Cool city

Thanks to Alicia for sharing this image video about yaybia's great home town of Minneapolis.



Lovely. Now I am homesick (not that I am not homesick the rest of the time, this just didn't help).

They just forgot to mention that those "climate-controlled" skywalks are not only there to shield all the dynamic business people from the burning sun. Now, if you want to attract visitors and investors it's probably NOT a good idea to hush up the very fact that everybody associates with your city in the first place. Winter? Non of our business! Let the Florida people deal with that while we ride our bikes in our evergreen city. Yeah, sure very convincing...

C'mon you urban marketing folks, who do you want to fool? Be proud, but also be self-depreciating and funny and above all, be real.

Minneapolis is in fact a great place. But at times it is also a cold place. Everybody knows that anyways, so just tell potential visitors that they can still do all the exciting stuff they can do in every major city plus all that extra cool stuff they can only ever experience in an extra cool city. That certain chiliness is the very thing that makes Minneapolis and its inhabitants special. And I know from experience how very special they are! Anyone can act cool in a sunny place, but it takes a lot to be hot when your city is cold half of the year.

Also, they forgot to mention yaybia in their video about all things great from Minneapolis. Somebody should definetely shoot a realness remake to set the record straight.

Guest post: Tumblr is brainwashing Chase

Have you ever wondered the official requirements for being a Yaybia writer (or Yaybie, as the kids call us)?

1. You must have a sense of humor
   
2. You must be passionate about advertising
3. You must have unique insight into brand communications
4. You must have a vajayjay

Our buddy Chase meets 3 of those 4 requirements. Interpret as you will. For that reason he's not a Yaybie, but he is a Yaybia guest blogger!

Tumblr, the social blogging platform that has recently exploded in popularity, is poised to become a major purchase influencer for its users. Tumblr is mainly the domain of art and culture, the Internet go-to for the hip-minded. Tumblr is the bridge between Twitter and other popular blogging platforms; users can easily follow one another. Posts subsequently appear in a user's dashboard in real-time. Many users choose to follow friends, interests, or inhabitants of their locale. My dashboard is fairly evenly split between Minnesotans, New Yorkers, friends, and various design lovers.

When I see a product I like in my dashboard, I’ll usually click through to the product, and if no link exists I’ll investigate further. I’m following these people because I trust their opinions, so it’s the next logical step. Much of the product content that appears in my feed is made by individuals or small companies. Sites such as Etsy, Threadless, and other small outfits appear regularly on users' dashboards. I’ve bought shoes, shirts, books, cameras, and all sorts of products I became aware of via Tumblr users. Thus far, the companies themselves – whether big or small - have not jumped on this opportunity. They should. Take, for example, a J. Crew men’s feed that introduces new products and some background on their construction and purpose, straight from the designers who made the clothes. I guarantee I would end up buying products I wouldn’t normally be exposed to. With Tumblr’s newfound popularity, 2010 could be the year that brands start to jump in the mix.

I told Chase to write a bio or else I'd just put "Chase sucks." He didn't. Tell him in the comments if his post sucks.

Social Media's Fail(?) of the Day

I waffle between security v. convenience all the time; especially online. It is more secure to have a variety of passwords over all accounts, but much more convenient to have 1. In this case, this potential security v. convenience fail comes from Facebook.

For the first time today I got this:

While trying to update my status so my friends can have the link to this very cool article about our own Yaybia! But, today, instead of updating immediately I got a Security Check, and if I don't want to get this every time I try to update something, I have to have Facebook verify that I am a real person by sending a confirmation code to my mobile phone (standard rates and other fees may apply). Well, I did it. And still got the security things.

The point of this is to verify your existence, and they reason that if you are on Facebook you must have a mobile phone. Also, I could still have my old fake account (RIP Thunder Girl) and still send the message to my phone. Also, what if I don't want Facebook to have my phone number?

This might make Facebook a tiny bit more secure, but right now I'm voting for convenience.

Yaybia's Seven Things

Dirk over at Herd tagged me in his Seven Things post. I thought this would be a great time to share a bit more on how Yaybia got started and what some of our quirks are. After reading, you may not think this is a great time. Ready, break!

1. We've been asked several times, "What's a Yaybia?" Well, the mystery is over. We love silly YouTube videos and one day a friend shared the Clitter video with us. I highly recommend watching it, however, it's probably NSFW (depending on where you work). Needless to say, we DIED laughing. I was pretty much in tears. THEN, Libby and I (being the geeks that we are), wondered if yaybia.com was taken. Guess what, it wasn't. Win.

2. So how did it all start? We were all working on a national advertising competition and spent the better portion of spring break in the same room. A small room. Together. For an eternity (4 days). We all slept in the same room too, sick. Instead of killing each other, we started a blog.

3. Our favorite sport? Totally Scrabble Tuesdays. We get to drink and yell curse words at the TV. How could this not be in the Olympics yet?

4. The Midwest is the best. MinnesOHtah, Nodak, Cheeseland, Michigan and midwest GERMANY. Libby and I fight most about MN > ND. And despite popular belief, we are not twins.

5. We can drink more than you can drink. That's all. Don't believe me? Try us. We'll even buy the first round.

6. Collectively we probably spent close to 60 hours watching puppy cam. No lie. C'mon, who didn't leave an open browser window with those cute pups rompin' around all day?!

7. Ok ok, so this was supposed to be personal but I swear I'm not as intersting as these 6 fun facts. But in case you're still interested, you can see how lame I am by checking this out.

And we pick...

Our fave karaoke singer Jake Nyberg from ThreeVolts. He'll have to tweet his 7 things, should be a doozy.

Our fave politico John Sharkey

Our fave foodies over at Cupcakes Take the Cake

Our fave Minneapolis natives Daily Biz and Agency Spy

Our fave mother earth lovers Ryan and Jameson