The "Weekly WassUp" is a brief weekly overview of what has been showing up in "the feeds" in the last week.
In this issue:
- Sep. 15 : LinkedIn launches own ad network
- Sep. 16 : Google shows Android
- Sep. 17 : YouTube gets interactive
- Sep. 17 : You can't be Santa's friend anymore
- Are you a PC? Wearing purple?
1. Sep. 15 : LinkedIn launches own ad network
The popular social network site for business professionals 'LinkedIn' monday launched it's own ad network. The decission was made based on the high demand from advertisers who want to target LinkedIn's 27 million high-end users. Together with ad network Collective Media, LinkedIn will deliver personalised ads to its users, even when they are on other websites (they've been doing this already some time on their own website). How they do it? Simple: Every time you visit the LinkedIn website, a cookie is placed on your computer.This cookie holds a lot of profile information (gender, age, ...) which will be used to personalise ads. LinkedIn members who don't like the idea, can opt-out from the program.
2. Sep. 16 : Google shows Android
A lot has been going on lately about the 'Google phone' (or 'GPhone', whatever you want to call it). In fact, Google will not be selling phones, but it has built a mobile, open-source operating system (called 'Android') which it will of course try to push onto as many mobiles as possible. The first Android-enabled handset will be the HTC dream which will be announced by Google and T-mobile on September 23 in New York. On September 16 Android was however already shown on Google’s Developer Day in London and ... of course filmed by someone in the audience 
.
3. Sep. 17 : YouTube gets interactive
The world's biggest online video platform 'YouTube' got some nice new features: 'annotations'. It is now possible to create overlays on your video's with simple textboxes, speech bubbles or ... links (or 'spotlights') that will take you to another video or an external video! This enables you for example to create simple polls from within your videos or create interactive stories like Samsung did for its 'Follow your INSTINCT' campaign.
4. Sep. 17 : You can't be Santa's friend anymore
On Facebook, everybody can have a maximum of 5000 friends. Even Santa. And that upsets the Santa Claus Foundation which "...advocates for the 2 million children in the United States who are bused, neglected, exploited, abandoned,homeless, and/or institutionalized". They want Facebook to change its policy so everyone can be friends with Santa and children all over the world won't be traumatized. One thing Facebook already did do was preventing people from subscribing as the Easter Bunny or Darth Vader .
5. Are you a PC? Wearing purple?
It's been a busy week in advertising: after having launched two much-criticized ads with comedian Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, Microsoft decides to take another approach by launching its "I'm a PC" campaign. The campaign is an answer to Apple's "Mac vs PC" campaign, featuring even a look-alike of the person portraying 'the PC' in those ads. It's not entirely clear if Microsoft changes tactics because of the boo-ing going on, or -as they claim it- because the campaign just entered a new stage, just as planned.
At the same time, Yahoo! urges anyone to wear purple...
