Carrot Creative Blog

I’ve had some discussions lately about the changing landscape and the need for social media for brands as well as who is the “right person” for the job of managing the social media campaign. Is it the advertising agency? The PR agency? A whole new type of agency or specialist that has yet to emerge?

Andy Sernovitz, contributing writer for the Smart Blog on Social Media has a great take on this and who he think should be running the social media world: PR executives. As Andy says, “PR executives make the best social media executives. There is a similar mindset. Traditional media relations requires finding the right influencers, building trust, and sharing credible, relevant stories. Translating those actions to social media — replacing reporters with the bigger community — is exactly how to run a great social media program.”

Citizen journalism is the most informative innovation in the mobile space since the introduction of the camera phone, and our good friends at CBSEyeMobile are leading the way with their new application developed specifically for the iPhone. It’s already been featured on several sites including TechCrunch, Mashable, and TUAW since launching last week and is garnering fabulous reviews from all around the blogosphere.

We’re very excited to be working with the CBSEyeMobile team to build other amazing social network integration tools and can’t wait to see what else the team has up their sleeves.

School has started back up and Teach The People is hitting the books— Facebook that is. We are proud to announce that Teach The People, the world’s first people powered University, is now a Facebook application. TTP recently released its Facebook application in time for TechCrunch 50, where TTP was part of the Alumni Hall exhibit.

We are proud to have worked with TTP to utilize the power of Facebook to offer a tool for people to share the useful knowledge they can offer the world. If you forgot to bring your notes on TTP, here’s a brief summary: TTP is a service that leverages a user’s social graph to provide relevant community based education. Through a variety of traditional and non-traditional tools, TTP crowdsources educational demand by providing tools to intelligently connect educators and learners.

Facebook’s biggest event of the year is now history, but all the exciting changes made to the Facebook platform aren’t the only thing the >carrotCrew are buzzing about. We’re thrilled to announce that Challenge, a project lead by one of our good friends, has received a fbFund grant; the nerd equivalent of an Emmy.

Congrats to Blake Burris and the rest of the GoalCamp team on a job well done, and much continued success making the social web more useful. We look forward to helping them in their continued success as masters of the Facebook platform.

It has been an exciting and busy time in the office lately as we have been working on some very exciting projects. We have recently partnered with Saatchi & Saatchi’s New York office and have been commissioned to work on a Web 2.0 project for JCPenney.

There have been a lot of jokes thrown around the office about back to school shopping while working on this project. It’s funny to be working on a project for a client when we can remember our moms bringing us to their stores every year before we went back to school.

I just got off the phone with Blake Burris of Joyent, in which we discussed application scaling and hosting concerns, and I am thrilled to endorse Joyent for any application deployment needs. After working with Joyent to deploy the MLB.com Facebook Application, we found it necessary to further discuss future collaborations as well as offer support to one another as both Carrot and Joyent figure to be at the forefront of most New Media trends. Be sure to keep your eyes on the lookout for the great meetups that Joyent has planned in NYC, which Carrot will definitely be a part of. Dates will be released soon.

Carrot Creative is excited to announce the launch of the UBRSTAR website. As the primary developer of content, design and social network implementation, we are proud to partner with The New Haven Theater Company to offer live theater and stage stardom to the world. UBRSTAR utilizes a troupe of both live stage performers and online performers that can become part of the performance by submitting online videos of their character of choice (given the specific performance). The live performance, in which live stage actors must interact with their online counterparts, is broadcast live through Ustream.tv for the global audience to view and simultaneously comment and provide content at the leisure of their own chair. This summer’s show will be a contemporary version of a Shakespeare classic entitled “Run to the Capulets, Raise Up the Montagues: The Investigation of Romeo and Juliet.”

Social Change is making great strides on Facebook in just one week. Social Change, of course, is the newest endeavor of Dank Apps that is positively altering user interaction for the betterment of mankind on the Facebook platform. Having already raised hundreds of dollars since its launch on April 8th 2008, Here’s how Social Change raises awareness and support for the most pressing social issues: For every new user to the application, $.02 is raised. After that, any activity within the application generates revenue to be donated to the cooperating charities. Currently, Social Change works with: The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, The Clinton HIV/Aids Initiative and the Nature Conservancy. This impressive and innovative utilization of Facebook users’ activity has already garnered media praise from VentureBeat and AllFacebook. We, at Carrot, are so proud of Dank Apps and are so grateful to be a part of SocialChange. We hope you enjoy our creative design on this project, but more importantly, we hope you engage in such a simple, fun yet world-changing experience.