Today I read a blog post by Dave Rosenberg on Facebook and how much money they are making from the sale of virtual goods. Some estimates have come in at $34.5 million of how much Facebook users have sent on virtual goods.

Virtual goods. That’s right, fake goods that you can buy for people and post in their profiles. But this line is what caught my attention:

“The vast majority of Facebook gifts are bought from the first screen of gifts in the directory–almost 80 percent of the total sales come from the group of the first 20 gifts. This points to the self-reinforcing nature of popularity (the crowdiness of crowds rather than the wisdom of crowds) when popularity data is made public.”

This “crowdiness of crowds versus the wisdom of crowds” is a very important concept to think about as it pertains to e-commerce, blogging, and establishing power users in social networks.

People like to follow the crowd. In the Facebook example, the most popular products rise to the front and this prequalifies the selections for those who are not as decisive. The thinking may be, “well others like these products so I should too.” When strategic levers are in place, marketers can leverage this phenomenon to create great results. Read more…

You know who took a major beatdown yesterday was Richard Cheese. You know Richard Cheese, the performer who takes popular hard rock songs and performs them as lounge numbers? Well, I didn’t know about Mr. Cheese until yesterday and what I heard about him damaged his reputation for me for life.

It all started for me yesterday when I received this post from Chris Brogan in my Twitterstream: “Wow, what a Dick: http://tinyurl.com/5ukavm (One less fan here.)”

Now I’m not going to talk about whether or not Chris Brogan cheapened his brand by calling someone a “dick” but what I am going to say is for a well-respected leader in the social media space, this name calling is sure to influence.

Like I said before, I had never heard of Richard Cheese before but even before I clicked the link, I was pre-disposed (based on my respect for Mr. Brogan) to making judgement. Read more…

All I wanted to do was tell someone about an amazing burger I had. So I posted this video up on Seesmic singing the praises of the Southern Smokehouse Bacon Big Mouth Burger from Chili’s.

I felt pretty good telling other bacon lovers about this burger with the amazing thick-cut bacon. After all, anyone that knows me knows that bacon is a hobby of mine. And I only hope that means an endorsement from me about the quality of the bacon on this burger, might cause others to try this thing too.

But within 2 minutes of posting my video I received this reply. In short, “Bill” asked if I worked for Chili’s. At first I was shocked that he would consider my praise to be a thinly veiled paid endorsement by Chili’s. But after re-watching my post, I realized that I don’t blame him. Read more…

While reading Chris Brogan’s article, “Develop a Strong Personal Brand Online” I was directed to the ZeFrank episode of “The Show” that talks about brand being: “An emotional aftertaste thats conjured up by, but not necessarily depended on a series of experiences.” That’s just classic.

All this talk of building online brands made me think of the latest Dunkin’ Donuts/Rachel Ray Controversy. Dubbed the “Keffiyeh Kerfuffle” by Michelle Malkin, I contend that the real loser here is Malkin. Regardless of whether you agreed with her opinions before this controversy or not, her “made-up” controversy casts a doubt of legitimacy to every post she will write moving forward. Looks like she determined what the “emotional aftertaste” of her brand will be. It isn’t tasty.