• Everyone wants their cause marketing campaign to go viral. You put all the pieces into place — a compelling cause, easy call to action with a worthwhile payoff, a “tell-your-friends” feature — but for some reason it just doesn’t take off. That’s what happened to OurChurch.com, which created an AIDS Clickathon where sponsors donate 25 cents to help African children orphaned by AIDS, for each person who click a link. WebProNews did a case study to try to figure out why they only collected $1500 after five weeks. Sometimes even when you seemingly do everything right, a viral marketing campaign can fall flat. Read the viral marketing community’s analysis of what went wrong in the forum (and find out why viral marketing is like a fat midget with a wig on a unicycle).

• MarketingSherpa has a great article on how to execute a mobile marketing campaign (open access until 5/22 so go read it right now). It includes tips like taking into account your audience when determining which mobile approach to use — mobile text, mobile web or mobile video; taking advantage of the peer-to-peer messaging aspect; and integrating mobile with your online and offline marketing.

• Global Kids, a nonprofit that worked virtually with a group of youth in Teen Second Life last summer on their chosen issue of child sex trafficking, shares its best practices for nonprofits who want to work in Second Life. These include general tips (e.g., document your virtual work through photos/video to show other programs and funders who may not be in SL), tips for bringing a youth development model into Teen SL (e.g., create as many opportunities as possible for teens to express themselves through building things and designing avatars), and tips for workshop design and facilitation in SL (e.g., use real world content when addressing real world issues).

• A few more related Second Life notes… Beth Kanter interviewed Susanne Thornqvst of Fight Hunger about lessons learned from their Walk the World event in SL last weekend… Analysts at Gartner, Inc. say that 80 percent of Internet users will have a “second life” in a virtual world by the end of 2011, and they give five laws for companies exploring participation in virtual worlds… The National Multiple Sclerosis Society is doing a weeklong MS Fly and scavenger hunt to raise money and awareness, taking advantage of the unique attributes of the virtual space… Infinite Vision Media launched a social responsibility initiative to assist nonprofits with entering virtual worlds, starting with a pro bono effort to create the American Cancer Society’s virtual headquarters in Second Life.

• Does the fact that HIV-positive former basketball star Magic Johnson looks so healthy make him a more or less effective spokesperson for HIV prevention? Eric at Classical Values talks about the “Magic Paradox” — that some people may adopt the misperception that AIDS is not so bad, or is even curable, given how good Magic looks after 15 years of living with HIV. On the other hand, he is a walking endorsement of the effectiveness of the multidrug cocktail he takes every day, and thus the importance of testing and subsequent treatment for those who may not know they are HIV positive. Depends how you spin it, I guess.

• What is the sound of two chatbots talking about the meaning of life? Somewhere between a psychologist undergoing therapy himself and two preteens IMing each other. Discover Magazine brought together two conversationally advanced computers and seeded them with starter questions to see where they would go. An example:
  

  J: Do you think?

  A: Yes. I am a thinking machine.

  J: But you don’t think very well though.

  A: Oh. Um. Do you think well? Why would I think well?

  J: Because I tell you about things which you don’t like.

  A: That makes sense to me. Why did you tell them?

  J: You seem fun.

  A: You think I am fun.

  J: Yes ;).

  A: : -) Awesome.

  Though right now it’s not much more than a parlor trick, perhaps chatbots could be used to help people find health information or work through behavioral challenges such as smoking cessation at some point in the future.

• The New York Times ran an article this week about the new acceptance of people with disabilities on television, with someone who has cerebral palsy winning NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” people with one leg competing in “The Amazing Race” and “Dancing with the Stars,” and disabled actors on series playing just another character, rather than the tragic or heroic stereotype. In fact, Special Olympics International sent an open letter to Simon Cowell of “American Idol” thanking him for teasing an auditioner with a mental disability about his weight and not treating him differently as someone to be pitied. Both Fox and NBC are at work on pilots for comedies starring disabled actors. The more exposure people have to images of people with disabilities as “regular people,” the more acceptance and reduced stigma will follow.

• Advertising Age blows apart the stereotypes of online gamers with profiles of the varied types of people and the games they play. It’s not just for teens anymore.

• NetSquared’s conference is coming up in San Jose on May 29-30, and they’re looking for tech savvy, nonprofit savvy, and financially savvy people who will help them pick the three best projects of the 21 nonprofit finalists who are using “the social web for social good.” You will need to apply to participate in the conference this year.

Photo Credit: terpstra_brett