• by July 6, 2007

For some folks, 7/7/07 is a day to get lucky. For countless others, it's a day to save the Earth. In both cases, the Web will play a big part.

The 24-hour, multi-location, multi-concert Live Earth extravaganza is one of those events -- like the once-in-a-lifetime 2000 millennial celebrations, or every Olympic Games, or perhaps just the 2005 Live8 concerts a scant two years ago -- that seems to infiltrate every facet of media and marketing.

On the online side, Al Gore's musical call-to-action has given exclusive concert dibs to MSN, with coverage sponsored by Chevrolet, Philips and Microsoft's Zune. The center of attention is www.liveearth.msn.com, offering live feeds from eight separate stages starting at 10 p.m. ET tonight (noon Saturday in Sydney, Australia), plus message boards and more. When the live shows end, the site will continue to host concert footage, allowing users to create playlists from the various venues.

One facet absent from MSN's comprehensive coverage is the virtual world. So yesterday, IAC/InterActiveCorp.'s Consumer Applications and Portals (IAC CAP)division officially announced its own "coinciding" 24-hour event in its Zwinktopia space.

Called "Stage-Z" and done in conjunction with The Alliance For Climate Protection, which is also a partner in Live Earth, Stage Z will consist of music videos, interviews, comedy, short films, with hosts like Kelly Rowland and "environmental reporters" including Amy Sedaris, Tina Fey and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

IAC CAP said it had teamed up with YouCast's digital marketing agency Buddylube to bring the entertainment community together with Zwinktopia.

Back at the main event, Los Angeles-based Incited Media will provide the online video and streaming production services for MSN's Webcasts. Its team of 80 technicians will stream the eight individual concert feeds, plus a ninth world feed. Incited will use 27 servers in a video-on-demand encoding "farm," 24 live encoders for Windows Media and QuickTime streams, and seven systems to edit individual songs.

Another aspect of MSN's involvement with Live Earth has been a Live Spaces Eco Trip, in which four young people have been travelling across the country to spread the "green" word on the social networking site. This promotion has been supported by a series of challenges created by targeted marketing company Mr. Youth, including such tasks as planting trees at a local park and putting environmentally friendly light bulbs in town hall.

Mr. Youth also created other Live Earth-related microsites, including a Battle of the Bands contest, in which bands uploaded videos, with the winner getting to make a music video that is premiering on MSN's LiveEarth site.

For mobile users, Sprint Power View will simulcast the U.S. and U.K. shows, plus on-demand replays, to Sprint Vision and Power Vision subscribers.

VeriSign, meanwhile, is the event's wireless messaging partner. Users in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Australia can text a keyword pertaining to areas of their lives in which they want to make a change (home, job, shop, ride, share or lead) and then receive a confirmation of their commitment as well as a solution they can apply to their daily lives.

A second message will invite people to publicly join the movement by texting their first name, last initial and city. These will be posted on stadium signs at concert venues, incorporated in streams on MSN, and listed after the concerts end on www.liveearth.org, the official home of the presenting organization.

The latter site, in fact, just launched what it calls the first-ever carbon calculator, designed to help users display the impact of their own activities on the environment and receive behavior-changing tips.. The calculator was created by EarthLab, which itself launches tomorrow at www.earthlab.com as a "worldwide community for earth friendly individuals and companies."

Said Duane Dahl, creator of the calculator for Earthlab, "Combined with the steps of our neighbors, we can join together to make a significant contribution to change the course of global warming."

Or you could just cross your fingers and hope for the best. And what better day to do it than what Papa John's calls the "luckiest day on earth" and 777.com "the luckiest day ever."

Yes, it's the day of triple 7s, 7/7/7, and Papa John's will piggyback on the event by giving away large pizzas tomorrow to 777 lucky people who have registered at papajohns.com in a promotion underway since Monday. One of those 777 will be even luckier, and win a $777 Papa John's gift card.

In addition, anyone who uses the Web to order a large, one-topping pizza tomorrow will pay only, you guessed it, $7.77. (Meanwhile, Papa John's CEO Nigel Travis will be flying a Boeing 777 to London and handing out $77 gift cars to passengers.)

Over at gambling portal 777.com, an "online party" includes a $777 raffle, a user-generated video contest, a section on 7/7/07 weddings, and, yes, a list of even more 7/7/07 events.