Tag Archives: social media

FanChatter and True (B)romance

For the love of the game, there’s an up-and-coming social media/mobile tool for sports fans called FanChatter. If you want to send your picture to the stadium’s Jumbotron or keep up with fans of your favorite team, FanChatter is your ticket.

The founders of FanChatter were recently invited to spend some quality time at Silicon Valley’s YCombinator, a twice-a-year brain camp for startups who get some seed money and, more importantly, access to priceless free advice from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

I recommend two recent stories about FanChatter – a story by Graeme Thickins in Minnov8 and one from Finance & Commerce by Arundhati Parmar. Coupled together, these articles free The Nerdery to tell an entirely different side of the FanChatter story – and one told to me by Tom O’Neill, our VP of software development. Tom’s story has something for everyone, whether you’re into stories with true romance, sports, technology, brotherly love, suspense, the thrill of victory, and the agony of … whatever.

Ever go to a ballgame at which some hopeful romantic type gets the nerve to go on the Jumbotron on bended knee to propose to his surprised sweetheart? It’s among the most anxious moments in all of sports (sometimes I can’t watch). Did you know that Major League Baseball has a rule that only one such public proposal can be aired per game on the Jumbotron? Ed O’Neill didn’t. When his brother Tom learned this, he had to make a series of life-changing game-time decisions.

Ed had the ring and everything when he showed up at the Twins game with his girlfriend Holly, brother Tom, and Tom’s wife Anni. Here’s the play-by-play:

Top of the 1^st inning: Tom sneaks off  to Metrodome Fan Services to plunk down $100 for his brother’s Jumbotron appearance. Returning to the seats, Tom tells Ed, “Done deal.”

Bottom 1^st inning: Dude from Fan Services frantically waves Tom down, tells him somebody else had dibs on the one-a-day Jumbotron proposal. Tom curses rules as made to be broken, but no dice.

Top of the 2^nd: Tom tells brother about FanChatter as possible Plan B for his proposal. Select fan photos submitted to FanChatter are shown on the Jumbotron in the 5^th inning. Anyone who’s been to a ballgame with Tom knows he’s a fan and early adopter of FanChatter. If Tom were Minneapolis Star Tribune sports columnist Sid Hartman, he’d name-drop FanChatter creator Marty Wetherall as a “close personal friend.” When he’s not at YCombinator, Marty works for Fallon, a frequent agency partner of The Nerdery. Meanwhile, Tom takes a picture of brother Ed with his iPhone …

Bottom of the 2^nd: … and emails Ed’s photo to his Nerdery colleague Mike Johnson, who steps away from normal Friday night activities long enough to Photoshop this short and sweet caption: “Marry me, Holly?” Matt Tolbert tags up and scores on Joe Mauer’s sacrifice fly and it’s 4-zip. Just as Tom gets the doctored photo back from Mike, Tom’s iPhone battery goes dead.

Top of the third: Tom pleads with lady at gate nearest his car to let him out, and more importantly, re-enter after he charges his phone and completes his sacred bro-deal – he tells the gatekeeper what he’s up to, deftly playing the brotherly love card and probably pitching a romance novel fit for nerds – and she buys it, even signing his ticket to green-light his re-entry.

Bottom of the third: Tom plugs his phone in at his car and reaches FanChatter’s Marty and asks that Ed’s picture please, please, pretty please be chosen for the 5^th inning montage. Marty, who’s out to dinner with his wife, says we must reach FanChatter co-founder Luke Francl who’s better positioned as game-time go-to-guy to try to make it happen. A flurry of phone tag follows as Tom’s iPhone recharges and Brendan Harris puts the Twins up 5-0 on a single to center, scoring Cuddyer.

Bottom of the fourth: More runs driven in by Mauer, Morneau and Cuddyer. Tom reaches Luke, who says he’ll do his best to get Ed’s FanChatter photo on the big screen. Having done all he can, Tom heads back to the Dome. The score is Twins 9, Brewers 0. Upon his return, Tom gives Ed an unknowing but hopeful shrug.

Top of the Fifth: Holly, a Brewers fan, cheers as her team finally scores, and it’s the first run Tom has actually seen cross the plate.

Middle of the fifth: The FanChatter photo montage begins on the Jumbotron. Tom inexplicably isn’t paying attention. Anni, not in on the plan but well aware of Tom’s high regard for FanChatter, points and asks, “Tom, did you submit a photo as usual?” Tom’s watching Holly, who follows Anni’s pointing finger to the Jumbotron, watching just in time to see Ed’s pretty decent proposal. People start cheering. Ed is beaming. Holly says, “Yes.”

The rest of the game is really just icing on the cake. Cuddyer hit for the cycle and the Twins won 11-3.

All that was back in May, and we’ve sat on this story during FanChatter’s quietly productive exile in Silicon Valley. Today is Demo Day for FanChatter – a public unveiling of sorts after which the fledgling company looks to attract additional contracts with sports franchises, and perhaps, additional VC funding. The Nerdery wishes them well, and the growing O’Neill family thanks FanChatter for being there for them during the 5^th inning stretch.

Power to the People: UM’s Wave 4 Study on Global Social Media Use

Universal McCann’s Wave 4 research on global social media use is an eye-opening read for both social media users and the people who try to make money off of social media.

What I found most surprising is that while sharing photos, videos, and thoughts has not slacked off at all, the way people are sharing is changing. Where blogs, sharing sites like Flickr once dominated, people are now turning to social networks like Facebook to share.

Other surprising finds? With only 70% Internet penetration, the US falls behind the Nordics, Korea, Australia, Canada, and Japan. And, just because numbers like this are fascinating, of the 96 million active Internet users,

• 63.7 million are blog readers
• 31.9 million are bloggers
• 57.8 million actively manage a social network profile
• 79.9 million are video watchers

You can take a look at the slides below, or download a pdf of the study.

Top 20 Minnesota Social Media Innovators

Over at Communications Conversations, Arik Hanson took nominees and came up with a list of the Top 20 Minnesota Social Media Innovators. It’s a great list filled with some of our favorites, who I was going to name but thought better of it.

Anyway, we would like to say and, really mean it not in some sort of schmoozy just lost an Oscar kind of way, it really was an honor that @the_nerdery was nominated.

Speaking of Twitter and all that good stuff, you should check out The Guardian’s story about being inside Twitter HQ.

Where is my mind/smartphone?

Minnov8’s Steve Borsch buried the lead nicely in his article on the forthcoming iPhone 3GS – let’s skip on down to the last four paragraphs of his story,  “Smartphones — computers in your pocket — extend your mind and your reach”:

“I’ve been in conversations with educators about technology and social media — and about the current paradigm of cramming kids’ brains with facts — and my asking why we need to teach rote facts about the countries that surround, say, the Baltic Sea when it can be instantly looked up? Are there ways to focus on how to search, ways to seek and verify authentic material, and move toward an educational model that would assume an always-on, always-connected student population?

In our working world, enlightened companies are realizing that providing a solid and good experience to employees with access to information and work processes (and email, of course) allows the employee to access and deal with a task, communication or even an idea when they have a moment or when inspiration strikes, rather than hope that all that can be stored up and dealt with when they’re in the office.

Tapping into the streams of consciousness of people one follows on Twitter, reading blog posts and staying abreast of news and other information mean that all of us are more aware of the meaningful inputs of others in whom we find value.

Then there is just the simple utility of having movie showtimes, a dictionary, time zones, airfare lookups, stock tickers, and even games. This means that smartphones extend our minds, so that we’re no longer tethered to a desk for computer and Internet use in the same way that the mobile phone for voice made us free from a phone line.”

Read Borsch’s entire Minnov8 article reposted on MinnPost. 

When Warner Brothers friends Facebook, it could mean awesome for everybody

Yesterday, Jon sent me a link to an article about how Warner Brothers is teaming up with Facebook for the DVD release of “Watchmen.”

He summed it up like this, “Basically, it seems like with the internet connectivity of BD-Live, Warner is partnering with Facebook to coordinate screenings, special features, etc. It’s a cool way of bringing social media to consumer appliances and moving away from the personal computer.”

I read the article and thought, “Huh, I should tweet that or something.” But then, as is the way with fickle, ADD-afflicted bloggers I was distracted by something like My Life is Average or Awkward Family Photos and wholly forgot about the topic.

Until today when I began annoying everyone with a tweet-off of “Heathers” movie quotes with @winnerbowzer (sorry for that, I lose all control when it comes to late-80s dark comedies).

It was then it struck me how awesome it would be to pop in a DVD, and hook up with someone on Facebook or Twitter, or whathaveyou and talk about the movie. Especially if the DVD encouraged the watcher to do these things. After the Republican and Democratic conventions last year, I discovered how watching an even like that while using social media, is not just fun but really educational.

The idea that we could experience the media we choose (that’s not a time-sensitive event e.g. Superbowl, elections) with our social media buddies is some kind of awesome. Especially if it’s done up right, with nice design and fancy branding. If there had been a sort of Heathersesque chatroom/social media experience, I’d have been there today.

Plus, because this is how my mind works, I think of all the advertising/marketing implications. DVDs could have some sort of Willy Wonkaesque golden tickets that allow you special access to chats with stars/directors/writers. DVD releases could become premiere-y events, with people logging in to watch/experience the movie with the cast. How fun would it be to watch The Goonies while trading quips with the dude who played Chunk? More fun than the law should allow.

Friday Links: amazonfail, Domino’s, and a little bit of fun

• #amazonfail: If you were like me, you returned from a holiday dinner with family Sunday night to discover a storm of controversy brewing around venerated online bookstore Amazon. It seems Amazon was accused on Sunday of removing books with gay, lesbian, or transgender subject matter from their sales rank. What followed was a barrage of tweets and blog posts accusing Amazon of homophobia and calls to boycott. It was a display of groupthink that is both impressive and terrifying. As the work week dawned it came to light that maybe Amazon really did have a glitch in their system. Maybe this was all a stupid, ill-thought-out accident of technology. For more on how all this happened read Clay Shirky’s The Failure of #amazonfail.
• Domino’s: Lucky for Amazon they weren’t in the spotlight all that long. On Monday, a video hit YouTube featuring two Domino’s employees farting on salami and sticking pieces of cheese up their nose, then using that stuff to make a sandwich. Yeah. By Wednesday the video had been seen by half a million people and prompted the president of Domino’s to post his own YouTube video and the two people featured in the original video were arrested.
• Finally, let’s lighten things up a bit with a beautifully illustrated (though I haven’t figured out how to play it yet) flash game called Scarygirl
• Also, in case you missed it here’s Skimmer on WCCO

A calm before the next storm, a few Skimmer fun facts

Picture by @shreshta

It’s been an entire day since Fallon unleashed Skimmer on the world, and some of the nerds are still recovering. As you can see it was a long, long process. I asked Mike Woods, who led our team of nerds on this project for a few numbers regarding Skimmer.

While I’m not sure if I’m at liberty to release official download numbers, I will tell you that there were thousands and thousands of people who registered yesterday and that on average each Skimmer user registered more than two service accounts (like Twitter, Facebook, etc.), and every user avergaed at least one friend using Skimmer (cute!).

What I can tell you is this:
Beers had in celebration of launch = 24 + two bottles of champagne
Hours spent in meetings = ~400
Number of curse words uttered during testing = Woods stopped counting at 1,000
Hours of sleep lost to project = 800

Woods also said Brenda Fogg had the honor of submitting Trac bug ticket #500 the night of launch.

As you can see by the picture above The Nerdery never sleeps. Tomorrow we’ll tell you all about an another amazing project we completed with one of our agency partners. Trust me on this one, it’s pretty cool.

In case you missed it, a whole lotta links that I haven’t had time to post on Fridays

The Nerdery has been busy, busy, crazy busy lately. So busy, in fact that we’ve had actual content on Fridays instead of the weekly link dump. Now comes a busy meeting Monday, and a perfect time to get rid of these great stories that have been burning a whole in my virtual pocket.

• MinnPost – Here's a niche business: designing fonts:"There's this greater design community with all the ad agencies and design firms downtown, and the natural byproduct are the specialists," Diesel said. "We do look over each others' shoulders, and that's a very unique thing to do."
• News from the Herd: What's all this "branding" stuff about?: “This presentation by Marty Neumeier of San Francisco brand firm Neutron pretty much says it all in 20 minutes. It gives a definition and then provides a blueprint so that you too, by slide 120 or so (don’t worry, it’s one of these one word per slide numbers), will be the market leader in your category!”


• Man Vs Machine: Robot Programmed to Love Traps Woman in Lab, Hugs Her Repeatedly: “The trouble all started when a young female intern began to spend several hours each day with Kenji, testing his systems and loading new software routines. When it came time to leave one evening, however, Kenji refused to let her out of his lab enclosure and used his bulky mechanical body to block her exit and hug her repeatedly. The intern was only able to escape after she had frantically phoned two senior staff members to come and temporarily de-activate Kenji.”


• Registration Open for MN.swf Camp 2009 | blackcj.com
• Finance and Commerce: Ad Agencies, clients catch stimulus fever: “Or so it would seem, given that two Twin Cities marketing firms are already attempting to win new clients by offering their own “stimulus packages.”
• Scanwiches: Don't look at this if you are even remotely hungry. It will only make things worse.
• 10 Things To Consider When Choosing The Perfect CMS | How-To | Smashing Magazine: “Choosing a content management system can be tricky. Without a clearly defined set of requirements, you will be seduced by fancy functionality that you will never use. What then should you look for in a CMS?”
• What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered? – Stack Overflow:
  
  // Dear maintainer:
  //
  // Once you are done trying to 'optimize' this routine,
  // and have realized what a terrible mistake that was,
  // please increment the following counter as a warning
  // to the next guy:
  //
  // total_hours_wasted_here = 16
• StepUp Communications | Stuff Graphic Designer’s Like: “6. Black clothes (maybe a cool dark grey at most)”
• 8 Tips to Design a Charity Website | Webdesigner Depot
• 50 Things Every Mac Geek Should Know | Mac|Life: “Like a champion cyclist knows bike parts,a car buff knows model years, and a sports fan knows win-loss records, all Mac geeks worth the title must know these things.”


• From Outcast to Awesome: 17 Famous Nerds Who Paved the Way: “>In a different age, the label Nerd induced visions of tapered, high-water jeans, thick-framed glasses, and preppy, ill-patterned shirts. Oh, the horror! Now, check out the East Village on a typical weekend and what are the most stylish gents donning? Why, tapered jeans, thick-framed glasses, and button-down shirts! My, my, my, how things have changed!”


• USATODAY.com – Psychologists now know what makes people happy: The happiest people surround themselves with family and friends, don't care about keeping up with the Joneses next door, lose themselves in daily activities and, most important, forgive easily.
• Robots – The Big Picture – Boston.com: “Robotic systems continue to evolve, slowly penetrating many areas of our lives, from manufacturing, medicine and remote exploration to entertainment, security and personal assistance. Developers in Japan are currently building robots to assist the elderly, while NASA develops the next generation of space explorers, and artists are exploring new avenues of entertainment. Collected here are a handful of images of our recent robotic past, and perhaps a glimpse into the near future. (32 photos total)”
• 10 Geeky Tricks for Getting Out of Bed in the Morning | Geekdad from Wired.com
• The Cult of Done Manifesto: “Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.”
• 10 Must-Have iPhone Apps for the Adman
• Gaywads, Dorkwads Sign Historic Wad Accord | The Onion – America's Finest News Source: "Now is the time for us to set aside our differences and join together in opposition of our common enemy–the mean, popular kids who have mercilessly inflicted locker-room wedgies upon us since time immemorial."
• Roger Ebert's Journal: Hunt not the snark but the snarker: “What concerns me is that snark functions as a device to punish human spontaneity, eccentricity, non-conformity and simple error. Everyone is being snarked into line.”
• Five Myths about Content Strategy: “Yes, page flows and imagery play a huge part in shaping the online user experience. Without clear navigation and a pleasing page layout, a user's experience could hardly be considered positive. But many site owners fail to see that content plays an equally important role to structure and design in this regard. As Julie Hayden tells us in her piece on A List Apart, language is the ultimate user interface. The tone of a site and the consistency of voice can make or break a user's impression. Language is a very flexible and adaptable tool that should be used to your advantage on your website.”
• Featured Workspace: Land of the Colorful Cubes:”The size of their cube farm is modest, but the personality of it is enormous. Employees at The Balcom Agency would appear to have nearly free reign in customizing their work space. In the work spaces below you'll see everything from vivid color selections to personalized bookcases to curtains and couches and everything in between.”
• 7 Fresh and Simple Ways to Test Cross-Browser Compatibility
• 8 Visual Case Studies of Fun Marketing Materials!
• Death Star, Star Wars, Death Star, Storm Trooper: “It sucks to be a storm trooper with a heart. The Dark Side hasn't been the same since that day.”
• If social media experts aren’t experts only the charlatans will be “experts.”This is a great, great discussion about Social Media Experts, the scourge of Twitter, and how actual experts can take back the word from the charlatans.
• Agency vs freelancer

Following along at home with the Overnight Website Challenge

Your intrepid Nerdery blogger will be up all day, all night, and the next morning covering the events of the Overnight Website Challenge. Since I know a lot of you wish you could be there but can’t, here are the myriad of ways you can stay up to date on the very latest in sleep-deprived hijinks:

• Subscribe to Inside the Nerdery’s RSS Feed
• Join the Overnight Website Challenge 09 Flickr Group
• Follow Web Challenge on Twitter
• Subscribe to the RSS feed for the #webchallenge Twitter Search
• Watch us on Vimeo

Challenge participants, add your Twitter names and blogs in the comments.

An inspiring story about the power of digital communities

If you spend any time at all reading about social media you know that a majority of it is all about marketing, advertising, branding, building buzz or influence, getting more followers, who to follow, who not to follow, and what not.

It can get a little numbing. While I am sure a lot of the information is perfectly valid and effective, it gets a little redundant. However, today there is a story floating around the Web about the power of communities and how to use social media to rally people.

You see, last night David Armano wrote about his friend Daniela, who after years of abuse left her husband and is now a single, homeless mother of three children. Armano wrote how he and his wife were helping as much as they could and asked his readers and followers to chip in a few bucks if they could spare it.

Using only his blog and Twitter, Armano managed to raise over $12,000 in under 24 hours for this distressed family. It’s an amazing story of how communities come together to help when one of them is in need, and it’s a powerful story about the community you can cultivate in the digital world when you are honest and genuine.

You can read more insights about the Armano story at:
Ad Rants
Mindblob

Or you can watch how the story started and continues to grow on Twitter.