Live From New York, It's Saturday White!

If the Internet has taught us anything, it's that icon status is a few million mouse clicks away. We've seen a few of these Internet celebrities over the years, but Star Wars Kid didn't want the fame, Tay Zonday failed to produce another hit song, and Numa Numa Guy's dance moves became old news.

But this month our biggest Internet icon is Betty White, who was already an established actress in her own right, but has seen a huge resurgence in her popularity thanks to Facebook.

White recently had a very successful appearance on Saturday Night Live thanks to a Facebook campaign called "Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!" that garnered over 500,000 fans.

The SNL gig is apparently not enough for the Betty White fans out there, who have now launched new Facebook campaigns to get the former Golden Girl to host the Emmy's, the Oscars, even the Academy Awards.

The success of these new grassroot Facebook campaigns has yet to be seen, but are proving the power that these social media efforts can have, and the real results they can generate.

Shopping Sprees Go Viral

Every time I sit down in the food court at the mall, I see at least two or three girls showing their friends everything that they bought at the stores that day.

However, there's a new trend emerging online that takes this shopping day show-off to a new level: the haul video.

The idea is that people (a majority of which are younger females) record videos of themselves walking the audience through all of the purchases they made that day, along with commentary about fashion trends and the difficult choices they came across when out at the mall.

And with over 150,000 haul videos on YouTube getting tens (if not hundreds) of millions of views, this haul video craze shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Add in the fact that YouTube allows users to earn money through partnerships, with some of these haul "vloggers" (video bloggers) earning thousands of dollars a year, and it's clear that this has turned to a legitimate business for some women.

These partnerships show that retail marketers are seeing the huge opportunity with these videos, which are essentially positive product reviews (why would someone say something bad about something they just bought?) that are accessible to a large audience in their target demographic.

But despite the huge earning potential with these haul videos, I probably won't be one of the thousands who have uploaded videos of their mall purchases. Besides, I doubt anyone would want to hear about my food court choice or the awesome pretzel I bought that day.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Two hundred fifty million Facebookers, 184 million bloggers and 14 million tweeters, that’s a lot of opinions. Some traditional media call these noisy threats, but Vogue’s Editor in Cheif Anna Wintour sings their melodies. Last month Anna was quoted by Fashionista,

“We laude as much coverage on fashion as possible—we don’t care where it comes from,” she says. “But with all the noise, it actually helps Vogue, because we have authority.”

With the magazine industry crumbling, is Anna overly optimistic or are some industries impervious to social media’s leadership qualities?

Vogue’s authority might be in jeopardy as advertisers dive deeper into social media. Marc Jacobs’ “Fashion Victim” Foursquare badge, Jimmy Choo’s London treasure hunt, and Diesels' Facebook connected fitting room cameras show advertisers aren’t just interested in social media, they are signing on to the newest outlets.

So what does this mean for Vogue’s powerhouse editor? Anyone who saw the documentary The September Issue or the film The Devil Wears Prada knows Anna Wintour is one tough cookie. As people continue to Facebook, blog and tweet, Anna is still sitting in meetings with Bergdorf & Goodman or Armani where a single nod or look from her can change the creative and marketing direction for the season.

As long as she is Editor in Chief, Vogue will fight to retain authority and I think, succeed. The fashion industry isn’t impervious, but Anna may be.

What about other special interest categories? Do established media still rule?

Side Effects Include...

The news headline I saw this morning wasn't exactly an attention-getter: "FDA Asked To Restrict Drug Marketers' Use Of Social Media".

While that headline doesn't seem too alarming in and of itself, it does have some important implications for us as consumers.

The news is that a consumer advocacy group is asking the FDA to prohibit pharmaceutical companies from advertising on social media platforms that don't allow them to fully explain their drug products.

For example, let's look at how birth control pills (which ironically celebrated their 50th anniversary this past Mother's Day) would be affected.

The target demographic of these pills are typically frequent social media users, so social networks like Facebook and Twitter would be a natural fit for advertising.

However, Twitter's 140 character limit per tweet means that a birth control pill company would most likely have to split all of the necessary medical information about their particular product into multiple tweets.

But if a consumer only happens to read one of these tweets, they run the risk of using a medicinal product without having all of the information.

This is why the FDA is looking into banning pharmaceutical advertising on social platforms that have word limits like Twitter.

And although I do agree this possible new restriction is probably in everyone's best interests, I think the health care industry should also burden some of the responsibility and adopt more social media usage to help keep consumers informed and up to date on issues like this.

Zuckerberg Checks In To Foursquare Headquarters

With Foursquare racing past the 40 millionth check-in mark a few days ago, it's time to state the obvious: Geolocation is here to stay awhile.

And when you're as hot of a commodity as Foursquare is, you're likely to have a few suitors looking to buy you out.

So, it wasn't much of a surprise that Facebook was possibly looking to add Foursquare into its online empire. We knew Facebook was looking to add some sort of geolocation feature to its site, and on Sunday appeared to have started the programming process to make it happen.

And the latest news suggests that this possible Facebook-Foursquare union is more likely than originally thought.

Over the weekend, Mark Zuckerberg met with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, although what that meeting consisted of or led to is unknown.

I myself would like to see Foursquare avoid Facebook's Internet takeover.

Unfortunately, the truth is Foursquare probably won't survive on its own, so if they're looking to sell, Facebook has the money and the influence to make it happen.