ReedPOP’s PR Snafu - Using Attendee Twitter Accounts to Post Tweets Praising New York Comic-Con (NYCC)

Recently, the New York Comic-Con (NYCC) took place in the Javits Center. It’s a convention dedicated to comic books, movies, TV shows and video games.

Event organizer ReedPOP wanted prevent entrance using counterfeit badges and monitor the visitor flow. That’s why NYCC opted for visitor badges with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips inside. Since RFID chips use radio frequencies to transfer information between the chip and a receiver, NYCC could learn where visitors spent their time at the event, as well as how long they stayed at NYCC. Needless to say, this kind of information is essential for evaluating the event’s success.

Attendees were invited to link their badges to their social media accounts. ReedPOP came up with the following clever enticement:

“Your registration number can easily be found on the reverse side of your NYCC 2013 badge. Enter the code printed on the back of your badge into the space above and press Register Me. […] Your NYCC experience is about 100x cooler! For realz (sic). Plus, when you’re done registering our friends at comiXology want to give you 50 free digital comics. You heard us right, 5-0! Kick-ass!”

Any attendee who would not sign up, would not be eligible to receive a replacement badge in case of loss. So far, so good….But what happened then, not so much! The social media accounts of fans, celebrities and press attending New York Comic Con were used to send tweets and Facebook posts telling the world how great NYCC was. The problem was that the tweets and posts were not sent out without their permission or knowledge of the account owners! The published tweets and posts looked authentic, being written in conversational language. Kudos to the copywriter at ReedPOP!

Popular Mashable published the story which quickly went viral. As damage control the powers at ReedPOP / NYCC announced:

“As you may have seen yesterday, there were some posts to Twitter and Facebook issued by New York Comic Con on behalf of attendees after RFID badges were registered. This was an opt-in function after signing in, but we were probably too enthusiastic in our messaging and eagerness to spread the good word about NYCC. We have since shut down this service completely and apologize for any perceived overstep. Please accept our apologies and have an absolutely excellent time this weekend. -Your friends at NYCC”

This case illustrates how careful companies and entities must be when leveraging social media.

My advice:

• Be transparent
• Be honest
• Be accountable

Google’s Clever Ploy – The Mystery of the Two Barges

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) is one of the largest data users in the world. It created a viral storm when news broke that the search giant was rumored to build a floating data center on a barge in the San Francisco Bay. A similar structure was recently constructed on a barge in Portland barge. Both barges are registered to the By And Large LCC shell company.

It was pointed out that the structures would be consistent with Google’s patent for building offshore data centers. That patent was filed in 2008 and granted in 2009. It describes a data center on a ship that is perpetually powered by ocean currents and uses sea water to cool the servers.

Locating its servers on barges would have several benefits:

• Since regulating temperature is one of the major costs in maintaining a data center, using the ocean would enable significant cost savings
• Using the ocean current for power would reduce electricity use 
• Overall data storage costs would be lower
• Once the barges are in international waters, they are out of US jurisdiction and cannot be touched by the NSA
• It make Google look cool, which is good for branding

But not everybody believed that the San Francisco Bay structure is a data center, but rather a secret marketing barge to promote Google Glass. According to this theory, Google stopped building since it doesn't have the necessary permits to park the barge at San Francisco’s Fort Mason.

The Mountain View-based conglomerate finally broke its silence. It announced that the barge is a technology exhibition space. During the next two years, Google will move the barge between several piers in the San Francisco Bay area and other West coast locations. The floating structures are constructed from stacked shipping containers that provide 13,276 square foot of studio space. The structure will also feature a rooftop deck and catwalks, with technology demonstrations on the second and third floors. The opening hours will be from 10am to 10pm.

Tweet Genie - A New Tweet Analysis Tool for Marketers

Tweets are supposed to reveal your age – at least that’s the assumption of the latest Twitter tool Tweetgenie.nl.

This Dutch app invites you to enter your Twitter-name on Tweetgenie.nl. Computers at the Meertens Institute (a research center for language and culture) and the University of Twente will start calculating. Your last 200 tweets are benchmarked against a database with keywords related to youngsters, the elderly, men and women.

Tweetgenie.nl is part of his research at the University of Twente. On its website, the university explains: “We tried to identify the average Dutch Twitter users.  Of 3,000 users, we manually indicate age and sex. This way, the program can estimate the sex and age of each Twitter user."

The brain behind the software is linguistic scientist Nguyen. According to him, identifying the sex of a twitterer is between 80 and 85 percent accurate. Estimating age is trickier – it’s normally 4 years off.  

He explained:  "Above 30 - 35 years, it’s even more difficult. The difference between language of a 12-year old and an 18-year old is much greater than that between a 40 and 50-year old."

According to the Meertens Institute, the results should provide insight into patterns of how stories and rumors are spreading via social media. This could be digital gold for marketers.

Want to try it out? Just fill in your twitter name and press the check button. I tried it myself and was identified as a 39-year old man. Trust me, I am very much female and at least a decade older……

Bags Made From Conveyor Belts – The Green and Fashionable Way To Travel

Going green is the way to go. We are all environmental conscious. But we still want items we use to be easy to use and aesthetic.

The Dutch company Kazoo came up with a way to produce bags from industrial recycled material that have an upscale look.

If you look at a Kazmok bag, you would never guess that it’s made from e.g., a rubbery conveyor belt.

Kazmok’s product range includes briefcases, shopper bags, trolley bags for travel, and accessories such as belts and iPad sleeves.

The company gets its materials from the flower industry, postal depots, distribution centers, and the recycling industry.

According to Dinand Stufkens, founder of Kazmok, "The challenge is to sell all the products we potentially can make."

Kazmok nabbed an award at last year’s Red Dot Awards in Germany. Judges praised the handmade bags, which are fabricated from rubber and PVC, for being "extremely durable but also unique in terms of color and texture."

Founder Stufkens sees the bags as a metaphor, since they refer to a throwaway culture, where waste is turned into new products.

He stated: "We decided to transform the conveyor belt, because it is a symbol of mass production and consumption. However, we want consumers to buy them because they are beautiful."

For frequent travelers, your Hazmok bag will stand out among the other near-identical bags on the baggage carousel. You will not have any problems grabbing your signature luggage!