Mama Mia, That’s a Spicy Pappa John’s Widget

As a New Yorker, I feel entitled to be a pizza snob.  After all, outside of Naples, NYC lays claim to being home to the best pizza.   Now, I’m not going to argue with you as to which is the best, Brooklyn’s Di Farra’s, Harlem’s Patsy’s (Frank Sinatra’s Favorite, just don’t tell the Patsy’s in mid-town, who’s in litigation over which restaurant can lay claim to that), downtown’s John’s Pizza, or the Bronx’s Baby Moon.  In my opinion, all can go head-to-head against the town favorite in any town USA and win hands down.

Now, you may be thinking what does pizza have to do with social media marketing, which is, after all the focus of this blog.  Or, did I go to the Slice section of the Serious Eats blog instead?

Well, the good people at Pappa John’s has combined two of my favorite things, pizza delivery and widgets, to bring America’s most consumed take-out food to a social networking profile near you.  It offers a store locator and links you thru to the site where you can order.  Special discounts provide an additional incentive.  A good first-step in widgetizing commerce.  This is the first pizza delivery widget I’ve seen.  It’s not the most visually-appealing widget, but it does its job.  Take that Domino’s.

Pogo + Facebook = Cafe.com

After two years of development, the people behind leading casual games distributor Boonty have just launched Cafe.com.  With an impressive array of casual games,  from single player up to six people., the games stand out from the myriad of free online gaming sites.

But what’s truly impressive is Cafe’s Web 2.0 social networking features and micro-transaction-based business model.  Think Pogo on steroids. This represents the future of social gaming.

Author’s note,  I’ve previously served as CMO for Boonty, Inc., and am presently involved with the launch of Cafe.com.

The Art of Making a Mix Tape – Retro or Relevant?

You could say I’m old school. I’ll shun Halo for a game of Air Hockey, Frogger or Space Invaders anytime. I prefer drinking Stoli to any of the new-fangled vodkas – give me the taste of mother Russia over triple purified distillation any day. And, I still enjoy listening to my mixed cassette tapes, some of which date back to the 70’s.

Now, for those of you who don’t know what a mixed tape looks or sounds like, you are definitely too young to understand the connection it conjures up. From the sketchy hand-written labels to the cracked case, my brain’s memory goes into overdrive as faces, places and emotions are instantly retrieved from some long-ago, distant time. Nothing brings the past alive more than hearing a song from my youth.

And, just when you thought mixed tapes were a thing of the past, comes MixWit. A melding of my analog past and digital present, MixWit brings all the excitement of making a tape for that special somebody to a shareable widget format. And, with plenty of cassette casing, hardware and label customization to choose from, MixWit is much more fun that my old double Aiwa cassette deck ever was.

The free service allows you to choose between Seeqpod and Skreemr to search and add songs, or upload from your hard drive. You can then customize the cassette and cover art. Here are some examples:

You get the idea. The playback controls are simple and straight forward. The case displays the title of each song as it’s played. This is a great concept in widgets and executed brilliantly. Everyone I’ve sent a tape mix to has signed-up and made their own mixes.

So, if you thought the cassette tape had seen its last days, think again. Everything old is new again, and MixWit makes retro relevant.

Nexus – Understanding The Ties That Bind Us

What if you could map your friends and family inter-relationships and gain insights into the commonalities that exist within the overlapping networks? If you’re on Facebook, you can with a nifty application called Nexus.

Nexus creates an interactive image displaying the friendship links and shared interests of your friends. Roll your mouse over the dots that represent your friends and get a side bar view of their profile, complete with Facebook picture and common friends and interests.

Here’s a picture of my Nexus map:

When we look at our relationships in relation to one another, some interesting patterns emerge. As circles overlap and friendships intersect with interests, I’m reminded by something my father use to say, “the company you keep says as much about yourself as it does about your friends.”

Nexus allows you to map your corner of the world and make sense out of who you are.