“Social Media This Week” will be taking a break over the Holidays. Our next week in review will be posted on January 9, 2009. Seasons greetings from all of us here at com.motion.

You Got Served – Over Facebook?

The news: The Capital Territory Supreme Court in Australia has approved the use of Facebook to serve legal documents. An Australian couple, who were unreachable via e-mail and their home address, had defaulted on their home loan. The bank used a law firm called Meyer Vanderberg to contact the couple. After several attempts to reach the unnamed couple, Attorney Mark McCormack, asked the Australian court for permission to serve the papers electronically to the couple over Facebook.

Key question: What’s next? Marriages in Second Life? Oh wait. That’s been done.

Holiday Party Excuse Generator

The news: For years, physical holiday cards were considered a standard gesture between companies during the month of December. For the past couple years, e-cards have been the trend. In a somewhat cluttered holiday card giving season, organizations may find it difficult to have their greetings stand out to their clients and potential clients. Two years ago, Enlighten created a viral marketing hit called the Holiday Party Excuse Generator to send to their network rather than the traditional holiday greeting. On the site, consumers can create tongue-and-cheek excuses about why they are unable to attend one of the holiday parties they’ve been invited to. Enlighten didn’t promote the site this year, but the excuse generator gets a spike every year.

Key learning: The best viral campaigns get timing right. They involve a sense of urgency, but many are also timeless.

JC Penny Puts Men in the Doghouse

The news: Late in November, JC Penny launched a five-minute online video where a woman takes her husband and puts him in the doghouse in the backyard after he buys her a vacuum. When the character falls into the basement of the doghouse, he is greeted by men folding laundry and drinking chai lattes while a stern woman over a loud speaker is saying things such as “express your feelings” and “help with the cooking.” The video has been viewed more than 1.7 million times and has driven a ton of conversation (positive and negative) in social media as well as traditional media. On the “Beware of the Doghouse” website, women can send their significant others gift “warnings” over e-mail or Facebook.

Key learning: The best viral campaigns involve really good creative. And that may cost a whole lot more than a TV ad supported by paid media. After all, consumers are choosing to watch this.

Friend Portability

The news: On Thursday, Google and Facebook separately announced their own data portability programs called Google Friends Connect and Facebook Connect. The ability to move a group of friends from one social network to another is something many users have been seeking for quite some time. Both Google and Facebook users will be able to use their identities from these sites on others that support one of the programs. The sites that will support these programs will allow their visitors to log in and use the already available information in their profiles as well as find friends already on the sites that they currently visit. The programs are intended to minimize the number of usernames and passwords that users currently use. Using the Google Friends Connect feature, for example, on a companionable site, visitors will be able to go into the site using both their AOL or Yahoo username and password.

Key question: Does friend portability lower the barrier to entry for someone to build a new and better social network?

Santa 2.0

The news: For many years, Canadian children have been sending letters to Santa in the hopes of getting exactly what they want for Christmas. Sympatico MSN has introduced Santa to the beauty of e-mail and personalized web video to help reach out to children using a site called the Portable North Pole. You simply type in a child’s name, age, location, and a few other things and that child will receive a personalized message from Santa in the North Pole. The video is available in English and French.

Key question: With letters to Santa going digital will there be anyone, anywhere sending handwritten letters anywhere?

Canadian Tweetsters and Politics

The news: Politics in Ottawa have sent Tweetsters (Twitter users) aflutter this past week. Twitter is a microblogging tool that has exploded in the past couple of months in much the same what that Facebook exploded early last year. For many hours on Thursday, “coalition” was the most common phrase on Twitter (right after “Christmas”) causing hundreds of confused Americans to wonder what the heck is going on in Canada. Click here to see what Tweetsters are saying about the coalition.

Key question: There’s lots of Canadian politics still to come. What role will Twitter play in the new year?

The Motrin Migraine

The news: During International Babywearing Week, Motrin launched an advertisement targeting moms saying that “babywearing” is a pain. There was an uproar on the popular microblogging site Twitter where social-media savvy moms were proclaiming that Motrin missed the mark, that they love carrying their babies in a sling and that they were going to ban Motrin in their households. McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the maker of Motrin, responded by taking the ad off of the Motrin site. Motrin.com went silent briefly amid the Twitter banter before reappearing with an apology to those moms who were offended. See below to watch the original Motrin ad and a parody of it.

Key question: More than any previous case, the “Motrin Moms” case underscores that influencers can have a tremendous and immediate impact on your brand, organization or messages. How will brands respond?

Cyber Bullying Trial Begins

The news: In October of 2006, a 13-year old girl committed suicide after a teenage boy by the name of “Josh Evans” befriended her, flirted with her and eventually told her the world would be better off without her over the popular website MySpace. It turns out that “Josh Evans” was in fact a mother of another 13-year old girl who attended the same school as the victim. The mother’s plot was to befriend the vulnerable teen with this persona to find out if she was spreading rumours about her own daughter. This case went in front of federal prosecutors on Wednesday where they accused the mother of preying on an insecure teen. The mother has been charged with conspiracy and three counts of unauthorized access to protected computers; each charge carries a maximum five-year prison term. She has pleaded not guilty.

Key question: The case is believed to be one of the very first cyber-bullying trials. Should real-world laws govern interactions on online social networks?

Google Terminates Viral World

The news: After only five months, Google has decided to nix its virtual world, Lively. Google has stated that they are going to focus more on its “core search, ads and apps business”. Also, Google reflected on Lively’s inability to stand out from the rest of the virtual reality crowd. Second Life is the most popular virtual world on the net where people create animated alter egos (avatars) and socialize with other avatars. See below for a video from Lively.

Key question: Is five months enough time to test an application online?

Today com.motionblog launches a new weekly feature where we help our readers keep on top of the latest developments in the rapidly-evolving world of social media. Check back each Friday for the top headlines of the past week.

Live.com by Microsoft

The news: This week, Microsoft’s Live.com online portal has evolved from a search engine into a new social network. Site users are automatically connected with their contacts on the popular instant messaging portal Windows Live Messenger. The users’ profiles include basic personal information and can pull content from other blogging sites, microblogging sites, and photo sharing sites. Users can access other online services including e-mail, calendar, online storage and downloading services that include other Office programs such as Movie Maker. Microsoft’s goal is to ultimately increase site traffic on Live.com and they’ve leveraged what they own: instant messaging.

Key question: Can Microsoft gain enough traction with Live.com to become a real player in the mass social network market dominated by MySpace and Facebook?

Facebook Engagement Ads

The news: Using a healthy mix of both online advertising and social networking, Facebook launched a new “engagement ad” format this week. The ads appear on the main login page and prompt users to RSVP to a TV show season finale or comment on a movie trailer. That ad then gets promoted by sharing the update with the user’s friends. Facebook is charging more for the new engagement ads than it currently does for the display ads. The ads give Facebook users three unique experiences: commenting on ads for all friends to see, giving virtual gifts and becoming a fan of a certain ad.

Key question: Can Facebook turn an enormously successful social network into a successful business model?

Sponsored Videos on YouTube

The news: Although there has been buzz for some time, YouTube formally announced the launch of Sponsored Videos. The videos direct viewers to certain clips that they might be interested in after conducting a search. Marketers will be able to use this new service by seeding a campaign or to launch a new video. The product strives to help advertisers target keywords in a cost-per-click auction similar to that of Google’s AdWords service. The ads have a thumbnail image and three lines of promotional verbiage pointing to a specific page.

Key question: When will Sponsored Videos (if at all) replace AdWords on Google?