Viral marketing news and other viral happenings in the Denver Metro and Boulder area.

In my house the Superbowl came and went, but we are all atwitter about the Olympics. Like many, my sympathies go out to the family of the luger who died. But the Games must go on, and this year sees an increasing number of athletes on Twitter. It is much more interesting to hear the athletes describe the excitement and anticipation in their own words than to watch the over-produced bio segments put on by the networks. I put together a list of Colorado athletes who are at the Games and twittering:

http://twitter.com/#/list/nicobrx/colorado-olympians

Here’s a little teaser from Aspen cross country skier, Simi Hamilton:

Now I would have thought that statement to be a bit redundant, but never having dived naked in to a swimming pool of awesomeness, I will take Hamilton’s word. Go Colorado! Go USA!

And if you want to shake a little cowbell while you watch the games, there’s an iPhone app for that.

We have our world-class athletes,  but we have our world-class artists too. Denver artist Evan Hecox designed a brilliant series of Macbook and iPhone cases for manufacturer Incase. But that’s not the viral bit – the viral bit is this video that captures the process of Hecox producing the designs:

I love this video and I love these designs. Nearly 5,000 people have watched it in less than a week, so I guess I’m not the only one.

Another local video that’s getting attention is a parody of The Office called The Class and produced by Denver University students. Alumnus Sinbad notwithstanding, comedy doesn’t appear to be a strength at DU, but give them credit for aiming high. And the clip is striking a chord, as more than 20,000 people have watched it in the last couple of weeks. In particular it is getting talked about and linked-to by teachers and faculty all over. That should be a slam-dunk for an A.

And here is viral media at its best: Boulder toy store Playfair Toys was robbed by an employee at the end of the year and the robbery has put Playfair in a tenuous situation, given the already difficult economy. Proprietor Marilyn Walker bared her heart and balance sheet in a moving appeal for help. And she’s not asking for handouts. Until they get their cash situation sorted out, they are offering all of their inventory at 40% off. The story and video spread like wildfire, especially on mom-centric forums and groups. I haven’t found data on how successful the appeal has been, but a number of items show out-of-stock, which is a good sign. So hurry and buy something. This is an unbelievable deal, these are good people and this is a good cause.

If you are wondering how Coloradans distinguish themselves on Facebook, researcher Pete Warden has some data you might be interested in. He’s done a comprehensive analysis of Facebook user’s Fan page habits and identified some interesting geographic trends. Colorado’s Facebook habits can be found here. The navigation is a bit weird, but worth digging around a bit. There are way too many trends to cover here, but I will point out that Coloradans are fans of the Colorado fan page, but Kansans are not fans of the Kansas fan page. Can’t say as I blame them

As a little pre-Valentine’s treat, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) dragged a bed down to 16th street mall and populated it with attractive and scantily clad couples to promote the message “Fur Out, Love In.” The event got decent press, but was apparently a little underwhelming if you bothered to show up. In the words of one Denver Egotist commenter, “what a pathetic stunt that turned out to be.” I guess all the skin on TV and the internet  has desensitized us to near-naked hotties. Still, I’d much rather see that than buckets of blood.

Ironically, the PETA folks may need to stay away from Boulder, where stricter public nudity laws are being considered. In classic Boulder fashion, the ordinance got stuck on the question of equal treatment of topless men and women. If male toplessness is outlawed, I’m pretty sure CU will become an all girls school. Good for parking, I guess.

This is a weekly update, please comment if there are topics or items I have missed.

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