According to TechCrunch, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis has offered $250,000 to get a slot on one of Twitters’ feature of suggested Users. This feature pops up when someone signs up for the first time and recommends people and originations whose followers have skyrocketed by being on the list.

By getting on to this list, Calacanis wants to gain more followers and potential customers.  Twitter hasn’t responded to the offer, and even if they do there is no telling whether more followers would translate to anything other then a lot of annoying tweets but the offer does make you think twice about a site that many (myself included) mocked at the onset.  The site built on the simple idea of short 140 characters has more applications than anyone would have imagined.

Today’s Washington Post had a great column by Dana Milbank.  The piece largely poked fun at members of congress on their blackberry’s twittering away while listening the president make a dire assessment of the U.S. economy.  

Milbank’s column highlights the importance of understanding social network mediums.  Take for example, President Obama. Obama use of social networking arguably won him the election.  Since taking office President Obama has been praised for his usage of social networking, from his weekly YouTube address to his revamping of whitehouse.gov.I’m not saying congress should abandon their twitter like Obama did back in November.  I’m just saying tweets like Congressmen Culberson’s, “Capt Sully is here — awesome!” might be thoughts best SMS’d to a friend.In short, to use social networking effectively you must both understand the medium and control your message.

As millions descend upon Washington to witness a truly historic event, and what is sure to be equally historic confusion, we wanted to give visitors a way to navigate Washington while they are here. So Qorvis, in partnership with Patton Boggs, PointAbout, and FortiusOne, is offering a free application for the iPhone and Blackberry that allows users to quickly get information on  pretty much any and all of the information vistors will be looking for - Inaugural events, restaurants, directions, Metro and Bus schedules, Wi-Fi Locations, Local Weather and Traffic, etc. We released the application’s second version today, which includes a polling component called Speak Your Mind that gauges real-time user sentiment about inaugural events.

 We are really proud of this application and hope all iPhone and Blackberry users who will be in and around Washington for the Inauguration will find it useful! You can download the application at http://navigatingwashington.com and find videos showing how to use the application here and here.

Lastly, be sure to check out the piece CNN aired featuring the application last night.

THOUGHTS ON THE RISE OF “SUPPORTERISM” AND ITS IMPACT ON WASHINGTON – THE VIDEO

At the December 2, 2008, “New Washington” conference held at The National Press Club , I gave a brief presentation on how I believe the convergence of the economic downturn and the new political environment will give rise to a decline in “buy this” messages and a surge in “support this” messages.  This is a video of that presentation.  For videos of each of the other speakers, including David Rubenstein of Carlyle, Gov. Tom Ridge, and Joe Robert (real estate investor), plus Steven Fuller’s presentation of his most recent projections for the region,

click here.

FOCUS WASHINGTON INTERVIEW

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Some great new viral creative is being deployed all over the web using the latest flash technology to enable personalization in the video itself.  Try it out here

An amazing new site just launched at http://www.music-in-a-bottle.de/

The site enables a personalized  user experience based on what product you hold up to the screen.  Utilizing barcode technology, geospatial technology, and personalization scripting this company is offering its customer a user generated experience.  First their was user generated content, but do you you think we are on the verge of user generate experiences based on physically parameters? Leave a comment