The Curator News Feed: January 25, 2013

This week we laughed about Shetland ponies in sweaters, dreamed of a vacation in Mexico, learned about Facebook’s new graph search and were amazed that scientists can now encode files on DNA! What did you read about this week?

Airfare Giveaway, Facebook. My link this week is a GIVING link…in that our client, Villa del Palmar at the Islands of Loreto (www.facebook.com/villadelpalmarattheislandsofloreto) is giving away FREE round-trip airfare to Loreto from LAX. Be one of the first 100 people to email me at dan.miller@curatorpr.com and I’ll hook you up with a certificate. Happy Friday! – Dan

Google Glassvertising, Mashable. It’s true that Google Glass will look about 10x more nerdy and pretentious than Bluetooth headsets did before people got used to them, but the possibilities for its use is another tenfold. Mashable’s Todd Wasserman explores a few of the possible implications for marketers, most of which sound like the kind of thing you’re used to seeing in sci-fis. The big hurdle is consumer proliferation, but if the idea catches on half as quickly as tablets, we could see a brave new world of advertising.  – Matthew

Scotland’s Shetland Ponies Don Fair Isle Sweaters for Tourism Campaign, Huffington Post. Want something to go viral? Then dress up a few ponies in sweaters. This is exactly what Scotland’s tourism board did as part of an advertising campaign touting the “natural side of Scotland,” which undoubtedly paid tribute to the country’s organic knits and robust farming culture. There’s probably an argument that can be made for this being both the worst and best advertising campaign. But, at the very least, you’ll have a happy Friday looking at these dapperly dressed animals! – Annie

Getting The Most Out Of Facebook's Social Search, AllFacebook. Facebook promised a big announcement and delivered last week when it unveiled "Graph Search," which is essentially the Facebook search engine everyone's been waiting for. (Sidebar: Where was Sean Parker when this thing was named? "Facebook Search" -- it's cleaner.) How it will work is you'll type in something like, "Stores in Seattle that sell liquor," and Graph Search will return a list of results based on business pages' profiles. So, brands: Think about the kinds of products you offer and make sure keywords associated with those products are in your profile. Graph Search will run the same kinds of searches for people. So flip the coin around and imagine the hiring manager at a company typing in, "Unemployed graphic designers in Seattle." Your Facebook profile, if you've scrubbed it and optimized it for search, just got a hell of a lot more useful. Of course, Graph Search does have its drawbacks, as illustrated by the Tumblog Actual Facebook Graph Searches. But for the people who remain diligent about what they make publicly available, the benefits will likely far outweigh the risks. Consider that AllFacebook link your Step 1 to getting prepared. – Paul

Crazy Science, Telegraph. This is a rather incredible breakthrough as they have encoded a MLK speech, and a pdf file of all of Shakespeare's sonnets into DNA.  – Shawn

National Car Rental Gets Local with Foursquare, Digiday. There are two things that I find exciting in this article. One is the commitment that brands are making to create local experiences for consumers. Second is the way National Car Rental and 360i decided to use FourSquare to achieve this. A lot of brands activate partnerships with influencers, but not often through Foursquare. I think it's a great, creative way to share relevant content.  –Maria