The Pepsi Refresh site is similar in functionality to other crowdsourced idea generating efforts such as Dell’s IdeaStorm (which is run on top of Salesforce.com) and the type of sites created by UserVoice, although it is not clear who created the site on behalf of Pepsi. I have contacted Pepsi to find out and will update if I hear back from them.

Regardless, this is not a good way to launch a massive social marketing campaign aimed at fostering warm-and-fuzzy feelings towards Pepsi. Hopefully, it can fix things quickly and recover because it’s actually a pretty good idea if Pepsi can get past the technical and privacy snafus.

Twitter enlisted Citysearch as the first user of its Sign-Up API, which helps new users create Twitter accounts from other people’s web sites. Citysearch gets a sprinkle of social media goodness from the arrangement, fostering real-time interaction between consumers and companies, while Twitter — which has a notoriously inscrutable new user experience — gets someone else to handle customer acquisition of smaller brands as it prepares to offer corporate accounts. Citysearch says it has direct relationships with some 200,000 local merchants, and it wants to build a multi-service social media directory for small businesses.

Eric Schmidt, the Google CEO, signed up to Twitter this morning – leading to speculation over a tie-up between the two tech firms. TechCrunch reported Schmidt’s account after some Googlers welcomed him on Twitter.

With a press conference at Google HQ due for later today, Schmidt’s entry into the Twitter fray has raised the prospect of the search engine giant and the micro-blogging site joining forces.

His first tweets – as @eschmidt0 – are not about what he is doing right now, but what he is thinking of, and that is his own performance.

So his first Twitter step was a bit of self-promotion, a link to his Wall Street piece “How Google Can Help Newspapers” and an attempted link to CNN’s GPS with Fareed Zakaria – but unfortunately CNN has removed the link (in case you are interested, you find the show here).

If this is his real account let’s hope that we get a more direct glimpse of what Schmidt is about in the near future as his activity on Twitter would definitely interesting to watch.

However, the move is a bit of a surprise, because in spring, his opinion about the micro-messaging system wasn’t so good: “Speaking as a computer scientist, I view all of these as sort of a poor man’s email systems”, he said.

@eschmidt0 already has more than 2,000 followers and is following 73 Twitter accounts – a mixture of showbiz, politics and news organisations. Of course eschmidt0 is following the Google account, too, and Marissa Mayer – the company’s vice-president of search product – who hasn’t sent a single tweet.

Source

Mr. Butterfield worked at Yahoo for a few years in California, but he tired of the big-company scene and quit in the summer of 2008. He attended a meditation retreat and did some day trading – including a bad bet on shares of Lehman Bros. before the startup itch set in again.

Now he’s back in Vancouver, and his new company, Tiny Speck Inc., has big plans to tap the online interactive wave he helped create.

Can Mr. Butterfield hit another grand slam? What’s different this time around is the audience for social networking online is far more vast than college kids and computer geeks. And Tiny Speck has some serious Silicon Valley backing that will help his company avoid running out of cash before the job is done.

“The Internet’s moving towards fulfilling the promise everyone who was online early saw in it,” Mr. Butterfield, 36, said in an interview. “It always seemed everyone would eventually be on it and we’re getting to that point. The idea of going on the computer at night to socialize doesn’t seem deviant or creepy any more – it’s what normal people do.”

That includes people like Mr. Butterfield’s mother, who recently signed up on Facebook, joining more than 300 million active users and adding to the site’s fastest-growing demographic – people older than 35. Ms. Butterfield promptly added her son as a friend.

Google has posted a red AIDS ribbon below the search bar on its homepage that directs users to a list of resources where people can “learn”, “act”, and “give” to help and raise awareness for people living with HIV/AIDS. (See screenshot below)

So I am sure many people would be willing to know how to Tweet to multiple accounts, here are my 4 favorite twitter apps:

1. Hootsuite
2. Tweet3
3. Seesmic Desktop
4. Digsby (Windows only)

Source: Search Engine Journal by ANN SMARTY

The news of the day in social media land: Twitter is apparently going to start experimenting with paid premium accounts through its Japanese subsidiary, which has always been a bit separated from the rest of Twitter and in many ways a playground for the company (Groups, Twicco, Twitvideo.jp).

Details are sketchy at this point, but Japanese media are reporting that Twitter is going to introduce a tiered payment model and aims to charge people to view tweets from certain premium Twitter accounts.

Source: Techcrunch.com

By turning Facebook’s tagging system into a contest, Ikea achieved one of those elusive social media goals — they got their campaign to go viral. For the cost of a few items, the company raised awareness, engaged with consumers and helped publicize the launch of a new store.

To advertise the launch of Ikea’s new store in Malmo Sweden, Ikea’s ad team, Forsman & Bodenfors, “kidnapped the most popular function” of Facebook. They created a profile for the store’s manager, Gordon Gustavsson, and over a two week period the team uploaded 12 pictures of store showrooms to his profile page.

Swedish Facebook members were encouraged to add Gordon as a friend and tag themselves to products in the showroom. The first person to tag an item then won that Ikea product.

Facebook users that tagged themselves then shared the action with their friends via their news feed. But also, people excited about the contest publicized it themselves. The pictures spread to thousands of profile pages, newsfeeds and links.

Beyond the creative, it only cost Ikea a few free items. And by using Facebook’s existing functionality, Ikea and its marketing team were able to achieve that elusive social media goal — consumer engagement and promotion without the cost of an expensive TV, print or digital campaign.

Aaron Patzer launched Mint.com as a user-friendly alternative to Quicken and other personal-finance software out there. Little did he know that just two years later, Intuit, which makes Quicken, would fork over $170 million for his website. Patzer, an Inc.com 30 Under 30 alum, is also featured in the new book, Upstarts! How GenY Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the World of Business (www.upstartsrock.com), by Inc. contributing editor Donna Fenn. She recently caught up with Patzer to discuss the big sale, what his new role with the company will be, and how he’s planning to change the future of transportation.

LinkedIn, with 53 million members around the world, is seen as a strong IPO candidate, especially as the market starts to pick up. A recent Reuters poll found it one of the Silicon Valley companies most eligible to go public.

The network – which allows members to manage their professional profiles online, helping them find key business contacts or new jobs — raised $76 million in its last funding round in 2008, then valuing the company at $1 billion.

LinkedIn co-founder sees IPO likely, but not soon...