Who stole all the myspace traffic?

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The Dangers of Unmoderated Social Pluggins

Dear businesses and organizations, 

Here’s what happens when your hashtag: first, get’s innocently used somewhere half-way accross the globe, then appears on your unfettered website’s social plugin stream, then gets flat-out hijacked by some smart-asses (follow latest developments here), and then blogged, reblogged, tweeted, retweeted, etc. and basically out of hand: 

via @tonykinard

Twitter hashtag translate flash mob game?

POSTED BY TONY KINARD ON JUN 14, 2011 | 

Apparently, we may have invented a new game utilizing Google translator and any website with an unmoderated Twitter hashtag stream.  All you need is your Google toolbar translator to decode.

So here is what happened.  I noticed today that the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association has anunmoderated Twitter feed based on the hashtag #AIMA.   Pretty much front and center on the website.  

However I also noticed a curious occurance:  all the tweets displayed were in a foreign language and has apparently nothing to do with the organization or it’s website.  Apparently, some people in Indonesia are also using the #AIMA hashtag for their own, unrelated conversations. 

I thought it was quite humorous and shared this with my buddy Vlad (@VladGorenshteyn) who immediately had the ingenious idea of having our own conversation using the same hashtag, but in Indonesian – using the Google Translator – to be featured front and center on AiMA’s website.  Of course, I had to bring Drew (@DrewHaskins) into the fold on it as well.  Ohhhh…. too funny. 

Commence with the movie quotes… in Indonesian on AiMA’s website…

Screen captures (before and after using your secret Google Translator decoder ring)

As normally displayed on AiMA’s site:

After: (Using your Google Translate button)

May develop this later.  This has the makings of some sort of online flash mob game.  Hmmmm…

What will happen when America is no-longer enough for Facebook?

I was recently reading an article by Rick Millenthal and I thought he made a good point. Directly below are my thoughts in response to his post about international social marketing (see original post at the bottom).

I love America and simply blessed to have been taken in with open arms from an anti-Semitic Soviet Block, however, as Americans we sometimes get it completely wrong. 

Often-times we act as if we live in the baby-booming era of post-WWII America…when the worldwide community thought it was cool to own products that were “Made in America” and products actually were made in America. Things are different now and we tend to get trapped in vacuum-thinking of “we invented cool” and perhaps we did…many times over, however, the BRIC nations are alive, well, and far-outpacing our growth (by many parameters). [BRIC = Brazil, Russia, India, China]

BRICs are cunning, smart, speak English, let America borrow money, and hold 42% of their world population. BRICs innovate very well…sometimes by duplicating almost verbatim…sometimes by creating the next generation of technology….and sometimes by creating something novel altogether. 

As BRIC censorship loosens, their burgeoning lower class penetrates middle class, mobile/social technology becomes more commoditized, and BRIC citizens adopt it at alarming rates, the Qzones, Orkuts, doubans, Odnoklassnikis, Renrens, Biggadas and Vkontaktes of the world (see semi-comprehensive list of SNS here: http://goo.gl/TJjWg) will undoubtedly boom…far outpacing Facebook and Twitter growth—combined. I think these two social networks will find themselves not only making alliances but competing with some social networks they haven’t even heard of. As Facebook hits critical mass in America, we’ll see a couple of high-profile, international SNS acquisitions, because building brand-equity from scratch or competing with the local heavyweights is just too many puzzle pieces to put together.

Where do you think Facebook fits in the global SNS scene? Have you ever spoken to anybody from a BRIC other country that doesn’t even know who Facebook is? Are you building an international social media and/or mobile campaign for a client and have come to similar conclusion? Please share your thoughts… 

Why Facebook is not the only worldwide network

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Rick Milenthal

Conventional wisdom is that Facebook is the total worldwide network.  And they certainly have a great start on everyone else.  This spring’s facebook and twitter driven uprisings in the Mideast only confirmed the power of these networks.  But other sites founded in other countries are growing especially in China.  I just returned from Beijing and Shanghai meeting with social networks there to discuss our desire to build international campaigns for our clients.  Here is a diagram showing the different China sites compared to American sites provided by our friends at China based WeMarketing:  china social media chart

Of course the development of China based networks is somewhat artifical with the exclusion of Facebook in China due to tensions over censorship.  But, we are going to see growing indigenous networks from other countries as there is more innovation in growing economies like Brazil and China. Get ready to see some action in worldwide acquisitions and alliances by Facebook so they can keep up.

(Almost) everything you ever wanted to know about Twitter.

Click above to enlarge the infographic to full-size.

Thank you @guykawasaki via Column Five for BuySellAds.

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