A New Level of Online Addiction

Two of the most addictive substances on earth might be coffee and nicotine, but with 400 million users, some would argue that Facebook deserves to be on that list of addictions as well.

But when it comes to wasting hours and hours at a time online, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW) is at the top of the list. WoW has over 12 million monthly subscribers, most of whom aren't afraid of spending the night in front of their computer screens to succeed.

In fact, I personally know at least 4 people who flunked out of college due to spending too much time on World of Warcraft.

That's why I'm interested (and a little afraid) of the news last night that Blizzard, the maker of this Internet fixation, will be integrating its service with Facebook.

This is huge news in the gaming community, who can now have their WoW and other Blizzard game updates post on Facebook.

And although it's too early to tell how World of Warcraft players will respond, I'm sure that anyone who is already addicted to the online game will have an even tougher time getting that multiplayer monkey off their backs.

Certifiably Pointless

Since the dawn of wall posts, tweets and blogs, we've seen the social media "experts" and "gurus" claiming to know everything there is to know about the social networks that have kept us glued to our computers for the past few years.

And back in September 2009, the International Social Media Association was formed with the intent of giving these experts certification in social media.

But the problem I've always had with social media gurus (certified or otherwise) is that they claim their expertise in a field that is not only relatively new , but also constantly changing and evolving.

Apparently, I'm not alone in my criticism and this little experiment in certifying social media has ended with the dissolving of ISMA last week.

This echoes the harsh truth that social media can't be structured, controlled or certified the way engineering, accounting, or even PR can; by it's very nature social media is meant to be the no-rules, ever-evolving field that it is.

Now don't get me wrong, as someone who considers himself a social media professional, I do believe social media can and should be studied intensively...but that doesn't make me or anyone else a guru or expert.

Two Airlines Unite to Stay Strong

By Sara Loca

Do you remember the days when you could carry a nail file and toothpaste on an airplane without threatening national security? Airlines have changed drastically over the past few years, and yesterday the industry transformed again: United Airlines purchased Continental.

Combining the airlines means combining the websites, which is expected to result in a huge spike in the commercial airlines’ website traffic share (11.67% total share). “Uninental” will soon be competing with Delta and Southwest for web dominance, and with 90 million Americans conducting travel research online, that’s a pretty important competition.

As with any purchase, there are concerns. Employee opposition isn’t new to mergers, but has a long history with United Airlines’ chairman Mr. Glenn F. Tilton. In 2002, employees went as far as wearing orange “Glenn Must Go” bracelets. There is also concern that the brands are too different and will struggle to find a unified identity.

Certain consumers are outright disapproving of this venture, including Matt Gross, "The Frugal Traveler" blogger for The New York Times.

There is no doubt the airline industry has more changes to come, but are all of these changes encouraging or discouraging airline travel?

The Apple of Tablet Market's Eye

Weeks ago, I wrote about the swarm of new tablets that were on the verge of being released in hopes of challenging the iPad's dominance in this emerging market, and now that Apple has hit the 1 million sales mark for the iPad, this issue becomes more pertinent than ever.

However, the two most promising tablets (the HP Slate and Microsoft Courier) have both been scrapped and won't go into production, and whether or not the companies are working on new ones has yet to be seen.

While this is great news for Apple, this is a huge blow to tablet technology as a whole. The iPad now defines the market for tablets, and that means there will be less innovation. Why would Apple need to innovate if there's no viable competition?

We've discussed the computer industry's failure to change and innovate before, and the same lesson applies here: the technology as a whole will suffer if no one is there to push for newer and better designs.

This leaves the Dell Streak as the last big-name company with a tablet device still in the works. Hopefully it won't succumb to the same fate as the HP Slate and Microsoft Courier, because as exciting as tablet technology appears to be, it will require innovation and competition to stay that way.

Best Buzz of the (Light)Year

Pixar has been at the forefront of animation technology for years, dominating the box office and raking in millions of dollars in revenue.

And anytime they crank out another movie, there's no shortage of expertly-produced commercials, merchandising opportunities and big name partnerships. The bottom line is Pixar doesn't need to be clever about their advertising...if they want you to know about their movie, they have the money to make it happen.

Maybe that's why I was pleasantly surprised by Pixar's viral effort to build some buzz for their upcoming Toy Story 3 movie.

The technologically-advanced studio went old school by creating a vintage, 1980's-style commercial for one of the new characters that will debut in the movie, complete with cheesy lines and (intentionally) poor video quality.

The viral video makes no reference to Pixar or Toy Story 3, simply focusing on the Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear toy, resulting in a string of comments on YouTube on whether the commercial was legitimate or not.

Therein lies the true genius of this viral video campaign, because it created a dialogue on the Internet and around the blogosphere.

Of course, we shouldn't expect fake, 80's-inspired viral videos to become a staple of movie advertising in the future, but Pixar's Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear commercial was definitely one of the more clever buzz-generating efforts I've seen in a while.