My weekly update of news and events in new media marketing.

Weirdo Kid Starts Huge Dance PartyVideo
This is just a fun, quirky video from some outdoor event in Australia. A good example of how community behavior is more than an online network.

DC viral marketer slips up on 4chan? on TwitPic
Careful, your viral marketing street team is showing. A social media street team member accidentally posts the creative brief along with their ‘genuine’ comments. Snafu’s like this are ripe for happening when you have a lot of people following orders they don’t completely understand, or are just jumping into the social space to help blast the word out. Authenticity is key, and while companies are sure to keep pulling stunts like this, they’re going to have to tighten it up or the cat will slip out of the bag.

YouTube – Project Natal for XBOX 360
Google and Microsoft are trading blows over who can deliver the knockout technology news. Google Wave last week, Microsoft Project Natal this week. And each presentation was brand-revealing. Google geeky and open source, Microsoft slick and highly produced. Both in the dev stage. At this point, I’m calling the fight for Microsoft, though.

While the Wii comparison’s are obvious, the physicality of Project Natal as a gaming experience is remarkable. And that’s what blurs the boundaries between real and virtual.

Facebook Ads Now Available for ‘Pages’ and ‘Events’
With social media still generating massive corporate interest and paid media still owning the bulk of the current spend, it makes sense that figuring out how to transition between paid and social media will be a big topic. Facebook takes their rather unglamorous-at-first-glance display ads and gives them an inside track for parlaying impressions into a social media action. You can now Fan a brand, or RSVP for an event, right in the ad. My guess is Forwarding, along with the RSVP option, is coming up soon.

Microsoft to link 360 to Facebook, Twitter
Project Natal wasn’t all the gaming news from Microsoft. Xbox, the focus of their entertainment center ambitions (yes, say goodbye to the Media Center) is now going social with Facebook and Twitter linkage. So when you login to a game, you’ll see which friends of yours are playing, and can post to FB and Twitter that you’re online playing. You can also post acheivements, which the good gamers are sure to do. Any brand that offers a shared experience will have a lot to benefit from this type of social net integration.

What is Web 3.0? Semantic Web & other Web 3.0 Concepts Explained in Plain English
Just when you figured out the diff between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, here comes Web 3.0. While I’d say some of the 3.0 here is 2.0, there’s no denying that the semantic web is going to give marketers a wave of new tools to play with.

10% Of Twitter Users Account For 90% Of Twitter Activity
The general trend here isn’t that surprising. A while back I saw a similar stat for YouTube, though maybe not quite as extreme. But I’m surprised that Twitter is more in this direction than YouTube. Creating video content requires a lot more than typing 140 characters, so it would seem there’d be more even distribution with Twitter.

Maybe the point is, because Twitter’s only 140 characters, those that are participating are able to do so in high volume. There’s also a trend towards using Twitter in a broadcast fashion, as most celebs and a lot of brands are doing. And it’s an easy vehicle for that. You can blast a personal, 1-to-1 feeling message out to millions. And while they can freely respond, few of them truly expect a reply in return.

Dear AmericanAirlines
Funny exchange between a UX designer complaining about AA.com, and the staff’s response.

Virtual tour of NY
The website for a photog team who shoot aerials of NYC. A nice showcase for their work.