a year ago i blogged about the first smirnoff tea partay clip, some dorky east coast guys doing a skit on rap videos. now smirnoff launched the official sequel from the west coast.
doubting the success of such clips last year here are the stats from 8/29/2007:
smirnoff tea partay east coast – published august 02, 2006 – 3,504,506 views
smirnoff tea partay west coast – published august 02, 2007 – 3,214,484 views
impressive numbers, especially as the second clip is online for 27 days only and has already surpassed the 3,2 million mark. both clips are promoting the smirnoff raw tea line and i gotta say that i liked watching both of them.
(via buzz-people)
[tags: smirnoff, tea partay, west coast, raw tea, viral marketing, word-of-mouth]
after opening up facebook for third party applications, facebook is riding the next hype wave. here is the onion’s point of view:
the smug little shit behind the latest internet phenomenon.
check out facebook for the apple iphone too, nicely done.
(via the onion magazine)
[tags: facebook, mark zuckerberg, onion, the onion, weekender, satire]
the apple iphone is a beautiful device, revolutionizing the space of mobile phones but there is one major downside, apple/at&t is forcing you into a pretty expensive two year contract to even activate the iphone. when bought you can not use the iphone until you activate it via itunes by choosing one of there three two year contract plans ($60, $80 or $100 per month plus tax).
this is how to activate/unlock the apple iphone using a gophone® pay as you go (prepaid) plan without being stuck in a two year contract. the simple trick is failing the credit check, only when you fail the credit check at&t offers you the pay as you go plans. anybody can do this in some easy steps and it doesn’t require any hacking/command line skills.
the difference: $51 pay as you go instead of $2400 in a two year contract.
1. connect the iphone via the data cable to your computer (pc or mac).
2. click on “activate one iphone now.” in your recent version of itunes.
3. click ‘continue’ if you don’t want to transfer an existing number.
4. select any plan (it doesn’t have any effect).
5. create an apple id.
6. the most important step: fill in the form with some fake data, it really doesn’t matter what you fill in here, when enrolling the pay as you go plan you will be asked for your real data again. use 141-11-1111 or 999-99-9999 as your social security number. use any existing address. you have to use a valid credit card otherwise you don’t get further but based on the data and wrong ssn you will fail the credit check anyways. no worries.
7. accept apple’s terms and conditions.
8. accept at&t’s service agreement. you will not be charged and you won’t be stuck in a two year contract but you have to accept the terms on this screen (you can cancel the agreement within 30 days but that won’t be necessary).
9. review your information and submit it.
10. yeah, you failed the credit check, on the next screen at&t will provide you the ability to choose a gophone® pay as you go (prepaid) plan.
11. after choosing a pay as you go (prepaid) plan you will be redirected to the at&t webpage and asked to type in your real data and address. you have to make an initial fund into your prepaid account. after going through this process you will be redirected back to itunes where it shows your new number and pin.
12. enjoy your apple iphone with a prepay plan without being stuck in a contract.
(call at&t at 611 to make sure that there are no automated monthly payments set)
these activation steps are necessary to even make any use of the apple iphone, but this is probably the easiest and cheapest way to do it right now. in the us you can use it like any other phone and just fund your account whenever needed. travellers can take the iphone anywhere they want and use it as a wifi internet device and ipod anywhere in the world until it is hacked for using any sim card. i did this with three iphones taking them to europe and it worked fine every time.
view the whole flow as a slideshow on flickr.
(inspired by eric sadun)
update – march 19. 2008: forget about all of this and check out ziphone, a simple tool to unlock and activate your iphone in 3 minutes.
[tags: apple, iphone, att, activation, gophone, pay as you go, prepaid, plan]
as you may know, the entire internet has crashed …
all data has been lost, no backup of the internet, blogosphere desperate.
(thanks markus, via lifehacker)
[tags: internet, crash, 2007, fatal error, blogosphere, onion, lifehacker]
i guess everybody knows by now what happens when putting together mentos and diet coke/pepsi. this is a new carlsberg viral ad adaption of it …
“you don’t put sweets in carlsberg”
and the duracell bunny is having more fun now.
(via buzz-people)
i don’t find the time these days to keep up to speed with what’s going in the viral, buzz and word of mouth marketing sphere. i discovered some nice blogable content during my recent trip to latvia and germany but that’s gotta follow post by post. talking about the european union – i recently found out about the eu youtube profile.
“welcome to the youtube space of the european commission. find out more about a europe of action and results.
the profile contains all sorts of educational clips in and around the european commission/union. a couple of them deal with european films and one of the category “sex sells” is recently creating some buzz and traffic.
“millions of cinema lovers enjoy european films … every year“
fortunately the werbeblogger (now in a new layout) always keeps me up-to-date writing about the amnesty international spots with the message “your petitions are more powerful than you think” and the award winner “your signature is more powerful than you think“.
the wieden & kennedy making of clip of the coke happiness factory spot and an egyptian mcdonalds commercial copying an earlier dr pepper commercial. and i found a report on a rather innovative approach to avoid speeding – the speed control bikini bandits in denmark.
there are also two new entries in my blogroll, buzz-people and frau b. surft.
bernd just pointed me to a viral microsite philips recently launched, it’s called www.shaveeverywhere.com encouraging men that it is ok “to shave everywhere”.
“the philips norelco bodygroom is the all-in-one grooming solution, exclusively for men, that safely trims and shaves all body zones. with the bodygroom, men can trim and shave hair from their chest & abs, underarms, groin area, legs, back and shoulders.”
i guess this is usually some kind of hushed up topic now brought to the table in a more funny viral microsite, a guy describing the enormous benefits of the philips bodygroom. don’t miss to click on the main menu in the lower left corner, to watch the “optical inch”, the “testimonials” and the “test drive”.
go to www.shaveeverywhere.com or www.rasierdichwoduwillst.de (in german).
update – june 1. 2007: the campaign even comes with a bodygroom music video.
in 2005 philips also launched quintippio – the new 15 blade mega shave.
plus a quick round-up of stuff i would otherwise miss out to mention, absolut protest – in an absolut world, elave – nothing to hide, burger king ad in new zealand, nike momentum, axe essence beach showercam, axe bom chicka wah wah and even more axe ads and microsites at the axe ads blog.
(round-up via werbeblogger)
[tags: philips, norelco, bodygroom, shave, quintippio, viral marketing]
i recently came across sputtr and just made it my new home page in all my browsers – the page i start all my searches from now on. sputtr is a neat new universal search engine, a collection of all your favorite search engines and social sites that are out there, just type in what you are searching for and then click the icon where to look.
“sputtr is a refreshingly clean way to search the things that matter the most. now you can save valuable time by having all the right searches on just one page! it’s simple – real simple. it’s fast – faster than most others out there. it’s a collection of all your favorite search engines – all on just one page! it’s pretty.”
the different language versions even contain different search engines, the german sputtr page for instance includes the master of all bookmarks mister wong and you can always suggest more.
make it your home page – www.sputtr.com
(via orli yakuel at go2web2)
[tags: sputtr, sputtr.com, homepage, home page, search engine, go2web2]
etienne from brandbase netherlands recently dropped me a note pointing me to www.bellenmetgilles.nl which more or less means “call the guy called gilles”. you don’t have to speak dutch to get this fun viral microsite where gilles is pretty bored waiting for you to call – just dial the number shown on the website and wait what happens (if you are calling internationally just dial +31-208-801026).
brandbase also features a website collecting viral marketing cases, articles, links and explaining their approach of brand activation at www.brandactivation.nl
thanks etienne for the email and link tip.
[tags: brandbase, brand activation, bellen met gilles, viral, viral marketing]
in april this year i met heather powazek champ at web2open, she mainly takes care of the flickr user community and while visiting her website i found out about the jpg magazine.
“jpg magazine is made by you! jpg magazine is for people who love imagemaking without attitude. it’s about the kind of photography you get when you love the moment more than the camera. it’s for photographers who, like us, have found themselves online, sharing their work, and would like to see that work in print.
jpg is a magazine. it’s published 6 times a year and distributed nationally. everything in the magazine comes from you!
jpg is a website. here any photographer can join and upload photos and stories to their member page. you can also submit your work for consideration in the magazine.
jpg is a community. jpg exists because of, and exclusively for, photographers like you. without you, we’re nothing.”
this is how it works – you submit your photos at www.jpgmag.com, the community votes on each photo and story, editors create the issue with the best of the best and the final result is the bi-monthly beautiful print jpg magazine packed with consumer generated amazing photography and stories.
i just love the idea, it’s a great concept with a beautiful result every two months with contributions from all over the world.
find out more and how it works, join the community and i happily subscribed for the jpg print magazine. i received my first issue yesterday and it’s amazing! i’m a fan now and wanted to tell you about it.
[tags: jpg, jpgmag, jpg magazine, phography, photos, art, heather champ]
with big thanks to kosmar i’m part of the joost beta testing phase right now.
“joost is a new way of watching tv on the internet. with joost, you get all the things you love about tv, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping. you get great internet features too, such as search, chat and instant messaging, built right into the program – so you find shows quickly and talk to your friends while you watch. and with no schedules to worry about, you can watch whatever you want, whenever you like – as often as you want. joost is completely free, and works with most modern pcs and intel mac-based computers with a broadband connection. get joost today!”
i was playing around with it for a little while and i have to say that i am impressed, it’s fullscreen free television on your computer, great quality and a wide range of channels and programs to choose from (screenshots on flickr).
joost is in beta right now and you need an invitation to try it out. i still have a couple of invites left, so if you want to participate, just drop me an email at ‘netzkobold [at] gmail [dot] com’ with the subject ‘joost invite’.
more information at www.joost.com, wikipedia, commercial, screenshots.
update – may 23. 2007: dear readers, the feedback to this post/joost is overwhelming, i sent out 243 invites based on your requests. yesterday i found a maybe more immediate source to get a joost beta invitation, gigaom provides joost invites via a simple web form, thanks om! if this doesn’t work out you can of course still drop me note via comment or email.
[tags: joost, tv, television, peer-to-peer, p2p, joost beta, invite, zennström]
i spend more than 90% of my time at work using a web browser, means that i really care about what browser fulfills all my needs of tabbed browsing, restoring sessions, mouse gestures, saving data, blocking ads, bookmarking, providing certain information on websites and so on. i switched between netscape, internet explorer, firefox, flock, opera, mozilla and recently came across a nice article about maxthon on techcrunch by ouriel ohayon.
“the big difference with other browsers is that maxthon is based on internet explorer code which makes the software very familiar from the beginning but with a few twists. unlike ie, it is very fast, safe and very stable and brings a unique browsing experience as it enables you to customize nearly any part of the software. like firefox, maxthon brings tabbed browsing, embedded RSS and podcast reader, search bar … but without necessity to add any extension. the key strength of maxthon is that it enables you to totally customize your browsing experience with extreme simplicity.”
after stumbling over maxthon on linkedin i met maxthon partner and svp netanel jacobsson in palo alto last week. net is a great guy with passion, a vision and an amazing team of engineers to make a meaning in the world of web browsers. thanks net, it was great meeting you!
so start your new browsing experience and give maxthon a try, you’ll love it!
[tags: maxthon, browser, tabbed browser, internet explorer, ie, firefox, flock]
bbdo germany and bmw recently launched an online game called “bmw p.a.c.e“.
“bmw starts a race. p.a.c.e, the ‘pursuit across europe’ is an exciting mixture of action and adventure, where users can explore new bmw technology like brake energy regeneration or electric power steering. the race takes place between lisbon and prague. highlights are the hightech flash engine and the fascinating look, realized in cooperation with interone worldwide hamburg.”
the viral microsite has a beautiful look and feel and is supposed to support some of bmw new technologies in a fun environment to create brand awareness and image building among a younger crowd.
congratulations to the team, especially the illustration by dirk hoffmann and the 3d realisation by electric umbrella. you’ll find the game at www.bmw-pace.com.
[tags: bmw, bbdo, p.a.c.e, pursuit across europe, game, viral marketing]
