Global blogsphere buzz: April-May 2009

Creating buzz around the globe using emerging technologies, websites, blogs, wikis and other web 2.0 tools is a dream for most marketers and digirati. Even with the pervasiveness of blogs and ideas in the cyber world, a rare few ideas manage to stand out and create buzz. And some of them manage to translate it to real money. For instance, a few years ago it was a “kid” in UK who came up with the idea of a million dollar homepage. The idea was rather simple and prosaic: Selling pixels on the homepage. The twist was he sold one pixel (or sets) at a time for a dollar each. This created instant buzz, fame and a million dollars for Alex Tew, 21, who supposedly is using the money to pay for his college tuition. Of course, this is really-really old news by cyber standards. In the past month or so, a quirky and innovative few ideas have caught the fancy of the digirati:

• The Best Job In The World: Tourism Queensland had a promotional coup with its The Best Job In The World campaign, supposedly to appoint a caretaker for a small island paradise. The contest created instant buzz. After much hoopla, Briton Ben of Southall was judged the winner. For four to five months, the Australian promotion was a part of the online folklore around the globe. BusinessPundit and others lead with the posts on the Australian government offer. As expected, individuals and contestants got to the cyberspace to seek votes (Vote for Erik: one step from paradise, Voting for the Wild Card's Best Job). Of course, the success of this campaign will be studied be media analysts, pundits and debated endlessly as a part of B-schools case-studies. This may also lead to lots more copy-cats by other government tourism boards. (any takers for “Worst Job in the World?”)
• Fake IPL Player: Move to another part of the world, south Asia, a land of billion cricket-fanatic people. The Indian Premier League (IPL) was a new cricket formula launched last year modelled after British Soccer and American Football leagues, complete with scantily clad cheerleaders and who`s who from Indian business and bollywood competing to own leagues and teams. Thanks to the Indian Election Saga, the Indian league was moved to South Africa this year (globalization at work, if you will). Besides scores of websites streaming the scores, the additional cyber buzz, is being generated by an anonymous blogger, purportedly a player for Kolkata Knight Riders, who has begun writing an insider’s account at one of the Indian Premier League teams. In just a couple of weeks, the blog has generated tremendous buzz among South Asians, especially Indians. Sanjoy Narayan blogs about the kind stickiness bloggers would die for.
  "Or as my colleagues in marketing will doubtless like to call it, in "monetising"the blog. In fact, I am a bit surprised the blogger hasn’t signed on to Google AdSense. He’d have likely made more than just beer money. I mean just consider that Huffington Post, which calls itself an internet newspaper that tracks and aggregates news from multiple sources and is adjudged to be one of the world’s most popular blogs (at least by Technorati), rarely has a post that garners more than 100 comments. With the fake IPL blogger, we’re talking about 10 to 15 times that." The Guardian of UK adds "Fake IPL player spins web of intrigueAn anonymous blogger's revelations are causing the biggest stir at the Indian Premier League." Others seem to be fanning the rumor mill "Rumor: The Fake IPL Player is Caught Finally." Some bloggers like cricketwithballs, have begun to add the byline that they are NOT the fake IPL Player. Not sure who is flattering whom. . . but there surely some fizz here.