Social Media App That Responds To LICKS vs LIKES

by Ron Callari

While Facebook's Open Graph has changed the way we navigate the Web with their LIKE buttons populating faster that rabbits on a hot summer day, the Socialcam app had a different take as to how they could mix things up with the power of social media. When they launched a contest challenge at SXSWi this past week, hundreds of participants responded - but only one was able to get the job done lickety-split!

Socialcam App Contest
Socialcam is one of the easiest way to share videos with your friends. With just a few clicks you're able to record, tag and share videos, as well as browse, LIKE and comment on your friends videos.

When Samuel Yu, a self-described "interactive specialist" signed up for the contest, he was presented with 5 challenges that included the following:

Socialcam Contest Challenges

With the incentive of winning a week-long stay on a private island in Fiji complete with round-trip airfare, Wu who apparently is suffering from an oral fixation decided to go into an Apple store and lay claim to a floor-model iPad by licking it - hoping to prompt management to sell it to him.

This video scored him the winning contestant and gave him the street cred of being the first person to lick an iPad clean in public.

As far as earning Socialcam the type of publicity they were hoping for, within five days, the sign-ups for their app reached a 150,000 by March 19.

At post time, I received no word whether Apple eventually sold Wu the iPad - but if they were smart they should have signed Wu up for a commercial with a catch phrase along the lines of: "the only tablet that takes a licking but keeps on ticking." Or did somebody already do that?