So, you want to “go viral?” I get where you’re coming from – the ROI is insane.
The only question is: what goes in the witch’s cauldron for viral potion? Sheep’s blood, hen’s feet…and what was the other ingredient?Many alchemists have tried, most have failed. You see, they forgot the secret ingredient: butt-catching!
As part of a new promotion for computer manufacturer MSI’s new series of ultra-thin laptops, they’ve posted a video of a man catching a laptop with his buttocks. Not only does he catch the laptop, but he does so in the most improbable of acrobatic positions.
On YouTube, the video currently has about 750,000 views, 2,600 ratings, and 1,900 comments. We’ll see what that’s up to by tomorrow at this time.
If you want to go viral, don’t forget the secret ingredient – something insanely funny.
In the past month, some strange women have started following me on Twitter. Let’s say, women who want to be more than friends. The accounts typically feature a salacious picture, lewd language and a URL to where I could find more of the same (a safe assumption).
As part of a $100 billion industry, I’m not surprised that pornographers are using Twitter to attract “customers” (if that’s what you call them). The question is: why me? Other Twitter users I’ve talked to have not reported receiving similar messages. Was it something I said? I rather doubt it, since I use Twitter mostly for work and certainly have never used crass language that would invite such provocations.
While the why me? question may forever remain a mystery, it raises the questions of why anyone? and what, if anything, should Twitter do about it? Personally, I think Twitter should do more to keep sleazy content off the site. A follow request I received this morning contained four unrepeatable words that should have signaled a filter. That the combination of those words didn’t signal a red flag is even more amazing.
While I want to be free to say what I want on Twitter, I’d also like to be protected from porn and other spam that detract from my experience engaging the platform. In my opinion, it’s high time for a discussion about user freedom versus user protection. For Twitter management, protecting against spam may be less about protecting users and more about protecting the future health of the platform. If Twitter wants to survive in the mainstream, it has to do more to guarantee positive user experiences (it should also stop crashing all the time, but that’s an entirely different issue).
Nice — a cool new iPhone app is an excuse in your pocket. The app, Got2Go, will send you a text or voice mail about something urgent demanding your attention so you can make a graceful exit. For example, you’re on a floundering date — hit the ‘Catastrophic’ button on Got2Go, and a few minutes later you’ll get a text alerting you that there are fire trucks outside your building and you’d better get home and save your collection of vintage Budweiser holiday mugs.
The Marines have banned personnel from using social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube on its network. They argue that social networks expose them to unnecessary risk. Part of the risk is exposing sensitive information to adversaries and the other concerns revolve around network security. While I understand the risks, I wonder if they couldn’t be mitigated with strong filters and usage codes for Marines. Facebook and other social web technologies can be great ways for service people overseas to stay in touch. This move could have an impact on morale. (Mashable and Wired both reported on the story.)
TechCrunch likes calling out thoughtless, and often old-school, PR practitioners for the sins they commit in the name of the profession. Over the weekend, Robin Wauters wrote an interesting and funny post disparaging the stale, ambiguous, and downright inaccurate language we often find in press releases, e.g. leading, revolutionary, cutting-edge, synergy, and almost all superlatives.
As the business environments PR pros work in change, so must PR tactics. Here’s to changing with the times.
-Tom
P.S. I think Robin’s list missed paradigm shift – whatever that means.
Someone should be fired. In fact, a bunch of people should be fired from Horizon Realty Group in Chicago. By now, most have us have heard that Horizon is suing one of their tenants for $50,000 for libel. The suit is a response to Amanda Bonnen’s tweet complaining that her apartment was moldy. Bonnen has about 20 followers and is not an especially active twitterer, but Horizon decided to sue, and later described themselves as “a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization,” according to Mashable and other sources.
What could have been a message that went unnoticed is now all over the Web and in print media. Horizon’s decision to sue has amplified the negativity and vilified the organization. This could be the most colossal PR blunder I’ve ever witnessed. Not to mention that the case has no chance in court. The person who should be charged with libel is whoever decided to bring the suit – that’s the person most culpable for defaming the company’s image. I’d be more critical of the organization, but I need to be careful – I can’t afford to get sued.
The book The French Revolution never garnered any interest from the publishing houses, so author Matt Stewart has decided to tweet the novel 140 characters at a time, according to an post on The New York Times’ Bits blog.
First of all, is the author surprised that publishers weren’t interested in a book about “a San Francisco family” entitled The French Revolution? I think the book falls apart from the start.
Second, how compelling could a book delivered through Twitter actually be? It seems to me that the cadence would be too fragmented to pull readers in and connect them with the characters. Why not just post the book online and promote it via Twitter? I could not imagine anyone keeping up with a Twitter novel, even if it was good enough to be published.
What would the most interesting man in the world look like? What should he wear? The ad folks behind Dos Equis’ new campaign seem to think the most interesting man in the world is in his mid-fifties, a tad overweight and sports a salt and pepper beard.
My first problem with their vision of the most interesting man in the world is that they didn’t pick me. Secondly, what’s with the beard? Interesting guys don’t have beards; beards are for the emotionally disturbed (except in the winter time, that’s open season for beards). Not only are beards for the emotionally disturbed, but they’re typically temporary and regrettable: Al Gore loses the election, goes nuts, grows a beard, wins a Nobel, comes to his senses, shaves and will forever look back on those beard-day pictures and feel worse than he did when the highest office of our land was stolen from him by really smart bonobo. I digress. I agree that the most interesting man in the world would be on the older side, but I doubt he’d wear a plain black suit. He’d put together outfits mixing articles from different cultures and generations while making it look effortless.
The frontman for the Dos Equis campaign may have been miscast, but people are responding to him anyway. The Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World has almost 52,000 friends on Facebook (while the real most interesting man in the world, me, has only 370). That’s pretty impressive, especially given that the campaign isn’t that old. Even more impressive is that Dos Equis has actually gotten a bunch of people to create profiles on the campaign webpage, where users take courses and tests in “The Academy.” It’s astounding to me that people have the time and motivation to do this. It seems to me that the people who would actually have enough time to take bogus courses from the Dos Equis guy would also be the same people who would be too lazy to have Internet installed in their apartments. So who’s doing this? (I only did it because I thought the site was about me. Being the most interesting man in the world does not make me immune to vanity.)
LATFH.com is a wonderful themed Tumblr blog that has taken the necessary role of making fun of people imploring the world to make of them: hipsters. If you don’t live in New York or L.A., you may not understand the need to take these people to task. In the pursuit of irony, hipsters make a mockery of everything authentic, but their goal to be counter-culture is subverted by the strict fashion and social codes of hipsterdom that ultimately enforce normalcy within their subculture. They need to be stopped!
The trend of blog themes becoming books tells two important things: 1) humble themes can make a big splash and 2) the blogosphere is taken seriously by publishers.
I can’t wait to proudly display the book on my coffee table (which, I should note, is not littered with hipster regalia: semi-philosophical musing on the benefits of polyamorous arrangements, bad LPs from the 80s, and half-empty PBR cans).
The City of San Francisco is following the lead of Comcast and other corporations by using Twitter as a customer service vehicle. The city’s 311 non-emergency service is now linked to Twitter, allowing cross or concerned residents to let city officials know about hazards and annoyances.
At the moment, the city is only accepting DMs, so the discussion is not as public as it could, or ought to, be. But, the city is brave and smart, and I think they’ll open the conversation soon.
It’s true! I have a Dell Inspiron that my father gave me as a high school graduation present - that’s about seven years ago. And, according to this fascinating article in today’s Wall Street Journal, there are people living in vans who have Mac PowerBooks.
The article is great and the commentary is spot-on. The author, Phred Dvorak, aptly notes that at the dawn of the Internet age, people expected the technology would be a wedge between the haves and the have-nots. But the future proved the opposite. The Internet is freely accessible in many public spaces, and computers are so cheap that even some homeless can afford them.
The article is another reason to support citywide wireless programs.
Great article today in the Times about the evolutionary origins of our spending habits and the development about brand affinity. One subject not identified in the article is what participation in social networks says about people and our image-conscious motivations behind engaging some and ignoring others. Remember when Twitter meant you were cutting-edge? What about the Facebook - MySpace divide? Read this article and think about how it relates to web properties and the “vanity impulses” driving social media behavior.
On a side note: the girl in the picture bought that wacky-looking BMW motorcycle/moped type-thing to seem quirky, green, and tech-savvy. Far out…man.
TechCrunch is reporting that Christine Varney, Obama’s antitrust boss at the Department of Justice, is looking to make a big case - potentially against Google.
I think the article’s author, Erick Schonfeld, hits the nail on the head with his analysis arguing against Department of Justice action: “The problem with antitrust lawsuits, particularly in fast-moving industries such as technology, is they take so long to go through the courts that by the time a ruling is handed down the market has moved on (see Microsoft). The market will always do a better job undermining monopolies than the Justice department will.”
Readers of the blog An Apple a Day are going B-A-N-A-N-A-S for a Fiji water giveaway. It’s simple as can be - readers post a comment and are automatically entered to win a year’s supply of Fiji. If you’re a Fiji devotee, log on for a chance to win; or if you’re like me, just get some water from the tap.
Yes, I will buy Grape Nuts the next time I go grocery shopping. Why? Because I, like you, am a real man who needs to get things done.
The Guy’s Manual, a new Web site from Grape Nuts, inspired me to get some extra fiber and rekindle my relationship with bacon-less breakfast. The “instructional” webisodes give practical advise to men grappling with losing their hair or having to take a girlfriend’s poodle on a run. ESPN great Kenny Mayne does a great job as narrator.
While the campaign does well to target men, who are the biggest consumers of Grape Nuts, the question remains if the campaign will reach (if not directly) women, who buy the majority of Grape Nuts.
