I’ve been thinking about the headline of the Scoble post I addressed last week: “What do the freaking tech bloggers want?”

Specifically, does the periodic cuss word (or derivative) enhance storytelling or at the very least command attention?

I think the power of a cuss word can come from the element of surprise. If Martha Stewart drops an f-bomb while she’s baking brownies that’s going to grab your attention.

But the words “freakin” and “freaking” tend to be so overused today that they’ve lost their ability to jar. Rather than depend on gut feel, I turned to the wonders of the Factiva database to chart usage over the past five years.

You can see the two words have been gaining traction to the point that we’re projecting - I know the polls haven’t closed but go with me on this one - 7,122 articles will carry them in 2008. For context, Steve Jobs, who can hold his own with the likes of Britney Spears when it comes to media captivation, won’t show up in as many articles this year at the current pace.

Furthermore, I think it’s fair to say the words enjoy even greater use in the blogosphere. I couldn’t figure out how to search postings employing “freakin” or “freaking” by year, but a quick IceRocket search resulted in 122,923 hits.

Talk about overexposure.

Then again, with the right context the repetition of a cuss word can become a story in itself. For Exhibit A, look at Lee Elia’s meltdown back in 1983 when he was the manager of the Chicago Cubs. His profanity-laced tirade after the Cubs lost another game lives on in infamy thanks to the Internet.

Why?

It was so over the top for a public figure to spew expletive after expletive.

And yes, like all good stories it rang with authenticity.

With the fervor surrounding the Beijing Olympics close to its apex, any story tied to China gains some extra juice.

That’s why you see announcements like the one by IODA (the Independent Online Distribution Alliance) launching the largest digital music store in China timed to lead into the Olympics opening ceremonies on August 8.

Timing aside, IODA paints the classic contrarian story with an angle that never goes out of style, the quest for money.

At a high level, here’s how the IODA story flows:

• China just took the worldwide Internet user mantle, surpassing the U.S. with 253 million Web users at last count. To paraphrase Jed Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies, “There’s gold in them there hills.
• But piracy has crippled the music industry in China. In fact, the largest search engine in China, Baidu, owes its king-of-the-hill status largely to pointing the Chinese netizen to links for downloading unlicensed music.
• Enter the Wawawa Music Store.
• Now, for roughly three cents per song, the Chinese consumer can download music.
• IODA and its partners generate oodles of yuan in the largest Internet market in the world, and at three cents a crack, I do mean “oodles and oodles.

The Associated Press ran with the story, which in turn drove coverage in the print media and the blogosphere. AP did a decent-enough job telling the story, equating the cost of the monthly subscription service to the price of a burger, fries and soda at McDonald’s

But it missed an opportunity to accentuate the relevance of the story to Americans and others around the world. 

Namely, why can’t anyone download songs at three shekels?

As I understand it, the Wawawawa (just felt like throwing in an extra “wa”) music is not DRM-protected to make downloading as easy as possible. What’s to prevent me from grabbing the latest track from indie band Woodhands?

Or if this isn’t possible, then why isn’t it possible? And how long before some enterprising acne-challenged kid codes a solution for the world at www.everyonecangetsongsforthreecents.com?

That’s the story I expected to read.

When YouTube debuted, I remember thinking what’s all the fuss?

You obviously don’t want me reading tarot cards at the local county fair.

Universal McCann’s study on social media on video traction shows that more than 80 percent of Internet users watch video online:

With that said, I don’t know if anyone predicted that video would transcend the short-term gratification of youth and become a mainstay of business communications. Virtually every media product – from The New Yorker to The New York Times to EE Times – now showcases video.

The state of video creation today reminds me of the early days of desktop publishing when PostScript and the laser printer essentially put the tools of the designer, typographer and printing press at the disposal of the masses.

Not a pretty picture.

You see the same dynamic with business videos as everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

Like the early days of desktop publishing, most people don’t have basic video skills much less the ability to tell a story through video.

Back to EE Times (targets an engineering audience), take a quick look at a recent video in which the reporter Mark LaPedus interviews an executive from Global Unichip Corp.

I venture to say the only people who watched all 399 “scintillating” seconds were Global Unichip employees.

I know LaPedus, and he’s a damn good reporter. No doubt the powers that be at EE Times have charged their reporters with creating videos but have neglected that one small detail called training.

On the positive side, compelling videos in the business realm are finding their way to various media platforms. And thanks to increasing demand, there’s a huge opportunity for those who can package a compelling yarn on video.