Continuous Digital Strategy

Here is a fantastic article by Gavin over on Servant of Chaos about the concept of a continuous digital strategy. I highly advise all digital professionals to give it a read, and then while you're over at the site, have a good look around. Gavin produces top content and writes one of my favourite blogs on the subject of branding and social media.

1 Million Twitter Followers in Less Then a Month

There has been loads of coverage about the Tweet battle that briefly rages between Ashton Kutcher and CNN to get to the 1 million follower mark. In the news today, however, their exclusive little club now has a third member, and she has managed to gain all her followers in less then a month!

Who is it?

None-other-then the Queen of Talkshow TV, Oprah Winfrey!

A few examples of Oprah's recent tweets:

• "Met Stella McCartney for the first time. Love her fashion. Loooved her even more!"
• "Worked out an hour. And now going to read the Sunday papers and have a skinny cow or 2!"
• Oprah also uses the service to mingle with fellow Twitterati, including Hugh Jackman and Shaquille O'Neal.
• "@RealHughJackman Hugh...I'm countin' the hours. Wanna do dinner the night before. Same booth? Or catch up fresh on the air?"
• "@THE_REAL_SHAQ thanks for being my twitter buddy. this is cool."

Ashton Kutcher now has 1,755,197 followers and CNN have 1,471,498 followers.

Facebook Dollars

I read several articles this morning about Facebook's plans to test a new system of virtual money to let users make purchases within applications. Obviously at the moment Facebook already has its "Facebook Credits" ($1 buys 100) that users can use to purchase virtual gifts. However, according to MediaPost, Facebook will be extending this system to its third-party applications. A move that will surely net millions in revenue.

Through a little more digging I then discovered that Facebook confirmed the stories, "We're starting a very small alpha test in a few weeks with a handful of developers that explores ways for users to use their Facebook credits with third-party applications on Facebook.com"

I also saw the following estimations here:

• Facebook's third-party apps will garner their developers between $300 million and $500 million in revenue this year
• Facebook itself will earn between $45 million to $55 million from its gift shop

Cursor Takeover Display Ad

This might not be as flash (pardon the pun) as the Cadbury's Breakdancing cursor but it's a great example of a nice simple cursor takeover.

Become the Highest Tweeter in The World!

Following on from my previous post, there are some seriously cool things happening with Cybercom's 10 Year Birthday celebrations in conjunction with Gavin Bate.

Following a number of really cool suggestions, it was decided that Neil Perkin's suggestion was a winner. Neil suggested that Gavin do an online auction to give someone the Tweet from the top of Mount Everest, and in so doing raise money for his Moving Mountains charity. Craic'n idea, which I wish I'd thought of!

So get yourself over to the auction and do some bidding! This is a seriously cool opportunity and all proceeds go to Moving Mountains.

---Update---

Bidding is going crazy! Check this out - http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170331229446

Samuel Beckett Bridge

Some photos I took yesterday of the Samuel Beckett Bridge arriving in Dublin. A more indepth review of the where, how and why can be found here.

Social Media Wine Connoisseur

How does this sound?

• Live rent free in the beautiful heart of Sonoma County along the beautiful northern coast of California
• Learn the intricacies of making the perfect wine from more then 450 wineries
• Get paid $10,000 a month for 6 months

What's the catch?

• You have to capture the whole experience through Twitter and Facebook, sharing your experience with the world.

No seriously, what's the catch? Well it's certainly not that. The catch is that the job has to be won. Murphy-Goode Winery is offering all this to one lucky person according to a San Francisco blog. Kinda sounds a lot like the recent Australian Tourist Board promotion!

So what do you have to do? Well first get yourself over to http://www.AReallyGoodeJob.com, fill out the application and submit a one-minute video showing off yourself and your special skills. Seriously, I really think this is an Australian idea!

The job description describes the responsibilities as follows; “Throughout the course of the job the successful applicant will learn about viticulture, winemaking, Sonoma County and Murphy-Goode wines. He or she will prepare and post dispatches on their experiences though social media tools such as Facebook, blogs, internet videos and Twitter as well as traditional media.”

Ok, so this really is like the Best Job in the World, but is that a bad thing? No, not in my opinion. Lets face it, the campaign worked. The response, globally, was huge and it drove massive ammounts of traffic and publicity. So the real question is, when will it happen here? Does an Irish company have the bottle to do it?