Interesting and slightly amusing article posted on MediaPost's Online Spin - and in honor of our colleague Justin's recent nuptials, I will blog about it.

The author of the article, Joe Marchese, is getting married this Saturday, and he describes the important role social media played in the planning of the wedding. Faccebook allowed him to reach out to almost every friend or family member he wanted to invite (to get addresses, share info and pester for RSVPs), Pandora and iTunes helped him find music they would like for their playlist and a Twitter vote helped them choose a song for the procession. Additionally, Joe used Twitter and Facebook to find recommendations for his honeymoon and plans to use iPhone apps for advice while they are traveling.

Joe ends his article with the question "How did people do all of this before social media?"

As someone who planned their wedding pre-Twitter-mania (2007, aghast!), I can answer that. Hardly any of my family members were on Facebook, so I had to use the phone and my mother to get addresses, call for RSVPs, share information, etc. I looked through pages and pages of lists of "popular wedding songs," added most of them to my "do not play list" and found the rest of my music via movies a love (namely Father of the Bride, My Best Friend's Wedding, etc. etc.)... which didn't even end up mattering because my DJ only played two songs from the list and instead filled the rest of my reception with such favorites as "Baby Got Back." Anyway, my point is, it sounds like social media really is taking out some of the blood, sweat and tears of planning weddings, or really any event, as people and resources are more accessible on a wider scale.

But I guess we'll have to see what Justin's take on this is when he returns from his honeymoon... hopefully recovered from the trials and tribulations of planning the big day. And good luck to Joe over at  Online Spin - may his big day be a success!




-posted by Stephanie

Courtney Love, the widow of now deceased Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, is tweeting (warning, these tweets are profanity laden) at the top of her lungs about the appearance of Cobain's likeness in the video game Guitar Hero 5. According to her tweets, Love is considering legal action against Guitar Hero video game developer and publisher Activision for the use of her late husband in Guitar Hero. The Guardian newspaper reports that Love is especially upset where Cobain is lip syncing songs from other artists like Bon Jovi.



Love Tweets, "(I) never signed off on the avatar, let alone this ****ing feature!" she wrote. "There's been four breaches of a very strict contract."

Love is also upset at a profanity laden diatribe by Guardian blogger Everett True where True accuses Love and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl of selling out. In the blog, True posted a YouTube video of Cobain singing various pop hits with the subject line "Someone gives love a bad name: Hint Courtney)".



Activision tells the Guardian that Love was very involved in the process of incorporating Cobain's likeness into the game, even picking out virtual wardrobes and hairstyles. But Love (as shown in the tweet above) says she signed off on nothing.

Seems we'll be hearing a lot more about this video game battle and Twitter will give us an inside look at it every profanity laden step of the way.

-posted by Andrew