Step 1. Buy a Short URL

If you haven’t used domain.nr before it is the perfect place to find snooty, geeky domains that guys with trendy glasses who spend too much time sipping espresso will LOVE.  Names like Flickr, del.icio.us and buzz.io

Step 2. Set an A Record or CNAME record to point your tiny url to bit.ly

doing this is a little bit different on each web host but usually very simple.  bit.ly will give you the CNAME and A records to use. If you are doing a subdomain like I did (i.buzz.io) you MUST use the CNAME.

One tip: lower your TTL value so when bit.ly checks for it it will see it quickly

Step 3. Add it to your bit.ly account

Log into bit.ly and go to account>settings and you should see something like this:

That’s it – you should be ready to go.  Now when you add a link to twitter you can be as cool as the New York Times or other bigshots. This is a great tool for branding or any type of viral marketing.

It isn’t true yet – but that is my dream headline.

A few weeks ago my wife surprised me by announcing that our fourth child was on the way.

Two things raced through my mind:

1. How are we going to pay for this?
2. Pretend to be super happy and not scared at all about #1 so you don’t ruin the moment.

I don’t know if you have ever done the math or not but the expense of a family grows exponentially after the third child.  You need a bigger house (5 bedrooms that is practically a mansion). You can’t all fit in a booth at a restaurant. On a flight you have to book the entire center row of a 747.  Plus you will need a bigger car.

We ended up getting an Acura MDX and let me just say right out loud (in case you missed it in the subtext) I am a cheapskate. This Acura is our first “modern” car with features like a navigation system, bluetooth phone, etc. As excited as I am to have these fancy high tech features I am also repulsed by them.  The interfaces are horrible the usability is terrible.  It takes longer to put an address in to the GPS than it does to drive around lost.

That is when I had a genius idea – Apples next big move should be to own all the screens in my life.  We already have Apple TV, Iphones, MacBook’s and Ipads.  What I really need is iCar.

Just imagine you could ask siri for directions instead of typing them in.  You could have your car read you emails.  Using the GPS and accelerometer you could have apps that tell you your speed, offer driving suggestions to conserve gas.  there are a billion possibilities. Most importantly it wouldn’t suck.

As it turns out a few people are already doing it.

Soundman Car Audio in California has a bunch of great shots.

ipad installed in Dashboard of ford f150

What apps would you want on your iCar?

Here are some conversations that have been collected from twitter where big brands are monitoring the conversation and responding in real time to customer service issues.

Five years ago if your company had world class customer service that meant you had some good information on your website and customers could call your toll free number 24/7

Today? you can no longer afford to wait for customers to bring their complaints to you.  If you are waiting to solve problems you are losing customers. You must be proactive about listening to the conversations and responding in real time. Twitter is an amazing tool for this. Here are some awesome examples from big brands.

Let me just qualify that and say I am throwing in the big brands thing to show that this behavior is now mainstream not that you need a big budget.  We have clients doing this way better than the big boys with micro brands and micro budgets.  check out zarbees on twitter.

Chances are your company or cause is much smaller than these. Can you really afford not to be part of the conversation?

Electronic Arts hired 20 people for the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles to stand outside the trade show and protest their new video game Dante’s Inferno.”

EA spokeswoman Holly Rockwood says the stunt was arranged by a viral marketing agency hired by EA. However, the “protest” was still covered by local newspapers and The LA Times.

The new game, Dante’s Inferno is loosely based on Dante Aligheri‘s poem “Divine Comedy,” The fake protesters were “upset” about the game because it glorified eternal damnation. The protesters passed out pamphlets and held up picket signs saying “Hell is not a Video Game” and “Trade in Your PlayStation for a PrayStation.”

Some critics have been saying this might not have been the best move for EA. Why would you build negative buzz about your own product?

We think it was a perfect thing for EA. As people were walking into the trade show, they already had interest in the game. Not only that, they received free publicity in local newspapers, which then made it’s way onto the internet. And now that the coverage is on the internet, their clelver stunt will reach much farther than a trade show in LA.

You could also applaud EA for creating fake negative buzz themselves so nobody else can. Now that it’s already been done, no one would take real protesters seriously. Way to dodge that bullet, EA!

Gillette has been building buzz the last month with how-to online
videos. The videos show men how to shave everywhere except their face,
also known as “manscaping.”

There has been tons buzz around the videos. By last Friday, Gillette’s Youtube site had more than 300,000 views in about a month.

The videos are very clever and humorous, which is different from the
approach they usually take in their advertising and marketing. Each
light-hearted video shows a cartoon demonstrating how to manscape
different areas of the body.

Before the videos were posted, Gillette tested them on both men and
women with little negative feedback. Through their research, Gillette
also found that one-third of men shave hair from their body other than
their faces.

“Our goal was to engage guys in a dialogue on the whys and how-to’s, and to do it comfortably and reassure them in a funny and entertaining way,” said Tim Williams a Gillette marketing official.

I think Gillette did a really great job with these videos. Not only are
they funny and perfect to reach 20-something men, but there is actually
research to back their approach.

Although we can’t leave without saying that they are ripping off the Phillips Norelco Shave Everywhere site from a few years ago.