Grown Up Thinking

Finally! Ever since the emergence of Chatroulette I’ve been eagerly anticipating a viral marketing campaign that takes it to the next level.

For me it has arrived in the form of “The Last Exorcism” where some genius marketer has combined the two best things about Chatroulette: sex appeal and shock value. This viral move comes as a follow-up to the newly created Church of St. Marks website that provides tips and tricks to avoid being possessed by a demon, and in the event that this is unavoidable, also provides guidance to care for the possessed.

An important point to note with this is that the actual promotion on Chatroulette isn’t what will bring the movie in to the spotlight, but rather the virility of the reaction videos. Considering the largest demographic on the site is 18-24 year olds, Chatroulette seems like a perfect fit for this type of promotion.

All-in-all, I’m glad to see that someone is keeping Chatroulette in the headlines and giving us even more entertaining reactions to enjoy.

Check them out here.

Twitter can be a valuable tool for businesses, but it’s important to know how you can get the most out of it. Whether it’s learning about what tweets are most popular or who is actually retweeting your tweets, allowing businesses to track and aggregate data pertaining to their specific hashtag or username can help them better understand ROI and help make improvements as needed.

Posting tweets with a hashtag or asking users to use a hashtag can be difficult to track, which is why we have compiled the following list of Twitter tools used to track hashtags. Enjoy!:

TwapperKeeper.com: Are you interested in archiving tweets as they are posted? What about saving your own personal tweets? Twapper Keeper is a wonderful service that allows you to search and save data by date.

Monitter.com: Monitter tracks keywords and hashtags in real-time. Type in the words you want pulled and it will automatically update the graph with the most recent tweets.

Hashtags.org: This website tracks specific hashtags and also includes a graph to outline how often the hashtag is used.

Plodt.com: This website is a user-generated trend tracker based on tagging and ranking your tweets. It requires you to follow the Plodt Twitter account to participate, but even without participating, its timelines, tags, and statistics are still useful and interesting.

RowFeeder.com: RowFeeder tracks and aggregates data on Facebook and Twitter. You can track any word, hashtag or even a username. A number of different report types are available and can be downloaded via Excel.

This week, the Twitterverse has been buzzing about a new Foursquare visualization tool, Weeplaces. And with 100 million check-ins under their belt, it’s about time Foursquare found a way to visualize them.

How does it work? Blue circles represent places you have visited and even bigger circles with numbers represent places you visit frequently.  A time series chart below the map shows how long you have been a Foursquare user.  Once the animation begins to play, a yellow line connects all your check-ins and the timeline at the bottom follows along.

One of the best features of the visualization is the shaded regions, as places in the areas that you often frequent show up lighter than places you haven’t been.  This way you can see which neighborhoods you’ve been neglecting. @VishalSapra (shown above), for example, seems to have something against the Upper East Side.

All in all, I’m always looking for a new way to impress my friends with my check-in prowess. Thank you Movity for thinking of a way to reinvigorate my Foursquare addiction.

Well, well, well.  NYC is finally moving forward with a $200 million project to bring Wi-Fi to the underworld in the next 2-6 years.  This project has been approved since 2007, but (as with other NYC undertakings) did not have funding until recently.  Transit Wireless and Broadcast Australia get credit for fronting the cash; the question is do we thank them or not?

There are many reasons I am glad I do not have service in the Subway:

1.    Convenient excuse to end a phone conversation
2.    I read more books that way
3.    Time spent disconnected from the world – which they say is good for you
4.    People are irritating when they don’t pay attention to where they are going, and this would expose them to the dangers of texting while walking

There are also times I wish I had service on the Subway:

1.    When I forget which stop I want
2.    When I am late(r than usual) and need to call my blind internet date… er… friends
3.    When someone asks me a question and I don’t know the answer
4.    When I think of something brilliant to Google
5.    when I open Facebook on my phone just to be reminded that I cannot

On the whole, it is an attractive and practical idea that will result in more meaningful, engaging advertising content.  It’s surprising it took this long to come to fruition, really.

Can you imagine being able to meet friends on a specific train car or play live online trivia with the plasma TVs that will definitely be installed by then? Cross your fingers the world doesn’t end in 2012 because I definitely want to be here for this.

What does the future of marketing on subway cars look like to you?

I remember when watching TV used to be a sociable experience.  My friends and I would base our Friday night plans around ABC’s TGIF line-up, a bowl of popcorn and our parent’s carpool schedule.  These days watching TV is my “me” time, curling up in my bed with my laptop and catching up on a week’s worth of TV via Hulu.

I’m happy to report your TV viewing experience is about to, once again, revolutionize with a so-called “second screen” experience.  The concept is being fueled predominately by the growth of mobile and sites like Foursquare and GoWalla, and will take your on-screen viewing experience to your social networks where you can connect with friends (and strangers) who share similar viewing interests.

Two start-ups forecasted by Mashable caught my eye:

Miso, the self-described “Foursquare for TV”, allows users to check into the show they are watching and push notifications live to both Facebook and Twitter.  Badges and check-ins work very similarly to Foursquare which in turn, socialize your TV viewing experience.  A simple concept, but does it have the ability to take-off like Foursquare?

i.tv takes socializing television to a whole new level.  The app aggregates conversations happening around shows and can provide the user with these conversations no matter what time they are watching.  This is particularly helpful for people like me who watch TV shows several days after they air, and then wants to see what everyone has to say about the latest episode.  The app allows for additional functionality such as remotely scheduling your TiVo, using your iPhone as your remote control, manage your Netflix and more.

No matter which startup wins this war, I think it’s safe to say things are about to change.  As social media evolves and more and more people jump on the bandwagon things we’ve become accustomed to, like watching TV or a movie, are going to change.  Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing?  Well, that’s up for you to decide.