What gives?

With all due respect to Lewis, who is one of the greatest innovators in media, I left realizing that there are different ideas of what “social” can mean on the Web, and that not everyone knows where the gold lies. Putting the whole picture together, there are four different models for social that, despite sharing the same name, are completely different concepts.

• Social = Viral Hit
  For those on the marketing and advertising side especially, the word “social” often means that you or your client are jealous of someone else’s success. Viral hits are largely based on breakthrough creative, though great distribution is an often-forgotten second factor. Who wouldn’t want to be responsible for the next Old Spice guy? Of course, these kinds of hits are easy to ask for and hard to achieve. And if you do achieve it, you’ll need another viral hit to bring your audience back again.
  Verdict: Good luck!
• Social = 1,000,000 Fans
  
  Here, the theory goes that social means getting lots of fans, and then something magical is supposed to happen. Like the boys’ adventure with the “South Park” underpants gnomes, it usually ends up with a lot of time and money spent, a big collection achieved, and a big question mark over “what now?” It doesn’t matter how low your cost per fan was, if the value per fan is near-zero. It’s not the size of the fan base that matters — it’s what you do with it.
  Verdict: Bad strategy.
• Social = Comments
  Another concept of “social” is that it’s a medium for conversation. With programs like @ComcastCares, brands have used this approach to shape their brand images and reputations — and it has worked. On the publishing side, the Huffington Post and other publishers have succeeded in using social engagement to drive deep participation and connection among an inner circle of its audience. Hosting a conversation certainly builds a relationship. A “Like,” comment, or share from a user can all get you more exposure on the margin, but, as Lewis noted on our panel, the friends who come that way don’t stay very long and don’t come back much. They came for their friends, not for your Web site. That’s why, even though engagement strategies are great for your core audience, they won’t single-handedly drive the large, loyal audience we all crave.
  Verdict: Smart, but it’s not enough.
• Social = Lasting Relationship
  A lasting relationship with an audience is the holy grail of every brand online. In fact, it has made Amazon the most valuable e-commerce company on earth, and it’s made Disney and the NFL valuable over decades. But what some haven’t realized yet is that the most valuable mode of social is in keeping these relationships connected.

  Do you have any idea how valuable a “Like” is? Any seventh-grader goes all atwitter when his crush says, “I like you.” It’s permission to see someone more, get to know them better, and talk to them all the time — not just once, but every day. If you are doing it right, a “Like” or a “Follow” begins a two-way relationship: One where your audience is asking for programming from you every day, week and month; and giving you their interest data about what works and what doesn’t. With that relationship, you can choose what content you create, and when and how you share it. That relationship isn’t once-and-done — it’s ongoing.

  And data from our experience shows that it translates into a million visits a week from our fan base — almost one visit for every fan, not to mention dozens more impressions right in their home page, the Facebook news feed. Done right, social can already drive more traffic than search, making a new top venue to recruit, and more importantly, retain an audience.

  More and more, I talk to marketers and publishers who have hundreds of thousands or millions of fans and followers, and yet have no idea what to do with them. They haven’t realized that they have subscribers at the ready, waiting for great content and experiences — the currency of their relationship.

  Nor do they understand the tremendous value of those subscribers: If you give your friends what they are after, they’ll keep coming back for more, and they’ll bring their friends. This is exactly how companies like Groupon and Zynga have reinvented their categories and created businesses worth billions of dollars in the process.
  Verdict: There is nothing more powerful than a lasting relationship.

Ben Elowitz (@elowitz) is co-founder and CEO of next-generation Web publisher Wetpaint, and author of the Digital Quarters blog about the future of digital media. Prior to Wetpaint, Elowitz co-founded Blue Nile (NILE).

Associated Press:

The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority didn’t point to specific material on YouTube that prompted it to block the site, only citing “growing sacrilegious contents.” The government took action against both Facebook and YouTube after it failed to persuade the sites to remove the “derogatory material,” the regulatory body said in a statement….

The regulatory body said it has blocked more than 450 Internet links containing offensive material, but it is unclear how many of the links were blocked in the past two days. Access to the online encyclopedia site Wikipedia and the photo sharing site Flickr also was restricted Thursday.

YouTube’s comment, via email: “We have received reports that the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority has ordered Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Pakistan to block access to YouTube. We are looking into the matter and are working to ensure that the service is restored as soon as possible.”

The moves are a reaction to “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” which is a reaction to Muslim protests about an episode of “South Park” last month.

As the AP notes, Pakistan has temporarily blocked access to YouTube before. So have other countries, including Turkey and Thailand. And China has a permanent ban on the site, as well as on Facebook. This doesn’t mean people who live there can’t actually get to the sites–that’s what proxy servers are for–but it does mean it’s harder to do so.

One of the most popular shows online, too, after 14 seasons, the Comedy Central television series will air the 200th episode tonight, in which all the celebrities ever mocked on it join in a class-action lawsuit.

Tom Cruise, beware!

Here’s the short video:

Unlike the “30 Rock” stab at social networking, the “South Park” guys don’t mess around with pretend names like “YouFace”–Stan, Kyle and pals are most definitely on Facebook in this one. Though for whatever reason, they do replace CNBC’s Jim Cramer of “Mad Money” with Cartman in this clip.

But Google also got a second promotion during last night’s game, though I’m guessing it didn’t pay for this one. An ad promoting Internet-connected TVs from Vizio featured a battery of viral video stars made famous via Google’s YouTube–without ever mentioning Google (GOOG) or YouTube by name.

The spot does give formal, if very fast, shoutouts to Web services like Facebook, Pandora, Twitter, Vudu, Yahoo (YHOO) and Yahoo’s Flickr. Oh. And Beyoncé.

Swing and a miss, in my humble amateur advertising critic’s opinion.

For one thing, anyone who’s going to recognize the likes of Tay Zonday and the Numma Numma guy knows that the whole “cramming all of YouTube’s stars into one bit” bit has been done by lots of people before, most notably South Park. Everyone else will just wonder who the fat kid and the skinny dude are.

The other problem with this ad is one common to many efforts to sell Internet-connected TVs: It doesn’t explain the most compelling use for these things.

Because you may not want to watch YouTube on your big screen (or to use Twitter or call up Pandora, etc.). But you may very well want to watch streaming movies and TV shows from services like Netflix (NFLX) and Vudu.

You’d have to squint very hard to see that the Vizio spot was showing a clip from “The Hangover,” though. And chances are that almost no one who saw the ad has heard of Vudu (hence its sale talks).

So there’d be no way for anyone to know that Internet-connected TVs make this stuff really easy. Too bad. If you see this stuff demoed in person, it’s really compelling–it gets close to the “500 channels” pitch we used to hear about in the early 90s, in the best possible way.

At some point in the next few years, there will be no need to pitch this, because the majority of new TVs sold will be Internet-connected. In the same way HD is now more or less standard on new sets.

But for now, this stuff is still a novelty. A good way to change this might be with an effective ad.

It’s hard to remember this conflict sometimes because it started all the way back in the spring of 2007, after Google offered $500 million to appease Sumner Redstone and company, then thought better of it. Viacom countered with a billion-dollar lawsuit claim, which has been dragging its way ever so slowly through the legal system since then.

The latest reminder: A report from CNET pointing out that Google (GOOG) has deposed Viacom (VIA) employees Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, but that “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have yet to hand over documents the search giant’s lawyers have requested.

“The missed deadline isn’t amusing to Google,” Greg Sandoval relays.

This is theoretically important because both sides are trying to prove that their opponents’ employees knowingly uploaded copyrighted clips to the site.

If Viacom can prove that Chad Hurley and company were doing it, it bolsters its claim that YouTube knew it was violating copyright law and didn’t do anything about it. If Google can prove that “The Daily Show” or “South Park” dudes were doing it, it can argue that it’s impossible to tell when it was okay to run Viacom clips and when it was verboten.

Alas, in a slow-motion case like this, it’s impossible to imbue any particular move with particular weight. For instance: Google’s interest in deposing Stewart et al dates all the way back to August 2007. So the fact that the company’s lawyers have talked to him recently means that…it has talked to him recently.

Still, it does give us a chance to play the classic “South Park” YouTube tribute clip–legally, I should add.

Hollywood director James Cameron is well known for his heavy use of special effects and techtastic techniques in his movies, which include “Titanic,” “Aliens” and the first–and best–two “Terminator” blockbusters.

In a few weeks, Cameron is hoping to hit geek gold again with a 3-D sci-fi juggernaut called “Avatar.”

Set to come out in mid-December, it is full of all kinds of fancy and innovative CGI animation.

And the use of blue-colored avatars–essentially digitally animated likenesses of the real-life actors–is a big plot point in the movie, which is about a soldier caught in a war between a greedy mining company and a heroic indigenous tribe on a planet called Pandora.

Here’s one of the trailers for “Avatar”:

And, of course, here is a video of a hysterical recent spoof of the movie done by “South Park”–with a little “Dances With Wolves” tossed in, because it is the same exact plot–called “Dances With Smurfs”:

Since John Paczkowski’s still out of range, Beth Callaghan will be posting Digital Daily today.

In a stunning turn of events over the weekend, both Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes passed away–Mac of complications from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease, and Hayes from as-yet unknown causes.

The immediate impact and response, of course, is displayed on the Web, with the now-customary ritual proliferation of tribute videos on YouTube–at last count, there were 188,000 for Isaac Hayes and 137,000 for Bernie Mac.

Legendary music icon Hayes was primarily known as the embodiment of ’70s soul. As composer of “Theme from Shaft,” he won a Grammy and established himself as the king of old-school cool. To younger generations, he’ll be remembered as the voice of “Chef” on Comedy Central’s “South Park”–a role he played from 1997-2006. Hayes was 65.

Still-rising star Bernie Mac reached prominence in Spike Lee’s 2000 film “The Original Kings of Comedy,” and starred in Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven” films. His own sitcom, “The Bernie Mac Show,” ran from 2001 to 2006. His cutting-edge brand of humor set him apart from his contemporaries, and often received attention from critics. Mac was recently scolded by Barack Obama’s campaign after a surprise appearance at a fund-raiser for the presidential candidate during which he used crude language. He was 50.

The two had recently been shooting a film, “Soul Men,” in which they were starring alongside Samuel L. Jackson.

But that’s just the feeling I got when I read the always sharp Joseph Menn of the Los Angeles Times, who penned an interesting piece earlier this week about writers in Hollywood turning to venture capitalists as the strike drags on.

Wrote Menn: “At least seven groups, composed of members of the striking Writers Guild of America, are planning to form Internet-based businesses that, if successful, could create an alternative economic model to the one at the heart of the walkout, now in its seventh week.”

That includes meetings with Silicon Valley VCs like Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, whose investment in Facebook gives it insight into the creation of new audiences.

The hope for the–let’s just say it, shall we–unnatural pairing of tech VCs and Hollywood folks?

That the sour lemons being thrown between studios and writers–ironically over future Internet revenues–will actually yield delicious lemonade, spurring the creation of quality online programming using the Internet’s massive distribution system that could also make lots and lots of money.

“Could” is obviously the operative word here, because–as we have noted many times in this column–very little original content created on the Web has had any true payoff yet.

Um, well, none, actually. (Save porn, which is an almost perfect content format for the Web.)

To be fair, there have been promising signs.

Ex-Yahoo exec and Hollywood player Lloyd Braun struck a deal with PepsiCo to pay for and create online content.

MySpace has been backing a range of online-only shows made by Hollywood types (although none has shown strongly increasing popularity and even seem to display worrisome declines in viewership, despite the justified potential touted by creators).

Of course, there’s the high-profile Sequoia Capital-backed and Will Ferrell-fronted FunnyorDie.com, as well as MyDamnChannel.com, from former MTV executive Rob Barnett.

And Viacom agreed this summer to create a new online entertainment studio in a 50-50 split with the creators of the popular “South Park” TV program.

Finally, Creative Artists Agency, which is the biggest talent agency in Hollywood, is apparently working with Silicon Valley VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson to raise up to $200 million to invest in the digital entertainment sector, even as other such firms as UTA and William Morris are making similar moves.

While that is a very little amount of money considering the billions of dollars that slosh around Silicon Valley to fund things like dopey widgets and yet another movie-comparison site, it is still a start.

The presumable goal is that by creating and distributing content for the Web in a lower-cost way, many kinds of revenues could be garnered via everything from advertising to getting back investments by selling the online material to television and the movies.

That sounds like a plan, except for the fact that the current state of advertising innovation related to Web videos is quite nascent, even pre-fetal.

While a lot of companies are focusing on this and advertisers seem willing to move in the direction of more online ad spending, it will simply be a long time before these investments pay off.

Which is just not part of the no-risk-and-all-reward mentality of most players in Hollywood, who wouldn’t know a start-up unless it took their prime table at the Ivy.

In all seriousness, it seems unlikely that the high cost of production now in place in the entertainment industry would in any way lend itself to the critical need for that kind of massive shift in economics required to make online content pay off now.

Currently, studios still only grudgingly want to consider sharing ownership of content, and the talent seems even less willing to take the burden of risk required onto its shoulders.

Still, I admire all the efforts on the part of writers to not just strike, but strike out from their current comfort zone and move into the future, where online entertainment production and distribution seems obviously inevitable.

The problem is that it might take a longer while than those creators have patience for and they will prematurely abandon their efforts and return to propping up a system that is destined for, while not oblivion, then certain diminution.

So what’s needed–as in all marriages–is a crazy leap of faith, like this one from “Heroes” Peter Petrelli on NBC.

I am definitely no expert on this topic, except to say that the problem is that the delta between falling flat and succeeding is frighteningly close.

In other words, I Has No Idea what to do.

To keep you abreast of tech news while he’s away, we’re compiling a daily digest of 10 must-read tech stories. Our Tech 10 appears below.

1. Coming to a PDF Near You: Adobe announced today that it is teaming with Yahoo to put text-based ads in PDF files, reports The Wall Street Journal, noting that publishers will be paid for running ads from Yahoo Inc. next to the PDFs.
2. But Will It Be Able to Leap Tall Buildings in a Single Bound? The new and improved version of Apple’s iPhone will be able to download from the Internet at a faster rate, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson announced last night, Bloomberg reports. Speaking to the Churchill Club in Santa Clara, Calif., Stephenson also divulged that the new iteration of the device will debut next year and will operate on third-generation wireless networks. (AT&T is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the U.S.)
3. Nothing’s Set in Concrete, After All: Responding to criticism from MoveOn, Facebook execs are looking into changes to the recently launched Beacon advertising tool, according to BusinessWeek, adding that adjustments to the system could come as early as today.
4. Democracy Comes to Search Results: Google is experimenting with a system that enables users to change the rankings of or delete sites in personalized searches, according to Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal, explaining that the new system will allow users to manipulate search results by simply hitting dedicated buttons.
5. Reining In Comcast: Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing a rule to keep cable colossus Comcast from growing larger, the New York Times is reporting, adding that the new rule comes as Martin attempts to regain the upper hand after his earlier proposal to broadly control the cable industry was shot down.
6. The Faster the Better: Verizon Wireless will upgrade its network in 2008, according to Reuters, using long-term evolution technology to achieve higher speeds. The new system could end up challenging Qualcomm, which developed the CDMA technology Verizon’s current network is based on, as well as supporters of WiMax.
7. Strike This Strike? ABC and the Writers Guild of America, East, announced today that they had come to a tentative agreement for about 250 ABC News writers, editors, graphic artists and desk assistants in New York and Washington, D.C., according to the Hollywood Reporter. The union, which has worked without a contract since Jan. 31, 2005, will vote on the new agreement Dec. 13.



8. Cartman, Kyle and Kenny–Free: Following the online popularity of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” MTV Networks will make all episodes of the animated comedy “South Park” available for free in 2008 according to Reuters, noting that the move is part of Viacom’s strategy to boost TV viewership.
9. Just When You Thought Things Couldn’t Get Any Worse: Along comes Warner Music Group’s gloomy forecast for 2008. In today’s fourth-quarter earnings call, CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. predicts a continuing decline in physical music sales as retailers cut back on shelf space, while the digital-music and mobile sales growth will be slower than expected, reports Peter Kafka of Silicon Alley Insider.
10. No Wii? Waaaaa! The popularity of Nintendo’s gaming console coupled with “a maxed-out supply chain that can’t be ramped up to meet holiday demands” means it could be next to impossible to purchase a Wii before Christmas at retail stores, explains Chris Kohler at Wired.

–posted by Associate Editor John Sullivan

In my post yesterday about the deal “South Park” creators Stone and Parker (pictured here) made with Viacom related to creating a new kind of digital hub for the show and also other content, I used a Stone quote from a New York Times interview in which he noted that the only quick place to get an episode of the raucous animated series in some places was to download it illegally.

I then slightly mocked him for not getting on the fast-moving viral bandwagon sooner and coming up with legal and easy ways for fans to get great copies of shows.

Sam (who apparently has no last name) of the Web site South Park X, where one can apparently get such copies he notes, took exception, pointing out that the pair has always been pirate-friendly.

Wrote Sam to me in an email:

Many many times in the past Matt Stone and Trey Parker have defended our sites, and while many believe we are ‘illegal download sites,’ we have not once been contacted by ‘South Park’ or Comedy Central lawyers or representatives.”

Well, Viacom, owner of Comedy Central, where “South Park” airs, might have had its hands full with suing someone with a bigger wallet, like Google, but Sam’s point is well taken.

From an interview in December 2006 with Reason Magazine, Stone and Parker had the following exchange:

Reason: When it looked like Comedy Central wasn’t going to rerun the Mary episode, people were still able to download it illegally online. Did you see that as a victory for free speech, or did you think, ‘My God, these people are stealing our intellectual property’?

Stone: We’re always in favor of people downloading. Always.

Reason: Why?

Stone: It’s how a lot of people see the show. And it’s never hurt us. We’ve done nothing but been successful with the show. How could you ever get mad about somebody who wants to see your stuff?

Parker: We worked really hard making that show, and the reason you do it is because you want people to see it.

That’s pretty clear, though I am sure Viacom’s busy lawyers might beg to differ.

Also, I might add that these parody videos posted below–a mashup of the ribald animated series and the Apple ads and another with “Harry Potter”–are chock full of jacked material!

Oh yes, I just grabbed this fine picture of the “South Park” character right off the Web without a problem.

I await Viacom owner Sumner Redstone’s wrath and expect his legions of lawyers to come raining down on me asap.

Herein lies the problem and the impetus for a new–and I would say not insignificant–deal just signed by the creators of “South Park” with its principal distributor, Viacom’s Comedy Central, which a New York Times report outlined in today’s paper.

According to the story, “South Park” creators and executive producers Matt Stone and Trey Parker, sick of seeing their valuable content ripped off pretty much everywhere it can be digitally ripped off, have decided to get into the viral video game themselves, which should have occurred to them, oh, many, many moons ago.

“If I’m overseas and have to get an episode right away,” Stone said to the Times, “you literally have to go to an illegal download site.”

I cannot imagine what a “South Park” character would do with an obviously obvious statement like that, but it would surely involve a bodily function.

Under terms of the deal, in which it appears Comedy Central (a division of MTV, which is a division of Viacom, which is a division of owner Sumner Redstone’s increasingly pissed-off-about-YouTube brain) will be footing the bill, they will create a Web hub to get “South Park” material out there before all the piraters can (and will still continue to, by the way).

To combat that too, the new unit will try to create new material well beyond the show. New television concepts, perhaps even bigger than the massive “South Park” franchise, could even emerge.

As part of the arrangement, they’ll all apparently split any ad revenue from SouthParkStudios.com, which should tell you all you need to know about the mood of Hollywood right now.

Studios are justifiably scared of the digital onslaught and actually have started to imagine funding talented people to create material to compete and to share in the ventures’ success might be a good idea.

While that’s business-as-usual in tech funding, the idea is an anathema to the entertainment industry, which likes to keep its talent happily overpaid with pap (though giant) salaries, all while keeping the really good and lucrative stuff–the actual ownership of the creative product–to itself.

The artists are no better, accepting the pricey pay-off in exchange for their work. Or as Stone said in an interview with the Times: “People always ask us, ‘You own it, right? No? Why’d you sign that deal?’ And I have to say, ‘Because I was sleeping on my friend’s couch.’”

Thus, the Google twins are billionaires many times over and the “South Park” dudes are merely really rich.

That’s achingly typical, and Hollywood execs argue that it’s because they take all the risk by funding, distributing and marketing the various entertainment projects. But with the advent of digital distribution and creation, it obviously all needs a bit of retooling.

Not that Viacom has not tried everything, in a panic after the not-buying of MySpace, which has definitely been a flash point for the company. Another, of course, is the $1 billion lawsuit it is waging against Google over copyright infringement on YouTube.

But I like this kind of move a lot better, even if it is a big flop and even if it is only reserved for giant rainmakers like Stone and Parker. While Hollywood powers like Viacom surely won’t allow others in on the game quite yet, it is an encouraging and even bold direction to the usual picture of Redstone (pictured here) harrumphing about digital piracy of its material.

While I agree that that is a problem that tech companies like Google need to address and have been arrogant about not addressing quickly enough, new CEO Philippe Dauman (whom I interviewed at D5 in May) is obviously a good influence.

It’s a move that should be replicated to make Web content as important as it could be. Hollywood needs to make more smart moves like this or else they are cooked.

Or maybe they are already, in the words of Cartman:

Stan: Dude, dolphins are intelligent and friendly.
Cartman: Intelligent and friendly on rye bread with some mayonnaise.

Now that’s funny, as are these two parody videos:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google (owner of YouTube).