October 2009
53 posts
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Forbes....Oh No You Didn't!
On Monday, The New York Times reported that Forbes planned to layoff a number of its staff members on both the editorial and business sides. No shocker there. The fact that most print publications are like sinking ships in the night right now is no secret.
What I wasn’t expecting was for much of the staff who run ForbesLife and ForbesTraveler.com to also get the boot! Say what?...
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Free Press Junket in Jamaica....You're Fired!
JetBlue and Thrillist saw a lot of buzz over the past week or so with their Jet Mystery trip that took lucky Thrillist readers and an apparent airplane full of bloggers and journalists on a luxe, all-expense-paid trip to Jamaica. Media getting a comped trip, go fig?
As a travel PR gal, it certainly is never a shocker when major publications like Conde Nast Traveler & The Wall Street Journal...
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The Kelly Hildebrandts →
If it’s not the first-ever Facebook marriage, then it must be the first-ever Facebook marriage where both people, boy and girl, have the same exact same name - Kelly Hildebrandt.
Kelly Hildebrandt Girl was bored one day(?) and went searching on Facebook for people with her name. Lo and behold, she found Kelly Hildebrandt Boy, they started messaging, and now they’re engaged.
Must...
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JCPenney, Mary-Kate and Ashley Embrace Social...
Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen recently partnered with our client JCPenney to launch Olsenboye, their new line of junior apparel debuting on November 6. To build buzz among young, fashionable shoppers, they’re using innovative social media tactics like Facebook, Twitter, and viral videos.
In addition, earlier this week, the Olsenboye Treat Truck parked itself in Greeley Square and Washington...
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Volkswagen's Virtual GTI Launch →
Volkswagen has created a new iPhone application for the launch of its 2010 GTI model. The free app, called “Real Racing GTI,” allows users to compete by racing others and posting their scores on an online leaderboard. Users can also post their racing videos on YouTube if they wish.
How will Volkswagen’s app compete with other brands using mobile, you ask? By offering free...
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Put a Message in a Bottle...And Send It Out to See
Yes, that’s right. Send it out to see. Typically, messages in a bottle are just that — A message written on a piece of paper, put in a bottle, and tossed out into the sea for someone to come across at a later date.
Well, of course someone had to incorporate the often romantic gesture into a tweet. 140 in a Bottle is the new way to send a message in a bottle. Given 140 characters...
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Let Them Sing It For You...
Problem: You have a terrible singing voice, but desperately wish to hear words that you have written translated into beautiful music.
Solution: Let Them Sing It for You, a website that turns your prose into a song by pulling bits from various popular tracks. For instance, “I” is from Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Games,” “face” is from The Monkees’...
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Ruthanne Terrero Explains Why I "Unfollow" on...
If you’re like me, there are times you’ve followed various reporters or self-proclaimed industry “experts” on Twitter because you expect them to offer up their opinions on or inside info about their relevant areas of expertise. Much to your chagrin, weeks later you realize that said Twitterer is social-media handicapped and all you’ve learned about them is that...
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And I thought the epic commercials were bad...
Saturday was a wash — literally and figuratively. Thanks to monsoon-like rain, replete with thunder and lightning of Hollywood proportions, I literally only left the house to walk my dog. Sure, I kept busy by cleaning my bathroom, color-coding all the clothing in my closet and making guacamole…but eventually it was time to zone out and pick a new TV show to immerse myself in online....
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Track Me in the Air with Lufthansa's MySkyStatus
By the time you read this, I should be boarding my plane and kicking off my vacation to Prague and Budapest! I recently heard about Lufthansa’s new MySkyStatus tool, which tracks your airplane’s journey and posts your flight status to Twitter and Facebook automatically, so I figured I’d try it out. (I’m flying Delta, but Lufthansa will track your flight on any airline,...
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App Overload in the Big App?
Many of you may have already seen New York Magazine’s article entitled ”What’s Your Widget?“ in which noteworthy Big Applers like Jimmy Fallon divulge their favorite web applications. According to the author, “you can tell a lot about people by their apps.” This is true, Miss Sarah Bernard. I especially enjoyed learning that IT specialist Philip Blake has a...
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"What Happens on Relatious, Stays on Relatious"
You know how some people you follow on Twitter seem to forget that their posts are public? And sometime it’s just a little TMI? No one really needs to know about the details of your love life, however steamy or dull, so save the drama for yo’ mama… or for Relatious.
This new micro-blogging site is dedicated solely to relationships and love connections. Users have 400...
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Woman Sues Toyota Over 'Terrifying' Prank →
I feel kind of bad for laughing at this story, but it is a pretty hilarious example of what happens when creative “viral” marketing goes wrong. A woman in Los Angeles is suing Toyota for a campaign executed by Saatchi & Saatchi, in which people were nominated to be pranked by their friends.
Amber Duick claims she had difficulty eating, sleeping and going to work during March and...
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Google Gives The Ultimate Holiday Gift: Free WiFi...
I must be a sucker for good branding, because I love Google and Virgin (despite my terrible fear of flying).
Knowing that Google has offered to foot the WiFi bill for everybody on board Virgin America flights between November 10 and January 15 makes me love the li’l old monopoly even more.
What does Google get out of this partnership, you ask? As one commenter put it:
“It’s safe...
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Twitter Spreads Trending
A shift in seasons always seems to mark a new chapter in our lives, promising change in a routine that was perhaps going stale, inspiring hope that new experiences are just around the corner. As the long summer days become shorter and the cool crisp breeze of fall begins to creep in, I tend to find myself romanticizing over thoughts of a warm cozy sweater, chunky knit scarves and of course, the...
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Broadband Internet is Now a Legal Right in Finland →
Finland, which I realized I know absolutely nothing about, has become the first country to declare that high-speed broadband Internet access is a legal right, just like water or electricity. About 95 percent of Finland’s 5.2 million citizens already have some kind of Internet access, but telecom companies will soon be required to provide everyone with a connection of at least 1 Mbps.
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WatchDo you like Star Wars…like, more than a friend? Do you stay up nights thinking about Princess Leia in her bikini as you practice wielding a “laser” sword in your garage? Chances are, if this sounds like you, then you probably also own a webcam. (Actually, if this sounds like you, then you probably also have a burning desire to wear a cape and speak in a secret language that...
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(W)e-commerce
I, like many, adore online shopping. Actually, in the interest of full candor, it’s one of my favorite pastimes. Most often, I’m just browsing or comparing costs from store to site, but I’d say that I make most of my purchases – from groceries to pet food to shoes – from the comfort of my computer. The drawback to being such a devout cyber spender, though, is losing the social aspect of a...
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KLM Watches Traffic Take Off →
Earlier this month, the airline KLM gave online personality “Mr. Safety” quite a wedding gift, with two business class tickets to anywhere the carrier flies. The catch was that online viewers got to pick the destination, after visiting KLM’s destinations page to peruse where the carrier flies.
According to KLM, 14,000 people connected to the site in just one week and...
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Someecards Launches Invites
These days, if you’re throwing a party, you probably just create a Facebook event to let all your friends know about it. But sometimes, if it’s a secret event that you don’t want the uninvited to know about, you might venture over to that old relic Evite and send out a stealth invitation, complete with hokey theme and annoying login requirements. However, now you have a better...
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In-Flight WiFi and Phone Service...Coming Soon to... →
The time many have been waiting for (and others - like me - have feared) has finally arrived. No more stale, in-flight entertainment networks…WiFi will soon officially arrive on Lufthansa flights between US and Europe in 2010.
Will fliers really pay $10 an hour to use the WiFi and $3 per minute for phones? Three years ago it seemed they wouldn’t, but that was long before the...
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WatchLast week, we worked with our client, The Macallan Single Malt Scotch Whisky, to host a progressive Twitter tasting throughout the city of Dallas, Texas. While differing in format from our previous Twitter tasting last June, the marriage of Twitter and Scotch continues to be effective, allowing us to simultaneously interact with local enthusiasts and consumers worldwide—a much larger group...
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The Necessity of Google Books
In today’s New York Times Op-Ed section, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, defends his company’s initiative to digitize all books. As in: every single book ever published.
Google Books, as the company arm is called, has been met with profound outcry from publishers and authors alike, who claim that digitizing the world’s books robs rights-holders. In the five years since...
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WatchThe paradigm of publishing is shifting, evidenced by this week’s Conde Nast closures. Newspapers and magazines need to move with the times, and that might mean literally embracing movement.
Entertainment Weekly and Esquire generated serious buzz with their respective forays into the integration of motion + magazine. What’s next? Check out the above video, which shows where the future...
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WatchLast night, Maria, Andrea, Andréa and I attended the October New York Tech Meetup — you can see a replay of all the presentations above. The city’s Deputy Mayor of Economic Development showed up to talk about the NYC BigApps competition, coincidentally just a few hours after we blogged about it. The company that’s running the competition for the city, ChallengePost, also...
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Big Ups to NYC BigApps
Today, the City of New York launched a software development competition called NYC BigApps, with the goal of making the city “more transparent, accessible and accountable, and an easier place to live, work and play.” The city’s Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications gathered over 170 datasets for the...
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High School All Over Again: Eater Eats DBTH →
This story about Eater’s acquisition of Down By The Hipster really made me feel like I was back in my depressing high school cafeteria today. The second and third paragraphs of Foster’s genius post are absolutely hilarious.
First he said this, and then she did that, which made him say this, and she said this back…but now they all are one big family and love (cough, hate) each...
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