Social Advertising on Steroids
Alex Rodriguez started the baseball season in ignomy as he admitted to having taken steroids. He ended the season a hero, helping propel the (dreaded) Yankees to World Series victory. After the stonewalling of McGwire and Sosa, and the angry denials of Bonds and Clemens, we now have a key transition character in A-Rod. He showed the path from an artificially enhanced performance to one that seems to be natural and sustainable. The teams, the league and its fans might miss the boffo personal performances of an era that saw players like Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs, no doubt this new era will prove more durable.
I bring this up in order to put the recent “scamville” incident in perspective. In an abbreviated fashion, it went from the accusations of Canseco in Juiced (ie Arrington) to the angry rebuttals of Clemens (Shukla/Offerpal) to the acknowledgement and apologies of Pettite (ie Pincus/Zynga). It’s not a perfect analogy, but it holds. In addition, just as the MLB turned a blind eye to this practice until it was no longer tenable, so too did Facebook.
