DOUG SCHUMACHER

experience designer + writer

paidmedia

Creativing :: Where good ideas come from, YouTube’s new mobile site, and WiFi on ‘roids

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Where Good Ideas Come From [VIDEO]

Excellent animated video on where good ideas come from. A lot of this will ring true to the importance of conversation monitoring, which is really just a way of plugging yourself into the community, or conversation, that the author talks about in this video.

Digital Marketing: Security Tech CAPTCHAs as Advertising – Advertising Age

Most of the time it’s annoying when advertising creeps into every nook and cranny of daily life, but this idea comes off as clever, and really making a pretty drab event — entering CAPTCHA info — a bit more interesting. And for brands, getting viewers to actually type out their tagline or product features based on a paid impression is pretty remarkable. One of the more clever new ad units I’ve seen in a while. The only limit will be that there really aren’t that many times a user has to see CAPTCHA’s, assuming they have cookies turned on.

The State of YouTube Mobile: Viewing up 160%, Operator Partnerships Sought

A couple of interesting things in this piece. For one, Google’s not happy with the way Apple’s YouTube app works, and are promoting the WAP version of YouTube mobile, instead. It offers a considerably better user experience, which shows that WAP has a lot to offer versus native app development. Secondly, Apple controls the YouTube app on iPhone, and if they can’t keep a major brand like Google up with the latest and greatest mobile experience, then it really underscores how much this brand really needs the larger development community on it’s side, and developing apps like mad for their platform.

SCVNGR provides deeper integration with Facebook Places

I’m following SCVNGR closely, as they seem to be the most aggressive of the location-based apps at trying to figure out survival in a post-Facebook Places world. It’s also interesting, because they’re backed by $4m from Google Ventures. And Google would love to kill both the social and mobile birds with one stone. But I still feel like SCVNGR lacks the simplicity to really go mainstream. For one, it requires an app download, a big barrier, whereas Facebook’s mobile app already has 100m users. And then there’s that problem of less than 1% of all mobile phone users use a location-based app more than 1x per week. So driving consistent use is going to be a real challenge. But the logic behind SCVNGR’s actions are on target, as they get that it’s ultimately about making brands more dynamic on their Facebook properties.

Digital Marketing: The Top 10 Viral Ads of All Time – Advertising Age

Just ran across this list. What I find interesting is that most of them are from the past two years. I’d think having more time on to accrue views would help. My guess is that two factors contribute to the recency of the leaders. One is that companies are getting better at promoting their videos, versus just tossing them on YouTube and telling a couple of forums about it. And secondly, the metrics tracking these views are improving, as they’re extending the analysis beyond YouTube views alone.

“WiFi on steroids” gets final rules, drops spectrum sensing

Any involved in online marketing should be a fan of anything that dials up our broadband speeds here in the US. They’ve been rated as low as 25th in the world, or something abysmal like that. But this is great. Take some unused TV spectrum and allocate it to wireless broadband. And I like that they’re focusing on wireless. It may not have the topend speeds of cable now, but ultimately it will be the most cost effective solution to scale, and seems like the most probably path to blanket coverage.

Phones Begin to Replace Hotel Keycards – Popwuping

Simply a smart way to differentiate yourself amid a battered travel industry. While it might not be enough to attract new customers, this will certainly make a strong impression on anyone who uses it (assuming no bugs, of course!). It also shows how companies need to focus on consumer touchpoints, and not media inventory, when looking at ways to make a real impression.

Hand Craft Your Way to Great Prizes in Etsy API Contest

Etsy is an interesting company to watch, as they’re developing a reputation for interesting, community-centered marketing campaigns. Earlier, they had a UGC video contest (http://www.youtube.com/user/etsy), and now an open API contest, with cash prizes. A couple things are truly helping them in these efforts. One is having a product that naturally attracts a lot of creative, artistic people. The other is having VC Fred Wilson (www.avc.com) as one of your backers.

5 Important New Trends in Location

An overview of the post-Facebook Places location-based services landscape. As expected, this is quickly moving from fun and games to real functionality. And that’s the big opportunity for brands. Because you may need several million people to make a game fun, but good functionality can be delivered on a 1-1 basis.

Creativing :: Twitter the movie?, Mafia Wars goes guerrilla, and the future of the Internet is ‘things’

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Zynga Runs Guerrilla Mafia Wars Campaign In Hermosa Beach, CA

I like the use of QR codes in this game. I scanned it off the blog image using I-nigma on my iPhone and it had no trouble reading and taking me straight to the site. QR codes have made a lot of progress in the past couple of years.

Advertisers flocking to Facebook: eMarketer – Yahoo! News

Facebook’s taking a page from Google’s playbook. There’s a lot of money in automating the ad process, even if it’s small amounts from a lot of advertisers. Or perhaps especially if that’s the case.

Twitter Movie Trailer:  Rated Awesome

Very well-done parody of the trailer for the Facebook movie, which is here if you haven’t seen it. http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com/

Where Else in the World Will Kids Think to Put the Web? [VIDEO]

Interesting that when kids 6-12 were asked about what they want from technology, it’s to better connect them with the physical world. And they’re the ones who should be most comfortable with technology. Refreshing.

China Moves to Dominate the Next Stage of the Web

Interesting that while a recent survey of kids pointed to a future demand for bridging the technical world with the future world, and here China is setting themselves up to the the future of the Internet of Things. Pretty telling. A great stat at the end of this article, too. Earlier this week it happened for the first time that there are now more objects connected to wireless data plans than human subscribers.

Facebook Pages Become Customer Support Centers

There’s been recent buzz online about Facebook’s — and social media in general — ability to function as a customer support resource. Scalability is often at the core of the discussion, but then, customer support has never been any more scalable outside of social media. The objective for customer support technology is always to provide helpful information as fast as possible. Ideally faster than calling and talking to a CS rep. Facebook’s big advantage is familiarity. Even within an app, people may feel more comfortable using it to gather information versus a site visit. So speed and relevance will be the litmus test for this new CS tech, Parature.

Behind the Scenes of MTV’s Twitter Jockey Competition [VIDEO]

Twitter seems more like a content channel than a media platform. While arguably still outside the mainstream compared to most media vehicles, it has a large user base that wouldn’t be considered early adopters of new technology, while at the same time many traditional early adopters find little use for the service. In that sense, it’s a source for the truly influential to get those first bits of information across a range of subjects that most new techs never scratch the surface of.

Whrrl: Living In Foursquare’s Shadow

As my use of Foursquare continues to flatten, I’m interested in what’s next for location based services. Whrrl is the one I’m checking out lately. It’s more complicated than Foursquare, but offers extended value in the form of community. I guess those badges are wearing off, and if I wanted deals, I’d go to Groupon. Right now, my network isn’t to a point where I’m really getting the value, but as Whrrl is adding 2-3,000 users per day and I live in a fairly early adopter area, hopefully the value will emerge.

Gowalla CEO: Sorry Mobile Web: Users Prefer Apps

Start with this quote from the CEO: “Many people perceive the web as source for content rather than a source of services. An app puts the illusion of packaging around a web-delivered service so people feel like they are buying functionality, not merely visiting a site to perform a function or access content. This subtle perception not only explains why apps are popular, but it might also be a clue as to why folks can charge for apps while still unable to monetize their web-based services.”

While marketers are typically focused on building website experiences — for reasons ranging from cost to seo — there are distinct advantages to building apps. For one, once an app is installed, you have ongoing awareness every time the user scrolls through their apps. We all know how easily bookmarks get lost in normal web browsing. That has to increase 10x for a mobile experience. But well beyond that, there’s the perceived value of an app that the CEO is talking about. It’s packaged.

Fact: Most People Have Never Heard of Location-Based Apps

The harsh reality of leading edge technology is that it’s often very difficult to reach a mass audience. This study shows that less than only 1% of those surveyed use location-based services (LBS) more than 1x per week. Not the rate at which you can build a market. This leaves brands with two options at the moment. 1. Determine if you have a key influencer group using LBS and if so, plan for a ripple effect. 2. Do something to generate word of mouth buzz that extends well outside the LBS user group. Unfortunately, neither option is a high-odds play.

Creativing :: Social Media’s World Cup, Ridley Scott directs YouTube, and social media meets the offline world.

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

Come on, city of Cleveland, you’ve been on top for years. Give another city a chance.

The World Cup of Social Media – Advertising Age

While there’s been a lot of talk the last couple of years about the need for global marketing, perhaps nothing drilled that message home like the World Cup. A good read as much for the prose as the content.

Ridley Scott and YouTube Want You To Film One Day in Your Life

I’m quite curious about this because it seems to intersect a lot of different things that already exist. I mean, isn’t YouTube really an ongoing day in the life? So then this is just an edited version of that, with even less contest to what each of the video clips is about? I’ll be very curious to see how they bring a bigger POV to this and make it more than just a mashup of video clips. Perhaps this is the Internet version of Powaqqatsi.

What Is The Value Of A Facebook Fan? Zero! | Forrester Blogs

This line pretty much sums it up: It is what companies do with fans that creates value, not merely that a brand has fans.

Seth’s Blog: Payola

A lot of SEO people spend their lives trying to outsmart a campus of Google geniuses with PhDs. Kinda like going 1-on-1 with LeBron James. You might get a lucky basket now and then, but he’s just going to come back even stronger. If you want good SEO, don’t think like a Google engineer, think like a consumer. Bottom line is there are always games going on to goose online performance. But long-term value tends to align with consumer interests.

NYTimes Shows How Civic APIs Should Be Built

I like how often we see data going from rote facts to entertainment value. The idea of taking voting district information and attaching that to landmarks in NYC is exactly the type of way brands can take data and create interesting stories about what they or their customers are doing.

Google’s Display Advertising Plans Include Gmail, YouTube – Advertising Age

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone suggest the online display game is on. And if Google’s piling money into it, that’s a pretty strong indicator.

The Real Life Social Network: How Facebook Affects Offline Relationships | MobileBehavior

This highlights a major challenge of social media at the moment. Sharing the same posts with vastly different networks of people in our lives. This includes a nugget of insight about where Google’s going to be aiming to penetrate Facebook’s armor.

Why Google’s Launching ‘Me’ and Facebook’s Real Future – Advertising Age

If you’re not familiar with Facebook’s Open Graph or why Google is gunning for Facebook, this is a good quick read.

Creativing :: Massive Glastonbury photo tag, Google’s uphill run at Facebook, and mobile heads in-store

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

Man. I could listen to Jony Ive talk about “materials” all day long. I mean—unless I had the option of doing literally anything else.

GlastoTag – One huge photo. A whole load of tags. | Glastonbury Music Festival

A very simple but powerful idea. Take a hi-res photo of everyone at a concert, and then enable them to zoom in anywhere, find, and tag themselves via Facebook. I’d also have added an easy way for them to drop and save their photo as their profile pic.

Disney Puts Movie Tickets on a Facebook Site – NYTimes.com

One of those ideas where you look at it and say “Really, nobody’s done that yet?”

Best New Mashups: World Cup, Interview Questions, and Innovative Online Dating

More mashups. An interesting World Cup mashup that attempts to predict the score via Twitter tweets, a site to help people keep up with the latest job interview trends (you know, those trick questions!), and a match making site based on music taste from Last.fm. Interesting functionality/productivity in those last two.

Google Trying to Build Facebook Competitor? Good Luck With That

A good reminder of the importance of cohesion across all your brand touchpoints. Google has an impressive lineup of touchpoints, competitive enough feature-wise, but often lacking the key ingredient. A critical mass audience.

If Banner Ads Are Dead, What’s Next? – MarketingVOX

While the headline is a little alarmist, the point is, a lot of people are finding banners aren’t driving the response rates they used to. Of course, that happens with any medium. For many advertisers, it’s most likely a matter of them not doing anything of remote interest in the banner in the first place. And then they wonder why nobody notices their ad.

Rory Sutherland: Sweat the small stuff | Video on TED.com

Fantastic TED presentation by a British ad exec on how big ideas don’t require big budgets.

Gay Social Network Fabulis Gets Backing from GeoCities Founder

An example of how Facebook may lose social website cache, but still retain a valuable business model. Social sites could easily go niche, especially ones build around currently strong communities. But like Fabulis, they’ll likely use Facebook integration to accelerate growth at their inception. And that keeps Facebook in a powerful position to deliver relevant advertising.

Vuvuzelas for BP by Adam Quirk — Kickstarter

I’ve mentioned kickstarter before. And out of that biz model comes an edgy cause marketing campaign that’s not only blowing away the creator’s estimated budget, but has to be generating enormous amounts of buzz. I really think there’s a lot of potential for a sort of event artists that can pull these things together in a way that people will want to support.

Big Potential for In-Store Mobile Marketing – eMarketer

Mobile isn’t just for when your customer is trying to find you. It can be for when they’re standing in your store. However, while people are growing more accustomed to grabbing their mobile for product research while in store, only about 20% of Multichannel retailers are using any form of m-commerce. Looks like a lot of potential growth.

YouTube – Nissan Leaf iAd announcement

What can you take from this? That there’s likely going to be a lot of business in the area of building the experiences backing these ads. Of course, the comments would indicate that people won’t tolerate iAds. Yet again and again, people choose ad-supported over pay models. (Hulu will be an interesting case study, although news site after new site has failed trying to go paid.)

Creativing :: iPhone’s mobile ad platform, Facebook is #1, and Farmville has peanuts for profits

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

I’m kind of sad that @BarackObama isn’t having more fun with Twitter. I’d like to see him retweet a Kardashian.

iPhone 4.0 OS’s iAd Ad Platform

Jump straight down to the iAd section. While it makes business sense to see in-app advertising as different search-based advertising, I find Jobs’ plan of replicating the TV viewing experience on the iPhone rather disconcerting. Isn’t TVs pervasive in-your-face push advertising something that drove a lot of people to online content in the first place? And what makes him think that they’ll have the tolerance for anything close to that level of intrusion in a mobile experience, where I’m paying a lot more for usage than I am with my cable service.

I realize the developers can probably set their own level of ad saturation, but then again, so have the networks.

And lastly, I don’t agree that mobile devices aren’t about search. 30% of searches on Google are already local, and my guess would be that search will be just as prevalent on mobile devices as desktops.

Facebook Reaches Top Ranking in US – Hitwise

Nothing short of remarkable, and perhaps most interesting that their business model is about as 180 from Google as could be. Instead of providing sheer utility at various online touchpoints, like search, maps, email, etc, Facebook has made an engagement play — typically the biggest challenge online — and is beating everyone at fundamental traffic stats. What’s more, they’re not only pulling amazing visit numbers, but in January 11% of all time spent online was spent on Facebook, according to these Compete numbers.

The Apple-Adobe War Escalates: Using Flash to Build iPhone Apps Banned

I get how Apple might not want to support Flash, but I don’t get why they keep slamming the door on the developer community. I can’t imagine that a company can continue this forever without serious backlash, be it direct in the form of product boycotts, or indirect in the form of someone else with a more open system (ahem, Google) taking them to the mat. If you doubt that anti-Apple sentiment is building, read the comments at the end of the article.

It’s Peanuts: Farmville Reaps Brand Placement – Advertising Lab

Considering Farmville now has over 82 million monthly active users, the idea of a nut company sponsoring a peanut crop is a smart strategy. There isn’t much info on the execution, but seems like an idea that would be hard to screw up.

6 Ways Brands are Using Social Media For Real-World Action

Good social media-driven case studies that are an inspiring and insightful read.

5 Years Ago Today the Web Mashup Was Born

Google Mashups are usually a great visualization of database-driven marketing solutions, so they’re usually pretty insightful. What else is interesting is how quickly this exploded after the first one launched. Much the way things happen online when an obviously good idea drops.

Facebook Limits Status Updates To 420 Characters

Curious how much the business world is changing? Imagine any of the most talked about companies 30 years ago making a pot joke out of one of their primary feature settings.

The Top 10 Most Watched Web Series, March 2010

Interesting overview of the most popular web video series’. The not-so-secret formula? A kids show presence with a much more adult tone to the episodes.

Photoshop Content-Aware Fill Demo “PatchMatch” (Video)

This is a remarkable demo of PS’s ability to clean up and even add missing elements to photos. All in a very automated way. The day of completely digitally-generated movies and commercials may seem like a long way off, but then again, seeing leaps in technology like this demonstrate that aspects of it are remarkably within grasp.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, the iPhone sandwich, and Facebook vs. Google

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

PEW SURVEY: By 2012, every object in America will have its own Facebook page and an unnecessary laser pointer.

YouTube – iSandwich 4G

Found this pretty funny. Not sure I’d want to taste it, but it’s a visual treat. Wait until the end for the CG gag.

MediaShift . Best Online Resources for Following 2010 Winter Olympics | PBS

This list is an interesting scan simply because of the range of content around the Olympics. No really unexpected, but a good overview at the numerous angles from which online content can approach a subject.

30 APIs Used in 7 Days: Bing, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Netflix, Salesforce.com, Twitter, YouTube

Despite mashups having been around for a while, I feel there’s enormous untapped potential. Especially as social networking and mobile are going to generate treasure troves of data previously unavailable in any form. This list is heavily concentrated on data and web tending apps, which is no doubt a big topic right now.

Foursquare Responds To Please Rob Me: Please Shut Up

Contrasting the closed, symmetric network of Foursquare with the open, asymmetric network of Twitter.

Ajaxian » I Can’t Believe It’s Not Flash

A Flash trashing, followed by a lot of rebuking in the comments.

The Future of Flash, on FarukAt.eş

Faruk’s been writing about Flash, and it’s pending demise. But here he reconsiders the value of Flash, with a possibility of it becoming a big potential mobile play. Flash does offer development speed, but there’s always been that nagging stability thing. And I don’t think consumers will tolerate phones crashing to any degree that they’ve dealt with it on computers.

Pre-Roll Video Ads Still Hated, Here to Stay – Advertising Age

A nice overview from someone who both dislikes the pre-roll but also derives revenue from it. I agree with his assessment that branded sponsorships are going to be the real value for content developers — essentially creating a brand experience with less up front risk for the sponsor.

Farmville About To Cruise Past 80 Million Users

Some interesting findings in the numbers. When looking at active users, the shorter the time of reference (daily, weekly, monthly), the lower the growth rate. That should indicate a lot of people are trying it out out of curiosity, but not hanging with it for long. Consider that active daily users is 31m, only up from 27m a year ago. So it would seem they’re drafting Facebook’s continuing rocket trajectory of new users. Granted, 31m is still a lot of people. But I think it’s indicative of how these social games will play out. Friends pulling friends in, everyone dabbling for a bit, and then on to the next new thing.

Is Facebook Becoming More Important Than Google?

There’s been a lot of recent talk about Facebook’s growing search influence. And no doubt that searching Facebook is going to increase in both frequency and intent. But as this article points out, a lot of the behavior isn’t understood at the moment, so it’s difficult to say what’s correlation and what’s causation.

Creativing :: Twitter for event marketing, Foursquare is serious gaming, and Minority Report here we come

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:
Tweet of the Week
As CNN demonstrated it’s impact during the Gulf War, it’s tragic events like the Hattian earthquake that perhaps most demonstrate the power of Twitter. And it’s not Twitter per se, but rather the direct form of simple, unfiltered, and most importantly, immediate information that feels like we’re getting a personal view of the writer’s experience.
NYT: Following Venture Capital for Signs of Technology to ComeThe underlying thread here is simplicity and speed. No surprises there. Of course, whether that’s an iPhone app or a Facebook app, that’s easier said than done.
Tracking hands, Camera & Projection // The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology –Video | Digital Acting
At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data. Minority Report, here we come. But what’s best about this IMO is that it simply looks fun. And what better way to sell a new technology? Note that he’s making his technology Open Source to accelerate innovation. Also note the great stage set.
Amtrak to Add Free Wi-Fi on High-Speed Trains
I’ve long been jealous of the east coast’s ability to take trains between cities. Especially with the declining experience of air travel. An extra hour or two on a 3 hour trip is, IMO, entirely bearable if you have full access to productive technology. And, can cut out an hour of getting into and out of the downtowns of cities. I’m only surprised Amtrak didn’t do this earlier.
Real Time Ads Coming to Google Street View?
This is one of those unfortunately rare times when a new ad platform actually adds relevance and value to a user experience. When you’re using Google Street View and see a billboard for a movie that hasn’t been in theaters for 12 months? Imagine that instead it’s for a movie now playing just around the corner.
NYT: Typeface Designers Wrestle With the World of Pixels
An amusing account of the challenges of designing fonts for the web, and other difficult environments. Reading this, I was reminded of Steve Jobs’ story about sitting in on typography classes for the fun of it — after dropping out of his main curiculum. This article taps into that duality of creativity mixed with intellectual problem solving.
The Wittery: Killer Content from Witty Freelance Writers
There are a lot of bland companies out there in need of good writers. The Wittery is a sort of online matchmaker for just that situation. This seems like an obvious (in a good way) idea that I hope takes off. The writing on the site is in full support of their brand promise of adding personality to your company.
Foursquare Changes the Game … Literally
If there’s an intersection of mobile, gaming, and emerging platforms, it seems to be located very close to Foursquare. I can’t think of any other app that’s been consistently getting as much buzz as these guys. These upgrades won’t impact anyone but the hardcores, but I do think the new borderless structure will only increase Foursquare’s popularity and growth. As I’ve previously reported, it’s being used as a promotional device by various bars and coffee shops. And what better to identify your most vocal brand advocates in your area?
Is This KFC Ad Racist? [YOUTUBE VIDEO]
There are a couple of interesting things happening here. There’s the issue of globalization of media, and ads from one culture being viewed and judged in another culture. And then there’s the online debate forum, played out in video, from around the world.
#MFU10 – twazzup
This is a marketing event that, everytime someone signs up, they Tweet the person’s company and title as attending. Interesting tactic for generating buzz in search due to what are probably relatively popular search topics, although possibly revealing public info the indviduals might not want to send out?

What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

As CNN demonstrated it’s impact during the Gulf War, it’s tragic events like the Hattian earthquake that perhaps most demonstrate the power of Twitter. And it’s not Twitter per se, but rather the direct form of simple, unfiltered, and most importantly, immediate information that feels like we’re getting a personal view of the writer’s experience.

NYT: Following Venture Capital for Signs of Technology to Come

The underlying thread here is simplicity and speed. No surprises there. Of course, whether that’s an iPhone app or a Facebook app, that’s easier said than done.

Tracking hands, Camera & Projection // The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology –Video | Digital Acting

At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data. Minority Report, here we come. But what’s best about this IMO is that it simply looks fun. And what better way to sell a new technology? Note that he’s making his technology Open Source to accelerate innovation. Also note the great stage set.

Amtrak to Add Free Wi-Fi on High-Speed Trains

I’ve long been jealous of the east coast’s ability to take trains between cities. Especially with the declining experience of air travel. An extra hour or two on a 3 hour trip is, IMO, entirely bearable if you have full access to productive technology. And, can cut out an hour of getting into and out of the downtowns of cities. I’m only surprised Amtrak didn’t do this earlier.

Real Time Ads Coming to Google Street View?

This is one of those unfortunately rare times when a new ad platform actually adds relevance and value to a user experience. When you’re using Google Street View and see a billboard for a movie that hasn’t been in theaters for 12 months? Imagine that instead it’s for a movie now playing just around the corner.

NYT: Typeface Designers Wrestle With the World of Pixels

An amusing account of the challenges of designing fonts for the web, and other difficult environments. Reading this, I was reminded of Steve Jobs’ story about sitting in on typography classes for the fun of it — after dropping out of his main curiculum. This article taps into that duality of creativity mixed with intellectual problem solving.

The Wittery: Killer Content from Witty Freelance Writers

There are a lot of bland companies out there in need of good writers. The Wittery is a sort of online matchmaker for just that situation. This seems like an obvious (in a good way) idea that I hope takes off. The writing on the site is in full support of their brand promise of adding personality to your company.

Foursquare Changes the Game … Literally

If there’s an intersection of mobile, gaming, and emerging platforms, it seems to be located very close to Foursquare. I can’t think of any other app that’s been consistently getting as much buzz as these guys. These upgrades won’t impact anyone but the hardcores, but I do think the new borderless structure will only increase Foursquare’s popularity and growth. As I’ve previously reported, it’s being used as a promotional device by various bars and coffee shops. And what better to identify your most vocal brand advocates in your area?

Is This KFC Ad Racist? [YOUTUBE VIDEO]

There are a couple of interesting things happening here. There’s the issue of globalization of media, and ads from one culture being viewed and judged in another culture. And then there’s the online debate forum, played out in video, from around the world.

#MFU10 – twazzup

This is a marketing event that, everytime someone signs up, they Tweet the person’s company and title as attending. Interesting tactic for generating buzz in search due to what are probably relatively popular search topics, although possibly revealing public info the indviduals might not want to send out?