A recent article in B-To-B Magazine shows how many publishing companies are getting into territory normally handled by ad agencies. The expanded offerings include online and word of mouth marketing services. This is getting traction in the business publication sector but consumer oriented pubs are going in that direction too. The trend appears to be that media companies are acquiring agencies with expertise in web site design & development, word of mouth marketing and PR.

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Taking a HEEEEEYYYYAAAAARGH from Howard Dean, the Barak Obamaniacs have woven themselves a tapestry of MyBarakObama microsites to motivate, connect, and empower a formidable cluster of web-savvy politiquitos. While every viable candidate in the slim pickin pile is using blogs, Flickr, and YouTube to some degree, Obama’s advisors force the question: can they harness enough online energy to offset the disadvantage of a political underdog (whoever that may be)? Will online word-of-mouth supplant the legacy of ever-mounting political contributions?
Regardless of political leanings, it’s worth investigating the emergence of online social networking as the new political networking.
It’s too early yet to get my vote, but they’ve definitely earned a link.

The clever Tino Buntic has created a link explosion called 2000 Bloggers. You can easily waste an entire day purusing the links. Who knew this blogging thing was so popular?
Really big montage of blog author photos after the jump.

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The Pocket Wookie. Because, well, just because.

This is silly. Red Sox management is pissed about a TV ad airing in Japan and featuring their new star, Daisuke Matsuzaka, drinking a beer. From the article:

“The ad is consistent with what’s acceptable in the Japanese marketplace,” a spokesperson from MLB International said in the report. “We did approve it with him drinking the beer outside of his uniform. It’s a type of commercial that is really commonplace in Japan. It is not really that farfetched.”
Though the ad may adhere to the law, the Red Sox are concerned with how it will look to have shots of their hot acquisition drinking beer juxtaposed with images of him in uniform.
“It is a perception,” Blake said in the report, “and we certainly want our players to be perceived in the right light.”

Oh, really? The “right light?” This is transparent bullshit. What an exquisitely sensitive bunch of milquetoast slack wits we’ve become. Here’s my proof that Sox management is demonstrating their unprincipled perfidy.
As may be obvious, I take no issue with Daisuke’s ad, or the uptick in beer sales at Fenway. I only wish we collectively had the stomach to tell the handwringing, Calvinistic, moral scolds where to stick it.