Friday Newsletter: June 29, 2012

This week we discover how much bird poop it might take to cause serious damage to a car, mark the death of the rarest creature on earth and get to hear a traffic exchange owner sing.

There are also a couple of cats falling over themselves to get fed and some more random stuff thrown in for good measure – so come inside and check out what I have found for you this week.

Lonesome George – the last of his kind and an iconic figure who never came out of his shell.

Some people claimed he was gay.

Others claimed that at the age of 100 he did not have much interest in sex.

But one thing is sure and that is that protracted efforts to tempt Lonesome George to interact with members of the opposite sex never met with any success.

For those of you who don’t know, Lonesome George – who died earlier this month – was a giant tortoise but not just any old giant tortoise. In fact he was known as the rarest animal on earth.

He lived on the Galapagos Islands, featured on Ecuador’s stamps and bank notes and stamps, helped bring in tourists from around the globe and was an international icon for conservation.

The last known representative of his giant Galápagos tortoise subspecies, George will surely be missed.

Lonesome George. Pic: Wikipedia.

 

How much bird poop do you think it takes  to damage a Smart Car?

Motorist Clayton Hove thought it would be fun to use Twitter to poke fun at the eco-friendly Smart Cars when he spotted one while out driving.

Clayton told his 4,000-strong followers: “Saw a bird had crapped on a Smart Car. Totaled it.”

It was a light-hearted, throw-away remark and he thought nothing more of it. (Don’t worry, this is not going to turn into one of those stories about horrible things happening to people who post innocent Tweets.)

This is the actual message he sent out to his followers:

And this, in case you don’t already know, is what a Smart Car looks like:

However the tweet was seen by the Smart Car public relations team and they set to work to craft their reply, and in doing so, worked out that it would have taken 4.5 million birds all pooping on the car to do the damage which Clayton described.

Fantastic response.

Some companies really ‘get’ Twitter.

Ten out of ten to @smartcarusa

Ten hours on an international flight with only a dead body for company.

Generally when flying I prefer the person sitting next to me to pretend I don’t exist.

I know it is rather anti-social of me but that is the way it is. I am talking about if the other person is a stranger here rather than on those occasions when I am traveling with someone I know.

So someone who sits very still and doesn’t move a muscle would be ideal…but there are limits. For example I would rather that a stranger try to talk to me than for that stranger to be dead.

But for Swedish radio reporter Lena Pettersson she had to put up with the ten hours sitting next to a dead body on her Kenya Airways flight from Amsterdam to Tanzania.

A fellow passenger in the aisle across from Lena died on board the overnight flight and cabin crew members wrapped him in a blanket and lay him flat across all three seats.

Lena wanted to be moved away from the dead passenger but was told the flight was full and there was nowhere to move her to.

She said things were made worse because the dead man was to tall, his legs were sticking out into the aisle with his feet just inches away from where she sat.

Not surprisingly she made a formal complaint about the matter and received an apology and half her money back.

Maybe next time I fly I will actually encourage the person next to me to have a chat…just to be on the safe side.

How much is my webswite worth?

I guess people love to put a value on things.

Before the collapse of the property market and the world economic downturn a favorite topic at dinner parties in the UK (not that anyone ever invited me to dinner parties) was the value of their homes.

You would hear things like: “House prices where I live are rising so fast that I am sure we must have made another £10,000 in the time it took me to eat your wonderful soup.”

So it was amusing when someone pointed out a site to me called HowMuchIsMyWebsiteWorth

It says this site is worth $48,778 which strikes me as a rather odd figure.

At the end of the day, a website, like any other real or virtual property, is worth exactly what somebody would pay to buy it.

But if you have a website and want to generate a number of your own then give it a go!

 

Why ThumbVu is the place to get noticed

I am not sure if the general traffic exchange industry has grasped the point that ThumbVu really is the place to get the marketer to stand out – even before anyone has set eyes on your splash pages.

Here’s an example. Until recently I had no idea who Ali Waqas was or what he promoted and then I saw that he was making a huge effort to get himself noticed on ThumbVu.

He did this by ensuring he got featured on the spotlight every day for a week.

Not only did this mean that whatever he chose to promote was the first page seen by other members when they logged in but anyone else going to the spotlight page to place their own bids got to see this:

BadMarketing may have come up with the TETakeover idea but this guy has cornered the market in the ThumbVu spotlight takeover.

He certainly got my votes for passion and branding just for that one campaign alone.

Now every time I go to ThumbVu I will be sure to check out what this guy is promoting. Promote yourself first.

Why? Because it works. Ask Ali. He gets it.

Short and to the point

Some marketer or other sent me an email last week which had the subject line:

“Patrick are you a Network Marketing Coach?”

I opened it and found another question waiting for me inside:

“Do You want to know how to become a successful MLM Coach?”

I thought about it for a second, realized the answer to both questions was “no,” hit delete and then moved on to the next one. I wish all emails were so easy to deal with.

Who wants to hear Marcus sing?

Really?

That many of you!

OK take it away Mr Wahl.

Video credit: mcwahl1/YouTube

 

Why these two cats literally fell into their food bowls.

Sometimes you just need to eat.

Especially if you have had to fast ahead of a visit to the vet’s and now that you are coming round from the effects of the anesthetic you are feeling rather hungry.

But because you are still a little bit ‘out of it’ you are not as steady on your paws as you usually are.

However you are really, really hungry and you can smell the food just a few short feet away.

So you use every ounce of willpower to get to that food…

Video credit: Mr7funny/YouTube

And finally…

I hate it when Twitter crashes, as it does from time to time, because there is just nobody to share the news with.

 

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Have a good weekend and God bless.

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