I have been super slack updating this of late, but rest assured there are a few posts in draft format that will be up soon.

But in the absence of a proper post I thought I would share some of the interesting things I have been reading over the last week.

HabitatUK return to Twitter on Digital Tip

It was in June that HabitatUK learnt the power of social media when they jumped on Twitter and used trending topic hashtags (the most tasteless was the Iran Election) to push signups to their marketing database and furniture discounts . As the blogger who broke the news, and then watched it break all records on Social Media Today, I am very relieved to see them back on Twitter. The case has been used as a benchmark of the cynical use of hashtag spam, been written up on countless posts, news stories and talked about on Twitter. Even though HabitatUK apologised through me via another blog post, and then promptly blamed their intern as the cause of the hashtag spam, they didn’t respond back on Twitter. Until now.

Where Gen Y Leads, Others Follow on Millennial Marketing

A new book,  featured yesterday in USA Today,  says Millennials have significantly impacted retailer practices in technology and merchandising. Titled ’Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens, and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail’, they call Gen Y “the taste-makers, influencers, and most enthusiastic buyers of today,” who will become “the mature, high-income purchasers of the future.”  The authors conducted surveys and focus groups, interviewed hundreds of Gen Yers, spoke with retail executives and spent lots of time in malls.

Building Rome in less than a day with Photosynth on Geek in Disguise

The University of Washington has built a Photosynth of Rome using 150,000 photos from Flickr and it’s mighty impressive. It took them 21 hours for Rome using Flickr and Photosynth and they’ve also been busy with Dubrovnik and Venice. Check out Dubrovnik below and you’ll see that the resulting synth really is quite amazing. They’re literally reconstructing entire cities from images harvested from the web.

Wispa Gold Gives Advertising Space To Its Fans on PSFK

To celebrate the return of Wispa Gold and say thank you to fans of the chocolate bar, Cadbury is offering up £2 million worth of advertising space for fans to potentially have their  personal messages displayed on the brand’s billboards throughout the UK and Ireland. Fans need to log in to Wispa Gold Messages and submit their message along with an explanation of why it is special to them. A panel of Wispa Gold fans will select certain ‘gold’ messages which deserve the limelight, and those messages will be displayed on the billboards. If participants need help in designing their message, a panel of Wispa helpers is on hand.

Malaysia: Social Media and Facebook numbers on Laurel Papworth

Malaysian Internet users like Facebook, Myspace, and Friendster. They’re also connecting via Twitter, LindedIn and Plaxo, and eBlogger. They use resources such as Slideshare, iTunes, Flickr, and YouTube.  Nine of the Top 20 websites in Malaysia are social networking sites, and the top 6 sites are Yahoo!, Facebook, Google.com.my, YouTube, Google.com, and Blogger.