The New Face for MySpace

MySpace, once known as the "place for friends" is re-launching the site with the goal of becoming a "social entertainment destination". The re-launch begins today and the entire update will be complete by the end of November. In addition to a new focus the site has introduced a new logo, a new target audience, and a new site design.

Virtuality Sold In Actuality

Facebook credits, currently sold at Target will now be offered at Walmart and Best Buy as well. Think about that for a second, intangible virtual products sold tangibly; non-physical goods sold physically. Who would have thought? As the holiday season rolls around keep these gift cards in mind as they may just be the perfect holiday gift for any FarmVille/Mafia Wars/Texas Hold'em junky.

Be Where They Are/Do As They Do

Geico's new ad made in Xtranormal in 15 minutes (the same amount of time it takes to save money with their product) demonstrates the "be where they are"/"do as they do" approach to reaching customers. Additionally the ad has created buzz and even been featured on Tosh.O. Not so bad for 15 minutes...

The New Market Research

HowMutch.com's tag line "Everyone Has a Price" says it all. The site questions users about how much they are willing to pay for various products, services, and scenarios and then provides follow-up information in terms of median price, percentage of users who answered higher, and percentage of users who answered lower. The interactive website could be a good tool in the future for companies to determine how much consumers are willing to fork over for new product lines, services, or offerings.

McDonald's Branded Integration into Farmville

This one day event allowed McDonald's to "become a 'Neighbour Farm' to every player in the world for a day...[and] allows players to come and work on the McDonald’s Farmville Farm, helping to grow things like tomatoes and mustard seeds". Interesting...

Bing to Display Friends' Opinions and Preferences

The “Instant Personalization” system incorporates public information (likes, links, etc.) posted by your friends into your Bing search results. These "social results" are a result of the deepened relationship between Microsoft and Facebook. Very interesting… Making search social.

New Isn't Always Better

Gap's new logo has created quite a stir amongst the social media and advertising world at large. The new logo was released last week and caused a viral "negative backlash that includes user-generated logo contest, a parody Twitter account and a Crap Logo Yourself website." While the new logo still resides on the Gap website, the old logo has been re-instated to Facebook. Now, the company is trying to ride the viral wave and updated their Facebook page with “We love our version, but we’d like to see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project.”

It's an App Revolution

It's small here, but check out another interesting infographic this time about app use.

Man vs. Machine

Kit Kat's UK campaign is telling people who are "working like a machine" to "have a break; have a Kit Kat". This London vending machine is an interesting expression of this concept.

Map of Social Networks

This "for fun" infographic map depicts the lay of the land as far as the size (in number of users) of various social network sites. Very interesting. But remember, this is from September 3rd, I can image the terrain has changed a bit since then. Enjoy!