Random Sitings

Here at the agency we come across some pretty interesting web content in the course of any given week. We thought we'd share some with you. This week we have helicopter fishing, a guide to world domination, a dancing baby and the secret to retweeting.

Chris Guillebeau has written a brief guide to world domination.  Not bad for a 30 year old whose goal in life is to travel to all 197 countries in the world. So far he’s visited 119 of them. His guide is very thought-provoking and contains a great deal of useful information. Check out his blog The Art of Non-Conformity.

Just when you thought you had seen everything, someone comes up with something unexpected. A man with too much time on his hands uses a R/C helicopter with an E-Flite blade 400 for fishing.  I don't know what that means but the video has had 1.6 million views to date.

 
Dan Zarrella is about to become a household name in social media circles. He spent nine months looking at 5 million tweets and 40 million retweets and may have discovered the secret to getting your post retweeted more frequently. His report “Science of ReTweets” is a 22 page document that breaks down the who, what, when, where and why of retweeting.

Sure Kanye disrupted the MTV Video Awards to tell everyone that Beyonce had the best video ever, but watching a baby dance to her video is even better.  1.7 million people agree with me.

What have you seen this week that others should see?

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Free Twitter scheduling apps

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.

The verdict on seven free online Twitter scheduling apps

When you have a company Twitter account, odds are there will be several people posting. And if they are all posting at once, your tweet stream can become cluttered and come off as the worst thing possible: spamy. To prevent this from happening in our own agency, we wanted to find a tool that would allow multiple users to schedule tweets. 

Before we set out to find the best app on the web, we created our wish-list of the 12 qualities our perfect tweet scheduler would have. We wanted to be able to:

• use it for free
• schedule tweets at any time during the day
• have tweets recur so that they would post multiple times in the same day
• shorten URLs
• support multiple Twitter accounts
• post without indicating that it was a scheduled tweet
• spell check scheduled posts
• handle an unlimited number of scheduled tweets
• be web-based
• translate our posts into other languages
• provide extra relevant functionality beyond scheduling tweets
• easily navigate and use it with intuitive GUI

My methods were simple. I visited each site and registered. I scheduled a tweet, took a screen shot of the scheduling interface and then spent about 10 minutes looking around the site. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After the tweet posted, I rated each app against my wish list.

Click to enlarge image

Twuffer is probably the simplest and easiest to use of the automated Twitter tools. You log in with your Twitter name and password and no further registration is required. But making it simple and easy means they didn’t include much in the way of functionality. You can post a tweet to be published on the hour on any day up to the year 2019.

PROS:

• Simple registration
• Automatically shortens URL’s upon publishing tweet
• You can see the queued tweets and sent tweets
• Clean and easy to use with no explanation of how it works

CONS:

• You can only publish on the hour
• You cannot set recurring tweets
• Can’t handle multiple accounts
• No way of knowing it will shorten URLs when you first use it

RATING:

Future Tweets is a step up. The user interface is simple and intuitive. The user can schedule tweets on any day down to the second for the next hundred years and beyond. You can either type in the time and date or there is an awkward clock that allows you to move the hands to set the time. It looks nice but is difficult to use. Tweets can be scheduled to recur daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. They have included a collection of simple icons like a skull and crossbones, music note, snowman and bio-hazard symbol. You can also flip your tweet to appear upside down and backwards.

PROS:

• Simple registration
• Allows you to opt out of showing people that tweet went through program
• Schedule tweets at any time or day up to the second
• Easy-to-use interface
• Can have a recurring tweet daily, weekly, monthly or yearly
• Cute extras like including simple icons in a tweet or posting it upside down
• English spell check

CONS:

• Can’t set tweets to recur more than once a day
• Can only support one user account at a time
• No additional functions

RATING: 

Boasting the most features of any of the tweet scheduler tool sites, Social Oomph is also the most confusing. Registration is simple, but once you get into the site the cluttered and busy design runs interference on your brain.  The site layout isn’t intuitive or simple. The site seems more concerned with selling their professional version ($29.97 a month) than facilitating the free user. This site is a mess. Which is a shame because it boasts so many features. When you do navigate your way to the scheduler, you’ll find you are limited to 12 tweets per hour and no recurring tweets unless, of course, you upgrade.

PROS:

• Allows you to post without identifying you’re using a scheduler
• You can save a tweet as a draft to finish later
• You can pick the time and date down to the second to publish your tweet
• Track keywords on Twitter
• Automatic shortening of URLs
• Automated follow and un-follow function
• Allows multi-account support
• Purge your DM inbox
• Create channels of 10 twitter users
• Tutorials to help learn the system

CONS:

• Site design is a mess
• Requires a sherpa to navigate
• Difficult to figure out how extra functions work
• The site is in your face trying to sell too hard

RATING:

Registering with the site is fast. Just log into your Twitter account to give their system access. Once in Twit Robot, you’ve got one of the best looking interfaces for any of the scheduling tools. You can schedule a tweet to appear at any time or day. From there, it gets confusing. There is a section called ”Auto Posting.” Because the section is hard-coded, most of the options are cut off by a predefined box that won’t resize – so you can’t see them, or use them. It appears to be an area where you can add an RSS feed, create a campaign of tweets or let the software add random auto tweets. The RSS feeds section is cut off, so how it fully works remains a mystery. You can choose to run this feature, but it defaults to ”stoped.” There is a feature called user search. I thought it would help me find users on Twitter. It doesn’t. It gives back Google search results.

PROS:

• Super-simple to register with the site
• Great for Twitter campaign management, in theory
• Attractive and easy-to-use interface
• Able to add an RSS feed to site to publish feed

CONS:

• Couldn't get scheduler to work. It seems to post on US central time and I couldn't find a way to change it.
• No recurring tweet function unless you run a campaign
• Interface cuts off half of the functions of the site making it difficult to use all the site resources
• It’s not clear if you can have more than one tweet in a campaign and how to schedule time intervals
• Doesn't have auto URL shortening feature

RATING:

Tweet-U-Later doesn’t have the most flamboyant site design. In fact, it’s pretty boring, but they aren’t trying to impress you with a pretty site. This site does one thing and does it very well. You can schedule your tweets based on time and date down to the minute for a public or private message. This is the one of two sites that allows you to change the time zone per tweet and schedule recurring tweets based on hour, day, week, month or year and limit the number of times it occurs. This is a great way to retweet an important post at different times of the day over the course of a day or week. Unlike other sites, you don’t have to go back in and unschedule it.

PROS:

• The only app that has rescheduling intervals of an hour on recurring tweets
• Ability to set recurring tweets according to time zone and number of times it occurs
• Allows private scheduled messages
• Easy registration

CONS:

• Doesn’t support multiple accounts.
• Can’t post without indicating that it was a scheduled tweet
• Doesn't have auto URL shortening feature

RATING:

Twaitter has really thought through the issue of scheduling tweets and developed a terrific solution. You want to schedule a tweet? No problem. Pick the time down to the minute and time zone. It’s a recurring tweet? No problem, pick if it’s hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, if it will run forever, a select number of times or if it should end on a select date. Want to tweet in Swedish but don’t know any? Not a problem. Pick between 38 different languages. Throw in a spellcheck, a url shortening button and the ability to use multiple accounts and this becomes the most powerful free tweet scheduling tool available. If all that wasn’t enough, you can edit any tweets you have queued or already tweeted. The only drawback for my needs is that I can’t schedule posts to repeat on the same day.

PROS:

• It is has 10 of the 12 criteria from my wish list - the most of any app
• It is simple to register and easy to use
• Easy to schedule tweets and a nice selection of options
• Calendar view visualizes scheduled tweets by the day, week or month
• Will be adding the ability to add RSS feeds soon

CONS:

• Can't schedule tweets to recur in the same day
• Can't post without indicating that it was a scheduled tweet

RATING:

Dynamic Tweets has a three-tier system. The basic system allows you to add multiple accounts, schedule up to 20 tweets and do minute-by-minute scheduling intervals. For $99/year you get additional features such as recurring tweets, bulk upload tweets and campaign tracking. They also have an enterprise level for businesses. The registration process is one page, but asks for more information than any other site. Most of it is optional, but name, address and phone number seems a bit much for a site to ask these days when you consider that other sites just have register with your twitter username and password.

PROS:

• Easy to work with multiple accounts
• Minute-by-minute scheduling
• Spellchecking
• URL shortening

CONS:

• You can only add up to 20 tweets at a time.
• Most of the options they want you to pay for you get for free elsewhere.
• Can’t set recurring tweets
• Can’t post without indicating that it was a scheduled tweet

RATING:

CONCLUSION:
Overall, Twaitter came closest to my wish list. It does 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 prevents you from using them.

Download the Slideshare presentation of this blog to share with others.

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

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Ten things I don’t want to hear at Cannes Lions 2010.

It’s the end of the second day at the Cannes Lions 2009. The evening rains have done their bit to contribute to a festival that is already proving to be quite damp in other respects.

Attendance seems to be thin. (Some are saying it’s down by 40%, but the festival organizers obviously won’t confirm or comment on it.) The quality of entries leave a lot to be desired. And the speakers, in a variety of different accents, seem to be parrotting the same platitudes we’ve been hearing for the last several years. So here, in no particular order are some things I wouldn’t want to pay 2,600 Euros to sit through next year.

1.    ”It’s not about advertising, it’s about engagement.”
2.    ”Print’s days are numbered.”
3.    ”You don’t want to advertise, you want to have a conversation.”
4.    ”It’s about having a great narrative, a great story.”
5.    ”Advertising is no longer a one-way process. The consumer can now talk back to you.”
6.    ”You have to let go when it comes to the controls for your brand online. Consumers will take it anyway.”
7.    ”Online banner and display advertising is a broken model.”
8.    ”The next big breakthrough will be centered around mobile devices.”
9.    ”Social media is not a fad, it’s here to stay.”
10.    ”Consumers are ’always on’.”

Asif Ansari is partner and creative director at The Duffy Agency. He loves writing, technology and beer.

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Cannes do.

The world economy’s in a death spiral, cutbacks are sweeping the entire business world, the advertising industry in particular seems to be struggling to find its way forward. There’s never been a better time to make the annual pilgrimage to Cannes for the Cannes Lions 2009.

 

Few organizations are immune to the excruciating sting of the recession. But we don’t see battening down the hatches and waiting for the storm to pass as the ideal solution. We’d rather ride out the squall in an attempt to stay abreast of what’s happening out there. We strongly feel that staying focused and motivated, and finding inspiration is priceless when you’re in the business of ideas. And finding the best ideas possible for our clients is vital, because they won’t put down their marketing dollars for anything less.

Cannes also provides us the opportunity to meet and interact with some of the industry’s finest creative minds. And we’re always ready to consider hires, especially if we come across creative talent that fits our international advertising profile.

Like last year, this year too we’re particularly interested in the ways like-minded agencies are using social media to create affording marketing solutions for clients. We’ve got a few success stories of our own to share over a beer or two if you’re interested in hearing them. To get in touch with us in Cannes, sign up at our Facebook events page. And follow our Twitter stream here for daily updates on what’s on during the day and where the happening parties are at night. See you at the Palais.

Asif Ansari is partner and creative director at The Duffy Agency. He loves writing, technology and beer.

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The Common Denominator

Where’s My Jet Pack has a great picture that nails the current state of social media. People spend hours and hours trying to figure out the best way to crack the “social media nut” in order to get more followers, sell more products or become more popular. No matter how clever we think we are, witty we try to be, or intelligent we try to make our communications, it’s usually the off comment about having breakfast that gets the most attention.

Why is that?

It goes back to being relatable.  You can blog/tweet/comment about the best ways to use Twitter or how to get 5,000 followers on Facebook and that will get quick attention but if you can’t follow it up with meaningful discussion in a relatable way, it will be pointless. 

People want to be distracted and it doesn’t take much to push someone in the direction you want. Mention breakfast and post a photo to go with it and people can immediately relate. We all know what breakfast is and most people start their day with it. Add a photo and now you’ve got a visual device that allows people to provide even greater feedback.

A couple of days ago, I posted the following on my Facebook status, “Stefan is happy it’s today.” Basically I’m saying I’m happy it is a day. The phrase has no meaning. Normally, I get no comments on my status updates, but I received three comments on this.  Why? Because people could relate to it being a happy day and they were having one or something special was happening to them that day. It struck a note with my followers and they were able to place their own meaning on it.

When using social media it’s important to keep the message simple and relatable. When companies enter social media, they should first figure out how they are going to communicate with their audience. Will it be at a highly technical or at a more simple level? Will it just be a broadcasting tool or will you talk with the people that start to follow or friend your brand?

Before starting any social media campaign should know three things.

• Know what your message is.
• Know who your audience is.
• Know what you want to achieve.

The great thing about social media is you can have several conversations in different places on different levels. Some people want to talk about the technical aspects of a product, others want want to share their experience with a brand or product and some just want to talk about what they had for breakfast. You can talk with developers on a technical level in one place; have an everyday conversation in another and a broadcast message area in a third place.  It’s about knowing how to talk to your target market and understanding the needs of the environment in which you’re communicating.

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

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Spotify Weekly Playlist

Each week The Duffy Agency presents a new playlist with great songs to get you through your work week for people using Spotify.

The Duffy Agency Not Again... Mix Week 18

The Duffy Agency Easy Mix Week 17

The Duffy Agency 9 to 5 Mix Week 15

The Duffy Agency Hip Hop Hurray It's Monday! Mix Week 14

The Duffy Agency Bad Case of the Monday's Mix Week 13

The Duffy Agency Southern Rock Mix Week 12

The Duffy Agency Alt Rock Mix Week 11

The Duffy Agency Alt Rock Mix Week 10

The Duffy Agency 80's Mix Week 9

The Duffy Agency Playlist Week 8

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Advertising on the Edge

In case you missed it, the world economy is in the toilet. Companies are laying off people and cutting budgets. The good news is now is the time to embrace social media and online advertising. The Economist has created an exceptional slide show that explains why companies shouldn’t quit advertising in an economic crisis but shift the way the market their message.

Ads on Edge

View more presentations from Geert Desager. (tags: branding recession)

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The Future Is Free

According to Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine and author of The Long Tail, the future is free, or as Chris calls it “Freeconomics.” It’s no longer about charging for a service but giving the base away and charging for the upgrades and extras. In other words, “giveaway the abundance, sell the scarcity.”

At the Media Evolution in Malmö, Sweden yesterday, Chris spent almost an hour giving us what amounts to basically an outline to his new book, “Free, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love $0.00.” While not groundbreaking, Chris gave an interesting lecture that had some comments that appeared to be a rude wake up for the panel that followed.

Today’s generation expects everything to be free. From games to music to movies, the expectation is it’s out there for the taking and you shouldn’t have to pay for it. That is in direct contrast to older generations where you expect to pay for everything.  The balance falls in-between.  You can see this happening with everything from video games to music sites. You give away the base service and then charge for the add-on or unique version. With Second Life, you get the basic online interaction but if you want house, that’s going to cost you. Spotify allows you to listen to free music all day, but if you want to avoid commercials, that’s going to require a credit card.

Chris has taken this model and applied it to his new book. You can get the mp3, pdf or any other online version for free, but it will cost you $24.95 to buy the hardback version. This is a great model for him because it is a quick and easy way to disseminate his ideas. His publisher thinks it is a horrible concept. Since they are in the market to sell books, just giving it away is not what they want to see.

Publishers of content (music, literature, movies, etc) are not prepared to handle the freeconomy. After Chris’ lecture, there was a panel filled with publishers and it was obvious they weren’t thrilled with Chris’ message. As more and more newspapers and magazines fail, it’s hard to compete with free online news and information. The solution is to build a following with free and then convert them to offline clients with good content. It’s not an easy sell to publishers but you either embrace the future or you fall by the side for those who can.

Overall, I would call the Media Evolution a positive experience. The panel at the end was well organized and it was interesting to hear the concerns of the panelists. Chris is a talented speaker and was able to hold the huge crowd’s attention. In the future, I would like to see it expand to a full day’s conference with a keynote speaker at the end. There are enough people in the Nordic region to fill six hours. For the price, hearing two and half hours worth of material seems a little steep. Sure there were other events (live singer and an after party) but they felt more like padding and didn’t add any real value.  Also, how do you not have free wi-fi at an event that talks about the value of free?

I hope they have more Media Evolutions. It was a good start and I met some interesting people. If you want to see Chris’s lecture and hear the panel, Media Evolutions has the entire event up to view.

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

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Best and Worst of Super Bowl 2009 Ads

This year’s Super Bowl didn’t disappoint.  It was an intense showdown between the Cardinals and the Steelers.  The other half of the viewing experience is that multimillion dollar ads that companies create.  These are the best and worst of this year’s Super Bowl Ads. What are your favorites? What should have been on added?

Cutest – E-Trade – Baby Broken Wings

Well It Starts Good… Sobe – Lizard Swan Lake

Most Unexpected – Cash4Gold.com – McHammer & Ed McMahon

Funniest – Doritos – Crystal Ball/Snow Globe

Weirdest – Cheetos  - Spoiled Girl

Best Product Re-Positioning – Pepsi Max – I’m Good

Sentimental Favorite – Gatorade -  Talking Heads/Tiger

Evil Aliens Are Taking Over – Hulu.com – Alec Baldwin

Worst – GoDaddy.com – Enhanced Hearing

MVP – Bridgestone – Potatoheads & Hot Item

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Can Social Media Save Advertising?

You’ve created your Twitter account, made your Facebook and MySpace profile, uploaded your pictures to Flickr and stumble your way through StumbleUpon, shared your bookmarks on Del.i.cious, so now what?  The internet is abuzz with hype about social media and web 2.0 apps.  If you were to believe the conversations online, if you’re not online in at least five different places, then you don’t exist. 

The experts are right in some regards. While the amount of people online with active profiles is steadily rising.  Facebook reports to have 150 million active users (they count an active user as someone that has logged in within the past 90 days).  That’s a lot of people and it’s just one networking service. Now that the economy is in the toilet in most of the world, media evangelist are heralding the social media revolution and how it will save advertising.  While social media makes huge strides every year, we’re still a 2-5 years before it hits the mainstream. 

Sure the motrin moms were able to get Johnson & Johnson to take down an ad but we’re talking about a few hundred people raising a stink.  Hardly mainstream and if social media pundits didn’t raise awareness of it, it’s doubtful, Johnson & Johnson would have even known about furor. 

Social media is still in the honeymoon phase.  Large corporations are finally pulling their heads out of their shells and taking a look at corporate blogging, social networking pages and online viral marketing.  The companies that get on board now are the ones that will benefit most. In the past, it’s been about controlling the message. In the next four years, the way corporations interact with people will change because the message delivery system and feedback methods will change.  Any new advertising campaign should have some element of social media to support it. 

Social media advertising isn’t work like online advertising.  It’s not banner ads or pop ups or commercials that play in little boxes.  It’s about creating dynamic participation on both the company and the consumers part.  Kraft Foods has done an excellent job with this.  They already had a Facebook recipe application, which hardly anyone was using (152 monthly active users).  Instead of just being another app that clutters up your Facebook account, Kraft is giving six meals to families in need for every person that adds the application.  In a few weeks they have added more than 37,000 users, which equals 1.7 million meals. 

Kraft doesn’t show their products or advertise mac & cheese with this app.  It’s about creating good will for a mega corporation and making people feel good about their brand.  The positive aspects should generate more sales down the road for them and make people hold the company in a better light.

This is just one example of a large corporation reaching out to consumers in a way that makes their users want to support them. More brands have failed at social marketing than succeeded because they failed to realized that you have to give consumers a reason to care. Advertising is advertising no matter what the medium.  If you don't engage the audience, they won't bother looking at you twice.  It doesn't matter if you're doing a YouTube viral video or Facebook app, becoming part of the conversation and engaging people, instead of waiting for them to come to you, will pay off.

What other companies are using social media to successfully reach their market?

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

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Viral Video Campaigns: Best of 2008

Viral videos are becoming more and more popular.  Odds are someone sent you a link to one at some point over the year.  A viral video is a video clip that gains widespread popularity through emailing, blogs and other shared media.  They can range from a television sketch to someones home movie to a planned marketing campaign. 

Viral video campaigns can be scary and confusing to companies trying to wrap their heads around them.  Corporations want direct messages to potential users.  More often than not, a viral campaign is less about the product and more about the unique content.  When a viral campagin works, millions of people will see the video and it can last for years.  The benefits are viral marketing campaigns can be cheap to produce and distribute; the downside is they can be easily overlooked and forgotten.

Here is a list of the top viral marketing campiagns for 2008. 

Absolute Vodka "A Vodka Movie by Zach Galifianakis, Tim and Eric"

Views: 614,567

Diesel "SFW XXX Party Invitation"

Views: 6,497,507

DoTheTest: "TfL's Moonwalking Bear"

Views: 6,449,897

Bud ”Swear Jar”

Views: 3,416,801

Carlsberg ”Best Wives in the World”

Views: 30,567

Song Around The World: Stand By Me

Views: 1,659,950

Guitar Hero World Tour "Bike Hero"

Views: 1,766,225

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

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You Are Being Served

Social media is taking new forms daily.  When people create an account they forget that they can be seen by everyone that is a member of that site.  In the past people have put photos of themselves doing something stupid and ended up getting fired, divorced or sued. It’s called social media for a reason. You can display yourself and people see what your doing.

The latest use is serving court papers.  A company in Australia couldn’t reach a couple by phone, email or at their house to serve them court papers, so taking advantage of social media, they contacted the two people via their Facebook profile.  Lawyer Mark McCormack found the couple on Facebook after they had defaulted on a six-figure loan.  It’s surprising a court would allow this but since they duo had their names, dates of birth and listed each other as friends, the courts allowed it. Since it was all public information, there was no reason not to.

This is another case of social media reaching out in a new way and it reminds you that just because you can, maybe you shouldn’t. I love social media and have accounts on so many sites I can’t remember them half the time.  But I have a rule, don’t put too much of yourself out there.  When creating an account on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc., remember a few guidelines.

1.    Don’t put your full name.
2.    Don’t display your birthday, if you do, just put month and day.
3.    Don’t list your full address.

These three things aren’t just to keep the courts from serving you summons but it’s also to keep people from stealing your identity.  If these two individuals hadn’t provided so much personal information, the courts wouldn’t have agreed to the serving of the papers. 

This also marks what could become a larger trend. As more and more people are creating their second lives online, companies, governments and social groups are starting to wise up and track people down.  Companies do online background checks to see what potential hires are blogging about, sharing on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flikr, Picasa, Linkedin and more. 

Never mind the Big Brother/Orwellian overtones to the whole affair, this event shows how mainstream social media is becoming and how important it is for companies and individuals to take it serious.  Social media isn’t going anywhere.  In fact, it’s just getting started. With global economy in a slump, people are looking for new, cheaper ways to communicate and get information. 

Could we see divorce papers served on Second Life? Will you receive jury duty via twitter? Maybe track down deadbeat dads on Facebook.

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.  Don't get him started.

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I Survivied the Great Quake of '08

If you live in the southern region of Sweden called Skåne, you got a bit of a surprise this morning. The strongest earthquake in 100 years hit us with a magnitude of 4.7 on the Richter scale. Personally, I was asleep and by the time it was over I thought it was the dog scratching himself (he’s a big dog and a vicious scratcher). 

When I got up to do my morning Twitter check, I discovered two things:

1.    My boss is up by 6:30 am.
2.    I slept through an earthquake
 
I went to work and checked my Twitter feeds again. People were talking about the earthquake and the comments ranged from shock to dismay to "huh, there was an earthquake?" 

So the reaction wasn’t overwhelming (it was a pretty small earthquake) but what's interesting is that I was able to find useful news links and discover how people reacted to the quake from all over Sweden and Denmark. Within minutes of the event, people started talking about it. I didn’t have to wait for the news to report, and when they did, someone provided a link before I even had a chance to search it out.

It's no wonder that newspapers are going bankrupt.  More and more, people are turning online to keep apace of current events.  Who wants to wait for the next edition of a newspaper when you can go online and find out instantly? 

My favorite tweet is from @choirshark, ”Huh? Earthquake in Sweden? It's like 'snowstorm in the sahara'"

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

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Mumbai Terror Attacks and Twitter

The Tweet Who Cried Wolf

The news out of Mumbai, India came quick and sudden.  No one knew what was going on at first but if you were on Twitter, the reports were flooding in.  From individuals tweeting about “the horrible thing happening” to people blogging from within the Oberoi Hotel (“Mumbai terrorists are asking hotel reception for rooms of American citizens and holding them hostage on one floor,” reported one person from inside the hotel), Twitter was the front line reporting method for people all over the world.

It was used to get blood supplies to hospitals in need as well as transcribe lists of the wounded and dead that could be posted online.  Twitter may be the window that allowed people to put a human face to a travesty, but it also did damage and created even more confusion. 

Currently Hashtags.org, a site that allows you to follow conversations on Twitter via a preset code, shows 574 pages of tweets over the past 24 hours.  The chatter is just amazing.  Twitter once again shows how powerful it is in getting in on the ground floor of an event and providing in-depth coverage.  It also shows how dangerous it can be by perpetuating rumors.  It would be easy for someone to create a fake account and overwhelm a subject with false information.

With hundreds of people tweeting and re-tweeting, the information soon became redundant and when new information came in, it was treated as truth when it should have been questioned.  Rumor-mongering ran rampant with reports of the dead ranging between 100 to 1000.  Bombs exploding at the Marriott, when nothing happened there but at the Ramada next door. The number of armed men ranged wildly and pleas from the Indian government to quit using Twitter were believed to be true at first but later tracked to a high schooler in America.

The attacks in Mumbai are yet another test case on how Twitter and social media is being use to spread information.  You can already find scores of bloggers talking about how great Twitter has been in covering the event.  What doesn’t seem to be asked is what good is the information if none of it is correct or can be corroborated? Or should we trust the tweets that are coming out of a situation where anyone can say anything? 

Several social media evangelist have been praising Twitter as a new news source.  They are right for the most part.  It was used to great effect during the earthquakes in China and the forest fires in California but Twitter is a fairly unreliable news source and should be treated as such.  It’s an excellent way to find out what’s happening at the moment but just don’t believe everything you read. Temper the Twitter news with more factual reports and eventually we’ll be able to separate the truth from the fiction.

Photo Credit: By SOMINI SENGUPTA

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.  Don't get him started.

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What You Talkin' About?

After the Web 2.0 Expo was over, I joined some fellow conventioneers for beers at a little beer bar in the Alexanderplatz station.  We were chatting about many things; shoes, ships, ceiling wax, cabbages and kings (the usual stuff).  While chatting with Karin Hoegh, the subject of podcasting (a series of audio or video digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet) and how it’s being used in Europe came up. 

Let me give a little history about my experience with podcasts. I did a horror sub-genre podcast for over a year and half before moving to Sweden.  We did really well and after ending, inspired others to pick up our mantle.  I have a good number of friends back in the States that podcast.  I love podcasts and if you were to pick up my iPod Shuffle, you would find nothing but podcasts on it.

I was surprised when Karin told me she felt that podcasts are under used in Europe.  In the U.S., podcasting is huge.  Everyone with too much time and a misguided opinion appear to have a podcast.  It is one of the easiest and cheapest forms of mass communication available to the average person.  All that is required is a web hosting service (Libsyn), a microphone, a computer and some kind of audio editing software (audacity is free for the PC). 

From zombie movies to social media to planting tulips, if you have an interest, there is a podcast for you.  In iTunes, the podcasting section has a program on basically anything you can imagine.  My experience in Sweden has been most people don’t listen to podcasts and fewer are creating them.  I have to wonder why not?  What better way to create a community around a brand or subject than an easily downloadable sound file that can exisit on the Internet for pretty much forever.  My defunct podcast is still out there in the ether freely available for anyone to download even though I no longer pay to have it hosted. 

So why aren’t more people podcasting in Europe?  I feel it’s a lack of knowledge about what podcasts are and how to use them.  Podcasts tend to be based upon personal interests.  If you have a hobby or interest you’re crazy about, podcasts are a great way to share your love of a subject and get other people talking as well. 

But how can businesses use podcast to promote their products without feeling like an extended commercial?  Commercial podcasts need to provide a service.  Anyone will listen to a commercial if they feel they are getting something out of it.

If you’re a travel site, talk about different places to visit and specials you have to travel there.  If you own a restaurant, talk about cooking, recipes and events in your area.  Have an auto dealership? Talk about latest models, compare and contrast them or offer repair tips.

Imagine you’re in school taking physics and you’re having a hard time memorizing the material.  What better way to learn material than on your favorite mp3 player while you’re jogging you can listen to lectures over and over?  Or you want to visit a city and they have a podcast about different shops, locations and events taking place.  Imagine how helpful it would be to have Microsoft do a weekly podcast talking about tips and tricks with their software directly with the people developing it.

The possibilities are limitless and the cost is inexpensive.  So why don’t you have a podcast?

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.  Don't get him started.

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When moms attack

 
Johnson & Johnson’s Motrin is supposed to ease back pain. Instead, it ended up being more of a pain in the backside for J&J, after an attempt to get cute and patronising with moms backfired in the face of the healthcare giant.

The online and print campaign for Motrin, created by Taxi, New York suggested that mothers carried their babies as fashion accessories. Ooh la la, what a faux pas that was.

The campaign, which broke on the 30th of September 2008 has now been officially pulled. And it all happened over the weekend.

On Friday evening, Jessica Gottlieb an influential blogger from LA, who admits to being ‘tipped off’ about the campaign, started twittering about the campaign in a not very friendly way. Next day, Katja Presnal, a New York blogger collected tweets from upset moms, stitched together a rough video and posted it on YouTube.

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The New Face of Communication

I started using Twitter a year ago and like 99% of the people that first start using it, I thought  ”What a waste of time. Who would use this?”  This isn’t another post on the top 10 apps/widgets/tricks to make Twitter work for you.  There are hundreds of blog posts about that from people that are probably far more qualified than I to talk about it. 

If you haven’t heard of Twitter, Wikipedia defines the site as ”a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.”  I know 140 characters doesn’t seem like much can be accomplished, but it makes for more precise thought as well as random tangents depending on the user.

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Flood of Information

I was at the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin a few weeks back. Founded by TechWeb and O’Reilly Media, it brought together individuals from all over the world to discuss social media and web 2.0 applications. It was a great experience. Stowe Boyd (the man that coined the term "social tools") really brought together everything I’ve been thinking about the last months. He described today’s social media explosion as the ”Tower of Babel” where everyone is fragmented and awash in a sea of information.

Today, you can post a blog entry, have it linked on Digg, viewed on someone’s desktop through an RSS feed and so on. You can comment on it using Twitter, Facebook and scores of other sites. Each of these provide individual areas to comment on your blog without ever going back to the original post. There can be several levels of communication about your blog post that never lead back to the original material.  

The Internet has changed, as has the way we use and perceive it. You no longer go online just to look up information, find the latest news or purchase tickets to an event. Today’s Internet is interactive and conversational. Blogging seems almost antiquated compared to the instant act/react ability of sites like Twitter or ReJaw. The ability to see and be seen is amazing. 

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How to become a famous blogger

 

We didn’t do the illustrations. It was a guy called Dave Walker who speaks of himself in the royal ‘we’. Dave does cartoons and uploads them to his website. If you’re a cheapskate, that’s good news for you. Because if you have a website or a blog where you want to feature his cartoons, you can do so without forking out a dime. If you’re going to republish them anywhere else though, you’ve got to pony up. Some of his work is ideal for presentations, pitches etc., and we’re won’t charge you a finders’ fee for recommending it either.

Asif Ansari is partner and creative director at The Duffy Agency. He loves writing, technology and beer.

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How to make money with 'How To' videos

Twenty-five years after Jane Fonda put out her exercise videos, the Internet is abuzz with videos that are raking in more than just fame for their producers. They’re bringing in the bucks. Kip Kedersha is one such producer who’s laughing all the way to his online bank account. Kim’s pulled in USD 102,000 from his 93 videos he’s uploaded on Metacafe. In line with the long tail theory, everything’s selling – from how to chill a coke in 2 minutes to how to fake a gunshot wound. And in most cases, the cash register’s been ringing as a fringe benefit. Because almost all these guys have put up the videos for fun. Sites like ExpertVillage, Howcast and Metacafe are cashing in on this craze for edutainment. So is this the start of a new trend? Good question. Meanwhile, if you have a video camera, basic acting skills and a few clever ideas, you could be the next Kipkay. As for our fav video, it’s got to be How To Fake Being Sober. Enjoy.

Asif Ansari is partner and creative director at The Duffy Agency. He loves writing, technology and beer.

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