People are continuing to talk about brands, and a recent Mediapost article by Jack Loechner suggests that there are 3.5 billion word of mouth conversations every day in the US alone.
Whilst 90% of these conversations take place offline, that still means that 350 million discussions are happening daily. Can you afford not to start listening?
FreeRice is a clever website that donates 10 grams of rice every time you correctly answer an english word defintion. So in principle, you expand your english vocabulary and feed the hungray at the same time.
Perspective: I think “Not for profits” are succeeding in leveraging the demand to help global issues, by both producing engaging sites. The combination of these reasons produce a powerful incentive for people to spread the site through word of mouth / mouse to others.
via CTV.ca
Cleanscores is a new site which links Google maps with the cleanliness of a restaurant rating.
It’s currently reviewing restaurants in LA and San Francisco and is indicative of a trend towards empowering consumers to rate products and services. I expect to see more and more consumable items being both reviewed and commented online, providing assistance to would-be purchasers.
Jockey International has launched a Consumer Generated Content campaign call Jockey Underwars.
Individuals or groups are encouraged to post videos of themselves dancing in their underwear.
The site features head-to-head matches (aka Hot or Not), or dance contests (presumably by category).
“UnderWarriors,” as they’re known, can challenge other participants or just post his or her dance video on the site for all to enjoy.
The main JockeyUnderWars Tournament starts on November 15th, and winners will be selected by Audience voting. You can also provide comments on videos and invite other UnderWarriors to spar again.
Standard social media tools such as “send to your friend”, or inviting your friends to vote are provided.
Perspective: It’s great to see Jockey create a contest like this, and whilst I won’t be entering I do think this campaign will be successful.
Blinkbox is a new site that allows you to customise video clips from your favourite movie, TV show or viral.
You can chose from a range of videos, and then insert your own text which runs on the start of the output video mashup.
The resulting video mashup can be inserted into your website, or you can email the link to your friends.
Blinkbox has contracts with several content producers, which gives them quite a large selection of clips.
The site hopes to monetize this by linking any blinks allowing viewers to rent or purchase the movie or TV show.
Perspective: This is an interesting idea, and linking the success of the site to renting or purchase of the videos will certainly keep the content owners happy. Blinkbox has also chosen to allow a simple mashup of adding text as a pre-roll option. As video editing software becomes easier to use and more available, I think they will need to expand this offering. I also think that Blinkbox should expand their reach by integrating their tool as a Facebook application.
