Social Media News of the Day: August 10, 2010

Watch out Samantha Ronson, Here Comes Gabi Gregg

Last night, MTV announced the winner of their first ever Twitter Jockey competition, @gabifresh. Gabi Gregg will be the face of their social media campaigns, and her new position comes with a $100,000 a year paycheck. Not bad, huh? Gregg started out as a Detroit-based, plus-sized fashion blogger and now she will be interviewing celebs at the MTV Movie Awards and the VMA’s (tweeting all the while, of course). You can follow Gabi Gregg now on Twitter @mtvtj. Congrats girl!

Twitter’s Just What the Doctor Ordered

There’s been a lot of talk recently about whether not it would be appropriate for doctors to venture into social media. While some feel this would be a huge HIPPA violation, others are making the very valid point that social media is where the patients are spending the most time and doctors should be there.  The Mayo Clinic has heard this request and is starting to give social media courses to doctors and interested hospitals on the how to’s of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogging. If you’re interested, check out this article from American Medical News.

Ask the Lonely

Remember the movie “You’ve Got Mail”? Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan made chat rooms and anonymous emails appear romantic and not creepy — a talent, I must say! It’s been 12 years since that movie warmed the hearts of Internet geeks everywhere and now might be the perfect time for a sequel. Invisible Note is the perfect combination of Chatroulette and You’ve Got Mail. It allows you to connect with strangers through email. But I’m not quite sure I’m ready to star in “You’ve Got Mail 2”, are you?

Social Media News of the Day: August 9, 2010

Did You See the Redesign?

Foursqaure launched their new profile page redesign and I think it looks great. The new design is more user friendly and cleaner. Here’s an example of the new layout (http://foursquare.com/user/ebailey126). They’ve also put an explanation of how to best utilize the To Do list, which is different than posting a tip (I think this was confusing for some at first).

Foursquare is trying to hold its own in the location space of social media, and this redesign proves to me that they’re trying to do more than just check-ins in the future. There have been talks about Foursquare adding an adventure, game-like feature to Foursquare, similar to SCVNGR (which we also like). What do you think about the redesign and what would you like to see next in location-based social media tool?

Chatroulette is Not Dead

I was under the impression that Chatroulette was going to be one of those social media fads that was here today gone tomorrow, but Facebook’s founding president, Sean Parker, seems to disagree. At today’s Techonomy Conference he discussed the most important aspect of Chatroulette — live video – and spoke about how no other social media site is “nailing this.”

He has ideas of targeting the most interesting people and sending the most traffic their way. This would allow this site to almost focus on talent (like the Chatroulette piano guy) and eliminate the people who are on there just to get naked (see Lyn’s blog post on Chatroulette’s potential for marketing). He explains that this would be accomplished by sending traffic to people who do not get “nexted” very often or ever.

Have you tried Chatroulette? Would you try it if it was more tailored to talented individuals and not just anyone with a webcam? Thoughts?

Chatroulette for Marketing? Not Unless You Want to See…

A few months back, Chatroulette was all the rage in the news. Every reporter from every national outlet was talking about the hot new social media tool, Chatroulette. (For a good laugh about all the news reports, watch the Daily Show’s take on the whole thing below… tee hee…)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Tech-Talch – Chatroulette
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

But if you somehow missed every one of those reports, let me fill you in. Chatroulette is a site developed by a Russian teenager still living at home with Mom and Dad that randomly pairs you for a video chat with people across the world. If the person who comes up isn’t of interest, you click “next,” which has created the term “nexting.” Fun, right?

Well, it pretty quickly went downhill, turning into a site that is “71% male, 15% female and 14% pervert.” Um, with the demographic being highly male, just use your imagination as to what you might see a lot of . Southpark also did a great episode (warning: adult content) making fun of Chatroulette.

But on to its marketing potential: is there any? Eh…

Pretty much not, unless you’re marketing to perverts, but I thought I’d show you a few pretty creative ways some different folks are using it anyway.

1) Improv Piano Guy

This is so funny! A guy did a video of himself on Chatroulette playing the piano and improvisationally singing a song about however who ended up with on the video chat. Even better, the musician Ben Folds did something similar live during a concert. Pretty fun!

2) The Travelocity Gnome

If you’re Chatrouletting, you just might come across the Travelocity gnome! He sits there, doing nothing obscene, with a little sign encouraging you to stop video chatting and start vacationing!

3) What’s Your Reaction?

Lots of people get on Chatroulette dressed up in a costume or doing a silly dance, etc. just to get people’s reactions. Might make for a funny marketing video if you can cut through all the unsavoriness.

4) Come Find Me!

We also heard tell of a comedian putting out the word on social media that he was headed over to Chatroulette and to come find him. We think that’s a pretty fun idea too, as it creates a bit of  a “hunt” to see if you can find him.

In Closing

Overall, I think that Chatroulette is best left to the 14% mentioned above, but if you feel compelled to do something really creative, I’d stick to coming up with a silly idea, hopping onto Chatroulette and getting people’s reactions. Get it on video and use a clean version of it later on your own site or YouTube channel.

Here are a few more good posts and websites on Chatroulette:

Chatroulette Being Used for Marketing? Say It Ain’t So!

4 Fun and Crazy Chatroulette Videos

ChatrouletteVideos.com

Got any ideas for marketing with Chatroulette? Share them!

Social Media News of the Day: July 8, 2010

Chatroulette as an Art Form?

The Huffington Post brought to our attention Merton the Chatroulette Piano Guy a few weeks ago, who dedicated songs to each person he encounters (also check out our blog post on Chatroulette as a marketing tool where we talk about Merton). Now, artist Liubo Borissov has put together an exhibit called the Narcissus Series.

The basic gist is Chatroulette captured people’s reactions when they opened up their window not to find another person looking back at them but an upside down image of themselves. This is a reference to the mythical story of Narcissus seeing himself in the water’s reflection. Read more here and tell us which “artist” you prefer: Merton or Liubo!

Keeping on Top of the Social Media News

Staying on top of all the social media news coming out every day can be a bit challenging! Here’s a list of more than 40 essential social business resources provided by Mashable. Hope they help! (Or you can just read the Step Ahead Social Media News of the Day!)