Fine Print

Did you know that Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler filed suit against anonymous Blogspot bloggers who allegedy impersonated him and girlfriend Erin Brady? Me neither. But thanks to John Cass, I now have a fascinating resource of lawsuits involving blogs, a situation that will surely become a lucrative niche practice area as social media becomes more mainstream. There is also a database of cases related to social media.

I’m not interested in matters of law, per se, but am interested in seeing what people think they can get away with online, using social media and other tools, so this looks like an interesting reference point to get an overview of the legal aspect of all the 24/7 interactions swirling around us.

Cybersquatting (registering a domain name — usually linked to a company name — in the hopes of selling it at a profit) has been the subject of some contentious court battles in past years. How does that translate to Twitter and other social networks? I grabbed johncarson early, but now that more companies are embracing social media and setting up brand profiles, what’s to stop someone grabbing Coke, Pepsi and so on? (Haven’t checked, sure they’re already taken by legitimate company representatives.)

I could grab johnatcoke or johnatpepsi and pretend to tweet on behalf of that company. Social media “veterans” (of the last 12 months or so) would spot that in a heartbeat and set off the scam radar, but others might be duped. How many variations of misrepresentation are happening, or just around the corner? How far can we trust these identities?

This is a comment on a blog post this morning that puts some stuff in perspective: “Here in India many companies, let alone senior employees, have yet to establish an Internet presence. For small companies it’s understandable, but these are big multi-store organizations with no online presence at all (not even a page with phone numbers) so if you want info then you have to actually go to the store.” Source.

So, once all those organizations start to get online and establish their websites, blogs and Twitter accounts for branding purposes, there might be slim pickings. I remember someone tried (and then changed their mind) selling their Twitter account and all its followers a while back, citing it as a mini-business ready for the highest bidder. I think Twitter is too personal to be commoditized in this way.

Someone is holding socialmedialawyer.com at the moment; could be a good investment …

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada (Twitter: johncarson)

This past weekend Motrin released a controversial commercial that a lot of mom bloggers found offensive — an issue they naturally took to Twitter. Suffice to say, it’s not been a good Monday for Motrin’s PR department.

People are commenting on how the company has screwed up by not doing its market research more thoroughly in the first place to anticipate such a huge — and possibly — long-lasting negative reaction to its product alignment with new moms. The bigger issue is why a lot of people didn’t realize this groundswell of protest was building at the weekend until it was too late to engage those bloggers? It seems that Motrin wasn’t monitoring them properly.

Companies will always make mistakes online (human beings run them after all) but it’s how they recover that will be the real social media trial by fire.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada (Twitter: johncarson)

GCI Canada helps out Little Geeks, and they are holding a Silent Auction on Tuesday, November 18 at the Mill Street Brew Pub. Please come out and bid on some great items. Unfortunately, this has been postponed until a future date.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

[Here’s a campaign that GCI Canada is working on for its client, Dell Canada.] 

Action! Did Star Wars or E.T. make more money? Who played the dropout in The Breakfast Club? Was The Terminator or Rain Man released first? Cut! That’s a wrap.

Ever wanted to Live Like a Movie Star? Play Dell’s movie trivia game and win one of four great prizes: A Beverley Hills shopping spree and celeb makeover; a High Rollers party weekend in Las Vegas; a ticket package for a Warner Bros. movie premiere in 2009; or a Richard Petty driving experience and DVD package.

http://flick.winwithdell.com/EN/

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

“I have arranged for you to get a priority account.”

That opening line always piques my interest. Like Mark Evans, I too got a SocialMinder invite from a trusted contact. But, the minute it asked me for my LinkedIn password … I clicked off and moved on. No way I’m plugging that into a third-party site.

Anyway, glad I didn’t. Evans wasn’t so lucky, as he explains here. B.L. Ochman is not a happy camper either.

For the record, one of my Twitter contacts posted this, so make up your own mind on whether to try it out or not: “The invite-a-friend page is VERY explicit that emails will be sent 2 the friends that U choose. U don’t have to send them.”

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

“Akoha, a developer of real-world social games, launched a private beta of its new social reality game at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco. Using mobile, Web and real-world missions to create a new form of game play, Akoha answers the question: ‘What if playing a game could make the world a better place?’”

That intriguing news was back in September, so I signed up for a Starter Kit to check it out. It’s on its way, and I am looking forward to seeing how the company translates social media into the real world. Vint Falken explains in more detail about the premise, so might as well read it there.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Yes, it sounds like a cute name for Paris Hilton’s latest accessory dog, but Twuffer is a service that lets you set up tweets to be sent at some time in the future. I dread to think of embargoed (still around?) press release tweets being loaded in like a shotgun to be scattered at 9 a.m. in the morning.

Or, maybe I could tweet that “hmmm, sales presentation is looking good, guy knows his stuff” knowing full well that I’m at home catching up on True Blood episodes.

I’m also curious about the privacy policy of how they use your Twitter username and password. I sent a tweet asking that question — the old-fashioned manual way of writing it and pressing Update – and will see what the response is.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

How did a Dutch company get a coffee shop’s freeloading students to actually buy stuff, instead of sitting around for hours sucking up the free WiFi? Brilliantly simple: they just renamed the signal. If this is not push advertising then I don’t know what is! (But feel free to let me know …)

Hat tip: AgencySpy.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

These words just sent a chill up my spine: “You allow us to twitter in your name.” Arggghhhh! Begone ye abomination back to whence ye came!

OK, Halloween-themed dramatics over, but it’s still a scary thought. A company using my Twitter name to send out ads to anyone who follows me? Brrrrr! It’s obviously an opt-in situation, and people are looking for ways to monetize Twitter, but this seems like an intrusive way of doing it. Almost … unpolite? Thanks for following me, and by the way, there’s an ad for you inserted by someone on my behalf.

One day YOUR tweets could look like this:

1) just attending the @chrisbrogan webinar 2) thx for the referral, retweeting 3) nice link to top 10 social media fallacies 4) social media expert in Alabama, buy one social media network get one free! 5) @jowyang leaving the stage to great applause, nice conference

So, did you notice 4) slipped in there? Magpie — the company offering the service — says that “You’ll only get magpie-tweets that match the topics you’re twittering about.” I’m assuming they have an algorithm of some kind similar to Google AdWords that tracks certain words and matches the ads?

Referring to your followers, Magpie says: “If they’re annoyed by the magpie-tweets, they might unfollow you and you might earn less.” I am going to monitor what’s being said about all this. [At the time of writing, it seems pretty favourable actually.]

Horses for courses, as they say, but my followers won’t be getting ads from me.

[Update: Here’s Jan Schulz-Hofen’s website if you have questions about Magpie.]

[Update #2: I asked Schulz-Hofen’s thoughts about the ethics of pushing ads — his comments are below.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Just read about this, it’s disappointing news. As a former journalist, I used to read Press Gazette in the U.K. and considered Masthead its Canadian equivalent as keeping tabs on the journalism industry and who’s moving where.

Snip: “North Island Publishing Ltd. announces today that it will cease publication of Masthead magazine after 21 years of operation. The November/December 2008 edition currently in production will be the last issue produced by North Island. The company will also cease publication of MastheadOnline.com at a date to be announced.

“We are very proud of the service Masthead has provided the magazine industry over the years,” says North Island president Alexander Donald. “But the magazine has not been financially viable for several years now and structural changes in the market have created even more challenges. We’ve taken a decision to focus our company’s resources on other projects in our other markets.”

Full story.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

I’ve been meaning to blog on this subject since “Joe the Plumber” found fame and — once the sponsorship deals come in — possible fortune. The AdAge article prompted me.

Seems like Nick Ragone is a smart guy. After John McCain mentioned Joe the Plumber for the fifth time in the latest TV presidential debate, he was communicating with his team the best way to use that instant buzz phrase to the best advantage of one of his clients. (I’m also sure he checked out this and this too, but alas, already taken in 2007. Good for that plumber’s page views, and probable spike in business.)

The PR manager for Ragone’s client ultimately turned down the suggested strategy, which I think was a smart move. He said: “As soon as that thing hit, we got media requests from around the country to see if there was a Joe the Plumber in their town. I got media requests from New York, Seattle, Denver and Hawaii.” The plumbing industry was hot for a brief while, and how many times can you say that? It was the fallout from a very prominent figure, mentioning the name of someone who could be one of us regular Joes [the Plumber].

I’m all over keeping an eye on what’s hot and trying to get some mileage out of it, but will anyone remember Joe the Plumber in a few months, or even do a search for it? Doubtful.

And even if a client does want to jump in, they have to move fast to greenlight it with their PR reps, or, allow them to act on their behalf and trust their insight and initiative. Be the heroes or the zeros.

It’s probably more lucrative in the long run (and, social analysts, correct me if this is totally wrong) to keep an eye on the media, try to see what’s coming down the line, and then do some speculation on potential desirable URLs. It’s worth a gamble of around $20 on GoDaddy [no affiliation] and I’ve banked a few myself that I won’t mention here for obvious reasons.

So, if you decide to snap up a few, here’s a very handy tool that claims to be the fastest domain-checker out there: domize.com/

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Social media + measurement + tool? My interest was piqued when this request popped up in my LinkedIn network. So, in the spirit of good karma, throwing it out there for some feedback on behalf of Michael Strutton, Director Product Management, Vitrue. (It’s not a closed beta.) The tool is here if you want to test it out: vitrue.com/smi/

I was curious about this part from their description: “Based on our patent-pending technology, index scores are comprised of various online conversations from text-dense micro-blogs to multi-dimensional video sites. The Vitrue SMI score provides a snapshot in time to help make sense of the overwhelming amount of measurable data.”

I’m sure most of these services track the same sources, so asked Strutton what facet of social media his tool includes. He replied: “We look up data in real time, from varying sources. The index number presented is associated to that date. The e-mail function at the bottom will send you a unique URL to retrieve that historical report in the future. Handy, if you want to see change over time.
 
“While it’s possible to see the Vitrue SMI scores change in the middle of the day, we don’t feel that level of granularity is necessary. So, we cache results per day. In other words if you search for Starbucks (278) today the number will remain the same until it’s queried tomorrow.
 
“The data, the technology, and algorithm is patent pending, so I’m not at liberty to describe in great detail. However the tool currently looks at sample data from popular sources in the following categories:
 
“Social Networking - general sharing
Video Sharing - high engagement of viewing time and authenticity of dimension
Micro-Blogs - key influencers who chatter and actively push content
Photo Sharing - social meta data
Blogs - general blogosphere, commentary mentions”

So, no concrete examples there, but at least there are more tracking and measurement services of this type appearing now, which can’t be a bad thing.

You can read an interview with Vitrue at Forbes.com.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

The author of Tribes — Seth Godin — is involved in a conference call October 21 @ 2 p.m. EDT, and it’s free.

Snip: “We’ll discuss how the Internet has enabled everyone to lead a tribe and create movements with customers, employees or neighbours.”

Register. Hat tip.

[Update: Unfortunately I missed this due to some last-minute blog research work, so any insight from people who listened would be great!]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

On behalf of [GCI Canada’s client] Dell Canada, we’d like to invite you to a free computer recycling drop-off day at the Dell Canada headquarters in Toronto. In line with its commitment to become the greenest technology company on the planet, Dell Canada has joined hands with Purolator and GEEP for the initiative.

No RSVP is necessary – just turn up! (Or please mention it in your blog if you have one.)

For more information, contact Savio Tavares at savio_tavares@dell.com or 416-758-2365.

What: Free computer recycling drop-off day at the Dell Canada headquarters in Toronto where residents of the Greater Toronto Area can drop off any make or model of computers, laptops, monitors, printers as well as peripheral devices including computer speakers and mice to be recycled free-of-charge. Only computer-related equipment will be collected at this event. This is a safe and secure way to recycle electronics.

When: Saturday, October 18, 2008
10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Where: 155 Gordon Baker Road (Highway 404 and Finch), North York, ON. M2H 3N5

Examples of materials we will accept: Computers, CPUs, computer parts – cables, hard drives, memory keys, computer peripherals – keyboards, mice, monitors, laptop computers, printers, fax machines, servers and ink/toner cartridges.

Examples of materials we cannot accept: Wood console televisions, video games, game controllers, DVDs, CDs or VHS/BETA video tapes, DVD & VHS Players, CD Players or stereo equipment, cash registers and adding machines.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

First, please read this article by CNET’s Caroline McCarthy, then, discuss …

Gartner analyst Adam Sarner projects that 50 per cent of social media campaigns will flop. Picking out a few choice quotes from the article, here’s some personal thoughts:

” … over 75 per cent of Fortune 1000 companies with websites will have undertaken some kind of online social networking initiative for marketing or customer relations purposes.”
That “75 per cent” stat sounds pretty high. Maybe 55-60 per cent may be closer?

“‘(Businesses) will rush to the community and try to connect, but essentially they won’t have a mutual purpose, and they’ll fail,’ Sarner said. By a ‘mutual purpose,’ he means a way to serve both the company putting out the campaign and the audience interacting with it: finding that balance is not easy. The quirkiest and most addictive campaigns often provide little value for the company and turn out to be fads, whereas marketing efforts on the Web often don’t go over as well with the public.”
I believe that if your purpose is to serve the community that the campaign is aimed at, then the company will ultimately be served down the line. [A company being ’served’ doesn’t sound appropriate; maybe ‘respected’ is a better word?] If the most addictive campaigns are the ones picked up on by the customers, then how can that provide “little value” for the company too?

“The social network is ‘more for the community than it is for the bottom line’ …”
Agree with Sarner on that one.

“‘Are you discovering what’s going to be the new black next season?’ he suggested as an example of a trendspotting-focused strategy.”
If anyone reading this knows what will happen [re. social media] in 12 months, please tell us so we can all jump in get involved.

“When asked whether the faltering economy will mean that businesses are cutting back on this largely unproven field of social media for marketing or customer relations, Sarner said he didn’t think so, and that many businesses will turn to the Web to stay in touch with consumers during a difficult financial climate.”
Sarner seems to be in agreement with the stats that Mitch Joel picked out a few days ago.

In summary, my take from the sentiments expressed is that, yes, companies do want to get into social media strategies, but are looking for ways that will benefit themselves and their customers in equal measure. I can still sense the reluctance — a little — to let go.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Having met Christie Adams at the very informative Interactive Ontario event a few hours ago, she mentioned having spoken to Niall Cook, who is the guest speaker at Third Tuesday Toronto tonight — subject: Enterprise 2.0: How social media will change the future of work.

Here’s Adams’ blog article.

It was also nice to meet Mike Allan ( a.k.a. New Media Mike) too. Here’s his sum up of the event.

Here is Adams’ sum up of the event.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Mitch Joel crunched some numbers from a survey and reported that (Joel bolded it, and that’s good enough for me): 65% of Chief Marketing Officers and marketing executives said that because of the troubled economy more of their money will go toward digital/interactive marketing than before.

More stats from the same survey (PDF):

- Social computing (including word of mouth, social networking sites, viral advertising, etc.) was the most popular emerging channel with 42% of marketing executives expressing interest in adding it to their marketing mix;
- Blogs were the second-most-popular emerging channel, with 35% of marketers expressing desire to use them and 19% already using them;
- Almost one-third of CMOs mentioned podcasting as an area of interest, with 31% interested in adding it to their marketing mix and 18% already having done so;
- 29% are interested in Mobile Devices (phones/PDAs) and 22% have added them to their marketing mix.

[Italics are mine.]

The declarations of “interest” and “desire” are great, to a point, but it would be preferable to see some “planned” or “commitment” sprinkled in there too. Makes me wary that the CMOs are willing to experiment a bit with social media, because their hand has been forced by the economic climate, rather than the fact they believe it’s a firm strategy.

If they do decide to move ahead, here’s a handy tool to see if their brand name has already been taken on all the major social media hangouts.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

[This is a cool event being held by Interactive Ontario and sponsored by GCI Canada.] 

Canada’s Interactive Industry: The Knowledge-Based Economy Of Tomorrow?

Do you work in — or report on — Canada’s digital media industry? With the Canada New Media Fund being eliminated, do you wonder which parties will invest in Canadian new media? Can Canada make the leap from making car engines to making game engines? Join us for a complimentary lunch and panel discussion on October 7, 2008 from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto to debate where Canada’s digital media industry is heading.
 
The theme for iLunch 7.01 is: Financing the Future: Raising Capital in Uncertain Times and we’ll examine the current financial crisis, private vs. public investment opportunities and the rapid growth of the interactive digital media sector. iLunch is a highly interactive discussion where attendees will be given the opportunity to plug into the conversation, ask questions and speak their minds — journalists, bloggers and broadcasters are all welcome!

Bring your laptops as there’s free Wi-Fi so you can tweet or blog live from the event.
 
Schedule:
 
11:30 Registration and Networking
12:00 Lunch
12:15 Introductory remarks
12:20 Case Study
12:35 Panel discussion: Charles Zamaria, Mark Bishop, Jody Shapiro (to be confirmed) and Trevor Fencott
13:30 Question and answer period for audience
13:55 Final remarks and post-event networking
14:00 One-on-one meetings with panelists (by appointment)

** Please click here to register and see bios of the speakers — space is limited for this event. **

Hope to meet a few of you there in person!

[Update: Just checked this Friday morning and it’s already at full capacity, that didn’t take long.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

If you can get on Digg, it’s a nice spike in traffic. They are hiring, and it seems fun to be in Digg.

(Any place with office dogs gets my vote, err, Digg.)

~ John Carson, Senior Diggital Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

[*Just Americans? More I expect, but it is a survey from an American strategy and communications agency.]

Still, it’s encouraging news: “According to the survey, 93 per cent of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while an overwhelming 85 per cent believe a company should not only be present but also interact with its consumers via social media. In fact, 56 per cent of American consumers feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.”

This part got me all a Twitter: “… of younger, hard-to-reach consumers (ages 18-34), one-third believe companies should actively market to them via social networks …”

So, is this the green light for PR companies to recommend building Facebook widgets, niche social networks and dedicated blogs on behalf of their clients to push their brands to the masses? I think it is, in the right circumstances. But don’t do it just because you can. Make sure it’s the right strategy for the right brand at the right time. Don’t set up a Facebook group or blog just because it’s the flavour of the month, and then watch it die a slow death. Someone has to manage it, engage people to use and interact with it, monitor what people are saying and respond to them in a timely manner. It needs a lot of effort and commitment if those 18-34ers are going to be receptive. Don’t use them to justify the budget, and then discard them. They’ll remember!

[Update to my thoughts above: Alex Hillman thinks along the same lines, although I’d disagree with him on the “Joining the conversation means you’re adding more noise …” statement. It’s about talking to each other.]

And if things don’t work out, it might be time to tweak your profile on LinkedIn. They seem to be doing well from the curent credit crunch landscape. [Hat tip: Jemima Kiss.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Here’s the latest Twitter listening tool with a weird name: Cherpa.

Anyone want to help me code an application that just repeats what other people are saying and call it Parrotr?

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

I thought this video was a spoof viral attempt when I first watched it. But no, it’s for a real law firm who have seen the social media angle that can be taken when advising fathers in their custody battle for their children.

As the guy in the video says: “You have to do this investigation on the down low; you have to keep quiet about it, otherwise it’s pointless. Within a matter of minutes the MySpace or Facebook page can be changed or shut down or made private. So keep your mouth shut if you’re doing this type of investigation.”

So, what I believe is being advised here, is find your ex-wife’s social network, take some screenshots of her getting drunk and friending a lot of weird people, and then you have some evidence for the custody battle. No?

Hat tip: Social Times.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

It’s Canadian National Digital Media Day in Canada, and there’s a lot of cool things happening around the country for those who work in the digital space.

Details here.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

From the site:

“Social Mention is a social media search engine that searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and micro-blogging services. It allows you to easily track what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time.

“Search results are aggregated from numerous popular social media sources, including Google blog search, Twitter, Delicious, FriendFeed, Flickr, Digg, YouTube etc. and remixed as a single stream of information. The data is fresh, which means you can track conversations as they are happening in real-time.”

Tried it on dell, iphone and beer — error results. Hmmm, someone must be talking about at least one of those somewhere?!

Keeping an eye on it too. Hopefully not Cuil part 2.

[Update from Jon @ socialmention: “Yesterday, our servers went down due to overwhelming usage after a Mashable article was posted.”]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Technorati released its State of the Blogosphere report yesterday and I took a look at the stats. From a social media PR perspective, I found this paragraph interesting:

—

Brands Permeate the Blogosphere

Whether or not a brand has launched a social media strategy, more likely than not, it’s already present in the blogosphere. Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. 90% of bloggers say they post about the brands, music, movies and books that they love (or hate). Company information or gossip and everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers. Companies are already reaching out to bloggers. One-third of bloggers have been approached to be brand advocates.

—

Here’s my translation for the real world:

—

Brands Permeate the Blogosphere [Brands Realise They Are Now The Customer]

Whether or not a brand has launched a social media strategy, more likely than not, it’s already present in the blogosphere. [By being criticized for its poor customer service by disgruntled consumers who don’t like waiting 45 minutes on the phone and then being cut off after being passed to three different departments.] Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. [Because they feel that is the only way to be heard these days, by discussing the problems with their peers.] 90% of bloggers say they post about the brands, music, movies and books that they love (or hate). [Mainly hate. It’s easy to vent on the Internet, especially anonymously.] Company information or gossip and everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers. [Old news.] Companies are already reaching out to bloggers. [”Wow, that was a harsh blog post. How can we get you on our side?”] One-third of bloggers have been approached to be brand advocates. [”Try our camera for a few weeks, you don’t have to blog about it — really. Be nice if you did though.”]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

The guys at blogTO have put together a nifty little diagram showing who owns who in Toronto’s media scene.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

So, it’s happening — mompreneurs are taking it away from the blogs and into specialized Twitter social networks. Twittermoms is only 15 days old and already has over 5,000 members.

More info.

As Amit Bhawani says in the comments, “This shows there is a good future for twittergals.com , twitterguys.com , twittercousins.com, seniortwitters.com, twittergays.com and more.” Maybe this will be the new URL gold rush? [I just checked and they’re all still available, apart from one. Get in there quick!]

It seems an ironic concept to me; joining a social network to chat about what you’re chatting about on Twitter. Seems like an extra step. Ah well, who am I to guess the future — would be a billionaire if it was that easy.

And talking of billionaires, here’s Sergey Brin’s new (and very personal) blog.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Been following these guys for a while — especially StartupNorth.ca — so thought I’d give a mention to their latest venture, StartupNation. Being an entrepreneur at heart, it’s great to see these type of conferences come along in Canada.

Here’s the deets.

[There’s no social media point to this post, but today’s startup could be tomorrow’s Twitter. (So, well, there is a social media point I suppose.)]

[Update: Rebranding.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Chris Brogan is hosting a free webinar today; see you there!

- How some of the world’s leading organizations are successfully leveraging social media for their marketing programs.
- Case studies and real life examples of successful social media programs.
- The strategies and tactics behind social media initiatives.
- How to implement a solid social media strategy in your company.
- 5 ways you can begin using social media in your company tomorrow!

Register here.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada