I've had a policy since September 2005 of tracking and talking about what's going on in New Orleans every place I make a public appearance - even at my events on Internet marketing.

In fact, I put on a special marketing workshop this past November in New Orleans for some of my clients as a fund raiser. Part of the workshop involved briefing my clients on current conditions there.

Since this is a video discussion, let's consider this question:

What would have happened to the people of New Orleans had there no been video and live video news?

I think it's safe to say the death toll would have been many, many times than what it was.

The vicious idiots in charge of FEMA, Homeland Security and other government agencies responsible for rescue and relief efforts would have gone on patting each other on the back for the "heck of a job" they were doing until the corpses piled as high as the Superdome.

So I say "thank God" for video. Video, and Internet video,  can still play a roll  in helping get the word out about this and other travesties.

(Maybe if video had existed in the 1940s and someone had been able to sneak footage out of the concentration camps, some of those victims might have been saved too.  Who knows?)

Anyway, what has happened in the last year plus since this government-induced disaster?

Some numbers:

* 102,000 families are still living in FEMA trailers (which by the way were sold to US taxpayers at THREE TIMES their retail value.) And that doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of people who are living in other cities and states, unable to return to their homes.

* As of November 1, of the $10.4 billion granted by the federal government to rebuild Louisiana, only 18 - yes 18! - of the 77,000 homeowners who have applied for rebuilding aid have received any.

* Many New Orleans public schools still do not have drinking water for the children - this in a tropical climate - and private contract security guards outnumber teachers in many schools.

From a 12/6/06 article in the New York Times:

"People are being left to fend for themselves, while being hampered if not prevented, from fending for themselves." Raymond A. Jetson, the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps."

What does all this have to do with Internet marketing?

Thoreau once asked: "What's the use of a house if you don't have a tolerable planet to put it on?"

I ask what kind of a country are we if we throw our own injured citizens to the dogs when we have all the resources needed to help them back on their feet.

What can you do:

1. Educate yourself  -  Don't buy the party line that New Orleans brought its problems on itself. If that's true, do we intend to leave people in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami and other places subject to catastrophe in the rubble if they suffer a reversal too?

Fact: Katrina didn't damage New Orleans, the collapse of the federal levees did. The levees weren't even breached by flood waters. They crumbled because of poor construction by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Fireman from the high vantage point of an office building filmed what actually happened to the levees - and when - and were ordered not to show the video to anyone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwMvC5QU194&mode=related&search=

2. Talk about it - The average person thinks New Orleans and the Gulf are back to normal and everything's fine. It's not. It's an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe and who's suffering the most? The young. The elderly. The handicapped.  Working people at the bottom of the economic ladder. It's a national disgrace.

(I don't have the space to go into it here, but Big Oil is culpable as well. They've wreaked tremendous ecological damage on the bayous that used to modify the effect of storms on the region. They've also skillfully managed to keep there role in the catastrophe out of the news media.)

3. Visit New Orleans - The core area of interest to visitors with its incomparable food and music is back online. Go, enjoy yourself, spend and tip lavishly - especially in locally owned businesses of which there are many.

The people who are back in New Orleans are the ones who want to be back there. They are bloodied but not bowed.  They're brave, resourceful folks who love their city and are dedicated to restoring it.  Make no mistake,  the city is a traumatized place, but it's also the home to a positive and creative energy the kind of which you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere else in our mall and suburbia-based nation.

Bottom line: New Orleans is an important American city - historically, culturally, economically - and for the rest of us morally.

"Am I not a man? Am I not a brother?"

This slogan appeared during the movement to abolish slavery. We need revive it as it applies to New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf.

When you make your trip to New Orleans to see for yourself...

For music: Frenchman Street. Half a dozen smoking music clubs on one block. No cover charge. Just throw something meaningful in when they pass the hat.

For food: It's hard to go wrong.  Ask the locals for their secret spots. They'll tell you with pride.  The web's a good place to start researching.

By the way, the IAOC's own Steve O'Keefe is a peerless resource on the wonders of the city.

Question: How long should an online video be?

Answer: As long as it needs to be.

If your goal is to go "viral," then shorter is better. If you look at the viral hits on Google and YouTube, many are under one minute long. 

Why?

Is it because modern living has reduced people's attention spans to fruit fly proportions? No. It's because the shorter the video, the higher the odds that  viewers will watch to the end and push the "share" button.  It's the pushing of the "share" button that makes a video viral. That's the whole game. Of course, the video has to be a "wow!" to large numbers of viewers to stimulate this response.

But before we shout "hallelujeh" for viral videos, let's take a look at some of today's winners on Google Video
and their suitability as advertising vehicles:

1. "White and Nerdy" - a professionally produced music video
2. "Sex Accident" - less than zero
3. "PS3 vs. Wii" -  a professionally produced ad
4. "Octopus escaping through one inch hole" - dubious at best
5. "Fitness" - less than zero
6. "The Birth" - a comedy skit - dubious at best
7. "Guy pwned by girl" - less than zero
8. "Best penalty ever" - weak maybe
9. "Stars are Blind" - zero
10. "Quarters" - a professionally produced ad

Three of the winners came from professionals and were made to promote a specific product.

Four have no advertising value and at all and three of them would send any sane advertiser running in horror. One is a very weak maybe and the other two are of dubious value at best.

YouTube et. al. could theoretically run an ad before or after the three winners, but that would be strange because they are already advertisements for something.

The remaining seven range from incredibly weak advertising vehicles to postively radioactive in their unsuitability.

So tell me again why we as advertisers are so excited about viral videos?

Back to the question that started all this: How long should your online videos should be?

As long as it takes to tell your action-motivating story to your targeted prospect. If someone is interested (i.e. a potential customer) they will take in all the relevant information you have to offer. Within my own sphere of interest, I have no qualms about watching a 20, 30, even 60+ minute video online, but if something's not suitable for me, 7 seconds is too long and I'm not going to push the "share" button.

I'm Steve O'Keefe, co-host of "This Week on IAOCblog.com" and this week I dropped the ball!

I failed to introduce our topic and guest in a timely manner. So please forgive me and, more importantly, please join me in welcoming Internet marketing pioneer Ken McCarthy to our blog!

Ken McCarthy organized the first conference ever on Internet marketing -- in 1994 in San Francisco.  One of his students from that era, Rick Boyce, played an instrumental role in popularizing the banner ad at Hotwired. Ken also was very early to the pay-per-clik game, recognizing PPC not only as a source of traffic, but also as a superb testing and marketing research tool. Today, Ken is director of The System Seminar -- an online marketing training program -- and runs the "Looking at Video on the Web" blog at <http://www.systemvideoblog.com/>. Ken will be discussing such subject's as Google's purchase of YouTube and what it means for online marketers.

Ken McCarthy -- welcome to IAOCblog.com!