Twitter: What If God Was One of Us?

Dearest tweeps (twitter people, yes, I am learning), thanks to Twitter, now everyone has "Followers".

You might think I am on to them... But...

I hate hate hate politics... seriously!
However, I can't help but mention this. Israel's use of digital media is becoming dangerously ridiculous! Have a look at what appeared on my Facebook page today (July 19, 2010).

I mean... Seriously?

Twilight - Eclipse: Is Twilight Harmful to Teens?

So far I had been a fanatic of the Twilight Saga. I love the romanticism and the whole idea of vampires fighting against their own nature to be good. Normally, Twilight exhibits the dreamy "soul mates" love belief. Normally, Twilight displays a world of idealism.

Needless to say, I was disappointed with Twilight Eclipse, the third of the Twilight movies:

1- Bella disregards marriage as an old outdated "constitution".

2- She also seems to be bothered by Edward's gentleman manners and labels them "old fashioned".

3- Bella being lost between two men, and sending out mixed confusing messages to both, not only wastes the beautiful "ideal" love image Twilight used to portray in the first two sequences, but makes her attitude almost bitchy.

All in all, she sets a bad example. I wouldn't want my kids being subjected to such values as though they were the standards of the modern world. Thus, it got me thinking of the effect of their lady hero acting/perceiving things as such on the teenage fans filling out the theater. I might be over doing it, looking beyond the story unto its effects on the human brains, but I kind of truely believe that movies end up affecting our perceptions of right and wrong at a young age... and it scares me.

Flattr - Flattr.com, My Review

Flattr - After reading Is Flattr the new Facebook Like, but this time with real money? on TechCrunch, I got excited about the concept and thought it was revolutionary. I @youmny tweeted about it. My tweet consisted of the following characters: "#Flattr a new social media that allows you to share funds, the same way you #digg... Interesting concept!" It took @flattr_e (yes, I liked the username too) less than 12 hours to respond with a Beta invite.

I was flattered by Flattr_e and happily accepted the invite to flattr.com Kudos for an amazingly well monitored environment, you might think. Those people impressed me too.

As I took a closer look at the offerings, I was repulsed by the Flattr terms of use, as they wer subject to change without notice. Was I to put money on a site with such terms?

Investigating a bit further, I found out Flattr was not much of a benevolent website. They took 10% of all transactions! Moreover, considering that revenues cannot be withdrawn unless they reach a certain threshold, the only real winners at the end of the day are Flattr.

I took a step back before posting this on my blog, as I thought how grateful I should be to have received a Beta invite. It did get me excited at first, but then again, looking at it objectively, every single additional user is equal to additional money for them, as each is required to pay a minimum of 2 euros per month. (yes, it's in Euros so far, I wonder how long that would last)

This got me thinking that the Beta invites might be just a smart way to make people feel special, give an exclusive feel. At the end of the day, you can even request an invite on the Flattr home page. Kind of smart, I agree. (Wasn't exclusivity at the beginning, reason behind Facebook's success?)

My last thought before leaving the site: This Flattr can turn out to be as profitable as a casino.

Paul the Psychic Octopus: Marketing Lessons

Germany - Paul the Psychic Octopus' first World Cup appearance I had witnessed was on EuroNews. It was on the 25th of June 2010, a 1 minute report, told the world that the best World Cup fortune teller was, so far, an octopus, in  the Sea Life Aquarium of Ovberhausen, Germany. Paul, the Octopus had apparently already predicted 4 German games correctly, (including Germany's loss to Serbia!) and was predicting Germany's win over England. 

Google News history shows an AOL article on Paul the Octopus dating back to the 22nd of June, predicting Ghana's defeat to Germany, saying "If Paul gets any better at this, he could have an incredible career as a telephone psychic -- able to handle eight lines at once."

...So what's in it for marketeers? Lessons on how to effectively benefit from the World Cup hype! Thanks to the World Cup's popularity, the free (and international) publicity Paul got to the Sea Life Aquarium is unmatched. Want to bet how much additional visits they got thanks to Paul and his World Cup induced fame? 

Then, you get to think of all the brands who paid huge amounts of money to associate their names to the World Cup. What a shame...