moving on

The Internets never cease to amaze me, or, more precisely, the speed and power of the (seemingly) only media that matters – the social media of the Web. Perhaps you saw the disgusting videos two Domino's Pizza employees posted earlier this week on YouTube. You know, the videos that, among other things, show a pizza dude sneezing on food, placing cheese that was nestled inside the toasty cave of his nasal cavity on a sandwich, and expelling "lethal gas" on salami that was placed on said sandwich. Yum! (The videos were later pulled, but on the Internets, nothing ever dies, and the DELETE key is only a state of mind. You can view the vids HERE.)

In just a few short days the two now ex-employees were arrested, charged with felonies, and, aside from having their mugshots plastered on the Web, are looking at a possible civil lawsuit from Domino's Pizza. But the real damage occurred to Domino's Pizza's reputation. As more companies are realizing (excerpt from this New York Times article)…

Social media has the reach and speed to turn tiny incidents into marketing crises. In November, Motrin posted an ad suggesting that carrying babies in slings was a painful new fad. Unhappy mothers posted Twitter complaints about it, and bloggers followed; within days, Motrin had removed the ad and apologized.

On Monday, Amazon.com apologized for a "ham-fisted" error after Twitter members complained that the sales rankings for gay and lesbian books seemed to have disappeared — and, since Amazon took more than a day to respond, the social-media world criticized it for being uncommunicative.

That's all for now… I've got a hankering for some Domino's!