Find your long lost twin on Facebook

FIND PEOPLE THAT LOOK LIKE YOU!!!

from www.brandrepublic.com

The fizzy drink has created a Facebook app called the ‘Facial Profiler’ which has the aim of finding people’s online lookalikes.

The app encourages people to upload a photo of themselves to a database, Coke then analyses the characteristics and attempts to find the nearest match from other uploaded images.

http://tinyurl.com/y89xbxj

So far the database is small and it’s unlikely that you’ll find a long lost twin in the short-term but Coke maintains that it is an experiment and, as the database grows, it should return some spooky results.

The idea behind the campaign is: ‘If Coke Zero has the taste of Coke…is it possible that someone out there has your face?’.

Coke already has more than 1.8 million fans on Facebook and is the top ranking brand on Facebook’s Fan Pages, according to the social network.

It also follows several other apps, including ‘Alter Ego’, a Facebook app that used avatar mash-up photo technology to allow users to create a virtual persona around an image of their face.

BBC moves to Social Media: with a Strictly online feature:

Proof if you need it that the ‘Grey Market‘ have moved into social media, the BBC have launched a family-friendly interactive site to allow it’s viewers to watch the Strictly Come Dancing show in multiple angles and add their own voice-overs. Oh the joy.

It’s the first stage of the BBC’s revamp of existing sites to include new and innovative social media features – as announced by Anthony Rose, the BBC’s controller of Vision and Online.

His team is currently researching “what the next generation in social media will be”.

So what are these first stage innovations?  Well, not content with sowing up your own sequined outfits for your living room, The Strictly Come Dancing site allows viewers to rate performances with their own comments with a simple: ‘Boo!’, ‘Good!’ or ‘Gosh!’ How exciting and innovative.

Just be careful you don’t jump on the show’s race row by posting comments like Anton Du Beke‘s use of the “P” word!

http://tinyurl.com/y9lb7b4

Express Yourself!

Have fun with the latest viral campaign, and recreate yourself as an iconic graffitti image of Madonna, Queen of Pop:

http://celebrate.madonna.com/

To Celebrate her latest Greatest Hits!

Don't I look fabulous!

Britney makes money off Facebook!

Whilst we’re all scrabbling round trying to make money off social media marketing, Britney‘s powerhouse brand (one of the most popular on Twitter and Facebook) is effortlessly creaming in profits off her facebook site by offering ‘digital’ merchandise vouchers to her fans: http://tinyurl.com/qr8nw9

Buy Me!!!

Britney fans (there’s 2 million on Facebook and nearly 3 million on Twitter) can buy gifts for mere $2 dollars and share them with their ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ – awesome! Totally.

Celebrity searches of this stature are always going to fare strongly with online communities, but I do admire the ingenuity of brand Britney in offering her fans something seemingly original, yet utterly worthless, for cash, (insert your own gag here) – cash which she doesn’t have to share with Facebook!

So while big brands and retailers like Nike and Gap are trialing new online mechanics that pertain to be purely brand building, informative, trend watching. Team Britney are making hard dollar and spreading her fan base right under your little nose.

FYI: I got $80 last night on ebay for my Britney ‘man-bag’ – complete with stickers, badges and tattoos. To Austria. It’s global.

is this the end of blogging? Google’s new search engine technology

Google’s newly branded “Caffeine” search technology is causing major headaches for businesses in how their company ranks in search results. In our earliest tests, it favours some social media (Flickr) but not others (FOR NOW). Until it’s formal launch, Google are being very tight lipped on how it affects your online PR and SEO, positive or negative, but we’re keen to seek out advice from blogs and comments.

This could change the way we blog ourselves shamelessly in self promotion!

Interestingly, today’s Brand Republic’s posts were temporarily unavailable (proving it’s already a hot topic to SEO specialists) but are now back online at: http://tinyurl.com/kugz72

Latest info is still available however through PC World (of all places): http://tinyurl.com/nfujjj

Caffeine is going to cause another hangover for marketers and SEO experts with a whole  new range of search algorithms and jargon to get your head round.

And as Google has said it has been working on Caffeine for many months, it claims it’s not simply a market reaction to the launch of Microsoft’s Bing. They are merely once again stamping their authority on the fast moving pace of social media impacts.

Google has invited web users to test Caffeine and give feedback before a full public debut. So watch this space…