Marketing Pilgrim

“My Home 2.0″ is a web 2.0 type of marketing campaign for Verizon to promote their FiOS service. It’s a combination TV/online reality show, kind of like Extreme Home Makeover but its not upgrading the décor as much as transforming the home and family to be technology savvy.

FiOS is Verizon’s digital fiber optic high speed Internet for homes. It is combined with their phone service and you can also get on-demand television through the same lines. The maximum connection speeds is 50 Mbps or 30 Mbps downstream and 20Mbps or 5 Mbps upstream, depending on where you live.

PC Magazine’s Lance Ulanoff described it this way: “…virtually every web page I visited popped up as if the servers were sitting in my living room.”

Basically the team of technicians (2 men and a woman) go into homes to install everything, capture it all on video, and in the process outfit the families with a lot of high tech goodies. Things like a new Verizon cell phone, super fast internet, a high tech network, a theater and maybe gaming equipment – depending on the family. Plus they’ll throw a block party for your neighbors to celebrate. They get people to audition while they’re there and give away big screen televisions and other things. So the turnout is pretty good.

They have started off with three families in the Philadelphia area and two families in the Pittsburgh area. The families submit their stories and are featured on the blog. Plus they’ll be on TV – major local network channels are covering the shows or you can watch them online at FiOS TV video-on-demand at http://2pointhome.com.

What’s really impressive is that the concept is on Facebook, photos are on flickr, del.icio.us is bookmarked, and the videos are on YouTube. And the technicians try to be entertaining (two men and a woman with personality, which if were more like most technicians, they probably wouldn’t talk to you).

Here’s an example: husband and wife Lora and Scott were using a typewriter. After the crew helped them out they started blogging, Twittering, buying things online, and making their own movies on the internet. They have properly turned them into geeks.

Lora is on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/lorakaczor and Scott is at http://twitter.com/scottkaczor. Not a long list of followers but they just started.

All households will be considered for this home makeover (so couples, roommates, and singles can apply too.) While I consider high speed and high tech hip, it’s not so in an entertaining sort of way. More in a nerdy way. In the meantime, I can think of a few families I would recommend. I have tried teaching ecommerce to farmers in the Midwest with dial-ups. I think I’ll have them apply.