If you watch carefully, you may also see a little football going on.

This year, though, promises to be a little different. Sure, we’ve had a few years now of UGC (User-Generated Content), as well as some calls to hop online to see more. But now the big push is to tie Super Bowl advertising in to social media.

And part of me wonders if this is a risky move. Never mind that I teach social media and have an account on just about every site.

So what’s the problem? Simple. As soon as you invite (OK, beg) viewers to pick up their mobile device and start tweeting or posting status updates, you run the risk that they will become less and less engaged with the game, and more into Twitter and Facebook.

“Oh, did someone just score? I must have missed it. I was busy tweeting.”

And therein lies the risk. Sure, marketers may be able to drive viewers to fan pages and Twitter, but once there, what are the odds they will drift off to see what else is happening on the social graph? Heck, after a few minutes, you may as well just turn off the TV and go to bed.

With your phone,, of course.

The old school marketer in me says that we should be trying to engage viewers on the 52″ LCD in our living rooms, and not the 3-inch iPhone in our hand. Marketers are betting the farm on this one broadcast, and to risk losing them to an app is simply more risk than I would be willing to shoulder.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love social media more than the next guy. I made sure to get my Facebook vanity name at 12:07 am that day when they became available a couple of years ago, lest some other Nick Gerlich (there is another one) grab it before me. But when faced with the possibility of twittering away tens of millions of dollars in one evening, I begin to shake.

Well, not too much. It’s not my money. But I can imagine a certain fremdshämen feeling coming on when I see marketers do it anyway.

Rather than send people scurrying for their phones during the game, maybe they should be directing folks there after the Gatorade jug has been poured over the winning coach’s head. The goal is to captivate audiences, to keep them riveted to their seats, eyeballs aimed directly at the big screen.

And if anything, Twitter and Facebook should be noticeably quiet during the game, not as busy as LA freeways. Besides, regardless of which teams play, the ads are likely to be great. I’ve got a 50-yard-line seat reserved (aka Dad’s Recliner), and I want to see the marketing action.

We can tweet about it later.

Dr “That’s What’s Happening” Gerlich

That all changed in the 80s when online BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems) came along, thereby allowing pioneer home computing enthusiasts to meet at the electronic watercooler. Listservs quickly followed, and then over a decade later, social media sites.

Which is another way of saying that all bets are off when it comes to squelching a bad rumor or any other potentially damaging information. Literal grapevines never grew so fast.

The latest victim of this sobering reality is McDonald’s, who naively invited people to rock the #McDStories hashtag on Twitter. McDonald’s may as well have let people air their dirty McLaundry on live television.

Note to anyone involved in corporate communications: this is how crises happen. And a good case in point: Lowe’s and their December debacle in which they pulled advertising from TLC’s All-American Muslim. The Twitterverse and Facebook were abuzz with thousands (think close to 30,000) biting comments from people either against or in support of Lowe’s (you can take our survey on this here).

Lowe’s eventually removed their statement from its Facebook page long after it had already spun out of control. But while a company has the power to do that on FB, it is entirely powerless on Twitter because users can create hashtags that no one owns.

Basically, on Twitter the barn door is always open, and the horses run freely. For McDonald’s to be so daft as to create its own hashtag and then encourage participation is just ludicrous. It betrays their utter and complete misunderstanding of social media. To no surprise of anyone who gets social media, people are ripping McDonald’s a new one.

Gone forever are the days of communications being a one-way street (and owned by the corporation). Citizen journalists and critics have microphones and amps as loud as or louder than anything a company owns. And once a hashtag runs off the road, it is nearly impossible to regain control.

The Hamburglar is at large, and Ronald needs to figure out how to manage the situation.

Dr “#unhappymeal” Gerlich

Not so today, for each and every word we type online or on a mobile device is fair game for advertisers on which to pounce. Of course, we have known this for sometime already, with carefully placed ads beside our Gmails and Google results, as well as in the right pane of our Facebook pages. But now it’s going to get more interesting.

Yesterday, within hours of each other, Facebook announced its Timeline will soon become mandatory, and Google informed us it will merge user data across services.

And some of you just yawned. Why? Yes, I admit. A lot of this has already been going on. I learned this a long time ago whenever I would be logged in to my Gmail, but then open a new tab for Google or YouTube. Because my browser (note that word) was logged in, Google was actively capturing everything I did within those other services. That’s how it tracked my specific searches, as well as videos watched or searched on YouTube.

And you wondered how YouTube’s suggestion was so good.

As for Facebook, they have been mining keywords for a long time, explaining how I started seeing ads for Sudoku puzzles the day after I bragged about my oldest daughter’s mental prowess on those addicting numbergrams.

Just last week Facebook announced 60 more partnerships for “frictionless” apps, meaning that partner apps with whom we agree to share our information will automatically post our actions to our Wall. Interpretation: read an article at Yahoo News, and your FB friends will all know about it.

Think about that the next time you read an article about voyeurism.

These partnerships also explain why we all know what everyone else is listening to on Spotify and Rhapsody, and watching on Netflix. It’s the ultimate opt-in…we do it once, and from that point forward, the world knows.

Facebook has actually been slow in rolling out Timeline, especially since it was announced amid much hoopla at the f8 developer conference on 22 September 2011. But Facebook failed to do its due diligence, and was quickly sued by a Chicago company called Timelines.com, to which FB reflexiveley countersued. Ouch. This all could have been avoided with a few good trademark attorneys on the payroll.

But FB Timeline will prevail (it went into public beta on 15 December 2011), and its mandatory user adoption appears imminent. I adopted mine on its December release data, and have enjoyed setting it up (along with my wife’s). Critics can fairly allege it is the “MySpacing” of Facebook to some extent, but FB’s Mark Zuckerberg is intent on making his site the online edition of the story of our life. It]s up to us to write and post it.

So what does this all mean? Simple. Basically, we must never forget that neither Google nor Facebook are in the business of search, social, videos, email, etc. They are in the advertising business, and they want to sell as much advertising as possible. Gone forever are the days of shotgun advertising to the masses. In their wake is the era of the Audience of One. You. Me. Our stories. Ads spoken directly.

And if that makes you want to puke, I suggest you keep a bucket handy. Because this is one stomach bug that isn’t going to go away.

Dr “Cover Pic” Gerlich

Watch for a comprehensive survey about Facebook changes, coming soon from your friends at MediaBuffs!

But like we learned from Netflix, et al, we really do not need to own any content. All we really want is to have access to it.

And that’s where a subscription model works great. Goodbye, iTunes. It was nice being to buy songs for 99 cents apiece, but I can listen to several million different songs for $10 a month.

Or watch about 8000 different movies on Netflix for another $8.

Which is why I nearly fell out of bed this morning while reading Mashable on my iPad (I told you I sleep with the darn thing) about how Audiobooks.com is offering streaming audio books for $25 a month.

Sure, there are only 11,000 titles currently available, And let’s not forget that rival Amazon already has a streaming service of its own, although it does differ substantially in how it works.

Still, the very idea that audio book fans can now take thousands of titles with them wherever they go is appealing beyond measure. Add in music and movies, and our little phones have become Hastings-in-a-pocket.

In fact, the prospects for streaming ebooks is one that Hastings really should explore. It would be a differential advantage (for the time being, at least) over other tangible and ebook vendors. Imagine being able to say you have 13 million books in your library…and yet you have neither paper nor megabytes. Just access.

I liked this idea a few months ago. I love it now. And to be fair, I am sure I am not the only one with this idea. I just hope someone with the cash and servers can make it all happen. Soon.

Because not only are my book shelves filled to overflowing, but my iPad is also rapidly filling up. Streaming ebooks would solve the problem of what to do with a book after you have finished reading it. Sure, you could keep it, but many folks also like to sell their tangible books when they are done with them. You cannot do that with ebooks. Streaming, though, opens all kinds of possibilities. I would happily pay $25, even $50, a month for such a subscription, because I easily purchase that much or more in books of all kinds in the same time period.

I realize that technology is systematically wiping out my guilty pleasure purchases, but I can’t say that I disagree with it. Renting trumps ownership when access is 24/7.

So there you go. If only I had some seed money, I’t jump on this. But I have given it all to you to run and make your fortunes. It’s an idea whose time has come.

You’re welcome.

Dr “Sign Me Up” Gerlich

And this last year it was the tablet/ereader. Thanks to an enormous sales spurt in the last month, nearly one-third of Americans own one.

The distinction may appear to be mere semantics, but it is really based in technological difference. Tablets have full web functionalities (and some with many computer capabilities), whereas ereaders are just that: an electronic display for books. Still, the fact that such a huge spike in market penetration occurred in only one month attests to their popularity. We’re talking millions of units sold. Basically, there are about 90 million of these handy little things now in Americans’ hands, purses and backpacks.

And it signals an enormous paradigm shift among us.

I started with a basic Amazon Kindle a few years ago, but then in April 2010 switched to the iPad. It was just as life-changing for me as was my first iPhone. I now keep both the phone and tablet within a foot of me when I sleep. I read the paper, books and magazines. I check email. I post article links to the MediaBuffs Delicious site. And all long before the sun comes up.

Furthermore, I have found myself having the same conversation with many other tablet owners: I find myself not using the computer as much as I once did.

Hallelujah. Can I get an amen?

The downside is that anyone still trying to make a living by selling books had better start looking for work…unless you also have ebooks on your menu. \

That’s not to say that tangible books will ever go away. Many still swear by them, and loathe the very introduction of the Kindle. But books are just the latest (and perhaps last) of the media formats we all consume to go digital. Music and movies are well down this path. Books, however, have proven to be a very different animal. As evidenced by the studies Dr. Drumheller and I have done to discern exactly why people read books, we can say that it’s complicated. Among the six motives we have found thus far are Relaxation, Pass Time, Self-Improvement, escape, Excitement and Loneliness Cure. While a read could certainly satisfy any or all of these motives with an ereader, we appreciate the fact that the reading activity is very nuanced and far more complex than say simply listening to music. Some people simply like the tactile feel of a book, much like a handful of music enthusiasts still prefer vinyl.

But for those companies slow to hitch their wagon to this train, the writing (and reading) on the wall is not good. While some may forever resist ebooks (and ereaders), the recent sales surge indicates a tipping point may have already occurred, or is about to. Local retailer chain Hastings has been slow to move in this direction, having only recently released an app for reading ebooks. They currently sell selected ereaders manufactured by other vendors. Their free app (Readmor) purports to work across ebook platforms, but users must actually go online to create an account. The goal, of course, is to entice readers with the cross-platform functionality, and then convert them by selling them digital books that Hastings now carries.

That 71% of us still don’t yet own a tablet or ereader may still work to Hasting’s advantage, and thus I am not betting my savings on it.

But for the 29% of us who now have Fire (or Nook, or iPad…), we have turned the page. It presents new opportunities for marketers, and it also present new research angles for Dr. Drumheller and me. We hope to launch a study later this year specifically among those who use tablets and ereaders to determine what differences may exist compared to the general population. Until then, I go to sleep at night knowing that my shelves are not going to become any more crowded than they already are.

And that the owls in Oregon may be able to hang onto that tree a little longer.

Dr “Read All About It” Gerlich

And you know what we found? Students thought that piracy was all wrong, but were also fearless and didn’t give a flip. Yes, even at a private, Christian university. Basically, it was “do as I say, not as I do.” And so they did.

So when Megaupload was shut down last week right after the SOPA debates and Wednesday’s voluntary blackout by many popular sites, I had to wonder if maybe the feds were sending a little message.

Megaupload is an enormous repository of “shared” copyrighted content, and is multinational in organization. The only mistake they made was using a few servers in the US, which gave our feds authority to pull the plug on the whole thing. Never mind if the long arm of our law had to reach all the way to New Zealand to reel in the scofflaws.

Now let me make it perfectly clear (in my best Nixon impersonation) that I am stridently opposed to piracy of any intellectual property. I do not care how often it happens, or how easy it is to do it. Wrong is wrong. Last semester, there was a graduate student at my university who had the audacity to plagiarize one of my online lectures, and submit it as original work. I felt violated. Academically raped, if you will.

And Megaupload is basically just a much higher-tech version of the Napster we had at the turn of the century. It matters not to me that certain celebrities came out in support of Megaupload. The fact is pretty simple: Megaupload provided the electronic environment in which people could willing post and share content for which they had no authority or rights to do.

While I fully support this shut-down, I must also confess to still being unnerved by the proposed wording of SOPA. While it is now stalled, it will no doubt raise its (ugly) head once more in the future. Basically, SOPA puts the burden of compliance on every website owner. Anything that is deemed to violate intellectual property rights would give the feds the authority to enact a complete and total shut-down.

Like if you (wrongly) posted a wedding slideshow on YouTube and used your favorite song as the music bed.

As it stands right now, YouTube has been able to steer clear of legal issues because courts have agreed the burden of proof is on the copyright owner, not the website owner. Viacom has fought this battle long and hard, the result being that Viacom must do its own policing, and then request that YouTube remove IP-offending clips. With 48 hours of new content being posted to YouTube each and every minute, it is physically impossible screen everything.

Which brings me to my point. If a site is without doubt a willing participant in the illegal distribution of IP-protected content, I have no problem with shut-downs. Megaupload was all about sharing music and video that was (and is) protected. But YouTube (and your blog, my blog, etc.) are not in this business. And that’s where the long arm of our law needs to stick its hands in its pockets and stay the hell out of our business.

Yes, it makes it hard for copyright owners to have to diligently scan the web for pirates. I’m sure that composers, performers, actors and producers likewise feel sick when they see their art being handed out freely. Looting while the store is open is just plain wrong.

And fortunately for me, we have sanctions in academia against plagiarizers. Never mind that I wasn’t actually making any money on my brain droppings. It was just the principle of the matter.

Somewhere, somehow, we have to find that comfortable place whereby the feds can do their business while not meddling in ours. Because, if I do accidentally post something that isn’t mine, I don’t want to find myself staring down the barrel of a federal rifle.

As for Megaupload, its owners will probably be trading their fancy clothes and cars for prison blues. I am happy to pay for the content I consume, and I hope you are, too.

Because if SOPA ever gets traction, you might find yourself sharing a cell with Mr Kim Dotcom. Download that and think about it.

Dr “Seen This All Before” Gerlich

I have a former student who for the last two Lenten seasons has eliminated social media from his “diet.” I know that it is difficult for him, because he is a social media expert. In other words, he lives on social media. To disappear for six weeks is huge. But I also know that his spiritual quest is made all the richer by his resolute abstinence.

Apart from spiritual journeys, others have sought to go an entire year forgoing something of great importance, or by doing something for a similar period. A.J. Jacobs wrote of The Year of Living Biblically, which must have been tough for a self-professed Jewish agnostic. Some of those Old Testament laws can get tricky. Others have sought to spend 365 days buying everything via e-commerce, or eliminating technology.

Which raises the question posed by USA Today: How long could you go unwired?

Heck, my former student has my undivided praise for six weeks of social media abstinence. Jacobs has my $25 (it sits right up there on my shelf). But self-imposed Ludditism (yeah, I made that up) for anything longer than Lent is just crazy. Sorry.

I have a one-word reply: Why?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know we all lived without this crap not too many years ago. We read newspapers. We talked to people on wired telephones. We wrote letters. And before that, as comedian Louis C.K. points out, we went cross-country on 30-year journeys in which the group that arrived was vastly different from the group that started.

If anything, all this technology from our oh-so-wonderfully wired worlds has made it possible for us to stay in touch with our peeps, and for companies to stay in touch with us. And you know what? I don’t wanna go back to Egypt (to pick a handy Old Testament story). I kinda like the techno-Promised Land.

I remember my first cell phone. It was one of clever “bag” phones that weighed about 7 pounds and had to be plugged in constantly in order to work. It was around 1997, and I used it while directing the bicycle Race Across America. In the span of 3000 miles, I racked up over $700 in calls. Cell phone service was a little more expensive back then.

Today, though, I am seldom if ever more than a few inches away from my iPhone4. My iPad is usually withing another two feet.

Even when I sleep.

And for those times when a mobile device just won’t cut it, my MacBok Pro is waiting quietly to be fired up.

So, to answer the rhetorical question, I probably could not go more than about a couple of hours being unwired. Sure, there are exceptions (like the 9 hours it took to fly to London last May). But we had no sooner hit the tarmac at Heathrow than I had lit my internet cigarette and checked in.

Addictions can be funny that way. Hell, I was five hours into the future. I needed to tell everyone back home that all was OK and they would at least make it to breakfast.

Sure, I can imagine a world in which I am unwired, but I do not like the picture. I rather like being wired (in a wireless kind of way, of course). I don’t want to go back to Egypt or the Land of the Luddites.

Furthermore, I like being in touch with everyone important to me…and that includes companies and media outlets. I don’t want to wait to read about it tomorrow. I want it now.

And if I ever get brave enough to try a six-week period of spiritual piety and abstinence, I know who to contact. But it’ll have to be on a land line.

Does anyone remember how those things work?

Dr “G—the G Is For Gigabyte” Gerlich

Yesterday’s headlines told the story: Kodak Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

It’s not that Kodak didn’t try to change. It’s just that when they did, it was way too little. And way too late.

And irony of ironies, Kodak was the one that invented digital photography. Go figure.

And while bankruptcy is just another way of saying life support, I see no clear path for Kodak to recover. Sure, they have introduced some nice digital cameras, and they have lots of photo kiosks in drug stores around the country. Their photographic paper is still good. I also saw some of their high-end imaging hardware the last time I visited my endodontist.

But I’d really rather not think about that. It was a painful visit.

You see, all of these products are weak attempts to stay alive in a market that changed starting back in the mid-1990s when consumer digital cameras were introduced (and not by Kodak, mind you). It’s almost as if Kodak saw the future, but didn’t like what it saw. So it politely ignored the changes afoot. Kind of like newspapers today who still fight with the reality that we probably do not need printed editions much longer.

I quit using film the precise moment I purchased my little Casio digital camera in November 1996. I never turned back once. I have burned through quite a few digital cameras since then (plus two iPhones); technology is my Kool-Aid.

Too bad Kodak didn’t like the flavor.

As for the company that once owned Rochester NY (or, as my friend from Rochester once called it, Rah-Cha-Cha), all they have left are 11000 patents that might or might not fetch a few bucks.

Oh yeah…and the pensions of tens of thousands of former employees. Ouch. That one’s going to leave a mark.

Case study writers will be crafting missives about Kodak for many years to come. It is a classic example of an iconic company going all ostrich on its employees, stockholders and customers. Sand may be cool and comforting when the light is too bright, but eventually you have to come up for air.

And to realize that the world has changed while you’ve been down below.

Yes, it is truly sad to see such a giant of American industry with barely a pulse, but it brought it on itself. Paul Simon forever etched Kodachrome on our musical memory card some 35 years ago, but he’s the one getting the royalties, not the company in New York.

And that’s a picture I’m sure Kodak doesn’t like to see in any album.

Dr “Two 8X10s and a Wallet Size” Gerlich

He was right. Along with a bunch of bad ones.

Ever since I got my first iPhone (in 2008), I have been a picture-taking fool with it as well. To date, I now have over 3700 images on my phone (upgraded to an iPhone4 during this time). I am all over the idea of posting to Facebook and Twitter, as well as sending images via MMS to friends and family.

In October 2010, a quirky new photo app was introduced for iPhones. Called Instagram, the sole purpose was to go retro and let users shoot pics much like they were back in the 1960s. A variety of cool filters allow users to tint their shots in such a way as to replicate many of the hues those vintage Polaroid prints did back in the day.

And while there are dozens of photo apps available today (e.g., Camera+ is one of my favorites), Instagram has completely dominated this market niche. It has over 15 million avid users, people who not only shoot, filter and save images for private use, but also post to Instagram’s own social picture sharing site (as well as cross-posting to the major social media outlets).

Instagram has proven to be a puzzlement for marketers and analysts alike. To date, it has sold absolutely nothing, but it has received at least $7 million in angel funding. And perhaps even more compelling has been the question of how companies might use Instagram as a marketing tool.

After all, 15 million people is nothing to sneeze at.

But companies are starting to get it, and in fact are rushing to jump in the Instagram photo album.

It’s a tricky question, because it requires a lot of creativity. We’re dealing with imagery here, not so much content.

One of my favorite applications so far has been that done by Medalla, a beer from Puerto Rico. Several times each week the brewery will post an unusual photo that invariably features a can, bottle or other such branded item, but always in a slice-of-life setting. No caption required (although users can attach a short description if they so desire).

And I have two words to say in response: Sheer genius.

No words are needed when marketing a beer in a medium like this. Most users are going to view Instagram images via a mobile device anyway, so words are more a distraction. Just seeing a plate of food with a sweating bottle of beer beside it speaks volumes.

What was that saying about a thousand words?

While Instagram’s revenue model still leaves a lot of unanswered questions, it is encouraging to see that its potential as an advertising tool is being embraced by marketers. In fact, this might be the ticket for Instagram: selling corporate “channels” much like one can have on YouTube. It’s a very subtle sell with Medalla, but sometimes those are the best.

And maybe add-on filters for a small charge (can anyone say “freemium?”) can serve to keep people from straying to other camera apps. Adding more borders and effects could go a long way toward keeping people locked into this app and not another.

In the mean time, I find myself becoming more and more hooked by the stylishly retro things I can do (and post) with Instagram. It’s almost like being back in the 60s again.

And if you see me wearing bell-bottomed pants, feel free to take a pic.

Dr “Say Cheese” Gerlich

OK, I am waxing nostalgic here. I am thinking roughly 1972, my peak musical memory year. I was a mere 13 and seeing the world through the lens of puberty. All I had was a cheap transistor radio, and I listened to WLS and WCFL in my cozy suburban Chicago home. I was finding my music, the music that would shape my life.

And while I quickly transitioned to FM (thanks to a new radio), I, like everyone else at that time, was limited to just a few stations playing records, disc jockeys spinning tunes as their general manager’s playlist dictated.

You could only hope your favorite song was next in the queue.

But today, 40 years later, our radio listening habits have changed dramatically. In fact, a full 40-percent of USAmericans now listen to Pandora, the internet-only site at which users can build their own dang radio station.

And broadcasters had better be scared.

No, this doesn’s mean that over-the-air radio will go away any time soon (no more than the continue surge of e-commerce spells doom for brick-and-mortar retailers). but pity the fool who ignores the sound of advancing warriors intent on pillaging the village.

Sure, Clear Channel, with their hundreds of broadcast stations and distant second-place iHeartRadio web app, sneers at the prospects of web-only apps killing the radio stars. But the reality is this: Pandora is working its way into our cars, now that it has forged alliances with 16 automakers. With the ubiquity of cellular internet, it is no big deal to pull in Pandora in a moving car.

Pandora sits in the driver’s seat in that it was an early player in this business, and is certainly the biggest. But with Pandora finding its way into dashboards and car stereos, it can only be a few #1 songs until competing web services like MOG, Rdio, Spotify and Rhapsody likewise hop in for a ride.

And then it’s going to get increasingly difficult for broadcast radio to survive.

Critics will scoff, of course, because we had a similar threat posed with satellite radio a decade ago, and radio survived quite nicely. But this is different. The new services are very customizable, ranging from build-your-own stations to specific artists, albums and songs on demand. Who needs to put up with cheesy hometown ads (“P-E-T-E, that spells Pete” comes to mind) when you can have a class act?

The folks in the radio biz need to awaken to a new reality. We have been spinning our own tunes ever since the Sony Walkman came out. We like being in control. We do not want to wait next to a radio, hoping “our song” will be next. At the buffet of music, we don’t want someone else dishing out portions.

Broadcasters may argue that Pandora has opened a box of poison for the radio industry, but if anything, it is a nourishing nectar for listeners. After all, as Sony implicitly sold us 30 years ago, it really is all about me.

I just wish I could find that old transistor radio. Because a big part of me was defined by what came out of its lone speaker.

Dr “I Got The Music In Me” Gerlich