How to follow your favourite Olympic athletes

The Olympic games are only a few hours away and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has done a great job in socialising the Games and create a better, more engaging experience for fans and athletes around the world.

The Olympic Athletes' Hub is a search engine-style website that connects fans to the hundreds of social networking streams of athletes and events on Twitter and Facebook.

The Hub also includes a live Athlete Q&A that allows athletes in the Olympic Village to chat directly with fans through the Hub.

Another component of the Athletes' Hub is called the Olympic Challenge, a game that will award points to Facebook users who correctly predict the winners of various Olympic events.

Also new is “Faces of Olympians”, a collaboration between the IOC and Instagram that showcases a collection of athlete photos taken throughout the Games. Olympians in the Athletes’ Village are being photographed as they pose with their best “Olympic Face”.

Here are all links:

The Olympics Social Media Hub - www.olympic.org/hub

The Olympics on Twitter - www.twitter.com/Olympics

The Olympics on Facebook - www.facebook.com/olympics

The Olympics on Google+ - http://goo.gl/RRrPg

The Olympics on foursquare - https://foursquare.com/olympics

The Olympics on tumblr - olympics.tumblr.com, facesofolympians.tumblr.com, olympicmoments.tumblr.com.

Coolest Facebook status trick

Impress your friends and update your Facebook status via the Moon, your BlackBerry or even via a message in a bottle!

I've recently learnt this and I'll share it with you. Let’s see how to do this trick:

1.      Login to your Facebook account.

2.      Now copy the code below and paste it in the address bar.

http://www.facebook.com/connect/prompt_feed.php?preview=true&

api_key=2254487659

(Please note: if you are using a proxy site on Facebook then the url code will look like this - http://www.Proxy-site.com/connect/prompt_feed.php?preview=true& api_key=2254487659)

3.      Update your current status and click share.

That’s it. Your status now will be updated depending on the code you’ve entered. Below follows a list of codes you can use to change your status; just copy the code within brackets and paste it to replace last part of the url.

1.      My Bedroom (174811032586879)

2.      Your moms computer (132386310127809)

3.      Skynet (249284985083592)

4.      Blackberry (2254487659)

5.      Palm (7081486362)

6.      Sidekick (21810043296)

7.      Sony Ericsson (38125372145)

8.      Xbox LIVE (5747726667)

9.      Foursquare (86734274142)

10.   Telegram (140881489259157)

11.   Morse Code (134929696530963)

12.   Message in a Bottle (123903037653697)

13.   Mind Computer Interface (121111184600360)

14.   eyePhone (110455835670222)

15.   Toaster (203192803063920)

16.   Microwave (0a5266c8844a1b09211e7eb38242ac2f)

17.   Strawberry (a4c9fb1708a848c2241674531176209b)

18.   The moon (221826277855257)

19.   Dr. Pepper (eea90d40e1d12565695dbbbdbd5e965b)

20.   iPod Nano (142039005875499)

21.   Your Mums Bedroom (5f64bbc9ac2f12b983200925da461322)

22.   Refrigerator (250828364944350)

23.   NASA Satellite (31d608d30292175bf7703149699ccb39)

24.   Google+ (4d8243dbb7064f88351fe6c809582320)

25.   Smoke Signal (134138923334682)

26.   The Future (108372819220732)

27.   Typewriter (d3d554bf60297cb2c384e3d7cf5a066d)

28.   Harry Potter (b8ebeb983f45eaa0bd5f4f66cad97654)

29.   Pogo Stick (185103391549701)

30.   Sperm Whale (170318539700306)

31.   Microsoft Excel (242740155751069)

32.   A potato (127926427295267)

33.   Banana Phone (1477a4cd29ec724a3de19be5d26e0389)

34.   Pip Boy (142806259133078)

35.   Post-It Note (115227201900831)

36.   Airwolf (123944137696757)

37.   Nintendo 64 (236264753062118)

38.   Alcohol (250335888312118)

Cheese (218791271497130)


Have fun now, and for other cool Facebook tips and tricks click here.

Kia, a not so obvious race event

Kia Colombia recently held a racing event where all the competing cars had to race...backwards!

The point of all this was to show off the benefits and advantages of Kia‘s latest models (Optima and Fortes) featuring the rear-view camera system.

The result of this stunt is that over a thousand cameras were ordered directly after the event! A little dangerous but nicely done.

PS: drive safely   J always.

Insanely awesome marketing drama

If you saw a drama button in the middle of a square would you push it?

Belgium TV channel TNT recently used this action packed ambient marketing exercise to promote the launch of its high quality TV drama channel. They placed a big red push button on an average Flemish square of an average Flemish town. Watch what happens

Blogger tricks - add your own signature

I’ve been using blogger for a while and I’ve learnt a few little tricks which I’m happy to share with you.

You might have seen some bloggers include their signature at the end of each post; today I’ll show you how to make and add a signature to make your posts even more personalised and stylish. Very easy.

Step 1: go to My Live Signature and click 'Start Now'. No need for registration.

Step 2: use the wizard as it will help you with different fonts, colours, sizes, slope, etc.

Step 3: once you’ve followed all steps your signature will be ready. Mine looks like this...

Step 4: now click on ‘Want to use this signature?’

Step 5: then click on ‘Generate HTML code’

Step 6: and then click on ‘Generate a code for my handwritten signature’

Step 7: you will now have your code; it will look like this...

Step 8: as you only need the code of the image make sure you remove the initial part of the code as well as the very last, just as it shows below...

You’re now ready to add your new stylish signature to your blog.

Step 1: go to your Blogger dashboard and click the drop down menu - 'Settings' (1) and then 'Posts And Comments' (2).

Step 2: At the top of the Page you will see 'Post Template' paste in the code (3) and save (4).

That’s it, your signature will be added to all your future posts J.


Click here if you want to know how to add a favicon to your blog.

The (in)famous donor campaign

"Everyone has something good. Be a donor."

A serious topic with a funny twist. This campaign encourages becoming a donor. The hilarious cartooned prints (done by Felipe Franco for Organ Donation) feature (in)famous powerful men: George W. Bush, Adolf Hitler and Justin Bieber.

PS: what has Justin Bieber done to be in such category??

NASA goes social...and to Mars!

With just a few weeks to go before the scheduled landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, NASA is turning to YouTube, Twitter and other social networks to create a big buzz in the program.

It all started on November 26 of last year when NASA’s car-sized rover, Curiosity, departed on its mission. Now the Twitter account, Mars Curiosity, has more than 112,000 followers who get regular updates about the spacecraft’s trip and challenges.

NASA has been very active online since the early days of social media and brought together thousands of its social-media fans at shuttle launches, tweet-ups and other events. The next event is called NASA Social where participants will be provided a unique in-person experience with the Mars Science Laboratory mission. NASA will randomly select 25 participants from online registrations; if you're a space enthusiast or just curious about the event click here.

The video, entitled "Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror," describes how NASA is going to land the rover once it gets to Mars. I recommend you watch it J, it is awesome and it has already more than 600,000 views and lots of passionate comments.

You might recall one of my earlier posts where I mentioned NASA...the Top 10 tweets of all time.

Facebook, programmed for revenue or disaster?

I was sent this infographic which illustrates the decline of Facebook's ad revenue and stock price as well as other concerns. Sharing it with everyone as I believe it is quite interesting.

Created by: www.OnlineGraduatePrograms.com

The biggest QR code in the world

It was done for a charity project to support programs by Youth Unlimited in North York, Canada. 

1300 people gathered in a stadium and built the biggest QR code in the world which proceeds will be going to help the youth and local community.

The video explains it very well.

If you want to see other examples of very cool and funny QR codes click here, or click here for some sexy ones ;)

Corporate blogs in Oman

Blogging is still an unexploited area by companies in Oman. Most blogs are owned and managed by small/medium sized companies or entrepreneurs.

The benefits of blogging seem to be fairly clear; however, these benefits are only achieved when the blog is updated regularly with great content, but this can be very time consuming.

For companies who are not willing to put in the time and effort, it is better not to have a blog rather than to have a blog that has not been updated in months.

Let’s have a look at these corporate blogs (in English); I did not include other corporate blogs as I thought they are not regularly updated.

• Khimji Ramdas – Started in 2007 Bright Sparks features contributions from just about everyone in the KR family. On the blog you’ll find out everything about the organisation’s latest happenings, products, services, activities and promotions. Great blog!

• Arabesque Travel – this blog, ynotoman, is managed by Badar and Tony and offers great insights, reviews, photos, etc. about planning your tour in Oman. I have used their services when a couple of friends came to Oman and they were really happy with the standard of services received. Well done.

• Muscat Eye Laser Center – I like the idea for a healthcare entity of having a blog however, in my opinion, should not be used for copying/pasting news releases only. Could be easily improved by adding more pages such as ‘Meet our doctors’, ‘Eye care services’, ‘Patients' information’, etc. as well as posting more often.

• n dot interiors – this blog called Just Design is managed by Nidhal Al-Brashdi. On here you’ll find reviews, photos as well as her work. It is updated regularly with great content; great way of promoting yourself and your company. Thumbs up.

• Oman Law Blog – One of the oldest blogs in Oman as it started in 2008, by international law firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP. It shares lots of useful info about ministerial decisions, law updates, regulations and any sort of legal stuff. Very nicely done.

• TOTEM – Always super active TOTEM recently launched its blog, Counter Culture, with views on the fashion industry as well as everything you need to know about the boutique’s latest happenings. Not to be missed.

• Twinkle – Twinkle is a shop specialising in cute and unique baby and children's items and it recently joined the blogosphere. Look forward to reading more.

• Oman Air – In terms of content, I quite like it as it covers several areas; maybe they should work on the layout as some areas cannot be read. Seems to me though that they’re not giving the blog too much importance.

• Al Nims Media - Al Nims Media is a recently established social media agency. Through their blog they mostly share their work and occasionally bits and pieces from the social media world. Look forward to reading more from them as I know they can contribute to the growth of social media in Oman.

• Total Design – Another blog dedicated to design. O-DesignTecture is updated regularly and shares everything that has to do with architecture, interior design, graphics, fashion and arts.

• Sew Chic and Unique – One of my favourite blogs! Great tutorials, tips, photos and interaction but most importantly lots of passion by blog owner Mayya. Great.

That’s all; as usual if I have forgotten any let me know ;)