How to Digg Your Own Grave

Whether you want to call it Digg-Gate or the Digg-pocalypse, it doesn't change the fact that Digg is still under heavy fire as more and more users continue their furious backlash against the social news site's overhaul late last week.

But before we start declaring this the end of Digg, keep in mind it's not the first site to deal with angry users. Facebook faces backlash with every change they make, yet their user base continues to grow. Think about it, have any of your Facebook-hating friends followed through on their threats and actually quit Facebook?

And while I'm definitely happy that I'm not the one who has to fix this Digg dilemma, there is a lesson to be learned here. Any website that goes under a visual redesign is bound to have a few dissenters. People can be fickle, and may not like a site that they've been using to go under any changes.

But Digg's changes went deeper than that, with a complete change in focus and strategy. Digg re-purposed itself to appeal to a more mainstream demographic. In doing so, they've alienated a large portion of their existing audience.

However, Digg may have to accept the fact that at this stage in the online game, the mainstream public may not want to participate in the type of active social news curating that Digg is based on. Simply put, Digg tried to branch out to a mainstream demographic that probably won't adopt it and lost a lot of existing users in the process.

So the message is clear. If you want to redesign a site, just make sure it looks good. But if you want to branch off in a whole new direction, be prepared to take some heat because it's basically a roll of the dice. And regardless of what happens to Digg, they have undoubtedly provided a great case study in how to "digg" your own grave.

Social Networking Goes Back to School

Remember the "good old days" of Facebook? If you were on Facebook before 2008, you probably have fond memories of the then college-only social network.

Memories like awkwardly changing relationship statuses, throwing virtual livestock at your friends, and the freedom to post embarrassing photos without worrying about parents/potential employers seeing you doing keg stands or tequila shots.

That's why the launch of a new, college-exclusive social network called CollegeOnly caught my eye. Like the name suggests, it is only open to someone with a college email address from one of three schools (Princeton, Yale and Cornell) currently registered. The network itself is a hodgepodge of existing social media features, with everything from your basic status posting and photo uploads to geo-tagging and a Craigslist-style "Missed Connections" feature.

Besides the strict entrance requirements and multitude of features, there is one other interesting thing about the site. Most social networks are "opt-in," where you start with no friends and then add connections, building your network from the ground up. But CollegeOnly is more of an "opt-out" style network, because you are automatically connected with everyone on the network upon signing up and then block users you don't want to be connected with.

Obviously, CollegeOnly will need to expand if they ever want to gain ground in the social media oligarchy. But it sounds like its creators have done their best to try and return social networking to its early days, before you had to worry about your mom or dad looking in on your personal life.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some Facebook pictures I need to delete...

iPad Finally Answers the Question We've All Been Asking

When Steve Jobs first unveiled the iPad, the Apple faithful had a twinkle in their eye, tech geeks pondered the implications and companies pondered the opportunities to incorporate it into their business plans.

But the rest of us had one question: who needs a device that is essentially a giant iPhone?

Despite big sales numbers and glowing reviews, that question has never really been answered...until now.

I recently came across a story about the Sumo Association in Japan purchasing iPads to help keep the various sumo stables. The reason for why they chose iPads over any other form of communication device is that the wrestlers' fingers are too thick for traditional texting methods.

So I'm sure this isn't quite the target demographic Apple had in mind when they basically super-sized their iPod Touch and launched the tablet craze. However, it is always interesting to see existing products being adopted by new and unique user segments.

And for Apple, the 60 iPads bought by the Sumo Association may be a drop in the bucket financially, but is an I-told-you-so moment Jobs can point to when people question who would ever need a giant iPhone or iPod Touch.

Google's Axiom-Style Promotion

I'm thinking Google may have taken a page out of Axiom's book with their upcoming promotion for the new Google Voice calling technology.

Google's plan is to put red telephone booths in public venues (mostly airports and college campuses) to generate buzz about Google Voice. And these phone booths aren't just meant to sit around and look pretty, they are working phones integrated with the Google Voice feature. Step into one of the booths and you can test out the feature with free domestic and international calls.

If the idea of phone booths sounds familiar, it should. That's because here on the Daily Axioms blog I've made many references to our own Axiom phone booth that sits in our lobby.


Hey communication is communication, right? So why not feature one of the early versions of it. Also, I'm all for any promotion that infuse a little nostalgia with some product testing. Hopefully, this will inspire more phone booth-focused promotions in the future.

Not Just A Flash In The Pan(dora)

On August 29th the music-streaming site Pandora will turn 5, which is quite the achievement in Internet years. It was launched when YouTube was only six months old, a year before Twitter even hit the market, and way before Facebook was anywhere near the online juggernaut it is today.

Pandora has been one of the quieter online success stories over the years. Despite little press coverage, the site has not only seen near-steady growth in 2010 but has become a cultural icon and one of the first things people think of when they think of online music.

Pandora's format hasn't really gone under any drastic changes over the years other than offering premium paid services. However, they recently announced the launch of genre-based stations that would focus on a wider range of music instead of a band or song.

Is this a game-changing innovation? Probably not, but with more and more music-streaming sites popping up, it's important that existing sites continue to innovate.

3 Reasons Social Gaming Is An Industry All Its Own

Just last week I wrote a post mentioning the growth of social gaming, and a new study strengthens the case that the growth will continue. Here are three key stats from that study.

1 out of 5 Americans over the age of six has played an online social game at least once.

Obviously, that number is just based on who was polled. But if you extrapolate that out, nearly 60 million Americans have or are playing social games. That's a huge number of users.

$2.2 billion worth of virtual goods were bought in 2009; expected to increase to $6 billion by 2013.

This is the major reason why social gaming isn't going away in the near future. The amount of money social gaming has already brought in is massive, and experts think that number is going to triple. As long as people are buying virtual goods, companies will continue to provide them.

35% of social gamers have no previous gaming experience whatsoever.

This was the most surprising stat to me, because ever since social games hit the market they've been compared to (and grouped with) traditional games. To me, this says that social gaming is becoming a completely different market, separate from the Nintendo/Playstation/Xbox-dominated industry of traditional gaming.

This is great news for social networks and bad news for the gaming industry. For social networks, social gaming provides monetization options other than just ads and banners. Unfortunately for the gaming industry, their struggles over the past couple of years are most likely to continue, because over a third of that social gaming demographic aren't playing traditional video games.

That being said, the gaming industry isn't beyond hope. However, it will take serious innovation and a continued push towards online gaming. The biggest takeaway is that social games like Farmville won't be put out to pasture anytime soon.

Not The City Of Blogger-ly Love

Although Philadelphia is the City of Brotherly Love, it's not extending that affection to its bloggers.

The city has been demanding money from bloggers who make any money from their blogs, requiring that they buy a business license. The $300 license is required regardless of how much your blog brings in, if anything at all. Two small bloggers were hit especially hard when the city demanded they buy licenses and pay taxes for the money their blogs made.

Just how money are we talking about here? Their profits amounted to a whopping $11 and $50 respectively.

Yes, you're reading that correctly. The bloggers had to pay over $300 for their $11 and $50 earnings. And while we can all probably agree on how ludicrous this is, this situation does raise important questions.

With more and more bloggers finding ways to monetize their blogs, will/should the government step in to make sure that they are taxed appropriately? Not to mention when/if blogs should be taxed at all or to what degree?

Questions like this need to be addressed sooner rather than later to ensure that situations like this don't continue to happen.

Will Chatroulette Ever Win Big?

Back in March I wrote a post about Chatroulette, and had a hard time putting my finger on how successful it would be long-term. Keep in mind, that post was in the middle of Chatroulette-mania as the video chat service was skyrocketing in popularity.

However, Chatroulette's popularity topped out that same month, reaching nearly 1.8 million unique visitors in March. Since then, they saw a steady decline to 1.1 million in May, and crept back up to just over 1.3 million visitors in June.

The reason why I'm so intrigued by Chatroulette's ups and downs is that, with the exception of adding channels about a month ago, they haven't made any significant changes to the site. Sure, they brought on Facebook's founding president Sean Parker, but the site itself hasn't really changed.

Even more interesting is the fact that this lack of innovation hasn't stunted Chatroulette's ability to build buzz for other brands. We've seen the Travelocity Roaming Gnome offer travel tips and musician Ben Folds play concerts live on the site.

The latest Chatroulette promotion is for the movie The Last Exorcism. I won't give away any details, but the premise is that otherwise-pleasant chats with a girl take an unexpected turn. There's a video about it in this Mashable article. It's a pretty clever idea, and another great example of companies adopting Chatroulette for promotional purposes.

So can Chatroulette be successful in the long-term? Sure, but it will take some innovating on their part to retain users, rather than continuing to rely on other brands to utilize Chatroulette in its current state. But my guess is that Chatroulette will spend the next year or so hovering right around the 1-1.5 million visitor mark.

That prediction, of course, is under the assumption that Chatroulette stays the way it is now. But if Facebook's founding president is willing to take a gamble on it, then there's a chance Chatroulette could hit the social media jackpot.

Time for a Pep-Talk, Foursquare

Listen Foursquare, I know you've been keeping an eye on the launch of Facebook Places and you probably haven't liked the headlines you've seen, with everyone out there is saying your days are numbered. But you need to take a deep breath...and exhale. Good, now let's talk this out.

First off, remember that you're top dog in the location-based arena, and it's because of your success that Facebook is taking location-based sharing seriously as a social networking medium (and even paying homage to you with their Facebook Places logo). So my advice? Stay positive, look in the mirror, and give yourself a Jessica-style pep talk.

Sure, Facebook Places has 500 million users at their disposal. And yeah, they've done a solid job of integrating the new service into their site. I know you've tried to avoid competing directly with Facebook, but the sleeping giant has woken up and yes, it will give you some tough competition.

But you do have a few things going for you. I like how you partnered with Facebook right out of the gate. Do I think dedicated Foursquare users will use it? Probably not, but it's smart to have the option.

More importantly, even though Facebook will introduce geolocation to a wider audience, the early adopters and the truly engaged users have already established loyalty with an existing location-based network, which for most people is you.

So remember Foursquare, just because Facebook is checking in to the location-based networking doesn't necessarily mean you'll be surrendering you're mayorship on that market anytime soon.

Mafia Wars Continues to Blow Up

Even with the buzz surrounding the latest crop of traditional video games like StarCraft II, Madden NFL '11 and the upcoming Halo Reach, social gaming continues to see huge amounts of traffic.

And Zynga, the company behind the immensely popular Mafia Wars and Farmville games on Facebook, hopes to continue that momentum. Zynga recently created a new level for their Mafia Wars game and wanted to make sure a lot people were playing it. And for Zynga, "a lot" meant 10 million, which they were able hit pretty easily.

So how did they hit that not-so-lofty goal?

Well, the minds behind Mafia Wars decided the most sensible way to get people to play a game about online crime was to blow up a real-life armored truck. That's right, the latest Mafia Wars promotion was that if 10 million users played the new Las Vegas level, Zynga would blow up an actual armored truck in the city the game level was based on.

Some people may be question the point of this promotion, other than a reason for gratuitous explosions. And while I'm always a fan of explosions, I don't think that this spike in success for Mafia Wars will stop critics and pundits from questioning if/when the bubble will burst for Zynga and other social gaming companies.

However, I think it's safe to say that the social gaming bubble won't be popping anytime soon.

Can MySpace Rise from the Junior High School Ashes?

Here around the Axiom office, we love to reminisce about our early days online. Our stories range from the hours spent playing Neopets to how cool we felt chatting on AOL during our junior high school years. And one topic that dominated those good-old-days conversations was MySpace.

In a world of likes, tweets, and check ins, many people have forgotten about the original social media phenomenon (sorry Friendster). There's no doubt MySpace has kind of fallen off the map over the past few years. And with reports surfacing a couple weeks ago that the once-mighty social network is hemorrhaging money, MySpace seems to be circling the drain.

Or is it?

Rupert Murdoch, who bought MySpace back in 2005, conjured images of Braveheart as he declared over and over that MySpace will not go down without a fight. And while I doubt he will be donning blue warpaint anytime soon, he does have enough financial weaponry to get something done. And their plan of attack appears to be a massive overhaul, although they haven't said what that will entail.

With constant innovation from other social media giants, MySpace needs a great idea and they it need it soon if they ever want to claw their way back to the top of the social networking mountain.

Check-in Cheaters

Cheaters. They existed in elementary school, and since we’re still playing Foursquare, they exist now. I came into work this morning with this not-so-lovely email from Foursquare.

Let me explain why this is so confusing. There are only about a dozen of us who work at Axiom on a daily basis. We have some out-of-staters, some who work from home and some who are simply not here every day.

My Foursquare competitors are limited to the three people in my office who have Foursquare and use it on a daily basis –  Principal Mike Ferrara, Project Manager Stephanie Lopato and Intern Steve Retka. I took the mayorship from Stephanie early on, and Steve and Mike are still new so they don’t have the ability to catch up.

So imagine my surprise when I lost my mayorship to Matt. Who’s Matt? There’s no Matt that works here. We don’t have a client named Matt. I see every single person that walks into our office everyday, so it’s not as though someone has the ability to come to our office 27 times in the past 60 days without someone noticing. For the record, Matt has 102 mayorships. Something tells me we’re not the only victims of his ambitions.

My question is this. Why does he check into Axiom when he’s clearly not here? Why does he want the mayorship? What’s the motivation to lie about checking into a venue that has no perks for their mayors? And the big question: Why doesn’t Foursquare have a “report” option for us to alert them of cheaters?

Before I wrote this blog post I began some initial topic brainstorming via Twitter. While some provided some helpful ideas on how to confront the cheater, my favorite response was from an old college friend of mine.

Talk about food for thought. Am I the only one who cares this much about the integrity of the game? If you’re wondering, yes I am “that girl” who will pull out the Scrabble Dictionary if you lay down a questionable word.

Am I missing the fun of Foursquare by following the rules, or am I justified in my wanting to reprimand the cheater?

Where's the "M" in "MTV?"

It all began with the "DJ," or disc jockey who selected and played music on the radio. It then evolved into the "VJ," or video jockey who disseminated the latest music videos on MTV. Now, the network has taken it a step further to the "TJ," or Twitter jockey, who will do, well, something.

MTV programming and news is often trending on Twitter, and there are several MTV-like handles distributing miscellaneous content that have no affiliation with the media giant. With the recent selection of the first-ever TJ, fashion blogger Gabbi Gregg, MTV plans to control and capitalize on their presence in the Twitterverse. Gregg was selected in a contest with the help of viewers, and was awarded a one-year contract and $100K salary. She will move to New York City, work at MTV headquarters, and tweet about MTV. Although, not only is the network somewhat unsure of how they will use their new hire, but this seems to be yet another move away from the founding principle of the station for the sake of remaining trendy.

It begs the question: What happened to the "M" in "MTV?"

When the cable station first got its start back in the eighties, Michael Jackson had only recently invented the concept of the music video. While the music video itself caught on in a big way, MTV began to realize that it couldn't survive on music-related content alone, but instead needed programming to get viewers tuning in at scheduled intervals throughout the week. "The Real World" was the network's first attempt at original programming, as well as classics like "Daria" and "Beavis and Butthead." Throughout the nineties, there was a near-equal balance between music- and non-music-related content. But now, in the second decade of the millennium, the music seems to have disappeared altogether. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw a music video that I didn't seek out on YouTube.

MTV has the unique challenge of appealing to the most fickle, easily-bored demographic on the market. Is this new TJ their way of keeping up with their rapidly-changing audience? And more importantly, in the eyes of this audience, has MTV become a distributor of reality television instead of an authority on music? I think MTV has an opportunity to get back to its roots by ensuring their TJ becomes an authoritative voice on music, not just fashion and pop culture.

The Sincerest Form of Flattr-y

Have you come across that really good blog post (like one of the many here on Daily Axioms) and wish you could reward its creator?

That's the idea behind European startup Flattr. Here's how it works: Flattr users deposit a small amount of money into their Flattr account. Then, users can click on Flattr buttons that content creators like bloggers put on their websites. Each month, the money in the user's account is divided by the number of Flattr buttons they've clicked, and the money is then distributed to the creators of that content.

It's essentially a Facebook Like button but with money involved.

Users decide how much money to deposit, and users decide where they want that money to go. According to Flattr, anything can be clicked, including blogs, pictures and videos.

As a blogger, I'm torn on this idea. I do understand the importance of driving original content creation,and money is a great incentive. However, I don't know how viable of an option this is. Here's a short list of what Flattr is up against.

Why Flattr could fail:

• There's a huge dependence on honesty from content creators not to steal content from other people. It wouldn't be too difficult to re-post something and add a Flattr button.
• Lawsuits will always be a looming fear, because if someone is getting paid for another person's work, you can be sure that person will be taken to court.
• The 100-million dollar question: Will users pay for content they already get for free? History isn't on Flattr's side, because several similar startups have folded in the past.
  

Why Flattr could take off:

• Flattr didn't put the cart before the horse, making sure they had a polished website and an active group of beta testers before moving forward.
• The whole concept of third-party website buttons has become increasingly prevalent over the past couple of months. Facebook Like buttons and TweetMeme buttons can be found everywhere these days.
• By having a user-determined monthly fee, Flattr avoids being accused of over charging. Users will be more likely to open up their checkbooks if they have that level of control.

It's hard to say what Flattr's future will be. While there are obvious monetization options for Flattr and financial incentives for content creators, this whole endeavor depends on users being willing to spend the money.

So, say what you want about imitation, this startup hopes to make money the sincerest form of flattery.

Should Apple Put The Brakes On The iBike?

Whenever there are rumors that Apple is developing a new product, bloggers and tech geeks (and yes, I'm placing myself in both categories) don't waste any time jumping on the story. And even if that rumor is nothing more than a patent application, you can be sure that the Internet will still be buzzing.

The latest bit of Apple news is that they are trying to patent a computerized smartbike called the iBike, which appears to connect with the iPod and iPhone and have sensors built into the bike.

It sounds really fancy, and the type of product geared towards the hardcore cycling crowd. That's why I'm so confused by the patent.

Think about Apple's product history. Apple's success can be largely attributed to the mass appeal and ease of use of its products. The Apple computer, the iPod, even the iPhone and iPad were aimed at the general public instead of a specific group.

I highly doubt I'll be lining up to purchase this iBike if and when it comes out, but I'm probably not the target demographic. And that's why I'm not so sure about this launch, because Apple has always focused on a very wide audience, not the small niche group that the iBike would attract.

But I can't say for sure whether this iBike will be successful or not. I can't even say that it will ever be launched, but I do know that this story will continue to gain steam until Apple addresses it. Until then, us tech geeks will continue to speculate about the future of Apple-based transportation.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

We've all seen the latest trend of businesses bringing on 20-something interns and letting them handle all of their company's social media policies and strategies.

Meanwhile, there's been a backlash of people saying that interns are unproven and unable to handle that responsibility. They say that interns use social media, but don't know any tactics or strategies beyond creating a Facebook or Twitter account.

This debate has been heating up, with public relations professionals, social media influencers, and corporate executives all taking sides in one of these two camps. In fact, just this morning I saw an article called "Interns make coffee not social media strategy."

And as a social media intern myself, I think it's time I speak on this issue.

I agree with social media intern critics that it's ridiculous to give interns all of the social media responsibility. However, I completely disagree with their reasons. The ones listed in that article were that interns don't know or care about the brand and that they don't know marketing.

Here's the thing: if your intern doesn't know about your brand or marketing, do a better job of teaching them. And if your intern doesn't care about your brand, hire a better intern.

Interns will care about a brand and a company that takes the time to teach them and takes them seriously as aspiring professionals. And considering that most interns these days have a college degree (or at least have completed a few marketing or PR classes), interns are starting the job with more know-how than interns in the past.

And that's why I think interns should play a role in social media, but the majority of the work and responsibility should still fall on the actual marketing or public relations professionals. No, most interns don't know all of the strategy and analytics behind social media, but interns are usually in the target demographic and can offer some insight and ideas.

So in the end, as with many things in life, the reality of the situation lies in between the two extremes that have dominated the headlines.

For the Love of Baseball

Out on a client shoot this afternoon, Axiom Productions Videographer Dave Sniadak was able to take a break and shoot some behind the scenes footage at the beloved Target Field. Enjoy!

Axiom Productions at Target Field from Axiom Socialmedia on Vimeo.

A Bloody Good Idea

It’s no secret that we here at Axiom are passionate about donating blood. Just take a look at our Flickr Photos from June 3rd’s team donation. It takes just thirty minutes, and each donation can save up to three lives. 

Imagine our excitement when the American Red Cross announced the new Give Blood Countdown application for Facebook. According to the release:

You can self-report your donation appointments, add a countdown to your profile and receive reminders when you become eligible again. You can also invite friends to participate.

So instead of spending your Friday virtually expanding your family in Mafia Wars or adding a new barn on Farmville, check out the new Give Blood Countdown application and start recruiting friends to join something that really matters.

Following Follow Friday

If you’ve spent any time on Twitter, undoubtedly you’ve seen these #FF or #FollowFriday memes that have users suggesting their favorite Tweeps to follow. It carries the same feelings of the once-envied MySpace Top Eight, but without the exclusivity of limits.

Always nice to get picked, it seems that the more recommendations one receives the more they’re willing to give. Which ends up with a tweet of links. No rationale on why you should follow them, just one link in a tweet alongside several others. Perhaps even one link in a list of tweets with even more links. So what’s the point?

Earlier today there was some speculation about @TwitterShoutOut, a Twitter account that looked to be the first steps of an official Twitter recommending service. What I can only imagine would evolve into a more official (not to mention beneficial) recommending system, @TwitterShoutOut is alleged to provide users with the ability to recommend other users to their followers while giving reason and rationale for their online endorsement.

Unfortunately this rumor was dispelled a few hours ago, with an official Twitter rep admitting that although @TwitterShoutOut is a Twitter-official account, it’s for internal purposes only. So Twitter employees can virtually high-five each other all day long, but the rest of us are forced to hold our endorsements in until Friday, only to then explode with a list of links.

Do you think there’s any benefit to being included in a Follow Friday link list? Do you take other recommendations on who to follow if accompanied with #FF or #FollowFriday? Would you use an official Twitter Endorsement Service, if they were to develop one?

Twitter Looks to Put a Cork in Illiteracy

Twitter has been largely responsible for the unwillingness of many people to read anything longer than 140 characters. That's why I'm not that surprised that the microblogging site is partnering with Room to Read, a non-profit from San Francisco-based that promotes literacy around the world.

But what does surprise me is Twitter's approach. They are selling bottles of wine for $20, with sales benefiting Room to Read. The wine is a Pinot Noir called Fledgling, and is set to be bottled at the end of the month.

Is it a good cause? Definitely.

Do I like wine? Sure, I've made that clear before.

But is selling wine a good fit brand-wise for a social networking giant that has nothing to do wine? That's where they lose me.

While I'm by no means denouncing anything that raises money for a worthy cause, this promotion raises some eyebrows if you look at it from a public relations brand management standpoint. And although I do like the name of the wine, a clever name does not a great campaign make.

However, I'm sure Twitter will be able to utilize it's success and size to put a cork in world illiteracy.

How Much Privacy Can We Expect Online?

Earlier this week, a security researcher/blogger created a program that hacked 170 million Facebook profiles and organized them into a downloadable file. Ron Bowes, the blogger who hacked the data, claimed the readily-available information is "a scary privacy issue," because if certain privacy settings are not enabled, anyone can access someone's photos, friends and other profile information using their name and profile URL.

But was the information really "hacked," when it's already available in other online search engines? The profile names and URL's were taken from the site's public directory, which users can opt out of by adjusting their privacy settings.

All the discussion that surrounds Facebook and privacy seems counterproductive, especially in this case. Social networking is intended to facilitate sharing of information, and those who don't want their profiles accessible via search engine can adjust their privacy settings accordingly.

However, some would argue, being found by friends on the site is, well, the point of subscribing. To those people, I would say, that we almost always trade privacy for convenience. Take online bill pay for example. In exchange for the convenience of not having to write a check every month, we give up some privacy by allowing companies access to our banking information. Facebook is no different: in exchange for the convenience of connecting with friends online, we trade the privacy of having our names/photos publicly searchable.

Not that I don't also understand the perspective of Facebook users who don't want grandma or potential employers to access photos of them pounding tequila shots. But should those photos be posted online anyway, regardless of your privacy settings? Content posted on social networking sites will essentially live on the internet for years to come, and users should stop tinkering with their privacy settings and ask themselves if they want their content to exist in the sphere of public information that is the internet.

Those who gripe about privacy on Facebook, should stop complaining and unsubscribe.

Location-Based Fan Interaction

NFL training camps are now underway, which means that football season is tantalizingly close. And for Minnesota Vikings fans who want to watch their favorite players prepare to start the season, that means making the trek down to Mankato, MN where the Vikings have held training camp for decades.

And to help capitalize on this annual flood of purple and gold, the Greater Mankato Convention and Visitors Bureau has created a SCVNGR promotion called Jared's Journey (after Vikings star player Jared Allen). Jared's Journey will challenge fans to explore the community, completing challenges and earning prizes along the way.

This is a win-win for everybody. The Greater Mankato Convention and Visitors Bureau gets people into parts of Mankato that might otherwise be missed by football fans while building buzz for the upcoming football season, which is great for the Vikings.

And although the Vikings aren't the first NFL team to use SCVNGR to help connect with fans, they are one of the early adopters of this location-based fan interaction. Regardless of the success of the promotion, it will give the team valuable experience for future social media promotions.

Even more importantly, this gives a football geek like me a chance to talk about my favorite team.