Obama Girl Could Take the White House

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When Ben Relles created Barely Political and hired Amber Lee Ettinger to play the role of Obama Girl, it was little more than a fun little one-off that no one thought would rise to the level of popularity it did. Month after month, Obama Girl videos appeared and month after month, Obama, himself, kept winning primaries moving closer and closer to a potential seat in the White House as out next President.

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by Steve Hall    Jun-10-08    
Topic: Opinion, Political, Social, Trends and Culture



ZobZee to Kill FriendFeed, Put Twitter Out of Misery

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Apparently in the works for over six months, ZobZee promises to be the the killer social app which will put Twitter out of its misery and lend some order to the insanity that is FriendFeed. ZobZee's premise? Why type when you can just think your social inanities and have them automatically shared with the world?

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by Steve Hall    Jun- 9-08    
Topic: Social, Spoofs



HappySlip Gets Brand Serious, Takes Stance Against MySpace

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Video blogebrity HappySlip has deleted her MySpace profile, including over 34,000 friends, because AdSense repeatedly populated her page with ads soliciting Filipina women.

Women are among the Philippines' most profitable exports. If you plan to do heavy Filipino-oriented blogging, expect to see a few shady sites in surrounding AdSense boxes.

See more ads here. Sponsored messages for girl-peddling sites also appeared prominently during HappySlip's Philippine tourism promotion.

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by Angela Natividad    Jun- 8-08    
Topic: Brands, Online, Social



Deep Focus CEO Auctions Off Experimental Twitter Sponsorship

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Deep Focus CEO and avid Twitter user Ian Schafer is, as an experiment, auctioning off sponsorship of his Twitter profile and feed. The sponsorship will consist of a branded background image and the replacement of his icon with an image of the brand's choice.

Shafer has set the starting bid at $400. Let's do some math. $400 for one month. Schafer has 377 followers. He tweets 8-10 times per day. If we assume those days to be weekdays, that's about 200 tweets per month (10 tweets X 20 days). Using old-school metrics, the sponsorship will deliver 3,770 impression per day or 75,400 per month. Matching that to the $400 cost nets a CPM of $5.31.

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by Steve Hall    May-28-08    
Topic: Good, Online, Social



Facebook's a Whack Ass Marketing Tool, Find Me on MySpace

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This is too perfect not to share. Four years ago, I was peer pressured into joining Facebook. Now, I'm totally hooked but immediately following graduation, I was sent the following group invite from a classmate:

Group Name: peace out facebook

Group Description: "Well I am all grown up and graduated and I think it is time to leave this whack ass marketing tool behind me. I will be a slave no longer. In a day or two once I collect any pictures or correspondence off my account I might be wanting I will be leaving Facebook behind forever. So say your goodbyes!"

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by Amanda Mooney    May-23-08    
Topic: Online, Social



Spend A Million on Social Media With Measurable ROI? Yes, Indeed

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Writing on his blog, PR Squared, SHIFT Communications Principal, Todd Defren, in reaction to a comment Rohit Bhargava made during a panel at NewComm Forum, explains what he'd do if he had a million dollars to spend on a campaign heavily focused on social media.

While Rohit expressed concern over the ability to affix ROI metrics to a social media campaign (in comments, Rohit clarifies the concern was for the ability to scale, not the ability to measure), Todd argues measurements can be made and outlined a few tactics he might employ were he to be handed a million to spend.

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by Steve Hall    May-21-08    
Topic: Social, Tools



For A Good Time, Visit PickupPal

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Back in the day, if you wanted a ride home from college for the holidays, you'd slap up your request up on a bulletin board somewhere around campus or check that same billboard for those already heading in your direction. That's "so yesterday" as one Disney pop starlet used to sing. Now, we have Web2.0-friendly PickupPal.

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by Steve Hall    May-19-08    
Topic: Online, Social, Strange



Microsoft to Close Web With Yahoo Search, Facebook?

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Who can keep up with this insanity? Since Ballmer couldn't have his way with Yahoo, he's now going at it from a different angle allegedly discussing with Yahoo a partnership or acquisition of Yahoo Search. John Furrier also seems to think Microsoft will scoop up the rest of Facebook as well.

While nothing, of course, is clear and won't be until if and when any deal is penned, Microsoft taking over Facebook is a scary thought. Robert Scoble makes the argument a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo Search and Facebook would lead to a closed web over which Microsoft would have complete control while Google would be locked out leaving "data and social graph portability ... dead on arrival."

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by Steve Hall    May-19-08    
Topic: Brands, Online, Social



Social Hotties Endorse Their Favorite Brands

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Well OK. So now when you troll MySpace, Facebook or whatever your favorite daily social diversion may be, you can view, yes, even more ads courtesy of SocialVibe, a service that lets people choose brands they wish to endorse with a widget they can embed on their profile pages or blogs.

For example, Nicole Lynn's cleavage endorses...oops, I mean Nicole Lynn endorses Adobe. By displaying the SocialVibe badge on profile pages, people get points they can use to donate to charities as well as the chance to win trips, gadgets and entry to events.

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by Steve Hall    May-15-08    
Topic: Cause, Social



Numa Numa Dude Blocks iJustine From Chat

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You know her from that iPhone bill video. You love her for all the weirdly wacky videos she's made since. Justine Ezarik a.k.a iJustine, famous for, well, being internet famous, in another weirdly wacky video takes on, Gary Brolsma a.k.a. Numa Numa for booting her out of a chat room.

Apparently, Gary didn't like what Justine had to say in the chat room so she was slapped with the message "ijustine was blocked from the chat for inappropriate behavior." Ouch.

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by Steve Hall    May-12-08    
Topic: Games, Social, Strange, Video