Big in Japan is a social tool and service company. Our goal is to help brands engage their customers through the use of social media. One of the tools we developed early on was a URL redirection service we call ElfURL. Check it out. We only ask that you use it for good, not evil. For example, if you use it in a spam email to obscure your identity that is evil. If you have any doubt about your use consider using the ElfURL source code we released last year (explained here) and install your own version. That way you can shorten your own URLs and need not worry about violating our terms of service. Is that a deal?
Better take a look at your plugins before upgrading to the new version of WordPress 2.1. You have lots of time, but if you are a plugin developer you better start taking a look at the codebase and the codex ASAP.
Blogs allow everyone to have a public voice. Most of us don’t have experience controlling that voice. Over the years we have learned to moderate our email responses, to stop take a breath before shooting a harsh email to our boss, client or colleague. I usually write the email immediately and save it as a draft and wait a day to send. 100% of the time I edit that email the next day.
The current issues at TechCrunch UK (assuming you know about that situation) could have been avoided if Sam simply wrote his post as a draft and waited a day, or simply clicked “Edit timestamp” to publish the next day in his WordPress CMS. On Mike’s personal blog he even admits:
Sam and I exchanged words this morning and I said he basically fired himself with that second to last post promoting his events. But nothing had been publicized and we certainly could have discussed a work around, public apology, retraction, etc. But the next thing I knew he’d posted on the blog about his dismissal. Until that happened, everything was reversible. After he took that step, the situation was no longer able to be resolved.
Get it? Sam could have likely resolved the situation had he simply waited a day before lashing out on his blog. We all have disagreements. We all get angry. But at the end of the day cooler heads prevail and we figure out how to work together. Bloggers should remember ~ social media is very powerful, far more powerful than one-to-one conversations such as email. You have a responsibility to think about society before posting (not just your own immediate gut reaction). Just my two cents…
Jake is in Washington DC speaking at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association‘s yearly summit. He is talking about how brands can create passionate fans, describing how our Fancast™ system can assist in that process.
Just as he arrived in DC, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that “companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers, must disclose those relationships” according to Annys Shin of the Washington Post.
Interesting to see the FTC coming down on the side of the WOMMA…
Confused? We were too when we discovered in late November that Ankesh Kumar and Rajiv Dutta started a group email service called SocialMail. You may recall that we launched a group email service last year called SocialMail. We have contacted Ankesh and Rajiv and explained that their use of our trademark would likely confuse users and asked them nicely to start using another name. Their response? Let me assure you, it wasn’t very “social”.
First, they suggested that since we released the SocialMail source code under the GPL license, we removed our right to a trademark on the name SocialMail. Later Ankesh clarified that that open source is a defined business model worthy of trademark protection, but he wasn’t sure that we were running an open source project worthy of trademark protection.
Next, they suggested that you could not “protect a name when it’s not part of your core business.” His feeling was that my post indicating why we were open sourcing our tools indicated that we no longer sought trademark protection for the SocialMail brand. This, despite, the fact that we stressed that we would continue to operate the SocialMail service as well as sell it to our clients as a dedicated service.
To be clear: SocialMail is a trademark of Big in Japan. We filed an application with the USPTO (No. 77055585) and have used the term in trade for quite some time. We will continue to use the brand in the marketing of our group email service and software.
Our team has been busy working on various social interaction tools for Courtney Cox’s new television series, Dirt. The launch is scheduled for January 2nd, but the premiere is December 9th. The Big in Japan team will be out of the offices Friday the 8th so please excuse our absence. We will let you know how we like the show (of course Jake has already seen the pilot ~ darned social media experts get all of the perks!).
.
Allen Gwinn has a blog where he talks about city politics and other related issues. Most interestingly he offers several databases with interesting tidbits such as Dallas employee salaries as well as credit cards. The credit card spending habits of city employees is most interesting. Check it out here. Perhaps Allen could start monitoring the police as well…
So what? The Pawn Gallery’s first location was MySpace, on December 1st they move into our space. The art gallery built a following on MySpace ensuring their grand opening was a huge success. Very nice work by a local company!
The company explains:
The Pawn Gallery at 2540 Elm in Deep Ellum is celebrating it’s grand opening on December 1, 2006. We are here first and foremost as a champion of the artist. Artists pawn their integrity, self respect and style in order to have a gallery to show their work. Then the creations are sold like a slab of meat at the butcher shop. We are attempting to showcase the creators of the world in an unadulterated form. [via]
Local students from SMU won second place in the Chipotle/YouTube “30 Seconds of Fame” contest. Students, organized in 70 teams from more than 20 colleges were asked to create 30-second commercials for Chipotle to compete for a $10,000 prize.
The winning entry from the University of Nebraska was watched more than 8,000,000 times with the second place entry from SMU being watched more than 7,700,000 times. Add those views with those of the 68 other entries and you get a number north of 30,000,000 views of Chipotle advertisements. The total investment by Chipotle? $30,000 ~ .001 cent per view. What would Chipotle have spent to produce an ad much less get college students to watch it 30,000,000 times?
Social media programs like this have the added benefit of helping a brand build a tighter bond with its hardcore fans as well as the possibility of reaching new fans. Thanks to Mike for pointing this one out.
