Royals Tweet, taking engagement to the Wall

The British Royal Family, which only last week launched a Facebook page for Queen Elizabeth (titled The British Monarchy), today Tweeted news of Prince William’s engagement to Catherine Middleton.

The Royals also posted an update on Facebook (generating 4,950 “likes” and 1,262 comments in 5 hours) which links to the Prince of Wales’ website (“the official website of Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales, The Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William and Prince Harry).

On the OM front, People magazine is reporting that Kate Middleton’s family is “absolutely delighted” about the engagement. And the Washington Post phones in a report on how Royal engagements were announced in old days, before Social Media.

Charmed! … and Mazel Tov, of course.

Social media and a smile: The Twitter Singup, by @paul_steele

For earlier Twitter Singups, click here: 
http://www.youtube.com/user/lohheide

On Twitter, visit the producer, “bald hiker” Paul Steele, @paul_steele

Fox 4 DFW, ***** SM Roast: A must see

Worst newspaper campaign, ever

Maybe not.

But this commercial proclaims itself the “Greatest ad campaign ever!” … and the NYS Press Association, whose own newspapers-are-great campaign is also anything but, concurs, urging its members to listen up.

This is a great spot — but does it sell us on newspapers, or illustrate why newspapers are beside the point?

Here’s one of the comments under YouTube’s post of this video:

The irony is I first read about this on Google Reader after some people I were following recommended it and I ended up watching it on a social media site.

And other:

Doesn’t this ad prove that social media work better than old fashioned regular print campaigns?

And this:

If print was the most powerful way to reach the target audience, why bother making a video about it? Seems like an effective, disruptive, viral video to me, that contradicts what it says at the end. It’s a clever ad for the agency as a “pattern interrupt” in this case.

For more comments, click here.

Ben Folds does Merton. ChatRoulette, Phase 2.

Maybe there’s redeeming value in ChatRoulette after all.

A thus-far unidentified musician/performing artist calling himself Merton is the latest internet sensation — composing on the fly during improv performances for ChatRoulette flybys.

Now, Merton is being lionized in tribute videos on YouTube, and in an “Ode to Merton” during a live concert by Ben Folds.

MoxNews.Com reports:

From Mashable, which landed — via Skype — the first Merton interview:

[Merton] talks about everything from how people now recognize him on Chatroulette to his musical background.

Homeboy is adamant about remaining anonymous as of right now, but we can tell you that he used to serenade his girlfriends with improvisational tunes, and he’s not — we’re pretty sure — Ben Folds (or is he?).

Make sure to watch until the end, when he sings to me.

Here’s Mashable’s video:

Merton’s first YouTube performance, which reportedly racked up around 4 million views in just a few days, was pulled last week “due to terms of use violation”; it was restored after some changes were made, including the blurring of a number of faces. Here it is:

Merton’s second video posted over the weekend:

Finally, here’s a tribute video to Merton by Jonathan Mann, who’s been recording and posting a fresh music video every day (he’s on day 451):

“After seeing his interview on Mashable, I knew I had to make a tribute to him,” said Mann. “He’s really an awesome guy. A lot of what he said there resonated with me, especially the bit about knowing from the start that he didn’t want to be mean.

“Mean” (or sarcastic, ironic, sardonic, etc) is the default position of so many people on the internet; it’s nice to see someone who not only thinks that should change, but seems to be embodying that change himself. That’s what I aspire to in general, and with Song A Day specifically.”