July 2007 Archives - 3/7 - Christopher S. Penn : Awaken Your Superhero | Christopher S. Penn : Awaken Your Superhero

Home » Posts made in July, 2007

Happy Birthday, Julien Smith

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Jul 19, 2007 in Podcasting | 8 comments

To the man who coined the phrase: “Your podcast is not a f***ing toaster!”

Block Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Spoilers on Twitter with Pipes

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Jul 18, 2007 in New media | 2 comments

A few friends have expressed concern that some spoilers from Harry Potter 7 would find their way to Twitter. After all, the book is already available (illegally) for download online, and lots of spoilers are floating around everywhere. For fans who want to remain unspoiled, a media blackout may seem like the only option, even on “friend” networks like Twitter. Happily, you don’t have to go dark on Twitter entirely – just use Yahoo Pipes to filter out spoilers.

If you want to remain unspoiled, switch to reading Twitter only on Google Reader, but filter it through Yahoo Pipes first with these settings:

This will eliminate most of the keywords that would be used in a spoiler. Obviously, tweak and add your own.

Copy your Twitter RSS feed URL (it’s at the bottom of your twitter list)
Paste into Yahoo Pipes Feed Source.
Add a filter.
Block any items containing the terms you specify. I recommend a list of characters like Voldemort, Hermione, Severus Snape, Harry Potter, etc. as well as terms like spoiler, spoilers, preview, plot summary, etc.
Copy the exported RSS feed to your Google Reader.
Use an applet like TwitterPost or Twitter from the command line to send Tweets without having to read the Twitterstream.

Good luck, and good reading!

Starry Night in Second Life

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Jul 18, 2007 in Second Life | 0 comments

Hat tip to Mitch Joel and CC Chapman for this wonder.

Ninja School of Marketing Graduate Michelle Wolverton

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Jul 18, 2007 in Blogging | 17 comments

So for the past few months, I’ve been teaching some of the basics of what I do in digital marketing to an “intern” of sorts, Michelle Wolverton, ever since we met up at a Matthew Ebel concert in Second Life. Virtual Hot Wings, our first major project, was sort of like the semester project, and her thesis was a contest called Famecast, for independent musician Natalie Gelman. Chel, as she likes to be called, decided just after VHW to take up a new media career in independent music promotion, and Natalie’s talents fit the bill for new media promotion.

Enter the Famecast contest. With an arduous voting process and an interface that, to put it mildly, blows chunks, it’s amazing anyone uses that thing. The prize, however, for artists is a trip to Austin, TX (expenses paid) to win a shot at $10,000. Chel took it upon herself to help Natalie’s placement in the contest, and thanks to a lot of elbow grease and some guerrilla marketing tactics (legitimate ones, no scripts or anything underhanded, and certainly nothing to disqualify the artist she was representing), Natalie Gelman is headed to Austin, TX as a finalist in the Famecast contest.

I consider that to be a diploma of sorts. No worthless piece of paper to frame and hang on the wall – Chel’s graduation from ninja marketing school is pure result, which is all we care about.

Happy graduation!

Facebook Tip: Multiple Group Admins

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Jul 16, 2007 in Jedi mind tricks | 5 comments

A tip for those marketing on Facebook who are in danger of being flagged as “spammers”. Be SURE your groups that you have on there have more than just the group founder as an admin. There may come a day when your personal account on Facebook is suspended or disabled entirely, and Customer Service gives you a giant “NO” when you ask to have it re-enabled. If you are the only admin in your Facebook group, that group is deader than disco because there will be no one to manage it. Always have at least two admins, preferably more, so that if that day comes and you have to sign up with a new personal account, your co-admins can “re-admin” your new account.

How to: