[UPDATE: Sanitarium has has now removed the registration element from the Weet-Bix website, and says it's in the process of taking more steps to make the site more user-friendly. A good, snappy response by Mr Andrews and his team - though next time they'll probably want some more private user-testing before launch.

The company also now has its own Weet-Bix account on Twiter, which Mr Gracewood was quick to characterise as "a nice shiny ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Still, good to see them getting out there.]

Sanitarium’s $1.3 million social networking play has come apart. Its All Blacks Power Plays cards have indeed created a viral buzz on Twitter - but most of it’s about as friendly as swine flu.

On Monday, Sanitarium launched its new Weet-Bix cards which, when held in front of a web cam, trigger a 3D “augmented reality” animation of an All Black to appear onscreen.

Brand manager Tanne Andrews told NBR that having spent $1.3 million developing and printing the cards - in partnership with US/French company and Australia’s Dreamscape - it would spend not $300,000 or $400,000 on a traditional media buy.

Instead, it would ignore print and TV and focus all its efforts on creating social networking buzz on sites sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Danger! Danger!
Richard Thompson, GM of media buying agency Total Media told NBR that a lot of money is spent on online media campaigns that never go viral. He would strongly advise one of his clients against such an online-only approach, and said he would have cautioned Mr Andrews against putting all of Sanitarium's eggs in one online basket. (Today Mr Thompson noted that Sanitarium is running Weet-Bix ads on TV, though not mentioning the new cards).

And then it all went horribly wrong
In the final event, the Power Plays cards have created a viral level of buzz on Twitter - but it’s probably not the kind of chatter that Mr Andrews was anticipating.

A Twitter search for “weetbix” returns a hail of tweets by father, blogger, TV commentator and Datacom principal architect Ben Gracewood, accompanied by a blizzard of comments and re-tweets. It’s definitely gone viral, but the commentary is about as friendly as swine flu.

After NBR’s original article, Mr Gracewood left the message:

“The Power Plays website is an absolute abomination and whoever spent $1.3m on its development should be fired immediately.

Why? Let's see:
- Forcing my kids to register with their email and date of birth
- Requiring a confirmation email
- Requiring a download and install of an executable file
- Asking the kids to read a legalese EULA on the download
- Installing a second Microsoft C++ runtime library without asking
- Shockingly bad user interface on the plugin ("Camera Selected" button that when pressed selects a camera)
- The HTML Title tag on the webpage is "Splash". Google will never find the page

Whatever company they used knows NOTHING about usability, website design, or web marketing.

The website makes me angry. It makes me never want to buy WeetBix or be involved in NZ Rugby.

Shame on them.”

Mr Gracewood also waxed lyrical on Twitter, at one point summing up his experience with “F--- weet-bix”.

He relates his experiences trying to get the Weet-Bix cards to work, blow by excruciating blow, on his Ben Geek site and adds for good measure:

"F--- you Sanitarium. Screw WeetBix and screw the All Blacks. All 15 of them."

Mr Gracewood - who stresses he's putting his personal opinion - says Sanitarium was badly advised. As an IT professional, he points out that there are lots of much more simple augmented reality websites around, based on Adobe's off-the-shelf Flash.

The only silver lining for Sanitarium: the live Michael Jackson tribute meant Mr Gracewood’s regular slot was yanked from TVNZ’s Breakfast this morning.