socialADDICT

I got my hair done last night and made the decision to go DARK…not just dark but almost BLACK. What do you think?

Once you go black, you never go back. on 12seconds.tv

I chatted with CEO and Co-Founder, Ben Finkel of Fluther.com, this afternoon and because he was SUCH a cool guy to talk to I wanted to give a shout out to Fluther and his team and tell you all to go check it out. Not only are the people behind Fluther really cool but the app itself is nicely designed and a great concept overall. Fluther let’s you ask it a question - whatever you want - and it directs it to the community of people with shared interests and who would be able to best answer it. Live community driven Q&A. Sweet!

“Tapping into our collective is like extending your entire networkof knowledge. And Fluther lets you share your massive brainpower with others.”

Pretty cool, huh?

So I created an account today to dig a little bit deeper into what this community is like and has to offer. One of the most recent questions was “Two great tastes that go great together?” - Ok not the most intriguing of questions but it’s amazing the answers people submitted. Anything from cigarettes and chocolate milk to french fries and ice cream, the answers were beyond my imagination at times and I just couldn’t stop reading them. And ALL of the questions were like this. Man - this community is totally rockin’. You can see the passion that this community has for Fluther - the way people moderate, participate and genuinely care about what’s going on is extremely unique.

Fluther has also gotten some nice publicity from KillerStartups, Scobleizer, CNET and more. With an iPhone app out, feeds for everything to the site, participating in a voting competition for SXSW (go vote for them to be at SXSW next year!) and more - this team has really done and thought of a lot.

Keep an eye out for these guys - I foresee some great things a-happening! Oh! And go sign up already and ask a few questions.

Photo Courtesy of freshpeel.com/2007/03/

I am really getting sick of the term “pitch”. So many times people ask me to write a pitch for a press or new release and I just cringe at the thought. It sounds so sales-y and impersonal to me. Not to mention it sounds like “bitch” and nobody likes that either. My philosophy & strategy has always been about creating authentic conversation (if you didn’t get that from my blog already) and to avoid crappy pitches (by the way they don’t work on me either).

So to further solidify my position I did some research and personally asked a few top-notch traditional marketing bloggers how they like to be approached about product launches, web app launches, etc. and what really ticks them off about being approached. Here are their answers:

Steve Rubel (PR, Micropersuasion Blog): “Ultimately it’s about the blogger themselves – what’s in it for them. Figure out their mo and how to achieve win-win. Take a look at a post I linked to 4 Rules to Understand What Makes People Tick: http://tinyurl.com/24akk9”

Seth Godin (Author, Entrepreneur, Blog): “pr doesn’t work on me, or press releases. my readers have my ear, not marketers.”

Kevin Dugan (Strategic Public Relations, prBlog): “it’s always going to go back to my audience. consumer vs business, young vs old. a lot of factors to consider with who before I worry about the what. they all have their place. there is sadly no silver bullet. in my day job we use direct marketing and PR more than anything else. not trying to be vague. It’s true!”

My takeaway is just to develop relationships and really nurture them. And with that being said don’t be fake or superficial because it will backlash. Be who you are and stay authentic and for the love of God please stop calling it a “pitch”! Or I’ll bitch slap you.

Thursday nights are my TV night - Ugly Betty on at 8pm and Grey’s Anatomy on at 9. However for whatever reasons I can never remember (derrr!) if the shows are new or not.

So naturally I check out abc.com to find out if I can look forward to a new episode each week. Once I get to the site I click on Primetime, scroll through the list of shows and click on Ugly Betty (it’s been more exciting this season than Grey’s so I definitely don’t want to miss it). I’m at the page and looking for some kind of new episode text, promotion, picture. Where’s the big flashing button that distinguishes between “NEW” or “REPEAT”? Hmm scrolling down, reading across the page, clicking on a few links - I get nowhere. Half way down the page there’s an episode   description…ok reading…nope doesn’t sound familiar so it must be new, right?

After spending 10-15 minutes on the site I (hopefully) know the episode for the night is new. It shouldn’t be that hard for a visitor to see if an episode is new or not on a specific night. What a waste of time and unnecessary frustration!