Crowd sourcing for self-publicity

Cunning idea by Scott Bourne, offering a single prize for people to link, twitter or follow his podcast, blog postings, or his tweets...

(as I protect my twitter entries, it would be foolish for me to even think of re-tweeting other comments about this marketing stunt ... that is if I wanted to be in with a chance to win! *)

This differs considerably to the home-brew marketing that has helped propel Coca-Cola to the top of the Facebook tree (ft.com). Indeed, in the spirit of collaboration this company opted to joint ownership so as to comply with trademark rules (i.e. facebook t&c) and thanked the duo creators by flying them to 'Coke HQ' for some filming!

Corporate or personal, the use of social spaces has certainly opened new avenues for influencing where we spend out online time, and perhaps how we do it too.
It remains to be seen if this can also influence our $£¥€¢₣ spending habits!

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* ... not that long ago I won an intriguing book by being 'participatory' when I commented on everydotconnects.com "why don't they get it" book competition - and as a result I received a free copy of: The Age of Conversation 2: Why Don't They Get It?. The book offers a collection of short articles that provide insight into the challenges of becoming a listening and open organisation - a participatory corporation. This is a sequel to The Age of Conversation - by Gavin Heaton, et al. Following the competition I received sweet messages from Sheila Scarborough - one of the contributors to the book... and who cheerfully dispatched the book to a pal in Belgium -

Which goes to show that immersing in web2.0 can offer all sorts of rewards... ;o)