Elf Yourself. Your friends. Your sister. Your co-worker...

Flashback to 2006.

While I am sitting at my desk at work minding my own business, a curious link gets emailed to me. Something about elves, it reads. Of course I click on it, only to find myself laughing hysterically at a small dancing elf with my coworker's face affixed to its body. The elf moves awkwardly across the screen, flashing a few hints of spirit fingers now and then.

Marketing gurus hailed this amazing ElfYourself.com concept as one of the most successful viral campaigns to date. With 11 million elves created in just 5 weeks, who could argue?

Ah, and now we head back to 2007.

Based on the success last year, the elves are back. After a launch in mid-November, the site has already had more than 41 million elves created, crushing all industry expectations. It equates to 35 elves made every second.

Interestingly enough, not many people can name the brand responsible for this stroke of genius. OfficeMax (yes, that's who it is) has a logo placed on the page but doesn't incorporate any other branding into the site. While much of the success can be attributed to the fact that it isn't covered in advertising, brand recall should still be a consideration.

For those of us who aren't big fans of little people in tights, there is also ScroogeYourself.com.

Tag, You're It

Thanks to my new Canon SD850 I have been able to get back on the photo-taking bandwagon. I am also a total Flickr junkie and can get lost in the "interestingness" pretty quickly. My one issue is that I am extremely lazy with tagging, and admittedly very uncreative. For example, my recent zoo trip resulted in the following tags:

zoo
animals
San Francisco
nature

Hm. I'm not sure people are going to be coming in droves to view my pictures, but "zoo" is listed as one of the top all-time tags on Flickr. (As a side note, "macromondays" is another Hot Tag that I found on Flickr. I will definitely be checking those out.)

While Flickr continues to build its database of tags and categories, other sites have been following suit and trying to get their users to label their information. ThisNext, a social shopping site that I have mentioned in a previous post, has launched a tagging initiathat encourages users to label items with "lux".




















I think is a great promotion that will increase membership on ThisNext.com, and also build community around products that are truly "lux". It would be great to see eLuxury (and other brands) start to view tagging as a marketing tool. By leveraging tagging, a tool that people on the site will use anyway, eLuxury could also further associate their brand with the luxury goods that they offer (a true differentiating factor when compared to other e-commerce sites).

Those Are as Good as Money, Sir...

Ah, the ol' beer I.O.U. "C'mon, help me do ________" and I will buy you a few beers. Unfortunately there hasn't been a way to keep anyone accountable...until now.

Foamee is a free service that allows users to keep track of who they owe beers to (and vice versa). It is based around Twitter so each person must already have a Twitter account. I can already see a trend of other Twitter "applications" whereby more and more people will start following random companies and personalities. There is a woman who is trying to lose 10 pounds and she is seeking support from the Twitter community. With 201 followers so far, it's not a huge number, but it is interesting to see how people are responding to someone that they don't know much about (just 140 character snippets every now and then).

Directionally Challenged

Oh the image of the classic family road trip. Five people piled in a van, bursting at the seams with mismatched luggage. The resident navigator is riding shotgun, head tilted, trying to make sense of a map that had been stuck in the glove compartment since the beginning of time.

Nowadays, consumers are creating their own maps and experiences. Imagine a time before MapQuest and Google Maps! No longer does the navigator struggle with locating highways on a complicated map- they are able to read turn-by-turn directions and even find businesses along the route.

Companies are even starting to think about providing mobile guides for certain cities. While maps are often left in the car or lost, mobile phones are an extension of today's consumer. Do Me ... London, a provider of mobile entertainment guides, recently launched information for London. Users can request a tour via SMS and then a link is provided so free information can be obtained. Including:

Index of 80 attractions
Free audio guides
Finding tips about the city

While the site is not flashy or fancy, the concept is quite advanced (not to mention it will begin to open up opportunities for advertisers). The social aspect will continue to evolve as well. On the Do Me ... London site, there is an area where consumers snapped photos of themselves using the product. I could eventually see users submitting reviews of landmarks and providing travel tips.

Will the family road trips of 2010 have everyone Twittering and Whrrling and Yelping and Google SMSing from their 6th gen iPhones?

whrrl-y gig

I’m sure many of us use Twitter and Yelp and wish there was a combination of the two. I, for example, often find myself somewhere trying to send an SMS to Twitter about a certain restaurant/landmark/etc. because I can’t write Yelp reviews while I’m on the go.

Whrrl, a new service, hopes to aggregate our fragmented social activity by providing a way to track/map/post/edit things with their spiffy technology. Their site is a combination of a map (that visually shows reviewed or “touched” places) and content (where you can write your own reviews, schedule a “meet up” with a friend, etc.). What’s even cooler is that users also have the ability to do almost all of the same things directly from their mobile devices. So if you’re eating at a new restaurant and can’t wait to tell the world about the great chocolate lava cake you’re eating, you can send a quick review (and pictures!) to a short code. These items will be posted to your feed and to relevant locations on the map.

Clients with brick & mortar stores could potentially offer coupons to drive in-store traffic. Since Whrrl is a brand new site, the opportunities are endless…

Additional links:

http://www.whrrl.com/faq.html

http://mashable.com/2007/10/23/whrrl/

Gu/Sport Beans/Luna Bars/Shot Bloks Are All Good For You

Since I signed up for the Nike Half Marathon on March 1, it has been marked on my Google Calendar. All caps. I remember entering it in there and thinking it was eons away. I had all the time in the world to build endurance, find the right socks that wouldn't give me blisters, determine my Powersong and break in my new shoes.

And finally, the big day is almost here! This coming Sunday at 7 am I'll be heading out from Union Square and running my first race ever. My life has recently been a frenzy of reading Runner's World, going to the chiropractor, taking pilates classes (my core has to hold me up during those uphill climbs!) and eating ungodly amounts of carbs. If it's one thing running has given me, it's the ability to eat as many bagels as I want without feeling bad about myself.

Nike+ has been a big help in motivating me to run faster and run better. I'll definitely have my iPod with me on Sunday, even if I don't have my headphones on the entire time.

Maybe after this race is done I'll have more time to blog!

Check out all the race info and mayhem on the site: nikemarathon.com

Who Are You Calling Crazy?

It's never fun to be the person to order lunch for a huge group. Everyone has their little preferences, and even when it's all down on paper, it's hard to catch all of them. Hold the mayo. Extra dressing. No dressing. Chicken instead of shrimp. Side of vegetables.

Crazymenu.com is here to save the day! With their innovative tools and applications, they are trying to make lunch-ordering drama a thing of the past. The Group Order tool allows users to enter their customizable orders and then compiles them to be faxed, emailed or phoned directly to the restaurant. Another cool feature is Pick-A-Place, which is what you can use to send restaurant suggestions to a group of friends and then everyone can vote from their own computers. All available restaurants can be located by address/zip code.



No longer will you reach for a take out menu when you're out at your favorite place. It's refreshing to see that even the restaurant industry is developing solutions for today's sophisticated Web user.