Christian Fictoor weblog

April Fools Day (1st of april) is here! Many companies ‘compete’ for the best april fools fun. If I had to guess Google will go home with the grand prize They have launched two april fools day jokes (that I know of so far …).

** PLEASE POST ANY COOL APRIL FOOLS DAY JOKES YOU FIND TODAY AS COMMENT TO THIS BLOG POST – SHARE THE FUN! **


1 – GOOGLE MAPS TREASURE MAP STYLE

This year Google has really outdone itself. They launched a brilliant ‘Treasure Map’ style Google Maps:

Try it out yourself:

View Larger Map

2 – YOUTUBE GOES DOWN UNTIL 2020

WHAT?! Yes YouTube was all one big contest. They have announced to pick a winner … and quit the service …

 
AND GOOGLE HAS A REPUTATION TO KEEP

Google has made a big effort in the past to come up with the best April Fools Days jokes. The team of The Next Web bundled them on one page and it’s some pretty funny stuff -> link to the website of TNW (opens in new window)

WARNING: The Dorifel Virus which hit hard in 2012 now surfaced again … in Facebook chats! This blog post will show you how you can recognize the new Dorifel Virus threat, what can go wrong if you accidentally have installed the virus/spyware and how to remove Dorifel virus from your computer in some easy steps.

Dorifel Virus has hit Facebook chat – how to recognize the threat

If you receive a Facebook Chat message (or any other form of direct communication via Facebook) please be aware. If you see this (or similar messsage to ‘Your photos? LOL’ with a link):

DO NOT CLICK THE LINK IN THIS FACEBOOK CHAT MESSAGE!!!

If you accidentally have already clicked the link then a new site(tab) opens and you have probably seen the following screen (you might receive a message from quality anti-spyware or anti-virus program -if you have installed any- to block the installation of the DORIFEL virus, please follow the instructions provided by your anti-spyware / anti-virus software to make shure you are safe):

What happens when you have accidentally installed Dorifel

The DORIFEL Virus encrypts your office documents and installs other malicious software which tries to ‘tap in’ to your bank-accounts and creditcard data. Please take immediate action!

How to remove the DORIFEL virus from your computer

To remove the Dorifel virus please follow the following steps:

• First recognize hijacked office documents:

  

• Install and follow instructions on this page: http://www.surfright.nl/nl/support/dorifel-decrypter
• Download and install this anti-spyware package called ‘HITMAN PRO’: http://www.surfright.nl/en/downloads This software can detect and remove Dorifel virus and is free for a 30 day trial period.

Please warn your friends and re-share this post. Let’s make the Digital Realm a safer place together!

In the weekend of March 15 – 17th Statup Weekend Enschede 2013 took place in Spinnerij Oosterveld, an almost 100 year old former textile plant now serving as a business center. The event took place in a number of offices on the second floor and in the new event room. During the weekend concept-ideas were perfected, demos and presentations were made. And coaches helped out the startups to help them perfect their concept. This year I was part of the organization and coached the teams on sunday on the topic of social media marketing. Loved doing it!

A short video impression of the event (made by students of the University of Twente):

A video of the full finale night can be found here (good audio/video quality, full event).

And the winner is ….
Moving stories went home with the grand prize! Second prize went to Culture Fabric she also won the social media quick scan my company Fictoor Wagelaar sponsored).

Nice people, a lot of power, cool startups, cool event –> see you all again next year for #SWENS2014

TIP: Do you have THE idea for THE startup?! Startup Weekend is organized in cities all around the world and it’s so cool and useful to participate! Check out the website: http://startupweekend.org/

UPDATE: There is now a Harlem Shake app to make your own clip! Check out this video Mashable about how it works.
How cool is that. Download it here (free for lite version, Android)

——

YES! After the big success in 2012 of PSY with his viral hit ‘Gangnam Style, we now have our first real viral video of 2013; ‘The Harlem Shake’ and it is taking over the world!

This video was the beginning of all the viral fun of the last two weeks:

The catching music you hear is produced by an artist called Baauer.

Many, many people have adapted the fun and produced their own 30 second clip where the follow the simple (but effective) ingredients:

• There’s one person wearing something on his head who starts to ‘dance’ … the rest of the people around him is not really noticing it (or even cares).
• After about 15 seconds into the song everybody goes nuts. The crazier the better!

A compilation of some of the funniest Harlem shake clips (but there are many, many more!):

PLEASE SHARE YOUR FUNNY HARLEM SHAKE VIDEO WITH US! AND POST IT AS A REPLY TO THIS BLOG-POST.

UPDATED — I need your help! I’ve received just a little bit to much notices from people who have received a message from LinkedIn stating that their profile is among the top 5% most viewed in 2012 (see picture).

The message sent out from the e-mail adress linkedine.linkedin.com quote: “, congratulations! You have one of the top 5% most viewed LinkedIn profiles fosr 2012.” UPDATE (11:15PM, 8-2-2013): I’ve also received word from people who’ve received the same message but then stating that they are amongst the top 1% most viewed LinkedIN profiles.

Not only did I receive many messages (a lot of them Dutch people) but also people are stating that they are not even that active on LinkedIn and genuinely wonder why their profile would be amongst the top 5% viewed profiles.

So let’s figure this one out together. Please let me know:
1) Did you receive this message from LinkedIn?
2) Do you think your profile could actually be one of top 5% viewed profiles (and why)
3) All other thoughts regarding this matter

UPDATE
Yes! I’ve also received mail from LinkedIn

UPDATE 2
More and more people now realize that they might not be all that special after all. Nice to see that there are still replies to my small ‘research’ coming in via social media and as comment on this blog. Keep them coming. Will try some more (hard) data in the upcoming days. Keep you all posted!

Zapatou (Luc Bergeron) is one amazing guy. In his own words:
‘I really love to discover other people. I’m the kind of person who thinks that you can grow up from other people’s experience. I have an unconditional passion for video editing, because by this medium I can share my emotions, my feeling.’

Well, it shows. Once in a while he scouts the internet for the most amazing, viral and interesting videos!
His last compilation video “Best of Web 4″ really blew me away. So I decided to share it on my blog.
ENJOY!

Dear blog-readers,

I wish you all good health, a happy and very successful 2013. To start it of with a super fantastic new years eve!

For our company, Fictoor Wagelaar crossmedia marketing communication, 2013 will be an interesting year. With new business partners, some new products & services, new (cool) challenges, my new key note ‘How Social is your Business?!’ hitting the road and much more!

Social media will play an ever growing and important role in the marketing communication mix of organizations so I expect another year of growth and interesting developments.

I wish you all a very nice new years eve together with the people you care about!
See you all again in 2013 (office will open again on the 3rd of January)!

Kind regards,
also your blogger for 2013,

Christian Fictoor

Like every year Google release another ZEITGEIST video based on 1.2 trillion searches in 146 languages.
Based on trending search topics Google procuced a short video which gives an interesting (very compressed) overview of the year in under 3 minutes.

I personally love these. I’ve posted the 2011, 2012 (now) and expect many more years to come.

As regular followers of my Christianfictoor.com weblog know I sometimes share viral videos which I find interesting and/or extremely funny.

Yahoo is losing ground and decided to hire the guys behind The Onion to help them a little. And I must say I really love this (viral) video serie “The Onion’s extremely accurate history of the internet”. Hold up … don’t take the ‘extremely accurate’ part to serious … Not to be used for educational purposes, but good for a laugh.

ENJOY (and reshare)!

Part 1: Humanity’s Terrible Past: 50,000 Years Without WiFi

Part 2: Computers—The Thing You Need To Make the Internet

Part 3: The Roaring 90s – Tech Stocks Gone Wild

Part 4: Y2k – A Civilization Rises From The Ashes

More episodes will be announced at: http://screen.yahoo.com/the-onions-history-of-the-internet

Pope Benedict XVI has found his way to Twitter. In under one day the account @pontifex (English) has gained more then 150.000 followers. When you add the other @Pontifex accounts (in other languages): @pontifex_es, @pontifex_it, @pontifex_pt, @pontifex_de, @pontifex_pl, @pontifex_ar and @pontifex_fr the total amount of followers exceeds 210.000.

As we all know by know the Pope will soon ‘retire’. More and more rumors are emerging that this could have something to do with another wave of potential scandals (sex-, money- and gay priests related) to hit the Catholic Church again. Full article about this subject on CNN -> CLICK HERE TO READ