I was intrigued when sent a link to this site where i was introduced to the latest high tech "iPhone killer" - nameed the Pomegranate (Blackberry?) Phone - the clever and slick animations are fantastic - the phone claims to shave your legs, brew coffee, project video in full HD, translate and even turn into a harmonica - the interesting reaction I had was that whilst I knew it was a fake viral I wanted to see more about what the phone did and have a guess as to what the pay off for the "the ultimate all in one device" - we even had a vote in the office - was it a soft drink ? a business service ? a website ? a new "Rampant Rabbit" ?
It turns out it is a site to market the wonders of Nova Scotia featuring video vignettes telling stories about residents and why it is a great place to live / visit etc. Apparently this cost the Canadian tax payer over $300k and there is lots of debate and costernation from Canada's bloggers about whether this will pay back - although judging by the number of people talking on Twitter and Alexa shows the site to be growing in visits daily (it is currently ranked 68,000th from 290,000th) so in my book this is $300k well spent and a creative way of getting interest and attention to something that I would otherwise ignore - especially as visits are coming from countries as far afield as Germany, Italy and India plus the US and we all know they don't travel anywhere let alone Canada !
Have a look and let me know what you think ?

I have recently made friends with John McCain, Sarah Palin and Stephen Fry - none of this reflects my political persuasion or sexual orientation but rather shows how pervasive, democratic ('scuse the pun) and voyeuristic social networking has made society - it is fascinating seeing that 30 people have recommended John and only 1 (that is one)- who incidentally is John McCain, has recommended the lipstick'd pitbull AND I know that Stephen (first name terms now we are "friends") is currently filming in Africa and loves F1 and Lewis Hamilton (via Twitter). This anecdotally backed up some research I read last week from TNS, TRU & Marketing Evolution called "Never ending friending" which shows how social networking has caused a quantum change in how we interact – with each other, with bands and brands, and with the entire media landscape. Perhaps most importantly it also details a
set of best practices that will govern behaviour in this new world - this should help me understand how I interact with my new found friends - I am just waiting for Obama, Hilary and the original "6 degrees guy" Kevin Bacon to accept my "friendship"