Recently, I heard a board member recount a story about a sale on Gilt that included a certain designer’s shoes. Apparently, Gilt sold 10,000 of these shoes in less than three minutes and the waiting list climbed to 40,000 members. Pretty unbelievable. The site currently runs sales in categories for men, women and children.

For those that are looking for an invitation to join, here is a link with the invitation code included.

Join Gilt Groupe

After months of working on our early beta, I’m pleased to let you know that RareShare is now LIVE!

The Site is free to all and works to connect those affected by rare medical disorders by creating micro-communities for each specific disease.

Currently, there are just over 500 communities (the most common of the rare disorders). We’re planning to add many more over the next several months…

Here’s a sample seat map from SeatGuru 

Over the past several months, I’ve had the opportunity to test out quite a few plug-ins for The Creative Connector. While I was impressed by many of these, by far the one that proves to be most important to The Creative Connector is FeedBurner. It not only manages your email subscribers, but also manages all of your RSS subscribers.

• They are a great way to share ideas about your company’s research, products or industry
• They help build online awareness about your company
• They can act as a “less formal” extension to your press releases
• They provide an outlet for customers and investors to interact with your company
• They can help influence the media (see Blogs are Key to Influencing News Coverage)

Recently, I helped a biotech client, Nutra Pharma, launch its blog. We’re starting off slowly with one post each week on a different subject relating to its research, clinical trials or the life science industry. Just two days after we launched, we had 35 subscribers and a renewed excitement from investors.

Here are seven steps to jumpstarting your corporate blog:

1. Brainstorm a list of categories and topics you’ll cover on your blog
2. Sign up for a free WordPress account or download and install WordPress on your corporate site
3. Sign up for a free Technorati account and claim your blog
4. Install the FeedBurner plug-in and setup the email signup form
5. Post your first three blog posts (separate each by one business day)
6. After posting each blog post, submit the link on digg
7. Once you have several posts online, email your customers, vendors, and local media and let them know about your new blog

FlightAware offers a valuable free service allowing visitors to track flights online live from home or the office. Simply put in the flight and tail number or the airline name and flight number and click submit.  You’ll be able to track the flight’s location, its altitude, speed and distance to destination and most importantly, its estimated time of arrival.

One of my favorite tracked flights is a Gulfstream V that flew a flight path spelling out “GV”. Check out the map above or click here to see the full flight details.

Inc. Magazine published an article in its February issue about the positive effects of marketing viral videos online at places like YouTube and Google. In the article, Inc. profiled three companies, gDiapers, Personality Hotels and RJE Business Interiors.

All three companies took a simple approach to producing the videos and spent between $5,000 and $25,000 for production and marketing. gDiapers focused on the benefits of using its reusable nylon pants and biodegradable liners. Personality Hotels gave a 5 minute tour of the company’s hotels. And RJE Business Interiors created a reality series that showed company employees installing furniture and performing community service.

After publishing these videos, gDiapers experienced double digit revenue growth, Personality Hotels increased reservations by 5% and RJE Business Interiors increased revenue by 22%.

The Winning Strategy

In the article, Inc. also discussed the success of Blendtec, a maker of commercial blenders. The Company created a more creative series of videos entitled, “Will it Blend?”, which showed its blender chopping marbles, golf balls and even an iPhone. The videos have been viewed 35 million times and since launching these videos, the Company’s sales have grown from $2 million to $10 million. 

Top Online Video Sharing Sites

• Google Video
• YouTube
• Revver
• VideoEgg
• JumpCut
• Eyespot
• Ourmedia
• vSocial
• Vimeo

My Favorite Viral Video

Just for fun, I wanted to share my favorite viral video created by Smirnoff. Enjoy…

• 62% say blogs are having a significant impact on the “tone of discussion” in news reporting
• 52% say Google’s Blog Search is their mode of choice for finding blogs
• 28% of journalists have their own blog, either a personal one or as part of their job
• 9% of journalists check a list of more than 10 blogs each week

According to PR Week:

• 36.2% of PR Week readers spend 2-3 times a week reading blogs
• 33.3% spend 2-3 times a month
• 18.6% spend 1-2 hours each day
• 9.6% never read blogs
• 2.3% read blogs more than 2 hours daily

Source: PR Week

NotchUp, an internet startup that helps companies recruit top-tier employees told a great story about its beta launch during its DEMO ’08 presentation. On January 21st, the Company invited 250 people to join a private password protected beta. One of those people then invited 100 of their friends and one of those people then invited 300 of their friends. For the demo today (8 days later), the Company told us that they now have over 50,000 users (and that they had to find a new dedicated host). Now that’s the power of the Web….