Grounded In Reality

From being a site virtually nobody had heard about six months ago, Facebook has exploded into everyday life in Norway.

Popularity

For a country with a mere 4.5 million citizens, 300,000 members in the “Norway” network is nothing less than impressive.  As a comparison, the “Denmark” network has 13,000 members and the “Sweden” network has 79,000 members, countries with a population of 5.4 million and 9 million respectively.

In fact, the “Norway” network ranks fourth overall on Facebook, after the Toronto, London, and Vancouver networks, according to a story on Gridskipper July 10th.  Since this data was released, the network has grown with another 20,000 members.

Facebook has grown by some 2,700 percent in Norway over the last few months and keeps growing.  Granted, it has been the rainiest summer ever, but the main reason for Facebook’s popularity is probably the hype and media attention.  A news search on the Norwegian search engine Sesam (http://www.sesam.no/) shows that 1,779 stories have mentioned the phenomena, and although the first story was back in 2005, all but two are from the last year, and a majority of these are from the last four or five months.

In addition, Norwegians are both tech savvy and blessed with good infrastructure. The country had 3.14 million internet users in 2006, according to the CIA World Factbook, a number that is still increasing.  Most of these internet users are on a broadband connection and 98.3 percent of Norwegian households have access to broadband services.

Waterwar outlawed

The Facebook group “Vannkrig 2007″ (translation: Waterwar) was started in March, and urged people to show up in the Vigeland Park in Oslo bringing water guns on July 28. After 12,000 people joined the group, and several thousand stated their intent to show up, the group applied for a permit from the county, which was denied.  Apparently, a wedding the same day does not go well with super-soakers. Still, the group plans to show up, considering it is a public park, which again has prompted reactions from the county.  Security guards and an increased police presence is likely to be in place at the end of the month, in addition to one nervous bride.

So is Facebook here to stay? For now it is…perhaps until the next big thing comes along.

Fredrik Johnsen
GCI Oslo

With automobiles being such a community driven and brand loyal product, it’s encouraging to see a car manufacturer finally jumping at the chance to offer a digital media hub for its enthusiasts.

Chevrolet launched a comprehensive social media campaign with the release of Chevynation.com. The site features user-generated as well as branded videos, links to MySpace pages of fellow Chevy owners and six distinct channels of content aimed at different segments of Chevy drivers—all compliments of the Warren, Michigan-based agency, Campbell-Ewald.

OMMA magazine interviewed three digital creative managers about Chevynation.com in their July issue. The trio consisted of Agency.com’s Mat Zucker, Mick O’Brien of Digitas and Atmosphere BBDO’s Arturo Aranda. The results were positive for Chevrolet.

Here are some notable excerpts:
OMMA: What are your initial thoughts?
O’Brien: It’s got a really cool vibe – the feel is almost one of nostalgia. This isn’t the right reference, but it almost has this American Graffiti feel to it where cars are king, and your car is an extension of yourself.
OMMA: Each channel offers a link to a MySpace page. Is this the best vehicle for community, or should Chevy have built a community of its own?
Zucker: I think it’s smart for brands to integrate with existing communities rather than create their own. The Web is an open, interconnected network of communities, and brands are smart to connect. The more you do that, the more successful you’re going to be.
OMMA: Do you see potential for this site to grow and evolve?
O’Brien: Definitely. What’s interesting about the city metaphor is you can put up a new building and take one down. Cities are living, breathing things.
Aranda: Yeah, that’s what’s great about building this idea of community, embodied within a city – it’s modular, you can keep on updating areas and nobody is going to question if a whole building or a whole storefront starts to shift or evolve.

Not only did Campbell-Ewald create a community atmosphere, they did it with such amazing graphics and attention to detail that it would make any true car lover grasp their shamee in delight.

Christy Leger
Austin, Tx

If someone came up to me on the street and told me that the United States was the greatest country on earth, I couldn’t argue with them. If someone came up to me and said that pizza was the greatest junk food on earth, I would agree with them. I’d especially agree with them if it’s from Ray’s on 12^th and 7^th Ave. in NYC or Giordano’s in Chicago.

But if someone came up to me and said that the U.S. has the best cell phone setup of anyone in the world, I would definitely argue with that theory.

Let me start with the fact that I just got back from Israel, and they blow us out of the water in so many ways.

• First, everyone has a cell phone and they are constantly on them. The prices are very cheap for cell service and everyone takes full advantage of it.

The funny part is that no one in Israel knows how to turn their phone on vibrate. Go there and see how many cell phone types of rings you can hear in a day. My guess is I heard about 10-15 different ones a day for two weeks.We went to Yad Vashem, which is a Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem.  A person tells you to shut your phones off as you walk in. Within a minute of being in the museum, someone’s phone started to ring.  *Just a tad annoying*

• Next, let’s talk about how all the phones are unlocked around the world, except in the U.S.So for those of you with iPhones, enjoy your time with AT&T for your two-year contract. 

The only company that allows you to unlock your phone is T-Mobile and even then you have to have a business contract or have your phone for a certain amount of time before they will do so.When I went to China a few years ago, I bought an unlocked Motorola V60 and it’s great to travel the world with because it’s almost more than half the cost of turning on your American phone and using it.You can buy unlocked phones online, but it will cost you more. You can also go online and unlock your phones with different kinds of services, but it will still cost you a few bucks.

• Finally, let’s talk about the fact that I had better cell service standing on the borders of Syria, Lebanon and Israel than I have in Atlanta, Georgia.

I was at full bars for 90 percent of my trip, and I never once dropped a call. As if that wasn’t enough, when we drove through the West Bank by Jordan, my service switched to a Jordanian carrier. You know how I know that? They sent me a text message to welcome me.  They also sent me text messages to offer me a chance to win $10,000 U.S. and a kilo of gold. And when I was leaving their coverage area, they texted me to thank me for driving through their area.Tell me the last time Verizon did that?

We may be ahead of the curve in many areas, but we aren’t even close to being on the backstretch when it comes to cell phones.

Unilever announced last week a 12-episode, weekly broadband series on Yahoo! Food called “In Search of Real Food.”

The shows feature Food Network personality Dave Lieberman as he travels across the country talking to people about their favorite recipes for “real food.” The site has a lot of cool features, including a real food blog, user-generated videos, recipes, local dining guides and more.
I actually learned about the campaign through a commercial that aired during “The Today Show” this morning. At the end of the ad, the voiceover read, “Go to Yahoo! and search ‘real food’ to join the conversation.” Interesting. Unilever is reportedly spending between $1 million and $2 million in ads on Yahoo!, as well as driving traffic through print and TV ads and jar caps.

The campaign has received a lot of attention from advertising/business press and bloggers, but it will be interesting to see if consumers can get excited about mayonnaise. I don’t like mayonnaise, but I’ll check it out.