Two Domino’s Pizza employees posted a video of themselves spitting on food, putting cheese up their noses,, and violating several health codes while preparing people’s food.  The video, posted on YouTube, became a sensation with more than one million views, spreading discussion to blogs and Twitter.  The New York Times today even profiled the threat social media plays for Domino’s and other companies.

I’ll still buy from Domino’s. Hopefully this is an example of two really bad actors and not reflective on the company. But this is a huge PR nightmare where even if Domino’s isn’t directly at fault (legally or morally, that we know of), it is still responsible to remedy this tragedy, making amends to the public for what it’s employees did.

Social media was used to damage Domino’s brand. Domino’s can use social media to repair the damage.

First, admit fault. With a press conference posted to YouTube and news outlets. Admit employees were not properly supervised, incentivized, and educated, and then outline how all these things will be fixed for the future.  Also publically compliment the rest of the Domino’s sales staff. We know Domino’s hiring is not the most rigorous, so oversight is important.

To repair its brand, Domino’s would best be served by opening up it’s serving practices to the world – through YouTube. I don’t mean hidden cameras showing you don’t trust your employees (that will only invite more trouble). Instead, show how much you value your employees by encouraging each store to make it’s own YouTube video about their favorite pizza creation.  So every Domino’s outlet will have the chance to create a special pizza, which customers can buy, and see online how the staff came up with and made that pizza.  This shows Domino’s trusts its employees to serve its customers’ best interests, and it gives something special to customers in the form of unique and special pizzas, customized for their location.  Domino’s can collect all these videos onto a YouTube channel and even make a U.S. map with links to the videos of locations closest to you.

The lesson to learn – social media can be a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. But in the right hands, social media can be used for just as much good.  Embracing open communication builds and rebuilds brands.

The New York Times claims the new video game Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is “one of the most important” because of its story telling and maturity.

But really, it’s just because this is a violent video game on a stereotypically kiddie and girlie gaming system, the Nintendo DS. The article praises game developer Rockstar and Nintendo for being “bold” and making a “vital statement to the public” that video games are not just for children.

Didn’t we already know this?

How is it bold of Nintendo for approving one of the best-selling video game series of all time to make a game exclusively for their system, almost certain to sell millions of copies. GTA is a safe-bet, not bold. And as amazing as Chinatown Wars is, it’s not a “crucial moment in the maturation of the gaming industry.” It’s a well-known franchise in an industry more known for violence than child-friendly fare. The New York Times itself has pushed flawed research about how all this violence is harmful.

Video games are still maturing yes, and Chinatown Wars is a helpful step to spreading the rich storytelling potential of the medium. But it’s a miniature version of the also adult GTA IV released only a year ago. Just as adult and arguably more visually spectacular. Adult is not always maturity.  Video games can be mature without violence, but talking animals and magic spells don’t get the same headlines as blood and gore.

I recognize the DS itself has expanded the video game market. Yay. It’s more than four years old. About time the New York Times realized violence can sometimes make good storytelling.

The New York Times took an intelligent look at how content is selling on Apple’s App Store.  The best-selling version of David Pogue’s “iPhone: The Missing Manual” book is its $4.99 iPhone app version, not the paper book or PDF.  Saul Hansell understands the application’s success on the iPhone is because of the valuable convenience and service Apple provides rather than customers simply paying for content.

Apple has created an environment that makes buying digital goods easy and common. With an infrastructure that supports one-click purchases of songs and videos, it was easy to add applications in the same paradigm. Paying for software, especially games, is not new to Apple customers. So when you see the iPhone manual or the Frommer’s Paris guidebook, it feels natural to click. (And of course, your credit card is already on file with Apple.)

He adds that Pogue’s app “hard to use” with poorly formatted text and a lack of interactive features, but for $4.99, the book sells quite well to a captive audience.  The publisher raised the price to $9.99 and saw sales plummet 75 percent.

This is not an example of micropayments, like some would like us to believe.  As newspaper’s desperately try to convince the public content should be paid for, they forget to tell us why to pay for it, let alone give us a reason to.  Apple built a easy-to-use system that is so convenient, it’s worth a few dollars and cents.  But Apple doesn’t look to make money on it’s App store. Apple already makes a healthy profit on the iPhone itself, just like on the iPod. Any profit from songs or applications is icing on an already sweet cake. These so called micropayments supplement Apple’s massive profits – they aren’t the source.  Newspapers hoping to replicate this model will be sorely disappointed.

Another difference, Apple has no real competition.  No one else can sell or offer iPhone applications except Apple (unless you jailbreak your phone). And no other mobile phone system offers as complete a catalogue or convenient system to truly challenge the iPhone (Google’s Android is trying very, very slowly).  If and when Android or Symbian or Windows Mobile (ha) can and do challenge the iPhone, convenient service will not be worth paying so much for. It’ll be expected and the next innovation will be required.  That’s, of course, smart business – staying ahead of the competition.

Something of concern for Apple and micropayment fans is research shows iPhone users rarely use applications after 20 days.  Techdirt points out iPhone users not finding much value in the apps they download will be less likely to spend money on more, hurting the long-term viability of the store.

The old guard of media have years of status and experience that make them seem more important. The Associated Press’ recent hoopla over links to its articles shows a disconnect from the old guard to the web world. Start-ups dream of getting some New York Times coverage because that would just set them up for success, but they ignore an article in TechCrunch or popular story on Digg might be more valuable.

Martin Varsavsky wrote for the Huffington Post about publicity his company Fon was getting. The New York Times featured him and his company on the cover of the Sunday business section followed by an article in Forbes magazine. But his website only saw 200 new uniques. A popular post on Digg netted him 50,000 uniques.

Varsavsky recognizes the benefits of print media - more resources, physical product, and established reputation. “Paper is more credible than pixels” he says. But if its traffic you need, old media won’t help you.

The Associated Press reminded me of this issue because, even as it whined about other websites sending it free publicity, the A.P. refused to link to other websites. It had no problem quoting them and saying the name of the blog, but wouldn’t include links to the quoted blog. The New York Times has recently started adding links, mostly to their blog and not their articles. Other mainstream media sites leave you the impression there’s nothing else on the web. Even new media companies like IMDB.com won’t provide links to sources, even when quoting them directly.

The issue is these links are incredibly valuable. The major tech blogs and aggregators, TechCrunch, Gigaom, Slashdot, and Digg to name a few, can bring a website down because of all the traffic they send. And once that traffic is on your site, it’s your job to keep them there. 2.3 million people read the Sunday times, but it’s a lot harder to get them to sign online and go to a website. With a link provided, you just click. Easy, no effort, effective.

Mainstream media needs to join the link culture. Linking to other sites isn’t just polite. Many sites (like Prodigeek) show links to sites linking to them. I’ve gotten reliable traffic from several blogs and that traffic inspires me to link to them more. Moreover, I don’t like to link to websites that don’t link at all (unless they’re the original source). I’d prefer to send traffic to other blogs who share in the link culture than news sites that don’t. And companies that are hostile to the link culture get blacklisted.

For companies trying to monetize their website, whether through sales, advertising, or something else, need to put their PR where the traffic is. That means publicize on the TechCrunches and Gigaoms and taste makers of your industry. The credible that comes from a Times article sounds nice, but it isn’t helping you meet traffic goals. As companies (hopefully) recognize this, blogs and websites will gain credibility as they become the next-generation of king-makers, discovering the next Googles, Microsofts, and Facebooks while the mainstream media plays catch up. Mainstream media needs to join the link culture (which includes not suing websites) or get left out and left behind.

Updated 6/24 1:37p.m. - I just read a great post by Chris Brogan on this same subject, noting how the Boston Globe wrote out the link to his blog on their website and newspaper, but didn’t link to it.

Environmental activists threw pies at New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman while he was speaking about energy at Brown University Tuesday. Friedman spoke about the need for green and sustainable technology (his Power of Green article is a must read), believing developing green technology will make America “stronger, more innovative, [and] more energy secure.”

Protestors threw two green-colored pies at Friedman at the start of his speech, though he managed to dodge most of the dessert. A flier circulated by the protestors said:

“Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face because of his sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism’s conquest of the planet, for telling the world that the free market and techno fixes can save us from climate change.”

I want to know what the protestor’s alternative is to Friedman’s suggestions. Alterative power sources are inefficient and expensive still. Even as oil jumps in price, coal remains cheap but dirty and developing nations like China just want power, at the cheapest price. In the Power of Green, Friedman’s argument for market forces is the need for green technology at the “China price,” namely at the price China currently pays for coal plants. China could make cleaner coal plants, but they cost 40 percent more to build and are 20 percent less efficient. And when they’re building two 500-megawatt power plants a week, they need every drop of power they can get.

It’s not that China, India, or America don’t want to become green (well, certain oil companies might be against it). The problem is we don’t want to sacrifice. China estimates pollution costs its economy $67 billion, so fixing the problem is in the nation’s interest, but it’s just too expensive - the technology isn’t there yet. Friedman wants the government, especially the American government, to take an active role in developing green technology at the China price, creating something like the Manhattan Project but around green offering a market incentive to get companies and technologists working on the climate crisis.

Friedman regularly promotes free market ideals, recognizing benefits from outsourcing and free trade helping build up developing countries to match the developed world faster. I agree oil companies, who are making record profits, have little incentive to invest in new technology - its likely we’ll have enough oil during current oil executive’s lifetimes (even if it costs $10 a gallon). With government leadership and incentive, in the form of tax breaks and research grants, can spurn a new green industry that can literally save the planet.

But throwing pies is totally rational. After all, it’s not like we’re also in the middle of a food crisis.

Update: April 24th, 2008, 2:50 p.m. - Here’s a shaky video of the pieing.

After two years, the New York Times is finally joining the Web 2.0 fad and sharing its content with the interweb. The Times spent the past two years charging $49.95 per year, or $7.95 each month, for archived content and its columnists under its TimesSelect program. Today the times announced its plans claiming their TimesSelect program met subscription expectations, but more growth could be found in advertising. “Our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, the senior vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com.

Finally. One of the last major paywalls has fallen under the realization that the web is a big place. If you won’t let people get your content, they’ll find the same thing somewhere else. With the Times’ news and commentary blocked by credit card charges, other web sites like the Huffington Post and Daily Kos were happy to fill the void. Now the Times has to make up for lost ground.

Obviously the New York Times will and has been a credible voice on the web. But the Times, as such an influential force, could have built the legitimacy of web media faster. Maybe they would have put more effort into creating original, interactive content rather than just replicating the newspaper.

I also wonder how web advertising might have accelerated had the Times opened up its decades of news stories to everyone. Everyone from random browsers to researchers could make use of these millions of new page views from a company that can get the big advertising deals. This could have generated millions more in web advertising as well as maybe exploring new advertising models and venues.

But now the Times can fully make its mark, as a fully Googleable resource of information. And we all know Google as the search engine of record.

This Friday, the New York Times reported how soldiers and Arab reporters have been posting video on YouTube from Iraq, showing footage U.S. and U.K. news outlets refuse to air, though the company has started removing these posting because they violate the rules for posting non-violent clips.

Firstly, for a company criticized for its openness for copyright infringement (see my September 29th posting), censoring without extreme justification seems hypocritical to me (I could agree pornography is crossing the line). But YouTube and Google Video’s power is in the user created freedom to release just this kind of content - content that we can’t get anywhere else, whether its not popular enough for commercial release or it’s too controversial.

In late August of this year, Michael De Kort used YouTube to expose what he found to be security flaws in ships made by his employer, Lockheed Martin. When no politicians or media listened to him, he took matters into his own hands. The Washington Post picked up his story and congressmen got involved.

YouTube offers us an unvetted resource. And sometimes that is a benefit. Justifiably, news shows do not show everything that happens in war. But the result, especially during this Iraq War, has been a lack of understanding of what war is, regardless of the reasons for going. I have no understanding at all what war is like, but I have more sympathy and fear for the soldiers when I watch this footage simply because war is scary. And I think YouTube, beyond copyright infringement opportunities, has the chance to an unvetted bank of information, data, and emotion to sort through and interpret. It is simply a starting point.

Politicians are becoming nervous because of the website’s power, as observes Politics Watch. After Senator George Allen’s “racist” stumble was caught on video, the viral grassroots effects of YouTube caused the near implosion of his campaign. Now politicians can no longer test messages in small markets or even make mistakes. Unfortunately, instead of using this candid opportunity to their advantage, by bypassing the media and using this unvetted source, politicians are missing a new method for communication (and one that’s free).

Instead of censoring itself, YouTube could open special sections to house more violent footage, like these Iraq clips (which are less graphic and grainy than any Grand Theft Auto posting). But even this I feel is unneeded. YouTube, with its millions of video, does not force footage on users. Users have to seek out footage. The video service is a service of showing people what they want and people have to do some leg work to get it. As a result, censoring seems moot.

Here is a sample video.