T-Mobile Trafalgar Square Karaoke 'Flash Mob'

T-Mobile have been making their latest 'Life's For Sharing' ad in Trafalgar Square in central London. Hot on the heels of the dancing flash mob at Liverpool St station, thousands of people attended Trafalgar Square tonight to take part in the filming of the new T-Mobile ad - Flash mob karaoke.

T-Mobile Trafalgar Square Karaoke flyer

T-Mobile Trafalgar Square with 'warning you are in a TV ad sign'
(click for larger image)

The event was basically a giant karaoke hosted by Vernon Kaye and including a mass crowd in 'the making of' video is a great way of creating buzz and anticipation for a TV commercial before it airs.

T-Mobile Trafalgar Square - big screen karaoke with thousands of people!
(click for larger image)

I also took some video at the T-Mobile Trafalgar Square event - here is the end of 'Hey Jude':

And a bit of 'Amarillo' too:


Flickr photos here: T-Mobile Trafalgar Square Karaoke

UPDATE

T-Mobile screened the Trafalgar Square karaoke flash mob ad for the first time tonight (during the 9pm break on Britains Got Talent) - here's the full length LifesForSharing T-Mobile 'Hey Jude' ad:



What do you think?

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McDonald's socialise Piccadilly Circus outdoor site

McDonald's have 'socialised' their Piccadilly Circus outdoor site in London.

This is another example of how social media is not a channel. Anything can be 'social' including traditional, off-line media. Everything is linked together now and with the right mechanism consumers can be prompted to engage with advertising - and then share it with connections in their social spaces online.

The Piccadilly Circus McDonald's poster encourages people to interact with it and bring it into their photographs and video. Rather than preaching a message to people, the McDonald's poster site promotes interaction and creates a deeper engagement as a result.

It will be interesting to see how much this prompts activity on photo sharing / video sharing sites, but this is a nice example of how 'social thinking' can be applied to any media channel.

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'A Really Goode Job' - a new 'Best Job In The World'

Murphy-Goode Winery in Sonoma County, California will today unveil the chance for someone to win 'A Really Goode Job' (full reveal on the Really Goode Job website at 12 PST today).

The 'Really Goode Job' in question will suit 'an outgoing, web-savvy, articulate communicator' who will 'tell the story of the great mountain vines and artisan winemakers of California.' The successful applicant will be paid $10,000 a month for a 6 month contract and get private housing in 'the heart of wine country' - with the expectation that the holder of the 'Really Goode Job' will 'prepare and post dispatches on their experiences through social media tools such as Facebook, blogs, internet videos and Twitter as well as traditional media.'

A Really Goode Job home page (full reveal today at 12pm San Francisco time)

Applying through the Really Goode Job website, applicants will have to upload a 60 second video application before a shortlist of 50 is drawn up and the judging process starts. Whilst this all sounds very similar to the Hamilton Island 'Best Job in The World' competition, it is a sign of how brands are starting to deploy social media.

Online marketing is all about getting people to a Destination (a website, a social hub like a Fan Page or YouTube Channel etc). However, rather than rely on the traditional route of driving traffic through paid advertising, more and more brands are seeding messages into the social Conversation. If key bloggers / Twitterers highlight something it can then snowball, driving ever increasing traffic at with no additional cost.

This manifests itself in a number of ways. It might be Naked People promoting a Peugeot or T-Mobile pre-promoting a Flash Mob or sheep wearing advertising placards - or it might just be a competition with a really good prize. There are no guarantees with this sort of route, (you never quite know what direction the Conversation will take), but executions like 'a Really Goode Job' definitely get people talking!

Full details on the San Francisco Citzen Blog here

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Gary Go iPhone performer and Apple say 'thanks a billion'

Apple are running iPhone ads in UK newspapers to say 'thanks a billion' for the fact that over a billion [app] downloads have been made in 'just nine months.'

iPhone Apps 'thanks a billion' UK press ad

These billion downloads illustrate the extent to which iPhone has turned not just the mobile industry on its head, but also the landscape for software too. As John Naughton says in this week's Observer:

"Many iPhone apps are trivial little programs, some are staggeringly clever, some very useful, a few are simply beautiful. But the key thing is that they're changing our concept of computer software. Once we thought of it as disks in shrink-wrapped boxes costing from £50 to £2,500 that you ran on a PC. The billion downloads from the App Store suggest those days are ending. Future generations will see software as something that is downloadable and cheap - and that runs on your phone."

In today's papers another story brings the versatility of the iPhone to life - musician Gary Go uses his iPhone to create his own music and is starting to perform live.

Gary Go - 'One Man and his iPhone'

Gary Go used only iPhone apps to remix his song 'SuperFuture' and will demonstrate how he did it, before performing the song live at the Apple Store in Regent St (London) tomorrow.

Gary Go to perform at Apple Store on Regent St, April 28th 7.00pm

Gary Go has also been confirmed as the support act for Take That's UK summer stadium store raising the prospect of a musician performing on the UK's biggest stage with instrumentation provided through an iPhone app, or as London Lite puts it tonight:

Gary Go: 'Wembley gig that will be on an iPhone'

Mobile apps and 'always on' mobile internet have changed the way that consumers are using mobile phones and a stadium performance using an iPhone is probably the most visual demonstration of app versatility to date!

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What is RSS? My contribution to the #smgps Social Media Tweet-Book

@tobydiva has been compiling 'Social Media GPS' - a Tweet-book made up of interviews and comments sourced through Twitter.

#smgps Tweet Book

#smgps Tweet book explanation

I contributed to chapter 6 with comments about RSS. I tweeted my thoughts and appended them with the hash tag #smgps. @tobydiva then picked them up and added them to the Tweet-book.

My thoughts on the Tweet Book #smgps website

How they looked on Twitter (click for larger image)

My tweets on RSS for #smgps in full:

Easiest way to get your head around RSS and feeds is to think in terms of traditional radio #smgps (1)

RSS makes your central content point (website, blog etc) like a radio station, with RSS broadcasting a virtual signal (aka a feed) 2 #smgps

People can then tune in to this RSS data signal and receive your RSS broadcast - often 'subscribing' to it for regular updates 3 #smgps

The RSS receiver is software - either a standalone 'Feed Reader' like Google Reader or built into something like a blog or Facebook 4 #smgps

RSS signal is received wherever the 'listener' chooses – allowing content to be easily syndicated + picked up in multiple locations 5 #smgps

RSS is therefore technological backbone of social media, allowing people to consume content wherever they want, whenever they want 6 #smgps

RSS enables marketers to easily distribute content to multiple locations - Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter, other sites, email etc 7 #smgps

People want to receive /share things. Marketers can use RSS to syndicate messages into different platforms and environments 8 #smgps

Highlight the RSS feed with the standard orange RSS graphic and make it easy for people to subscribe - and promote the feed!!! 9 #smgps

SM strategy suits lots of little rather than one big hit – take content to the consumer but use RSS to tie it all together 10 #smgps

#smgps is an interesting experiment in crowdsourcing, though it's tough to construct thoughts into 140 character snippets of information. My jury is still out on whether this method of publishing is particularly viable, but having said that I enjoyed adding my thoughts to the debate!

The book has some great contributors and has some interesting info on a range of SM topics - have a look at Social Media GPS here.

Follow me on Twitter @nickburcher

Naked People in London - it was for the Peugeot 308 CC launch......

Yesterday London’s commuters were reeling from a ‘rude’ wake-up call, as 308 naked figures joined in the morning rush hour, with only scarves to cover up their modesty.

308 blue scarf wearing 'naked' people in London yesterday

However, rather than being truly naked, the 308 people involved were wearing specially made bodysuits - and we now know why..........

The London nudes were promoting the launch of the new Peugeot 308 CC, with the scarf symbolising the new Airwave Neck Heating System or 'heat scarf.'

308 blue scarf wearing 'naked' people in London yesterday

A microsite www.nudeinascarf.com has been set up to coincide with the launch. There is a Nude In A Scarf Flickr page here and also YouTube videos of the naked activities in London:

This is yet another example of how launches are turning to mysterious 'events' to stimulate conversations, rather than using the tried and tested big splash media execution - if nothing else the 308 naked people in London prompted a variety of comments on Twitter:

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Ann Summers run Google ads for the Budget - 'no recession in pleasure'!

Today is Budget day in the UK. This afternoon the Chancellor will stand up and announce government spending plans for the next financial year.

The Guardian reported that the Conservative party are running Google paid search ads around budget / economy searches today. However, when I went to look something else caught my eye - Ann Summers buying political keywords on Google!

A search for 'Budget 2009' on Google.co.uk reveals a number of ads. The Conservatives offering 'our view' in position 2, but in position 5 on Google.co.uk Ann Summers adult shop are running a paid search ad.

Search for 'Budget 2009' showing Ann Summers search result in number 5 (click for larger image)

A Google search for 'Gordon Brown'again reveals an ad for the Conservative party. It's still in position 2, but follows the ad for Ann Summers:

Search for 'Gordon Brown' showing Ann Summers search result in top position (click for larger image)

The ad for Ann Summers is clearly tongue in cheek and meant as a bit of fun, but given that it points to a home page that features sex toys, skimpily clad ladies and slogans such as 'if you love someone tie them up' is this something Google should be allowing?

Ann Summers Google budget ad - 'There is no recession in pleasure! Invest in Fun with Ann Summers'

Harmless fun or highlighting adult pursuits to an unrestricted, afternoon audience?

thetrainline.com - sheep star in TV ad and also used as mobile billboards

thetrainline.com have a new TV ad featuring sheep and have furthered the message by using real sheep for outdoor advertising. The ad is to promote buying online train tickets in advance and claims this can save 43% vs on the day train ticket purchases (via Brand Republic.)

thetrainline.com TV ad was filmed in Wellington, New Zealand. No CGI was used, just 40 sheep who were trained to perform. The ad is promoted on thetrainline.com website and is hosted on YouTube:

To further enhance the message thetrainline.com have a sheep to human morph (again on YouTube):

and thetrainline.com are promoting the 43% message by using actual sheep in a field alongside the Reading trainline:

trainline.com - outdoor advertising on sheep

with a full news report on the 'Lambient media' on YouTube here:

After Meerkats and other animals have helped create buzz this year, this is another example of putting a friendly animal face at the centre of a creative proposition and then building the message around it. The sheep billboards are then a clever way of amplifying the idea - 'Sheep as billboards' is always going to create more impact than 'save 43% by booking in advance.'

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BMW launch social network (in China) - another example of niche, high end social communities

The fastest growing user demographics for Facebook are in the higher age ranges and social networking is quickly becoming more than just a past-time for youth - especially with the growth of niche social networks around particular themes or communities.

Self service social networking platform Ning is one of the fastest growing sites on the web, whilst the proliferation of social networking can be seen from the social network for dentists to the 401,000 electricians posting on the Talk ScrewFix forum to sites like Ravelry, a social network for knitting and crochet. (*edit - I think that should read '401,000 electricians messages')

www.dentist-networks.com - the dedicated network for dental practitioners

Ravelry - a social network for knitting

We are also seeing the development of niche, high-end / luxury communities. In 2008 the FT launched it's luxury, Executive forum and since then others have been experimenting with exclusive communities. US site Affluence.org is a good example of this - launched last September, Affluence boasts 20,000 members and to join you have to prove that you have a net worth of £2m and an annual income of £214,000.

Affluence.org - social network for the super rich

Described as a 'virtual country club', Affluence contains blogs, a lifestyle guide and lots of advertising for private jets and luxury goods.

Brands are also turning into platform providers and using SNS principles to further consumer engagement and loyalty. In China BMW has launched an exclusive social network for its drivers at MyBMWClub.cn. There are 150,000 BMW drivers in China and the site aims to connect drivers, offer advice and allow users to share their experiences with both BMW and other BMW users.

BMW China social network English homepage (click for larger image)

The BMW Chinese social network was promoted through a luxury mail out to every known BMW driver in China. Users can create profiles, upload images and watch videos, with BMW experts and staff also accessible through the site. (source: BrandRepublic Asia)

BMW China social network Chinese Homepage (click for larger image)

Whilst Facebook has extremely high penetration in some countries (eg 46% of the population of Iceland have an account), in some of the world's largest countries (especially in BRIC markets) Facebook penetration is low. China has the lowest Facebook users per head of population figure as local players dominate:

China social network scene - from Nielsen Global Faces and Networked places report

The dominance of local players in China's social networking scene means that BMW would have to create a bespoke solution if they wanted to build a community on an existing Chinese social platform. Therefore BMW creating their own social network site in China seems to make a lot of sense - whilst BMW have declared no intention of taking this outside China, having a proprietary solution will make it easier to follow this route later.

Interesting to see how this turns out, and with Land Rover now using Twitter hash tags in their advertising, it could be that we are about to see an explosion in high end brands properly incorporating social thinking into their marketing efforts?

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Susan Boyle - Google Insights for Search shows her global celebrity status!

On Thursday I wrote about how Britain's Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle was becoming an internet viral superstar. Since then the view counts on YouTube and buzz around the Susan Boyle performance has been getting bigger and bigger - Visible Measures estimating that Susan Boyle's performance has been watched on YouTube over 47 million times!

Looking at Google Insights For Search data shows how far the name 'Susan Boyle' has travelled.

Chart 1 - growth in searches for 'Susan Boyle'

Google graph showing increase in Susan Boyle searches over the last 7 days

Chart 2 - top 10 'Susan Boyle' search locations

Top ten countries for Susan Boyle searching

Chart 3 - Global map of 'Susan Boyle' searching

World map showing the countries that have been searching for 'Susan Boyle'

The above charts show the staggering amount of countries where people have been searching for Susan Boyle and you start to get a picture of just how viral Susan Boyle has been in the last few days - though I hope she is not too disappointed about being ignored by Bolivia, Belarus and Botswana.........

Though will be interesting to see how long this buzz around Susan Boyle lasts for.

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Facebook usage statistics by population - Iceland now has highest Facebook penetration

Facebook has broken through the 200 million users barrier.

UPDATE - Dec 2009 - latest Facebook usage figures by country here

Comscore have reported on Facebook's European dominance and a wide range of publishers have commented on Facebook's latest user numbers - including the Jakarta Post in Indonesia with an article that feature some of my comments (here).

However, Comscore only looked at 17 countries in Europe. I thought it would be interesting to look at Facebook penetration by country for all 98 countries across the world that Facebook publish user data for. I last looked at Facebook usage by proportion of population in July 2008, but things have changed a lot since then - here are the latest Facebook user statistics by proportion of population:

Top 30 countries with highest number of Facebook users per head of population:

Rank	Country	Latest Population figure	No. of Facebook Users	% Facebook penetration
1	Iceland	320,500	150,280	46.89%
2	Norway	4,813,000	1,937,320	40.25%
3	Denmark	5,511,451	2,109,900	38.28%
4	Canada	33,618,000	11,556,180	34.37%
5	UK	61,612,300	17,540,660	28.47%
6	Chile	16,895,000	4,480,480	26.52%
7	Hong Kong	7,008,900	1,755,580	25.05%
8	Australia	21,730,255	5,409,900	24.9%
9	Sweden	9,264,000	2,139,720	23.1%
10	Singapore	4,839,400	1,096,680	22.66%
11	Luxembourg	491,700	100,880	20.52%
12	Belgium	10,741,000	2,190,380	20.39%
13	Finland	5,332,029	1,051,400	19.72%
14	USA	306,227,000	59,977,740	19.55%
15	Switzerland	7,705,800	1,407,780	18.27%
16	Cyprus	801,600	143,380	17.89%
17	New Zealand	4,304,509	768,100	17.84%
18	Malta	412,600	71,320	17.29%
19	The Bahamas	342,000	56,280	16.46%
20	Puerto Rico	3,982,000	651,580	16.36%
21	Italy	60,090,400	8,882,260	14.78%
22	Israel	7,390,600	1,091,520	14.77%
23	France	65,073,482	9,579,240	14.72%
24	Turkey	71,517,100	10,477,320	14.65%
25	Croatia	4,432,000	639,300	14.42%
26	Slovenia	2,053,355	294,500	14.34%
28	Ireland	4,517,800	639,020	14.14%
29	Maldives	309,000	42,260	13.68%
30	Trinidad & Tobago	1,339,000	182,480	13.63%

The 30 countries with the lowest number of Facebook users per head of population:

Rank	Country	Latest Population figure	No. of Facebook Users	% Facebook penetration
66	Morocco	31,394,044	519,820	1.66%
67	Hungary	10,029,900	163,560	1.63%
68	Peru	29,165,000	463,520	1.59%
69	Ecuador	13,938,115	214,980	1.54%
70	El Salvador	6,163,000	92,900	1.51%
71	Indonesia	229,950,000	3,114,080	1.35%
72	Philippines	92,226,600	1,233,620	1.34%
73	Oman	2,845,000	37,800	1.33%
74	Sri Lanka	20,238,000	223,960	1.11%
75	Honduras	7,466,000	73,000	0.98%
76	Taiwan	23,027,672	222,540	0.97%
77	Guatemala	14,027,000	133,520	0.95%
78	Poland	38,130,300	322,600	0.85%
79	Nicaragua	5,743,000	44,540	0.78%
80	Kenya	39,802,000	239,100	0.60%
81	Paraguay	6,349,000	35,760	0.56%
82	Romania	21,496,700	114,980	0.53%
83	Thailand	63,389,730	300,860	0.47%
84	Ghana	23,837,000	104,200	0.44%
85	South Korea	48,333,000	163,620	0.34%
86	Pakistan	166,120,500	559,680	0.34%
87	Japan	127,630,000	323,340	0.25%
88	Nigeria	154,729,000	350,540	0.23%
89	Brazil	191,045,000	413,800	0.22%
90	Bangladesh	162,221,000	294,360	0.18%
91	India	1,162,000,000	1,676,520	0.14%
92	Ukraine	46,143,700	66,240	0.14%
93	Russia	141,850,000	203,440	0.14%
94	Vietnam	88,069,000	73,280	0.08%
95	China	1,328,718,000	394,800	0.03%

Notes
* Lowest Facebook user list excludes Iraq, Estonia and Latvia - all shown by Facebook to have 'less than 20 users'
- All figures for number of Facebook users taken from Facebook's interface
- Population figures sourced from Wikipedia here (with the exception of Hong Kong which is sourced from here)

I think it's most interesting to look at where Facebook hasn't taken off. There are a number of stories in the bottom 30 countries by Facebook use against proportion of population. Clearly, in some cases there are massive populations with limited internet access, but in others Facebook has not been able to topple a local / established player.

In Eastern Europe local market players like Nasza Klasa and V Kontahkte dominate. In Holland Facebook has around 10% of the users that Hyves has, in South Korea CyWorld is still the market leader and in Brazil, the most socially active (online) country in the world, Facebook has a tiny market share compared to the dominance of Orkut.

Nielsen reported some of these vagaries in their 'Global Faces and Networked Places' study released in March 2009:

Nielsen - most popular SNS in countries where Facebook isn't the leader

Clearly Facebook dominates internet use of a number of countries whilst others have significant growth potential. Also worth remembering that whilst 200m is a huge number, in aggregate it still only covers around 3.5% of the 5,741,544,589 total population represented by the 98 countries that Facebook reports statistics for!

Therefore lots of room for further Facebook growth and looking at the speed with which Facebook use is growing in Asia (particularly Malaysia and Indonesia) could this region become even more important for Facebook than the US and Europe?

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#LRNY - Land Rover promote Twitter hash tag in their advertising

When we launched VivaKi REAL Social for EMEA we promoted the event with a Twitter hash tag #REALsocial. This was a great success and in the REAL Social wrap up I wondered if Twitter hashtags could replace the 'AOL keyword' or the 'Search on Google for.....' credits at the bottom of posters? Well a major brand has now done this - doubtful that it's my influence, but very interesting all the same!

Land Rover banner ad promoting Twitter hash tag #LRNY

Land Rover are advertising the Twitter hash tag #LRNY to stimulate conversation around the new Land Rover vehicles that are being unveiled at the New York Motor Show. The Land Rover Twitter hash tag is being promoted through both traditional media and online (including social ads such as the service offered by Twittad.)

Land Rover promoting Twitter hash tag and Twitter Search

Land Rover are also encouraging people to use Twitter Search to track conversations that are happening under the #LRNY tag.

I think this is interesting and a sign of things to come. I like the way that this advertising is not telling people what to say, it's more about telling people how to frame comments and how to find what other people think - therefore not just creating a deeper engagement with fans, but also helping them to connect with each other too. (via Brandflakes for Breakfast)

Follow me on Twitter here - @nickburcher

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Susan Boyle internet sensation! Britains Got Talent performance goes viral

Susan Boyle appeared on the first edition of the new series of Britain's Got Talent and 5 days on from her performance she is a worldwide, internet phenomenon! Whilst this is all about an unknown singer becoming a global celebrity, it also offers a blueprint in using social media to amplify broadcast activity.

This is how Susan Boyle went viral:

- 9th April - no-one has heard of Susan Boyle

'Susan Boyle' - no Twitter results up to 2009-04-09

- 11th April - Susan Boyle appears on Britain's Got Talent and performs 'I Dreamed A Dream' from Les Miserables. The judges are blown away and the show attracts 10.3 million viewers.

- 11th April - Susan Boyle's performance is uploaded (unofficially) to YouTube:

screenshot of Susan Boyle on YouTube

- 11th April - Susan Boyle's YouTube performance Dugg by Jenocide312:

Susan Boyle's YouTube video is Dugg

- 11th April - Ashton Kutcher highlights the Susan Boyle Digg link through his @aplusk Twitter account

Ashton Kutcher tweets the Susan Boyle Digg link

- 11th April - Demi Moore retweets the @aplusk Susan Boyle tweet

Demi Moore retweets Ashton Kutcher's Susan Boyle tweet

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore's tweets have been retweeted again and again and 'Susan Boyle' has consistently been a Twitter trending topic ever since - over 1500 tweets featuring 'Susan Boyle' today and 'Susan Boyle' is currently the number one global Twitter Trend.

'Susan Boyle' number one Twitter trend

The Susan Boyle YouTube count is rising quickly (over 11 million views on one film + many other versions getting high view counts), the original Digg story has been Dugg over 6000 times and Susan Boyle Facebook Groups and Fan Pages are getting high volumes of activity.

A selection of the Susan Boyle Facebook Fan Pages and Groups

As a result of all of this mainstream media are covering this story. Susan Boyle has been featured on the BBC, CNN and many other places - Susan Boyle is even appearing on the CBS early show this morning, performing live from her kitchen in Scotland!

What starts out as an appearance on a TV talent show, goes into social media channels and then comes back into mainstream media as a result of all the social attention.

People are demanding a Susan Boyle album is released now. This illustrates how social channels are able to not just amplify broadcast content, but can also move things along very quickly. Britains Got Talent is running across a number of weeks, but social media users may well have decided the winner already - and they don't want to wait.

This is a great lesson for social strategy and really shows that if you have the right content and get it in front of the right influencers then the results can be instant and enormous.

Follow me on Twitter here -@nickburcher

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User generated flavour competitions - Walkers, Dorito's, Jelly Belly and now Ben & Jerry's!

All slight variants on a theme, but user generated flavour marketing seems to be the big thing at the moment. Walker's Crisps are in the final stages of their 'Do Us A Flavour' campaign in the UK, Dorito's are about to announce the winner of their name the flavour competition in Canada, Jelly Belly ran a 'what's your favourite flavour' competition and Ben & Jerry's have just launched a global 'Do The World A Flavour' campaign.

1) Walkers 'Do Us A Flavour'

Walkers Crisps 'Do Us A Flavour' competition is a long running, multi-faceted promotion. First there was a competition for consumers to submit their own flavour and a shortlist of 6 flavours was drawn up and put into production. The public can now vote for their short-list favourite and the creator of the winning flavour will win £50,000 + 1% of the future sales of their flavour.

Walker's User Generated Flavour shortlist (click for larger image)

2) Become the Dorito's Guru competition

In Canada Dorito's have been running a competition called Become The Dorito's Guru and have been selling packets of Dorito's marked with 'Unidentified flavour'. Consumers have been offered the chance to name the flavour and upload a short film about what inspired them to choose the name. "The Doritos® Guru will then have their idea turned into a polished 30-second ad to be aired on for-real TV, see their flavour name emblazoned on the bag and of course, take home $25k and 1% of future net sales of this flavour name in Canada."

Dorito's 'Unidentified Flavour' packets

'Become the Dorito's Guru' prize

3) Jelly Belly 'What's Your Favourite Flavour?'

In January 2009 Jelly Belly launched a Flavour competition to win a trip to New York - users just had to name their favourite and least favourite Jelly Belly flavour.

Jelly Belly Flavour competition

4) Ben & Jerry's 'Do the World A Flavour' competition

Running across 14 countries, Ben & Jerry's have launched a competition giving the public the chance to 'concoct the latest and greatest Fairtrade certified [ice-cream] flavour.' Then 'one winner from every participating country will travel to the Dominican Republic to witness the benefits of Fairtrade on a cocoa farm, alongside Ben, Jerry and our flavour gurus. The grand prize winner will see their idea transformed into Ben & Jerry's 2010 worldwide flavour.'

Ben & Jerry's 'Do The World A Flavour' competition (click for larger image)

Can you spot the theme? Are there any more examples for this list?

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SOMESSO London - May 15th 2009 - The Corporate Social Media conference

The next SOMESSO conference is in London on May 15th at Arsenal's Emirates stadium. The event is billed as 'the corporate social media conference' and on the day there will be a range of speakers from the social space (including me!)

Here are the details:

"SOMESSO is the only Pan-European conference that aims exclusively at inspiring, educating and equipping the corporate world for the real challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as ‘social media’ becomes a mainstream communications channel.

Following a successful debut in Zurich last year, SOMESSO London 2009 takes place in the Emirates Stadium on Friday May 15.

SOMESSO is best described as a ‘think and do’ tank for industry leaders, communications professionals and entrepreneurs, where the implications of breakthrough innovations are discussed, connections made and strategies devised that are beneficial to the business.

Confirmed speakers include:

Stowe Boyd - Social Media Blogger and Front Man for The /Messengers
Jason Goldberg - VP XING Applications Platform / CEO & founder of socialmedian Inc.
Nick Burcher – Head of Vivaki Nerve Center UK and Products / Partnerships EMEA
Jason Falls - Social Media Blogger and VP at Doe Anderson
Ross Mayfield - Chairman, President and Co-Founder of Socialtext
Lee Bryant - CEO, Headshift
Umair Haque – Director Havas Media Lab, and Blogger Harvard Business Publishing
René Rechtman - Group Managing Director, GoViral
Andy Piper - Social Bridgebuilder and Consulting IT Specialist at IBM
Frans van der Reep - Professor Digital Media, InHolland University."

There is also a YouTube trailer:

As I’m speaking at SOMESSO London, I am able to offer my readers a discount code worth 20% off the entrance ticket. If you want to meet me and others at SOMESSO London, just sign up online with this code to receive the discount: XYSO09CNICKB

To register online, see the full speaker overview and agenda, visit www.somesso.com - don’t forget to enter the discount when signing up!

Swedish Estate Agent using Twitter to sell property

Twitter going mainstream part 567 - Swedish Estate Agent, Skandiamaklarna using Twitter to promote real estate listings!

Skandiamaklarna Twitter page

Want to spend a million on an apartment? It's all in your Twitterfeed!

Skandiamaklarna Twitter listing

I guess this is what Twitter have in mind when they are thinking about charging corporate users.......

Follow me on Twitter here - @nickburcher

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Reevoo.com's Feel-Like-Love machine - real time reviews as distributed content

A significant aspect of Social Thinking is the idea of distributed content - don't make your customers come to you, go on a kind of 'virtual roadtrip' and take your content to them. The other growing concept is the idea of real time social information - 'what are you doing right now?'

Reevoo.com (product review site) are exploring these social trends through the launch of a real time reviews platform that they are calling the Feel-Like-Love machine. The idea is based on a Twitter visualisation called Twistori and aims to show scrolling customer product reviews in real time.

The Feel-Like-Love machine can be embedded anywhere on the internet and clicking on a review takes you to the main Reevoo.com site for further product information and customer reviews.

© reevoo.com | more »

Reevoo.com's Feel-Like-Love machine

Reviews can be filtered using the terms 'Feel', 'Like', 'Love' or 'Hate' and there is also an adult product version of the Feel-Like-Love machine.

I don't know how many people will sit watching this for purchase inspiration, but the Feel-Like-Love machine is a nice example of distributing content outside of the boundaries of the traditional site.

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Labour smear campaign - lessons from 'Barack Obama Muslim' and highlighting the growing importance of social media in UK politics

This weekend the Sunday Times and News Of The World published details of a proposed smear campaign planned from inside 10 Downing Street. The alleged campaign planned to 'destabilise' Conservative party management by circulating a series of rumours / accusations - and rather than being seeded directly to journalists, the smear campaign was to be orchestrated through social media, with stories put into the public domain through the creation of an 'unofficial' blog called the Red Rag.

Smear summaries from News Of The World

Emails from Damian McBride, Downing Street's Head Of Strategy and Planning, found their way into the hands of right wing blogger Guido Fawkes, who then passed them on to the major UK newspapers. The emails from Mr. McBride are alleged to contain details of a number of smear ideas that he had concocted. The smear ideas are said to have been aimed at senior Conservative politicians, with unsubstantiated stories around various themes including affairs, sex aids, prostitution, drugs, mental illness and inappropriate business interests.

Furthermore, the Times claims, "McBride wrote about how to “sequence” the stories for maximum impact. The messages discuss “timing and technology” for placing the rumours on the web and contain suggested links to websites and photographs that could make the allegations appear more credible. "

The Guardian (and others) today argue "that Labour is still struggling to understand how the blogosphere works. Despite Peter Mandelson's argument that "command and control" Labour methods don't work online, the emails suggest their authors have not grasped that you can't organise anarchy." HOWEVER, I believe that the evidence we have been presented with points to the opposite conclusion.

Damian McBride and Derek Draper would appear to have a very good idea about how the internet works:

- Once a story gets onto the internet / into the blogosphere, it can grow exponentially very quickly

- The key things are seeding it through a suitable source (in this case the proposed Red Rag blog) and then amplifying it through clever technology and networks

- Once on the internet subsequent writers tend to do only loose fact checking and if the story appears in enough places then it is deemed to have some truth and thus propagated further (this is what is prompting the inventor of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, to investigate kite marks for credible content)

- Mud sticks - even if a story is profoundly untrue, allegations will still have negative effects (as seen with the Barack Obama Muslim accusations in the Presidential election)

* The email chains and discussions that are featured in the press show that the proposed smear campaign instigators had considered all of the above and were thinking not just about content, but how to place it too.

CASE STUDY: The 'Barack Obama is a Muslim' example:

Bill Tancer of Hitwise writes about the effect of a Fox News story about Barack Obama's 'Muslim heritage' in his book 'Click - what we do online and why it matters.' On 19th January 2007 Fox News reported that Barack Obama had attended an Islamic madrassa in his early childhood from 1967 to 1971. 4 days later CNN discredited this by visiting the school in question and finding no evidence of the teaching of radical Islamic principles.

Tancer writes: 'Before this story, the top searches for Barack Obama were around his background or for the speech he made at the 2004 Democratic Convention.' He goes on to say that 'following the madrassa rumour there was a marked increase in searches for Obama's religious views, specifically his association with Islam.' However, Tancer notes that the really significant thing coming out of this was the enduring nature of a rumour that only lasted 4 days before it was rebuffed, 'if we look at search behaviour one year later, three of the top ten search terms that contain 'Barack Obama' reference his religion or the Muslim religion, and if we look at the searches that contain 'Muslim', six of the top ten terms contain a mention of Barack Obama.'

There were strong denials of the Fox story, corrections and the Obama campaign even ran paid search activity pointing searchers to pages correcting the 'Barack Obama Muslim' story. However, the rumour lived on and was further propagated by the controversial New Yorker cover thefollowing year. The 'Barack Obama Muslim' story shows that on the internet mud doesn't just stick, it lives on indefinitely in Google results / caches and through blogs / UGC that further pick up the story.

If the proposed Labour smear campaign had been started then (much like the 'Obama Muslim' falsehood) it would have been difficult to completely eradicate the proposed stories, even if they were quickly proved to be categorically untrue. The irony now is that it was a blogger who passed the leaked documents to the press and the online mechanics that Labour / McBride aimed to harness are now working against them as the smear story is analysed and grows through the internet.

Aside from the politics (which I will leave others to dissect), this whole news story does show that social media, and the blogosphere particularly, can be really effective at both amplifying messages and acting as a dynamic fulcrum for fast changing news and debate.

This is the beginning of social media becoming really significant in UK politics. The successful Obama campaign has inspired UK parties to pay close attention to internet campaigning and the Damian McBride 'scandal' shows that social thinking will be central to 2010 election campaigning - if nothing else in the UK it is not yet covered properly by the electoral restrictions that apply to traditional broadcast media like TV and radio. Watch this space!

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