What happens when Apple and Microsoft meet...

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American magnate as well as the co-founder and Chief Executive Office of Apple.

Steve is also on the Board of Directors of Walt Disney Company.

Salary: US$1

Net worth: US$5.5 billion

William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is also an American business magnate and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he co-founded.

Salary: unknown

Net worth: US$53 billion

I'm sure you all know who they are, but what do they talk about when together....?

A little humour always help to start the day. I've taken the photos from fellow Kenyan blogger Siasa Duni, thanks mate!

The Google Job Experiment

Are you looking for a job in an agency? Are you creative? Can you invest $6?

What this guy (Alec Brownstein) did is unique, and he landed his ideal job! The idea, simple but original, was to buy the names of the most famous U.S. Creative Directors as keywords for his Google Adwords knowing that these guys like to "google" themselves to check their online reputation.

Every time these directors checked their names on Google they would get a message from Alec who wanted to be recruited as a top result. The message said: "Hey, David Droga, Gooogling yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun too", with a link to his website.

Have a look at the video, very very smart.

Logo Contest

Background:

Oman Collective Intelligence is an Omani blog which came into life in November 2009 and its objective is to become a resource for everyone interested in social media as well as a place where ideas and knowledge can be shared and exchanged.

Stats on daily hits, visitors, etc. can be provided if requested.

Objective:

To create a logo for Oman Collective Intelligence.

General Info and Guidelines:

Creativity, originality, aesthetics, use of space and colour will be all used to measure the merit. Flexibility is a key requirement, including the need to resize easily and to look good on white or coloured background.

Submission:

Entrants should take care to ensure that their entries are not in any way similar to existing logos or other copyrighted images. The entry must be your own original design and not a copy that may be subject to copyright laws.

Initial entries must be submitted to theboss@oman-collective-intelligence.com. The entries must be submitted in high resolution format as well as a JPG.

No more than three entries may be submitted by any one entrant. Please include your name, preferred email address, your website (if any), your country of residence and your age.

Rules:

The Contest is open only to individuals. The Contest is not open to companies, institutions, organisations, etc. or to groups associated with such entities. The Contest is void where prohibited.

Entries must be received by June 30th 2010.

Any prizes awarded will be at the sole discretion of O.C.I.

The top and only prize is $ 450.

There is no fee to enter the contest.

Good luck and any questions feel free to drop me a mail.

Google's new super cool logo!

Google often changes its homepage logo to celebrate special occasions and two days ago it came up with something really extraordinary...the first playable game within a logo, or if you like the first playable logo!

Yes, that's right, a playable game. Many of you surely remember the very popular game from the 80s called Pacman; well, Pacman two days ago celebrated its 30th anniversary. If you don't know what Pacman is check it out here.

For this special birthday Google decided to include in its logo Pacman's original game logic, graphics and sounds, bring back ghosts and even recreate original bugs from this 1980s masterpiece, simply a genius idea!

Google even changed its "I'm Feeling Lucky" button to "Insert Coin" in honour of the occasion.

Give it a try, good fun and brings memories back. Oh, and you can also play it with a friend.

Facebook to announce 500 million milestone soon

Facebook historically never hosted large celebrations but very soon the company will most definitely toast to the occasion predicted to take place at some point before the end of June. The announcement should be expected well before June 25th, when the company would surpass 500 million if growth was currently linear.

This is just amazing if you think that less than a year ago the number of users was “only” 250 millions. It is even more amazing if you think that the founder and owner, Mark Zuckerberg, in the first year of trading had to borrow $60,000 to keep the business alive (FIY now he is the youngest billionaire).

Personally I think that 500 million user numbers are probably on the conservative side because FB policy is to only count users who log on one or more times in each 30 day period. That’s right, in the past four weeks nearly half a billion active users have logged on Facebook. The most amazing stat however is that nearly 50% of them is on FB everyday!

So despite the ongoing media-fueled privacy backlash against Facebook and his owner over the past weeks, there is still much to celebrate.

It is forecasted that before the end of this year, the company should near the 600 million user mark and surpass $1 billion in revenue.

Not bad, is it?

Only another online application claims to be in the 500 million “league”, can you name it?

Save Energy Oman - website launch

As you know i am fully supporting the Save Energy Oman campaign and i'm very excited to say that yesterday the website was finally lauched.

The website is very simple to navigate but still very eye-catching and user friendly as it brings Noor, the mascot, to life.

The point of the site is to allow both businesses and consumers to brush up on their knowledge of saving energy around the house or at work. It also gives the possibility to sign up and become a saving energy "champion".

Have a look at it here and let me know what you think.

One of the best viral videos

A viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites and email. Viral videos often contain humorous content and could include televised comedy sketches, amateur video clips and web-only productions.

This is a great video which appeared in late 2000 on the internet; I thought it is a nice way to start or end the week, depending where you’re from.

It is part of a series of ads by John West Salmon; the "Bear Fight" videos were really successful as they were low budget but with a very realistic feel. The whole series attracted more than 300 million viewers according to BBC.

Enjoy!

Announcement

Oman Collective Intelligence blogspot is moving to http://www.oman-collective-intelligence.com/.

You should be automatically redirected but just in case please update your bookmarks and RSS feed.

Nobody can find your business? Here is your solution

If you have a company, whether a telecom or a bank, a restaurant or a shop, you might want to use another communication channel available in order to reach more potential customers as well as interacting with the existing ones. Nothing expensive but very innovative and quick to set up....Google Maps.

So how do you set it up?

1. Get a Google account

2. Search for your target location(s)

3. Enhance these place marks by adding rich text descriptions, images, logos and URLs to each

4. Finish off the map with a clear, short introduction

5. Drive traffic to the map by publicizing it through traditional communications channels as well as social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn as well as your corporate blog.

Google Maps are a simple yet effective method of communicating with existing and potential customers, as well as providing a way to increase your online footprint. You may also embed Google Maps into your website or corporate blog.

Here is an example from DHL; it shows all locations plus all details of each, great isn’t it?

Depending where you live Google Maps might not be very detailed, for instance in Oman they are not, so instead you can use Google Earth which is also very easy to use, it just needs to be installed (free) and then follow the same steps.

Here is where Oman Collective Intelligence is located, i used Google Earth.

This tool is great especially if you're in a location not easy to find and it is also fun as you can add photos and descriptions too.

The Volkswagen Banknote campaign

This campaign was launched end of last year and instead of emphasizing on luxury, comfort, design and speed VW through the campaign talks straight about money and savings. They have actually used banknotes of different denominations and stamped them with different distances to show how far one can travel in Bluemotion Volkswagen for the money one spends on fuel.

In times of financial crisis all people want to save money. They had to announce that Volkswagen offers them the perfect car: Volkswagen BlueMotion vehicles need little fuel for little money.

With a smart trick they turned it into a unique advertising space for free. With a little investment into stamps we got the attention of lots of people. After three weeks the click rate on www.bluemotion.de increased by 14%.

Credits go to DDB Germany/Berlin, Germany.

How clever is that?

A simple idea generates a genius website!!

Check out this website and tell me if you find anything unusual...Booneoakley.com

Anything? Well, surely most of you will have found that the website is on YouTube, how genius is that? BooneOakley, a North-Carolina based agency, has gotten a lot of attention just by essentially shifting its corporate site to YouTube.

Embedded links in the main video connect viewers to additional company information, including a cute video thanking the Obama family for naming its new dog Bo after the company's initials.

The main video has received more than 220,000 views in its first 10 days and nearly 1 million views just under a year, quite impressive for a small local firm, isn't it? Apart from the outstanding creative work i think the idea of moving it to YouTube is simply magnificent; not only it got the agency huge worldwide exposure but it has also generated a lot of interest and comments.

What do you think?