Steve Jobs 1955-2011

Steve Jobs is one of the most legendary names in computing history.

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computer, Inc. in 1976 with Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne and Mike Markkula in Cupertino, California. Jobs led Apple to be one of the world’s leading high tech companies with immensely popular products such as Macintosh computers, Powerbook laptops, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad.

In 1986 Jobs bought the digital graphics department of George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Limited and converted it into Pixar Animation Studios. Under Jobs’ management Pixar has produced several successful animated feature films such as Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Up. Every Pixar film is among the fifty highest grossing animated films of all time.

Steve Jobs is a holder of over 300 US patents or patent applications as the primary inventor or co-inventor.

Steven Paul Jobs was born February 24, 1955 in San Francisco and died
October 5, 2011 in Palo Alto at the age of 56.

The Famous Apple 1984 Commercial That Made Advertising History

Here is the legendary TV-commercial that introduced Apple Macintosh computers to the world in1984.  It was broadcasted only once on US daytime television on January 22nd during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII.

Super Bowl audience and TV viewers all over the world had never seen an ad like the 1984. The Apple commercial benefited from the free publicity worth millions of dollars as most the US news programs re-broadcasted it that night. This must have been the world’s first viral commercial in that respect!

The 1984 commercial has since been regarded as a master piece in advertising history. Advertising Age magazine named it the ‘Commercial of the Decade‘ and it is still considered as one of the most influential commercials of all time.  The production budget, as well as the cost for the advertising time slot in Super Bowl were both around the million dollar mark which was unheard of at that time.

The 1984 commercial was directed by Ridley Scott who had just finished filming Blade Runner; and it was inspired by George Orwell’s book titled 1984. The George Orwell estate as the rights holder for the novel considered Apple’s TV commercial as copyright infringement and sent an ultimatum to Apple in April. The legendary 1984 Apple commercial was never televised as a commercial after that.

Steve Jobs was truly a visionary and you can tell that by just looking at this 1984 TV commercial; it is still as fresh as ever after 27 years!

The digital world will never be the same without Steve Jobs.

R.I.P.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

My fondest Apple memory is when I started my computing career (struggle) with the legendary Powerbook 100. I got it as a test drive for a weekend from the shop. When I picked it up I asked for the manual to which the shopkeeper replied: ”You don’t need one.” WOW! This was something new, I thought. No manual? How does that work out?

As it turned out it worked great! The Powerbook was so intuitive and easy to use that during that weekend I designed my first business card and asked the shop guy to print it out.  I still have the card.

Eventually I didn’t end up buying the Powerbook 100, but a bit later I got the awesome 165c which had a colour screen and everything! All my friends were amazed at the thing. Now, that was a mean machine!

What is your best Apple memory? 

Here are the Top 20 of the Most Popular Facebook Pages today

1. Texas Hold’em Poker 37,905,921 Facebook Fans (or Likes)

2. Facebook 35,088,205

3. Eminem 29,765,888

4. Michael Jackson 29,584,587

5. Lady Gaga 29,477,995

6. YouTube 28,095,974

7. Family Guy 26,439,603

8. Rihanna 26,227,599

9. Harry Potter 26,106,112

10. Linkin Park 23,913,476

11. South Park 23,033,264

12. Coca-Cola 22,905,242

13. Shakira 22,817,342

14. Justin Bieber 22,593,529

15. The Simpsons 21,503,988

16. Megan Fox 21,185,932

17. Bob Marley 21,019,965

18. Cristiano Ronaldo 20,990,949

19. Vin Diesel 20,972,498

20. Lil Wayne 20,827,596

Bubbling under at no. 21: Katy Perry 20,006,776

How famous is Lady Gaga really? We’ll, she has recently become the most popular living musician/artist on Facebook. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta better knows as an american recording artist, Lady Gaga has gathered over 17 million fans on the most popular social network. She has reached the stardom with her hugely popular hits Alejandro and Pokerface.

Talking about poker, the most popular Facebook Page is …you guessed it; poker. Texas Hold’em has managed to get a whopping 23 million fans and it is one of the most popular online games ever. Other famous Facebook personalities include Barack Obama, Vin Diesel and Hugh Laurie as the excentric Dr. House.

Here are the top 10 most popular Facebook Pages today:

1. Texas Hold’em Poker 23,521,992 Fans/Likes
2. Michael Jackson 19,427,673
3. Facebook 17,836,114
4. Lady Gaga 17,155,599
5. Family Guy 16,598,881
6. Vin Diesel 14,918,771
7. Mafia Wars 13,756,185
8. House 13,202,945
9. Starbucks 13,206,824
10. Barack Obama 13,080,589

MasterChef Australia is an Australian competitive cooking reality show based on the original UK version of MasterChef. It is produced by Fremantle Media Australia and hosted by food critic, UK born Matt Preston, Top 40 chef George Calombaris and restaurateur and chef Gary Mehigan who is the owner of the famous Fenix and Maribyrnong Boathouse restaurants.

This popular reality tv-show uses Social Media Components in its marketing quite effectively. Masterchef has its own Facebook Page as well as Twitter account. The show has close to 95.000 fans [1] on Facebook and over 6.000 followers on Twitter [2]. They post 3.8 tweets/day approximately and have followers from all over the world. Their website (masterchef.com.au) is also built to function like a social media website or portal with social engagement features such as polls, competitions, recipes (duh..) and games. Logie Award winning judge Matt Preston has his own Facebook Page as well with over 6.000 fans [3].

MasterChef is on channel TEN 7.30 Sunday-Friday.

See related post How To Get 460.000 Facebook Fans in 12 Months?

[1] Currently 594.690 Facebook Fans (8.8.2011)
[2] Currently 33.750 Twitter Followers (8.8.2011)
[3] Currently 19.560 Facebook Fans (8.8.2011)

The mega succesful rock band KISS had a live concert last night on Facebook. This seems to become a trend with big bands since just about three weeks ago Foo Fighters had their own Facebook appearance. See post. The KISS concert was arranged through Celebs On Facebook who have over 2 million fans.

As well as being one of the most famous bands on earth, KISS is also a massive marketing organization run by Gene Simmons, aged 60 selling ‘official’ clothing, jewellery, calendars, lithographs, glassware and even limited edition KISS wine. Oh, yes …and close to 100 million albums as well. It is rumoured that KISS is the only band in the world who make more money from their merchandising than from their music.

The Facebook concert was aired from the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, California and it was delivered by Ustream. Funnily enough the event was not advertised on the official KISS Faceboook page.  KISS has over 300.000 fans on Facebook and their current lineup includes Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer. The band was founded 1972 by Simmons and Stanley. Their biggest hits include Crazy Crazy Nights, Strutter and I Was Made For Loving You. You can check out the concert event here.

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Facebook presented a live concert from Foo Fighters last weekend. The live performance was streamed from their Studio 606 in California. Dave Grohl‘s Foo Fighters is hugely popular on Facebook with over 800.000 fans. The concert event was to promote their latest album Greatest Hits which will be released today November 3rd. According to Foo Fighters Facebook Events Page the concert attracted 16.316 confirmed guests. This event is just one example of the power of Facebook as one of the most important advertising channels of modern day marketing.

If you missed the concert, click here to see it on Livestream’s website.

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Earlier this month, Starbucks surpassed Coca Cola becoming the most popular brand on Facebook, with close to 3.8 million fans. Coca Cola has a tad over 3.6 million fans at the moment. (Hilary Duff here isn’t doing bad either with over 570.000 fans on her official Facebook page.)

This is a direct result of Starbucks’ aggressive internet and social media strategy according to Starbucks digital strategy director, Alexandra Wheeler. Starbucks is now actively incorporating and utilising the most popular social media channels, such as Twitter and Facebook in its online marketing.

Starbuck’s Free Pastry campaign, where you received a free pastry with a beverage purchase was a huge success. Nearly 600,000 people reacted to that campaign on Facebook. Another hugely successful campaign was their Product (Red) campaign with almost a million people responding “yes” or “maybe” to the promotion last holiday season. Product (Red) contributed 5 cents for every Starbucks beverage purchased to the AIDS-fighting project. These results show the power of the Starbucks as a brand and how well it has been able to connect with their clients through these social media networks.

According to Wheeler one of the key priorities we have to think about when it comes to social media marketing is that we have to connect in ways that are relevant to those environments as well as to our consumers. One of the most powerful ways is by sharing content and participating in discussion.

Starbucks has also a big fan base on Twitter. They have over 270.000 followers and are following 85.000 of them back. Almost all of Starbucks’ posts are @ replies which means that they actually are communicating with their fans. Most of the communication on their Facebook page, however is done by the fans on the wall posts. If you enjoyed this post, then make sure you subscribe to my RSS Feed or ReTweet.

250 million people seem to love Facebook. Here’s a different, humorous view by Julian Smith and his friends…

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Michael Jackson died last Thursday in his home in Los Angeles 25th June 2009. The 50-year-old musical genius was preparing for what would have been a series of 50 mega concerts starting July 13 in London. He was the most talented and the most kind musician that ever lived. We will miss him dearly. Michael Jackson will live forever in his music.
…and apparently on Facebook as well. There are 495 personal Michael Jackson accounts on Facebook. Most of them are named Michael Jackson or Mike Jackson. None of these are the most famous Michael Jackson though. The King of Pop is represented by over 540 Fan Pages and 548 Groups containing millions of people. There are also 323 Michael Jackson applications and over 500 Michael Jackson-events. The five biggest Michael Jackson Fan Pages have over 7.5 million fans and the six biggest Michael Jackson Groups have about 400,000 members. Judging by these figures there is no doubt that Michael Jackson will become immortal and take his place alongside Elvis and Marilyn Monroe who have over 600 Fan Pages and over 1000 Groups (combined) on Facebook. Long live the King and the King of Pop!

Facebook personal (or vanity) URL’s are coming soon! Facebook vanity URL is a more personal Facebook web address than the current one they offer. At the moment some priviledged (read=famous) Facebook users are already enjoying their own vanity url’s. Some good examples are the president of the United States, Microsoft, the musician Sting and the most famous TV-cartoon Simpsons.

Here is a top 10 list of famous Facebook users with their own names (not in any particular ranking order):

1. http://www.facebook.com/u2
2. http://www.facebook.com/barackobama
3. http://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfreyshow
4. http://www.facebook.com/Microsoft
5. http://www.facebook.com/sting
6. http://www.facebook.com/markzuckerberg (duh…)
7. http://www.facebook.com/coldplay
8. http://www.facebook.com/eBay
9. http://www.facebook.com/redcross
10. http://www.facebook.com/TheSimpsons

Luckily for the rest of us Facebook will soon be allowing all users to claim their personal, or vanity URL pointing to their profile page. For instance at the moment www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=697888240 is me, but next week it could be something like www.facebook.com/KrisOlin, which would be much easier to remember and use. No to mention the advantages for SEO purposes for famous people and companies. Google, buy the way, does not have their own Facebook URL. Hmmm? Facebook has recently asked their users if they would pay for a vanity URL. The results are not yet published, so at the moment we don’t know if  they plan on charging for them or not. In all likelihood personal names will be free, but busines names might incur a cost; possibly much the same way as paying for your domain name, for which you pay a yearly fee to the registry. This is the official, most recent comment from Facebook about the matter:

“Unfortunately we are not currently able to approve requests for vanity URLs. The only Pages that presently have vanity URLs are bands and businesses that partnered with us for the initial launch of this new product. We hope to make these URLs available for everyone to have on their individual Page(s) in the future.”

Well, the future seems to be now, since they have plans to make an official announcement no later than next week. The rules will prohibit trademark infringement and a lots of words will be blacklisted, such as generic terms and phrases. But for the most part, users should be able to grab a name that they want.

Vanity URL’s have proven to be a very powerful tool on other social networking sites such as MySpace and Twitter. It’s not just that users like them but it makes telling people your online profile name easier as well. People have also long used MySpace URL’s as their main online identity, even instead of a website. Twitter, more recently, has started to become the online identity provider of choice. It’s no wonder Facebook wants to enter this game now.

When the personal  URL’s  are available, you can with get more instructions from the horse’s mouth: http://www.facebook.com/help.php

Kris Olin
Web Designer | Internet Promotion Strategist
Msc (marketing)
http://twitter.com/KrisOlin (in the meantime)