The feedback from yesterday’s posting was essentially: This was cool, a MONTH AGO.

It seems the Soda/Mento’s thing happened months ago. The idea has since morphed into many forms, among the best is this real-life human test on YouTube.

See this typical comment (from Judy, the head of MortarPR who by rights should be last to know about the topic because she is, like, older than me and hates the Internet):

"And the mentos and coke thing is so last month…..my niece, nephew and I did this on Easter after hearing it on freakin’ NPR and looking it up on their website……it was hysterical."

At least I’m not alone. It took the Journal 30 days to fact check the story (sniff).

I had intended to attempt to use this Blog to chronicle the immediate impact of viral stories. "I’ll scribble those in the blog just as soon as they pop up" I thought way, way back on Sunday when I became el Bloggist.

Then I’ll watch for when the rest of the world pays attention.

Little did I know, that I am the rest of the world.

Oh, yesterday was also notable for my first comment from Mortar’s Mr. Affable, the (now) grumpy Mr Gurin who has a very different perspective on the Dixie Chick’s predicament. Ta, Hugh.

Two middle aged attorneys caused a stir last week by dropping 523 Mentos into 50 or so liter bottles of Diet Coke. To the delight of millions of online fans, Messers Voltz and Grobe uploaded a video of their low-cal symphony to Revver.com.

The result is a series of fizzy gushers that reach 20ft in height.

Mento’s marketing VP, Pete Healy, is quoted in today’s Journal as being "tickled pink" by the publicity.

Unlike Coke who turned up their noses at the phenomenon, "We would hope people want to drink it [Diet Coke] more than try experiments with it" sniffed Coke spokesperon Susan McDermott in the same Journal article. Ouch.

I bet she is squirming in her seat this morning.

So what does this have to do with the Dixie Chicks?

Renown for their Anti-Bush comments, the Texan Chicks have since changed format, added black eyeliner and gone all goth: and hard on the heels of alienating their country fan base by calling them all "rednecks" are now in the midst of cancelling half of their US  tour dates due to lack luster ticket sales.

As bands like the Chicks now make more from tours than they do from concert tours this is a painful development for the girls. Overseas sales, especially in Canada and Europe, remain brisk.   

One doubts those markets have quite the same revenue potential as the populous South.

There are lessons here for the global marketer: consumers have their own ideas about what they will buy–and why. They determine success in the market. Marketers are best advised to go with the flow.

How far have we come when I can’t watch the first game in the World Cup from my desktop?

One of my clients has put a TV in their London office out of fear employees will stay home and watch the game. But millions of people (like me) are glued to their desks at work. I just logged onto EPSN’s Soccernet and Fifa’s World Cup site on Yahoo. Neither offers a live webcast of the events. There is a cool real-time web commentary on ESPN but no live video.

I’m sure a webcast would produce a major network meltdown; but I am disappointed that we have not built enough capacity to serve it up — and that someone, somewhere couldn’t leap on this chance to tell the world about their streaming prowess.

In this age of the fragemented viewer, it was a rare chance to reach the entire world.