Content Strategy for the Masses

Some work-related… and not work-related fun:

The phrase we hear more than anything when it comes to the web is “how do we monetize this?” Well, if you’re starting up some social media on your site, or you’re about to, Mashable offers up some interesting tips and a suggestion to read a blog by KD Paine.

If ROI measurement isn’t your thing, maybe you’ve always wanted to know what your name would be if it were a piece of IKEA furniture. How’s that for a natural jump in logic! For Your Reading Pleasure translates into FJÅRD YOUR REDDING PLESJUR. Foryourreadingpleasure is:  SFORIÅYRREDDYNNGPLESJUR.

Speaking of funny names, my pal once typed in her name, Jayne, and it spell checked “Do you mean Kanye?” Read her stuff for some really funny observations on life. And any comments to her should be address as Kanye, for kicks.

No. Seriously. She will probably try to kick me if you do that.

And yes… she did push For Your Reading Pleasure on her site too, but that’s what teh interwebs (sic) is all about!

This news is everywhere to those who love wordgames, Facebook and copyright infringement. Yes, I’m sure someone loves copyright infringement. Scrabulous, the incredibly popular Facebook game that played an awful lot like an online game of Scrabble, if off Facebook for North American users. Speculation runs rampant that it’s down because Hasbro (its IP owner since the ’80s) just debuted its own Scrabulous inspired Facebook Scrabble game, thanks to a partnership with EA Games.

Why is this news? The new marketplace is about “if you don’t build it, your fanbase will.” Scrabulous was huge on Facebook (approximately 2.3 million users) because it played well (once the bugs were sorted out). It’s success was built purely from word of mouth (or in this case, word of the Facebook wall). Seeing this potential of losing possible revenue, Scrabble’s IP owner Hasbro decided to sue in a New York court. This lawsuit started back in January 2008, but only now the hammer has been dropped because EA’s version is online and available to North American users.

This has given Hasbro a whole lot of bad press. So much bad press that someone hacked the Hasbro Scrabble game. 

I used to play Scrabulous, so much so that I almost considered buying the Scrabble board game. I’m sure many other users gave money to Hasbro via Scrabulous. This will be interesting…

It’s time for some links to help pass the day as you wait for the weekend to begin. Remember: when you’re reviewing this stuff, you’re still working because it’s all in the name of research.

Create a monster with Spore. This is the precursor to an EA game that’s expected to arrive shortly. The “create a spore” has been out for a while, but geez it’s fun and impressive. My monster’s name is Not-Lianimal and I’ve watched her dance, ask scared and even bite (bad monster).

Have a Flickr account? Now you can see your images full-screen without losing any resolution thanks to new site: BlowUp

And now there’s a Twitter for those who don’t write well. 12 Second TV records, well, 12 second videos. This might be a good way to practice your pitches. If you can’t encompass your idea in 12 seconds, you’re out! As the site says: “Why 12seconds?  Because anything longer is boring.” 

The service is still in private alpha, so you’ll need an invite to join for now. The creators have listed ways to get in on the alpha test.

A recent study from Netpop research shows 36% of all entertainment is now consumed on the computer. The medium is no longer the message.

Want to up that number? Here are some fun entertaining links for Friday:

- Make Magazine not only has cool, albeit adventurous crafts to do at home, its blog recently posted a story about a table that helps show which person is dominating a conversation. Imagine you had that table in your next meeting – which person’s area would light up the most?

- Who would have thought games based on physics would be all the rage with kids and adults? Even with me! Check out this silly game, Jimmy Lost his Toilet Paper. I’m not very good at this game, but it’s a good challenge.

At the end of each week, I’ll show you some fun links that illustrate creativity on the web

Want to search for something in Google but you’re tired of using the English language? Man, I hear ya! Then why not try your Google search in the language of the Muppets’ Swedish Chef. Bork bork bork!

Don’t care for the Swedish Chef? There’s also Elmer Fudd if you’re feewing wucky.

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If you want to write music but don’t know how, you can now sing into a microphone and My Song will create accompanying chords to make a song. I like the cheesy video that explains how to make it work for you.