Here's an entire classic Bugs cartoon edited to today's standards...

So that leaves us with today’s popular and, in some cases, educational cartoons on Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and PBS. While there’s no Daffy Duck in this crowd, I do find myself laughing along with my daughter, humming their songs, and noticing lines that were obviously written for parents.   

Please vote for the cartoon you find most enjoyable or maybe most tolerable for YOU to watch with the kids:   

Phineas and Ferb   

Little Einsteins   

Handy Manny   

Spongebob Squarepants   

Fairly Odd Parents   

Dora Explorer   

Go Diego Go   

Super WHY   

Martha Speaks   

Backyardigans   

Wonder Pets   

Word Girl   

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse   

VOTE HERE   

• Public Relations / Communications
   
• Marketing
   
• Advertising
   
• Customer Service
   
• Other
   

http://bit.ly/cHHEf0

 
Why did Traditional Media pay so little attention to this story? The oil spill story had been around for several days without any real new developments. No one (thankfully!) was hurt in the failed Times Square bombing attempt. Yet over a dozen had already lost their lives in Tennessee and the story was a far third in the eyes of the editors and writers at traditional news outlets.  
 
Newsweek’s Andrew Romano wrote an excellent post explaining the media’s monomaniacal nature and poor judgment call that flooding in Nashville just doesn’t sizzle enough. Here are my additional thoughts.

 
1. The Traditional Media is New York-centric. This is especially true when it comes to anything regarding weather. Does the New York Times even have reporters west of the Hudson anymore?

 
2. The Traditional Media has a faux global concern. The Hollywood crowd won’t be hosting any telethons or concerts for a red heartland state like Tennessee. Fortunately, I’m guessing there’s a very kind-hearted entertainment genre based in Nashville that will take care of that!

 
3. And Romano is right. A natural disaster in the heartland just isn’t dramatic enough for the sensational cable channels, TV networks, and national papers. No villain, no connection to global warming, terrorism, healthcare bills, or Obama.
 
 
Fortunately for those of us who were interested in how people were doing in Nashville, we can bypass the old media and connect via social media. I saw pictures posted from inside the decimated Gaylord hotel and read blog posts from locals updating friends and colleagues on their status.  

Inside Gaylord Hotel 5/2/10 - Photo Courtesy of Thomas Scott

Let’s take a look again at MediaQ over May 1 -3, this time looking at Social Media hits:

Story                        Social Media Mentions
 
Oil Spill in Gulf            13,623
 
Times Square Bomb    5,685
 
Nashville Floods          8,597

We can see that the Nashville flood story was a much more important topic of conversation than the newspapers and TV outlets who blew the call would have thought.

For more info on using MediaQ, please contact Jeff Tidyman

 
I’ve had a blast over the past few months working on a new application. It’s called engage121 and it launches today!

The application empowers you to:

1. Listen – monitor Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, and many other channels.

2. Speak – engage anyone via social media channels one-to-one.

Think of it as TweetDeck, Ning, HootSuite, your Facebook pages, your LinkedIn profile and about a few dozen more tools rolled into one. Oh, and it’s totally free.

Readers of this blog are invited to be beta testers and use engage121 for free via this link: www.engage121.com.

For more information about engage121, check out The Facebook Fan Page, The engage121 Community Blog, or follow engage on Twitter: @engage121.

Lastly, if you write one or multiple blogs, you can post to them all directly from engage. In fact, I posted this blog entry directly from engage121 this morning…