The best Super Bowl ads of the decade

This Sunday is the ad world’s Christmas. The Super Bowl stopped being about football for most of us a long time ago (especially for us working in advertising). But it’s not just about catching the funniest ads during the game, now it’s seeing which gets the most hits on YouTube. 

So we decided to dig up our favorite Super Bowl TV spots on YouTube and get a bit nostalgic. Here are our favorite ads from each of the last ten years. 

2000 – The Cat Herders 

EDS shows us what the wild west would have looked like if it had been settled by a crazy cat lady.

2001 – Running of the Squirrels 

EDS claims the first two spots with another bizarre animal themed ad. 
 

2002 – Crazy Legs

Apparently, Levis jeans turn your legs into silly putty. 
 

2003 – Office Linebacker

The violence of football invades the office in this hilarious spot from Reebok. So funny we’ve embedded the long version.

2004 – Alien in the Office

Bloodthirsty aliens prefer FedEx. As if that wasn’t obvious already.

2005 – Fantasy Creatures Invade the Living Room

A father lies to his child so he doesn’t have to share his Emerald Nuts. But she has friends in high places.
 

2006 – The Dragon

A beautifully animated spot from United Airlines about the magic of flight.
 

  

2007 –Learning English

A group of immigrants learn the finer points of regional dialects from a Bud Light spokesman.
 

2008 – Magnetic Attraction 

Not many things are more satisfying than watching Justin Timberlake take a beating…except maybe Adam Sandberg randomly appearing in drag.

2009 – The Evil Plot

Alec Bladwin tells us how Hulu is taking cerebral gelatinizing to the next level. We don’t stand a chance.

Let us know if we missed your favorite. Go to The Duffy Agency website for an early peek at this year’s Super Bowl ads. Stay tuned for Monday’s full review of the highs and lows of Sunday's showing.       

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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Ten great marketers to follow on Twitter

Spammers, scammers and dullards, oh my! Search for marketers on Twitter without knowing where to start, and that’s largely what you’ll find. Trust us, we know. But there are actually some few genuinely interesting ones out there. We scoured our followers and searched beyond, delving deep into the Twittersphere to find some so-called marketing gurus who are actually worth listening to. Here are ten tweeple who tweet useful info and advice about social media marketing and are otherwise interesting folks to follow.

      

@ChrisBrogan
If you have any interest in social media marketing, you’ll be familiar with this name. He Tweets about his social media ideas and daily life quips.

@adfreak
This Twitter stream keeps you informed of both great and awful marketing efforts from around the world, adding a sharp commentary to go with it.

@andybeal
The CEO of Trackur.com and editor of MarketingPilgrim.com Tweets his views on the latest social media developments. One of the most consistently interesting.

@jowyang
He picks out some of the best social media related articles and comments on social media trends. You’ll also find him chatting with other marketers about their common challenges.

@steverubel
A columnist for AdAge and Forbes, Steve digs up interesting social media news and has an interesting take on things.

@TheGrok
A great source of info and statistics from a professional speaker and author on marketing.

@danavan
A good source of advice on social media marketing tactics and new ideas for getting more out of your efforts.

@WeAreVivid
This group from England tweet a lot about using Twitter and Facebook in marketing while writing in a highly entertaining voice. Also, they have an awesome neon zebra for their icon.

@richardsedley
A Course Director of Social Media Marketing, Richard does his best to uncover the truth of what the medium can accomplish and tweets about the projects he’s working on.

@brandranter
Hopefully you’ll forgive us this bit of shameless self-promotion. Brand Ranter is The Duffy Agency’s founder, Sean Duffy, and he has one of the most useful and interesting Twitter feeds for anyone who wants to learn more about social media marketing.

Those are ten of our favorites. If we’ve missed any of yours, leave a comment telling us who they are and why we should be following them.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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What’s in a name? If the name is iPad, a great big joke.

Steve Jobs helped menstrual humor go mainstream. That’s probably not what you’re looking for when you launch a new product.

 

Apple has been grooming the public over the past decade. With the release of the iPod Touch and the iPhone, we’ve been subtly conditioned by Apple to use the iPad. From initial reports, using the iPad is just like using the iPhone, only bigger. With 75 million iProducts sold, Apple has a built-in audience virtually guaranteeing success. 

But that doesn’t mean they’re invulnerable. In 2009, we saw Tropicana redesign their brand and suddenly disappear from the market as people couldn’t find their distinctive logo. Gatorade changed their logo to a big “G” and fans were not amused. Now Apple has launched the iPad. For those of us not baptized into the Cult of Apple, it’s easy to sit back and laugh at the product and the somewhat unfortunate connotations the name brings to mind.

When it was still rumored, the iPad had lots of names including iTablet and iSlate (both of which would have been a better choice). It’s curious that Apple would pick a name that could so easily be mocked and linked with feminine hygiene products. In a blog post on the New York Times, Claire Cain Miller goes into detail about how women have cringed at the name. On Twitter, the word “iTampon” is more popular than “iPad”, with the hashtag #iTampon hitting the top spot for trending topics. Here are some of the funniest tweets: 
 

@celeva93: Uncomfortable cramping and bloating? There's an app for that 

@godispretend Steve Jobs, I'ma let you finish, but Moses had the greatest tablet announcement of all time. #itampon

@melizeche "I'm not buying an iPad. Period." #iTampon

@kathycacace: Okay, just one more. The iPad: protecting your data from embarrassing incidents. #iTampon 

@Johnpapa: "64 gig iPad will forever be known as the heavy flow model." #iTampon 

@Lymed: Does the Period Tracker app come free? #iPad, #iTampon

@NellMood: It's so beautiful when an electronics company finally becomes a woman... #iPad #iTampon

@vlvtjones: So will iffy Wifi coverage be called iSpotting? #iPad #iTampon

@DaniGray: You can do things with #iTampon that you just can't do with #iPad - like biking, horseback riding and swimming.LOL

@Knightd427: Please follow all safety precautions when applying iPad. Remember, iPad does not protect against STDs such as SYFY. #itampon

And then there was the obligatory “Hitler responds” video:

Someone even found a MadTV sketch from 2006 that featured an iPad from Apple, though it has a slightly different use.

Apple had to have known they were going to alienate women and become the source of ridicule for others. The connection is to obvious. The question has been jokingly asked, “Are there any women on the marketing team for the iPad?” You have to wonder if they were there, why didn’t any of them object? The good news for Apple is they have such a strong brand that most of the criticism will have no long term effects on the sales of the product, but if a weaker brand had released this, it would probably have sunk the product before it went out the door.

Early reactions to the iPad have been mixed. Gizmondo is giving it a big thumbs down but TechCrunch has been very positive. It’s too early to tell if the iPad will be the big hit Apple hopes it will be or if it will be another toy used by a few to feel more elite. In the meantime, there is a heavy flow of jokes to be made at Apple’s expense while we wait to get the product in our hands.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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A complete list of Apple iPad features

Steve Jobs’ latest creation has the tech world in an uproar, but will it really revolutionize our lives?

 

The level of excitement surrounding the release of Apple’s newest product, the iPad, is normally reserved for the likes of Star Trekkers, comic book geeks and sci-fi convention goers. The Cult of Apple is strong among those that consider themselves to be hip and trendy. There are very good reasons for this fanboy behavior. Over the past decade, Steve Jobs has taken his company from the brink of collapse to one of the strongest and best known brands today, launching products that have helped shape our modern lives. Coming off a string of hits like iTunes, the iPod and iPhone, Apple’s iPad is sure to be a must have product.

The internet has been a buzz with rumor of what exactly this product will be and tonight the rumors can end. Jason Calacanis leaked many features earlier today through his Twitter account. Jobs has finally revealed his latest brain child and the list of features is even more impressive than we expected. 

• .5 inches thin
• 1.5 pounds
• 9.7 inch IPS display
• powered by 1GHz Apple A4 chip
• Available in 16 GB, 32GB or 64GB 
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• full capacity multitouch
• WiFi 802.11n
• Accelerator + compass
• Speaker
• Microphone
• 30 pin connector
• 10 hour battery life, with a month of standby
• resizeable apps
• runs all iPhone apps
• apps bought for iPhone can be transferred to iPad without additional cost
• iPhone SKD support the iPad
• built in iTunes store, YouTube and YouTube HD
• smooth iPhone like scrolling
• built-in calendar
• click through photos and email like iPhone
• change view screen from horizontal to vertical by movie iPad
• menus pop down from the top
• onscreen popup keyboard
• iPhoto access with Google geolocations tied in
• iTunes access is similar to the laptop interface
• GPS
• built in painting app
• live video within apps
• iBooks, Amazon Kindle like book reader. They have deals in place with Simon & Schuster, Penguin, HarperCollins, MacMillan and Hatchett Book Group.
• changeable font in iBooks
• iWorks redesigned for iPad
• iWorks apps will be priced at $9.99 a piece
• projector connection
• syncs to iTunes like iPod and iPhone does via USB
• $14.99 for up to 250 MB of data
• $29.99 for unlimited data
• free use of ATT WiFi hotspots
• iPad 3G models come unlocked and uses new GSM micro SIMs
• international deals by June/July
• pricing starts at $499 up to $699
• shipping in 60 days
• keyboard docking station
• Kindle like case can be used as a stand
• no multitasking
• no phone
• no camera
• no built in DVD player

Only time will tell if the iPad will be the next iPhone or the next Newton. All signs point to it being the former, but there’s certainly room for failure. It’s not a cheap piece of hardware (and there’s a bit of a recession going on, last I heard), and exactly what it’ll do for your average Joe to change their day-to-day life isn’t crystal clear. The iPod let us carry thousands of songs in our pocket. The iPhone turned mobile phones into mobile computers. What mobile need is the new tablet really satisfying? The need to carry an entire mobile entertainment center with us wherever we go?

If you’re planning on buying an iPad, leave a comment and tell us why you think it’s worth putting down your hard earned cash for when you’ve already got a laptop, an MP3 player and a smart phone. As for us, we’re still debating whether or not to join the fans camping out overnight to get one the day it’s released. Maybe we’ll see you there. 

APPLE FACTS:

250 million iPods sold

284 Apple Stores

50 million visitors last quarter

140,000 apps

3 billion downloads

50.6 billion in revenue last year

World's largest mobile device company

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Rumored Apple Tablet Features

 

The highly anticipated Apple Tablet/iSlate/iPad is being announced today.  Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis on his Twitter profile leaked some of the presumed features of the new device. He has been playing with one for the past two weeks. If what he says proves to be true, then Steve Jobs will once again have out done himself. But, the road to success hasn’t always been an easy one for Apple and their list of bombed devices almost out weights their successes. Jason lists the following features.

• connects to other tablets over wifi for gaming
• two cameras for video conferencing, one in the front and one in the back
• solar panel to help recharge the battery
• thumbpads on each side for mouse gestures
• fingerprint identification
• runs multiple apps at the same time
• OLED screen
• price will be $599, $699 and $799 depending on size and memory
• built in HDTV tuner and pvr
• wireless keyboard and mouse for TV

Fans have their hopes set so astronomically high there could well be a major letdown looming. But if it can do everything we're dreaming it can, maybe it will be that next leap forward.  We’ll have to wait and see what materializes later today. 

You can watch the big reveal at these sites.

Macrumorslive

Engadget

Gizmodo Live

Svenska Macworld

Slashgear

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4 tools to add your RSS feed to your Twitter profile

With so many social media websites, the more you can automate your processes, the easier it is to stay on top of things. If you create a lot of content in a week, you can spend just as much time promoting your work as producing it, and who has time for that. 

RSS feeds give you a great solution for reducing this workload. Every blog these days has an RSS feed built into it. With it, you can update your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace account with your latest updates instantly. But not all RSS feed tools were created equal. 

I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish-list of qualities that we as marketing people want in an RSS feeder tool. As usual, all the tools have to be free and not require a download. Beyond that, we wanted to be able to:

• have an easy-to-use interface
• get the hang of it quickly
• send updates to Twitter and other sites
• easily configure it
• add hashtags
• determine the number of updates
• change how often it updates our accounts
• have some form of useable analytics
• selectable URL shortening software


The evaluation method was simple. I visited each site and registered. After my profile loaded, I took a screenshot of the interface and then spent about ten minutes looking around the site. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After using the application, I rated each site against my wish list.

 

TwitterFeed is probably the best known of the RSS feeder tools. Signing up is simple and they allow you to use OpenID to register with the site. This means if you already have a Gmail account (and who doesn’t these days), you don’t have to create a new account to use TwitterFeed. You can add as many RSS feeds as you want and they can feed any number of Twitter, Laconica, Ping.fm, Hellotxt and Facebook accounts. You don’t have to worry about flooding your audience with information as it allows you to choose how often it updates and how many of your posts it pulls. You can also change what content gets posted – title only, title & description or description only. There are 21 different shortening link settings and you can add either a post prefix or suffix to make use of hashtags.

PROS: Very easy and highly functional RSS tool. Lots of features and the ability to add multiple accounts and limitless feeds make TwitterFeed an extremely effective single feature site.

CONS: The built-in analytics on the site don’t provide much insight. It’s best used in conjunction with another site like Bit.ly.

RATING: Thumbs Up

RSS2 Twitter is very similar to TwitterFeed, except it’s more limited. You add an RSS feed, decide what to include (title, description, or both), which Twitter account to update, filter keywords and add a prefix. It also automatically shortens URLs and provides analytics on the number of clicks you get from your links. The site uses OAuth to login, which makes it easy to login without a needlessly elaborate form. 

PROS: Easy to use and customizable. The analytics look good with an easy to understand chart.

CONS: Needs more features. Hopefully RSS2 Twitter will add more customizable features to their service. Doesn’t allow you to add additional social media sites. Doesn’t allow 3rd party URL shortening.

RATINGS: Thumbs down

Hootsuite is basically a browser based version of TweetDeck. The site allows you to monitor and update your Twitter feed, create columns to monitor based on hashtags or keywords, has built-in statistics and you can update multiple social networks. Hootsuite is a great online tool and one that makes monitoring your Twitter profile from any computer very easy without having to use a downloadable client, like TweetDeck and Seesmic do. 

PROS: Easy to use, lots of features and the ability to add multiple RSS feeds and social media accounts makes it a great way to update your Twitter profile via RSS feed.

CONS: Hootsuite will only allow you to use their Ow.ly url shortening. This can come into conflict if you’re using Bit.ly or other URL shortening tools. There is also no ability to add hashtags to your post. 

RATINGS: Thumbs Up

Twt.sy is another solid entry into the RSS feeder category. The site allows you to add multiple feeds and Twitter profiles. It doesn’t allow you to add additional social media sites. When you add an RSS feed, you can adjust the tweet update times, what to include in the tweet and any prefixes and keywords to filter by. The main asset of this site is a dashboard that shows the number of clicks, the most popular clicks from that past hour, the most recent links and the links that have the most clicks. You can also see where clicks are originating from thanks to their mashup with Google Maps. It’s a unique feature to Twt.sy. 

PROS: Good use of analytics that no other site has. You can add multiple twitter accounts and RSS feeds.

CONS: Doesn’t allow for updating to additional social media sites. Doesn’t allow third party URL shortening. Needs to add more customizable features. 

RATING: Thumbs down

CONCLUSION:

All the sites in this category are useful tools. It comes down to personal taste and needs. I like to have as many features as possible and that’s why for an RSS feeder, I have to choose TwitterFeed. True, Hootsuite has more overall features but just looking at the RSS features, it falls a little short. If you’re not already using a Twitter interface client, I would recommend using Hootsuite because it will cover all your basic needs and then some. If you’re already using TweetDeck or Seesmic, the extra features aren’t necessary and TwitterFeed’s excellent abilities will more than meet your needs.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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The limitations of growing a social media campaign

A look at the technical restrictions we discovered during our last social media campaign

We ended 2009 with an eight week social media campaign for a client. The client wanted a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a YouTube channel to drive traffic to and raise awareness of their campaign site. They wanted to cover their target market on both a personal and professional level, as well as attract people interested in their cause. Starting at zero, we wanted to create as aggressive a social media campaign as possible over the eight weeks. What we discovered is that there are ceilings and lots of unwritten rules that must be followed.

Due to the tight deadlines we had and the brevity of the campaign, we mounted as aggressive a campaign as we could to push out the client's message. We don’t recommend using social media assets as aggressively as we did for this campaign. Social media growth should be paced and nurtured, not a quick grab for as many followers as you can attract. These sites should be used to develop a community and build brand loyalty. By being as aggressive as we were, our actions could have just as easily been deemed spam and our entire campaign could have collapsed as quickly as it started. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. The following information is for general knowledge of what we learned from the campaign and not recommended as a best practice scenario. 

Before we even began, we did our research and targeted individuals that self-identified with our client’s cause. By doing extensive market research, we were able to propel the campaign forward and get the client’s message out to the people that would be most receptive to it. This step was the most important thing we did. Before any social media campaign begins, having a plan of attack and good research will make your efforts go much further.

Looking to reach as many people as quickly as possible, we used Twitter as our main tool. Twitter allowed us to grow the other assets and drive traffic to the site more than anything else we did in the beginning. Through it, we promoted the pages of the site we wanted people to pay attention to, alert people to the other social media campaigns and find new followers. The Twitter 2000 follower ceiling is well documented. You can’t follow 2000 more people than are following you. What is less known is how it applies to the first 2000 followers. Twitter doesn’t want individuals to create accounts and just go crazy following people. It created a problem in growing followers as we hit that ceiling. Here are the limits we found:

• You can’t follow more than 500 people in a day
• You can’t have 2000 more followings than followers
• Twitter will block you from following people if you are too aggressive 
• Once you reach the 2000 following limit, you can delete followers and add new people until your follower total catches up

We used Facebook as gathering place for people to allow them to self-identify with the campaign. With 350 million users, it’s the place to go to find people interested in any brand or cause. We created a Facebook fan page and a profile page based on the brand. The fan page was used to push our message and keep fans updated on what was happening with the campaign. The profile page was created to find people and directly interact with them in a way you can’t with a fan page. From the profile, we were able to find people and then invite them to join the page and the website. Through the profile page, we were also able to join other groups and leave comments on their walls. Facebook’s limits are more cryptic than Twitter’s and appear to be arbitrary. Here are a few of the limits we discovered:

• Sending out more than 50 friend requests will get your friending privileges revoked for a period
• You can’t post the same message on more than five wall’s 
• Slightly vary your message from wall to wall. It will take the Facebook algorithm time to discover your activity
• If you’re going to be aggressive in your Facebook activity, limit it to one day a week, then use the site on a slower level through the rest of the week to keep from getting flagged.

The campaign site focused heavily on a video component, which naturally brought YouTube into play. The site encouraged people to leave a video that would then be uploaded onto the YouTube channel. The more videos we uploaded, the more traffic the channel got. This is the one area that really took care of itself. There aren’t many limits with YouTube, but we did find a couple:

• You can only subscribe to 10 channels a day
• If you don’t upload your own videos, the analytics won’t work.

For the first half of the campaign, the social media effort was the only advertising that was used. We saw great initial site traffic, but once people saw our message, it was difficult to attract them back and site traffic trailed off. In week 6, we added Google AdWords and Facebook ads and saw our traffic more than double the projected total site traffic.

In the end, the social media campaign was successful. Our final numbers were:

Twitter: 2042 followers
Facebook: 324 fans
YouTube: 719 views

Given the limitations of the campaign (no initial advertising, almost zero awareness of the issue and creating all assets from the ground up), after eight weeks, we had 3.7 million targeted impressions and over 15 thousand people interacted with the brand. 

Five lessons learned:

1. The more planning you do up front, the easier it will be to connect to the right people.
2. Don’t try to outsmart the sites. It’s not worth the potential backlash you attract.
3. The more you don’t talk about yourself, the better people respond.
4. If you feel like you’re spamming people, you probably are.
5. It’s ok to be aggressive, just know the limits.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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Methodical Madness needs your vote

Methodical Madness closed out 2009 winning the blog of month for November. Then we were short-listed by Social Media Examiner along with 20 others for the distinction of the world's Top 10 Social Media Blogs. Our fellow finalists include a roster of stellar blogs like  Chris Brogan, CopyBlogger, Mashable , and Social Media Explorer . Winners to be decided soon by jury.

Methodical Madness is also short-listed with 12 other finalists on Fuel Line's Ad Agency Blog of the Year. Please VOTE before Friday, January 22. Below you can see the Fuel Lines poll results live. 

CLICK HERE to VOTE for The Duffy Agency

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How Twitter can (and can’t) change the world

Acting through Twitter helps, but it can’t end there

When a crisis hits, most of us feel a gut instinct to help. But most of us won’t go that far out of our way to do something. That’s exactly why Twitter has inspired such huge numbers of people to get involved in causes: they can contribute to a better world in 140 characters or less (or at least feel like they have). Millions have devoted their time and money to solving the world’s biggest issues. But for that effort to not go to waste, we need to get our feet back on the ground and accept that social media can’t solve the world’s problems by itself – it can only contribute to the hands on solution. Many of us seem to be losing sight of this.

Losing sight is understandable considering Twitter’s remarkable achievements. Within hours of the 7.0 earthquake rocking Haiti, Twitter was giving people a way to show the world images of the carnage and a medium to tell their stories. With the country’s infrastructure devastated, there weren’t many other options for getting the message out. And with that message spreading across Twitter like wildfire, millions opened their wallets to support relief efforts – including more than $20 million donated to the Red Cross’s text message campaign.

  

But while the donation is instant and simple, relief getting to the people is far from it. The mobile industry has regulations which delay the donations by 90 days, and the aid that is available is delayed in getting to the people due to a lack of rescue workers. In other words, there are great big on the ground problems that need people’s help which Twitter can’t solve, but aren’t getting due attention. The people in need are still facing a dire situation, but that is masked to some extent when we go on about the impressive amount of involvement that’s taken place.

The quake highlights both the inherent triumphs and shortcomings of what a Twitter campaign by itself is capable of. Social media efforts need to have comprehensive strategies – from your computer screen to the end result – to accomplish their goals. That probably sounds obvious, but how many people do you think write their tweet, feel like they’ve done their part and forget about the issue? Sometimes social media provides answers that are in fact a little too easy to be true, and leaves people feeling absolved of responsibility anyway. 

It’s still early days in utilizing Twitter in crisis response, and its ability to generate massive, global awareness within minutes of an event is already a landmark achievement in the history of communication. Never before have we been able to make so many people aware of a crisis so quickly, and then get them to do something. But we have to get real about what Twitter and social media can accomplish before they will truly change the world for the better. If action stops at the keyboard, it will only amount to a drop in the ocean. What you do out there in the real world is still what wins the day. 

Though it isn’t the whole solution, money is still desperately needed to save lives in Haiti. Check out our previous post to learn 10 ways you can contribute, including campaigns to send workers into the field.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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10 ways you can help the people of Haiti right now

Do your bit in just a few clicks

The devastation in Haiti is on a level scarcely imaginable for most of us. It’s made doubly nightmarish by the fact that Haiti is far from being one of the wealthier countries in the world. But millions of dollars are being donated through internet fund raising campaigns that allow people to lend a hand instantly. To make your contribution of desperately needed funding, check out the options below. And after you’ve made a donation, tweet a link to the organization’s site or write about it on Facebook.

Remember to be wary of giving money to an unknown group, as scam sites have popped up to take advantage of people’s good will, and every dollar counts as it will help provide desperately needed medical supplies and shelter. If you’re unsure about a charity group, check out the Better Business Bureau’s site dedicated to reviewing charity organizations.

Most of these sites suggest donation amounts, but you can enter whatever amount of money you have to spare. Every little bit will help.


Oxfam’s emergency response team (whose regional headquarters happen to be in Haiti) is working hard to provide water and sanitation services in the hope of stemming the spread of disease that usually follows this kind of disaster. More money means more clean water for the people.

Google Support Disaster Relief Google pitched in the first million dollars themselves, but there’s a long way to go in recovering from the quake. On their disaster relief page, you can quickly and simply submit whatever amount you want donated to either UNICEF, who are working to help children affected by the earthquake, or CARE who are sending rescue workers to the country. There’s also an interactive Google Earth map on the page that gives you a look at how badly the country was hit.

Doctors Without Borders are saving lives on the ground by providing emergency medical care. The donated money will help them supplement Haiti’s devastated infrastructure.

United Nations World Food Program is pooling resources to provide food for 2 million people affected by the earthquake over the next 6 months. Already the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, Haiti needs help more than ever to feed their hungry.

AMURT With a decade of relief work in Haiti under their belt, AMURT are organizing both staff members and teams of volunteers for relief efforts. Donations will help support the teams already there and fund additional teams being sent to Haiti.


World Vision has already sent 18 tons of relief supplies to Haiti. Help them send more by making a donation.

AmeriCares is raising funding for critical medical supplies and medicines, as there is an especially great need of them with a major hospital having collapsed.

Catholic Relief Services have a staff on the ground in Port-au-Prince. They are accepting donations of any amount to buy and distribute emergency supplies.

Direct Relief International is supplying their partner organizations working in Haiti with emergency supplies. More funding means more critical supplies will reach people.

You can also donate money through a text message. To contribute $10 to the Red Cross ‘s disaster relief efforts, send an SMS with the message “HAITI” to the number 90999. You can also make a $5 donation via text message to the Yele Haiti earthquake fund by texting “Yele” to the number 501501.

With a little help from each of us out here in cyberspace, the people of Haiti will be able to put their lives back together much faster. Feel free to add to our list of ways to contribute in the comments section.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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6 ways to visualize your Twitter stream

Sometimes you need a visual aid to get your head around what’s happening on Twitter

Trying to explain Twitter in a presentation or grasp how popular a keyword is can be tricky. Fortunately, there are several sites that show what’s happening on Twitter in a fun, visual presentation. They can strengthen your presentations by illustrating how Twitter works or make a more compelling event by dynamically showing people what’s being tweeted about.

I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish-list of qualities that we as marketing people want in an Twitter visualization tool. As usual, all the tools have to be free. Beyond that, we wanted to be able to:

• have an easy-to-use interface
• get the hang of it quickly
• stream tweets based on keywords
• easily configure it
• make our tweets visually interesting
• have adjustable settings


The evaluation method was simple. I visited each site and registered. After my profile loaded, I took a screenshot of the interface and then spent about ten minutes looking around the site. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After using the application, I rated each site against my wish list.

Tori’s Eye  takes an origami approach to Twitter visualization. The site is highly visual and easy to use. Enter the word you want to track and watch the blue birds float by as the occasional cloud passes in the background. You can see what tweets are wafting by by holding your cursor over the bird. You get the Twitter account name, a link to their profile, when it was said and the tweet.

PROS:
Easy to use and very visual.
CONS:
No features outside of the ability to search on a word. It would be nice to see tweets maybe trailing behind the birds instead of having to click on the birds to read the message.

RESULTS: Thumbs Up

Twittospheric works the same way as Tori’s Eye. You enter a keyword and the site searches Twitter for the results. Except it doesn’t work very well. Initially it looks impressive. The Twitter bird slides past the screen and the user profile image appears, a link to the tweeter’s profile and their tweet appear in a little box. When you do a search, it appears to break the site. The birds still fly by but they no longer display any tweets.

PROS:
Easy to use and visually interesting
CONS:
Once you add a search word, the site quits working. I waited for about 20 minutes and then moved on. It went into a search mode but never displayed anything again.

RATING: Thumbs Down

TWITTERMOTION

TwitterMotion is an interesting concept done horribly wrong. It presents the tweets in an interesting way. You enter your Twitter name and password, then your tweets fly by in oversized text. Initially it looks quite fun but then you realize that you can barely read the tweets as they fly by. It’s worth looking at once but the gimmick wears thin quickly.

PROS:
Visually interesting way to display your tweets.
CONS:
Hard to read and understand what you’re looking at.

RATING: Thumbs Down

Twitt3D this black and white site is visually interesting but difficult to use. After logging into the site, it displays the most recent tweets from your followers in a 3D block. Focusing in on a tweet takes a bit of playing with to get the hang of. The tweet shows up on the vertical plain, while the tweeter is on a 90 degree perpendicular angle. There is also something called a Bird’s Eye Map but I never figured out what it was for.

PROS:
Visually interesting and fun to play with.
CONS:
Difficult to understand how it works or what you’re looking at. Once you submit your Twitter username and password, it runs its search and then never updates again. I’m not sure what the point of the site is except to present tweets in a convoluted fashion.

RATING: Thumbs Down

Twittearth is a cute view of the world with little monsters representing tweeters in different parts of the world. As new tweets appear, the globe spins to show where in the world the tweet is coming from. It takes a random sampling of tweets to display. You can login to your Twitter account to display the tweets in your Twitter stream but it appears to be broken as I could never login.

PROS:
Simple and fun to use. Watching the world spin around as new tweets pop up is fun to watch.
CONS:
It’s worthless if you can’t control it. You can’t login to display your Twitter stream and you can’t enter a keyword to track.

RATING: Thumbs Down

Twitterfall is the most adaptable site. You can select a current trend, a list, do a search, or show tweets based on geolocation. As each tweet appears, you can DM, follow, retweet, reply and more. They also give you customizable setting such as speed at which new tweets appear, the fall size, language selection, text size and more. It’s a great site with lots of features to make it more useable.

PROS:
Despite having a ton of features, the site is simple to use and easy to understand. The waterfall effect as new tweets appear keeps new tweets easy to read.
CONS:
You have to refresh the page to get new searches to work sometimes. Not very visually exciting.

RATING: Thumbs Up

CONCLUSION: The clear winner here would be Twitterfall. It’s not the most creatively visual, that would be Tori’s Eye, but it offers the most features and customizability with six different ways to change your viewing experience. Nothing else even comes close...or works. How do you like to see Twitter visualized?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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7 social media predictions for 2010

2009 was a great year for social media. Twitter went mainstream and Facebook dominated the world, replacing social networking websites that had a strong foothold in their country. As the world became more aware of social media and web 2.0 techniques, we saw some interesting marketing efforts from Pepsi, Fiat and Pringles, among others. With the new year upon us, let’s take a moment to look ahead at what we think will be the big game changers of the new year.

Micro communities - Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are the big impersonal dogs that dominate the social media world as we know it. People are starting to look for smaller, more relevant communities in the coming year. 2010 will see the rise of Ning, Xing and Linked In, as well as location based communities like Foursquare and Gowalla, which will be purchased and incorporated into Facebook and Google in 2011.

Facebook starts to slip - After obtaining the seemingly impossible in five years (350 million members), Facebook has justly secured their place as top dog in the social media world. There is no where to go but down from here. While expanding their functionality and destroying their credibility through poor decisions on how to handle user privacy, Facebook will lose members as users become overwhelmed with follow requests, app requests, security settings and a million other little things.

Google makes search more relevant - Google released real-time search at the end of 2009, but it’s not as refined as it could be. Google will continue to refine their search techniques based on the personal experience of the user. This means my search for a thai restaurant in San Francisco could be completely different from your search. Google rushed real-time search out in order to beat Bing to the punch, but expect it to be streamlined by the end of the year.

Gaming becomes more social - We talked about console gaming going social in our hugely popular blog post last month, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. 2010 will be a rebirth in gaming with games not just linking to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but by allowing users to create original content through them as well. Add to that online gaming companies like Zynga, Playfish and Crowdstar who are expanding the capability of their games. Also, expect mobile gaming to go to great heights with the iPhone and Android phones changing the way we envision mobile gaming.

Big Brother won’t have to watch us – we’ll do it ourselves - In our ever expanding need to feel relevant and hip, we now do what people a decade years ago would have viewed as implausible. Privacy isn’t an issue like it used to be. We now tell people where we are and what we’re doing every moment. Thanks to Foursquare, Google Geotagging, Gowalla and Britekite, we can automatically update our location without lifting a finger. Expect this trend to continue, and get much more invasive, before it gets better.

iPhone loses ground to Android - Sure, the iPhone is great, but it has one major drawback: it’s only available on one phone. Now imagine the same software that makes the iPhone great spread over several phones with cheaper price-tags. The Android has the potential to be a game changer in next gen phone development. With several phones coming out in 2010, the huge market share that the iPhone now controls will quickly erode.

Companies discover how to use social media - 2009 was the year that businesses discovered that the internet isn’t just a children’s toy any more. 2010 will be the year that companies finally start using social media as an important marketing tool and will devote more of the advertising funds to online efforts. 2009 saw some interesting uses of Twitter, Facebook and iPhone apps as companies dipped their toes in the pond. Now that they’ve explored a little, expect some interesting online campaigns.

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7 predictions for Twitter in 2010

The Christmas presents have been opened (thanks for the Kindle, mom!), the new year celebrated and the year in reviews written, so now it’s time to look ahead to 2010. As we wrote earlier, 2009 was a killer year for Twitter. But will 2010 see the micro blogging sensation continue to rocket upwards? Probably not, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Here are 7 predictions of what the coming twelve months hold in store for everyone’s favorite little blue bird.

1. Twitter will expand more aggressively outside of the US, but overall growth will drop off
Twitter is about as big as it ever will be in the US, so if they want their user base to continue expanding they’ll have to make a more significant push into Europe and beyond. It will gain millions more followers outside the US as new population groups discover its potential, but the overall growth of Twitter will never again attain the huge increases of the past few years. It will cease to be a pop culture phenomenon and hot buzz word, and start to find its long term place in the social media tool box.

2. The Twitter horde will get thinned out, leaving a more manageable core of users
Many people who jumped on the Twitter bandwagon will forget about it as they hop onto the next one. This wave of everyone and their sister being interested cresting and receding may end up being a good thing. Twitter has long been frustrating for people interested in using it because of the fluff-to-useful content ration being way out of whack. With users who are more focused and dedicated staying on while others jump off, that ratio may well start to balance out.

3. Innovative mashups will keep the excitement alive
The waning novelty of Twitter will be somewhat abated by the novelty of new mashup applications utilizing the service. By all accounts location based apps are the next big thing, and Twitter is sure to factor into many of these new creations. I’d expect to see features like having each Tweet tagged with your current location and creating a map of where you’ve tweeted from. But people smarter than me are sure to come up with far more clever uses.

4. Companies’ Twitter use will become more focused and get a budget
Companies will start to really get their heads around Twitter this year, having had time to let the idea of it sink in and its potential become apparent. What once struck them as a fad among kids has now proven an effective marketing tool in enough cases to change their minds and get them to put some money aside for running a Twitter campaign, and create the guidelines to do it well. But it’s the ones who got in early who will really start to benefit this year.

5. Better analytics will make Twitter a valid market research tool
The ability to use Twitter to listen in on targeted groups will keep getting more refined. Getting an intimate look inside the minds of the people you’re trying to talk to is invaluable, and with Twitter companies will be getting this at minimal cost. As companies accept more and more that Twitter is not just a toy for young people, they’ll see just how big a treasure trove of market insights it is – and develop the tools to mine them. 

6. Twitter will make more money than Facebook
The monetization of Twitter has already begun with Google and Bing paying for Tweets to appear in their search results. Twitter is certainly a long way from reaching Facebook’s level of profitability, but it has a big advantage over the social networking site as it’s much better suited as an information sharing and promotional tool. More companies will realize Twitter’s value and pay good money to incorporate it into their offer. And with real-time search results gaining ground as the search method of the future, Twitter has a lot of potential to become a hot commodity.

7. Twitter will get sold
It may seem a little premature to sell before it becomes truly profitable, but Twitter is probably valued higher right now than it ever will be. The surge of interest in it and growth have plateaued, leaving it’s future direction and focus up in the air. The time is ripe for one of the big boys to step in and give it just such a direction and future. I see Google, Microsoft or Facebook taking over Twitter and developing it as part of their service. Whether or not that will be a successful venture, well, time will tell. It’s going to be an interesting year.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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Merry Christmas to you and yours!

We'd like to take this moment to thank all of our readers, clients, friends and family for helping us make 2009 a great year. Below you'll find the agency's 2009 Christmas card which tells you the tale of how Santa became the man he is today – from a Roman god to a jolly fat guy in a series of ads. We hope you enjoy it and that you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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The Best Twitter Apps of 2009

 
Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of Twitter applications.

For the last three months, we’ve been reviewing various online Twitter applications. We’ve covered five different subjects so far. Now that 2009 is coming to an end, I thought it would be a good idea to go back and look at our picks. Were we correct with our picks? Did they deliver the way we expected? Have we changed our minds from our original picks? In some cases, the sites worked better than expected and in other cases, we ended up using one of the other sites.

Back in September, we kicked off Twitter Tuesday: AppQuest Edition with a look at Twitter scheduling tools. What was our verdict?

Twitter Scheduling Apps

THEN: Overall, Twaitter came closest to my wish list. It did almost everything I wanted it to do. First and foremost, it’s very easy to use and understand. While it does a lot, it doesn’t overwhelm you. The designers really thought through the issues and how to solve them. But in the final analysis, I will go with Tweet-U-Later for one reason: It is the only app I found that makes it easy to have recurring tweets on the same day. When working with followers in different time zones this is essential for me. Coming in at the bottom of the list is Dynamic Tweets. Too many of the options that they want you to pay for can be found on other sites for free. Social Oomph needs to rethink their site design. It’s too cluttered and every link feels like it takes you to a sales page for the pay version. There’s a great looking user interface on Twit Robot, it’s just too bad programming glitches prevent you from using them.

NOW: Twaitter has become my first choice to schedule tweets. It’s easy to use and allows you to schedule Tweets at any time across any time zone. They disabled the ability to do recurring tweets due to Twitter concerns about spamming. These are valid concerns, but that doesn’t mean you can’t schedule recurring posts individually. In leu of a recurring tweet option, it would be nice to see a way to duplicate a tweet you want to repost. The RSS feed manager is still coming soon, but there is no word on when that will be implemented. 

Twitter Follower Management Apps

THEN: Refollow and Tweepular were the hands-down winners. Refollow slightly edged out Tweepular due to the variety of filtering options and the ability to tag and comment on user accounts. This is a great site for beginners as well as super users. Tweepular’s colorful design, broad functionality and suggested user tab make it a strong runner up. This is still a wide open field as the top two sites are miles ahead of the rest. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more contenders in this arena soon that offer even more features.

NOW: After trying Refollow for a few days, I found that it didn’t work as well as I thought it did. When I went to look at the number of people that weren’t following me back, the list of people was never as big as I would find on other sites. This leads me to believe that it doesn’t pull in all your followers so you can manage them properly. Instead, I’ve turned more and more to Tweepular. It doesn’t have as many features, but I know it works like it should.

Twitter Profile Analyzing App

THEN: While TweetStats and Twitalyzer both had very useful analytics, neither came close to the depth and variety of Twitter Analyzer. Twitalyzer’s benchmarking tool is a great way to set goals for yourself. Combined with Twitter Analyzer, you have all the software you need to mount a Twitter campaign and measure its success. Because the analytics are live, you can make course adjustments on the fly to optimize your Tweeting.

NOW: Twitter Analyzer is still the best Twitter profile analyzer out there. It shows amazing amounts of analytics and information. They sometimes lose data, but some of that could depend on the whims of Twitter. They are still going to release two sections – Trends and Fun – but there’s no mention of what they will contain. I’m not complaining, though. For a free app, it’s one of the best available. In fact, it’s my favorite free Twitter app of 2009.

Twitter Polling Apps

THEN: While there were some sites that were easy-to-use, one trick ponies, it became clear it was worth putting a little extra effort into polls with the sites that offer more functionality. Twtpoll edged out Twttrstrm as it provided nearly all the features we wanted, while still being simple to use and visually appealing.

NOW: There is no comparison here – Twtpoll is hands down the best. The simple fact that it allows you to create 17 types of polls puts it in a class by itself. We’ve used it twice ourselves to poll our followers, and it didn’t disappoint. Check out this Twtpoll on the best ad agency blogs (which we just happened to have won). 

Twitter File Sharing Apps

THEN: TwitFS and FileTweet did the best, with TwitFS ultimately having the best features. It’s simple to use, accepts the largest files and allows you to share the file across multiple networks. Best of all, it works without any problems. FileTweet is good for a quick send if you don’t care about sending the file again or being able to delete it from the site’s servers. FileSocial is also recommended for its ability to view the files without having to download them. 

NOW: TwitFS is still really great. The shear amount of features is still pretty amazing, like the ability to email from the page, view the shared content online, download, html code to post your shared item on Twitter, blogs, Facebook, MySpace and message boards along with a page url and on-page embedding code. Next to Twitter Analyzer, it’s my favorite free Twitter app of 2009.

Looking into the new year, what are some free Twitter apps you would like us to review?

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We wish you a social Christmas!

Our 5 favorite social media creations of the holiday season

As you’ve probably noticed, people are more reluctant than ever to send Christmas cards, whether it be for their wallets or the environment. But social media is picking up the slack to keep the holiday cheer running strong. Here are my five favorite ways to use social media to either send Christmas greetings, or just to inject some fun into the holiday season when it starts to wear thin.

Santa Yourself
I had nearly given up on finding something interesting among the hundreds of uninspired Facebook Christmas applications, but this one stole my heart. Mostly because you can make Santa look really creepy while going right to town in his dance number. It’s not Christmas until Santa makes children cry.

Redneck Christmas gifts
For the distinguished Southern gentleman or lady, here we have an exclusive selection of gifts for their refined tastes. Make their holiday season special with a ginger bread trailer home or a decorated outhouse.

Santa shoot-em-up

If an evaporating bank account and endless family gatherings are making you feel the need to shoot something, take out your stress with a Christmas flash game. My favorite is Deep Freeze – how can you go wrong with a heavily armed Santa and lots of cannon fodder?

Find out what list you’re on
Worried you’ve been too naughty to get any presents this year? Just ask Santa to check your tweets and he’ll let you know. He’ll send you a tweet with the verdict and what punishment/reward you get, all the while swaying drunkenly to some jovial music

Christmas cocktails
Speaking of swaying drunkenly, this iPhone app is ready to serve up a tasty holiday drink recipe whenever the occasion demands. Search by ingredient or give it a shake for a random suggestion. Just try not to embarrass yourself too badly in front of the in-laws.

Those were my favorites. Did I miss yours?

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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The year of the Tweet

Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications. 

5 reasons 2009 was Twitter’s breakout year 

As 2009 opened, Twitter was nothing new. It had been around since 2006, steadily growing its following, but the wave hadn’t had quite broken over the masses yet. That would soon change. A social network needs a certain critical mass of users to make a splash, and the events of 2009 would see Twitter eclipse that mark. According to Compete.com, Twitter had 3.4 million visitors in November 2008 and by November of this year, they had over 22 millions visitors. That’s a 676% growth from year to year. 

This was largely due to a natural ramp up of followers, but some big events helped vault it ahead. Its mass media status was confirmed when Taylor Swift thanked her Twitter followers in an acceptance speech at the MTV Video awards. David Letterman did a bit with Kevin Spacey about Twitter. Even CSI has used Twitter to help solve crimes. That’s about as much an official declaration of going mainstream as you can get. 

Also, Twitter was Google’s fastest rising search term in 2009 and “What is Twitter?” was Ask.com’s fourth most asked question (right after “How do I get pregnant?). 

So why was 2009 Twitter’s big year? Here are 5 ways Twitter made the transition to new media powerhouse in the past 12 months.

5. Twitter helped people find (and lose) jobs more efficiently 
As the recession deepened and unemployment spread, people looked to find a job any way they could. Twitter quickly proved its networking ability could be focused to find HR managers and info on available jobs. It also allowed people to get to know companies they were interested in in-depth by following its employees – an invaluable tool when applying for a job. For many people who didn’t know or care about Twitter, they suddenly had a compelling reason to try it out. 

But Twitter also made headlines for helping people lose their jobs. People learned to be wary of declaring their boss hatred on blogs and Facebook a long time ago, but most are still getting their heads around Twitter, and don’t realize they can get sacked in one incomplete sentence as their tweets spread beyond their followers. Cautionary tales have been around since before 2009, but the folks getting themselves into trouble expanded and got more high profile this year, as when NFL player Larry Johnson got himself cut form the Kansas City Chiefs for getting into an offensive bickering match with a fan. The crossover from private amusement to professional liability put Twitter in headlines in both traditional and new media, and tipped off bosses around the world on a new way to keep tabs on employees. So don’t say anything about your boss on Twitter you wouldn’t say on the 6 o’clock news. Seems a few people still haven’t caught on.  

4. People congregated on Twitter en masse to mourn the death of an icon
Almost immediately after the news broke that Michael Jackson had died, Twitter exploded with updates about his passing. Millions of people began sharing their grief and nostalgia for the singer, or simply tweeting “RIP MJ.”  This wasn’t surprising, as coming together to mourn is a basic human need. But the scale of the outburst was pretty surprising – conservative estimates claim that tweets about Jackson accounted for 30% of all activity on Twitter in the hours following his death, blowing talk of the Iranian election and the swine flu out of the water. The event turned Twitter into a platform for mass grieving and consolation, and showed how many people turn to Twitter first to share and comment on big news. It also revealed how Twitter is ideal for people to use in making themselves feel important, as publicly commenting on a huge event makes them feel involved. This is a large part of social media’s appeal, and something Twitter has taken to the next level. 

3. Twitter helped Iranians achieve freedom of speech
With communication channels being blocked left and right in Iran after the controversial election, Twitter became the primary medium of getting info out of the country to rest of the world. You know when the US State Department asks you to delay scheduled site maintenance in the interest of preserving freedom of speech, you’ve got a pretty powerful communication tool. The incident displayed Twitter’s ability to subvert government censorship and spread on-the-ground happenings in real time to a global audience. With talk of Twitter’s role being broadcast on CNN and TIME, many more people discovered the site and began to understand just how much potential it had to change how we receive information. 

2. H1N1 demonstrated Twitter’s efficiency of fear-mongering
The swine flu pandemic showcased Twitter’s power for both good and evil. Worried people around the world logged in to find the facts on the mysterious virus. Many regular folks and official organizations like the CDC obliged with good information. But they were largely overshadowed by the misinformation and irrational panic. That’s the thing about crowds – they have a way of taking fears, developing their own momentum and getting carried away. The Twitter community was no exception. Though Twitter offers a lightning fast tool to inform the public from a decentralized platform, the incident highlighted the dangers that come with it. It’s bound to draw flocks of people who feel the need to tell everyone that the end is nigh at the first sign of trouble and spread rumors as proof to thousands of unwary followers. If you think it’s crazy people trust Wikipedia for information, Twitter will probably make your head explode. But again, this is Twitter facilitating a basic human need to connect and share in troubled times, so it’s not surprising it took off so quickly, nor is it likely to slow down. Brace yourself.

1. Twitter officially declared the word of the year
To cap off the Year of the Tweet, Twitter was named the word of the year by the Global Language Monitor, topping the likes of “Obama,” “H1N1” and “vampire.” The list was compiled by tracking which words garnered the most attention across the Internet. Political events that shook the world, a panic inducing global pandemic and the death of the world’s biggest pop star could not top Twitter. If there was any doubt Twitter was a new media force to be reckoned with, it was washed away. 

Despite its rocketing success in 2009, Twitter is still sinking into our collective mind. Most people are still trying to get their heads around what it’s for and why they should care, much like they did in YouTube’s early days. It remains to be seen whether Twitter will become part of our permanent Internet furniture collection as YouTube has, but it’s certainly headed in that direction, and shows no sign of slowing down going into 2010. 

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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Is social media making any difference in Copenhagen?

Taking a look at what the slew of social media initiatives have, and haven’t, accomplished for climate change.

The world’s most powerful leaders have convened in Copenhagen to reach an agreement that will help save our planet from rising seas and violent hurricanes. But millions of people around the world are doing some convening of their own. Social media initiatives in support of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) have exploded, inspiring tens of millions of regular people to do their part with just a few mouse clicks. But how big an impact can a few mouse clicks really have? Quite a lot, but it depends how you use them.

There are dozens of sites dedicated to getting people to demand an agreement be reached at the conference, but a few big ones are leading the way. Hopenhagen is one of the simpler efforts, asking people to digitally sign a petition by telling the world what gives them hope for the future. More than 1.7 million people have contributed so far.

Another 440,000 people have signed a similar petition on Seal the Deal’s site, an initiative run by the UN. In true social media fashion, the efforts are not being confined to websites – Kofi Annan’s Tck Tck Tck organization has a successful Twitter, Facebook and YouTube campaign to go along with the more than 10 million people who have pledged support through their website. Most of the other organizations can also boast multi-platform efforts.

YouTube itself is running a joint campaign with CNN called Raise Your Voice. It’s aimed at raising awareness by having people submit call to action videos and questions that will be answered during a debate broadcast live from the conference center. More than 4 million people have visited the YouTube channel.

ActiveBE is also using a video campaign to raise awareness of the climate change issue, which is noteworthy because they are using the COP15 hype to highlight the little know fact that the leading producer of CO2 isn’t transportation or industry, but buildings. Hundreds have signed the petition to shed more light on this issue and thousands visited the site to learn more.

The number of supporters is unquestionably impressive – all told it’s in the tens of millions. In terms of spreading knowledge, awareness and enthusiasm, the social media initiatives have been a resounding success, and those things are instrumental in garnering support on a global scale. But whether these efforts are having any impact on the proceedings in Copenhagen is another matter. Barack Obama officially stated a month ago that no binding agreement will be reached in Copenhagen, but rather they hope to reach an agreement that shows strong “intent.” The social media campaigns all state that they exist to unite people in demanding leaders come to a binding agreement with specific targets. It’s unlikely that particular goal will be met, and there is no mention of what will be done with these signatures and followers after the conference. Generating actual change has been a recurring problem with social media drives, as when Twitter helped Iranians subvert government censorship, but ultimately didn’t change anything.

That isn’t to say the climate change efforts have gone to waste. Pushing for an agreement is only part of the goal – creating widespread awareness of the problem and enthusiasm to do something is just as a big a part of these campaigns. Millions of people have taken an active interest where they would have otherwise been passive observers, if they had noticed the conference at all. But the potential impact of these communities has been far from reached. With a different focus, they could be petitioning local politicians with concrete demands, raising money for renewable energy research or organizing more demonstrations like the UK’s Wave project recently did. Without real world action, social media initiatives simply make people feel like they’ve done their part without actually accomplishing anything.

The most telling question will ultimately be: what will these communities do if world leaders fail to come through? If the answer is nothing, their level of success will be limited to a brief awareness campaign in connection to the conference. But if they continue to mobilize people and affect real change, then Copenhagen could go down as the launching pad of something much bigger, even if the politicians themselves accomplish nothing.

How effectively do you think social media has been used at COP15?

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

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Thank you everybody

Michael Gass over at Fuel Lines blog included Methodical Madness in his monthly Blog of the Month  poll for November. We were one of fifty-eight blogs nominated. Not only did we win, but we’re also the first blog to win from outside of the US. We want to thank everyone for voting for us. We were just honored to be included in such a great list of blogs. Thank you Michael for including us in your poll and a special thank you to everyone that helped make us #1.

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6 iPhone apps for mobile tweeting

 
Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of Twitter applications.

What are the best Twitter iPhone clients?

Modern life is becoming increasingly mobile. To keep up with our on-the-go lifestyle, being able to call people is now only one entry on a long list of mobile functions that come with cell phones. Which is great because our escalating involvement in social networking sites makes it nearly impossible to be in front of a computer often enough to keep pace with the flow of conversation. But there are so many apps for mobile tweeting, it can be a bit of a headache to find the right one. We decided to figure out which Twitter apps for the iPhone were really worth our while. 

I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish-list of qualities that we as marketing people want in an iPhone Twitter app. As usual, all the apps have to be free. Beyond that, we wanted to be able to:

• have an easy-to-use interface
• get the hang of it quickly
• manage multiple accounts
• have a search function
• save searches
• retweet/reply/favorite
• see mentions/direct messages
• update location with map
• tweet pictures
• tweet videos
• shorten URLs
• have other fun features


The evaluation method was simple. I download every app to my phone, added my Twitter account details and took a screenshot. I played around with each app for 20 minutes. This time, it was more than enough to determine if the app was worth the download or not. Then, I compared it against my list and rated it.

 

 

TweetDeck is my personal favorite of the applications. It has one of the best user interfaces – instead of just using one column, it emulates the desktop version by having multiple columns. If you use TweetDeck on your desktop, the iPhone app is perfect for you. You can actually sync your desktop groups to your phone, but only up to six due to 3G connection issues. So if you’re used to the desktop interface, there’s basically no learning curve for the iPhone version. And if you want to manage multiple accounts from an iPhone, this is the right application.

PROS: Simple interface, syncs with the desktop version, status updates with your location, can tweet pictures and video, shortens URLs, quick follow and easy to manage replies, DMs and RTs

CONS: Need to manually create new columns for mentions, direct messages etc. for each account, no automatic landscape function

RATING:

Twitterrific one of the most popular mobile Twitter clients, but to me the interface is needlessly confusing. It’s not clear what the icons mean and the navigation is not intuitive. It took me a while to figure out how it works, but when I did it worked very well. It also has some cute quirks like flicking through profiles or double tapping to change views.

Quick search, view trends and nearby searches, change text size, multiple account management, easy to reply, caches tweets so you can read them even if you lose wireless connection

PROS: Quick search, view trends and nearby searches, change text size, multiple account management, easy to reply, caches tweets so you can read them even if you lose wireless connection

CONS: Free version has ads, interface is confusing, premium version far too expensive, everything on timeline so there’s no digging back

RESULTS:

The free version of TwitBird tries to differentiate itself from the other Twitter apps by using a main page layout that looks similar to the iPhone’s regular interface. The layout is nice, but the user interface makes you go back far too often. It’s useful to see the tweet and response in one frame, but it also means you have to do a lot more scrolling to read through recent tweets. TwitBird features nearby tweets, Twitter search, Twitpic support and the ability to create groups. One feature I really loved: Tweet what you are listening now, which tweets the song you listened to most recently or are listening to right then.

PROS: Clean design, takes a bit of time to learn, can tweet video and photos, use maps, shorten urls, use hashtags, cool extra features

CONS: Doesn’t support multiple accounts, impractical navigation



RESULTS:

This is the app version of the Twittervision website. It only has basic Twitter features, but it’s cool to watch the tweets pop up from across the globe. If you use your Twitter account in a more “serious” way, Twittervision isn’t something of practical use, but it’s good for entertainment value.

PROS: A fun, cool way to visualize tweets from around the world

CONS: Lacking a lot of Twitter functionality, plus my app crashed every time I tried to login with my Twitter details



RESULTS:




 

SimplyTweet Lite  has a bare bones interface, which is good as it makes the tweets easy to read. Tweets are displayed as little speech bubbles, which makes sense given the app’s focus on following conversations. If one of your followers replies to a tweet, you can easily see the entire conversation timeline with two quick taps. But it’s annoying that you have to scroll to the top of your Twitter feed to hit the refresh button.

PROS: Map, photo/video, nearby search, trends, clean design

CONS: Does not support multiple accounts, can’t save searches, impractical navigation



RESULTS:
 

Echofon (free) is the simplest and easiest to use app I tried out. It’s perfect for beginners. Navigation is a snap and the icons are all labelled, so there’s never any confusion about what they do, but it doesn’t stack up well against TweetDeck or Twitterrific. It uses a bright color scheme and new tweets are highlighted in an ugly blue/green. It’s easy to tweet, RT and send direct messages, but ultimately too basic compared to other Twitter apps to be something you’ll want to use in the long run.

PROS: Clean and easy, map, photo/video, easy to write replies



CONS: No extra features, no group searches, doesn’t support multiple accounts, ugly design



RESULTS:
 

CONCLUSION: There are some great free apps that give you the functionality you need, but you can’t get the really comprehensive stuff like Tweetelator Pro or Tweetie without paying. Among those that are free, many offer cool features, but aren’t practically useful. TweetDeck gets my pick as the best of the free apps because I’m a big fan of the TweetDeck desktop application, I can easily sync it with the mobile version and I can manage different accounts in a very organized way. 

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