Derek DeVries

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer just announced that the search relic will be buying Tumblr, an announcement made on a Tumblr created by Mayer using an animated gif of the “Keep Calm and Carry On” meme.  This is a great example of why most organizations should avoid trying to use memes, and the framing of the […]

As you may be aware, recently a student at Grand Valley State University was identified and confessed to sending out emails as part of a hoax that classes were canceled.  The Ottawa County Prosecutor’s office investigated the situation and has declined to file charges. This is the curious part: “‘We searched high and low and […]

Whenever a business gets too large, it ceases innovating and begins looking for ways to put a boot in the face of anyone who wishes to climb past them up the mountain. Unfortunately the Associated Press enlisted the help of [tech-illiterate] US District Court Judge Denise Cote and put a boot in the face of content […]

UPDATE 2 – 3/25/13: See Below Mark Twain once said “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Let’s test that hypothesis in the era of social media. Right now, students at Grand Valley State University are circulating the image above which appears to be a screen capture […]

Talking Points Memo noted this morning that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign today released a Harlem Shake meme video featuring college students re-enacting the format of a lone dancer dancing until the beat drops in the song and all hell breaks loose. As I’m fairly certain they’ll pull the video as soon as […]

Today I noticed in my social stream on Facebook that Budweiser was using ads to fight back against the accusations that they are watering down their beer. This little advertisement popped up humorously takes a jab at the plaintiffs in a lawsuit by offering the possibility that they mistakenly tested one of the cans of […]

[Update: the @BurgerKing account was finally suspended about an hour and a half in.] As I write this, Burger King’s Twitter Account (@burgerking) has been hacked by Anonymous and turned into a McDonald’s account with the parody storyline that BK has been acquired by McDonald’s.  It’s still posting updates (including photos of drug use and links […]

After careful observation the six-second videos uploaded to Twitter Vine (courtesy of VinePeek.com which aggregates a live, unmoderated feed of everything into one stream) for several hours straight, my content analysis is as follows:

[Disclosure: I applied for the University of Michigan Social Media Director position.] In October of 2011, the University of Michigan announced that it had created a Social Media Director position.  I was elated; it was a great sign that the practice was gaining the recognition it deserves.  In February of 2012 they announced that after […]

Government reform activists are constantly working to shed light on the dark dealings in politics, particularly on government employees and officials moving to the private sector to lobby the agencies and offices they used to occupy.  In the past, this information was difficult to obtain. Enter Linkedin. Like all social networking platforms, the strength of […]