If you do a search on the web for anything U.K.-riot related, you'll most likely find troubling images of looters and fires throughout the city. But there are optimists out there, and they're using social media to spread the good word, clean up after the riots, and help restore Brand Britain's image to boot.

Trending in social media this week are the grassroots clean-up efforts of the good citizens of Great Britain. Garnering global attention, @riotcleanup now has over 87,000 followers on Twitter, posting information on how people can help clean up areas devastated by looting, and help businesses and residents affected by the riots with information on where to donate, items to donate, and how else to lend a helping hand.

It's one part of an inspiring social media-based response to an otherwise depressing week of violence, as Britons share morale-boosting pictures of local cleanup efforts, such as gyms filled with supplies and videos of people in the streets with brooms and other cleaning supplies.Continue reading...

The BMW Guggenheim Lab, which opens tomorrow in New York, gives new meaning to pop-up art.

Reclaiming a rat- and rubble-infested 2,000 square foot East Village lot between Houston and East First Street, the Lab is a social experiment in urban living — through October 16th, when the pop-up co-branded installation takes off on a six-year world tour to inspire eight other cities.Continue reading...

Starwood has spent a few billion dollars over the last few years trying to revamp the image of its Sheraton hotel chain.

The company must be feeling pretty good about its efforts because it is now spending $20 million on an ad campaign in hopes of bringing more revenue (and loyal customers) to the 74-year-old business.

The main thrust of its new “Meet You There” campaign, according to a press release, is how Sheraton nurtures a sense of community for its guests.Continue reading...

Brand marketers are getting smarter about understanding Hispanics. 

We recently looked at L'Oreal's major initiative in reaching out to the US Hispanic market.

This week, a first of its kind joint consumer insight community focusing on the Hispanic multicultural market was launched as a joint project of Communispace, an Omnicom-owned pioneer of online customer insight communities for leading brands, and Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) Multicultural, a full-service media specialist company.

The community will help provide respective clients with rich insights into the fastest growing consumer group in the US.Continue reading...

Discovery's cable network websites, the Examiner.com and newspaper publishers big and small are already using Facebook's new comments plug-in. Still, not everyone's convinced by it — even TechCrunch, which incorporated Facebook Comments, admits the platform has its pros and cons.

Cue Facebook, which released the video above pitching why it's looking to take over comments on third-party websites.

The answer, of course, as GigaOm's Mathew Ingram writes: to "own the conversation" and drive commenters back to Facebook.

Uniqlo has used models such as Agyness Deyn and celebrities including (most recently) Charlize Theron and Orlando Bloom to promote its fashion-for-the-masses designs. 

Now it's promoting its apparel and the style chops of its fans with a unique community-building initiative.

The just launched Uniqlooks site invites fans of the Japanese brand to upload photos showing their individual spins on how they style Uniqlo clothes.

A global audience then determines each "Look of the Week" winner (the current title-holder is Florian Gravovil, a 22-year-old French musician/student) to be featured on Uniqlo’s website, Facebook page and on in-store signage.

The digital lookbook by and for brand fans marries the best of self-styled fashion with social media's thirst for image-sharing, pushing the edges of both.Continue reading...

How does a website handle 100,000 comments posted every day? If you're Huffington Post, you buy a two-person tech startup behind the semantic analysis engine, Adaptive Semantics.

Arianna Huffington's site was already Adaptive’s major investor, having purchased a 20% stake last year. The co-founders, Elena Haliczer and Jeff Revesz, are now joining HuffPo and will manage community technology R&D and social news.

Despite the unique proposition of knocking on 3 million comments monthly, Huffington Post isn't the only site grappling with managing the quantity of comments posted on its site and the quality, with unruly behavior affecting the tone of its content and community.Continue reading...

America's lobbying arm for retirees is morphing as folks in the 50+ bracket either retire earlier to travel, study and become entrepreneurs — or later due to sheer economic necessity. AARP's new digital makeover is courting its younger Boomer cohort, also known in some quarters as Zoomers, who are (relative) digital natives and the savviest group of "seniors" in U.S. history. But in a move sure to startle some, the organization is dropping the "retired" portion of its name, making it... the American Association of People?

A look at their newly redesigned website bodes well – a mix of interesting and current headlines, relevant to the audience; a new community forum on late-life divorce, inspired by Al and Tipper Gore’s separation; a tribute to Dennis Hopper; a sneak peek at Julia Roberts' upcoming Eat, Love, Pray. Topic channels include personal growth, relationships (including sex) and tech, which is appropriate given that the first AARP iPhone and iPad apps will soon be available.

With boomers increasingly online, and accounting for 24% of all American web users, this digital push is essential and somewhat overdue.Continue reading...