Thoughtpick: A unique perspective of the Web and social media...
A unique perspective of the Web and social media...

January 22, 2010

Green is the New Black: A Mobile Campaign with Potential!

In fashion, black has always been “the trend”; it is a classic and never gets old, dull or boring.

Nowadays, I see green mobiles having the potential to turn into trendy and highly used and adopted phones, if special attention and clever strategic thinking are used to decide how they will be marketed, where and to whom.

Stay Connected, With a Cause!

As I read The Most Exciting Developments In Green Cell Phones, my interest in this category of mobile phones grew, encouraging me to find a unique and fresh approach to promote them in order to be a part of a bigger cause: helping the environment! I mean, who wouldn’t want to have a phone that uses solar power cells, non-toxic recyclable plastic and eco-friendly paints?

Sticky Phone concept by Liu Hsiang-Ling

Sticky Phone concept by Liu Hsiang-Ling

Since these phones are meant to reduce toxic waste without forcing you to give up your mobile communication habit – or even addiction, combining fashion, trend, creativity and eco friendliness in one product should be able to pay off depending on some major factors.

[read full article >>]

November 23, 2009

Hybrid Cars & Social Media: Heading Towards A Fuel Free Environment

“Is fuel efficiency really what we need most desperately? I say that what we really need is a car that can be shot when it breaks down.” Russel Wayne Baker

I read this quote over and over again and yet I was unable to find a way to agree with it: I think the best solution to the problem we are currently facing, worldwide, is finding the “right” substitutes for our available fuel resources.

Hybrid Cars

Hybrid Cars

This brings me to a few questions which I seek to answer with you throughout this post:

  1. Do hybrid cars truly represent a window of opportunity for change in the field of fuel replacement on a global level?
  2. How can social media help in promoting hybrid cars not for profit purposes rather for cause awareness and futuristic solutions?
  3. Is the message that hybrid car manufacturers and sellers are conveying clear enough for the audience it addresses? And how can it be made clearer?

[read full article >>]

November 18, 2009

Google.com/flu: Google Flu Shot Locator (Maps)

“There’s a thin line between the measures a corporation would go to over power its competitors and its social corporate responsibility efforts; the former might be pure evil yet the latter will always engulf some sort of humanitarian sense.”

Numerous talks have been circling the social media arena claiming that Google is evil and even saying that it is trying to take over the world! Well, as a corporation, a successful one, it is quite “normal” to engage in healthy competition and try to beat your opponents by hook or by crook!

Google's Swine Flu Locator

Google's Swine Flu Locator

But, is Google really evil? I think not for one main reason: Google gives back! Of course Google does marketing and competitive schemes and conspiracies ( like when they announced Google Wave just in time to ruin Bing’s introduction for Microsoft ), however, with their flu monitoring system and now flu shot locator, it seems that they are working hard to pay their dues and live up to their corporate social responsibility!

Apparently, iPhone is also trying to be socially responsible by featuring applications that help fight the N1H1 virus!

From here on, I think the right questions to ask would be: What is the thin line that separates competition from evil? And how much can we disregard the conspiracies of brands and companies for the causes they “claim” to serve?

November 7, 2009

Top 10 Climate Change Twitter Lists You Want to Follow

A couple of weeks ago, Twitter – finally – rolled out the “lists” feature that allows people on Twitter to create lists and add their tweeps under their different lists in order to categorize them and manage their Twitter experience in a much better way. While Twitter Lists are still new to most users, hundreds of thousands of lists have been already created, and while the number of followers have been an indication of how influential a Twitter user is, Twitter Lists emerged to give a more accurate measurement of influence. Mashable had already posted a guide last week to help people understand Twitter Lists.

With the enormous amount of Twitter Lists emerging each day, a third-party service Listorious emerged to make our lives easier. It maintains a categorized directory of Twitter lists and allows you to search or browse through lists by category, and find the most popular lists. It is now easier than ever to find a list of experts to follow on Twitter in one simple click.

Listorious: Climate Friends

Listorious: Climate Friends

We, here at Thoughtpick, browsed Listorious for Climate Change lists that contain experts we all want to follow and compiled the following list:

1. Ecotweeps

Ecotweeps is a list of eco and green tweeples created by @mimimyne. Ecotweeps has 58 tweeps listed, including @planetgreen, @thegreenforum and @ecoactions

[read full article >>]

October 15, 2009

HOW TO: 10 Ways You Can Contribute to the Climate Change Movement #BAD09

Note: This post was published on the 15th of October to support the Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change.

The clock is ticking; time is running fast. On one hand, we can’t really predict when will the tipping point be; the point where we are left out helpless and can’t reverse the damage inflicted on our planet. On the other hand, only little time is left before Copenhagen’s global summit that will take place on December; little time for us to solve the conflict of interests between the different countries around the world. Copenhagen may be our last chance to pull ourselves together and come up with a decent treaty that would save thing planet.

What can we do now? and how can we contribute to the movement and build up awareness for the summit? That’s what we’ll be covering in this post.

1. Use Twibbon to add “TckTckTck” to your Twitter Avatar

TckTckTck

TckTckTck

Twibbon is an easy way to promote awareness about your cause on Twitter. It adds an overlay to supporters’ profile images (avatars) so that everyone else can see it.  Tck Tck Tck movement is trying to gather enough people from around the world to raise their voices and help pushing leaders into taking needed courageous acts. Tck Tck Tck came up with a cool Twibbon that you can add to your avatar and show support. So far, there are 732 twitter profiles with TckTckTck ribbon.

2.  Join 350.org

35o is a global movement that conducts different events around the world to spread awareness about climate change. They are calling for an international day of climate action that will take place in 9 days – on 24 October -. Currently there are 2367 planned actions in 153 country around the world – Make sure you’re a part of it!

350.org

350.org

3. Organize an offline event and promote it via Facebook

Facebook is a great tool to organize events. If you didn’t find any interesting event close to your home town on 350.org website, then it may be a good idea for you to organize your own event. Use Facebook and gather people around this cause… be initiative.

[read full article >>]

July 21, 2009

5 Top Reasons Why Twitter is Not Very Popular with Teens!

Is Twitter simply too “dull” for teens to sign up to and use? What are the reasons for the rather low number of teen Twitter users? Would it be wise for Twitter to focus advertising in a way that targets teens? What benefits would teens gain from regularly using Twitter?

A few days ago, through my usual morning research of the latest web news and social bookmarking sites I use, I stumbled upon a very interesting article about teens and their very low percentage of Twitter usage. That fact made me wonder: Why are teens avoiding Twitter?

Quantcast: Twitter.com's teen users are the lowest category (July 09)

Quantcast: Notice Twitter.com's teen index is the lowest (July 09)

Here is my analysis…

5 top reasons why Twitter is not very popular with teens:

  1. Lack of Privacy: As you all know, every single word you type and tweet to your followers could be easily tracked back to you! Twitter is a fully open network in which almost anyone can see your updates! I don’t think teens appreciate that kind of lack of privacy especially in that age in which they rebel against their elders, parents and even siblings!
  2. Dull Platform: Twitter offers different content sharing services that allow its users to share pictures, music, documents and so on. In addition to that, there are many Twitter based games designed for Twitter users such as Mafia Wars and others. Why then is Twitter still not that popular amongst teens? The “tweets” are my main guess. I think the fact that you need to type in words whatever it is you want to share with links rather than graphics and the lack of ability to fully interact with others through their profiles and yours makes Twitter a bit too dull for teens. [read full article >>]