"Mother Nature is a great actress, and we're lucky to have her star in all our shows."  -- David Kenny, CEO and Chairman of the Weather Channel

MediaPost's Joe Mandese recalls that in the wake of Hurricane Irene, many people accused the media of over-hyping the threat from Hurricane Irene, because of the relative lack of damage -- but argues that in fact that shows how effective the media was in warning people.  As someone who visited upstate NY and Vermont a week after Hurricane Irene, I would add that there was in fact plenty of damage... just not in the metro NYC area.  Some small towns in Vermont remained cut off from the outside world for weeks after Irene. One small town in upstate NY was pretty much wiped …

When it comes to the weather, most iPad users have about 10 zip codes that they care about -- whether (get it?) for work reasons, because loved ones are there, etc.  according to David Kenny, chairman and CEO of the Weather Channel. 

Velocity and differentiation are the most important elements to making online digital work, according to David Kenny, chairman and CEO at The Weather Channel, during an interview with Joe Mandese, editor in chief at MediaPost, kicks off OMMA Global on Tuesday. He created the digital agency -- Digitas and Vivaki - but has moved to the jumped to the publishing side. The two begin by looking back at predictions Kenny made during a previous OMMA Global. Mobile is what's driving incremental growth at The Weather Channel, Kenny said, estimating about 200 tweets about the weather per minute. People want to …

MediaPost chief Ken Fadner introduced me this morning as the "premiere live blogger in the business today." Ironically, I was preparing to introduce Dorothy Parker/Barbara Lippert, so I wasn't actually live blogging what he said.

Barbara Lippert. That's right, and she's speaking live on stage now at OMMA Global in San Francisco, where Dorothy, er, Barbara is emceeing the festivities for the day. So tune in to the live streaming on the OMMA Global home page and check her out.

Buying shoes, scandals or hiking boots? Hmm... what day is it? Better yet -- what time is it? Nathan Luman, Facebook Marketing Lead at Zappos.com, says the shoe product site found out it was more efficient with its media buying depending on the time of day – and the day of the week. Those campaigns could have a "stronger influence" than its target audience. That said, he added, broadening Zappos target could help in other ways. Where targeting 200,000 to 300,000, a campaign would only last a few days. But targeting two to three million a campaign could have a …

Are measurement tactics undervaluing campaigns? I found that an interesting question. Nathan Luman, Facebook Marketing Lead, Zappos.com, explains the two-year journey to find best practices. He details the strategy, but here's a brief recap of the first year. The online retailer spends millions on Facebook advertising, but none to grow its Fan base. The strategy seems to work for Zappos. The company uses targeting as a level of affluence. It promotes brands/categories with broadest appeal, leveraging signals, landing page, and predictive lifetime return on investment goal. It turns out half of its conversions occur within 24 hours of launching the …

Don't let Zappos.com Facebook Marketing Lead Nathan Luman follow you on stage. The results can be, well, unbearable.

Donations are nice. Find a cause, launch a campaign that generates money and buzz from social media, and donate the proceeds. Take Coca-Cola's Polar Bear campaign, for example. And while the campaign made Coca-Cola, its partner 7-11, and consumers feel warm and fuzzy by helping to save Polar Bears, Anders Pers, Group Director, Integrated Marketing Content at Coca-Cola, couldn't quite say how much the campaign generated for the cause. It wasn't clear if he just didn't know or couldn't say. I would like to know.