Usually movies that are rated well and have had good word of mouth disappoint since expectations are elevated. The Social Network was one of these well received and anticipated movies that I finally got around to seeing last week.  I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised that The Social Network was a compelling and engaging film. A few things stuck out after watching the movie to me:

• It’s amazing that Facebook only started in 2004. I remember when I first got invited to sign up from a old college friend and there was very little activity since it was still a closed network to only those with college e-mail addresses. In 6 short years, Facebook has transformed life and society as we know it. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t check my Facebook account to see what’s going on.
• I loved it when the movie used technical terms that I actually understood, showed images of the Facebook reaching member milestones, and evangelized the idea of dreaming big. It reminded me a lot of the days when I worked at a start-up in Silicon Valley.
• Who knew there was so much behind the scenes tension and lawsuits revolving the founding of Facebook? Facebook’s PR team has done a great job (prior to the movie) of sweeping the issues under the proverbial rug.
• I didn’t think that Justin Timberlake looked like the founder of Napster. The reason being that I thought there was only one founder, confusing Sean Parker with Shawn Fanning.
• The parties that I went to at Cornell were nothing like the parties shown in the movie.
• David Fincher is a really good director. Here’s someone who can bring us movies from Se7en to The Game to Fight Club to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. That’s some range!

All in all, the movie was fantastic and highly recommendated. It definitely lived up the hype and I give it two thumbs up!

The new Gap Logo is starting to look like a pretty good case study for what companies need to prepare for in this fast-paced, info-centric society. Gap seems to have made a pretty big goof by messing with an iconic logo, especially when no one knew that the change was going to take place.

A quick synopsis of the issue is…

1. Gap changed their logo on Monday.
2. Pretty much everyone hated it.
3. Gap quickly used social media channels to help reach out to its customer base.
4. Gap partially backpedaled from the logo change admitting that they love their new logo but would “like to see other ideas”.
5. Gap will try to use crowdsourcing to harness customer engagement and user-generated logo ideas.

Will it work? I think so. They seem to have addressed the issue and are engaging its audience from the ground up. By the looks of the wall post they made on Facebook about the logo, their customers have awoken and will definitely be participants on the issue. They got over 600 comments while most of their previous wall posts had under 100 comments, with most being around 50.

How Gap handles the crowd sourcing project will ultimately determine how this future case study ends. If they receive a lot of entries but stick to their new design, the outcome could be disastrous. Gap wants to reconnect and become more relevant to its customers. Here’s their chance. What do you think will happen?

I must give props to Nissan for this commercial. It actually made me stop what I was doing to figure out what it was for. The image of a Polar Bear walking in a cityscape was able to breakthrough the clutter. I actually missed the beginning of the commercial and had to look it up on YouTube. Nissan did a few things right and there were a few things they could do better. It was great that they had a YouTube account called Nissanusa and uploaded a copy of the commercial onto YouTube. The quality was excellent, the title was clear/searchable, and it seemed official due to the account name. The video has already garnered over 700,000 views and over 1,100 comments.

A few things they could have done better:

• Have a better description that includes more keyword terms to make it more SEO friendly. The description doesn’t mention “Nissan”, “Leaf”, “Electric”, “Car”, “Automobile”, “Eco-Friendly”, etc. All keywords I’m sure Nissan would like to associate with the LEAF.
• Have a link to the Nissan LEAF website from the video. It really should be easier for viewers to find out more about the car. I just saw the commercial then I had to do a Google search to find the website (btw, it’s http://www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/index#/leaf-electric-car/index…you can thank me now Nissan). If Nissan had just put a link within the description, it would be an simple trigger point for viewers to engage more with the vehicle.
• Speaking of the website, have some imagery or reference to the television commercial. Even something as simple as posting or linking to the YouTube video would create some cohesion and relevance to the advertising campaign. The commercial could be a good starting point to introduce the vehicle to the consumer if they hadn’t seen it on TV. Since the money was already a sunk cost for the commercial, you might as well reuse the content to maximize its value.
• Add social media links to your website. The Nissan LEAF Facebook fan page (http://www.facebook.com/nissanleaf…thank me again Nissan) has over 73,000 fans, why isn’t there a clear link to this from the official website? Possible consumers of the Nissan LEAF are most likely social media savvy. Again, make it simpler for your company to engage with your potential buyers.

In the end, I worked pretty hard to find information about the Nissan LEAF. I had to do multiple searches to discover more. Nissan could have easily optimized their efforts with a few simple changes. I see this less of an technical implementation hurdle but rather an internal communication one to get all of these touch points connected.

I’ve been out of the country on vacation for the past 10 days so I missed the initial launch of Google Instant. I’ve only started to play around with it over the past few days and here are some instant initial thoughts.

1. Unnecessary – I’m not sure I gain much from seeing additional links and text description flash below the Google search box. In general I know what I’m searching for and I’m planning on typing in the entire search term. It seems more like white noise at this point but we’ll see over the next few weeks of use.
2. Unused - In general, I’m a shortcut power user and when I’m web browsing I’m no different. I often hit CTRL+K to go to the browsers search box to type in my search term. I rarely type in http://www.google.com and then enter in my search term so in most cases I wouldn’t even see Google Instant results.
3. Uninspiring - I like the spin they are trying to place on Google Instant — supposedly you can save 2-5 seconds per search — but in the end I don’t think anyone will care. Google is still the dominant search engine. It’s the first and only choice that I go to perform searches. Having “instant” results doesn’t make me like the engine any better and it probably won’t change the way I search. In the end its one big shoulder shrug of what’s the big deal.

I flew on the new Airbus A380-800 on my flight back from Sydney and it’s definitely more impressive than I thought it would be.

First off, the plane is pretty large – two levels and 90+ rows. In economy, it has a 3-4-3 seat layout. The seats have a new look too. The cushions have a bright checkerboard weave pattern. The seat back has a plastic faux carbon fiber look/feel. As an added bonus, the lower seat cushion slides forward for a more comfortable position when reclining.

The key feature is the large approximately 10-inch wide touchscreen entertainment system. It houses a ton of new, family, and best picture Oscar winning movies. There’s tv shows, business documentaries, audio books, music, games, and even a skycam from the top of the plane’s tail. Everything worked pretty smoothly and all through an easy to use touchscreen. Much easier than fiddling around with a remote control.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the screen: