By Nicole Fletcher

I thought it might be nice to provide you all with a brief wind down of all things web on a weekly (please appreciate the alliteration) basis. This may include random questions, thoughts, goings on etc in our wild and web-centric world presented to you in a concise, clear and with any luck witty package. Suggestions and questions are always welcome to be sure to post those puppies on our Facebook page. Without further delay, here’s what I found web-worthy this week.

1. Reports say GoDaddy is entertaining the thought of a $2.5 billion sale to private investors perhaps as early as next week.

2. Two strange innovations crossed my screen this week and they’re certainly share-worthy. Laptops powered by Typing could be the next “it” thing & while we never thought it was possible, Smell-O-Vision exists! Not only does this new olfactory technology exist, but it also might be as easy to get as a cable box and as easy to replenish as a printer cartridge!

3. This article by Mashable is definitely worth reading. It discusses the overlap between paid, earned and owned media and the direction marketing is and will continue to grow in the future.

4. From print to web back to print? These companies are taking your relationships, friends, conversations and of course pics from the book of faces and drop kicking them back to yesteryear as social coffee table books. What do you think about this seemingly anti-tech-evolution but strangely practical display of modern media?

5.  I found this photo and the social web seemed to love it- so here it is again.

6. Finally, a new way to promote blog posts. What do you think about driving traffic to our blog via QR codes? Do you use them?When will they (or something like them) be mainstream…? Ever?

by Les Kollegian

For the past five years I have attended SXSW for an amazing week focused on a combination of film, music, and interactive media. One of my favorite theaters in Austin (and frankly anywhere in the country) is the Alamo Drafthouse. Why? Well… first of all, it’s a small and very quaint theatre. Secondly, they have great stadium style seating complete with bar counters and full restaurant style service during a film for both food and an amazing selection of craft beers. Finally, the theater wants to make the viewing experience for each customer pleasurable, and as such, they request that people not speak, text, tweet, or check email during a film. Usually, this is done by showing a funny short video prior to the main film and they make it quite clear that they will “throw you out” if you break the rules.

Anyway, my friend Nick sends me this YouTube video yesterday – one that ridiculous enough to be turned into a PSA that they now show PRIOR to enjoying a movie. What is it? Well…a woman who was thrown out of the theater left a “complaint” voicemail to share her protest after being booted. I have to say… I am beyond impressed with the brilliance of this video and the forethought that went into saving this voicemail to create not only a PSA, but a video that launched and went viral on YouTube. The short ended up being a huge press generator for the theater so touche to them. By the way, when I say “viral“, let me give you an idea of what I mean. Yesterday (6/6/11) when I viewed the video, it had just over 434,000 views. I got busy and wasn’t able to blog about it until now (6/7/11) and during this 24 hour period, the video now has over 953,000 views. That’s over 500,000 views in a very short amount of time. HUGE!

Anyway, I am going to contribute to the viral exposure by showing you the video below. It’s DEFINITELY worth watching so please enjoy. As well, please don’t text while viewing this video…I don’t want to have shut down your computer. Reminder… you will need sound to truly enjoy this and it IS uncensored, so turn down your speakers in the office.

by Cheryl Tieken

So I read this interesting article today by Peter Shankman, founder of Help A Reporter Out. In it, he pretty much bashes social media experts, saying that “if you have a social media expert on your payroll, you’re wasting your money.” And while I didn’t quite agree with the tone of his message, he did hit some valuable points.

As it seems that hiring a social media expert is a now subject of much debate, let’s go over Shankman’s points – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Shankman starts out by saying that “being an expert in social media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. You might be the best bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.”

It’s a cute analogy and I get it. Yes, there are a ton of people out there who assume that just because they use Facebook and Twitter all the time they can now call themselves experts. And maybe this is who Shankman is referring to. He goes on to say that “we’re making the same mistakes that we made during the DotCom era, where everyone thought that just adding the term .com to your corporate logo made you instantly credible.” Yes, social media is trendy and when something is trendy, everyone wants to get on board. And there will always be people and companies that try to make a pretty penny on the next great trend by selling it themselves. Unfortunately, many of these people care more about making money and less about providing a good service for their customer. And as a customer, it may be easy to fall into their hypnotizing clutches. However, not all social media marketing companies are full of it.

Shankman goes on to say that social media is just a new trick in the hat of marketing. And, I couldn’t agree more. Social media is just another avenue to spread your marketing efforts. It just happens to be an avenue that allows messages to be spread at rates no other avenues can ever compete with. His point here is completely true – Social media marketing is “about generating revenue through solid marketing and stellar customer service, just like it’s been since the beginning of time.” If your target market is active on Facebook and Twitter, why wouldn’t you use this to your advantage?

He says next that social media marketing is “about transparency. It’s not about lying to your customers…” I couldn’t agree more. Set up a Facebook page merely to sell to your customers and you’ll lose them. Trust me – IT WON’T WORK. And social media experts who are worth your time and money know this and will tell you this. Be genuine. Show your target audience that you care about them and they will care about you.

Shankman’s next important point is about relevance. Anyone with marketing savvy knows that you have to understand your target audience – who they are, where they are, and what they want to talk about. If your target audience isn’t into social media, you are not going to see the same results as a business whose target audience is constantly tweeting away.

Unfortunately, Shankman jumps to the conclusion that all social media experts just try to push the sale of a Facebook and Twitter page, without ever trying to strategize the best methods for online and social media marketing. A good social media marketer will understand that they must invest time into researching a target audience and planning an effective strategy.

So that’s it in a nutshell. His argument that social media experts have simply jumped on the newest trend and will soon be deemed a waste of time and money is in my opinion, very narrow-minded. If you hire a talented and savvy social media marketer, you will never feel that way. Social media is here to stay. Marketing will always and has always been here. There are people out there who understand both concepts better than others. Social media marketing is too powerful a tool to ignore.

So don’t bash social media marketers. Find one who is a multi-faceted and savvy businessperson that understands the power of social media. Trust me, it will definitely be worth your time and money.

by Cheryl Tieken

Around the office, we are all on chat – all the time. We need to be so we can communicate with each other quickly and easily. Yes, I know what you’re thinking… Geez, those lazy people over at JT, why can’t they just get up and walk over to someone if they want to talk? Trust me, having that quick way to communicate and share files is essential.

Well, when I first started here at JT, I was practically shunned for not having AIM or Adium set up. My rinky-dink Gmail Chat just wasn’t suffice to the rest of the team because all of them were using the other two. So, I bit the bullet and created an AIM account.

Turns out, if I had just waited a few months, I wouldn’t have had to. Gmail chat and AIM are now linkable. Ok, ok, not big news to the rest of the world, but this seemingly tiny event has made me think more about the changing world of online interaction.

I mean seriously, it’s amazing how connected people are nowadays. Take Facebook. When I joined, I was in the first wave of the new social media platform. It came to the University of Washington shortly after it’s creation – back during a time when it was exclusive to four-year university students. At the time, the whole thing just seemed so weird to me. If I wanted to talk to someone, I’d just call them. Why the heck did I need to “write on someone’s wall?” But here we are, six years later and the whole entire world is on Facebook. Revolutions are happening over it, babies are being named after it, nearly every country has access to it.

I recently met some people from England and Facebook has made it so easy to stay connected, even though we live thousands of miles apart. Think about it. You can chat, post on someone’s wall, look through all of someone’s photos – literally acting as if you were actually there in front of the person. Social media has made the possibility of being multiple places at once, virtually possible. When you throw in mobile and its ability to constantly be online, it’s almost exhausting how connected we are – all the time.

So what do you think of all this connectivity? Is it empowering? Do you enjoy the ability to constantly be connected to people? Or do you find yourself turned off? Seriously people, tell us what you think!