Adrants Has Been On Twitter For, Like, EVAR! Follow Us!

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So like yea. Angela and I have been on Twitter forever and we love it. We find news. We find insight. We share ideas. We offer opinion. We discuss advertising stuff. We find out who's saying what at conference before anyone else does. And we hang with the AdWeek crew. (We'd happily hang with the Ad Age crew if they were actually on Twitter.)

So follow us. Yes, follow us and find out just what the hell Angela and I do all day long. Angela's at @luckthelady and I'm at @stevehall.

Oh, and if you just want Adrants headlines via Twitter, follow @adrants.

by Steve Hall    Jun-17-08    
Topic: Announcements, Social



Verizon's Twittering Teddy Reads Tweets

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So if you're Verizon FiOS, what do you do to take advantage of the tools that have made media social? You create Twittering Teddy, of course. Twittering Teddy, cobbled together by My Home 2.0 Techno-Gurus, is an animatronic teddy bear that speaks people's Twitter streams through a live Ustream feed. You can friend Teddy on Twitter and here him speak your tweets as well as the tweets of your friends.

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by Steve Hall    Jun-17-08    
Topic: Social



Those Cell Phone Popcorn Videos? Marketer-Created Of Course

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Those videos with cell phones popping corn have been floating around since May 28 and have garnered much discussion surrounding their validity. While cell phones can fry your head and reportedly cause cancer, they don't pop corn. They can, however, take on a starring role in a series of videos for Bluetooth headset maker Cardo Systems.

On the YouTube page where Cardo posted its reveal, the marketer writes, "More than 4 million people have watched our little videos since May 28, 2008. We are very happy to have made this contribution to an important international public debate."

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by Steve Hall    Jun-14-08    
Topic: Campaigns, Opinion, Social, Video, Viral, Word of Mouth



Facebook Profiles (And Their Friends) Auctioned on eBay

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It's unclear whether or not this is a joke but someone has placed ten Facebook profiles for sale on eBaby. The profiles, created by the same person but reflective of ten different types of people, are said to each have a minimum of 200 friends. Each profile was then actively integrated into the Facebook community through forums, events, networks, groups and all the other spider legs Facebook has to offer.

The seller is offering control of these profiles to marketers, writing, "Under the right conditions and for a fair price you will receive full control of these personas, as well as associated emails."

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by Steve Hall    Jun-12-08    
Topic: Social, Strange, Worst



Life Changing Box For Sharp Aquos TV?

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The promise of the extraordinary. The surprise of something new. The power to bring change. It's... It's... It's... Life Changing Box, a Lowe-created site and Facebook game that involves a box, co-ordinated game play and prizes. Beginning today and running for a month, no one's saying who it's for right now so, if you care, you're just going to have to play the game and wait.

It's all fairly intricate but here are some overview points from the release:

  • There are 10 boxes total in the game
  • To gain possession of a box, users use a currency called a Touch
  • All players get 24 "Touches" per day
  • Each Touch enters the player into a Round
  • At the beginning of each Round, the box will randomly jump to one of the players who entered that Round
  • The player given the box holds it for the entirety of the Round, which lasts between 30 minutes and 8 hours, randomly decided by the application
  • If the box doesn't open in a Round for the player, a new Round will begin and everyone must Touch the box again to participate
  • 20 prizes will be awarded with values ranging from $400 to $14,000
  • If you invite a friend to the application and they win, you win a duplicate prize

Let's hope it is actually life changing and not some lame promotion for some lame brand. All the details are here, the box is here and the game is here.

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by Steve Hall    Jun-12-08    
Topic: Creative Commentary, Games, Online, Social



OMG! Cat Rescues Steve Hall! And Mike is Hard!

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What? What? What? Universal Motown just did this yesterday for Ashanti and now Mike's Hard Hard Lemonade? Please. Make it stop! While it is kind of fun to see your own image (even if it is an old, crappy one) affixed to a faux news story under the guise of a marketing promotion, these things are getting tiresome.

Of course, they're only getting tiresome to those of us who write about this stuff 24/7. Perhaps "normal" people actually like this stuff. Ya now, it's the "Ooo, Ooo. Look ! I'm on TV!" Yea. It's for all those idiots that stand outside the GMA studio in the morning waving like lunatics to the camera. Yea. This is for those people. And, since there seems to be a lot more of those wackos out there than us more refine advertising types, it's clear this personalized, faux news report thing has legs. Nice ones.

by Steve Hall    Jun-11-08    
Topic: Social, Strange, Video



Twitter Tells Users It Can't Take the Pressure

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Yesterday, in preparation for all of the live WWDC tweeting action, Twitter encouraged users to follow WWDC, Apple, iPhone and Steve Jobs related tweets on Summize. It made sense to do so considering the trouble Twitter's had recently just trying to handle the ordinary amount of tweeting on its site.

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by Amanda Mooney    Jun-10-08    
Topic: Social



Ashanti Copies Dexter With News Story Murder Ploy

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Showtime did it to promote Dexter. Now Universal Motown is doing it to promote Ashanti's new CD. Like the Dexter promotion, which allowed people to send customized messages that appeared to be news reports of the recipient's death by serial murder.

In the Ashanti promotion, a customized news report can be created and sent to a friend. In the report, it's noted recent murders are linked to Ashanti's new single, "The Way That I Love You," which is about how a woman gets revenge on a cheating boyfriend

Yawn. Oh, sorry. There's nothing to yawn about Ashanti. Sorry.

by Steve Hall    Jun-10-08    
Topic: Guerilla, Online, Social



Photrade Adds Commerce to Social Photography Scene

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Photrade, a free photography website, has launched in beta. With a host of features, Photrade, adds a level of commerce to what sites like Flickr provide. All the Flickr-like features are in abundance on Photrade but layered on top are tools which allow photographers to "share, protect and make money" from their uploaded photography.

Like a mashup between a social photography site and a stock photography site, Photrade helps photographers and those in need of photography do business together. On top of that, an advertising system allows photographers to make money anytime their photos are viewed.

Perhaps it's the Web 2.0 version of a stock photography house.

by Steve Hall    Jun-10-08    
Topic: Social, Tools



Coke Tags Social Media With Coke Tag

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Working with The Advance Guard and Linkstorm. Coke has launched Coke Tags, a widget and Facebook application, currently in beta, which lets people aggregate various forms of content and share it by placing the widget on their Facebook page, blog and OpenSocial social networking sites.

The Coke Tag, apart from the obvious promotion of Coke is also promoting we8, "an artistic and cultural exchange, uniting eight of China's most exciting artists and design firms with eight of the West's most progressive musicians to design a vision and soundtrack that celebrates the infinite possibilities that await when the doors are flung open between East and West."

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by Steve Hall    Jun-10-08    
Topic: Social