What is Empire Avenue?
Empire Avenue (EAv) is the Social Media Exchange. It allows you to buy each others' shares, earn virtual dividends, and earn virtual currencies by being active in your social networks.
It is definitely more fun than the other stock exchange games because you can buy the shares of people you actually know (or know of). A person's share price increases and decreases according to their social network activities. The more active they are, the higher their share price will be.
Social gaming has been on the rise and we have heard plenty of success stories such as Zynga but to actually incorporate social media activities outside of the game into the game, that is just a brilliant move.
This feeds our inner narcissism and like I said before, we ALL have narcissistic instincts in us. I feel a sense of satisfaction when a stranger buys my shares. It shows that they believe my value will rise. I'm actually valuable! *Score!* (If you tell me you don't feel the same way, you're just lying to yourself)
Empire Avenue has been around since 2009, but only began to pick up momentum recently after influencers like Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis and the likes started actively participating in the platform. Several brands such as Ford and AT&T have also decided that Empire Avenue is worth their investment.
Chris Pirillo, an online personality will tell you in more details why you should take a dip in the Empire Avenue ocean in this video. His share price is also going up, so you better invest in him quick! (I bought some of his shares when he was priced at 70+ Eaves, now he's reaching 140 Eaves!)
Will Empire Avenue give Klout and Peer Index a run for their money?
I don't really think so.
True, your share price could indicate your influence level, but because of the nature of the game where you are encouraged to chat and post messages in your communities, players are doing 'purchase swap' where 'if you buy some of my shares, I'll buy some of yours'. I do not find this a fair indication of a person's influence level.
Although your activitiy in social networks play a big part in determining your prices, but there are too many loopholes where a person can game the system.
So I should ignore Empire Avenue then
No. Although I don't think Empire Avenue would be taking over Klout and Peer Index's role as the influence metric but it does help to give an indication of how influential a person is. When you click on a user's profile, you will be able to see his share price, as well as the scores of all the social networks he linked to. The value that Empire Avenue has over Klout and Peer Index is that Empire Avenue links to almost all social networks while Klout, for example, only links to Facebook and Twitter.
Should businesses invest time and effort into this?
Why not? I always believe in experimenting. If you adopt a wait and see stance, then you will be late to the game. And hey, if Ford thinks this is good enough for them, it should be good enough for you.
Sign up for an account now and book your ticker quick cause you wouldn't want this to happen to your brand.
Remember to invest in me once you've signed up! Check out my chart. It's a steady rise!
And this is what Daniel Cerventus, a local influencer, has to say.
I promise I'll be a good investment ;) See you at Empire Avenue!
[Update: Mashable posted a really useful step-by-step How To article on marketing on Foursquare]
Foursquare rocks!
I've been told "I don't need people knowing where I am at all times" when I talk about Foursquare.
Now, people who say this, don't get it. Foursquare is not meant as a platform to broadcast your whereabouts for no reason. There is a reason. There is definitely a valid reason. Very valid. I'm sorry what were we talking about again?
Truth be told, when I'm asked why do I check-in, I can't give a logical answer. It just seems like the right thing to do. Especially if we're at a social networking event like Foursquare Day or conferences. Maybe I want to feed my narcissistical nature. (Of COURSE my friends care where I am at all times) Plus, I want to earn those badges!
"So what happens when you get all those virtual badges? Do they send you real ones?"
"No. I just get the virtual ones"
"So you get nothing"
"Well I get the badges"
"Then what's the point?!"
HELLO!! Bragging rights! I've heard "OMG how'd you get that badge?!" while the badge owner was smiling smugly so many times during tweetups.
If you're not convinced that Foursquare is important, check out the stats for yourself.
Foursquare in South-East Asia: Statistics, Culture & Marketing View more presentations from Oliver Woods
So then what does this mean to businesses?
Foursquare is here to conquer and rule! They know how to play their cards right, and dive deep to unlock that evil narcissist that resides in each and every one of us. Businesses should leverage on Foursquare's success (well to a certain extent, brands and businesses drive the success of Foursquare as well) and promote their businesses through Foursquare's 'Special'.
Businesses would be required to sign up with Foursquare and claim their venue before they can set up a 'Special'. After that, businesses will be able to view their Venue Stats and learn a little bit more about their customers (what time to do they normally come, which day, etc)
If you're a business and would like to join in the Foursquare craze, just head over to http://Join.4sq.com/meiyingt to sign up, find your business/venue and claim it and you can start setting up your foursquare Special!
I love @dkny! Last night I came home to see my twitter stream flooded with @dkny's tweets and the hashtag #dknyhunt. It turns out, DKNY was hosting an Easter #dknyhunt in New York and London.
And the answers flowed right in...
And before you know it, the hunt ended with a tie.
#dknyhunt is lively, fun and entertaining. I'm in Malaysia, reading the tweets and not able to take part, but it still managed puts a smile on my face. I can feel the excitement of the participants!
I gotta say, DKNY has been playing their social media cards right. @dkny is very engaging and she definitely knows what her followers like. She tweets about her life as a PR girl in New York, behind-the-scene scoops from DKNY and host campaigns like this! She has to-date accumulated over 300,000 followers.
I am looking forward to more fun twitter campaigns from @dkny. Keep 'em coming! :D
Column Five came up with an infographic to determine whether you need a detox
Finally, Google rolled out it's +1 feature that has been rumoured for the past few months.
The +1 button will be an easy way to recommend content right from the search results pages. At the moment, it's only applicable to google.com (not google.com.my) and ability to add a +1 button to your site will be coming soon.
If you want to try out the feature, activate it here.
Ford has been churning out some pretty successful marketing campaigns in the recent years such as Ford Fiesta Movement.
Their latest campaign involves a new spokesperson, Doug, an orange puppet. He is witty, borderline rude and at times incredibly stupid, which works to draw the attention of viewers.
Check out Doug's first appearance in a press conference. He's a smooth talker, that one.
The new book by Guy Kawasaki has received rave reviews from various media and this is a sneak peak for those who have not bought it yet.
I'm gonna get my hands on one soon!
Finally, wheremyfriends.be is up and running again. Last week when I read about the new fun site on Mashable, the site was no longer working because their server crashed due to the overwhelming response.
I got an email this morning that their service is back up and voila! I got myself a map of my Facebook friends.
You just need to point your cursor to any location to see who's there!
So go on, it's your turn to map out your Facebook friends!
You can also zoom in to a specific follower to see their latest tweet or to be directed to their twitter profile or to see their parade!
It's super cool and will definitely put a smile on your face as you watch a digital parade unfold in your honour ;)
First of all, did you know the existence of www.youtube.com/disco?
Once you've found the songs you're looking for, wouldn't it be great if you could sing along? Unfortunately, you'd need to memorise the lyrics to do that huh?
What did you say? You can find videos with lyrics on YouTube?
Well I know that. But they come with horrid visuals. Wouldn't it be great if you can watch the original video AND sing along?
Introducing YouTube Music Video Lyrics chrome extension.
Johanna Blakley spoke on how social media is the new media landscape and how the old school marketing techniques that segregate and assume the interests of an audience by gender, age, race and other demographics are no longer applicable and should no longer be in practice.
I agree with her views and come to think about it, those assumptions were probably not even applicable before although widely practiced. According to the old school techniques, if you are of a certain gender, within a certain age group and of a certain race, then you must like the same certain things.
Social media will help us change that. We socialise with people based on interest, not gender, age, race or location. It is time marketing and advertising campaigns or strategies be tweaked to target audience based on these things as well.
My colleagues raised a point that the old school demographics should not be completely ignored as it is still relevant. That is of course, true. We may still distinguish the teenagers from the 40-year-olds, but perhaps it should no longer be so clear cut like before.
It is getting increasingly easier to track a person's interests as we share our thoughts more freely via social media platforms and as Blakley put it, we redefine ourselves online. Marketers and advertisers should fully utilise this to craft campaigns and strategies to speak to a more targeted audience.
Have a listen, she definitely made some very interesting points.
ZoneAlarm presented an infographic on the most common passwords and tips on creating the best password to secure yourself from hackers.
Malaysian Prime Minister Dato' Sri Haji Mohd. Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak created his twitter account @NajibRazak more than two years ago.
He had an account even earlier than me! 
However, Dato' Sri was always criticised for non-engagements. He tweets about his whereabouts...
... and some official statements...
... but he never responded to any tweets.
Until 11 Feb 2011.
Once twitterers saw the first tweet, a few asked if he is really responding. Including yours truly. To which he promptly replies.
I think the fact that his reply was immediate (barely a minute after) could mean either one of these three things. 
1) It's not him, it's his SM manager. Why would my Prime Minister be so free that he is able to respond to tweets immediately?
2) It IS him, and he really do not have a lot of work to do. (It's called delegation you twat)
3) He's stuck in a jam. It IS Malaysia, after all.
Regardless, he's been keeping up with the engagement exercise one week after the first reply-tweet.
All I can say is, at least he's trying. I'm not sure (I doubt it actually) if this will help those against BN to start supporting him, but it's a step. If this engagement exercise is to work magic, he's gotta take criticisms and suggestions tweeted to him and actually IMPLEMENT things or at least put it up for proper discussion.
You want to listen to your rakyat? That's fantastic. I salute you for that. But don't just listen and not take any actions. Then you'd just be wasting your time (or your SM manager's time) with all the tweets.
Best of luck!
When Google launched Demo Clam October last year, I had a lot of fun watching some pretty cool videos like these ones.
Two days ago, Google announced Demo Slampionship on their blog where there will be 16 Demo Slams competing against each other in an elimination tournament.
Remember to head over to Demo Slam to vote for your favourite!
