I dare you to come up with a more pointless list of New Year Resolutions!

Here is my list of resolutions for the next year...I am so not serious about any of these except #2, #8 and #12.

1. Work out at least twice a week
2. Find a vampire and convince him or her to turn me into one
3. Eat healthy food - nuts and fruits included
4. Come up with a failure-proof get-rich-soon scheme
5. Learn to swim
6. Make a detailed plan to somehow get a date with Megan Fox before I die
7. Write ten songs in ten different genres complete with a three piece musical arrangement, record them for an all online release of my debut CD
8. Learn and master telepathy
9. Paint a life-size portrait of someone or something that is worthy of hanging in a museum
10. Learn how to actually paint before I attempt the above
11. Travel to at least ten remote locations in India where there are no roads, water and electricity and stay in each for two weeks
12. Gain the supernatural power of being able to read minds of people around me
13. Write a kick-ass movie script and get Megan Fox and Scar-Jo to star in it....with me :-)
    
14. Put in extra effort in doing #2 so that I have an eternity to complete them at my own relaxed pace. Also Megan Fox would have to go on that date else I would feast on her :->

Facebook exec drags the social media war to Kindergarten playgrounds

Another interesting tidbit that came out in a UK press event on Tuesday, where a Facebook exec pointed out that there are apparently more active users in the Facebook app FarmVille than on all of Twitter.

via mashable.com

Most of us know the numbers. More than 69 million Monthly Active Users on Farmville with 26.5 million logging in daily. As for Twitter it's about 18 million by some estimates. But seriously if collecting people is Facebook's goal its looking at the entire thing upside down.

Twitter is much more functional and hence useful than Facebook when it comes to connecting with others or even for doing a one time marketing blast.

Besides how do we know that all the 69 million+ people using Farmville every month are unique individuals. People can and do easily set-up multiple Facebook accounts to help themselves advance in the game.

Finally I would really like to see the demographic segmentation of people playing Farmville. How many are above the age of 18 so that the game at least becomes relevant for brands to use as an advertising platform. twitter on the other hand is proliferated with official brand accounts talking to their consumers.

I like both Facebook and Twitter. I am also one of the 69 million people harvesting crop on Farmville everyday. I spend a lot of time on both Facebook and Twitter. But a cheapshot from a Facebook exec is the last thing I expect.

Posted via web from VTAS

Thanks to social networks integrating with TV, female bitch-ness all set to go viral...globally!

Female audiences can create conversations in and around TV shows with friends who are geographically dispersed. Imagine the possibilities: a viewer of a show might discover that a professional acquaintance has a common TV interest; two old college classmates can reconnect around a shared TV interest; relatives living in different cities can bond around a favorite show," explains Tercek.

via forbes.com

What Robert Tercek (President of digital media for OWN) has neglected is the scenario for Indian home-makers watching one of the many never-ending Saas-Bahu (Mother-in-law Vs. Daughter-in-law) shows on TV.
A sample conversation between any two 'bahus' wud be something like this:
Bahu1: That woman is such a bitch. I totally hate her!
Bahu2: Me too. I hope the son kicks her out of the house.
Bahu1: Or better yet pours hot boiling oil all over her.
Bahu2: Whoa! Your 'Saas' a major bitch?

Posted via web from VTAS

Radian6: Thanks to your Awesome Customer Service, I know my ancient notebook is not that sucky :-)

I was having trouble running Radian6 in my 3 year old notebook (1 GB RAM, 1.8 Ghz Pentium M processor). Basically, whenever I ran Radian6, the notebook would come to a halt. So in frustration I tweeted about it.

The customer service people at Radian6 not only tweeted back but emailed me as well. Once I provided them with some information on my notebook, they sorta explained the problem to me. And now I can be glad about the fact that it's not my notebook but the internet connection that slows it down. Below is the entire email conversation between Radian6 Customer Support and me.

The final one on top is by Cory Perry - a Customer Support Specialist -at Radian6. I wonder how many firms have a customer support let alone a specialist! Plus check out how the system automatically forwards my email to not one, not two but SEVEN specialists.

--------Email Thread Below-------------------------------------------------------------

Cory Perry  to me

show details 8:49 PM (44 minutes ago)

Hi Freddie,

I can tell you from experience that you should be ok with what you have for specifications to be using Radian6.  I have a laptop that is a 1.4ghz processor and 512Ram and it works fine.  Because Radian6 is web based it eliminates most issues with computer specifications and puts the brunt of everything on your connection and browser.  Some of the things you could do would be to see if there are any processes that are killing your computer so to speak.  If you do ctrl + alt + del and run the task manager while Radian6 is running you can then see which processes are taking the most resources.  Eliminate other unwanted processes.  You could do a broadband speed test at a place like http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ to see if your internet is limiting you.  Lastly your network card itself in the computer can be the cause of some problems.  For example I once had a card that was set to “full duplex”  which is the standard setting for a card but it would not work well unless I set it to “half duplex”.  This is probably not the case here but it wouldn’t hurt looking at it.

We do have some other logins that you could try but I am unaware if they would help your situation.  Please feel free to try them and let me know if this makes a difference.

http://www.radian6.com/login02  or   http://login02.radian6.com/
http://login.radian6.com/R6Login1.jsp
Cory

_______________________________
Be the social media expert!

Cory Perry | Customer Support Specialist | Radian6
Ph:506-452-9039 | Toll Free:1-888-6radian (672-3426)
www.radian6.com
Email: cory.perry@radian6.com

From: Radian6 Customer Support
Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 3:16 AM
To: Chris Ramsey; Nigel Orfei; Leesa Robertson; Chafic Haddad; Genieve Anderson; Cory Perry; Shawn Amos
Subject: FW: tweet

-------------------------------------------
From: Freddie Benjamin[SMTP:FREDDIE@2020SOCIAL.COM]
Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 3:16:05 AM
To: Radian6 Customer Support
Subject: re: tweet
Auto forwarded by a Rule

Hi Genieve,

Thanks for reaching out.
To answer your questions: I have a Dell XPSM140 to run Radian6 right now. It is a Pentium M processor 1.8 Ghz with 1GB RAM. (One of the biggest reasons why Radian6 slows it down). I use Firefox almost exclusively right now though I do dabble with IE and chrome one in a while.
My major pain point is that though for work I can get a powerful Desktop, a lot of times I need to run Radian6 on the go in a laptop or netbook. If there were a lite version that would help a lot.
Thanks
Freddie

---

From: Genieve Anderson <support@radian6.com>
To: "freddie_benjamin@yahoo.com" <freddie_benjamin@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tue, November 17, 2009 9:29:46 PM
Subject: Re: Tweet

Hi Freddie,
Could you give us some more information on how Radian6 slows down your computer? Like what exactly happens, what kind of computer do you have and what browser are you using?
We can investigate this for you.
Thanks,
Genieve
_________________________________________________________
Be the social media expert
Geniève Anderson | Sr Customer Support Specialist | Radian6
phone: 506.452.9039 | toll-free: 1-888.6radian | www.radian6.com
email: support@radian6.com

Posted via web from VTAS

--------END OF EMAIL THREAD------------------------------------------------------------- 

American Express sells tickets for Bon Jovi concert exclusively on Twitter

The first and only link to purchase tickets was posted exclusively on the @AmericanExpress Twitter account and they were able to sell out the show 1 day. The tickets were $50 with all proceeds benefiting City Harvest via the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation.

Everyone in the audience (roughly 500 people) were tweeting, snapping TwitPic photos and spreading the word about the event while they were there. Excellent use of Twitter to promote and sell out an exclusive event, as well as spread the word about the brand.

via juliaroy.com

While this is a great use of Twitter to sell tickets for an event, I am wondering how much of the buzz generated affected American Express in a positive way? The benefit to City Harvest is a great goodwill gesture but I am still wondering of direct business value to American Express. Is this really the best way to leverage social media platforms?

I am also looking for some stats to put a number to the buzz generated by this. Anything like number of tweets with a hashtag for the concert, number of clicks on the link that allowed people to purchase the tickets or anything else out there. If someone could help me out here that would be great. If I find something I will update this post.

Posted via web from VTAS

Priceless Quote from "Behind Closed Doors: What’s On the Mind Of Chief Marketing Officers"

previously marketers were used to ‘Bowling’, where marketers could easily throw a message down the aisle and hit the pins with great confidence. Now, he eloquently describe, it was more like ‘Pinball’ where a marketer could load the message up, shoot it out, but have no idea where it will end up.

via web-strategist.com

This a great quote...I'd even say priceless. Thanks to Greg Walsh for saying it and to Jeremiah for sharing it. Another great analogy I like for social media is comparing it to the Indian traffic...its chaotic but there is a subtle pattern and method to the madness. You just have to accept it and go with it. Listen to the noise and figure it out. Forgot where I got that analogy from but I am pretty sure its from a social media blog. If you're the author of that post please let me know so that I can credit you.

Posted via web from VTAS

Geo-Tag the place where you have had sex! Coolest use of Google Maps yet

I Just Made Love! is by far the best use of Google Maps I have come across. It lets people geo-tag the places where they have gotten down and dirty. Absolute genius! The next step would be to allow people to share stories - anonymously - which then get rated. Depending on the ratings one could advance to a playa status and then give tips to the other lowly non-playas. After all, we were put on this planet to reproduce, right? So why not use our inventions to advance that cause?

PS: I would really like to know who did it in the middle of the Atlantic?

Posted via email from VTAS