Bill G Quits Facebook

Billg quits Facebook | The Register
Gates, who retires from Microsoft in July this year, was apparently spending up to half an hour a day poking his mates and playing Scrabulous.

Haha. Oh Bill Gates. I need to make a drawing of this.

Social Media is Fun

You know, things like …

• Digg
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• Squidoo
• Del.icio.us
• Technorati
• Sphinn (for search and Internet marketers)
• and the list goes on …

Here is a useful article about the basics of Social Media, written by a guy in Cape Town, South Africa. (I heard that because of the sun’s angle in Cape Town, lots of production companies fly there to shoot. The money they save on lighting makes up for the cost of flying there, and everyone lives happily ever after.) I especially enjoyed this bit of advice:

Search Engine Land: 15 Fundamental Truths About Social Media

Create something that is honest. Sony was famously outed online when the company created a fake blog called All I Want For Xmas Is A PSP (no longer live), where two people were trying to get others to promote their wish for a PSP. Turns out these people were actors. Sony subsequently was subjected to a backlash of brand bashing which really highlights the risk involved in a dishonest marketing campaign.

Did you click the PSP link in the above article? Haagen-Dazs bought it!

Oh, Internet. You are so funny sometimes.

Good Morning, Internet! Where’s Your Vote?

Whoa! On December 16, 2007, Ron Paul collected more money in a single day through Internet donations than any presidential candidate in US history, with over $6 million.

You are sitting in an important seat right now – one in front of a computer. Things are happening online this election, and smart candidates are taking advantage of the fact that their online behavior plays a big part in the election.

You’re in the driver’s seat. Here, you can go wherever you want, read whatever you want, and make your own decisions.

Good or bad, it’s on the internet. For you.

Fear the family sitting in a pastel-colored living room, eating complacent popcorn on a floral-patterned couch as they watch whatever the TV stations allow them to watch. Whatever the monopolistic network companies have filtered through this family’s satellite. Whoever the TV wants them to vote for.

So, as people turn to the internet for real, objective answers (or as they search, and hopefully find them), candidates are learning to give them what they want.

What better place to lay it all out? Straight from the source. Bam.

2008 Presidential Candidates

Go here for a list of every candidate.

Here are some that I’ve chosen to research and link for your convenience. Sweet!

Ron Paul, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Daily Paul

Barack Obama, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter

John Edwards, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter

Hillary Clinton, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter

Squidoo

Squidoo is just one of the fascinating things I learned about today, meeting with the fabulous Ted Cantu, of Search Quest.

More on this soon!

Facebook Has ADS

All over the place. Ads ads ads ads. I added the iLike application today, (because one of my friends dedicated a song to me, and I had to add the application to see it). There are always little applications popping up over there, and I see them as little demographic gold-diggers for advertisers.

Which is fine.

Playing the iLike Challenge is fun. Here’s how it goes: You’re taken swiftly through a bunch of songs, one by one, and asked a) who the artist is, or b) what song by the artist it is. Great There’s even a mix across genres.

But the wacky, off-beat, annoying part is THIS:

A big, fat movie clip ad for Beowulf! Weird, because …

• It has nothing to do with the music challenge I was just taking.
• It’s for a movie that I haven’t seen.
• It’s for a movie that I do not plan on seeing.
• It asks questions that are easily found after watching the clip for about 10 seconds.

So, I thought that was strange. We all know Facebook uses its demographic information for marketing research – but I worry it’s getting too clogged with mainstream marketing. Just sent a little pang of irritation through me.

Another Source: Facebooks “Beacon” Infuriate Users, MoveOn – Silicon Alley Insider