Facebook Timeline debuts at f8 2011

Gadhafi mistakenly discloses whereabouts by checking into Foursquare

Seems social media nearly did what NATO and Libyan rebels have been unable to do: Locate Colonel Gadhafi.

On the lam since rebel forces invaded and destroyed his Tripoli stronghold, the Libyan leader apparently couldn't resist the allure of one his favorite cafes despite the $1.6 million price tag on his head.

How do we know? He checked into Abiya, a local seafood restaurant, on foursquare.

For those of you that haven't heard, Foursquare is the location-based social networking app that lets users "check-in" at venues to earn points and sometimes "badges."

A small band of rebels descended on the establishment minutes after the post, but the Libyan leader was nowhere to be found. It is presumed Gadhafi realized the gaffe and quickly left the scene.

Despite the missed opportunity, one bounty hunter remained optimistic. "Well, he's just two check-ins from gaining Mayor status - mayors get 50% off any entree. He'll be back soon."

Maybe for his last meal.

Serendipity? There's an app for that.

A new app is on its way that will automatically and permanently delete your text messages from the sender's phone, the receiver's phone and the server, making it impossible to retrieve.

What would one call this novel feature? Why not TigerTexts.

That's right. Developers at X Sigma Partners insist that their latest creation was named long before Tiger Woods' text message booty calls unraveled his marriage and career. Really? Please go on.

Co-founder Jeffrey Evans points to such inspiration for the name as the app was launched in the Lunar Year of the Tiger. He goes on to say, "Tigers are notoriously difficult animals to track; TigerTexts are difficult to track as well. So if you send a private text message it should stay private."

Well, we're convinced. Oh, what's that? You have more, Mr. Evans.

Furthermore, a series of tiger paw prints are left in place of the deleted message in a conversation thread.

See, albeit a bit suspicious on the user end of things - those paws could give pause - there's no way that piece of code could have been created between the Woods' scandal and the TigerText release.

Sounds more to us like X Sigma is just doing a smart job covering their tracks on a brilliant piece of naming.

It's just nice to be recognized

In the wake of our recent Addy award-winning work, we would like to share this flattering piece from Sweden. Guess word gets around.



Click here for the big screen effect.

We dat.

A little social media experiment. Awesome if it works. If not, don't cost nothin'.
See previous cool Colts ideas here.

Nestle didn't phone this one in

Congratulations to Nestle for taking one of its most important consumer touchpoints and actually making it entertaining for the consumer by creatively crafting their new 800 hotline. Usually, this number is only used by moms with a dire chocolate emergency, but thanks to some Quick thinking, Nestle has cleverly turned it into a source of amusement that, with the help of Facebook and Twitter, people are finding and embracing.

It's sort of like the notion that it's best to meet your neighbors early on when things are good, rather than wait until their dog/children/music/hygiene has become a nuisance.

Here's the Facebook post:

Call the Nestle Crunch Hotline at 1-800-295-0051. When you are asked if you
want to continue in English or Spanish, WAIT QUIETLY for about 7 seconds and
you will smile. Promise! Keep going and press 4. Listen to the
options...then press 7.

We won't give away the gag, but it is worthwhile. And a good reminder of how social media can magnify even the smallest thing a brand can do.

Giving WTF a bad name

The Wisconsin Tourism Federation is fed up. It appears the Web has destroyed the innocent meaning of its abbreviation. In fact, the blogosphere has teased the WTF in such a WTF! fashion that last week the organization took action. Henceforth and forthwith, the Badger State will be the home of the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin. The group cited the need to "rearrange the words in our name to provide a sequence that would no longer distract from our long-standing mission." TFS, TFW.

On the other side of the coin, the World Taekwondo Federation is steadfast, seemingly begging people to make fun of them in an effort to keep up on their skills.

In related news, the Lower Montana Area Orchestra, the Hungarian United Youth Association and Forwarding Metropolitan Librarians were all unavailable for comment.

Is your spot hot?

While it's always popular to look for what's next, it behooves most of us to better understand what's already out there. As social media's analytical tools are more finely tuned, old stand-bys prove their worth.

Take YouTube, for example, the Elvis of social media. A true original, perhaps surpassed numerically by Twitter (social media's New Kids on the Block) among others, but still the King. And why? Because of simple insightful tools like Hot Spot.

After your video gets enough views, YouTube can show you how hot your spot is compared to other videos of similar length. Do viewers watch the whole thing? Do they replay certain parts? Do they run from your yawnfest? All can be deduced with this simple tool.


The people have spoken: Peeling out in a Mustang rules. See our hot spot.

It's a great reason to always put your commercial on YouTube (doesn't look like Vimeo has anything like it yet). You can look at what's working, what's not and, budget-willing, make some strategic tweaks to what's online and on-air to make it better the next time. Or at the very least, put that magic in a bottle and the mistakes on the shelf for your next broadcast endeavor.

As Mr. Blutarsky once said, "Don't cost nothin'."

Do you understand the words coming out of our mouths?

We usually get a few hits a day from outside the U.S. (unless Tony writes an article - then we get a couple hundred).

So, inspired by American ambassador Chris Tucker's eloquent attempt to build the lines of communication across cultures, we have added a translator to our Play section on the left-hand side. It even works if you just want to see what 'Owl Power' is in Dutch.

Are you ready for some moonwalk?

Just thought we'd share our submission to EternalMoonwalk.com. Ingenious tribute site. If you go there, search 'Hendrix Rader Wise' to see the clip in context.

Eternal Moonwalk of the spotless mind

Group 94 and Mortierbrigade have created the Eternal Moonwalk for Studio Brussels - a spot-on tribute to Michael Jackson complete with virtual tape measure.




Using a simple video-extending concept similar to soccer juggling videos from Nike and JogaTV, these bad-ass Belgians have made it super easy to add your take on the coolest dance move this side of, well, the moon.

Don't have the moonwalk down? Take your refresher course here.

UPDATE: Make your own MJ playlist off Grooveshark, get some Caffeine and you've got a sweet party backdrop.

Some fine Twitter trashing

How do you mock over-the-top hype? With an over-the-top announcer. Leave it to Conan to supply a straightforward bit to strike at this trend du jour. Proving that for every Iranian election there are a million-fold tweets about getting your morning coffee.


Click the image to go to the YouTube video.

Read our take on using Twitter in a relevant way and stay out of Conan's cross-hairs.

Socialized medicine that's easy to swallow

As people-turned-patients turn to the web for advice and insight on their conditions, their treatments and their doctors, support group sites that people can trust to be current and serving their best interests have popped up and thrived.

Much has been written lately on the collective wisdom gained from these social networks. And brands who can harness this kind of inimitable research and condition-treatment-side effects analysis will be in the best position to offer patients and physicians the tools, motivation and support they are looking for to improve their lives and reduce their challenges and frustration.

Certainly there are plenty of also-rans and pretenders in this category. But we've highlighted four of the best health-specific social networking sites that have been a part of the solution for years and, because of it, have built a following no self-serving brand could hope to attain. But by being a part of these types of communities as a knowledgeable expert, commenter and contributor, healthcare brands can listen, learn and leverage what their audiences are really saying.
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Patients Like Me
A beautifully simple concept with a name ripped right from the vernacular, this site gives people the opportunity to share experiences on their treatments, symptoms and research.

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Wego Health
This community "empowers health activists to help others," bringing the leading online minds together to share ideas and findings, while maximizing their reach to the patients and doctors they want to help.

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I'm Too Young For This
Here you'll find all the attitude you'd hope for in a site driven by young adults (and the young at heart) unyielding in their fight against cancer.

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Diabetes Mine
As it says in the description: "Here you'll find 4 years' worth of info on every imaginable aspect of living with diabetes — from food scales to pharma news and book reviews, to the exasperating things other people say." web articles

Unraveling the Twitter riddle

Twitter me this, twitter me that: How should brands approach this peculiar app? With the networks and the news media making a mountain out of a bird's nest, it's quite easy to forget that the magic of Twitter is real-time conversation tracking. So rather than regurgitate the rhetoric, we hoped to give you our original take on the mood ring of the new millenium.

Social media is a party. Your job is to bring the ice.

Few brands can pull off being the cool parents who have the house with the pool where the kids like to hang out, let alone the hip online friend. So don't crash the party. Just pop in with snacks, make sure everyone's having a good time and maybe they might let you be in charge of the music after awhile. Don't try to make this social platform about you; make it about your customers' benefiting from you listening.

Unconvinced? OK, imagine you're Joe Tweet. One day, you mention that your furnace is conking out on you. How cool would it be to get a tweet back with a link to say, oh, Carrier's dealer locator and offer of a free system upgrade if you go with a Factory Authorized Dealer? The brand wouldn't have to follow that person. That might be creepy. And unnecessary - all Joe would have to do is mention "carrier" or "furnace" again and like Batman's beacon in the sky, the Big C could swoop in and save the day.

Our personal eureka! The purchase decision doesn't get more transparent than this.

Don't value statistics over psychology.

Statistics seem to be the overwhelming motivation for marketers to care about social media. But in our locust-like lust to insatiably amass followers, friends and traffic hits, the social aspect of social media is lost. Yes, demos and stats and numbers are good, but with Twitter, you really can see what people want/need, love/hate at precise moments, and with the right matches, you can change a perception or even convert a sale on the spot.

If you come at it with the mindset that you are here to solve problems, the ROI data will naturally follow.

It's a micro-blog, so micro-connect.

The one thing that Twitter has reinforced is people don't care about you or your product. They care about themselves and how your product affects them. It's what the whole micro-blog is based on - an individual feels something is so important that they have to pull out their phone and text it to the world. And that's the point. Whether it's mundane, insightful, curious or matter-of-fact, each tweet gives us a glimpse into what a person is thinking right then and there and to some degree what a person values.

Let's say someone tweets about picking their Mom up at the airport. Big friggin' deal, you say. Well, if the flower shop in that airport was paying attention, it could send that person a coupon to pick up some flowers to welcome her Mom home. Proving again that one man's online trash is another one's treasure.

Now how does said airport flower shop discover this tidbit in a sea of a million billion tweets? Tweetbeep - one of the many hidden gems in the world of Tw________ tools. It works like Google alerts except for Twitter, so you don't have to be paying attention to be listening (or is that the other way around?).

Tools like Tweetbeep, Twitturly (tracks URLs people mention) and TweetMeme (tracks the hottest stories), all build off the holy grail behind all this madness - Twitter Search. See, it's one thing to amass a following, but hone your listening skills and see the greatest benefits. By being a fly on the wall, you can find out what people are saying about your product and reward the positive comments with super-exclusive deals and mend the negative experiences with direct responses right as they are happening.

You can also take the pulse of a given metro area. So if you are looking to pick up slumping sales in Wichita, Kansas or Warsaw, Poland, use the advanced search with the city and you'll get just what you're looking for and then some.

Give your followers a reason to follow.

Twitter is useful to brands as a customer service tool, as a way to offer ultra-limited time only deals and pop-up events exclusive to followers and as a keep passionate fans updated on scheduled promotions and events.

Consider creating a separate account for scheduled events, so participants don't have to wade through the clutter to get what they want. Then, dispose of the account (after you capture all of that data, of course).

Give a hoot, don't pollute.

With everyone trying to demonstrate how green they are, let's not forget to conserve and be good stewards of our virtual spaces as well. There's enough Twitter litter already. If you're doing more than dabbling in any social media, make sure you have a clear plan with objectives, so you can earnestly see what's working, what's not and how you can get the most out of your micro-presence.

We recently read somewhere that a pharmaceutical company was automatically sending out a message regarding their pain medicine to anyone mentioning they have a headache. Now this is pollution, plain and simple because ‘headache’ is used so much as an idiom. But what if they took the same approach, except using a more targeted keyword like ‘migraine’ - something whose meaning cannot be misinterpreted and that might result in relieving a real and immediate pain. Although not casting as wide of a net, it would certainly target people who were crying out for help, not just noting their caffeine withdrawal.

Tag your tweets.

As is convention on Twitter, tweets are tagged with keywords so anyone could search for the keyword and read the stream of posts. These hashtags (#tag) are a very easy way to track fans or encourage people to participate in a promotion. For example, #bigmac for a BOGO burger from Mickey D's. And you can do it all without interrupting.

So after all this, what's the answer? Be a part of the conversation. Just don't think you have to lead it. web articles

@hrwideas to be last with 1 million followers

In this era of lofty expectations, we have decided to go against the grain. Our aim isn't to amass a following that would make Ashton Kutcher blush or CNN wolf in its blitzer. Ours is to help clients play the game a little smarter because if you're like 95% of the brands out there, the secret to Twitter isn't about being followed. Find out why tomorrow.

And it has nothing to do with Oprah.

Share the Power

We've added a little Share tool at the end of each post that makes it easy to email or bookmark any post you'd like.



So if you find a daily dose you think someone else should take, we're happy to enable.

Twitter no twit in dealing with brands

Twitter is going to start charging brands who want to use the micro-blog app as a marketing & customer service tool. Well, once they figure out what they should charge. And what kinds of value-added features they would create that can make them more of a marketing/customer-service tool. And how they determine if the account is being run by a brand, an employee or an individual who just happens to be a fan of the brand.

Biz Stone, co-founder of the micro-blog company, told U.K.'s Marketing Magazine, "We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts." more

Marketing VPs have already warned that if it becomes too complicated or costly, then they will just fly the coop. Social media agencies think a better route for Twitter is to start charging for display ads or access to user information.

Of course, it also depends on what's around the bend. Because in the digital age, the next big thing is closer than you think.

You can also follow this to a very good article from Paul Boag (of the famous boagworld.com) for more on how to use Twitter. (I think you've already been here, Ben. Not you, Ben. The other Ben.)

Happy birthday, Facebook.

Facebook turned five this week (Wednesday to be precise). It has grown from second-fiddle to MySpace to a 150-million-user megasite boasting denizens from twittering, chattering teenagers to stiffs in suits at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

So, if you're so inclined, join the conversation, join a cause or just see how many people from high school you really just want to leave in high school.

World Wide Web lives up to its name

We've gotten a lot of comments on our downloadable desktop wallpaper over the years, but this kind of caught us off guard. It appears we have a new friend in New Delhi. Thanks for the love, Malvika.

I guess the moral is: Thaw out the hard sell. In this 2.0 world, have fun with your brand and people will find it, tag it and share it. The wallpaper is currently available for free at hrwideas.com.

Have you met 500 people?

Should the Hadron Collider have been built? Are you looking forward to the advance in technology in the coming years? Do you think Leon Panetta is a wise choice for Director of the CIA? Are you worried about what your kids will see on the internet (namely this blog)?

These are the questions that are posed and pondered on ask500people.com - the site that allows the world to chime in on whatever is on people's minds. more

Now we wouldn't qualify this as a divining rod for the answer to your brand's or product's questions, but it is fascinating to see what people have to say, if they feel compelled to comment and from what part of the world they hail.

Here's one where a medical imaging company decided to put their new tagline to the test.

Let's look at the clear favorite: Accurate answers. Fast.

Simple. Generic.

In a distant second, we have: Flat-out precise.
It's confident, a little unusual in its phrasing, and in the medical profession, it seems that precision is much more valuable than accuracy.

That's the trick with focus groups of any kind - loose or formal. People generally gravitate towards what they already know in these types of settings, but when it comes to piquing their interest in the hustle and bustle of the outside world, you need to be shiny, new and unlike anything they've seen before to be perceived as better than what they already have.

Of course, the questions and multiple choice answers are often much more captivating than the responses because they provide more of a window into what answers people are searching for than a list of the top Google searches would show you. Let's take this one.

'Where should the Obamas get their dog?'


We've heard how it's got to be from the pound. No ifs, ands or buts. Especially since Obama's VP Joe Biden got his German Shepherd from a breeder. But seriously, where are you supposed to get one of the smartest and sought-after dogs around?

It opened our owl eyes to see one of the multiple choice answers was to get the dog through the classifieds. Brilliant suggestion! Pounds are overcrowded and underfunded. Wouldn't it be better to encourage trying to find good homes for pets via craigslist or the want ads versus dumping the dog at the pound?

Usually when people insist there's only one right answer, they haven't thought the whole thing through.

Anyway, just a fun place to experiment or play wallflower and see what's on people's minds.