Commoncraft does it again. Thanks Lee Lefever and crew.

Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

Filed under: Social Media by Craig Ritchie
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For a recent project, I needed to quickly produce a timeline of events. I thought this would be a great idea for a web tool and app across social media. It turned out that < a href=”http://www.dipity.com”>Dipity is already doing a great job with their timeline product, I was happy to find. Now, they’ve mashed up their UGC timeline generator with the YouTube API to create TimeTube. Brilliant.

Now I just need a tool to keep all of these great new tools organized in my brain so that I can remember them nanoseconds after the need arises…

Filed under: Social Media, User-generated Content, Web 2.0 by Craig Ritchie
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While Seth Godin is questioning the longevity of everyone’s patience for “Green” marketing, Dell has achieved great success in its current campaign, “What does ‘green’ mean to you?” In partnership with and in support of Regeneration.org, Facebookers can use the Graffiti tool to enter their artwork to be voted on by their fellow social networkers.

More than 7,000 entries have been submitted.

The top 150 (yes, One Hundred and Fifty, not top 10 or 20…) are now available for voting, and the quality of art is astonishing. Spend some time in the virtual art show here.

Also notable is the quality of the conversation and virulence of the campaign. The discussion board boasts more than 100 topics, with conversation ranging from Global Warming - Real, or Hoax?” to sub-campaigns started by the participants suggesting that competitors “Rate the Person Above You’s Grafitti!!”

The engagement reaches beyond the page as 1,471 Facebook fans are spreading word of the campaign.

Quite simply put, there is a monumental difference between social media strategies that sputter and die because of lack of knowledge and direction, and successful campaigns like this one that is lead by expertise and focus.

Hat tip to Jeremiah Owyang (twitter @jowyang) once again for the link.

Filed under: Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, User-generated Content, Web Strategy by Craig Ritchie
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Tags: contest, dell, Facebook, graffiti, green, jeremiah owyang, Marketing, regeneration.org, seth godin, Web Strategy

I try to be nice and polite to all of my friends still in the print industry. But, when reading simple arguments against the medium like this one from Jeff Jarvis, it’s hard to make the argument for spending time or money using print as a medium for engagement.

“Yes, print is a burden. It’s expensive to produce for it. It’s expensive to manufacture. It’s expensive to deliver. It limits your space. It limits your timing. It’s stale when it’s fresh. It is one-size-fits-all and can’t be adapted to the needs of each user. It comes with no ability to click for more. It has no search. It can’t be forwarded. It has no archive. It kills trees. It uses energy. It usually brings unions. And you really should recycle it. Wow, when you think about it, print sucks.”

And at this point, there really are very few markets and demographics that can’t be best targetted online.

For the rest of Jeff Jarvis’ insight, check out the Buzz Machine blog.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Craig Ritchie
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