There are a number of influential bloggers out there saying that blogging by cartoon characters is lame and a waste of time. See here and here, plus trace through some of the links and comments for a general feel. As examples of cartoon characters blogging, here are links to GEICO’s Gecko blog and Captain Morgan’s blog. What triggered my return visit to the subject of cartoon character blogging was that John Nardini was nice enough to send me a link last week to his new Moosetopia blog associated with Moosetracks ice cream.
My take on this: Too early to tell whether cartoon character blogs (as a general market) will work.
At one point in time, we said that the security in Netscape browsers couldn’t get hacked. Too many key combinations to try in our lifetime, etc., etc. Then (perhaps not getting the specifics right) some 17-year old figures out how to hack the security in a matter of minutes.
Someone says it can’t be done. That just challenges the world to find the right mix.
The right mix may lie in:
- having a real person blog for a cartoon character in a non-secretive way (like John Nardini does)
- having complementary Jeckl and Hyde type blogging sites (I think I have seen this style on the net before and it seems to work because one can get the benefit of anonymity plus extreme views)
- applying audio blogging or other multimedia aspects (e.g., for kids)
- having the cartoon character visit from time to time
- having a cartoon character blog counterpoint
- creating a cult-like following … only those in the know will know about who is the blogger behind the cartoon character (a la In-And-Out Burger’s secret menu).
We allow authors and bloggers to use pseudo names all the time. While cartoon character blogging is clearly not the same thing, there is the added benefit of near-infinite creativity.
All said, I am all for companies that do some experimenting with cartoon character blogging. I think it’s great for guy’s like John to try to pave the way for the rest to learn what works and what doesn’t. There’s not enough data points and posts out there to call this one yet.
Update (4/18/05): Spelling correction on "Jeckl". Should be "Jekyll". My favorite drummer is Dave Weckl, and I made a subliminal spelling mistake.