Warm Thoughts On a Tuesday Morning...

...nothing particularly witty to say this morning (for a change, yeah?!), but here are some good links to brighten up your Tuesday morning...

• I come across numerous listings and rankings every week, but this one "spoke to me" and I felt compelled to share. Its direct, honest and made me laugh...I like to laugh. Hope that you do as well.

• Let the lawsuits begin. With our culture in the U.S., I'm just surprised that this isn't happening more over here.

• I'm not going to say that I once had an addiction, but let's just say that there are period's of my collegiate years that are a complete and utter blur. Talk about the impact that technology has on human behavior. In some ways technology can be an enabler for social networking; in other ways it can be a deterrent. Its all about how you use the tools. As a side note, I wonder if they have considered setting up a similar clinic for professionals who are addicted to blackberries...I'm not kidding.

• I have to credit my good colleague Mike Johnson for bringing this to my attention. What a fantastic marketing usage of technology. This only reinforces what we continually talk about with new social media. Never underestimate the power of 'word of mouth'...and the free stuff doesn't hurt either!

• Here is a good article that highlights examples of Web 2.0 tools in Corporate America. Note that many instances of usage are not lead by from the top, but rather from the end-users themselves...hummmm...

Comments

[Adriana]

Re BzzAgent.. I am not a big fan. Remember when it burst onto the scene, the whole idea made me shudder. Then I blogged about it when Creative Commons used them to increase 'buzz' around their concept. So here's a different perspective, judge for yourselves :) http://www.bigblogcompany.net/index.php/weblog/individual/does_creative_commons_need_more_buzz/

[Margaret]

Hey Matt, interesting bit about Bzzz Agent. (And Mike, if you're reading...cool blog!) Procter & Gamble does something very similar, and some of our consumer opcos are looking into doing this too (if some of them aren't doing it already). It plays into the stuff we've discussed about people believing that word-of-mouth from "real people just like them" is more authentic than commercial advertising. Articles I've read have mentioned that there's no lack of people willing to sign up to participate in this kind of below-the-radar marketing. I think what companies have really tapped into is taking advantage of everyone's desire to get cool free stuff and to participate in something... All they have to do in return is promote the stuff to people they know. Kind of like the movie The Truman Show come to life. Just another banana peel on the slippery slope to making every moment in life a marketing moment... Like this NY Times story about how CBS is planning to advertise its fall lineup on eggs: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/business/media/17adco.html They call it -- are you ready for this? -- "egg-vertising." Eventually, and it'll probably take a while, people will get oversaturated with this and look for a space where they are free from this kind of thing. In the meantime, to whoever's doing this, enjoy your free stuff!