Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon on LinkedIn

This may not come as a surprise to you, but it definitely stunned me. LinkedIn usually sends a disclaimer when you click on a high-profile individual about having nothing in common with the person with who you are trying to connect. Well, what do you know? Kevin Bacon knows someone who knows me.

LinkedIn is a professional ground for not only celebrities but politicians. Look up all of the major politicians you see broadcast over CNN, MSNBC, Nightly News with Brian Williams, and voila-- they have 500+ contacts. Barack Obama has attained the 500+ status; John McCain has too, adding on 30 recommendations part of his tenure as the Arizona Senator.

With profiles that provide a detailed account of a celebrity's employment, or should I say acting history, can we really trust that it is indeed the person whose autograph we so desperately long to have and display?

Regarding politicians on LinkedIn, I'm not sure this is the best way to utilize social media to garner public support. It seems like a third-party website is the best way to reach your constituents. Or then again, maybe those 50 bajillion e-mail messages I receive from my presidential hopeful may do the online political network a bit of justice.

Should you ever want to send Kevin Bacon an e-mail, write to him at KEVIN.BAC0N@hotmail.com. (That's a zero between C and N in BAC0N), he says.

Publicity When You Don't Expect It

Do you think that Ben & Jerry's expected to be making headlines this week? No new flavors coming out, no special announcement, no anniversary...they could have hardly expected to make headlines.

So what happened?

PETA drafted a letter to Ben and Jerry's asking them to stop using cow milk and use human milk instead for their ice cream. They came back with the response of "We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child."

This will backfire on PETA

By PETA trying to get Ben and Jerry's to stop using cow's milk, they gave the ice cream makers a very expensive amount of free publicity. All of that free publicity might just briefly spur sales of the ice cream. Just writing about this is making me crave some of the Cookie Dough ice cream....

Top 100 Most Undiscovered Web Sites

PC Mag put together a list of the Top 100 Most Undiscovered Web Sites. This is a pretty interesting list to browse through. Many unique social sites are included. One of the most creative is: SocialVibe.

Clay Aiken and Citizen Journalists

She may not have been the first woman to announce this (Rosie O'Donnell), but a stay-at-home mom blogger outed Clay Aiken before the media did. Featuring baby news and celebrity gossip, this stereotypical mom blog featured a quick blurb about the happy couple's baby boy and the surrogate mother involved. Then People, USA Today and a number of radio stations proclaimed: "I'm gay, says Clay Aiken." And it was all this week. Her post: months earlier.

It just goes to show that bloggers are better at keeping up on things than even the hottest celebrity critics... and any beat reporter imaginable. Social media and networking devices are paving the way for citizen journalists and the new flow of communication will only continue. Bloggers, YouTubers, Twitterers, and Facebookers are reaping great benefits. Black and white for a group, event, or product otherwise overlooked-- if only attached to a news release-- isn't bad at all. I'm keeping my eye out on you, America, as both a participant and creator of opportunity.

But if you do consult a blog source, you might want to check out frequency of comments, number of unique visitors per month, and if they're blogging about their bad day more than once-- remove them from your RSS feeds.