Product Launch

Under the cover of the Facebook IPO, Microsoft and its FUSE labs launched a social network/research project called So.cl that will focus on sharing among the youths.

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

In case you hadn’t heard, McDonald’s is bringing back the McRib nationwide for three weeks. First introduced in 1982, the sandwich — boneless pork, onions, BBQ sauce, and pickles — is usually only offered here and there at random franchises. Except in Germany where it’s always available and they love David Hasselhoff.

To promote the sandwich, McDonald’s has launched a game on Facebook, “The Quest,” asking players to chart their progress using the #McRib hashtag on Twitter. The Christian Science Monitor suspects that the fast-food chain is trying to drum up a little love from the young people for the usually elusive sandwich.

But the event has generated so much press, it seems McDonald’s doesn’t need to do much. A couple of outlets have even bought the sandwich to give it a taste. Journalism is a grueling job.

Dr. Pepper is taking a cue from Our Gang’s “He-Man Women Haters Club” with its new soft drink Dr. Pepper Ten. The brand is tapping the male taste for diet cola with marketing that states explicitly that this soda is “not for women.”

The AP points out that other diet sodas have taken the male-centric angle, like Coke Zero. And Dr. Pepper has done some research and found that women weren’t offended by this marketing angle (but thanks for asking).  You’ll recall, earlier this year the VW Beetle was beefed up a bit so it wouldn’t be too “girlie” and turn off all of those manly men out there who would otherwise buy a Hyundai or something.

FlavorWire takes issue with the can, which it outright calls “ugly” but we say looks like a football helmet for some reason. The brand’s Facebook page also puts the male message front and center.

Food marketers out there correct us if we’re wrong, but we hadn’t noticed any need to appeal to men with diet soft drinks. A guy in the AP story says he’s never been teased for drinking Diet Coke, but the AP story says specifically that men aren’t happy with the diet cola image. We’ll be curious to see if this changes that. We have the ad after the jump.

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Mourning the death of Steve Jobs continues. Despite or even because of that, some are predicting that the iPhone 4S will be a hit after all.

It seems long ago and far away, but it was only Tuesday when Tim Cook had his much-criticized press event to introduce the iPhone 4S, which was an upgrade to the previous iteration rather than the much-anticipated iPhone 5. Fans were angered, the stock market reacted negatively, overall, it wasn’t a good scene.

Fast-forward to today and pre-orders of those phones are starting. One analyst tells Reuters that there will be “some sentiment-related purchases.” Another says, “over the long run the products will stand on their merit.” Yesterday as we walked past the Apple store across from NYC’s Plaza Hotel, a gaggle of people were snapping photos (many with iPhones) of a memorial to Jobs. Maybe 15 feet away, a young man sat in a lawn chair, covered with a blanket, holding a sign announcing that he was on line for an iPhone.

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Yesterday at 1 p.m. tons of people were pumped, seated in front of their computers with a nice beverage, prepared to be wowed by the latest Apple announcement. Instead, there’s been a collective “meh” heard around the world.

According to CNET, while the new iPhone 4S has some great stuff under the hood, the rumors of a super phone had inflated people’s expectations for an iPhone 5. Now the question is, “Who will buy the souped up iPhone 4S?”

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ABC News brought out the big guns this morning — Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Barbara Walters, George Stephanopoulos, and more — to announce an enhanced partnership between ABC News and Yahoo! on Good Morning America. According to the press release, ABC News and Yahoo! News editorial teams will be working together to create “premium content” and cover big news events; there will be new original Web series, including “Newsmakers,” which launches today with an interview between President Obama and Stephanopoulos at 2:35 ET; and Good Morning America now has a co-branded website.

It’s been noted already across the media that Yahoo! and ABC News partnered more than a decade ago, but the partnership was dubbed “brand new” during the announcement this morning. Yahoo News has more unique visitors than any other website, The New York Times says.

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When Jeff Bezos announced Amazon’s new Kindle products today he presented them with this message, “What we are doing is offering premium products at non-premium prices… We don’t think of the Kindle Fire as a tablet. We think of it as a service.”

Of course, many of the news stories today have compared the Kindle Fire to the iPad, noting the big differences between the two. One is obviously a couple hundred bucks and the other costs much more. Nevertheless, Reuters focuses on Barnes & Noble, which may take a big hit on the e-reader front.

Bezos made sly references to the iPad, but largely focused on what the Kindle Fire can do — it has apps, games, email capabilities, and more.

What do you think of positioning the Kindle Fire as a service rather than a tablet? The comments section is open.

[image via Bloomberg]

HP made recent business headlines with its new CEO. It’s also trying to generate headlines for its new ePrint technology, which it’s launching with a sponsored concert tour. Earlier this year, HP partnered with Live Nation and the band Thirty Seconds to Mars. At MediaPost’s OMMA (Online Media, Marketing and Advertising) Global conference on Tuesday in New York, Tariq Hassan, VP marketing at HP, and Russell Wallach, president of Live Nation Network, detailed their multimedia collaboration.

Music and technology combined to form two “passion points,” since “the core music fan is also connected 24/7,” Wallach noted. “In the past, people at concerts put up lighters during the show, and then it was cell phones. Now mobile phones connect you with other fans and those not at the venue, so the music experience is shared.” He reported that during performances 65 percent share on social media sites and 56 percent upload photos.

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The CMO Council will launch a new publication that will be available on the Web, via iPad and other tablet, in print, and on your mobile device on December 1.

PeerSphere will reach 60,000 marketers around the world and 2,000 syndication partners with case studies, CMO interviews, opinion articles and other content.

The first issue will feature an interview with the president of Safeway’s marketing group, a look at Mastercard’s strategy for its sponsorship of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, and an international marketing feature with marketing sources from the Middle East.

PeerSphere will be published quarterly.

Cision has tossed its measurement hat into the influencer ring (?) with the launch of Cision Influence Rating, which uses more than 40 different measures — Facebook “likes,” inbound links, and voting activity, for instance — to determine who the influencers are.

Also, the company has launched the Cision Influencer Database, which includes thousands of online and traditional media muckety-mucks with details about their “social persona.” The database is free for clients through a three-month trial period.

This is becoming a very crowded space these days. Weren’t we told to resist the influence of peer pressure when we were kids?

Anyhoo, which of these influencer measurement services do you recommend? The comments section and @PRNewser is open for comment.