“Just Wow.”

That’s the name of the blog post that was the inspiration for this week’s Viral Video. The blog post was hugely viral in the gaming and PR/Marketing communities, for good reason: it was a perfect storm of funny, appalling, and just plain crazy.

But wait–there’s more! Once the wrath of Teh Interwebs was invoked, people went digging into the antagonist’s alleged penchant for steroids and domestic violence, his previous PR gaffes, and his impersonation of others in the name of damage control. Eventually, he apologized with ill grace, both to the customer and to the owner of penny arcade.

Not that that will help him at this point.

(warning: there is a bit of swearing in the video)

AdAge sparked a flurry on Twitter Monday with a juicy essay, RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) — and Long Live the Tweet, by @SimonDumenco.

Tweetmeme Captures The Retweets

The flurry featured a lot of straight retweets, a few “huhs?” and at least three rebuttals. Mine was one of them: Read more…

“In the year 3000, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will merge into one super time wasting Web site called YouTweetFace.” -Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien

This prediction came this week on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. While “YouTweetFace” is a quite humorous interpretation of the multitude of social media platforms available, this was not the part of O’Brien’s statement that most caught my attention.  

“Time wasting” seemed to be the underlying message. The degree of ridiculousness put behind all of these new media tools would certainly come to mind for outsiders not familiar with the impact of digital media. According to comScore, Twitter grew 3,000 percent over the past year. Businesses are rapidly tapping into this market to promote their messages and to find new customers.

While it may be a waste of time for some, those interested in profiting from the social media wave are finding the time invested in it to be worthwhile. At many organizations today, there are full time social media experts on staff. Marketing and PR companies have entire departments dedicated to using such online tools. The proof is in the pudding – or the YouTweetFace platforms. Bottom line: companies are willing to pay for these experts. This shows that businesses perceive a value in the digital media Web sites that O’Brien lightheartedly jokes about. 

For anyone looking to join the social media space, YouTweetFace.com is no longer an available domain name. However, there are many other options: YouTweetFaceNow.com, YouTweetFaceStore.com and YouTweetFaceToday.com. Endless possibilities to waste time.