Two things about this video:

1. Thank you Sean for having me on your show. It was my honor, and I think we had a great conversation.
2. I really apologize for my audio quality. I always just use the internal mic in my Macbook Pro, and wow it sounds really crappy in this video. You really have to turn it up to hear me, and sometimes my voice cuts out. It sorta makes it unwatchable at times, and that’s completely my fault. It was actually a great conversation, so I’m kind of bummed about this. I need to look into getting a good external microphone. Anyway, Sean I am sorry about this.

In case things go haywire with the embedded video above, here’s a direct link.

Was this just an honest mistake? A plucky young intern that just didn’t know what they were doing? Or was this an attempt to make news, to capitalize on tragedy and the resultant Twitter Trending Topic? You be the judge. I don’t even know what to think anymore.

It’s exceedingly hard to imagine anyone would purposely tweet this on a day like today. (For posterity’s sake, there was a horrible mass shooting in Aurora CO at the premiere of the newest Batman movie).

The tweet embedded, until they delete it:

#Aurora is trending, clearly about our Kim K inspired #Aurora dress Shop: celebboutique.com/aurora-white-p…

— Celeb Boutique (@celebboutique) July 20, 2012

In an admittedly pointless attempt to keep this sort of thing from ever happening again, spread it around like mad on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and LinkedIn, and make this company feel shame. And I’d like to hear what you think in the comments below? What was the true intent of the Tweeter here?
 
 
UPDATE – apologetic tweets from Celeb Boutique

My final take: it appears to have been one big colossal mistake. Their PR is not based in the United States. While this tragedy is likely a worldwide story at this point, it’s entirely possible their social media people had not heard about what happened.

For readily apparent reasons, I advise you to not ride the coattails of a Twitter Trending Topic without understanding why the term or phrase is trending. Things trend for both good and bad reasons. Once click on the trending topic “Aurora” would have shed some light on why it was trending. Sometimes it’s hard not to go 500 miles an hour when using social media. My best advice is to be extremely careful with your brand, even if it takes an extra 60 seconds to do some rudimentary research.

Faith in humanity: at least partially restored. Thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Aurora, CO.

The grisly details (before they delete the post). Thanks to Scott Stratten for bringing this to our attention.

Link to the podcast, as I can’t get their embed code to work.

Thanks for having me on Mark!

As reported on ESPN, the Philadelphia Wings of the National Lacrosse League (NLL) have made sports league and social media history with a cool jersey enhancement. Each player replaced the name on the back of their jersey with their Twitter handle. I think this is awesome.

ESPN reports that the team did get approval from the NLL before making the jersey change. Here’s the NLL’s story on the game, which didn’t mention the jersey change much save for the opening line. Here’s a better story from the Toronto Star. Looks like the jerseys were auctioned off for the American Cancer Society, raising over $13,000.

I wish this had been my idea!

I know there are various versions of this floating around the web. I like this one because:

1. It involves donuts.
2. It includes newer sites like Pinterest and Instagram
3. The G+ one is funny and unfortunately true (I’m still rooting for you Google+!)

Source: Three Ships Media. I originally received it via a Falk Harrison coworker’s email.