Jesse “the Body” banned

Anyone looking to read Jesse Ventura’s latest entry in the Huffington Post found this instead:

Editor’s Note: The Huffington Post’s editorial policy, laid out in our blogger guidelines, prohibits the promotion and promulgation of conspiracy theories — including those about 9/11. As such, we have removed this post.

Jesse Venutra is known as many things; soldier, wrestler, actor, politician and author. In his most recent book, “American Conspiracies”, Ventura “tackles our governments biggest secrets”. So it’s no real surprise that despite the Huffington Post’s stance, Ventura wrote about conspiracy theories. You can read what he wrote here and decide just how inflammatory his comments really were.

The Huffington Post had to know what it was getting into when they brought Ventura on. Were they worried that they had a Glenn Beck on their hands?

Roger Ebert

I do not have a need “all the time” to take myself away from the oppressive facts of my life, however oppressive they may be, in order to go somewhere where I have control. I need to stay here and take control. Right now, for example, I cannot speak, but I am writing this. You lose some, you win some.
-Roger Ebert

Almost three years after losing his voice to thyroid cancer, Roger Ebert has debuted his new, electronic voice today on the Oprah Winfrey show. Many have commented that the quality and similarity to his original voice are impressive. But what’s more impressive is how he has maintained his status as one of the country’s most respected movie critics without the use of his voice. With the aid of tools like Twitter and his site on the Chicago Sun Times he’s maintained the profile and quality of writing he’s known for.

The below chart is a rough estimate of traffic to Roger Ebert’s site created by Quantcast. Note that the data being collected begins in April 0f 2007, 4 months before making his loss of speech public.

While there are some dips during health related inactivity, site traffic remains relatively high. His story is inspirational because it’s such a great reminder that the internet can not only include but cater to people traditionally left out of the conversation.

Any press is good press…

Recent news that a killer whale actually killed a trainer at SeaWorld today is spreading quickly. This situation brings up the validity of the old saying; “any press is good press.” One of the less obvious factors that makes this so damaging for SeaWorld is that people weren’t talking about it much until something went horribly wrong. The below chart, created by Trendistic, illustrates how many times SeaWorld was mentioned on Twitter, starting 7 days ago.

It’s barely mentioned at all, but of course as soon as tragedy hits, mentions skyrocket. SeaWorld has embraced certain aspects of social media. Its Twitter handle, RealShamu is currently protecting its Tweets (although that may have always been the case). There was also the issue of paying Julia Allison to essentially shill for them. Neither move seems to reflect much in the way of social media skills. It’s not easy for a company as large as SeaWorld to not only embrace social media but excel at it, but a situation like this calls for both.