China Needs Good PR, Badly
Let's face it; China needs to bolster its reputation before the Summer Olympics begin. Otherwise, the several countries that are already considering boycotting may, in fact, do so. In my opinion, it would be a shame if a past representation of political and economical unity were to be halted. After all, if this one year is a bust, future Olympic games may follow in failure.
PRWeek recently ran an article in their online resource that the Chinese government was interviewing potential US and UK-based PR firms in the hopes to gain some positive pre-game press, prior to the events. However, no PR firm has admitted to being in the bid war for this lucrative account.
Facebook Applications Analysis – Part 1
[This is cross-posted at our ImpactWatch site]
The overly popular Facebook social network has recently seen a surge of ‘applications' added to its roster. Users hoping to enhance the experience of the social platform create these applications. As of January 2008, there are over 14,000 applications in circulation among users. The uses of these applications range widely; in July 2007, the first Facebook-only venture capital firm (Altura 1 Facebook Investment Fund) was released to the public. They have gotten so popular that Stanford University recently debuted a class where the end product is Facebook application. The great success of this class most likely means that many more schools will soon follow suit, offering more classes on social network metrics and creation.
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Anger and Video Games: A Winning Combination
Combining aspects of things that people already enjoy is one of the best ways to make an impression on a market without having to be completely original or creative. For the past couple of months, there has been a surge of such activity in the form of ‘angry' video game reviews. These reviews combine aspects of life that many males (and some females) enjoy, including ranting, nostalgia, cheap Photo shopping, and dirty humor. Taken together, these form a "review" of a classic video game. The reviews have the taste level of an episode of Family Guy, but also have the marketability, as well.
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Facebook Launches Thousands of Movie Clips Through New App
Social networking giant Facebook is teaming up with Paramount Pictures to let users download thousand of clips from the filmmaker’s archives.
The VooZoo application, which launched Monday, was developed by FanRocket. The idea is to let individuals re-live some of their favorite scenes and moments from any Paramount film. Clips last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes.
Viacom, Paramount Pictures’ parent company, plans to market DVDs through the new tool.
Though FanRocket aims to garner a few hundred thousand users within the first few months, Paramount hasn’t set any revenue goals to its end.
The application features a double-pane window on top – the left side shows the clips you’ve added yourself. On the right, you’ll find a display of your history, with ‘Featured VooHoos,’ or featured clips, just underneath.
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Barack Obama is Most Followed on Twitter
Want further proof of Barack Obama’s popularity online? According to the site Twitterholic, Obama has more followers than any other Twitter user (followers are people who sign up to receive a user’s Twitter updates through the service). Here is a chart showing the top 10 users:
Despite this popularity, Obama’s team doesn’t use the service that aggressively. They have only posted 78 updates. The second most popular user, Robert Scoble, has posted 7,499 updates.
You can visit Obama’s Twitter page here and Twitterholic here.
Update: Twitdir is another great resource for looking at data on top Twitter users.