Internet hijinx move at the speed of high school gossip

I often wonder how internet phenoms begin, and how things travel around the internet so quickly. As an interactive researcher, I spend most of my day on the web, and I come across so much of the craziness that makes web 2.0 go 'round. Today's gem... well, like most day's gems, I'm not sure exactly where it came from. But it's causing quite an uproar.


This photo montage of President Obama throwing a snowball (presumably) at a cat has caused furious cries, from cat lovers who believe it's real, and demands that PETA be called immediately. It has also caused a stir among Obama adversaries who feel it adds justification to their cause.

Of course there is a large camp out there (myself included) who believe that this whipped together to cause precisely the stir it is causing now. Let's go to the numbers: Reddit is showing nearly 400 responses to this photo, BuzzFeed is showing over 6,000 views and it has been "Dugg" over 8,000 times on Digg. Do you think we'll get an official presidential statement?

UPDATE: The snowball photos seem to be from December sometime. The cat addition is fairly recent.

Happy Birthday Facebook!!!

Last night, Mark Zuckerberg announced, via Facebook's Facebook page, that today, our dear social networking lifeline will be 5 years old! Personally, I was surprised that they did not publicize by putting the event on my birthday list. But, they did add a "Thank You" gift to it's gift store application, as a way to thank users. They have also begun scheduled delivery of Facebook birthday gifts.

The news met with mixed results in the blogosphere:

"my freshmen year of college we had to approach girls.... i didnt have the balls to do it... by my sophmore year of college FB was out and i owe them a thanks in the lady department" - Male, 24

"My roommate would be overly bored without being able to Facebook stalk constantly." - Male, 18, Greensboro, NC

"i still feel like being on facebook is like going to a party with a bunch of kids from high school that you were not really friends with but still knew who they were. And for some reason you can hear every conversation in the room at the same time and occasionally someone will yell out to the entire party what they are doing at that current time. then someone will poke you for some unexplained reason.

...yet i still attend this party." - Male, 22

Quotes courtesy absolutepunk.net, though this event also triggered a considerable Twitter buzz.

What would you get/tell the old Book for it's birthday?

Free Grand Slam Day at Denny's!!!

This morning I noticed that two of my friends, who live in different states, had updated their facebook statuses to say they were off to get a Grand Slam Breakfast at Denny's. Personally, I have only been to Denny's a handful of times, and it was in college when that was one of the few places that stayed open late. I was partial to some sort of chicken sandwich that seems to have since left the menu. So I had to Google the Grand Slam and see what was going on.

Following the debut of their first ever Super Bowl ad, Denny's is giving a "Free Grand Slam to everyone in America." As a New Yorker, I can hardly tell you where the nearest Denny's is (thought Mapquest suggests it's somewhere between Rahway and Iselin, NJ), so I did not pay much attention to this claim when it aired. But apparently my friends in the rest of America took note.

So how well is their push to regain slipping breakfast market share working out for them? Well, according to the 1400 people who are tweeting about Denny's on Twitter, there are long lines, Denny's is giving out rain checks for those who can't get breakfast, and the local news stations are reporting on the Denny's mayhem. Free publicity. Sweet. Sounds like overall success for the home of the Grand Slam. Have you had your free Grand Slam yet?

Pepsi hearts the Obama Generation, but do they heart Pepsi back?

PepsiCo has been making big waves this month in the blogosphere with design overhauls for three of their largest brands. There's a lot of negativity about Tropicana's new minimalist design, and Gatorade's new Sesame Street- looking getup. This bottle of Gatorade is brought to you by a lightening bolt, and the letter "G." Says one DieLine.com commentor, "I saw this and immediately thought of Super Grover from Sesame Street."'

But the most buzz has gone to the new look for Pepsi, and their "Refresh Everything" campaign, which includes a logo that looks a lot like Obama's. The logo has even been grouped, by the New York Times, with "Obamabilia," merchandise that shows or references the President-Elect in order to generate sales.

So is PepsiCo trying to follow Obama's footsteps and gain grassroots popularity? Are they reaching out to America's youth? They sure are. Pepsi has created a cutesy video full of celebs, calling on "YOU" to film an open letter to President-Elect Obama, and upload it to their YouTube Channel, which currently has 44 videos and a mere 352 subscribers. The Jonas Brothers Channel has 421,646 subscribers.

So if Pepsi is not wildly popular on YouTube, what about on the Facebook? During Obama's campaign, he had widespread support across Facebook, including groups, events, applications, and mentions in profiles, posted items, and blog posts.

Facebook's Pages feature allows users and companies to create a page dedicated to a product/organization/person/etc., and then allows users to become fans. Users can also search to see which pages have the most fans, overall or by category. So who has the most fans of any page on Facebook? Barack Obama, with over 3 million fans. Coca-Cola is in at number three with over 2 million fans, but Pepsi does not even appear to have an official page. A search of Pages brings up fan pages for a few of the Pepsi varieties (Max, Crystal) but none for the soft drink itself. Clearly, they are not capitalizing the way the Obama campaign did. Even Captain C.B. Sully Sullenberger has a fan page, (with over 24,000 fans!!!) and he's only been famous for less than a day!

So, if Pepsi is serious about riding the Obama wave to become the new All-American cola, they need to get to the heart of Obama's success: Change you can believe in. Can a campaign called "Refresh Everything" really convince consumers that Pepsi is any different than the soda that's been trailing Coke in US sales for years? If it could, wouldn't Pepsi be riding in between Obama and Coca-Cola in Facebook popularity, instead of who is there now? D'oh!

Dining out less frequently, are you doing it now?

Last night, my friends and I went for a dinner special at a local restaurant. For $24.95, they offered an entree for two (that could have fed four) and two glasses of Sangria. On our way to the restaurant, I noticed another restaurant offering a 2-4-1 entree deal on weeknights. Earlier in the day, I noticed that The Good Fork, a favorite of mine, was offering $14 comfort food entrees during the week.

So, I wondered, how badly are these restaurants doing? Are people eating out drastically less? Eater reported that three restaurants in the popular B.R. Guest chain have just shuttered, including one in Chicago, so it's not just a New York thing, some sort of trickle down from out-of-work Wall streeters. I took to the blogs to see what people had to say about their dining out habits.

There was a lot of conversation about cutbacks in meals outside of the home. It seems that many people out there are cutting back on all sorts of expenditures, and dining out is just one of the first to go. Additionally, Suze Orman was on Oprah last week, and she issued a money challenge, one of the terms of which was to not eat out for a month. This generated substantial buzz.

Many bloggers noted that they had made a New Years Resolution to eat out less either to save money, or lose weight. So if they're not eating out this year, surely they're eating in? According to Yahoo! Finance 3 month charts, Kroger, Safeway and Winn-Dixie have all had drop-offs in earnings since the beginning of the year, that took them below their levels from before the holiday jumps. So are people just not eating? Watch out Jenny Craig!

Personally, I have been eating at less expensive restaurants, though not necessarily dining out less. At the grocery store, I will look for sale items, and then purchase ingredients to make large meals that I portion off and keep in the freezer for lunches and dinners. This makes my trips to the grocery store less frequent.

Are you dining out less? Buying less groceries?

You've Been Sacrificed

Burger King was the subject of many articles last year, concerning their extreme marketing campaigns. The Whopper Virgin campaign, in which BK served Whoppers in a blind taste test to rural people who had never tried a burger, was criticized by bloggers and others as an overt example of the perils of globalization.

Then there was "Flame," the Whopper-scented spray, which prompted many advertising blogs to proclaim BK responsible for the worst marketing idea of 2008.

The newest viral campaign is on Facebook, and it allows users to sacrifice 10 of their friends in the name of the Whopper. Upon removal, the sacrificees receive a notification from the BK application, and the sacrificer receives a coupon for a free Whopper.

At the time of this post, over 189,000 friends had been sacrificed, which shows just how useful Facebook can be to corporations. Bloggers have weighed in, as well. I found nearly 600 posts about the Whopper Sacrifice, as well as a few Facebook groups - including one calling for a boycott.

Would you be willing to sacrifice?

Best Wishes for 2009

Here's hoping this year brings joy and prosperity to all.

With a New Year comes New Year's Resolutions. A sweep of the blogosphere found the following popular resolutions:

Lose weight/look better
Diet/eat healthy meals
Visit the gym more often/exercise more

Other resolutions included:
Gaming-related goals
Watching the news more frequently
Spending more time on hobbies
Being more cleanly

What was your resolution?