ferris_bueller_i’ve said it before & i’ll say it again: life move’s pretty fast. you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.08 May 2010 from web
In support of World AIDS Day, Twitter and Facebook have gone (RED) for the day.
Facebook is running a campaign at facebook.com/joinred, where you can share the (RED) video, change your profile pic to a (RED) photo to support AIDS awareness, or shop (RED) products.
Twitter’s support is much more pervasive across the site, which is respectable. They replaced their usual homepage design with (RED) galore, including a red ribbon of text that implores users to “turn Twitter (RED)”. But how do we do that? Well, it says we can “follow @JoinRED to find out”! After visiting @JoinRED, I realized that there are three main ways to “turn Twitter red”:
1.) Use the hashtag #red 2.) Use the hashtag #laceupsavelives 3.) Turn tweets the color red
Above: If you use the hastags #red or #laceupsavelives, or tweet the word “red” your tweets turn red
While visiting Artichoke Pizza this week, I noticed that they have really poured on the Twitter advertising since the last time I’ve been there. There was a beat-up white board outside the pizza shop, advertising their 32 ounce Bud beers (to stay or go – not quite sure if that’s actually legal…) along with their Twitter account, @ArtichokePizza. Inside, they had multiple pizza boxes imploring pizza-hungry customers to follow them on Twitter.
Well, I must say that it worked on me! I pulled out my phone, looked them up on Twitter and followed them on the spot! I wonder if they’re now taking orders by tweet!
As winners of the contest, Daniel and I attended the John Caples Awards, were offered internships at Alloy Media + Marketing to further the Spin the Pen campaign, and received a lump-sum of $5,000 to split among ourselves and those who helped out, JC, Xero, and our cameraman, Josh. Great prizes, right?!
Unfortunately, I was unable to take the internship, but Daniel did a great job there. He continued the Spin the Pen campaign, but focused on the Pentel RSVP, a pen that many pen spinners consider to be the best pen to get started spinning with. I think that was a great move, as many spinners kept telling us that the Recycology products were too light and had too many protruding functions to spin.
His new campaign is called “Spin It to Win It“. The main video is shown above. Check out the website for a tutorial, an introduction to Xero (the featured spinner), and more. You can even upload your video for a chance to win $500! Here’s Xero’s entry:
My congratulations go out to Daniel and Xero! Great site, videos and campaign!!!
Twitter launched their new homepage today, which focuses on searching and Trending Topics. The search bar implores of visitors to “See what people are saying about…”. Below the search bar, a cloud of the most popular topics being talked about on Twitter is featured. Oddly, there is a phrase that says “Most popular topics by the minute, day and week”… however, I’m not sure how to narrow them down by those time frames.
Yesterday, Chloe Sladden, director of media partnerships at Twitter, gave a lecture on the future of Twitter. One of the upcoming changes she mentioned was a new homepage that focuses on searching the content of the site. Well, I didn’t see it coming so soon! Congrats, Twitter!
Twitter just launched their Twitter 101 Guide for Business. To accompany the new subdomain http://business.twitter.com, the guide is a quick way to get your business up and running on the fastest-growing social network out there. So, give it a shot!
On a monthly basis, my marketing mentor, Kriti, hosts Idea-phile parties. During these parties, she takes us through a free-flowing process that facilitates idea-creation. Must admit, it’s pretty amazing.
Along with idea-facilitating activities, she also brings quality snack foods from Kraft (her previous employer) and PepsiCo (her current employer). Most exciting, these snacks are from all around the world!
From Nicaraguan Tang to Chinese Cheetos, I’m always amazed with the variety of snacks. This time, however, I was moved to blog about two particular snacks: Cheetos Horneados and Zipfizz energy drink mix.
First up: Cheetos Horneados… what’s going on with this packaging design? These chips are from Chile. Upon seeing the packaging, the Idea-phile party attendees assumed that the food inside must either be “nuts” or “spicy”. It certainly must be that eating these Cheetos is dangerous and/or harmful, at least for the male population.
(Turns out Cheetohs Horneados are just regular, cheesy Cheetos shaped like tennis balls and rackets. Interesting right?)
(At first, Zipfizz seems harmless. But take a look at the nutrition facts…)
(41,667% the daily recommended dose of Vitamin B12??? Is that lethal??? Note: Zipfizz is neither a Kraft nor PepsiCo product. It was used for competitive analysis!)
I love you, Kriti, but some of your snack foods are a bit freaky!
Apparently, on Tuesday evening, more than 300 confidential Twitter documents and screenshots were sent to TechCrunch. Skimming through the article, I can’t help but think the following:
1.) How can Twitter be so rude to P. Diddy? (@iamdiddy)
2.) Is this really a strategy? And was it written by 10-year-olds? But, then, on the other hand, I’m thinking that Twitter must have a really youthful culture to use such juvenile language in official strategy meetings. Some examples include:
– Google would kick our ass at finding the good tweet.
– Twitter should tell me stuff without me searching for that.
– Getting into bed with Microsoft / Why did we start talking to Microsoft in the first place?
– We can give people stuff for free but not forever.
3.) Wow. I wonder how the folks at Twitter conned TechCrunch to not publish all 300 confidential documents that were sent to them.
If you haven’t skimmed through (or completely devoured) the article yet, please do so now! It’s hilarious and a bit enlightening at the same time.
Above: My friends, Maria and Andrew, at Tiananmen in 2006
Anticipating the 20th Anniversary of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, the GFW (Great FireWall) of China has struck again! For those of you who have never heard of GFW, it’s a method by which the Chinese government censors out anything that they don’t approve of. For example, if you look up “Tiananmen Square” on Google in the U.S., you’d see a mix of photos, some of which include photos from the June 4, 1989 uprising. However, if you look up “Tiananmen Square” on Google in China, you see smiling pictures of tourists in front of Tiananmen and pictures of local restaurants. Big difference right?
This time, GFW is taking a ton of sites with it, including popular social networking sites, like Twitter, Xiaonei, Blogspot and Flickr.
To get a sense of just how many sites GFW is censoring, take a look at this Google Doc that includes an extensive list of sites that are currently being blocked in China. Check out the document here.
There have been a lot more stories that I wanted to aggregate here for you, as well:
I wish I could be in Tiananmen to check out what was going on right now. For anyone there, please comment below and tell us the latest news on what’s going on in Beijing!
I’m completely obsessed with collaborative consumption, the social economy – call it what you will, it’s awesome. Here are my thoughts on the amazingness that we call peer-to-peer marketplaces.
Morgan Johnston, Manager Corporate Communications at JetBlue, shared the company’s public 600-word “Blog and Social Networking Policy” with me. Take a look.
About Me
Welcome to my blog! I’m Erica Swallow, tech journalist and director of community at Contently. This blog is a collection of stories that I find intriguing. A lot of my posts center around my interests — the Internet, food, wine, free stuff and events. If you have any questions or would like me to cover a particular topic, email me at ericaswallow[at]gmail[dot]com.
RT @ronlieber: Airbnb host found guilty of violating NYC code & company will start warning many hosts much more aggressively. http://t.co/R…17 hours ago
@ilyamarritz Hey there! Wanted to email you about your @airbnb story, so sent it to the newsroom address. Hope you get it! 17 hours ago
