Say what you want about Ford. No really, say what you want about them. They want you to. Ford has created The Ford Story, home of their social media, where you will not only find links to their various twitter, facebook, flickr and other profiles, but you will find real stories (even some negative ones) about Ford. It appears Ford’s take on social media is to be as transparent as possible. They even share their plan and progress.

I spent quite a lot of time hanging around Ford to find out just how they were using social media and what they were doing at the Blog World Expo. Ford’s social media strategy is headed by the very talented and generally nice guy Scott Monty, who along with the intelligent and lovely Gwen Peake graciously offered their time and demos. Unfortunately I didn’t take them up on the demos, even though they had a Mustang there. By the way, one of my favorite social media uses by Ford is the Mustang Customizer, which I suggested they add a short race track to. Anyway, at one point, I grabbed one of my favorite guys in the industry, Frank Eliason (aka comcastcares), and talked social media practices with Gwen. A few of the things that came out of that discussion were:
1. Allow the negative feedback. Don’t cover it up. Deal with it. Sometimes the community will deal with it faster than you will.
2. User feedback can be the crowdsourced info that actually causes change. So pay attention and respond. Let users know when their feedback caused the change.
3. It’s not just about us. It’s about you. Sure we offer you products or services, but we want to know how you use it, what you think, etc. We want to engage with you. This way we both benefit from it. Or as Ford says: “Ford is different – Join the Conversation”

Putting Fatburger in the far back corner of the hall was seriously like the getting milk in the grocery store strategy. You had to make your way through other booths before you got to what you were looking for. This worked out great for everyone, I’m sure. It certainly didn’t stop the crowds from making it over to Fatburger, who relied on some old school marketing to make social media work for them. What did they do? They offered coupons for free fries at their stores, gave out samples of food, and held four Fatburger eating contests. And it worked! Just check out these burgers.

These are 24oz of beef. Known as the XXXL on the menu, these burgers were put to the test on some of Blog World Expo goers. This, along with their Fatmobile (hey, I was mayor of it on foursquare for awhile there) and free samples, got Fatburger all the social media coverage they could have asked for. They let their product speak for itself, and let the consumers speak even louder for them. Of course this doesn’t mean they don’t use social media themselves. Check out their fans page for more info and be sure to follow them on twitter. Here’s my video of the first Blog World Expo Fatburger Eating Contest won by geekgiant.

One of the best uses of social media is definitely for raising money for non-profit organizations. Ebay and PayPal brought their Charity Smackdown Arcade to the Blog World Expo to raise money to beat cancer everywhere.

Their arcade games had people coming back for fun, but it all coincided with The Guinness World Record #BeatCancer event. Sponsored by MillerCoors, eBay/PayPal and Genesis Today, the event raised over $70,000 through people simply adding the hashtag #beatcancer to their tweets.

Back in the pre-social media days, these guys might never have made it past their local open access channel. In fact, they were even cancelled on Channel 101 after just two episodes. But YouTube can make stars! Chad Vader is a web show from Blame Society about Darth Vader’s less famous brother, who works at a grocery store. Created by Matt Sloan and Aaron Yonda, who also play Chad. Matt does the voice and Aaron wears the suit. Their videos have reached millions of viewers on YouTube. And it’s even won them the “George Lucas Selects” award at the 2007 “Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge.”

Chad Vader could be found at the Blog World Expo at his booth, playing at Ebay/PayPals Charity Smackdown Arcade, engaging with passersby, and even the final keynote as guest on Guy Kawasaki’s show along with The Blogess and Kevin Pollack, which leads me to my fifth and final example of social media use highlighted at Blog World Expo: The New Celebrity.

We’ve all seen tons of people use the internet to become famous, but now we see even more celebrities using the internet to mold their celebrity, engage with fans, and share more about who they really are. There was a wonderful keynote moderated by Brian Solis on the New Celebrity. His guests were Jermaine Dupri, Matt Goss, Robin Antin, and Anthony Edwards. I caught it all on qik, but hopefully a better quality video will be available soon. Their talk about how they use social media was interesting. But they all fall under categories mentioned above. Jermaine is a storyteller. He shares his life and wants you to do the same. Robin and Matt are old schoolers. They put their stuff out there and it gets to where it needs to go. Anthony is a do-gooder. He’s involved with the project Shoe4Africa.org. The one celebrity that stands out in my mind from the entire event is Kevin Pollak, who was not on that panel, but on the final keynote of the Blog World Expo.

The verdict is that Kevin Pollak’s website sucks. If you go there, you might notice his chat show, you may even find his twitter address, but you may just click away. He appears to be sort of a newbie in the social media scene, but somehow it’s endearing and meaningful. His tweets are often amusing, as you’d expect, but the killer in his use of the internet is definitely his chat show, which you can also find on YouTube. Celebrities don’t always have the chance or outlet to change their image, but Kevin Pollak is showing that it’s possible through social media. His chat shows are long, but worth the time. Who knows, maybe one day he will be the new Larry King.

Thank you to all of these wonderful people for sharing their use of social media, to Blog World Expo for making it happen, and a big thanks once again to Mister Wong and Webgrrls International for getting me there.

On www.berlintwitterwall.com visitors can view tweets posted from around the world with images from the Eastside Gallery, pieces of the Berlin Wall left as an art initiative and constant reminder to the city, as a background. Also, clicking on the tiny cameras will display a popup of one of the styrofoam domino artwork created by teenagers, artists, politicians, and celebrities for the event.

You can join in by adding your own tweet to the wall. Just add the hashtag #fotw, which stands for fall of the wall, to your tweets. You can also follow @fallofthewall on twitter for updates and interesting historical fact tweets. And there’s even a facebook group to join to keep up with news and coverage.

Want to know more? Here are the most important links:

www.berlintwitterwall.com

@fallofthewall on Twitter

Facebook Group

Berlin Twitter Wall Blog

Fall of the Wall Artwork on Flickr

Mauerfall09 – Festival of Freedom

More articles:

ABC NEWS

New York Times

I’m fortunate enough to be able to attend with the thanks of Mister Wong and the lovely women at Webgrrls International. Webgrrls is an online and offline organization for professional women. Be sure to check them out. And if you are attending the Blog World Expo please come by the Webgrrls booth (#300) Saturday, October 17 from 9am to 12:30pm to say hi to me (or just to get a hug). Or, contact me via twitter @tinythoughts to catch up with me anytime.

And stay tuned for more Blog World news right here on Mister Wong :)

By the time I saw his first tweet and replied, I was sure it was too late to win, but I wanted to welcome Pee-wee to twitter either way.

Shortly after came his announcement of the winner. He had chosen me! Within minutes I was flooded with messages of people congratulating me and sharing in my excitement.

We arranged to talk to the next day. I don’t usually sleep much, so it was no surprise that that night I laid awake and thought about who Pee-wee Herman was to me and what I’d like to know about Paul Reubens.

Pee-wee Herman was, perhaps, the most iconic character of the 80s. I am sure it is not just me who was delighted with his silly boyishness and could be brought to giggles by his infectious laughter. His show, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, was a childhood favorite and I can’t count the times I’ve watched his movie, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. It’s the one movie I connect with so many family memories. There have been a few calls for Tequila, followed by the reenactment of Pee-wee’s dance to that song at family events.

After five seasons of Pee-wee’s Playhouse and later an appearance at MTV’s Music Awards in 1991, Paul stopped being Pee-wee. In one way it was sad to see this familiar character gone from the TV screen, but on the other, it’s been a pleasure to see other sides of Paul as an actor throughout the years in shows like Murphy Brown, Pushing Daisies, and 30 Rock, and in movies like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Matilda, and Blow, as well as the numerous voices he’s done for cartoons. He remained very active as an actor. Each time I saw him or recognized his voice, I would be happy to see or hear him again, but a piece of me just missed Pee-wee Herman.

Though it had already been announced in early August, that Pee-wee Herman was coming back with a stage show in Hollywood, I wasn’t aware of it till he started using twitter, just as most other people probably didn’t know till that same evening when he showed up as a guest on Jay Leno. Being that I work in social media, I couldn’t be happier that he chose to use twitter to announce it, that in doing so he also offered the chance to call one lucky twitterer, and even more happy that he chose me.

Pee-Wee Herman at 140tc. Image via (CC) Brian Solis. www.briansolis.com

On Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 2:30 p.m. my phone rang. It was Paul Reubens calling to talk to me, not as Pee-wee, but as himself. The conversation was not recorded and I’m glad it wasn’t. This made it possible for us to talk without worrying about things you have to ask or say because others are going to hear it. This way it was not an interview, it was a conversation. Paul genuinely wanted to get to know me as much as I wanted to get to know him. We talked for over half an hour. He asked about my life, my career, my family. He offered me his thoughts and he so openly shared his life with me as well, creating the bonds of friendship.

I asked him what it was like back then not to be Pee-wee Herman anymore, telling him I thought it must be hard to break away from being such a character, who becomes a big part of yourself, knowing that he had worked on the character for years. But, he told me it was surprisingly very easy and that it was much harder to come to the decision of bringing him back. He had made an appearance at the SPIKE Guy’s Choice Awards as Pee-wee in 2007 to present Will Ferrell with an award. Afterward, he was asked to really bring Pee-wee back and he spent a long time going back and forth on whether or not he wanted to do it.

Paul and I talked a lot about our careers and the things we are passionate about. He really is very passionate about theater. The story he told on Leno about falling in love with theater as a kid watching a school production about Native Americans is true. He can still close his eyes and remember the beating of the drum. He shared with me the advice from his father: “You’ve got to find your gimmick.” In Hollywood, there’s thousands of people trying to do the same thing, so he had to find a way to make himself different and stand out. Being Pee-wee Herman certainly made him stand out. And it made me think of my own career and my own search to find what is unique within myself and let it shine. My top two core values are love and truth, which comes through in the way I communicate with others and the genuine essence of me and as tinythoughts. He listened to me go on passionately about social media and felt he understood it better after. Paul encouraged me to use what makes me special in my future career and to be aware of the possibilities.

Paul is a really sweet person. It was interesting to find such similarities and common ground. He asked if he could keep in touch with me and even put me on his Christmas card list. He offered me tickets to come see his show and meet him in person. I promised to do my best to find time to get there and do that. I am sure it will happen. Not only do I not want to miss out on his return as Pee-wee Herman, but I’d like to get to know him face to face as well. I hope that many of you will get the chance to see him in Hollywood at the Music Box and be sure to follow him on twitter.

Thank you, Paul, for taking the time to talk to me, for making my week, and being my new friend.

Links for information and to connect with Pee-wee Herman:
Pee-wee’s Official Page
Pee-wee’s new show
Pee-wee on twitter
Pee-wee on Facebook
Pee-wee makes his first tweet (video by @guykawasaki)
Pee-wee makes hiss first tweet (via @laughingsquid)
Pee-wee’s Playhouse on foursquare (created by me @tinythoughts)

The thoughts and opinions expressed here are all mine and not those pf Paul Reubens or Mister Wong.

Thank you Mister Wong for allowing me to post this here :-)

Zee is the Co-Founder of WeDoCreative and Editor in Chief of TheNextWeb. Be sure to follow him on twitter too.

Here’s what Zee had to say about Mister Wong’s Twitter integration:
“Sharing links has become an integral part of the Twitter experience, so it makes perfect sense for Mister Wong to provide a service that lets you store not just your own links but the links your trusted friends on twitter are sharing too.”

Congratulations, Zee!

Keep on wonging the web :)

Tell us about Music Hack Day – who are the people, and what is the idea, behind it?

Music Hack Day is a Hack Day specifically for the music industry. The first ever Music Hack Day was organised by Dave Haynes (who also works for SoundCloud from London) and held at the London offices of The Guardian over the weekend of the 11/12 July 2009.

In the last 4-5 years, we’ve seen a lot of innovative web companies attempting to solve problems around music: Last.fm has paved the way for music discovery and music streaming, Imeem and MySpace have become major players in the music industry. Lately, more and more companies have started tackling more specific problems revolving about music and the web and a lot of them have seen the potential of open API’s and the power and creativity such platforms can have. If you look at Twitter and how it has created a whole market around applications built on their API, we can see a similar trend around web services dealing with music. Be it Last.fm, SoundCloud, Echo Nest, Songkick as pure web platforms but also big publishing powerhouses like the BBC or mobile developers like RjDj. Even companies like Native Instruments or Ableton that mainly create classic desktop music software are joining in after seeing the possibilities it can offer: there’s so much that can be achieved on top of music data and it’s exciting to see how those companies can leverage this to offer new ways for people to listen, discover and make music.

The Music Hack Day is a perfect forum for that – an un-conference – where you basically throw 100 developers and companies with API’s into a room, let them hack away for two days and a night, see the light of the day on Sunday and – boom – you suddenly have 30 totally new “products” for people to test, use, enjoy and develop even further. Really exciting and the response to the event has been so great that we have Hack Days planned in Amsterdam, Boston, NYC and even Mumbai.

What makes Music hack day special? Why in Berlin?

The special sauce of such a hack day are the people attending: the setup is clearly a working environment and developers from around Europe are excited to spend a weekend digging into code and coming up with great new ideas. The difference is, that rather that being a huge brainstorm session, folks actually get things done and create stuff in really short sprints. Citysounds.fm for instance (that has seen some massive traction lately: 100.000 visitors/month) was built in London in only 15 hours. What users see is perceived as a brand-new finished product where you can browse the latest tracks uploaded to SoundCloud by city. It’s a perfect and easy way to discover the sounds played in the cities across the world. Tune in to Detroit, Melbourne, Tokyo or Barcelona.

Why Berlin? That’s easy. No other city in the world combines web developers and people excited about music. In fact, music and web development often comes hand-in-hand for people here in Berlin. Just look at all these companies like Ableton and Native, the club scene, the startup environment. It’s one of the few cities in the world that combines coding and music/arts/creativity.

Who is attending/involved in this event? What is the longest distance anyone travels for Berlin Music Hack Day?

Developers and companies attending will be from all around Europe, the longest distance will be traveled by Ben Lacker from The Echo Nest, who’s flying in from Boston in the US. However, we just got word from Sid from Mumbai who will participate remotely and demo his app via video conference on Sunday.

What was the craziest “hack” coming out of the last event in London? What are your expectations this time around?

YouTube – My percussion machine finished
Percussion Machine
Hacks

Expectations: following up with projects from London, presenting some beta versions of soundcloud API-related features and just having a great time geeking out :)

Thanks, David! Sounds like Music Hack Day will be pure awesomeness!

Every Twitter user knows this situation: After a mere few minutes, tweets are already outdated and get lost in the mass of other tweets. This is especially annoying when a tweet with a link to a great website, funny YouTube video or memorable Twitpic gets lost in the stream.

That’s the past – Welcome to the Twitter side of Wong!

Mister Wong helps keep an overview of tweets containing interesting links and easily lets you save them as bookmarks to your Mister Wong account – the necessary connection between Twitter and Mister Wong is created in a few simple clicks. All of your personal links are displayed in your Twitter link stream forever! And those from your friends stay for 30 days. You can find your stream after the initial import in your profile in the Twitter section.

Top features of the Twitter integration by Mister Wong:

• Automatic import and archive of personal tweets with links, as well as 30 day archive of friends’ tweets with links
• Bookmark, @ reply, and retweet directly from Mister Wong
• Shortened links expanded for preview before visiting
• All shortened links expanded and saved in their original format, so there is no risk if one shortener goes inactive or out of business. Your links are safe!
• Preview YouTube videos and Twitpics directly from Twitter link stream on Mister Wong
• Delete individual tweets or block users from being displayed in Twitter link stream
• Links retweeted from Mister Wong use the wong.to URL shortener
• Invite friends via Twitter

We’ve also added Facebook Connect!

And about that MacBook… Any registered user, who imports their Twitter links by Sept. 17 has a chance to win a 13″ MacBook to wong the web with.

Click here for detailed information and to start importing your Twitter stream!

We hope you will enjoy using this new feature.
Have fun and wong the web!

Spread the word:

Being that Mister Wong is the master of all bookmarks, it makes sense, that you should be able to find a good list of sources here. So, the search has been done for you. I’ve scoured the web searching for the top job resources. I’ve bookmarked and tagged them and saved them under the username employable. Here you’ll find all the sources you’ll need. At the moment, you’ll find 70 bookmarks. Use the tags to search more specifically, for example if you are looking for jobs in tech click on the techjobs tag.

Good luck on your job search. Remember to stay focused and stay positive. You are employable!

WONG THE WEB :)

With so many awesome web-enabled phones available, such as the iphone, BlackBerry Storm, Palm Pre, and Google Android phones like the G1, people are surfing the web more and more from their phones. Now that you can do everything from find restaurant reviews, order movie tickets, check the weather, tweet, even stream live video, we decided it was time to refurbish Mobile Mister Wong, so you can bookmark on the go too.

To check it out just go to www.mister-wong.com on your phone’s browser. You can log in to your account, see your bookmarks, add bookmarks and even tweet them. Of course you’ll still be able to check out the Browser Burners, as well as your buddies’ bookmarks. You’ll have full access to your Mister Wong anytime and anywhere!

WONG THE MOBILE WEB! :)

1. Get Organized!

When everyone in the family has a schedule of their own, it helps to have a site to organize your schedules, calendars, to-do lists, and activities, and even share with friends and family. Both cozi and famundo are great for doing all of that and more.

2. Don’t forget your homework!

Sometimes we can all use a little help figuring out a tricky question. But don’t stress out over that homework. Just get some help. Online homework help is a click away. Check out the Homework Center, Homework Helper, and Homework Spot .

3. Have some fun!

School is the best time of your life, so make learning fun. Check out Teacher Tube for some entertaining, yet educational, videos. And since school wouldn’t be cool without friends, join edmodo. It’s like facebook for school.

4. Something for the teachers!

Keeping your class, lesson plan, and calendar organized is a must. There are a few good sites to help you make it easier such as Lesson Writer, HomeworkNow, and SchoolNotes.

4. Stay informed!

Whether you’re a parent, student or educator, it helps to keep up to date on current educational issues. Perhaps the best site for this is Education on Change.org. And the US government also has a terrific site full of back to school links available on USA.gov. Definitely check those out.

5. Wong the Web!

Of course our favorite tip is Mister Wong. Save all of your favorite and helpful links, like the ones above, and be able to access them anytime online. And, be able to share them instantly with friends, even on twitter. Sign up now and wong the web!