At a recent meeting some of my co-workers and I got slightly off topic as we couldn’t help but discuss the recent Aqua Teen Hunger Force guerilla marketing campaign in Boston. Like many in the younger, often more Internet-savvy generation, one person at the meeting had figured out that the mysterious packages were a marketing campaign before Boston officials made the announcement. Simply by searching online–the natural response of people in our generation looking for quick answers–he found various blogs that talked about the how the campaign was carried out. Such a simple method of investigation seems to have evaded Boston law enforcement officials however. Thus the combination of Turner Broadcasting System’s marketing and Boston’s reaction have created legal and financial issues while also raising questions about the level of digital disconnect older generations have when it comes to new media.
Another staple of the Internet generation’s online consumption, YouTube, has recently come up against legal issues with some of its most popular content; the content in question, most inconveniently, belongs to Viacom.
“YouTube removing Viacom TV Shows Media firm says ‘Daily Show,’ MTV snippets must go,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 2007
San Francisco Chronicle Article
The above article highlights the tension inherent in allowing YouTube users to access “The Daily Show” clips with the ease and freedom they expect having grown up in the age of search-driven Internet consumption. Can YouTube keep one generation of users happy, abide by the laws and keep media companies from holding all the power?
It looks like younger users may have to reconcile themselves to the fact that new media still must abide by old laws, and some in older generations could use a crash course in some of the new online communication forms to get them fully up to speed.
