Archive for February, 2009
The Rise of the Facebook Democracy
Friday, February 27th, 2009In an effort to smooth over the terms of service policy chaos that went down earlier this month, the social networking site Facebook has adopted a new and rather democratic user voting process.
The swell of negative responses Facebook received regarding the change of its policy which stated that it had ownership of all users’ content eventually pushed the social networking site to revert back to the original version.
Then yesterday the company announced the “Facebook Principles,” which are, “a set of values that will guide the development of the service, and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities that make clear Facebook’s and users’ commitments related to the service.”
In short, Facebook will now notify users prior to making major changes in its policy among a long list of other things. Facebook is also inviting the community to review, comment and vote on the proposed Principles. You can read it all here and leave your two cents if you’d like.
Just one day into the public announcement of these new Principles and the Facebook discussion board has already been flooded with hundreds of contradicting opinions and concerned comments as well as a group membership nearing 10,000 people. Best yet, the company stated that they are going to let this online town hall forum continue for an entire thirty days.
After the thirty days, Facebook will review all comments, take them into consideration and then republish the Principles with added changes. To get an idea of posts to come, and perhaps a good warning, one Facebook user states, “…..Having people ‘vote’ on terms can only lead to havoc.”
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if all Facebook hell breaks loose or if indeed the people speak and are heard. In the meantime, wait a few more weeks before posting your Mardi Gras pics.
Google Me, Baby
Thursday, February 26th, 2009
Everyone Googles. They were doing it before Merriam-Webster made it an official verb in 2006, with its addition to the dictionary. You can bet you’ll be Googled when applying for a job, bidding for a contract or even meeting someone for a date. That’s just the way the world works in the age of advanced search.
Designer Ji Lee, in his wacky world of design, (he’s the artist/designer who started the Bubble Project) took the inevitable and turned it into an idea for a minimalist business card. Where Patrick Bateman and his Pierce & Pierce cohorts compare shades of white and raised lettering, Lee’s card screams simply: Google me.
But, what if the recipient of the card does just that? What do they find?
Online reputation management (individual and company) is reaching new heights of importance with mouse cursors hovering over the search button. Are you ready? Is your company ready?
What if we Googled you right now? What would we find?
We know what our friends, clients and competitors find when they Google Spring Creek Group. Try it and find out for yourself.
(Original article at Geeksugar, syndicated on Gizmodo. Image from Please Enjoy)
Of Being and Twitterness: Can You Solve/Create an Existential Crisis in 140 Characters?
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009No one seems to know exactly why Twitter is so popular these days. Apparently though, the Times of London found some scholars that have taken notice of it, done a little research, and formed some not too positive opinions on everyone’s favorite micro-blogging service.
In a recap and analysis of these Twitter-focused studies, the gang at Valleywag points out that one prevailing theory is that the reason people use Twitter is because their sense of “the self” is not only woefully misguided, but also sadly underdeveloped.
The general breakdown of the studies mentioned is this: “You are not truly important. You think you are, and so you use Twitter to shoot off mundane messages about your daily life that reinforce your own inflated sense of self-worth. According to these folks, staying permanently connected with others reminds you are alive, providing you with a sort of “baby monitor” for your own existence. They don’t think this is a good thing.
So is using Twitter just a way for users to placate their egos? Or a way for us to commiserate with Ashton Kutcher about noisy neighbors? Or is the interaction provided by Twitter similar to most other interactions that people already have on a daily basis?
Did you go to Zoodango?
Friday, February 20th, 2009Well if you did, you did not see the Bachelor. Okay, maybe you did if you were able to stay into the late night hours – but we have to get up early and be productive here at Spring Creek Group.
That’s okay though, because fortunately we were still able to have a good time as we always enjoy eating, drinking and socializing – especially when it’s for a good cause. The launch party was attended by many local celebs and benefited the United Way.
It was quite the scene at the Ibiza Dinner Club – red carpet, photographers and a camera crew, which kept us all on our best behavior and looking quite smashing I must add. In addition to promoting the new local geo-search engine founded by James Sun (the guy from The Apprentice), the event also encouraged young people to get out and volunteer for charitable organizations like the United Way.
And of course, what’s a launch party/charity event without raffle drawings. In fact one of our own walked away with a pretty cool door prize – She won an authentic helmet signed by former Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren and a SeaGals calendar – which was later confiscated by one of our male employees.
To learn more about Zoodango check out zoodango.com. To learn more about volunteering visit The United Way.
Caution: Wetpaint
Thursday, February 19th, 2009Usually when you think of the words “wet” and paint” you’re thinking of steering clear of whatever those words are talking about, right? Well, someone needs to tell that to the 8 million monthly visitors over at Wetpaint.com.
The wiki platform provider is expanding their offerings and seeing the benefits. Wetpaint users around the globe can now include videos and the all-important embeddable widgets in their wikis.
While wikis have been around on the internal side of things for some time now, the creation of outward-facing wikis that breed collaborative cultures are changing the way groups interact with their publics – whether they are car clubs, movies, or even sports teams.
Not quite sure what a wiki is? Check out the Common Craft video that spells (and acts) it out in plain English here.
Hey, We Can Quit Anytime We Want To.
Thursday, February 12th, 2009Let’s get this straight. We would never, ever advocate that you use this. Spring Creek Group is in no way suggesting that you even think about doing anything that would keep you from religiously accessing social media sites throughout your work day.
However, we do just like the fact that sites like keepmeout.com exist. “Hey, if you’re addicted to visiting a certain site, then just visit this site and it will prevent you from going to those other sites.” Get yourself off the website sauce by using other websites to do it.
We have a sneaking suspicion that if that above premise was somehow any more meta, the entire Internet would implode.
Happy Birthday, Facebook… Now, Change the World
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
Happy birthday, Facebook.
If you were a human you’d be in half-day kindergarten, still taking scheduled naps. You’d have 5 friends who consist of your two neighbors, a weird kid that you met on the bus your first day and your two older brothers who made you eat dirt. The only thing expected of you would be that you tie you shoes (sometimes) and can go to the restroom by yourself at the supermarket. You’d be blowing out the candles on a huge cake with your friend and family around, wishing for that Nintendo DS.
But you’re not a human; you’re a super-charged juggernaut of a social networking site born from the womb of an Ivy League institution. Your friends number in the millions, or 150 million active users to be almost exact. Every day more and more is expected of you as those millions of friends share their life stories on your pages (but still expect increasing security). So, instead of blowing out five glowing candles, you get to listen to every self-proclaimed social media expert pick apart the last five years of your existence and plot your eventual demise.
Look how cute you were: http://web.archive.org/web/20040212031928/http://www.thefacebook.com/.
What will we ask of you next? I’m sure we’ll think of something.
Bad Karma for a fake Dalai Lama
Monday, February 9th, 2009Over the course of just one weekend the Dalai Lama created a Twitter account, gained nearly 20,000 followers, made multiple tweets and the story was picked up by dozens of accredited publications reporting the news of His Holiness tweeting under the alias @OHHDL (The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama). However, this enlightening account can no longer be found.
Apparently, this top Twitter success has been confirmed as being a hoax and now those who attempt to follow His Holiness will simply see “That page doesn’t exist anymore!” and next to all previous stories you will see an italicized “update” letting readers know about the fake Dalai Lama and his exile from Twitter.
There is talk that Twitter is working to get the real Dalai Lama set up with an account as it’s obvious he is quite popular among Twitterers. With about 20,000 followers in a 48 hour span, the fake Dalai Lama was one of the fastest growing accounts that Twitter has ever seen. Imagine what the real one could do.
As much fun as it is knowing what your co-worker ate for lunch or your friend’s most recent table tennis score, it could be a nice change of pace to have some inspirational and zenful tweets from His Holiness the Dalai Lama mixed in the bunch.
Here is the real story about the fake Dalai Lama: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iPC3EetHJJfkiyc-t8HxO8xziFcQ
Our Place in the World of Social Media Marketing
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009“All media will eventually be considered social media,” writes Joe Marchese in his latest Media Post article. We certainly hope so— but if that’s the case, we’re going to need to get a bigger office. A large portion of the article is spent exploring the pros and cons of having particular styles of agencies become the overall Agency of Record for companies’ future social media needs. Being an independent agency that focuses on social media, we of course took particular interest in the section that made the case for those independent agencies.
Agencies like ours are able to take a sort of “all-star” approach which lets us adjust accordingly as our clients’ needs change and grow. Working in social media almost seems to demand the flexibility that our particular focus and structure provides.
All of the fields Joe mentioned have something different to contribute to a social media-oriented approach to marketing, and we fully understand their distinct and important qualities. We’ve worked hard to build a team full of individuals with varying skill sets culled from these different and traditional fields, and found that this is an effective way to cover one’s social media bases.
By operating from the center of the social media web and being able to pick and choosing from the different aspects of each of these fields as they’re needed, we’re prepared to deal with whatever comes next.
Who Really Won the Big (Marketing) Game?
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009According to Reprise Media, who just released their 5th annual Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard, there were a few ads that not only kept everyone entertained, but also seamlessly integrated themselves with online search marketing and social media.
One of the best in Reprise’s eyes was Cash4Gold.com, who used the universal appeal of Ed McMahon and MC Hammer’s golden parachute pants (as well as prominently featured URL’s) to drive searches to a corporate blog that featured imbedded YouTube videos for users to check out. Pepsi’s adoption of some well-known NBC characters in some of their spots, as well as their integration of Hulu.com and YouTube in others, was also deemed a success. E-Trade.com’s release of “viral video outtakes” through various social media channels prior to the actual airing of their ad did wonders to drum up interest and excitement in the spot.
While we agree for the most part with Reprise Media’s assessment of winners and losers, we’d like to nominate one more campaign to the list of effective and social media friendly Super Bowl advertisements.
