Web 2.0 technologies such as blogging differ greatly from its traditional predecessors. In the realm of advertising – say, television, for example - media buyers from Madison Avenue try to place an ad on a TV show that attracts the highest concentration of target customers.

Someone wanting to promote their wares to young women, for instance, might advertise on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.” But audience measures for television are, at best, rough approximations, based on surveys of a small number of viewers, and advertisers have always found it difficult to judge whether their costly TV ads succeed in driving sales.

Online, advertisers can be much more scientific in where they place their ads. Using behavioral targeting, a topic we discussed a few weeks back, marketers can track the online habits of potential customers.

Similarly, link your blog content to other parts of your site, specific service offerings – whatever it takes to get a better idea of what works, what drives traffic, what excites your visitors.

We here at Quaintise Communications try to put our money where our mouth is. So to that end, I’d encourage you to check out our own blog, at www.quaintisecommunications.com, and post freely and often.

With that, I’d like to review what we discussed today. We’ve likely stretched our little political science analogy to it’s logical extreme, but I hope the lessons are useful and applicable to you and your company as you work to integrate Web 2.0 technologies with traditional marketing techniques.

And as always, our site, www.quaintisecommunications.com, has a wealth of information on all types of service offerings beyond blogging – from traditional brand management to next generation technology implementation — to help you seamless integrate Web 2.0 technologies with your existing marketing strategy.

So with that my friends, I’d like to thank you for joining the conversation, and look forward to speaking with you next week.

Last week, we looked at the rise of Web television and advertising, and how it shapes our marketing strategy. We noted that the heavy industry hitters are banking on Web television and advertising – with Bill Gates himself predicting television’s demise. Yet companies are still taking a wait-and-see approach. And understandably so.

The main lesson was simple: the Web is a very different beast than television. Trying to fit the traditional paradigm on to the new one is like trying to make a square peg fit in a hole – it just won’t work.

In fact, a recurring theme for all of our blogs and blogs will be around redefining expectations, revisiting pre-conceived notions as the “old” school merges with the new.

We have seen, time and time again, how Web 2.0 and it’s advertising promise is a two-way street, with the user empowered to significantly influence the company’s marketing plans. And, naturally, the pendulum swings the other way – companies, realizing the power of the user, are using any means necessary to get greater access to them, and their interests.

Any followers of the Quaintise Communications podcasts, these blogs, or the Web 2.0 revolution will be familiar with the democratizing power of these new technologies.

In fact, it’s a word we hear quite often: democracy. Empowering people. Letting the user, the person behind the computer, act as an agent for change.

It’s a metaphor that’s fascinating to me – and something I’d like to explore a bit more today, to examine how this metaphor extends to the real world, and how companies are responding – specifically by using new technologies to influence and – dare I say it – manipulate user-generated content.

So, if you’ll bear with me, let’s take this metaphor a bit further.

If the users are the “people” who comprise a democracy, then companies are the “government” whom, in theory, manifests the will of the people.

So far, the metaphor seems pretty accurate.

Web 2.0 has made companies more conscious and receptive than ever before about the opinions of its customers, the users. Our previous blogs and podcasts reel off countless examples of companies catering to users, and how, in theory, the process benefits both the company and the user.

But sadly, democracies are imperfect. It wasn’t something we were taught in grade school. It’s something we had to find out on our own.

For example, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal examines how new software is helping companies influence – or a more cynical word would be “manipulate” – the dynamic of Web democracy.

As we all know, features like most-viewed, most-popular and most-emailed lists help democratize news and information, letting consumers play a role in what’s deemed worthy of others’ attention, taking it out of the hands of an unseen editorial elite.

The Journal article looks at a diverse group of actors — ranging from spyware makers to a venture-backed start-up – who are trying push specific videos, articles and photos to the top of those lists.

So, for the sake of this metaphor, let’s call these agents “lobbyists.”

Lobbyists, as we all know, have one job, and that’s to make sure their specific concern receives the appropriate attention from legislators. They are middlemen, acting on behalf of a larger group, or in some instances, an individual. And some would argue that they use less-than-honorable means to get the attention of said legislators. But, for now, it’s legal. And as we all know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

So who can blame these entrepreneurs trying to help companies get their product to the “top of the list”?

After all, they’re filling a similar role: working within the boundaries of an ill-defined system to generate attention for a specific cause, on behalf of a specific company.

The article goes on to explain how spyware makers, in particular, are building software that tries to boost the prominence of specific items on some sites by automatically clicking on them repeatedly or tricking unsuspecting users into doing so. The rewards for such tactics are that the items are prominently featured on the “most viewed” and “highest rated” pages of sites, generating more exposure.

So far, sites such as Yahoo Inc. don’t appear to object to the use of such tactics. “People using Yahoo News’s ‘most popular’ or ‘most emailed’ as a kind of grass-roots marketing tool is just fine with us,” says Scott Moore, senior vice president at Yahoo in charge of news and information. “If we detected abuse in the ratings … we would stop it.”

And there is where, fortunately, the metaphor extends yet even further.

The aforementioned quote from Yahoo’s Mr. Moore ultimately reveals the most esteemed, cherished, and important element of our democracy: checks and balances.

We have three branches of government to control the “passions” of the people. It’s a concept that stretches back to the beginning of political science and human psychology: pure anarchy is rarely well-suited for the best interests of the individual or collective society.

And Web 2.0 – as dynamic, unwieldy, and chaotic as it may seem – has its own checks, however unstructured they may seem. Companies like Yahoo and other that rely on user-generated content also have a vested interest in the integrity of their democracy.. And if it’s merely self-interest superseding the collective good, so be it.

So let give my an example: Digg.com, lets users vote on what articles are shown. Earlier this month they faced a backlash from users who rebelled against the site’s decision to remove links and information about breaking copy-protection locks on high-definition DVDs.

Digg reached that decision out of concern for legal liability. But each time Digg removed the information, users posted it again and flooded the site until Digg’s management gave up efforts to censor it.

Consider it a revolt of the masses.

Sometimes democracies just aren’t pretty.

And it applies to all types of Web 2.0 technologies. For example, online video sites face challenges, as people try to game the “view counts” for clips by using automated software to repeatedly click on videos.

There are companies that produce spyware software that hijacks individuals’ Web browsers and makes them view specific videos on YouTube. Other spyware forces users’ computers to visit a clip on YouTube and give it a top five-star rating.

Essentially, like our democracy, there will always be people pushing the limits of what’s acceptable, and of walking the fine line between opportunity and manipulation.

It’s these dynamics that directly impact how we approach Web 2.0, how we strive to market our products, and how we decide to use the these powerful technologies.

But let’s be fair. Cynicism works both ways. We’d all like to think the best about our government, but reality has shown things to be a bit more complicated.

A great of example of this double edged sword is SEER™, a computer program used by digital agency VML that trolls Internet blogs to see what people are saying about its clients. Monitoring thousands of Web sites for key phrases, Seer tracks how criticism or praise of a company spreads from one blog site to others. It displays the information on a three-dimensional map, with Web pages represented by spheres, which get bigger as the number of relevant posts on them increases.

Think of it as wire-tapping for the Web 2.0 democracy.

By tracking customer comments for Adidas, one of VML’s clients, VML was able to alert the shoe manufacturer and address the problem.

Big Brother was watching.

So, let us step back and take assessment of our democracy metaphor.

Winston Churchill one said that “Democracy is the worst form of government…except for all those others that have been tried.”

And he’s right. Democracy is messy, full of passions and agendas and people trying to be heard. And Web 2.0 and its democratizing power are no different.

For all intents and purposes, you, the company, have to address the fickle and demanding whims of your democratic constituency, users and customers.