Topics for the 6/14/09 Show

Here are the proposed topics for this week's episode of The BeanCast, and as usual we'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.

You have two ways to get in touch: 1) Send an "@" reply or DM on Twitter to @thebeancast, or 2) send an email to beancast@gmail.com

Please keep your comments succinct. Wordy comments need to be interpreted and I may not capture the essence of what you are asking. That's why I encourage the Tweet option to help keep the question or thought targeted.

This week's panel will be Bill Green (Make the Logo Bigger), Joe Jaffe (Crayon) and Abbey Klaassen (Ad Age)

TOPICS

XBOX Live Is Your Next Ad Platform: Integration of Facebook and Twitter is just the beginning. With the launch of 1 vs. 100, Microsoft has launched the first nationwide live, truly interactive game show, complete with ads. What are the advantages to this platform for advertisers? Is this a game changer in terms of broadcast entertainment? Is this convergence finally come 20 years after Microsoft proclaimed it? How does this change social media strategies? What is the advantage of leveraging the XBOX community as opposed to other social networks?

Social Making Money for Brands, But Who's Benefiting: This week brought the case study that Dell is making money on Twitter. But who benefits more from the news, brands looking to advertising or Twitter itself? What do you think of the opinion piece in Ad Age by Rita Chang? Do brands promoting their social network involvement help the networks more than the brands? Is the Dell news really that impressive? Will we see a lot of social networking case studies now start using this to prove results, even though it represents a tiny portion of Dell's business? Does it matter the amount of business generated, as long as it working?

Should Social Be A Silo: Jonah Bloom has inspired a ton of commentary after his post on Ad Age about the need to integrate social thinking into the the total marketing effort, rather than build out a social department. Is the point valid? Does social really demand a silo of expertise? Is the problem of integration more a management problem? Go to Ad Age and read the post. Lots of great comments there.

Guerilla Game Marketing Out of Control: Two stories recently show how radical guerilla efforts have become. One was during E3, where EA staged a mock protest of Dante's Inferno, mocking church protests with signs like "Trade your Playstation for a PrayStation." The other was THQ locking copies of Red Faction in a locked car with a sledge hammer next to it, letting people smash the hell out of the car. Are these efforts innovative or going too far? Is the search for buzz fraught with risk for brands? Are we starting to tread into dangerous territory that could leads to violence and/or potential PR backlash?

Is Local Search Really Viable: With churn rates at 50% to 60%, is SEM a viable option for local advertisers or just a nice idea that doesn't work? Is it more a case of lack of sophistication in how SEM is employed at the local level? What do the search giants need to do...pursue and educate or cut their losses and focus on national markets?

The Great Facebook URL Land Grab: How important is this for brands? What are the advantages? How are brand rights protected? Did you get yours?

(Potential replacement topics could be What Danica Patrick could mean to NASCAR story and the FedEx "http://brownbailout.com" controversy.)