Posted by Jenn Lowther

When I’m at work I like to take the occasional break and read what’s going on in the world or just plain find something interesting to read. One of the places I tend to go to do this, is Digg. I love Digg. Something that I’ve noticed over the last couple of years is that there are some headlines that rock…and I can’t help but to click on the story to see what it’s all about. So I’ve put together some of the more interesting ones that I’ve come across recently. Click on the pictures if you want to go read the Digg article…or better yet, some of the comments. Enjoy.

With the amount of stories on Digg, I’m sure that I’ve missed some great ones. Leave a comment with a link to your favorite Digg headline.

Posted by Jenn Lowther

For the first installment of Memenatomy 101, I’ll cover the RickRoll.

So we are all on the same page, let me give you a quick definition of RickRoll: A RickRoll is when you post a misleading link with the pretext that you are sending the person to a site that promises to be exciting and/or interesting, but instead you send them to Rick Astley’s music video “Never Going to Give You Up”.

Evolution

The RickRoll originated as the duckroll on 4chan. The premise was the same as the RickRoll, except instead of being sent to the music video, you were directed to an animated gif of a toy duck rolling across the computer screen.

The site responsible for the first RickRoll has been claimed by many sites and forums and the first instance of the RickRoll may be lost to us forever…unfortunatly the lyrics to ‘Never Going to Give You Up’ will forever be etched into my head (damn, I’m humming it as I type).

**Update: It appears that you can no longer embed the RickRoll’d video from youtube so you’ll have to visit youtube to watch it, I’ll do the next best thing though and embed BarakRoll’d
Variations

As with any good meme, this one too is evolving infront of our eyes. Below are links to some of my favorite rickroll variations:

• TayRoll
• MuppetRoll
• MarioRoll
• BarakRoll (this one is by far my favorite variation)

The latest development in the RickRoll meme, has been to bring the RickRoll into real life. The creative ways to do this are endless, but my favorites are the prank dialer, when RocketBoom RickRolled Next New Networks founder Tim Shey at the office with a singing telegram, and when a University basketball game got RickRolled by a guy dressed up as Rick Astley.

Now go pick a victim and get your RickRoll on!

Clickz writer Tessa Wegert just published an article on ‘Video Contests That Engage‘. The article covers the issues that companies face with advertising recall retention rates of traditional forms of online advertising and that web users prefer user generated video over video ads. She finds that the solution to this is for companies to engage in video contests.

Memelabs gets some great coverage in this article. She profiles two of the contests that we are currently hosting - The Little Penguin ‘Pick-up Project‘ and GardenState Life ‘Expect the Unexpected‘. Go check it out, it’s a great read.