Twitter’s announcement yesterday that they will soon be cracking down on fake celebrity accounts brings to mind Andy Warhol’s quote, “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”.

I’ve thought for a while now that the lines between people and celebrities are blurring; my friend Liz Strauss likes to say that “People and stars are made of the same stuff”.  There are many indications that this macro trend will continue, as reality television and internet-enabled celebrity continue to grow in popularity and reach.  We’ll see ordinary people become famous, people become famous for being famous and watch with schadenfreude as the famous burn out and become ordinary again.

While some of this endless fascination is voyeuristic (the famous take risks that we would like to, but cannot), much of it is also aspirational.  Our sister company, Virtual Greats, is pursuing the idea that ordinary people, in virtual worlds, games and social networks, will enjoy appropriating traits of identities of famous people.  Second Life, City of Heroes and Twitter celebrities prove out this central hypothesis in a “destination-based way” — the team at Virtual Greats is now taking the elements of known brands or famous identities and equipping the denizens of many worlds with them.

Will it work?  Who knows, but I’m guessing that the rush that comes when Trick or Treating as a hero or operating a fake Shaquille O’Neal Twitter account is universal.  Only time will tell.

Hot off the virtual presses — our sister company Virtual Greats, in partnership with Wee World, is now selling Roca Wear branded virtual goods in Wee World.  For those of you over the age of 25, Roca Wear is rapper Jay Z’s highly successful clothing label.  Screenshot below gives a sneak peek at some of the new blingy merch now available.

In a famous Seinfeld episode, George Costanza concludes that every instinct he has is wrong and decides to improve his life by simply doing the opposite. This starts with ordering a different sandwich, which leads to a date with a pretty girl and continues with splendid results.

What does this have to do with brands? To be clear, I am not directly comparing brands to socially awkward bachelors; but I do think they can learn from George. Traditional marketers are very smart, creative and scientific, yet in building our business, we have observed that many of the instincts that have guided the communications and advertising of big, successful brands, translate poorly into social media initiatives. Why is this? One reason is that brands are used to portraying themselves as shiny, larger than life entities that magically transform the lives of ordinary people. And when they come to social media, they attempt to continue this tone which has served them well for so long.

In more tangible terms (and I’m sure some of my social media agency compatriots can relate to this) we often have long discussions about the approval process for Tweet or how to avoid negative comments on blogs. These are not silly concerns; no brand should enter an arena and aspire to tarnish the reputation they have work long and hard to establish. Instead, I would argue, they are concerns that look at the problem incorrectly and reflect a desire to use social media to drive traffic without taking risks.

My prescription? Do the opposite. When your brand wants to avoid embarrassment, seek it out. Instead of approving every Tweet with a convoluted hierarchy, create simple guidelines and empower passionate employees to use their best judgment, despite (or perhaps, because of, the risk of mistakes).

This requires accepting a difficult paradox. For brands, becoming skillful within social media is comparable to going to a series of parties. Many want to do a lot of planning (this is good: you’d certainly want to make sure you went to the right parties, wore cool clothes, had meetings with interesting people, etc.).

But a traditional marketing mentality would make a critical mistake here. That mentality would tell you to identify your targets, hone your message and then deliver that message across various channels effectively. When does this go wrong? To use the party analogy, it goes wrong when chaos arises. You introduce yourself and someone asks a question for which you’re not prepared. Or you meet somebody and they invite you to a wonderful party not on the list. How do you adapt? Do you ignore them and go back to the game plan?

No. Remember, the plan was a guideline in the absence of perfect information. Instead, adapt, make friends and share your passion. You’ll win lots of fans and they’ll keep inviting you to new and better parties. And you’ll keep doing the opposite.

I found this great presentation through a comment on my “Avatar Age” presentation.  I could go into a long post, but the short story is that if you’re interested in the future of communication on the net, you should read this.  The author works at British Telecom and they are advocating interoperable standards for avatars across multiple networks.

At the end of 2007, I started making the usual futile predictions about what would happen in the year ahead. You can see them here in the context of a presentation entitled, “The Avatar Age”, but briefly they were:

1.  Social networks will become avatarized

2.  Virtual worlds will incorporate more social network features

3.  Television tie-ins for virtual worlds will proliferate

My final prediction, which I didn’t include in the deck, was that the world would write Second Life off as DOA because the media hype had quieted, but that the world would continue to grow and that there would be a surge in use from businesses.

I’d give myself a solid B for my efforts (I’d say I got #’s 1, 2 and 4 correct and 3 wrong), but I’d like to hear what others think along with examples that prove or disprove each.

Late last year we collaborated with Stanford’s Byron Reeves to answer that exact question with respect to home energy consumption.   Our hypothesis was that it would be possible to use the same forces that drive consumption, namely competition and perceived social status, to curtail consumption.   We just needed to change the game and alter the incentives.  The result is shown in the short video below.

A front page story in today’s New York Times features a similar story that proves this really works.  Read “Utilities Turn Their Customers Green, With Envy” to find out how the Sacramento Municipal Utility District is doing the same.

In our business, it’s this type of result that inspires me and gives me faith that we’ll be able to use our know-how to do much more than just sell people more stuff.  In theory, we should be able to  use social software and games to create a movement around almost anything that people care about, and help guide behavior towards healthy outcomes.

What do you think?