Have you ever noticed when going to Twitter, you often times see failure notices on Twitter and on other sites. Yes, these pages, known as 404 error pages, tend to be SUPER ANNOYING somewhat inconvenient. What you should consider when dealing with your own website is how beneficial are you making your 404 error page? For many companies, having an informative and useful for the viewer. I stumbled upon the Designer Daily blog about some of the featured blogger’s favorite 404 error pages. Take a gander at our 404 page when I look up a non-existent “heather” page.

Well, it looks like a lot of events happened this week. Flights across Europe disrupted, Mass Suicide Tax Day, Goldman Sachs getting sacked with fraud… The stories are endless. The top 12, however, are the ones that us social savvy people are really interested in. According to Mashable, the top twelve social media and tech stories for this week include: that of one Mr. Conan O’Brien pulling a Leno on George Lopez, when announcing this week that he will be moving to TBS to continue his late night show, Twitter purchasing Tweetie, now dubbed Twitter for iPhone and Norway utilizing the Apple’s newest addition, the iPad to run there government during the Icelandic Volcanic eruption fiasco. What would you say was the most important news of this week? It can be related to anything whether its social media, world news, technology or even business! “Inquiring minds want to know.“

We are really excited about the new project that Eric Leftkofsky and Brad Keywell have launched recently with the help of our talented staff here at blueye.

In a story recently featured on Techcrunch and several other online news outlets, the two Chicago entrepreneurs announced Lightbank as an investment fund for early-stage start up companies. The goal of the fund is to invest up to $10 million annually and focus on the expanding number of brilliant tech minds in the Midwest, especially the Chicago area.

Leftkofsky and Keywell are certainly not newcomers to the tech entrepreneur arena, having their hands in a series of companies such as Groupon, InnerWorkings, MediaBank and Echo Global Logistics. With any luck, Lightbank, and the companies they invest in, will share the same success as their past endeavors and help to keep some of our homegrown tech talent right here in Chicago.

No no, This isn’t a blog post about one of our own going on vacation. She is actually workin’ hard for that money out in Las Vegas, NV! Shannon Smith, President of Blueye, is traveling to Las Vegas, NV for the Shop America Tourism conference! Shannon will be speaking in a panel tomorrow at 1:30 along with John Peters – CEO of Tripology and Moderator of the Meetup, Rick Still- Principal of OnTrade.com and Kulin Strimbu- CEO of Trip Television. The main focus for those attending the panel tomorrow is to learn more about social media and social media Strategy for the travel and tourism community. We are really excited for Shannon as this is her first speaking engagement. If you happen to be out at the conference and you see Shannon, make sure to say hi to her! Good luck tomorrow Shannon and don’t forget to Always be Social!

Well, another year has passed and it’s impossible to go a day without coming across a “year’s best” list in one format or another. That being said, we would like to offer you with our own list, but these are some things you may have missed. Maybe you don’t live in Chicago. Maybe you aren’t in a creative field or profession. Maybe you don’t read or don’t care ‘what the kids are doing these days’. Whatever your reason is, these ten things may have passed by you without so much as a glance. (in no particular order)

1. This January, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes (formerly of R&B group TLC) released a new, but posthumous, album called Eye Legacy. I don’t recall ever hearing any of the tracks, but apparently it made it all the way to #44 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop charts.

2. The Dirty South caught fire this summer when Red Bull came to town with their Soapbox Race. Congratulations to the Atlanta race winning driver, Christopher “Killa” Miller, and the team from The Beer Connoisseur Magazine. Um, duh, of course the guy with the nickname “Killa” is going to win.

3. Despite rumors to the contrary, Jeff Goldblum, Zach Braff, Britney Spears, and Natalie Portman are still alive. Thank you, Twitter.

4. “As Seen on TV” products hit a new low when the Snuggie craze spilled over into the dog market. I have neither a dog nor a Snuggie and my life is just fine.

5. Charles Burnett III broke a 100-year-old land speed record for a steam-powered car. He averaged 140 miles per hour in two drives at Edwards Air Force base. That’s hot!

6. In the category of Easter candy that I never eat, this year we were blessed with Chocolate Mousse Peeps. Apparently they have only 28 calories and 0g fat per Peep, but I’m afraid I won’t be expanding my love of chocolate into this realm.

7. The auto industry has been hit pretty hard over the past couple years, that we know. What you may not know, however, is that 2009 will be the last production year for the Chrysler PT Cruiser. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, don’t worry, they won’t be making any more of ‘em.

8. Blueye account manager, Heather Williams, ran her first Chicago Marathon this year. After months of training, she finished in 29,897th place, just 29,896 people behind the winner, Sammy Wanjiru. Congratulations again, Heather!

9. Ace Ventura has done it again. Okay, maybe not. Apparently there was a new addition to the Ace series this year (who knew, honestly) as Ace Ventura Jr. Pet Detective was released in March. Did anyone see it? No? We didn’t think so.

10. Swingers unite! Just this month, as the new year looms, 632 Chinese took place in a Guinness record-setting event. Get your head out of the gutter, silly. They took place in the largest ever golf lesson, taught by Zhang Lianwei of China. What a great way to spend your lunch hour.

Here’s to a healthy and happy 2010!

With 2009 coming to an end in just a couple of weeks now, it would only seem appropriate to have a look back at what happened this year that made this year. Obviously the hit series “Jersey Shore” is on the top of our lists, along with Kanye West putting his foot in his giant mouth once again. I think I’ll save those items for another 2009 list. Time Magazine has posted their ‘The Year in Pictures 2009′ and there are some amazing, vivid shots that have been captured. My only question is how did they make the list for summarizing our year?

Yes, we have Obama standing at his desk reading a document in the Oval office, but what about that shaped our year? These photographs are certainly stunning and some are certainly effective. I just wonder if there are any other moments in this year that would be more memorable than the ones presented? You tell me folks, what are the events this year that you felt impacted our history this year?

Do you have a favorite photo that you feel truly captured something that impacted the world this year? Let us know!

Well, Tony Hawk has done it again. In his latest Twitter-based scavenger hunt, Hawk leads all 1.7 million of his Twitter followers on a worldwide hunt for prizes including complete skateboards, backpacks, t-shirts, watches and more. This time, however, several of the hidden packages included a USB drive containing video clues about the location of a free skateboard and BMX show happening on October 17th, 2009 (tomorrow) featuring Tony Hawk and several other professionals.

After 3.5 days of tracking the #THTH hash tag on TweetDeck, and a ridiculous amount of SMS updates from @tonyhawk, the Chicago clues finally came in. About 20 minutes later (including Loop lunch time traffic and a 2 block sprint), Brice met Stephanie and Zoe at the Katherine-Anne Confections tent at the farmer’s market in Daley plaza and received his prize.

Congratulations, Brice. Let’s make it 3 for 3 when the next time comes around!

(By the way, the caramels from Katherine-Anne were fabulous!)

Follow Blueye Creative on Twitter for more updates on Brice’s Twitter Hunt explorations.

We had a very interesting day here at Blueye yesterday; as Shannon, president and founder, arrived at the office she found an injured squirrel lying on the pavement. She immediately came inside and began looking for someone to call to come rescue this helpless little fellow. However, everywhere she called kept telling her that they could only help domestic animals and that if we were in a more rural area they could help the squirrel. When hope was almost lost she stumbled upon the Animal Welfare League; this organization was more than happy to assist Shannon in her squirrel rescue mission.

The Animal Welfare League was founded in 1935 to stop the suffering of animals in the Chicagoland area. Their founding shelter was established at 6224 South Wabash Avenue and still exists today. They aim to provide quality services for their neighborhood patrons at a low cost, while simultaneously providing care to homeless animals. Since their conception they have opened two additional locations and continue to care for helpless animals and help them find good owners that will care for them.

By the end of the day everything was back to business as usual; the squirrel was being cared for, Shannon felt at peace with her decision and Animal Welfare League saved another animal’s life. If you would like more information about this organization you can visit www.animalwelfareleague.com and maybe you too can save an animal’s life.

Footnote

Since this blog was written we have received notification from the Animal Welfare League that after the fully examined Louie the squirrel they discovered he could not be fully stabilized or saved and had to humanely put him to sleep.

Over the past year social media has become a huge fixture in World culture. People are constantly signing up and getting involved in this ever-growing world community. Some individuals join these social sites to reconnect with old friends, while others join because they want to find others in their areas of interest. Finally, corporations join these networks because they want to increase their clientele and find out what people are saying about their product.

However, there is a large benefit that comes along with the latter reason for joining social media networks and that is profit gain. A recent study done by Wetpaint and Altimeter Group showed that those corporations that are heavily involved in social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis and forums are experiencing an increase in profits. Likewise, it was found, “Those brands that were the most engaged saw their revenue grow over the past year by 18% while the least engaged brands saw loses of negative 6%.”

In order to organize this study, those conducting it divided each of the top 100 companies from the 2008 Business Week/Interbrand Best Global Brands survey into four profile groups; “Mavens,” “Butterflies,” “Selectives” and “Wallflowers. The Mavens are those brands who are deeply engaged in seven or more social media sites. The Butterflies are characterized by being “wannabe Mavens” they have seven or more social media profiles, but are not as engaged in each one equally. The Selectives focus on fewer sites then the Mavens and the Butterflies,

no more t

han 6, but deeply engage their clients in conversation. Lastly, the Wallflowers are brands that are on 6 or fewer sites, but are not truly engaged in any of them.

Even though we cannot directly correlate the increase in corporations’ profits to their social media interaction we can display the growing trends

we see in these brands’ profits. After seeing these statistics and knowing that social media involvement has more than doubled since 2007 let Always Be Social lead you into the new era of marketing and get you involved in your clients conversation.

Last night my friends and I were discussing how technologically dependent people are today and how impersonal our society has begun. We then went on to discuss the two main reasons people are, in many ways, permanently attached to their electronic devices.

The first reason we pinpointed was convenience; technology makes everything so much easier. You can pay your bills, catch up with an old friend and conduct business via the Internet with the press of a button. People in this day and age, myself included, are all about instant gratification, the faster, the better.

The second reason we discussed was the fact that everyone else was doing it. If everyone you are talking to is always online and you know the only sure way you can reach them is via email, Facebook or Twitter then you too will be drawn into this society.

Now don’t get us wrong we are by no means about to make our Twitter, Facebook or email accounts inactive, but we are going to attempt to spend a little more time interacting with people in real life as

well as online. I’m sure we would all hate to become completely disconnected from our friends and family and only interact with a machine for the rest of our lives. Certain things such as viewing the longest solar eclipse or choosing a college to attend should be done in real life not via technology.

However, as stated earlier, I am by no means saying I am going to put my MacBook in the drawer or throw my Blackberry in the ocean, but maybe every once in awhile it wouldn’t hurt to put down technology and spend time with the people in your life that make it worth while.