Surprise! Which Hot New Game Zoomed Up the Facebook Chart This Month?

If you’re in the Travel Industry and considering launching a Social Media app, read on. The Travel Channel’s Kidnap blazed onto Facebook’s gaming charts with over 2 million monthly active users only a few months after launch. New users are growing at an astonishingly viral 50,000 a day, many in that industry sweet spot: the travel-hungry late twenties. Travel Channel and Rapp Collins worked with social marketing app wizards Context Optional to build a social game where users kidnap their friends to far off places. In order to escape, the hostage must answer a question –and (natch) the answer can only be found on the Travel Channel. This clever segue leads to an impressive conversion rate: 50,000-80,000 players get turfed over to TC’s rich content. Jeff Feldman, Director of Business Development at Context Optional, tells me that while “there was some marketing spend initially, primarily on Facebook, the growth is almost entirely viral.”

San Francisco based Context has been on a roll lately, launching applications for major brands including: Kraft One Minute Mogul; Absolut Top Bartender; Miller Today I’m Toasting; and Microsoft Got Pies (for IE8).

For more Facebook gaming news, check out InsideSocialGames. A teaser: Friends For Sale takes a big drop while Facebook platform leader Lil Green Patch extended its lead by nearly half a million monthly active users to 6.5 million total.

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The Top Destinations in the US: Did Your Town Make the List?

For the past 21 years, Conde Nast Traveler has asked its travel-savvy readers to weigh in on the best destinations, lodgings and transportation in the world. The 2008 Readers Choice Awards have just been announced.

I am proud to say that my hometown, the eco-paradise of Carmel, California, ranks #6 on the list of Top Cities in the U.S., behind San Francisco, Charleston, S.C., New York City, Santa Fe, and Chicago.

Here’s the word from Conde Nast Traveler: The 21st annual Readers’ Choice Awards is really a double celebration: It is not only an award for the destinations, lodgings, and modes of transportation that manage to exceed our expectations, it is also a credit to the worldly expertise of Condé Nast Traveler readers—passionate travelers for whom no island is too remote, no city too challenging, no hotel too untested. Winners all! Guru’s Note: An astonishing 32,633 readers participated in the annual survey, with more than 1,000 travel experiences rated and ranked.

Click here for more information on travel to the Monterey Peninsula from Conde Nast’s concierge.com.

Guru’s Note: I invite you to visit one of the most droolworthy places in the world. Stay at our eco-luxe hotels in Big Sur; gawk at the white wave views from the Highlands Inn; tuck yourself in under a quilt at one of the adorable cottage-y B & B’s in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Romp on our white sand beach with your soon-to-soggy pup and afterwards, the two of you can take tea and treats at Doris Day’s dog-friendly Cypress Inn. Stop by Mission Ranch for dinner, where you might spot owner Clint Eastwood hanging around the sing-along piano bar. True to his legendary movie hero style, the former mayor rescued the historic property from the condominium developer’s wrecking ball back in 1986.

Next day, leave the fog behind and meander out in your rented convertible to laze away an afternoon on sunny Carmel Valley Road. Marvel at the grace of the horses galloping by and sample a glass of prized, organic wine at Heller Estates Tasting Room, domain of talented winemaker, Rich Tanguay. The next day, golf at legendary Pebble Beach and genuflect to the memory of the masters, present and future. Stay at one of Pacific Grove’s gingerbread Victorians and fall asleep to the sound of seals barking. Get your hands wet in the Splash Zone at the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium.

But then please, mosey on home. We natives love that the Peninsula is podunk. We love that much of what passes for civilization, especially strip malls and traffic jams, is 60 miles to the north. We love that Carmel Valley Road is littered not with cans or wrappers but rather with homemade cardboard signs that say ‘Happy Birthday, Sweetie, We Love You” and “Carmel Fire Fighters Rock.” We love that you love our little award-winning town. Now go home.

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And in Pebble Beach, Rocks Rock.

Yes, there is something to do in Pebble Beach besides golf. 

These Zen-graceful rock columns, some as high as 5 feet, started appearing a few weeks ago on a stretch of white sand on the beach at Spanish Bay. This past Wednesday, 50 or so people showed up to stack the rocks , most tourists who happen to spot the columns as they wind around the awe-inspiring homes and seascape of 17-Mile Drive.

Source: Monterey Herald.

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Big Sur News: Monks Flee As Fires Reach Famous Tassajara Sanctuary.

With many of the Basin Complex evacuees returning to their homes in Big Sur, all eyes here in Carmel Valley are turning toward the smoke rising from nearby Cachagua.

With the exception of five people, The San Francisco Zen Center at Tassajara is now evacuated.

The picture above is the view from my driveway.

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The Big Sur Basin Wildfires: Update from the Land of Soot, Smoke and Red Sun.

We came home last night to discover soot all over the deck and a bright red sun sending mad, shimmery beams of crimson down below. As we watched this fiery freak show, the thick brown fog rose, swirled and swallowed the sinking sun in one smoky gulp. Very Sci-Fi Channel. Like Mars over the Monterey Peninsula.

So far the Basin Fires in neighboring Big Sur have burned 39,606 acres and 16 homes, with 1200 more being threatened. More than 700 firefighters, 6 helicopters, two air tankers and 46 engines are hard at work fighting the blaze. This part of the world –Carmel and Big Sur, especially, is very six degrees: we’re a small, close-knit community where everybody knows someone who is a firefighter or someone who lives on Partington Ridge or Palo Colorado.

Funny how the maps they show on the evening news always seem so distant — until the roads they’re pointing to are the roads that lead to your home.

Photographs courtesy of Katie Carroll

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The 38th Annual Pride Parade: Here Come The Brides –And Grooms.

 
They were everywhere. On giant wedding cake floats. Handing out ‘just married’ Hershey’s kisses. Waving signs and banners. Passing out stickers. San Francisco’s 38th Annual Gay Pride Festival and Parade was one ginormous wedding party — one that (thankfully) also happens to be big business for the city that deserves a boost after all its done to make these marriages a reality.

Tourism officials predicted huge crowds for the weekend — and they got them. Many hotels were sold out, including the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero where we stayed. My daughter and I came to march with my dear childhood friend — the soon-to-be California State Senator, Mark Leno, who is the author of the marriage equality bills approved by the Assembly and Senate in 2005 and 2007. Mark is one of those guys you just know is going to grow up and do something amazingly important– and he has.

SFGate reports that “with 259 marriage license appointments and 284 reservations for wedding ceremonies scheduled at the San Francisco county clerk’s office, Friday was on pace to be the city’s busiest day for weddings since gay marriage became legal earlier this month. There were 202 license appointments and 115 weddings performed on June 17, the first full day that gay and lesbian couples could get married in California.”

The wedding pavilion across from City Hall was swarming with brides, grooms and revelers when we were there. Nearby booths for hotels and resorts were handing out brochures and hawking special honeymoon deals for the newly married.

A recent UCLA study reinforces the good news, projecting the possible economic impact over the next three years :

• Total outlay for same-sex weddings by California residents and nonresidents:    $692 million
• Spending by California couples on their weddings. Assumes 51,319 couples (half of existing committed same-sex couples) will choose to marry, and estimates they will spend $7,645 per wedding:  $392 million
• Spending on weddings and tourism by 67,513 out-of-state couples. Assumes each couple spends an average of $2,962 on the wedding and $1,351 on hotel and food: $291 million
• License fees for 118,832 couples, assuming an average of $73.50 for fees: $9 million.

Beyond warming San Francisco’s coffers, today’s joyful parade warmed half a million hearts. The pictures below say it all.
>
Pictures courtesy of Katie Carroll.

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The New York City Waterfalls Public Art Spectacular Opens With A Splash.

Chicago has its cows. San Francisco has its cable cars. Las Vegas has its . . . well, you know.

As of yesterday, New York has its waterfalls.

New York City Waterfalls, the ambitious new $15.5 million project presented by The Public Art Fund and Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, is splashing its way across all five boroughs, bringing new energy and (hopefully) lots of cash into the city. The man-made falls tower 90 to 120 feet high in four sites across the East River’s shores:

Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge,
Manhattan’s Pier 35
Between Brooklyn’s Piers 4 and 5
On the northern end of Governor’s Island.

The Waterfalls, which draw water from the river at 35,000 gallons per minute, run from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every other day through Oct. 13. They will all be visible from South Street Seaport and the Staten Island ferry. Maps, podcasts and more information on viewing these new ‘natural’ wonders are available at NYCWaterfalls.org.

And never fear, Carbon Cops. They will operate on electricity run by renewable resources.

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Just When You Thought It Was Eco-OK To Run That Online Media Campaign …

We calculated our carbon footprint for all those red-eyes we flew to London, the SUVs we rented, the hotel rooms where we showered for 20-minutes and requested extra Egyptian cotton towels.  We even tossed in the methane from the cheeseburgers we devoured after Brett was intercepted in overtime.

And while our eco-sins are piling up like so many plastic bottles imprinted with 7’s, it didn’t occur to us until this very moment that we marketers need to calculate the environmental impact of our online media campaigns.  We felt so virtuous switching from treeware to those flashing banners and Facebook fan pages.

But now, a company called imc2 has launched Clear Sky Digital Media, a free tool that allows marketers to calculate and then offset the carbon footprint of their online media campaigns. The tool converts an online media buy into a kilowatt hour measure of the energy necessary to support its delivery. This measure is translated into carbon emissions and then used to determine the cost of buying offset credits.

Initially, I tried to calculate the carbon footprint of this blog but was quickly disheartened by the quantity of 0.0’s that appeared. Then I fantasized I was Chief Media Buyer for The Plastic Bags of America account, deep into planning the launch of a major online campaign featuring user-generated videos showing off the many healthy uses of recycled plastic bags. I picked the dimensions, selected high traffic sites like Yahoo, MSN, and AOL, then added the number of expected impressions. In seconds, Clear Sky not only calculated the carbon cost of the proposed campaign but told me how much it would cost me in green credits to offset. In this case, my Healthy Plastics campaign would create about 10 metric tons of carbon — and cost around $127 to offset.

So why do we need this new tool? Isn’t switching from forest to server farm virtuous enough? After all, an average issue of Time magazine is responsible for a quarter-pound of greenhouse gas emissions, while newsprint consumption alone is some 9.2 million tons per year. Electronics have got to be greener, yes?

Apparently Clear Sky’s mission is to simply persuade us to re-think all of our energy consumption and to start an industry-wide conversation about sustainability. Although currently not as devastating as dead trees, electronic media is having a growing impact on the environment. It’s already running neck and neck with air travel, each accounting for an estimated 2% of the world’s carbon emissions.

imc2 has raised some interesting issues — and here’s another one: Should the candidates in this year’s Presidential Election be required to calculate (and offset) the carbon emitted as a result of their campaigns? Imagine what it might cost to offset only the $45 million the money-making machine known as Barack Obama raised in the month of February alone and then spent aggressively on TV ads, particularly in Texas. A Presidential campaign carbon offset could be a significant energy investment windfall.

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