The 2012 Summer Olympics will be a bit different than in past years. Since the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the number of people that have access to the internet has increased by over 50%, from 1.5 to 2.3 billion according to the International Telecommunication Union. That’s a third of the global population.

Fittingly, the 2012 games in London have been dubbed the World’s First “Social Games.” Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube will be some of the biggest players in this social media trend, but also be on the lookout for content flooding Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, and Foursquare. With all the hype of the digitally focused games, here are we listed 7 places you can use to keep up with the chatter.

1. The Olympic Athlete’s Hub
This site will let you search for any athlete’s name, team, sport, discipline or event and find where to “follow” or “like” that result and has a news feed that compiles both Twitter and Facebook posts into one stream.

2. SportRightNow
You can find all the best Olympics news from the internet in one place organized by website sources, sports, and teams whether the news is from teams, journalists, media, fans or athletes. Also has the top hashtags being used on Twitter which is a bonus.

3. London 2012 Youtube Account
Not only will it be posting behind the scene footage from the games, exclusive interviews with athletes, and amazing replays, it also has links to the Official Website, Twitter and Facebook account of the 2012 Olympic Games.

4. Sociagility: The London 2012 Social Scoreboard
For the marketing buffs on the internet this site will be tracking the social media performance of the Olympics sponsors. The score is based on some highly complicated algorithms that look at brands popularity, engagement, receptiveness, reach, and trust.

5. London Join In App
This App for Apple and Android will help Olympic enthusiasts follow the travels of the torch and the location of events happening in London. It is made to help people in London, but also anyone who cannot make it to feel as close as possible to the games.

6. London 2012: Official Results App
Use this App to keep up to date with live news, schedules, and results from London which will also be available for Apple and Android products.

7. NBC Olympics Apps and Website
NBC will have full live screening of every Olympic event online but will also include two different Apps for people to enjoy. The first App is the NBC Olympics App where users will be able to do many of the same things as the London App’s but within a NBC-made App. The second App is the NBC Olympics “Live Extra” App where you can watch live video streams and full replays of every event.

The Olympics are always exciting, but with the recent growth of the internet and social media the competing nations will be closer together than ever before.

Yes, 2012 is not yet half over. And yes, I love sports. So if you find a better 5 minute ad this year, post it in the comments and I will apologize for jumping the gun.

But you won’t. Pepsi Max’s brilliant 300 seconds (which tallied 5 million views in its first week) tells the story of Uncle Drew, a cranky Bill Russell lookalike who bemoans the current generation of ballers and longs for the old school talent of Oscar and Wilt.

Uncle Drew shows up to an outdoor basketball court in New Jersey to watch his nephew play. But when someone goes down with an ankle injury, the old man steps in and plays exactly how you’d expect a weakened elder to play. And then, magically, everything changes.

This may sound like an odd question, but you’ll understand after seeing this new campaign from O.B. Tampons.  Admittedly, I am not in their target market, so my opinion matters little if at all.  But I am very interested in knowing how women feel about the delivery of this message.

To be clear, the fact that O.B. Tampons has a “green” angle in their advertising is great.  It’s unique.  It’s beneficial to not only the buyer, but to all of us.  Even a guy like me can appreciate that.  But I think they’ve gone a little overboard here in an effort to go viral.  They forgot that just because you can do or say something, doesn’t mean you should.  And if you’re not sure or if you have any doubt, do it in a small way first to see the reaction.  Well, O.B. either was sure and had no doubt, or they are closing their eyes and hoping for the best as  they’ve gone all out — long form video, Facebook page, links to petitions, etc.  We’ll probably see some print ads too.

This video starts out nicely, with a beautiful ocean shot that has us all going “ahhh”.  Right when you start to feel like it’s heading toward a standard “save the world” pitch, it switches gears — completely.  While I wouldn’t say I was uncomfortable watching this spot, I would say that I was close enough to uncomfortable to be distracted from the point.  The main selling proposition was a minor player, an after thought.  And that’s a shame, because a message like that deserves to be front and center.

Take a look and let us know how you see this.  At this posting, there were only 258 views.  You can also see what they’re doing on Facebook with this at this link.

President Barack Obama is gearing up for the 2012 Election the digital way. His microsite dedicated to his 2012 campaign, barackobama.com, includes a variety of digital marketing tactics.

The site leads with a video which is obviously hosted on YouTube. You can submit your email address to receive e-blasts, get text messages, or get connected via Facebook. You can volunteer, donate, check up on events, purchase Obama 2012 swag, and join groups dedicated to his campaign fundraising. At the time this post was written, Obama had accumulated over 19 million Facebook Fans and 7 million Twitter followers; so we’d say he is doing a pretty good job at being social.

Obama has the right idea when it comes to digital marketing. Something we call “Web Herding” incorporates all of the concepts stated above, and even a little more.

Obama’s 2012 Campaign Launch Video Video

If you woke up this morning and thought to yourself, “Boy, I sure do miss working with Venn diagrams,” have I got a blog post for you! But in all seriousness, if you have any interest at all in how your company is perceived in the Email, Mobile, and Social Media marketing trifecta, you’ll find this Venn immensely worthwhile.

It comes from flowtown dot com, and I recommend you click that link if you’d like to see an enlarged version of the graphic below. Having a voice in Email, Mobile, and Social Media is absolutely essential to healthy growth, and this fact won’t be changing anytime soon.

So where do you fall?

We recently quoted on a video project and our client was surprised by how inexpensive it was. Why was it inexpensive? Partly because we’re smart about controlling costs. Secondly, it’s 2010.

Technology is progressing to the point where the barriers to entry are becoming increasingly low. Video equipment is continually decreasing in cost, video editing which used to need a bank of computers and a suite filled with editing equipment can now be done on a fast laptop. This morning Digital Inspiration posted this video from Nokia. It’s a short professional film – shot in only four days in high definition entirely on a Nokia N8. Yes, the Nokia N8 is a wireless phone. Take a look. It stars Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire and Pamela Anderson.

Now before you give up your career to shoot a sequel to Inception (or even Patch Adams for that matter) you should know that while this film was shot on the N8, over 50 people were involved in the creation including a professional director, lighting technicians, gaffers, art directors, electricians, stunt coordinators, sound engineers, special effects artists and a few bankers with some pretty wicked parkour skills.

If you’ve seen any of the “Dex Knows” TV spots (and I believe many of you have), then you are one of the main reasons I just love this campaign — you can remember it.

Unfortunately, the agency disabled the embed code in YouTube, so I have to send you there to see it.  Just click on this link to DEX’S YOUTUBE PAGE.

It’s one thing to produce a nice, memorable spot, but it means nothing to the advertiser if their name and service gets lost in the agency’s creative. That doesn’t happen here. But in addition to getting the name out — often — the spots also humanize the benefits of this ultra heavy reference tool that we all likely take for granted. This makes it easy for viewers to see how the product fits into their busy lives, and it reminds them how thorough the information is. Perfect.

There are about a dozen spots here, and they’ve even extended the campaign to radio without really missing a beat. Just listen to him give a “seminar” to nervous retailers looking to increase their business. “You know all those websites with the funny names? I know those guys, and I can get your producst listed!” You really feel that he has an easy answer to retailers who are looking to extend their reach. Plus, with his dynamic message, he cuts out all the competitors who have been cutting into Dex’s business for years.

As for TV, watch how each spot focuses on just one important thing:  One explains how easy the site works with smart phones (and watch Dex giggle from the “vibrate” setting on the phone!).  Another compares this targeted site with a “humongous site” that uses odd terms in its search.  Each one is unique, but fits perfectly into the brand. Plus, the brand not only easily extends to radio, but also print and online ads.

So when you think of all the competition for yellow page advertising, it makes sense that someone would brand themselves differently.  In this case, they turned “Yellow Pages” into “Dex Knows” and added a blue color to the yellow.

What do you think?  Do the spots hit a chord with you?  Have you tried Dex since they ran?  Did you remember the site’s name when you were going to search for a local business?  From what I’ve read about the results of this campaign, many people have responded.  And that’s just great.

Below is an embedded video from YouTube. The link has been circulating for a little while now, but it is quickly picking up steam. Maybe it’s the message of hope that we all need to hear so badly in these trying times. Maybe it’s the daedal presentation. Maybe it’s another sign that social media brings millions of people together. Anyway, watch and enjoy.

The great thing about the Internet is that it gives an almost equal opportunity for everyone to be heard. It’s about as democratic of a world you can imagine where people vote with their clicks on everything. One of my favorite things to experience is the incredible photography on Flickr.  Some of the most incredible shots are taken by people who aren’t professional photographers. I’ll pull up Cooliris and glide through photos for hours, just as I used to do when I would hang out at the Art Institute.  But now I can do it from my couch and iPhone.

Make no mistake, after all the talk and hand-wringing about the demise of our culture and The Cult of the Amateur, apparently people still prefer professionally-created content over homemade stuff. Visible Measures, a company which tracks video metrics, released a report on online videos which have received 100 million views or more. There are 18 videos — and 17 of them are either professionally produced, professionally produced and uploaded by a regular user or are a user’s comments about a professionally produced TV show. So what was the one user-generated video that got over 100 million views? It was a :56 second video about two kids called Charlie Bit My Finger…Again.

Videos showing over 100 million views as of May 1, 2009

1. Soulja Boy: Crank That | 356,300,000 views
2. Twilight | 266,500,000 views
3. Mariah Carey: Touch My Body | 230,200,000 views
4. Jeff Dunham: Achmed the Dead Terrorist | 196,500,000 views
5. Susan Boyle (Britain’s Got Talent) | 186,000,000 views
6. Leona Lewis: Bleeding Love | 185,600,000 views
7. Avril Lavigne: Girlfriend | 176,000,000 views
8. Chris Brown: With You (Disabled Linking) | 175,000,000 views
9. The Dark Knight | 172,500,000 views
10. Alicia Keys: No One | 160,300,000 views
11. Evolution of Dance | 147,000,000 views
12. Miley Cyrus: 7 Things | 143,000,000 views
13. Charlie Bit My Finger… Again | 136,000,000 views < User Generated Video
14. Rihanna: Please Don’t Stop the Music | 122,000,000 views
15. Paul Potts (Britain’s Got Talent) | 118,800,000 views
16. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince | 104,800,000 views
17. Lezberado: Revenge Fantasies | 103,000,000 views
18. Hannah Montana: The Movie | 100,100,000 views

According to the statistics, homemade content, while it can be amazing, just doesn’t have the same power that professionally-produced content does. And keep in mind that in order for a video to go massively viral it needs serious marketing help from the offline world. All of these videos, except for Charlie and his brother, are either attached to a television show, music video or a major motion picture in some way. Of course, the real question here is who is Soulja Boy and what in the heck is that dance?

This is very well done and uses viral marketing techniques to really get this word out. Watch it, then read below.

Meghan Keane writes about J.C. Penney’s now widely watched “doghouse” video in her Wired blog:

If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, J.C. Penney must be pretty glad it picked the right planet to mock for its viral ad campaign this holiday season.

The discount retailer released an ad called The Doghouse three weeks ago that fictionalizes the plight of men who buy the wrong gifts for their significant others. In the ad, a well-intentioned man buys his wife a new dual bag vacuum for Christmas, only to find himself dropped into the doghouse, an underworld prison where men go when they purchase bad presents for the women in their lives.

People love it. The ad has been viewed over 1.7 million times since J.C. Penney uploaded it to BewareOfTheDoghouse.com and YouTube three weeks ago, according to Visible Measures, a video analytics firm. Since then, the 4-1/2 minute video has received 56 placements across 9 different video sites. Over 90 percent of those have been community driven.

“The response has definitely exceeded our expectations,” says Quinton Crenshaw, a spokesperson for J.C. Penney’s. “It’s taken on a life of its own.”

The retailer has focused the majority of this campaign online, with the devoted website, a facebook page and some good old fashioned male mockery. Unlike many traditional ads, the company’s brand does not factor in until the very end of the long video, when it suggests men get out of the doghouse by purchasing diamonds from J.C. Penney.

But with just a slight misjudgment in tone, an online ad can go completely awry.

That’s what happened with a Motrin ad that Johnson and Johnson pulled earlier this month. The drug giant created a short video ad on its website, aimed at mothers who get back pain while carrying their babies. But the ad struck a nerve with a vocal demographic, mommy bloggers, who found the ad condescending and demanded the ad get pulled. They succeeded in short order, with Johnson and Johnson pulling the ad within hours of the criticism.

It’s hard to say why the reactions were different. The Motrin pitch was seen as patronizing, however unwittingly, while the Penney campaign purposelessly tapped into a meme — cluelessness — that many men proudly embrace (or at least acknowledge to the opposite sex), as well as the quick and easy recoveries they make to stay in the game.

“It’s aimed at men looking to purchase jewelry,” says Dave Howlett, senior director of consumer insights for J.D. Power and Associates, “but it actually markets to women, making men the butt of the joke.”

And that strategy appears to have worked.

“I like the J.C. Penney ad because it takes a universal situation — what to get someone you care about — and makes it a joke,” Ochman tells Wired.com. “It could just as easily have been women who bought men ties, or socks for an important occasion instead of a piece of jewelry, which is a gift that signifies a relationship is at a level with a degree of permanence.”

Howlett doesn’t think that it would have worked the same way if it mocked women:

“I come at this from a bit of a sexist approach. I would like to think that men are more self-deprecating than women, but I don’t think it would be as successful if it were making fun of women buying bad gifts.”

The J.C. Penney campaign is not without its detractors. The Doghouse has a smaller, but vocal set of critics. Allison Linn, a blogger for MSNBC, writes:

“We’re not sure who should be more offended by this campaign: Men, who are painted as sexist, clueless dolts, or women, who are shown as mean-spirited and materialistic, willing to mete out menial punishment but swayed by glittery things.”

But as much as some people are complaining about the video’s content, others are forwarding it to their friends. B.L. Ochman wrote in AdAge last week:

The Doghouse came to me from women friends, it came in a direct message on Twitter and more than one male friend sent it with the note, “I know you’ll love this.” And that, in a nutshell, is what makes a viral. One friend saying to another: “I know you’ll get a kick out of this, relate to this, etc.”

“The worst thing that can happen to a viral video is that no one can talk about it,” says Matt Cutler, vice president of marketing and analytics at Visible Measures. “If you look at the history of commercially driven viral videos, there is always some degree of controversy associated with them.”

And, it seems the campaign has officially influenced at least one man for the better. Says Cutler: “For the record, I’m now reconsidering a few of my planned (ahem!) holiday gifts.”