funny by accident. http://shanaray.posterous.com social media, tech, food and wine in a world that takes itself too seriously. posterous.com Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:43:00 -0700 some goode controversy. http://shanaray.posterous.com/some-goode-controversy http://shanaray.posterous.com/some-goode-controversy

I just got done watching Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht's latest Diggnation video on the Murphy Goode Dream Job and the fact that the MG team decided to NOT place the top vote getter, Martin Sargent, into the top 50 finalists. 

As a wine snob, yes, I was totally insulted by the white zinfandel drinking in his video (update - the Boone's Farm Watermelon), but that was kinda the point.  He used his social media skills and humorous non-stuffy wino approach to get his friends and followers to vote for his video, thus proving his popularity and obvious need to learn more about wine.  Alex had a great point that even if MG didn't think that he was right for the job that they should have looked at what the "people" wanted and put him into the top 50 anyways.

"It is all about the power of people when you want to do anything."

Okay, so Martin didn't make it into the top 50.... Instead a seemingly wine-knowledgeable selection of people made it into the semi-finals and then an even further selection of social media "gurus" and people who already know about wine made it into the finals.  I am not here to debate their choices or what I think about the top 10 (yes, I do have some reservations about some of them, but thankfully I will get to meet all of them this weekend to really form my opinion on who I personally think would be best suited for the job -- because we all judge... Don't pretend you won't be either).

The thing is that it just shows that MG doesn't really "get" social media, thus, as Alex pointed out, they really need this correspondent to help them into the Web 2.0 world.  But not even acknowledging the top vote getter until the black-lash started, and then to almost insult people who really felt their votes mattered, is just so "anti" social media, that it almost bothers me.  Though, I am happy that in the beginning, MG stated that they didn't know anything about social media and that is why they started this job search in the first place. 

Now, what I think MG needs to do to smooth over all of this is to apologize.  By simply saying that they messed up, (IMHO) everything will go away and everyone can go back to concentrating on what really matters --- The top 10 candidates and how this job search has helped bring wine social media marketing to the minds of the "everyday" consumer and not just to the wine bloggers.

These are just some of my thoughts.  This will be a subject of debate during the next few weeks (especially during the Wine Blogging Conference), so I am curious to hear your thoughts....


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