Shameless Plug for Icerocket

In part, this Weblog is the continuation of a stimulus-response research project that started when I wrote a weekly column for the New Mexico State University student newspaper, the Round Up.

It never ceased to surprise me what topics stuck a cord with people, and how people interpreted my words.

That continues here with the things that I hear from colleagues and from comments, which I enjoy.

Recently I wrote about the creepy Redenbacher popcorn ads and the response to them on the Web. To illustrate the buzz on Weblogs, I included a trend search from uber-cool company, Icerocket.com.

Those posts have funneled dozens of people to this Weblog. And the amusing part is that Statcounter.com keeps the search terms people use to find this Weblog. Not surprisingly, people got here by Googling "Redenbacher" and some negative adjective. This means that people thought the ads were bad, and they wanted to see who else did.

But the tangential mention of Icerocket.com led to a surprise. It led to a comment by Blake Rhodes, of Icerocket.com. He said thanks for using and suggested a new tool they have. So I Googled the guy's name.

He's the bleepin' CEO. Wow.

Now that's how you run a company based upon Blogs. You check out what people are saying about you. You monitor the buzz.

Good show, Mr. Rhodes. I wish I had some money to invest in Icerocket. With this kind of attention to detail, good things are sure to come.

So, dear reader, please accept my shameless plug for Icerocket.com. It's a super cool tool, and you can lose a few hours just playing with the trend tool.

As a media consumer, Icerocket is cool. As a media scholar, I think it is a powerful tool for understanding this new medium.