Mass Interactive: Facebook Diaries

Comcast and Facebook team up on reality series.

Users can submit videos they create in Facebook or Comcast's Ziddio.com for a new reality-TV series, under a partnership between the two companies. Filmmaker R.J. Cutler, whose credits include "The War Room" and "American High," will sift through the video submissions to create the series, called "Facebook Diaries.

The companies will begin taking submissions next month but have not set a date for the series premiere.

Cutler said he will organize Facebook Diaries around themes such as "Heartbreak," or "Who am I?" for the half-hour episodes.

"You build these things with dramatic structure and flow," Cutler said. "They'll tell their stories and send them to us and we'll put together thematically driven episodes for the series, which will be featured on-demand as well as on the Internet."

Jupiter Research analyst Todd Chanko said the partnership could help Comcast build a new audience. With 24 million cable subscribers already, Comcast can't expect to add significant revenues by signing up more customers to watch television.

Both Comcast and Facebook executives said they were seeking ways to create content that will bridge the gap between the Internet and television. As popular shows have made repeats available for viewing on web sites and Internet content gains the attention of bigger media firms, companies are trying to stake a claim in both worlds.

Revenues will come from advertising, though the companies have not announced any sponsors or said how they will share those dollars.


via Philadelphia Inquirer

New Media Ethics: Wikipedia Warns P/R Professionals

New technology, mo' problems...Another of those pesky ethical issues to contend with...According to the front page of UK PR Week, the founder of Wikipedia warns PR agencies against writing about companies they represent in the popular online encyclopedia. "If it persists they will be banned".

Associated Press asks: "What's to say contributors who get paid have a harder time sticking to the golden path of neutrality? And doesn't Wikipedia have a built-in defense mechanism - the volunteer editors and moderators who can quickly obliterate public relations fluff, vanity pages and junk?"

Yeah, that's what I'm sayin'! I don't see a big issue with advertisers and marketers submitting Wikipedia entries...as long as it's factual and not salesy and disruptive. Ok, so salesy and disruptive is prob what we do...but still.

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When I have ethical quandries, I look to the Simpsons for guidance...