Sometime around March 2011, Google made a new feature known as +1 available in the search results. Users who wanted to rate various websites for relevance could do so by clicking the +1 button,which would give the website or content additional visibility online. However what was not clear, was what would a flood of +1 ratings do for any particular website ? It was unclear how each person who clicked the +1 could use their influence within various social circles to ensure that “relevant” and “timely” content was shared with the people best suited for it within your social circle.
Enter Google+
Google+ allows people to build networks around locations and interests as well as numerous other factors. The question is how will this impact SEO (search engine optimisation) and will social experience optimisation influence search results ?
We know from a survey done by one of the leading SEO communities, that social media is one of the many ranking signals for organic search. The survey also revealed that geo location is one of the other factors that influences organic search results. All evidence points towards increased relevance being localised as well as influenced by social signals.
The answer has already been provided by google who recently announced that google+1’s will be visible in your analytics profile, and since we already know that social media is one of the ranking signals for website performance, brands will now need to factor in generating content that resonates with their target audience strongly enough to get them “Social approval”.
The AFL ‘dickileaks’ scandal has been unfolding for nearly three days through mainstream news and of course, social media. Where it all began.
Ahh, social media. That sinister, loud-mouthed influencer of the digital playground where content goes to become viral, get blown out of proportion and break all the rules. Or does it?
The controversial story about St Kilda FC player, Nick Riewoldt and his team mate Nick Dal Santo has been flooding the Twitter stream since Monday night when the naughty photos were posted by an unnamed 17 year old teenage girl on her Facebook page. The pics have since been hidden (I feel that ‘removed’ is too strong to use when referring to anything on the Internet), but social media is still buzzing and amping the hype. Since the ‘dickileaks’ hashtag went viral yesterday, it has been mentioned over 1800 times by more than 970 contributors and been repeatedly mentioned in mainstream news reports. It is also still trending in Australia.
Hours after the material was posted, her Facebook profile was closed down and the Police had been contacted. So with the photos, she took to Twitter where her follower count exploded from 200 to 8200. Talk of legal action has been thrown around but in Oz, Social Media and the law meet at a very blurry line. An article on theage.com.au has suggested that she could be charged under the Surveillance Devices Act or the so-called Upskirting Law (prohibits the visual capture and intentional distribution of photos of another person’s genitals) if it is proven that she did take the photos. It also carries a two year jail term.
So, should Social Media be bound by the same legalities that is abided by, by other media types through communications law? Why isn’t it already?
Copyright, Libel and Slander, Liability and Deceptive Acts and Practices have been identified online as areas where social media needs to watch it’s back. In the UK, privacy laws would apply to this situation and in the US, the ‘right to privacy’ could be brought into play. Should we follow suit?
This is the 3rd nudey Australian celebrity incident to circulate, escalate and Twitter-late this year.
This. Year.
In March, we saw Lara Bingle’s ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ naked shower photo appear on the Internet (but not before Woman’s Day reported it) and in early November, (then) Canberra Raiders player Joel Monaghan was snapped in a compromising position with a Labrador while celebrating Mad Monday festivities with his team mates. (See the censored pics below)…
Cyber crime and Twitter scams make good headlines but somewhere underground there are a few concerned citizens that take a vigilante approach to dealing with these scammers and fraudsters. For instance http://www.419eater.com/ bait scammers using highly creative methods to engage Nigerian conmen, waste their time and then attempt expose them. There’s also the Salty droid who names and shames would-be conmen who utilize Twitter and other channels to exploit consumers. But it turns out that life of a digital freedom fighter is not easy.
Here’s the problem : Many scams consist of intelligent, organised individuals and groups. They syndicate and they collaborate, and they actively wage a reverse war on the people trying to expose them. Ironically scammers are using the same processes created to report spammers to shut down the people trying to expose them.
Sadly YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo accounts etc belonging to web vigilantes trying to alert people to scams are being shut down faster than than those belonging to the scammers. How do I know this? Read on:
The Sad Story of the SaltyDroid
I’m not sure how I first came across the Droid on Twitter but I became interested in the Droid’s outspoken ‘attacks’ on certain individuals. Some of the people it was targeting had HUGE followings on Twitter, some with high profiles and. SaltyDroid had no qualms in confronting them directly in public view and alerting other users. I have no reason to doubt that SaltyDroid’s only purpose was to expose people it believed were engaged in unethical practices (such as this one which was exposed).
I noticed a few months ago that SaltyDroid (which had a few thousand Twitter followers) just ‘vanished’. The blog was still alive and kicking so I wrote an email to find out what the story.
Me: “What happened? Where did your accounts go?”
Salty Droid: “I lost. I’m basically banned from the Internet. Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, Bluehost, Youtube, etc. Everywhere I go the scammers file false complaints and horrific lies about me. The web companies all default to caving in and banning you rather than risking "trouble". Most of them, and especially Twitter, do it with zero notice, process, or chance to respond. It says sad things about the state of free speech on the all important fringes … IMO.
I don’t have time to fight the web companies and the scammers … so I just gave up on the web companies. I’m on a special free speech server where some really great people take special care of me … and otherwise I’m silenced.
And the Twitter bannings are not as bad as the death threats, the private investigators, the plots against my personal life, etc.”
The Droid also let me know that although he began his pursuit anonymously it wasn’t long before a syndicate of scammers found him at which point the he decided it would be safer to unmask the droid. Revealing himself as a lawyer it gives the whole saga an even bigger sense of irony.
In summary, it’s easier for a scammer to have a web vigilante shut down than vice versa. The Droid is now absent from all social networks and yet the people being named in his blog continue to tweet freely etc. In an age where consumers are able to interact so easily with anyone from close friends to complete strangers there is no easy and quick way of distributing warning messages to others in the case of genuine scams. That’s a service SaltyDroid was attempting to provide before being shut down in social media circles. The internet at present sometimes appears lawless and wide open territory for the scammers, and the presence of government and local authority is limited, and at best slow moving. I’m not condoning Salty droids methods or even agreeing with all his posts but freedom of speech is important so I certainly don’t want to see people prepared to take on these issues disappear especially with the bad guys roaming free so easily.
Beware wolves in birds clothing: Currently I know of one major Twitter account belonging to a convicted spammer in Australia with close to 100,000 followers. This person appears free to be able to act on Twitter regardless of their history. Sadly the only way you are likely to hear the name of this person is via someone like SaltyDroid.
What can you do? 1. Send this link on to people in the industry.
2. Copy and paste this story – reproduce it in your own blog.
3. Help Re-activate or read the Saltydroid: If you know someone who works in Twitter or Facebook etc ask them to reinstate the banned SaltyDroid accounts eg: http://twitter.com/saltydroid
“I was walking home from work and saw this cat wander out in front of me. I don’t know what came over me, but I suddenly thought it would be funny to put it in the wheelie bin, which was right beside me.”
Happens to the best of us, eh? This is how 45 year old Mary Bale from Coventry in the UK described the bizarre lapse of judgement that has catapulted her to global interweb fame in the space of a few days.
Lola the cat’s owner, Darryl Mann, heard her piteous yowling inside the wheelie bin outside his home fifteen hours later. Unluckily for Mrs Bale, her random act of kitty cruelty was captured on Darryl’s security cameras and promptly uploaded to YouTube by his wife, Stephanie. It wasn’t long before the resourcefulness of crowds tracked her down, and now she’s news from the Washington Post to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Her name, address, manager’s phone number have been posted online; there are at least 8 Facebook pages denouncing her villainy (not counting ‘Death to Mary Bale’, removed by Facebook). The Sun newspaper in the UK has published a Flash whack-a-mole game (renamed Whack-cat-woman) allowing users to smack Mary’s wicked head as it pops out of wheelie bins.
Back on YouTube there’s a video entitled ‘Cruel Cat Dumps Woman In Bin (Revenge of Cat)’ in which the tables are turned – a man in a Sylvester the Cat suit dumps an old lady in a wheelie bin.
Mary’s even got a fake twitter account in her name, CatBinLady, which has her tweeting pathological random acts of weirdness as she goes through her day: “Just kicked the head off next door’s gnome. For a joke. Who’s laughing now though? Not me. Not me.”
In short – she’s gone VIRAL! In just days.
While notorious Mary is barricaded at home, pilloried by the world’s media, menaced by crowds outside her house and expecting to lose her job, you’ll be pleased to hear that Lola has recovered from her ordeal purrrfectly.
When talking about Twitter accounts which do it well – which engage users, spark conversation and create evangelists, I’m usually not one to go past @Crust_pizza, who do it right.
Their Twitter account has risen to huge popularity using the Weekly #crustfreepizzafriday competition which – every Friday – is practically viral.
Their day-to-day content is targeted at the younger audience, with videos drawn from the vein of Funniest Home videos, music tracks which they’re into, movie trailers, in addition to a sprinkling of corporate news like store openings. And, perfectly, they respond to customers in realtime.
However, today they tweeted this:
What, did they put the Work Experience kid on Twitter for the day?! More on this, after the jump.
Splendour in the Grass went on sale today, and Moshtix had a pretty good go at ruining absolutely everything. Quick summary for the uninformed:
8:45am Everyone in Australia who loves music preps their computer
9:00am 32,000 tickets go on sale
9:01am – 2:14pm It all goes horribly wrong, site outages, mass complaints, Aussies take their complaints to the social space, Moshtix disable comments on Facebook, realise their mistake some hours later and switch comments back on
2:15pm All tickets are sold out, thousands of people are filled with rage
After the jump I’m going to lay out a few examples of the kind of negative sentiment Moshtix have been receiving over the course of the day, and then lay out some blunt advice for what I’d like to see them do now. Yes, there will be swearing.
Due to an issue with the their official blog, the US Library of Congress posted the following note in Facebook earlier this morning, and gave followers of @librarycongress a heads up tweet. I’ve posted the note here, to prevent you from having to login to Facebook if you don’t want to/work does not allow. Speculative thoughts at the bottom.
Have you ever sent out a “tweet” on the popular Twitter social media service? Congratulations: Your 140 characters or less will now be housed in the Library of Congress.
That’s right. Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter’s inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. That’s a LOT of tweets, by the way: Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets every day, with the total numbering in the billions.
We thought it fitting to give the initial heads-up to the Twitter community itself via our own feed @librarycongress. (By the way, out of sheer coincidence, the announcement comes on the same day our own number of feed-followers has surpassed 50,000. I love serendipity!)
We will also be putting out a press release later with even more details and quotes. Expect to see an emphasis on the scholarly and research implications of the acquisition. I’m no Ph.D., but it boggles my mind to think what we might be able to learn about ourselves and the world around us from this wealth of data. And I’m certain we’ll learn things that none of us now can possibly conceive.
Twitter plans to make its own announcement today on its blog from “Chirp,” the Official Twitter Developer Conference, in San Francisco.
So if you think the Library of Congress is “just books,” think of this: The Library has been collecting materials from the web since it began harvesting congressional and presidential campaign websites in 2000. Today we hold more than 167 terabytes of web-based information, including legal blogs, websites of candidates for national office, and websites of Members of Congress.
We also operate the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program http://www.digitalpreservation.gov, which is pursuing a national strategy to collect, preserve and make available significant digital content, especially information that is created in digital form only, for current and future generations.
In other words, if you want a place where important historical information in digital form should be preserved for the long haul, we’re it!
This raises a few questions, like… who has access to the data? Who will be using it, and to what end? Does it include all the location data? It’s the US Library of Congress, so is the data only available to US citizens? If so, then what about my tweets, can I at least see those from here in Australia? I can imagine market research organisations clawing their eyes out and selling whatever souls they have left in storage to gain access to this wealth of raw opinion and conversation.
So, who has been archiving all the data from 2006? I always assumed Twitter would be keeping it somewhere, but the fact that they only give us access to 3200 of our tweets at a time made it seem less likely. Does that mean the Library of Congress have been keeping track of them all this time? If so, then why just announce it now?
More importantly, as someone who prefers to keep a back-up of my own personal Twitter stream – so that I might look back on it in later years with fondness – will I, the individual have access to this? Do I even need to bother to keep an archive of my tweets any more? Give us your thoughts, people. Is this benevolent, or kind of scary? What’s the value of what’s essentially a snapshot of the thoughts, emotions, events and opinions of the last four years – as expressed by individuals?
Maybe one of the best brand tweets ever by @westpac, but sadly it appears to have been deleted. Some are calling it social media marketing genius whilst others suspect that Westpac may not have stocked the kitchen cupboard with enough TimTams today.
Here it is, preserved in screenshot glory:
Substantiated by a Google Search below:
Anyone know the real story – let us know in the comments 🙂
You’ve probably seen the billboards and bus ads by now, but in case you weren’t aware, we recently launched the digital side of Pepsi’s new Hit Refresh campaign. MTV are pushing it on television, we’re running it here on the ‘net.
It’s pretty cool, a mash-up of Pepsi re-inventing their image and placing a huge focus on digital marketing the combination of which turned into a Twitter based scavenger hunt, with the prizes coming in the form of cold hard cash. Well, not cash so much as 101 slick little EFTPOS cards loaded up with $250 each.
A brief run down: the refreshment company activation team (known as Pepsi Refreshers) make their way out into the world, choose an obscure location in a well populated Australian city, and then start tweeting out clues about where they are from the Pepsi Australia Twitter page. We’ve rigged it so that game playing, money lusting, Pepsi fans can also catch these updates on the Facebook Page, or at the Hit Refresh site, in order to more effectively race each other to the prize.
This is excellent because the entire thing can essentially be run from a smartphone, an easy thing for a Pepsi Refresher to have on them at all times. Plus, the players themselves aren’t tied into any particular service in order to keep up with the clues. It’s infectious, interactive, and incredibly efficient – social media at its best, really.
Creative mastermind Toby Caves really took advantage of the fact that APIs and widgets basically rule the internet now, and the main campaign site grew into a deliciously crafted overview of everything that’s happened, and is happening in the competition at any given time.
The latest clues are fed in from the Twitter page, Facebook fans are prominently displayed, a schedule and Google powered map let people know which cities the Refreshers are going to pop up in next and the Winners Gallery shows off all those lucky sods with their fancy new free money cards. It’s all ruled over by an explanatory Flash header, and coated in a vibrant blue that only exists between shades of Pepsi and Twitter.
Speaking of those cards, we feel like they’re a bit of a win. Based on the global Refresh campaign posters and candy colour palette, they are a bit more recognisable and fun than straight up cash in your hand while still being just as usable.
Stamped with the new Pepsi globe logo, we’ve also slapped some helpful thematic suggestions for spending the well won dollars. Things like style, scene, and so on – after all, if you win a prize you shouldn’t be using it to pay your bills (unless you really need to, then it’s ok). As a general rule though, prizes are fun, should be used for fun, should be spent on your self, and we wanted to encourage that.
We wanted the prize cards to be like the campaign, simple, effective, fun and it feels like we nailed it.
No, it’s not modest or polite to rave on about oneself, but this is a pretty exciting project for us, and the response so far has been amazing, so we thought we’d throw out a few more details and see what you all think.
Check out the campaign, hit us up in the comments and let us know.
Here’s a real world test on Google’s latest functionality – real time search results. There’s been a lot of hype over Google’s announcement that it now has ‘real time’ functionality. You can read the announcement (here). Below is Google’s promo video on how it works in case you missed it:
The real world test:
How well does it work? In the video below I’m using my Twitter account (@eunmac) to enter a tweet which contain the words GOOGLE, REAL, TIME, SEARCH. I already have a ‘real time search’ window open looking for these words and the theory is that the moment Google has indexed my tweet, it should show on-screen (no need for a refresh). The video is shot using Camtasia, and recorded/plays for as long as it took for the results to show.
Result: It took Google 52.3 seconds to display my tweet in this instance. Not exactly “real time” but pretty good. Of course this is a one off test and the result should be taken with a pinch of salt. We’ll be evaluating speed in a more quant manner over the next few weeks.
How do I do a real time search in Google? A couple of people have asked me how you get to the real time search results. Here’s how: Step 1: Search for something from Google main page. Step 2: In the Blue bar click [Show Options] Step 3: Under the LHS menu that appears, click “Latest” under the “Any time” section.
An interactive quiz to promote the launch of the Motorola Dext (‘The Super Social Networking Machine’). This quiz connects to twitter, facebook and myspace and tests how well you know your friends by pulling data from their profiles and feeds.
I was just checking my folder where I keep interesting screenshots of stats (ok, I admit they’re probably only interesting to me but hey… I just like sharing). So here’s some ‘interesting’ moments where power shifts occur in the world of social and UGC. (Note: Stats are from the publicly available Alexa site). Note that I screen grabbed these at the time and saved them because there’s not always a guarantee you’ll be able to get the data in the same state in the future. Currently Alexa now only goes back 2 years since they changed their data analysis so the first screenshot below is something of a collectors item (if you collect screenshots of stats that is).
Below: What has happened since (in a little under 3 years)
Below: Another change in global domination in 2009. Facebook passes YouTube in July.
Below – What’s next? Despite the hype surrounding Twitter it’s got a long way to go to catch Facebook which continues to grow at a phenomenal rate with YouTube appearing pretty solid – although interestingly Twitter appears to be now on par with MySpace and looks set to pass it next month.
A big couple of days for Microsoft as they launch Windows 7. Below are links to the launch in New York and link to the You Tube channel for Microsoft Australia ads where Amnesia Razorfish helped run the social efforts. Well done to the guys locally for a massive effort yesterday. We love the new operating system and have glowing reviews from the staff on Windows 7 already.
An experimental site, www.twinfluencers.com created by Amnesia Razorfish launched ‘softly’ today. It takes a live look into “influencers” and what they are saying on Twitter as it happens.
What does Twinfluencers do? Twinfluencers is a dashboard showing live tweets from Twitter users considered to be influencers within specific groups (Journalists, CEOs and Twitterati). Currently we are breaking these out into Australia and US regions.
FAQs: So what’s the point?
Whilst there are many tools which track trends, hashtags from the masses this tool takes another angle and provides a peek at live information being generated from these influencer groups. You can jump in at any time without needing to be a Twitter user. It also saves you having to follow and segment the 900(ish) people that Twinfluencers is watching!
Why did we build Twinfluencers? Firstly, we love doing experiments – the point is we’re not 100% certain of ‘what comes next’. Secondly, we’re of the school of thought that if we’re going to become better at working in social media then “doing stuff” is the way to go. Building the tool may prove useful or useless, but the mere act of building it allowed us to learn some new things. We might yield some insight and analytics that become usable -that would be a bonus. Finally– we couldn’t find a tool that produced what we wanted to see so decided to do it ourselves (although half way through build we found a similar tool muckrack.com for US journos which is actually very good).
What might the site do in the future? The lists will be keep being compiled and updated. We may add other countries if the demand is there. It would be nice to see some historical data, trends etc from these groups. There are a few minor UI tweaks to be made. We’ve already been asked to do a celebs version, although we specifically avoided celebrities in this round. Alternatively – if we learn nothing or find something better to do then maybe it will just fade away 😉
How many people are in the lists? At time of writing, but being updated regularly at present; Australian: Journalists (500) Twitterati (101) CEOs (30) USA: Journalists (105) Twitterati (101) CEOs (30)
Where do the lists come from? This was possibly one of the harder parts of the experiment and something we consider to be work in progress:
Journalists: We received lots of help from Dave Earley (@earleyedition) in sourcing a very consolidated list of Australian Journalists. US Journalists came from a variety of public sources and some Razorfish US assistance – we also decided to limit the number down to about 100, compared with a much more expanded number of Australian Journalists.
Twitterati: This was a slightly tougher list to quantify. In the end we based the list mainly by combining and filtering results from Grader, Retweetability index, Twinfluence, Twittercounter. We removed known ‘spammers’ or those using ‘follow agents’ to grow their count and occasionally factored in the start date of the account (earlier being better).
CEOS: Various sources (some tips) including Laurel Papworth.
How can I get my hands on the full list of these groups? Whilst we’re still in beta testing we’re not openly distributing. The plan is that if the site generates any ongoing interest we will open the lists up – initially to individuals who are willing to contribute to the ongoing maintenance of the lists, and then open to public. Please remember, keeping these lists up to date is quite a lot of hard work.
”How can I get on the list? ARrgh – I deserve to be there!” Firstly – tweet something and wait a couple of minutes (there can be a delay before you see your tweet appear). Not there? Yes… We know how this works and of course there are people who should be on there who aren’t and vice versa. We’ll keep adding but we’re trying to make this less about the egos, more about a tool that offers some value that we can learn a little from. For those who believe they have been wronged (and we do not mean to wrong anyone) there are some instructions on the site at the bottom of the page to suggest follows, “but” we will apply the same filtering and vague scrutiny to try to keep a balance. 🙂
It’s a simple concept from Best Buy. Customers ask questions on Twitter about products… Question sent to chosen staff member who has opted in for the subject matter… Staff member answers on Twitter.
Of course the beauty of Twitter is you get to see what people are asking as well. At time of writing the last question submitted was “Why does my dog keep leaving a poopy in front of my room.” Be interesting to see how they reply to that one.
Sample of questions sent to Best Buy Twelpforce (Note: I just copied and pasted whatever was on screen at the time (last 15 Qs) as a live sample, they have not been selected)
KaggyFriggle: @twelpforce Why does my dog keep leaving a poopy in front of my room? 8 minutes ago
csturner89: @TWELPFORCE I have a laptop with a T2060 processor and 2 gig ram.. i want something better in the 500 range what would you have? 31 minutes ago
jamiah93: @TWELPFORCE So does touch-screen depend completely on the monitor or does the computer itself has anything to do with it? 37 minutes ago
pwebbiz: @twelpforce Looking for netbook recommendations. Something for business on the go use. 41 minutes ago
NakedBoyNews: Doing a story on cell phones. Advice: Whats better LG Dare or LG enV Touch? and is the enV Touch just the LG Voyager? @twelpforce 42 minutes ago
NakedBoyNews: Doing a stpry on cell phones. Advice: Whats better LG Dare or LG enV Touch? and is the enV Touch just the LG Voyager? @twelpforce 42 minutes ago
pwebbiz: @twelpforce @agent3012 Thanks for helping me solve a week long problem! #twelpforce is great! 50 minutes ago
queen90018: @TWELPFORCE Maybe a free incentive with purchase, but not a $10.00 with a $500.00 that’s extreme in this economy. 54 minutes ago
CherryKitten68: @twelpforce I’m looking for a car radio for under $200 w/ ipood and bluetoof 4 my ’95 honda chivic 54 minutes ago
ohsqrrlgrrl: @twelpforce need a cheap cell phone plan contract with sim card capabilities for internat’l and nat’l use. ideas? about 1 hour ago
ayylaurenn: @TWELPFORCE which laptop has the fastest processor? about 1 hour ago
xDeathReaperx: @TwelpForce Do you have a MacBook? about 1 hour ago
nunonunonuno: @twelpforce How many HD SLRs are out there. Can you help. about 1 hour ago
CappyT1982: @TWELPFORCE To join twelpforce do we need to cut off your head with a sword thus quicking oursleves, or is it when one of you bites us? about 2 hours ago
bernierjohn: @twelpforce TIP If you’re reading this and wondering when you should jump in, read WIKI first, and get going! Don’t be afraid to fail… about 2 hours ago
We were wondering how Kevin Rudd had managed to gather over 100,000 new Twitter followers in under 10 days. It was a bit of a mystery because as you can see, on the 6th of July something strange happened following a very consistent pattern of Twitter growth for a user. In fact the pattern below is something normally associated with people who are manipulating their follower count (see this article).
Where did they all come from? So what happened? The answer is actually quite simple. Twitter just added the @kevinRuddpm and @kyleandjackieo accounts to be amongst the exclusive 241 twitter accounts in the world that are “recommended”. See this article on “Who Twitter Loves the Most”. Anyone new to Twitter will potentially be given Rudders account as a suggested account. It’s free and very valuable promotion for him.
Here’s an article on what getting on this list means (here) – and it is controversial, many have remarked that the spots are unfair. Jason Calicanis offered to pay $250,000 (here) to be on the list citing the spot as the next “superbowl ad”.
One might argue Twitter has provided Rudders an unfair advantage for any future elections, but hey… that’s a story for someone else to take up!
@PepsiCanada joins in the spirit by recommending @cocacola with a #followfriday retweet from @LauraRmz who recommended ALL the cola brands in her tweet. Meanwhile @Linux and @Microsoft get in on the action (below).
Whilst certain onlookers remain cynical there is no doubt that this ‘Twitterhugging’ between rival brands is demonstrating new types of interactions that would certainly never have occurred without social media. All up, it’s got to be a good thing, don’t you think?
From a genuinely random and spontaneous twitter experiment (here) that led to Coke and Pepsi becoming ‘friends’ on Twitter there’s been a fair bit of press coverage. Nice to see Biz Stone, founder of Twitter tweet it out too (here). Maybe Twitter Hugs are something we’ll see more of in the future. Adding links below as they come in:
UPDATE: An historic moment in branding? As a result of the twitter experiment below Coke said HELLO to Pepsi via Twitter (and started following them too). [Update] Pepsi responds in kind. All within 18 hours. http://twitter.com/CocaCola/statuses/2413906945
And just like that, the world feels like a slightly better place. Ahh maybe Twitter really is more than just “what I ate for breakfast.”
Thank you Coke and Pepsi for being good sports 🙂
What happened: – We started the experiment at about 9.42am July 1 in Twitter (Original Tweet here)
– There were a significant number of RTs – Coca-Cola responded less than 3 hours later with the tweet above.
Currently Pepsi have not replied or followed back… but we’re watching 🙂
The Original Experiment/Post: Oh we all know Coke and Pepsi are age old bitter rivals but this is a new age of SOCIAL and we want to see something change between these arch enemies – even if it is just courtesy. Currently they are both on Twitter but at time of writing neither follows the other (http://www.doesfollow.com/cocacola/pepsi) or (http://www.doesfollow.com/pepsi/cocacola).
Join the fun: Let Coke and Pepsi know what you want: ReTweet this now!
Coke and Pespi Twitter accounts… why not end the cola wars and follow each other? It would be like a public hug. (…Then you can go back to being rivals). So who’s first?
Dr. Rankin, professor of History at UT Dallas, wanted to know how to reach more students and involve more people in class discussions both in and out of the classroom. She had heard of Twitter…
Posted by George 
Here’s the problem : Many scams consist of intelligent, organised individuals and groups. They syndicate and they collaborate, and they actively wage a reverse war on the people trying to expose them. Ironically scammers are using the same processes created to report spammers to shut down the people trying to expose them.
I’m not sure how I first came across the Droid on Twitter but I became interested in the Droid’s outspoken ‘attacks’ on certain individuals. Some of the people it was targeting had HUGE followings on Twitter, some with high profiles and. SaltyDroid had no qualms in confronting them directly in public view and alerting other users. I have no reason to doubt that SaltyDroid’s only purpose was to expose people it believed were engaged in unethical practices (
Amnesia Blog 
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