Thursday, December 1, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Like Pandora, but hungrier - Ness (from Thrillist)
From four dudes who all went to either Cal or Stanford (and probably also see nothing wrong with rooting for vampires and werewolves), Ness is a just-launched Peninsula-HQ'd iPhone app that combs through shloads of your social media data to give you "smart" filter-able restaurant recs tailored specifically to your personal tastes.
Here's how it works: first put on some pants. Ok, phew. Now download the app to your iPhone, rate 10 restos you've been to on a simple 1-to-5-star scale, then hook the app up with access to your Facebook and Foursquare accounts. From there it'll spit out recs based on stuff like places you or your friends have checked in at, preferred cuisines, and aggregate popularity across their network, then you can sort all of your results by distance, price, and ratings, or you can just assume Russian Dolls will be on top and skip that step entirely.
And because they're still trying to score more Facebook friends than that cryptid in the Scottish Highlands, expect more similarly buzz-worthy content-curating apps for music and nightlife, which is usually much better for vampires. No, werewolves. Ugh, screw it -- Go BearCards!!!
Read more: http://www.thrillist.com/node/2343117#ixzz1aUayIog4
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Qwikster: truly, in and out in a flash.
Obviously, we made a big boo boo. So, we're calling a take back ok?. Just this one time. We promise... till next time of course.
(like say Starz pulling out of the mix... (pause) ...awkward)
Oh, BTW... the higher prices still apply. K.
So, we're cool, right? Cuz, we wouldn't care either way, but we're trying with a thinly veiled attempt to pretend as if we are. Is it working?
Ok, good. Almost worried there for a sec.
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
iPhone 5 Release - Reenacted by Mic & Kel
Mic: And another thing. Today we are announcing iBlahlahblah. It's another icon on your phone! It pops up alerts when you are trying to make a phone call! It will fuck up your phone calls! Also, it looks like all the other icons. You want Googlemaps 'cus you are lost? Ta da! You just accidentally launched iBlahlahblah instead.
Kel: yup and be careful not to hit the new photo button when opening your phone on the toilet, who knows what shenanigans can happen.
Kel: And I hope you don't have the iPhone 4 when the IOS 5 comes out, cuz you know new software never works on old phone ware.
Mic: It's has a A5 dual core processor. What does that mean? Quicker trips to Apple for battery replacement. Shorter talk time, down to just 19 seconds. It also runs hot enough to fry an egg AND give you cancer. Starts shipping October 14th.
Kel: ...don't forget that the glass is .001 millimeters thinner and therefore 100xs more likely to crack. Made from high grade diamond and will cost $1,000 to replace should you crack it.
Mic: oh, and anotherthingsomethingelse, it now has an 8 megapixel camera! your blurry mirror vanity pics in full HD. Best part, the files are so big you can only store up to 27 and still have room to download Angry Birds 8 Free.
Kel: No no Angry Birds upgrade is $4.99 didn't you hear. It's real time, playing against international opponents.
- this has been brought to you by Von Walter & Strodes Limited.
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Hey Facebook Timeline, you've been leaked (kinda)
Through a little "developer finagling" discussed step-by-step in this Mashable article, I was able to get in a week early onto the new FB Timeline setup.
Thing is no one can see it till Tuesday when it is released to the general public, so I took the quick route. I spent my Tuesday setting up and exploring what is set to be another bomb dropped on the social media world. We were always looking forward, at now and ahead. Now Facebook let's us look back and create the most complete profile of our-selves now on the web...
Hey, this is my job to look like I'm ahead of the game, even in those rare cases when I'm not. I know social media when few else do. I'm vowing to stay on top of things so that my clients don't have to.
Mashable, although things have been tense between us, mostly on my side, and on a severely personal level, concerning your SF staff, I thank you for being an outlet of valuable information that helps even the most adept Social Media Maven traverse the vastly vastifying vastness of this increasingly and recently annoying so morphing media.
For the rest of you: if you'd like to check it out and brave the creating an FB developer app to gain access to this ahead of time, I say do it. If you follow the steps as they are mapped out, you will not affect your Facebook adversely. It will change, if you don't publish it, it won't change till Tuesday.
But be prepared it's coming, so why not get ahead of the curve and take this beautiful new vehicle for a spin?
Here's a quick rundown of the new setup:
According to good old Mark Zuckerberg, the new service will be, "transforming the user profile into a virtual scrapbook that digs all the way into your past."
At the company’s f8 developer conference in San Francisco, Zuckerberg laid out Facebook’s vision for the future of profiles. He described the history of the Facebook profile, starting with the original profile from 2006, when Facebook was still known as TheFacebook. He explained that through all of these iterations, Facebook profiles have been a good gauge of what you’re doing now, but they are not a good way to share what you or your friends have done in the past.
When I got my fangs into I scrolled all the way back the the date of my birth, disbelieving as Facebook was not around back then, 31 years ago, yeah great logic, Kelly. I found a large rectangular box where I could edit and add pertinent details, including whom I was born to, where and a photo. So simple yet so usable.
It’s a way to show off who you are, what you do and where you’ve been. It’s a complete design overhaul that makes a visual history of everything you’ve ever done, all the way to when you were born.
Facebook automatically adds photos, status updates and life events from your Facebook history to your timeline, but you can also add photos and content from you past to fill out the “Way Back” section. In his demo, Zuckerberg showed how to add a baby picture to the beginning of your timeline.
“It’s fun and easy to fill out your timeline,” Zuckerberg said.
The new profiles also include a map feature that lets you see where you’ve been, thanks to Facebook Places. It maps out your travel. You can even mark your place of birth. But perhaps the most striking feature is the cover photo, which displays a giant image at the top of the new profile page.
Timeline’s purpose is to resurface all the content you have created on Facebook. The problem is simple: once a status updates leaves your profile, you are unlikely to ever see it again. Zuckerberg and the Facebook team want to make Facebook a place to express who you are while discovering who your friends are at the same time.
Get the ten cent tour from Facebook themselves here: http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Stuff you might not know about your local mayor...
Ok, gotcha. Not the city mayor, but rather the ones on Foursquare (4SQ) who are deemed the controller of a location. It's a goal that has driven many to obscene overposting and manic check-ins. Possibly split a couple in two, isolated the accused poster from friends and loved ones, maybe some tension at work. I'm not sure...
But just incase you were wondering how one becomes "mayor" of a spot-cale on 4SQ, here's their definition, stipulations, and other mayor-itions:
A mayor in foursquare is the user with the most number of *days* with check-ins at a specific place within the past 60 days. Only one check-in per day counts towards your mayorship tally. If you have a lot of check-ins that seem fake or consistently far away from where you are checking in, these check-ins will not count towards the mayorship total. Lots of businesses are now offering specials for the mayor of venues, so be sure to keep a look out for specials nearby when you're looking at the places tab in the app.
Hint: Only users with a photo uploaded to their account (no faceless mayors!) will be eligible, so you should upload a photo from your settings page.
If you're checking in off the grid, click here. If you're checking in via mobile web, click here.
There is a similar function of Yelp where you can become the duke of a location, and king of a city. It's epically difficult to get to that high up. But check it out on Yelp.
Read the below for a funny look at the concept from TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/09/yelp-royalty/
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Stuff you might not know about your local mayor...
Ok, gotcha. Not the city mayor, but rather the ones on Foursquare (4SQ) who are deemed the controller of a location. It's a goal that has driven many to obscene overposting and manic check-ins. Possibly split a couple in two, isolated the accused poster from friends and loved ones, maybe some tension at work. I'm not sure...
But just incase you were wondering how one becomes "mayor" of a spot-cale on 4SQ, here's their definition, stipulations, and other mayor-itions:
A mayor in foursquare is the user with the most number of *days* with check-ins at a specific place within the past 60 days. Only one check-in per day counts towards your mayorship tally. If you have a lot of check-ins that seem fake or consistently far away from where you are checking in, these check-ins will not count towards the mayorship total. Lots of businesses are now offering specials for the mayor of venues, so be sure to keep a look out for specials nearby when you're looking at the places tab in the app.
Hint: Only users with a photo uploaded to their account (no faceless mayors!) will be eligible, so you should upload a photo from your settings page.
If you're checking in off the grid, click here. If you're checking in via mobile web, click here.
There is a similar function of Yelp where you can become the duke of a location, and king of a city. It's epically difficult to get to that high up. But check it out on Yelp.
Read the below for a funny look at the concept from TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/09/yelp-royalty/
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Apple Announces iPhone Event for Oct. 4 - via Mashable
Apple has started sending invites for an iPhone event at Apple’s Cupertino campus on Oct. 4.
Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 5. The tech giant is also likely to unveil a second, cheaper iPhone model based off the current iPhone 4. The event will be the first with Tim Cook as CEO.
The new iPhone has been rumored to have an 8 MP camera, 1 GB of RAM, an aluminum back, a larger screen and a slew of other upgrades. Apple is also expected to unveil a new Assistant feature for iOS 5 and will bring some special guests on stage.
This will be Apple’s first iPhone event since June 2010, when it released the iPhone 4. iPhone 5 demand is expected to be strong, thanks to the lack of a phone release this summer and the addition of the iPhone on the Verizon network. Sprint is also expected to get the iPhone.
- http://mashable.com/2011/09/27/apple-announces-iphone-event-for-october-4/
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Catch kelly4nia in Union Square this weekend where... SF Chefs 2011 Makes Drinking in Union Square Legal... & I'll be tweeting about it.
 |
| Heather Hudgeon |
| Bartender Jackie Patterson serving Lillet Punch at SF Chefs 2010 |
If you want to know where to find @kelly4nia this weekend (Friday @5pm - 4pm Sunday), this is the place - Union Square, SF Chefs 2011. I'll be live tweeting for @Anolon as part of my new gig with @theon3group agency's new Social Media Division, a quirky band of misfits how like to play with new toys.
However, I also enjoy food, drink and taking pics and mass distributing my writings about the matter, so this is the perfect gig.
Hopefully see you there!
For more information on the event, follow this link: http://sfchefs2011.com/schedule/grand-tasting-tent/
I'll be sticking mainly to two Anolon cooking demos, a couple of giveaway, the Grand Tastings, and the Anolon booth.
via SF Weekly
SF Chefs, the week-long celebration of San Francisco food and drink, has taken up residence again in Union Square. The white tent draped over an entire city block won't officially open until Friday night, but then there will be plenty of cocktail-related events in bars and restaurants. To plan accordingly, here's our guide for classes and demos in and around the tasting tent.
Gin Blossoms
Where: The Westin St. Francis, 335 Powell (at Geary), 397-7000
When: Sat., Aug. 6, 10:30 a.m.-noon
Cost: $30, tickets online
The rundown: Bartenders Jon Santer, of Bourbon & Branch fame, and Charlotte Voisey lead this seminar about gin, told through cocktails. That's our kind of learning.
Mix It Up with a Master
Where: Union Square Grand Tasting Tent, main stage
When: Sat., Aug. 6, 1:10 p.m.
Cost: Included with Saturday afternoon tasting ticket ($125)
The rundown: H. Joseph Ehrmann of Elixir takes the stage to demonstrate mixing up your own specialty cocktails.
Punches & Other Easy Cocktails
Where: Union Square Grand Tasting Tent, main stage
When: Sat., Aug. 6, 2:30 p.m.
Cost: Included with Saturday afternoon tasting ticket ($125)
The rundown: Duggan McDonnell of Cantina shows you how to make entertaining at home easier by making simple cocktails and punches.
 |
| Heather Hudgeon |
| A dizzyingly large cocktail selection awaits in the tent |
Wake up Your Palate
Where: The Westin St. Francis, 335 Powell (at Geary), 397-7000
When: Sun., Aug. 7, 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
Cost: $30, tickets online
The rundown: Ease the Saturday Grand Tasting hangover with a cocktail class dedicated to drinks made with eggs: Ramos Fizzes, Pisco Sours, Flips, and other eggsotic drinks. Cantina's McDonnell will lead through the creation and consumption of these classic drinks that act as both breakfast and hair-of-the-dog.
Pomegranate Cocktails and Chutney from Dosa
Where: Union Square Grand Tasting Tent, main stage
When: Sun., Aug. 7, 12:30 p.m.
Cost: Included with Sunday afternoon tasting ticket ($125)
The rundown: Lenny Gumm and Paul Raj of Dosa will be demonstrating the versatility of pomegranate by making chutney and cocktails. We're hoping for one that combines both.
Coffee Cocktails
Where: Union Square Grand Tasting Tent, main stage
When: Sun., Aug. 7, 1:10 p.m.
Cost: Included with Sunday afternoon tasting ticket ($125)
The rundown: Illy's master barista, Giorgio Milos, combines the art of pulling a perfect shot of espresso with a shot of liquor. Wake and loosen up all at the same time.
Gin Cocktails Demo
Where: Union Square Grand Tasting Tent, main stage
When: Sun., Aug. 7, 2:30 p.m.
Cost: Included with Sunday afternoon tasting ticket ($125)
The rundown: Charlotte Voisey of Hendrick's Gin shakes up some of her gin-based creations.
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
The Social Context of Reading: Five Questions for Bob Stein
from Kyle Bean's "Future of Books," via Yanko Design
I first learned about The Institute for the Future of the Book while working on a magazine assignment that eventually became this piece for The Millions. In getting to know Bob Stein, his colleagues and the projects they championed I became convinced that concerns about the death of reading and writing were deeply misplaced. What readers, writers, publishers and retailers really needed to worry about, and catch up with, was the increasing potential of what a book’s content could be, the delivery of the content and how we could interact with the content. Of course, plenty has changed in the intervening years and the Institute continues to instigate the exploration of ideas regarding the future of the book. I caught up with Stein over the phone for his take on today’s culture of reading.
The first time we spoke was back in the pre-Kindle, pre-iPad days of 2006. For decades, you’ve actively been thinking about and working to augment the future of the book. What is your read of how the concept of the book has changed in the past five years?
There is the question of how it has involved in my mind and how it has evolved in the minds of the public. I view the book as a place where readers congregate and the social aspect of reading is where we’re going. The publishing industry is trying very hard to keep the traditional model of a book in tact, selling 300 or 400 pages to one reader at a time.
There is this social aspect: books are becoming these places to congregate, the form of expression is undergoing changes. In most cases e-readers and the e-book developers haven’t caught up to this. There are concepts that are too far afield, like people trying to write a novel collaboratively in World of Warcraft. I have no problem with such a book being considered fiction just like Tolkien but the execution isn’t there. And then there is something like Push Pop Press. Yes, the Al Gore book has interactive media but it is just for one reader at a time. They are simply books with audio and video on the page. We figured that out long, long ago. And it isn’t sustainable. When you’re doing something for the first time you can beg, borrow and steal all sorts of help when it comes to all this content. But when you go back to do it again and again you have to pay up.
My big problem with these apps is that they are like CD-ROMs, in the wrong sense – both are islands unto themselves. I’m reading The Waste Land all by myself. The apps are all walled in, all you have is the app. Heaven forbid you have an idea and want to go down the rabbit hole. You can, but you have to leave the app. I believe we are heading toward browser-based materials.
In light of how quickly e-readers have evolved do you foresee a time when printed books truly are a thing of the past? Will there be a time when e-readers will be able to compete with the most lavishly produced art book?
Yes and no. The reality is we’re always going to have books but they are going to play a different role in culture. There will be collectible, expensive art books and books as objects. Rich people will be able to have expensive art objects but in terms of how most information will be moved around it will be electronic. Books will be beautiful objects, the same as when I’m in an antique store and buy a salt shaker – I buy the object, a unity of form.
from Kyle Bean's "Future of Books," via Yanko Design
When you talk about the future of the book, you are really talking about the nature of how content is generated and engaged, right? Is one of the greatest potentials for the future of the book that this fluid, democratized notion of a book’s content will make for more transparency, especially in the ivory towers of the academy?
Let’s look at it differently. Think of going to history class as a kid, fifty years ago, fifteen years ago, it doesn’t matter. The teacher gave you a book and the first impression you were given is, Here is truth. But we’ve developed a much more sophisticated understanding of truth – it is something each one of us constructs from various perspectives. In the future we won’t be as interested in one person’s synthesis. Transparency is part of that but it is about coming at problems from different perspectives. My biggest thing moving forward is how we exploit this potential.
What is your ideal, your utopia, for the future of the book?
I’ve become interested in how context informs the reading experience, whereas a few years ago I was more focused on content. I’m interested by how context comes from different places, how it is shaped by different factors. During The Golden Notebook Project [a late 2008 “experiment in close-reading” that featured an ongoing conversation between seven readers that took place in the margins of the novel] I learned a huge amount just watching them read and debate the text. You can bring in various different glosses on a document. It is a richer experience with these different framing devices readily available, being able to see multiple perspectives and points of view at once. In the digital era context is what matters.
What was the last codex book your read? The last e-book?
The last codex book was Edmund Morris's biography of Beethoven. The last e-books were New Culture of Learning by John Seely Brown and Doug Thomas and Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story.
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
5 Truly Creative Uses Of Social Media
via Search Engine Land - for those of you who enjoyed the 10 Creative Uses of Twitter post from awhile back.
Jun 7, 2011 at 9:30am ET by Ciarán Norris
The biggest news in the world of social media over the last few weeks has been the IPO of LinkedIn, the upcoming Groupon IPO, and the slew of floatations these two are likely to herald. And, of course, underpinning all of this has been the simple question of whether the valuations these companies are receiving mean that we are in a bubble.
Whilst I’m in no way qualified to answer that (though I tend to agree with the analysis by multi-media consultancy Broadsight that all of this activity suggest that we definitely are in a bubble), what I can say is that nearly all of these companies rely on marketing, if not direct advertising dollars, for their business models.
This worries me because at present all of them seem to be enabling, if not actively encouraging, incredibly uncreative communication strategies. As a colleague of mine, who had his doubts about social, once said to me, “Are there any great social marketing campaigns that don’t rely on bribing the user”. And, when you think about it, there aren’t that many.
Groupon is built on bribing, or buying, your customer’s attention (with all the dangers that brings of investing in acquisition with absolutely no guarantee of retention), whilst many other ‘famous’ campaigns are built on similar models: vouchers, competitions, etc…
If Facebook, Twitter and the like really want to meet their valuations they need to win TV budgets, and that means that agencies and marketers need to get much better at using social platforms and technologies to build lasting relationships with consumers, without resorting to financial rewards, and start creating truly innovative strategies.
So, rather than just rant about this, I thought it would be useful to give examples of brands that are doing exactly that, in the (almost certainly vein) hope that this might encourage others to do the same.
5 Examples Of Excellent Social Media Campaigns
This was the campaign that made me decide to write this post. A stunningly simple mechanic (pulling data from people’s social graphs using Facebook’s API is hardly original).
But done in a truly beautiful way, that actually made me stop what I was doing and give my full attention to what was unfolding in front of me. And, in doing all of this, it subtly, but very definitely, hammers home the overarching brand message. This should win awards. Lots of them.
Marketers often dismiss social, saying that it only works for cool brands, ones where people will want to get involved. So it would be impossible to use it for, say, a bank, right? Well, First Direct, to highlight the fact that unlike most other UK banks, were trusted by their customers, used social technology to surface consumer opinion, and then published it, on their own site, and broadcast it, in offline marketing. Again, an old tricks (it’s what movie studios have always done) but given an innovative twist, that won awards, and hit business targets.
Sponsoring major sporting events is an expensive business, yet so many brands go no further than slapping their logos on the bilboards and the ads around the games. Heineken went one better, and created an app that not only appeals to the target audience (football/soccer fans), but is truly engaging and, creates and facilitates live conversations.
4. Metropolitan Police – Choose A Different Ending
If you can’t use social for boring sectors, surely it can’t make a serious point? Well, the (London) Metropolitan Police proved otherwise with this interactive video narrative that allows youngsters to see the dangers of carrying a knife through a ‘choose your own adventure’ style YouTube platform. Gripping, engaging and perfect for the target audience. Truly creative, and true social work.
5. Burberry - Art Of The Trench
Another industry that has, for the most part, steered clear of social, and indeed digital in general, is the luxury sector. But fashion brand Burberry decided to grasp it with both hands, and the result was the highly successful Art Of The Trench, which has been followed with the world’s first 3D livecast of a catwalk show, with real-time Facebook & Twitter commenting.
It actually took me a while to come up with these, as so many, admittedly creative uses of social, rely on giving something physical back to consumers, whether in the forms of discounts or competition prizes.
So, help me out. Help me prove my colleague wrong. Help us prove that social media can be used creatively, without recourse to competitions, vouchers and give-aways, by giving your own examples in the comments.
* Heineken & First Direct are both Mindshare clients, though Mindshare was not involved in the creation of the Star Player app. I have tried to use non-US examples on purpose, to prove that great work does exist outside of America.
Noted addition:
6. E4.com - Mess with the Misfits
This one was discussed in the comments section, however, Norris decided not to include it as to stray from using examples from TV or Film, but really what drives most of this social media, stuff to talk about. So, I felt it pertinent to include it. Plus, it's pretty darn cool. Integrating your social media image and name into a video. Super cool. Take a watch yourself.
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
5 Innovative Food Truck Social Media Marketing Campaigns
Fueled by demand for inexpensive, quick and delicious meals, gourmet food trucks have swept cities across the world, offering up specialties, such as grilled cheese sandwiches, tacos, pickles, cupcakes and meatballs.
The past few years have seen an onslaught of social media-savvy food trucks, empowering on-the-go customers to follow their favorite truck’s whereabouts on Twitter or learn about nearby deals on Foursquare, among other advancements.
Food trucks are becoming increasingly smart with their social media marketing, running campaigns to support particular efforts, deals or events. Here are five examples of innovative social media campaigns created by food trucks of all types.
1. DoubleTree CAREavan: Celebrating a Milestone
DoubleTree by Hilton gives out approximately 60,000 chocolate chip cookies each day when guests check in, amounting to more than 21 million cookies annually. In celebration of the 25th anniversary of its signature chocolate chip cookie, DoubleTree by Hilton suited up a food truck for, in their own words, a “10-week, 10,000-mile, 50-city journey to deliver hundreds of thousands of smiles to weary workers, tired travelers and local charities across the country through the pleasant surprise of a sweet chocolate chip cookie treat.”
The campaign is driven by social media, including the following components:
Facebook: The DoubleTree Facebook page features an app with a real-time map of where the cookie CAREavan is, relevant tweets, a sweepstakes entry form for free stays at the hotel, YouTube videos and related promotions. The page has experienced an 89% increase in Facebook Likes since DoubleTree launched the campaign on May 26.
Foursquare: The CAREavan’s location is updated on Foursquare, where the truck is running a special to promote its free cookies, as well as its Topguest partnership.
Topguest: Topguest members receive 50 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points and 25 Virgin Elevate points with each Foursquare checkin.
Twitter: DoubleTree is running a contest on Twitter to give followers the chance to win a “sweet break,” in which the truck team chooses tweeters using the hashtag #SweetBreak and hand-delivers 250 chocolate chip cookies to each of the winners’ offices. Twitter followers can also stay informed about the CAREavan’s whereabouts and activities.
YouTube: DoubleTree is capturing “Cookie Confessionals” of fans talking about why they love chocolate chip cookies and posting them to its YouTube channel.
While DoubleTree isn’t a food-centric brand at its core, it is known for its warm chocolate chip cookies, and this campaign definitely plays on that nostalgia, bringing a bit of sweetness to each city it visits.
2. Mexicue: Crowdsourcing Recipes on Facebook
BBQ truck Mexicue is on a mission to crowdsource seasonal offerings on its menu. This summer it is running a Summer Market Special Contest, in which one lucky winner will be picked to have his or her seasonal recipe featured on the menu for one month.
Using a Facebook app, Mexicue announces an ingredient and accepts recipe submissions that include that ingredient. Then the Facebook community can vote for the recipe that will be featured aboard the Mexicue truck that month. Each month this summer, a new menu item is featured. The creators of the winning recipes win a $50 gift certificate to Mexicue and a Manhattan Messenger bag by Lexdray. The second and third place prizes are $25 and $10 Mexicue gift cards, respectively.
This contest is a fun way to engage a community and empower aspiring taco artisans to craft recipes for the chance to be featured on the menu.
3. Ninja Snowballs: Building Excitement During a Dead Time
There are only so many months in a summer when pedestrians want to stop for a snow cone. Baton Rouge snow cone truck Ninja Snowballs decided to combat slumping sales in September and October by running a flavor contest.
Bite and Booze blogger Jay Ducote partnered with Ninja Snowballs to run the contest, which asked foodies to invent a new flavor combination for the truck. Entries were accepted via Twitter and Facebook.
So, how did the campaign do? The truck was able to vend a few more weeks than it usually would have as a result of the buzz around the new flavors available for customers to try during the contest, says Ducote. Furthermore, the contest details page racked up 1,500 visits, and the top 16 submitted flavors drove a lot of buzz during the six rounds of judging, in which votes were counted by how many people ordered each snow cone.
The winning flavor, called “Lemon Fluff,” was submitted by marketing consultant Julie Perrault and featured a blend of fresh-squeezed lemonade and sweetened condensed milk.
4. Chi’Lantro BBQ: Offering a Deal
Chil’Lantro BBQ, a Korean and Mexican fusion BBQ food truck based in Austin, uses social media to keep its fans abreast of the truck’s latest news, locations, giveaways and specials of the day. Owner and founder Jae Kim actively uses Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and Foursquare to do just that.
Kim says his truck’s most successful social media marketing campaign took place during this year’s SXSW conference. Teaming up with mobile payment system Intuit GoPayment, the truck offered 25-cent tacos to customers who followed the truck on Twitter and paid with a credit card.
The campaign generated “tons of buzz” and was a “huge success and win-win for everybody,” says Kim.
5. Wafels & Dinges: Promoting a Relevant Holiday
In celebration of Belgian National Holiday (July 21), New York City-based Wafels & Dinges is introducing its Belgian Madness ice cream, which features its now-leaked secret ingredient, Hoegaarden white beer. From 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. ET, the Wafels & Dinges truck will be handing out free cones of the new flavor. To make the event even more fun, the Astor Place cart is crowning the “back-up King of Belgium” at 10 p.m. ET. The details for entering are explained on the company’s blog:
“Come dressed up as royalty (or at least in uniform worthy of a King) and give a 1-2 min speech about the role of Dinges in the expansion of the Belgian empire! If you convince our Belgian jury, you might win a free catering event for 50 people anywhere in NYC! The second prize is a gift certificate for 5 WMDs! And under the Belgian motto of ‘participating is more important than winning,’ all the contestants will receive a free jar of Spekuloos!”
The waffle truck is promoting its campaign on Twitter — where it has a following of over 15,500 — and Facebook, where it has 7,500 fans. Since this promotion ran on the day of this article’s publication, success metrics could not be determined.
Your Favorite Food Truck Campaigns
Which social media campaigns are food trucks in your neighborhood running? Let us know in the comments below.
Series Supported by Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck
The Social-Savvy Food Truck Series is supported by the Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck. In New York City or San Francisco and want a free scoop? Follow @BenJerrysTruck and @BenJerrysWest for details!
Images courtesy of Mexicue; Flickr, speedye, somethingstartedcrazy
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Social Media Day SF Recap: Should the Anti-Social Mashable be Leading the Charge?
However, that afternoon I received (hang on, time to channel Brando) ... "an offer I couldn't refuse." Free VIP ticks to the Blonde Readhead show at the Independent. Blonde Redhead, a beautiful music factory reminiscent of The Proclaimers reinvented as hipsters with a Toria Amos of sorts in the role of lead vocals - a band I've been following for some time now.
So, I chose a free night of food, best friend one-on-one time, drinks and music I adore - over trampolines, I know.
Sorry to my reading public. This is my formal apology for lagging in my responsibilities as this city's Social Media Examiner. I'm back, and the news is on again.
Today though, this is about more than news. I had a revelation at work while walking past the Mashable offices that share a wall with my company on the ninth floor of an office building in SOMA.
You see, I share an office space with the San Francisco syndicate of the venerable social media journalism monopoly. We work amid a cadre of Internet start-ups nested in various corners of the floor's available space, which is dwindling with each week. It's a coveted spot.
The ninth floor SOMA Central crowd is quite sociable, even for tech-heads. We throw a weekly floor-wide-invite happy hour, mainly to get to know our neighbors better and share a few brews at local spots. We've even been known to film a music video on the floor with all the businesses, together.
Team Mashable over the months of our shared residency though, has gained a noted reputation of anti-socialism when it comes to meeting up. Ironic, no?
Some on the floor venture the guess that they snub their nose at the smaller companies that they feel superior to the Lilliputian web ventures sharing their floor, or possibly consider themselves a serious business with a responsibility to the news and therefore, no time for monkey business.
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Two Tickets to the Newport Beach Film Festival Opening Night Gala for the Price of One ($160 Value)!
Go to this site for a 2-for-1 from my favorite film festival on the planet –@NBFF. Two tickets for the price of one to the NBFF's Opening Night Gala ($160 Value)! hosted by my other love, @Adility.
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Q&A with Kiip Co-Founder Amadeus Demarzi
San Francisco has become the ground floor in a rise of social media projects, inventions, startups, applications architecture and more. Yet even among the cadre of social media app-heads running around there, a few outshine the rest. Amadeus Demarzi co-founder of Kiip, eightbit.me and FollowStyle has become one of those names to stand out within the masses.
Demarzi has a fluid resume including work with Chipotle, Chevron, Google Ventures, and most recently the creation of Kiip – the new wave in mobile advertisement applications. Yesterday he took some time to talk a bit about how he got into the “game,” some of the projects he’s currently involved in and few side projects that are still flying under the radar.
Tell us a little about your professional background.
I would say I am just really driven to build and create things. For me it's always about creating amazing user experiences using technology. If I haven't delighted the client/user, then I've failed. I feel very lucky to work on such a variety of projects like Kiip and EightBit, which allow me to express different creative mindsets.
I went to college for 3D animation, switched halfway through to film, dropped out in '07 to work in web, and had been doing freelance web design throughout college.
The first company I worked for was Eurekster, a social search company that essentially took results from Yahoo via an API, and allowed people to vote on them. I was there for about a year.
After Eurekster I went to work for a design agency called Sequence. There I got the unique opportunity to architect the Chipotle iPhone app – the first application that allowed users to order and pay for food on their iPhone. I also got to work on various other projects for companies like Chevron, Sonos, Google Ventures, Zinio, etc.
During my final year at Sequence, I started working on various side projects with a friend of mine, Courtney Guertin who was an engineer at Digg. Together we built an iPhone app (Skeemo) and a couple small fun sites like answer.to. Eventually we decided to leave our current companies and work on a fashion site together – FollowStyle. We iterated very quickly and had something up and running within a few months, but unfortunately we found it was a very difficult industry to gain any traction in due to our lack of connections.
Around this time, another friend of ours from Digg, Brian Wong a young 19 year old who worked in Business Development [at Digg] managed to raise around 300k for an idea: rewarding game players with real items for accomplishing things in [the] games. Courtney and I dug the idea, and Brian was in need of a couple cofounders that could fill his technical void to build the product, so we joined full time, Courtney as Co-Founder and CTO, and myself as Co-Founder and Director of Design.
Around this time, Addison Kowalski, an ex designer at Digg, had been getting some Internet props for designing these little 8bit avatars for people's twitter profiles. Soon the demand for them got pretty high, and so Courtney, Addison and myself decided to remedy that by making a web based avatar creation tool.
Over the next 5-7 months, Courtney, Brian and myself hustled on Kiip full time. In the moments we could find to spare on nights and weekends, we squeezed in EightBit. We successfully opened up EightBit to the public around SXSW, but also added a bunch more functionality in the way of an iPhone web app and a mini social game based on Foursquare. It still amazes me how often I see people using the avatars on Twitter and various other services.
A couple weeks later, we had an amazing launch for Kiip, which overall went out very well in the press. We have been absolutely inundated by great brands and game developers reaching out to us and wanting to use our service/platform. We just recently got our own office for Kiip, and have expanded the team up to eight, from the original three. We can even be considered bi-coastal since our VP of sales is out in New York.
Tell us about Eightbit.me. Where did the idea come from? What are your plans for it? What makes it so different? What have been some trials, triumphs, etc?
Originally birthed as an avatar creator, it has since evolved into a foursquare based social game. We ultimately would like to make it a very deep social game, that utilizes many other social platforms to create a sort of Internet avatar, which represents you, online. The ideas, concepts and designs have grown very organically over the last 6-8 months. Every project presents a unique set of difficulties. This can range from exploiting limits of a particular technology platform you are on, to solving user experience barriers.
With EightBit, the major challenge was getting a low powered device (iPhone) to create a native like experience in HTML, CSS, and Javascript. When building an 'app' for an iPhone, you have 2 basic choices. You can build a native application, which uses iOS libraries and Objective-C to build an application. These technologies take full advantage of the iPhone's hardware, allowing you to create very rich visual or data experiences that perform smoothly and efficiently because of this more direct interaction with the iPhone's hardware. On the flip side, the only REAL way to distribute these applications is through the Apple App Store, which means you have to abide by certain rules, and your release cycle is often controlled more by Apple.
Another way to build an application is using web-based technologies in the iPhone's Safari browser. Most people may not know this, but Apple has created far and away the best mobile browser currently available, and they have gone even further to provide excellent APIs allowing for some level of hardware acceleration. The major downside of building a web app is the dependency on a network connection is hard to avoid, the lower computing power of Javascript, because it's such a high level language, with so many browser/operating system layers below it. This means that your code has to be VERY efficient, and sometimes entire processes have to be re-thought in order to accomplish a smooth useable experience.
Kiip - that is a big release for you - what are you thoughts about it, and what do you think sets it apart from others like it?
Kiip is built on an advertising model of cost per engagement, or CPE. We are the vary first rewards platform that allows brands to highly target, much like the world of banner ads, using rewards instead of banner impressions. We also feel that the game experience is not very conducive to banner ads, since they require visual real estate, which on mobile devices is rather low to begin with. Our platform is about targeting users/player/customers when they are excited and happy, by providing a non-intrusive opt-in reward.
We have already had our initial public launch, announcing what we are doing, since we've been in stealth mode for the last 7 months or so. Soon we will be announcing which games we are going to be integrated with, so people can begin actually winning rewards for playing.
Some interesting obstacles with Kiip was around the fact that we are productizing the concept of a reward. Technically we have designed the first ever reward unit, a standard unit that can be used to reward a user for an interaction they had with an application. This is a far more complex usability problem than banner ads. Here at Kiip, we hold user experience in the highest regard, and have been doing everything possible to make the reward collection and redemption process as frictionless as possible.
We took a bit of a cue from Apple, by creating our reward units using html/css/javascript, giving us tremendous control over the design, without requiring game developers to update their Kiip SDK libraries.
Let us in on your thoughts on social media's usefulness, cool factor, possibilities, etc.
Hmm, I have mixed feelings about social media. I feel that it's mostly misunderstood by the general public. Every couple years in the web world we get new buzz words like web 2.0, Ajax, html5, etc., that mostly miss the point and don't really do any justice to what they are describing. At the same time, these buzz words also allow these concepts to become more mainstream, which ultimately helps our tech/web industries.
Overall though, it's hard to make any money in social media. Most of the time, money is not made off the product itself, but rather, by throwing advertisements into it since everyone ultimately accepts these platforms as being free. Ultimately this only works if there is a certain huge mass of users; otherwise it's not sustainable.
It's hard to really say what the future will bring, especially with the market being REALLY frothy right now. The big 'hit' things right now seem to be social tools that utilize the capabilities of mobile devices; always on and connected, location based, short message, photos, video, etc.
I think the far more interesting thing to watch though, is this transition away from 'personal computers' over to mobile phones and tablets. Think about it, kids that are born today, will be growing up in the world of touch based interfaces, always connected, cloud based, and no mice and keyboards. This, I believe represents a HUGE significant change in the world of computing, and personally I am really excited that it's my playground.
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
10 Creative & Entertaining Uses of Twitter
A new take on an old blog that can now be found on my new post as SF Social Media Examiner. Check out the full article here. Don't forget to click on the "like" button.
Twitter: more than a virtual text message sent to the masses. Tweeting can be a 140-character fun-filled adventure for the eagle-eyed user. Especially in this tech-savvy town where slews of techheads continue to burst through finite character restrictions and give us something new to toy with, one tweet at a time.
Take a look at these marvels blossoming within the seeming chaos of the Twitter-verse.
1. Chatrooms: hashtags (#) can be a wonderful thing, a tool to track entire conversations following a single subject, occuring right under our noses on twitter. #journchat is an online community of journalists who meet up once a week over the "t-wires" to chat about the state of the news industry through the use of the hashtag search function. An entire forum converging across time zones and geography to discuss in a virtual arena - and they're not the only ones.
Groups all over the world are engaging in a #chat forum of sorts, throwing out hashtags for people to add to the end of their tweets, bringing a virtual conversation alongside real-time events. Try putting a #-sign in your next search and see what surfaces.
2. Choose Your Own Tweet-venture: What child of the 80's or 90's can forget those tiny cream-colored paperback books that held a world of possibilities between there covers? Who didn't mark their last five choices with as many fingers as they could spare, a precaution to continue on in the adventure should you find yourself abandoned in a cave for all eternity on page 107? Well now, you can relive the childhood thrill, tweet by thrill-seeking tweet, thanks to Jonah Peretti of Buzzfeed and Huffington Post fame. So, maybe take that 10 today at work and sign on to Choose Your Own Adventure.
3. Post like a Pirate: argh maytees, looking to tweet like the ruffians of the sea do? Well, ye be on the right track if yer headin' toward http://postlikeapirate.com/twitter.php. Simply enter in yer infermation and a message in a bottle ye wish to send out to sea, and the app will reformat it in pirate slang. Now everyday can feel just as fun as September 17, otherwise known as Talk Like A Pirate Day.
4. Read a Novel - tweet by tweet: Unable to afford a whole new e-reader? Forgot your book and your already on the road for that trip? Stuck at in the dentist's lobby and only Elle or Cosmo to read? Well here's the answer for literature lovers. Two projects on twitter are trying to share an entire novel tweet by tweet: James Joyce’s Ulysses or Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Read an entire novel, at your pace, taking in only a thought at a time.
5. Better yet, Write Your Own: Although the first novel has reached completiono, there could be a follow-up project in the future. You could start it. Even though it’s defunct, you can still read what was written at the 140novel site, color-coded by each author's contribution.
6. Alarm Clock Anyone? Need to remember something, but not as trusting of the old alarm clock? Send this @timer a direct message, and this account will automatically tweet you back. For example, 'd timer 45 call mom' sends you a reminder tweet in 45 minutes.
7. Keep April Fool's alive all year long: At TweetForger it's as simple as entering someone’s Twitter handle into the form on TweetForger's homepage, creating a zany tweet, and sending your victim a link to the resulting page. Then sit back and enjoy as your prank comes to fruition. The site creates a graphic that looks like a real tweet that is nothing of the sort. The site simply swipes your target's Twitter background and then recreates it with the new faux-tweet.
8. Track your packages: with @trackthis you can keep your eye on the things making their way to you from FedEx, UPS and DHL shipments. For those of us who order online at least once a month - loving the anticipation of knowing that soon something is waiting for you, sent to you (yes even if it was from you too), on your doorstep - this is a great tool.
9. Keep track of who's Adding and Dropping you on Twitter: Nothing's more disconcerting than to watch your following fall in numbers and not know who, why or how? Was your content lacking? Did you offend someone? Too many tweets about Martha Stewart's latest recipes? @chirpstats keeps a tally of the people who've followed and un-followed you over a week or a couple of days, depends on the traffic - just make sure you follow the chirpstat feed.
10. Sharpen your brain with some Twivia: Looking to take on the world in one oversized extreme quest for useless information? Look no farther; you want to play some twivia. Test your knowledge against some of the toughest minds in the Twitter-sphere through @playtwivia. Here's how it works: Twivia posts a question and the first person to @reply the answer gets points, specified in the next tweet. Plus Twivia posts answers after someone gets it correct, so you don’t have to keep wondering. They even take suggestions.
That's probably enough for now as new jewels keep cropping up all the time. Keep your eyes peeled for more unexpected and creative new uses of Twitter, be it a complete time suck or the answer to the world's power crisis.
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Know You Meme and Make Sure to Exploit The Hell Out of It
㉿ęᄔÿf☼яῆエ@
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Bad ads on THE RIGHT SIDE OF FACEBOOK
㉿ęᄔÿf☼яῆエ@
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Social Media's Implications and Uses in Indie Filmmaking
㉿
Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.
