Internet Famous Class

10 days in Chinese prison for James Powderly

Jamie Wilkinson August 22, 2008

Graffiti Research Lab founder & Internet Famous Class co-prof James Powderly has been detained by Chinese authorities for planning pro-Tibet protests, along with Brian Conley of Alive in Baghdad and 4 others (the “Beijing 6″)

We are continually posting new information on FFFFF.AT Lab

Some coverage on Rocketboom:

notes, people

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Social Media Marketing: Fad or Career?

Liz Filardi August 13, 2008

The buzzworthy job of “Social Media Manager” has been in the news this past week, as journalists ask, “now, what did we learn?” The position is more or less what the name implies… depending who you ask.

Ben Parr of Mashable sums it up pretty well:

“[Social media] used to be Web 2.0 and social networking, but now we have moved on to a broader term that encompasses not only social networking, but blogs, podcasts, user-generated content, social bookmarking, microblogging, and lifestreams. The rise of all these forms of new media has also created demand for people who can help companies position and market themselves within this new realm.”

Parr claims the job is not a fad:

“Social media allows people to spread their message to hundreds, if not thousands, of friends, followers, and strangers. Some companies can only dream of that kind of reach, while others pay millions in advertising for the same effect.”

But his bold claims are countered by Valleywag’s Alaska Miller:

“Parr says social media roles … are capable of increasing reach, users, traffic, and revenue. Examples? None. Numbers? Zero … The conclusion that mass media advertising is dead and the kids only trust teh tweets now doesn’t come from market research. It comes from social media consultants looking for new clients.”

Now, what have we learned?

Social media marketing is a necessity for any startup, nonprofit, or production on little to no budget, because it gets the ball rolling early, often, and for close to nothing.

So, perhaps the attraction to social media on the big budget scale—and to other types of interactive marketing techniques like the “Montauk monster”—is the realization that people actually better enjoy and are more willing to endorse promotion that feels genuine and thoughtful. Social Media FTW.

Liz Filardi worked as a social media intern for Rhizome and Rocketboom this summer. She is a candidate for the MFA in Design & Technology at Parsons.

notes

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Montauk Monster is Fake

Jamie Wilkinson August 8, 2008

Montauk Monster is a viral marketing hoax

Yup, the interweb’s favorite water-rat-slash-military-experiment is actually a viral marketing campaign for the forthcoming movie Splinterheads

Blair Witch set the bar pretty high for Hollywood’s viral marketing ambitions, but Splinterheads’ marketeers have done pretty well with this one: coverage on CNN and FOX NEWS, blogger lurv, 240 videos on YouTube, almost 20 (?!) posts on Gawker…

Except… what’s the connection between this “carnie” movie and a monster on the beach?

Don’t get me wrong: I’d never heard of this movie before, and now I have. I simply question the efficacy of a “viral” marketing campaign + a brand vs. a branded viral marketing campaign

This is the same question I had when I saw bluetooth headset maker Cardo‘s “Cellular Popcorn” videos — at the time their logo was nowhere in sight, and over 10 million views later date I’m not sure anyone really knows that it was them.

advertising, trends

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Google Insights more addictive than crack

Jamie Wilkinson August 6, 2008

Google just unveiled Insights for Search, which is like Google Trends on steroids. The world’s most popular search engine just let us loose in their search data playground.

Please, join me in analyzing some of our favorite web celebs:

Julia Allison vs. Kevin Rose. vs. Jimmy Wales vs. Mark Zuckerberg
(worldwide, last 2 years)

Kevin Rose vs. Julia Allison vs. Jimmy Wales vs. Mark Zuckerberg

Mark on top. Julia a big gainer. Jimmy blew up during the whole corruption/relationship nonsense (I forgot about that). Search traffic for Kevin down over the period?!

interest in Julia Allison by region. Classic Internet famo distribution, heavy on the Anglosphere

interest in Julia Allison by city. Supports the intuition that she is most popular in NYC, her base of operations.

interest in Kevin Rose by city. Supports the intuition that he’s most popular in San Francisco & environs, where he’s based.

interest in Jimmy Wales by region. More international than your average bear.

search terms related to Kevin Rose. Sarah Lane, eh?

rising searches related to Kevin Rose. Funny to see people looking for his accounts, but nothing mindblowing… for now.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, kids. You can invert the search and look at the most popular and rising terms by region, and drill down by category.

Try top searches in New York in the last 30 days

Let the SEO games begin.

stats, tech, tips

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Magibon & tinaecmusic’s new haircuts

Jamie Wilkinson July 30, 2008

What a coincidence that these two “accidental” internet celebs both get new haircuts at the same time, amirite? I smell production staff. Seriously. Seriously you guys.

$Magibon\'s new haircut$

Magibon #23. She’s all dolled up & rocking a fan for that hot hot summer. 14k views and 630 comments less than 24 hours after posting. Magi consistently breaks 500k views within a week of posting — she’s no Fred, but still impressive. ^_^. O_o. I think I’m doing that wrong.

$Tinaecmusic\'s new haircut$

Tinaec’s new look. Note her increasingly pimped out MySpace profile, with almost 20 new wall comments per day. Not shabby. But when’s the album dropping? Seriously guys.

And don’t forget to check out my new haircut:

people, videos

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How to Measure Any Website’s Traffic (For Free)

Jamie Wilkinson July 29, 2008

Have you ever wondered exactly who, what, and when people are visiting your website… or your competitors’ websites?

Without knowing your audience it’s difficult to make improvements towards your end goal, whether that’s becoming internet famo, selling more widgets, or just getting more page views. Here are a few free analytic tools to help you narrow down the tasks at hand by delivering detailed information about a website’s audience:

Compete

Type in one or more URL and get estimates of their traffic, growth, and “velocity” (ooh): apple.com vs. microsoft.com
Also shows what search terms are driving traffic to the sites
Allows you to compare traffic between up to 5 other sites
Measures the top 1 million US websites.
Features an excellent blog: blog.compete.com

Google Trends

Type in a search term, (everyone’s favorite example: “iphone”) and see how many people have been searching for it: link
Type in a couple of words for comparison, like “iphone, blackberry”
Cross-references with major news posts related to the search terms, helping explain spikes & dips
Google trends now features web traffic estimations, too, but it’s not as reliable as other services. Try “apple.com, microsoft.com”
Breakdown of traffic by country, city, and language

Quantcast

Traffic rankings for any website… and detailed audience demographics: apple.com
Measures frequency of visit, and classifies into cool “addicts,” “regulars,” “passers-by” user groups
Analyzes what other sites the audience visits, and even what magazines they read (hello, media buys)
Targeted towards advertisers, e.g. lists what kind of ads a site accepts (if any)
Can add tracking code to your site to share/improve data about it (and deepen their own data reach)

Alexa

Alexa was first to market with web traffic estimates, but its algorithms are now widely considered inferior to Compete & Quantcast
Recently expanded to include more data about international audiences

Bonus:

Brandtags

Not surprisingly, started by a marketing dude
Addictive, stream-of-consciousness brand association game that shows visitors a logo and asks them to type the first thing that pops into their head.
Aggregate associations reveal brand perception when viewed backwards
Updated with new brands often, and offers an opportunity to suggest your brand