Leonardo Baa-Vinci To Promote Samsung LED TV

Just got this video from a long lost friend. It has been viewed more than 3 million times since it was uploaded to YouTube 10 days ago. Some 2,000 viewers are arguing whether it's fake or real. Leonardo Baa-Vinci is a very well-crafted reproduction. The kind you wish you had...thought about!

Positive Deviance - A Perspective on Innovation

Recently I was theorizing for an anti-smoking campaign to change attitudes, increase intention, perceived risk, perceived benefit, behavior, etc. I wish I had thought about 'positive deviance' when thinking of ways to inform influencers and mobilize people to say no to smoking.

According to what I read in a recent announcement from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio, positive deviance suggests that 'in every organization or community, there are people who solve problems better than peers who have exactly the same resources.' The RWJF article quotes from a CDC announcement that explains how positive deviance was instrumental in reducing the number of infections in hospitals, as certain individuals figured out highly efficient ways to discard infected gloves and clothing.

This is the crux of innovation - when someone figures out a better way of doing things and paves the way for others. It could also be a new dimension in influencer research. When looking for those who are more outspoken and convincing than others, we could also study their approaches to problem solving.

Outbrain

I met with some very nice folks from outbrain the other week and I just added their widget to my blog. To bloggers, outbrain is a great ratings system that also shows related articles about their post to their readers. Similar to the way Amazon recommends 'other products you might be interested to buy,' outbrain suggests 'other stories you might want to read.' It's a great way to offer value to your readers and to be part of a larger traffic chain.

To marketers, outbrain means visibility and getting more out of online PR hits. Imagine being mentioned in a post on Mashable or Reuters.com. In addition to being viewed by readers who go to these outlets, your link can appear under many relevant blog posts that are part of the outbrain network.

Similar to sponsored links on Google, brands can sponsor links on outbrain. These sponsored links are indicated by a small icon above the link headline. May take some time to educate consumers about who is pushing them content exactly. If used right, outbrain can be a great way to aggregate content. The widget delivers both relevance and reach, by matching related articles across numerous blogs.

I wonder what's next for the company. After all, they are gathering a huge community and they must be seeing an extensive media index develop based on reader ratings and click throughs....himmm....

Skittles Spills It Online

Skittles changes its site to give the floor to those who love the brand and want to talk about it. The homepage opens into the Skittles Wikipedia entry. Chatter tab leads viewers to the Twitter stream about Skittles. Media section does the job with various brand videos and pictures. Product links are there if you want to look through. The widget-like site navigator sends visitors to Facebook with the 'friends' tab. The design concept gives visitors the feeling that they are in absolute control of finding the information that matters and enables them to get in touch with others who share their passion for the product.

The other interesting thing to note here is that Skittles is not referring people to the brand's own Twitter account or a Wiki page mocked up by professionals. This is the stream of information one would find if they were to look up the brand on Twitter and on Wkipedia.

The concept is flexible enough to deliver brand messaging while embracing authentic online word of mouth and fans.

Skittles 'gets it.'

Turkish Airlines' Online Crisis Response

I was deeply saddened to read today's news. A Turkish Airline flight crashed near the Amsterdam airport. Nine people, including the pilots, died and 50 people are wounded. The aircraft's photos show the vehicle literally divided into several pieces. It is amazing that anyone came out alive. Turkish Airlines brings me home to Istanbul twice a year. I witness first-hand what a top-notch crew it has. They are courteous, responsive and able. The seasoned pilots, like the one who was flying passengers to Amsterdam, usually have an army background. Not to make light of the topic, but I have been more shaken by NY cabs than by landings to the Istanbul Airport. They're that good.

Turkish Airlines' online response to this unfortunate event deserves a nod of approval. When I read the news this morning on one of the leading national papers Milliyet, the news report was followed by a candid blog entry by a pilot who is the head of the Aviation Association. He was urging readers who were commenting on the incident not to speculate and wait to hear the facts from the investigation.

I turned to the company's Web site and found that they had already pushed up their dark site in multiple languages. Here are clips from their homepage and crisis section. You'll see that the dark site is complemented by a hotline and has sections pertaining to the flight, the accident and passenger list. Information is up to date.




Turkish Airlines is not on Twitter, but its Facebook fans are doing the talking. The airline's employees have set up numerous fan pages and groups on the social networking site. You can recognize them from the icons they carry on their profiles: the airline logo with a black ribbon.

It is hard to talk about online reputation when people have lost their lives as a result of an accident. It will be interesting to watch the online crowds' reactions as we hear more details about what happened exactly.

Cool Link of The Day

...comes from Dave Kerpen of Buzz Marketing Daily: 25 Innovative Ways Companies Are Using Twitter

Thanks to Dave's informative list, I can now check up on my doc, look at property in Australia and get a love note from Twitter :-)

There Is More to FB Brouhaha Than Privacy

Frankly I am comfortable with the idea that a site might own the personal information I post on their area. When I update my Facebook account, I am aware that I am sending information to the 200+ friends I have listed. I realize they can write back, forward and copy and paste that information. This is the duality of social media: You're doing something private in a very public space. It's best to be aware of this and get used to it as the way things are and will be as the Web evolves. I don't think one would even need to wait for Facebook to aggregate data or cull through profile areas. Your friends could very well be spreading your information - online and offline. Post with 'this' in mind.

This is not Facebook's first attempt (or incident) trying to make use of the tremendous amount of user data that accumulates on the site. Facebook is looking for another way to make money from the site besides advertising. It's sitting on a gold mine. If users would understand the full set of ramifications of how their information would/could be used and opted-in to share or sell their information, then there would be new business models emerging from social networks.

Take a look at this interview between SAP's Steve Mann and Prof. Sinan Aral from MIT and NYU. Aral makes the very good point that understanding audience's demographic profiles is not enough. Companies can be a lot more effective in their communications if they understand their audiences' networks. In other words, who you know, where and how you know them gives marketers better information about you then just your age, gender and location.

There is an old saying in Turkish: 'Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are.' I guess it boils down to that.