Internet Marketing Voodoo recently posted this fascinating interview with Dr. Jim Bower, CEO of Whyville, a virtual online community for kids.

The podcast is entitled, “Advertising in Virtual Communities,” but it’s less about advertising and more about how kids learn and the nature of virtual worlds. But there’s brand talk, too: The discussion around what Toyota is doing inside Whyville is terrific brain food for any marketer thinking about how to create a meaningful presence in a virtual world.

Takeaway for marketers: It’s not about a new place to slap a banner ad, it’s about enhancing an online experience.

“Send an idiot to college, you get an educated idiot.”
—Ken Peters

Blogging about creating passionate users? Yeah, that’s worth death threats, isn’t it?

A “category five shitstorm,” to quote Doc Searls, has broken out. Want to know the details? Start with this post from Kathy Sierra, the target of those threats. After you read that (and be sure to follow through and read some of the comments; of particular note are those posted by “Joey”), it’s worth seeing what Doc Searls and especially Chris Locke have to say.

Meanwhile, the BBC is reporting on calls for a blogging code of conduct, drawing more attention to the issue (especially since the BBC story was linked to on Drudge).

I don’t know Kathy beyond what I’ve read over at Passionate, and there’s probably six or seven sides to this particular coin (not to mention a serious lack of decency and common sense at key points of this issue), but I hope she gets through this okay to blog again. And again.

I thought we were pretty much past this kind of crap.

APRIL 2 UPDATE: Kathy Sierra and Chris Locke have posted coordinated statements about all this.

This op-ed article by Nicholas Kristof in yesterday’s New York Times is the kind of article that should be spread all over the place.

Remember back in the day, when everyone was talking about how micropayments were going to change business paradigms left and right? Well, for some companies, they did.

Take the notion of micropayments, turn it on its head and think: microloans. Imagine you (and many others) lending $25 or $50 to an Afghan businessman to open a second bakery and improve the financial stability and quality of life of his family and town.

That’s what Kiva.org is all about, and that’s what Kristof’s piece is all about: an incredibly powerful idea that would go nowhere without the power of the Internet behind it. Kristoff also mentions GlobalGiving, which is a charity site; Kiva, by contrast, is a lending site. Both are worth your attention.

In the rush to redesign Web sites and develop efficient keyword lists and minimize cost per click and maximize ROI, it’s good to be reminded that the Internet is still home to some pretty amazing ideas.

A coupla weeks ago, I blogged about Jakob Nielsen’s list of top priorities for Web site redesign. Priority number one was create an email newsletter.

But if you’re going to address priority number one, do not do it like Sara Ramirez.

I joined her mailing list after seeing her as the Lady of the Lake in Spamalot. She was brilliant, and the Tony Award voters agreed. Now she’s on Grey’s Anatomy, one of the hottest shows on television.

What the heck is she thinking? Or, rather, not her but the person who is supposed to be looking after her reputation online.

See that graphic up there? That’s a screen shot of Sara’s email newsletter. Bad header image. Utterly horrible background (is that Hal from 2001?). Black type against a horrible background that renders the text unreadable. The worst MySpace pages are better than this.

Did anyone look at this mess before clicking the “send” button?

Well, at least this much can be said: The newsletter echoes the design of her Web site. But that’s another kettle of albatross.

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re sending someone an email, at least make sure that it can be read. And if this comes as a revelation to you, then what the heck are you doing in the online marketing world in the first place? Egads.