Trends

If impersonation is the sincerest form of flattery, parodies have to be its kissing cousin. When it comes to Mad Men, one of the most intelligent and entertaining dramas on the tube today, everyone seems to want a piece of Dan Draper and Peggy Olsen...and making fun of them is...well... the icing on the cake!

Remember the days, when record companies use to slip a radio station a few extra hundred bucks to promote their favorite artist's latest record? The term, "payola" derived from that practice. Today, those pay-offs are being replaced by a new 21st century social media updated version.

It's becoming more and more difficult for traditional gatekeepers like the government to control the flow of information to the people. In years past when the authorities issued a "gag order" against the media, they could easily enforce it. Not the case in today's social media world!

Luxuriously soft, light & fluffy, and undoubtedly doughy: a couple slices of oh-so-fresh bread or a lounge chair to die for? Maybe both... in this case, the Bread Chair from Japan.

Holiday Shopping habits are going through a transition states OneUpWeb.com. The recession has changed consumer habits and according to their report on shopping trends, "social" search engines will be used more than traditional search for data regarding holiday purchases. And beyond Twitter Search, the social networking niche gaining the most traction in this area is social shopping network sites.

Can Twitter become a game-changer in Japan, where it just recently launched a new mobile platform? Or will cultural differences and native social networks like Mixi and Poupeegirl thwart its efforts?

As much as social media occupies our everyday lives, I was surprised at how few social media costume actually were being packaged for sale. Perhaps retail manufacturers are in such an economic slump, they are focusing more on unloading existing inventory versus created new merchandise. However on the "home-made-create-your own" front, there are dozens of folks who have spent their time and creativity to craft some very unique social media costumes for this Halloween.

A ghoulish collaboration between Japan's Sanrio, designer Dr Romanelli and trendy toymaker MediCom has given the first anatomically correct Hello Kitty to a world that really wasn't asking for one.

It started with a helium aircraft  hovering over Fort Collins, Colorado and the belief that a  6-year-old boy climbed in and floated away Thursday, October 15, forcing officials to come up with a rescue plan to save him. Update at 3:35 p.m. ET:The balloon slowly spun to a crash-landing, surrounded by rescuers. Mystery widens, no one was inside balloon? It was at this time we learned that the father was a stormchaser, thus the balloon, and the family was involved in ABC's "Wife Swap," thus the reason for part of the craziness that unfolded. But the story didn't end there. The rest is only something that could make up a real-time Reality Show! Was it Truth or Hot Air? Or Balloonacy?

On October 12th, with just a few hours of tweeting under the new Twilight Twitter account's belt, it had already tallied 22,000 followers. Three days later and as of the time of this posting, it has more than tripled its fan base to reach 78,000. Can it reach a million and will it shift the age demographic on Twitter? Take our POLLS and find out.

Looks like with the decline of smoking in the US, Twitter has taken the place of lighting up after doing the horizontal mambo! If you do tweet after sex, you're in good company. As a new study by Retrovo indicates, 36% of people under the age of 35 often resort to social media after sex, giving a whole new meaning to "show me your tweets!"

How much would you pay for additional Twitter followers? Pennies, Two-bits, a dollar? Would you pay $1 million for one million followers? In an unprecedented move, Drew Carey, comedian and host of the Price is Right rose to that challenge and in exchange for a million followers, he has offered to donate a million dollars to Lance Armstrong's Livestrong Foundation.

At first glance, Lufthansa's new service called MySkyStatus sounds like a very cool and cutting edge social network feed. However upon closer scrutiny, one needs to ask the question: Is a service that automatically posts the current position of your flight a dozen times or more to all your followers and friends on Twitter and Facebook such a good idea? Isn't there a security risk involved?

Building an exceedingly complex 1/16 replica of one of Japan's historic World War II warplanes won't cost you an arm and a leg when you buy weekly parts kits on the installment plan.

If you are an Evolutionist and a member of the Twitterverse, new evidence dates our human ancestory back 4.4 million years. Move over Lucy, YOUR ancestor pre-dated you by over a million years. "Ardi" is her name, and being acknowledged on Twitter is her game.

Almost 2 Million followers before she stopped counting. She ain't living for Twitter any more. Miley Cyrus is one of the first celebs to pack it in on Twitter. Was the bright light that shines on Twitterville too much of a spotlight and will others take her lead?

While I've been known to have slept under a rock in the past, I thought I was up to speed on all the social networks online today. Not only did Tagged.com slip in under my radar, its Web site boasts being the "3rd largest network in the US" while amassing over 80 million members worldwide.

Just in time for Halloween, you can vote for the scariest movie since "Blair Witch." Yes, you can now vote for where you want a new motion picture to appear and if you can assemble a million followers via social networks like Twitter and Facebook, you can "demand" that the movie be distributed nationwide.