US PR blogger Mel Seasons made a note in her facebook profile on what could prove to be a cheeky viral site prior to the US elections. Things younger than John McCain is what it says on the tin: a blog listing things that were invented, discovered, created or born after 29th August, 1936, the day on which Senator John Sidney McCain III first arrived in the world.

The objects, events and people singled out range from the bizarre (Scientology, the Hindenburg disaster, and Monty Python favourite - Spam) to some much more thought provoking suggestions including McDonalds, Israel, and both of Barack Obama’s parents.

After doing some research of my own, I found out that The Dandy, home of Desperate Dan and cow pie was first published in 1937, making it younger than John McCain.

Over the weekend, I stumbled across Ask500People, a survey website - currently running in beta - that gives users the opinion of 500 people on a first come first served basis.

Questions are submitted via twitter voted for by the community, with the most popular ones being run live on site and then archived, so that viewers can look back and get the verdict on today’s burning issues such as “Is it wrong to pirate movies and music?“, “Do you trust Wikipedia?” and “Did you get a cold last winter?“.

The site’s been running for about seven months now, but the necessity of creating a profile may be holding some potential users back. Some of the questions hosted by Ask500 are highly personal, dealing with private matters, and there may be some hesitancy around pouring out your secrets and personal thoughts online. In addition, premium survey companies like YouGov have the benefit of being able to select a particular geography or demographic, unlike this resource - which is essentially used by early adopters and regular web-users. As a result, the answers are likely to give a skewed view of the world and not necessarily reflect the broader public opinion.

First published at Shiny Red.

So who’s job is social media? Is it a marketing role, something for only a highly trained team of specialists? Should we involve management or would they just not get it? Well one mantra that I’ve heard mentioned a few times recently is that “customer service is the new marketing”. At the recent Internet World conference, Agency.com’s Andy Hobsbawm asserted that your brand is no longer what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is. There’s some truth to this concept. Search engine pages are more often than not used by internet users as a diving board into the pool of information on a particular company or product.

So here’s my contribution to anyone looking for customer service information from Fitness First. Spurred on by a recent conversation on general healthiness, I realised that my current gym (the Old St branch) isn’t serving my needs, it’s not in the best location for me, it’s a little dingy, not big enough, there’s no spa… I’d not had any real problems with the place, but I needed a little extra investment to help get me going. My contract had expired, so there should be nothing stopping me from leaving, other than a reasonable notice period. Unfortunately, it didn’t play out like that - and it wasn’t even close to the experience in the Friends episode.

Attempt 1: Go to gym for one final work-out, ask to cancel membership. I’m told that I need to talk to the “membership services manager”, she’s not there. Arrange for her to call me on Monday.
Attempt 2: Monday comes and goes - no call…
Attempt 3: Book appointment to see membership services manager, which I’m unable to make due to work commitments (no call to follow up)
Attempt 4: Call to speak to msm, she’s not there… so arrange an appointment to see her in person
Attempt 5: Show up to my appointment (yesterday), she’s not there, and there’s no record of my appointment. Oh, and the membership services manager has gone on holiday for a week, which means that I can’t give notice in time to avoid paying for June membership. Finally get a cancellation “request” form (I have to request?) so hopefully that’s the end of the issue.

It should not be that hard. Brands like John Lewis are celebrated for its customer service, and Dell is held up as being able to turn 180 on their customer care. Why is it that when a contract is involved (TV, phone, broadband, gyms) brands are so dreadful at taking care of us once we have a direct debit set up? Social media and the transparency of the web is sure to bring about some seriously rude awakenings in the next 12-18 months for brands. Anyway, I’ve joined another gym let’s hope they get it.

Ah surveys, one of the oldest weapons in the PR arsenal. And the media love them too - if you can find a headline to tickle their fancy. After a quick search, I’ve found out that 19% of millionaires don’t feel wealthy, 8% of drivers have had an accident on the school-run and that Germans have better sex (who’d have thunk?). These are all surveys that tell us about the people that completed them. Then there are the “definitive” surveys: The 50 best albums ever , The Top 100 movies of all time, and the most recent 100 sexiest women in the world from the readers of FHM magazine.

Now in its 14th year, it’s fair to say that as far as definitive lists go, this one’s quite short sighted. Featuring four WAGs, all five members of Girls Aloud, and a smattering of current and former Hollyoaks regulars, the list is overwhelmingly blonde and white. In fact, there are only four black women in the entire top 100 (Rihanna, Beyonce, Halle Berry, Alesha Dixon) and barely enough Asian genes to make a whole person. No place then for the ultra-talented Zhang Ziyi or personal favourite Oluchi Onweagba. It strikes me as very odd that in a country where our population is over 8% non-white, the definition of sexy, in the mainstream mind, is still an image thats walked straight off page 3.

Far from informing us who the 100 sexiest women in the world are, this whole activity just tells us that FHM readers prefer the young blonde haired, blue eyed archetype that the tabloids lift up as an ideal. Something easily deduced without the need for 9.7 million votes and a glossy supplement.

Some people must watch their incoming links like hawks… only hours after adding PRBlogger.com to my blogroll, Steven Davis Stephen Davies has outed social PRobiotic to the twitter community. I, of course, claimed that my thunder had been stolen, but I’m actually very glad he did. Having read this post about the three type of twitter users, I found myself vowing not to use it as a self-promotion tool, as those are precisely the type of tweets I’m least likely to appreciate. Of course the obvious exception is when the person is promoting something I’ll find interesting - and there, as they say, is the rub.

There’s been some discussion about twitter spam. Personally I think it’s an empty complaint - following is opt-in and if you want your updates to be protected, that’s also an option. However I do agree with @wadds comment that marketers should use the service “on a personal basis, and engage directly with the individuals that you are trying to reach”. The main issue with spammers taking over twitter is that the platform falls over far too frequently as it is, and the more people/bots using it to push their feeds, the more often we’ll find ourself without it.

I’ve blogged elsewhere about the bad taste that email is leaving in our collective mouths, so I find it odd that Brand Republic is conceding so easily the news that 150bn emails are deleted without being read every year.

Yes spam emails are better for the environment than direct marketing (DM), and there are more laborious things in the world than deleting junk-mail, but that’s not the gripe I have. The issue is that email as a communications platform is broken, ’tis kaput. The argument that we should “invest in the medium more. Iron out the wrinkles, improve the security and therefore the confidence of users” doesn’t stick simply because we are already choosing other forms of communication over email, our confidence in email is lost beyond ironing out wrinkles.

I suppose that as it’s written from a DM point of view, Hugh Bessant’s post is still stuck in the mindset that communication channels are fair game for marketers. However, while its true that for any form of social media to make money, there’s got to be some commercial involvement, the days of unsolicited marketing are over, and I’m tempted, nay compelled, to say that email marketing has played a key role in its demise.