WTF of the Day: Here I thought getting into grad school was supposed to be a laborious process, with applications to fill out and big essays to write. That’s not what the University of Iowa’s Tippie School of Management thinks; they are offering one lucky applicant acceptance based on a tweet. Yes, that’s right a 140-character tweet that best explains “what makes you an exceptional Tippie MBA candidate and full-time MBA hire? Creativity encouraged!” The school says it came up with this idea because it wanted to tap into the popularity of social media and because Twitter is an increasingly important business tool. OK, I get maybe offering a social media marketing class or integrating social media into coursework, but making tweeting an acceptable way to apply to grad school? That’s going overboard. Anway, for all of you lazy business school applicants who want to bet on your Twitter skills, the tweet-application deadline is July 28 and the winner will be announced on August 4. Good
New Zygna Game: From the makers of the smash hit social games Farmville, CityVille and GaGaVille, comes a new social game that has more practical IRL applications (rather than managing a virtual farm). The game is called PrivacyVille. It’s Zynga’s new step-by-step guide to their privacy policy in game form. Zynga wants to make learning about privacy more fun, and it even allows users to gain points that can be redeemed for virtual currency or rewards. Forbes
Facebook Address: The U.S. Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, took to Facebook to address the public regarding the angry anti-America protesting that resulted during his visit to Hama. See Ford’s post here: “A Note from Ambassador Robert Ford.”
Bye-Bye GaGa: The official Lady GaGa YouTube channel, ladygagaofficial, was temporarily terminated due to various “third-party notifications of copyright infringement from claimants including: Air Productions,” according to YouTube. Apparently Air Productions had submitted the claims in error and has since cleared up the situation with Google and with Lady Gaga. Just goes to show that Google is taking copyright issues pretty seriously. Social Times
Blind Date Live: HowAboutWe is a dating site where, as the name suggests, people propose date ideas and then go on them. Their aim is to shift online dating offline. As they explain, “By focusing on the actual date, HowAboutWe totally flips the script on traditional online dating. No need for endless back-and-forth messaging. The date’s already planned. Just figure out a few details and you’re set.” Well, HowAboutWe is going a little against their own mantra by bringing the action back online: last night they livestreamed a couple’s first date on their DateCam. Talk about awkward. Check it out for yourself. HowAboutWe
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