Amy’s Baking Company Boutique & Bistro is in the midst of one of the most epic social media fails ever.

Their insane tirade has gone viral in under 24 hours and you can bet you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Samy and Amy Bouzaglo, owners of the restaurant, were recently featured on an episode of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. They were dumped by Ramsey after being too difficult to work with.

Last night, they took to the restaurant’s Facebook page to “defend themselves” against nasty comments from users.

One Yelp review, for example, called them “bat shit crazy.” Which seems to just about sum it up.

You do have to wonder: why couldn’t they shut up?

Bonus Link: Screaming, Expletives, and, Eventually, Police: All in the First Night of Kitchen Nightmares Taping at Amy’s Baking Company

Among the topics we’ll cover tonight:

• Is kidnapping a humorous event! The Gregory Brothers think so. And didn’t respond to my tweet.
• The most epic social media failure EVER
• Major Tom to ground control – Space the place to tweet from check Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield as he checks out of the International Space Station.
• Mobile video coaching with Ubersense and more shiny new objects

Join us tonight! Call (646) 716-6878 to join the conversation.

Canadian astronaut Cmdr. Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian to walk in space, who also was the first Canadian to command the International Space Station, is now the first human to shoot a music video in space on his last day on the job.

During the five months he commanded The Space Station, he became of the most social media engaged astronauts ever, frequently posting videos on Facebook and participating in several Ask Me Anythings, or AMAs — candid question- and-answer sessions on Reddit.

Col Hadfield is scheduled to return to earth tonight!

Follow him on Facebook.

Via Upworthy.com

Bonus Link: Watch 6 Chris Hadfield videos.

UPDATE: If you missed the webinar, you can get the recording plus bonus material here so you can learn why you can’t ignore Google+ unless you’re ready to have Google search to ignore you.

Are you one of the people who think Google+ is a failed social network that you can ignore? If you are, you’re dead wrong!

Google+ is now the second largest social network – right behind Facebook, and gaining – with 500 million members, 135 million of whom are active monthly.

Google+ is also the backbone of Google, the world’s largest and most respected search engine. It’s one of the most powerful tools you can use to promote your expertise, build a community, manage your contacts, find content to share, and promote your business.

Equally importantly, Google+ is part of Google’s new search algorithm. In other words, you need to use it if you want better search placement. Google’s making us an offer we can’t refuse.

I’m doing a one-hour Google+ webinar, Why Google+ Matters to Your Business & How to Use it Wisely with step by step instructions, best practices, tips and tricks and examples of companies, authors and entrepreneurs who are using Google+ successfully. The webinar will be hosted by Joan Stewart of The Publicity Hound.

When: Thursday, May 9th, 2013
Time: 4PM Eastern
Click here to register for Why Google+ Matters to Your Business & How to Use it Wisely

I’m hooked on Google+, and I believe that participating in it, as an individual or a brand, is no longer an option. You want good search results? You need to use Google+.

I know, I know – who has time? How can you possibly add yet another social network to your day? It’s hard to understand. It’s complicated to use.

Listen up my friends: Google+ is as important an opportunity for marketing as blogging was in 1998; as Twitter was in 2007. Get in early and get in right. Join me for the Google+ webinar tomorrow, 4 PM EDT

Who should attend:

• Business owners, nonprofits, or anyone who needs tips on how to rank higher in Google search.
• Publicists and PR pros who need to know how to incorporate Google+ into PR campaigns.
• Virtual assistants who help their clients with social media.
• Authors, speakers and experts who want to establish their credibility within their niche.

You will learn:

• How Google+ changes search optimization and how it affects your search placement.
• Business Page or Personal Profile, or both?
• How Google+ integrates seamlessly with YouTube, Gmail, Search and much more…sort of like a big jigsaw puzzle where everything is connected.
• How to join Google+ communities.
• Who to follow and how to find them so you’re reaching the right people.
• 6 Best Practices for using Google+ so you don’t overlook opportunities that are right at your doorstep.
• 6 brands that are making the most of Google+…when you see the clever things they’re doing, it will spark your own ideas!
• Why Hangouts are the best part of Google+ and catching on like wildfire for all sorts of business uses.

  Click here to register for Why Google+ Matters to Your Business & How to Use it Wisely

What a great book promotion!

Ever wonder how much the Internet has affected how we think? Fuhgeddaboutit! Our brains are done for!

This video is a clever promo for “The Shallows, what the Internet is doing to our brains.” by Nicholas Carr. What he’s saying really isn’t really new. But his approach makes learning about our intellectual demise fun.

Brilliant futurist Howard Rheingold, (“Net Smart”) who predicted everything about the Internet back in 1964, and who teaches Infotention and wrote many books about it – has covered this territory thoroughly and brilliantly.

But he never made a video like this one. What is the internet doing to our brains? Hint, nothing good.

Here’s the podcast of the Tues, May 7 Beyond Social Media Show with me, Albert Maruggi and Dave Erickson. Among the topics we discussed in our fast-paced half hour show, which airs every Tuesday at 9:30 OM EDT:

- Pissed Consumer website claims to be a venue to share a consumers complaints, but is it ethical?
- Gov Christie and spiders on his water spout, splat!
- Tide raises the spirits of would be entrepreneurs
- The brilliant child abuse poster only children can see

GoComics
Want funny? Love comics? Here’s your fix. The GoComics app, from Universal Uclick, is the mobile comics portal for many of the most popular comic strips worldwide. FYou’ll find everything from Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, Garfield, Doonesbury, Dilbert and Marmaduke plus current favorites like FoxTrot, The Boondocks, Big Nate, Pearls Before Swine and Get Fuzzy. It’s available for iPhone and Android.

Speaking Photo for iPhone & iPad
SpeakingPhoto is a photo app that lets you add sound or voice-over to your photos. Use the app to snap a photo and recording immediately begins. You can listen to the recording and edit it if you want. Select any of your existing photos and add your sound to them. You can link up to five photos to create a story. The speaking photos can then be shared on Facebook, YouTube or via email.

VINE Update
Vine has added front-facing camera support and Twitter handle identification. Very cool!

Every Tuesday, at 9:30 PM EDT, I join David Erickson of the e-strategy Blog and Albert Maruggi of Social Media for Hospitality for Beyond Social Media podcast.

This week, we discussed:
- Is Hyundai lying about its suicide ad?
- Men’s lingerie arrives
- Being a gay athlete on Twitter
- UNICEF slams Likes, needs cash
- Top criteria for video sharing by brands

Join the conversation next Tuesday. Call us as (646)716-6878

In its quest for new ways to organize the world’s information, Google has reportedly paid $30 million for news summarizer Wavii. That purchase is expected to help it beef up its Knowledge Graph

Wavii takes up to 1,000 articles a minute and condenses them into a manageable news feed based on the user’s preferences. Wavii’s natural language capabilities could help improve results of Knowledge Graph, which provides a carousel of further informaton on searched topics and helps searchers distinguish between similar sounding words.

Google also announced that it has added information about nonprofits to Knowledge Graph, to help people find the organization they’d like to check out and potentially donate to.

Brands need to pay close attention to these changes
The Google announcement comes on the heels of Yahoo’s recent $30 million acquisition of 18 year-old Londoner Nick D’Aloisio’s Summly, which has already been integrated into Yahoo’s iPhone app.

Brands need to pay close attention to these developments and begin adapting their content, marketing strategy, and websites to them.

As the Atlantic notes, Google is “doubling down on search that is conversational, contextual, and personal.”

Other new Google developments
Also new, voice controlled Google Now for iPhone and iPad, which promises to give you “just the right information at just the right time.”

Then there are Google Goggles, which will keep Google literally in front of your eyes constantly. Tech lover Robert Scoble tried them for two weeks and says he’s never taking them off again. He posted a photo of himself wearing them in the shower and that photo has now become a meme.

What these developments mean to brands (and you)
- Participating in Google+ as an individual or a brand is no longer optional because Google+ profiles and content are part of Google’s new search algorithm. That may finally wake brands up to the fact that they need to participate in the new platform if they want better search placement.
- You’d better hurry up and learn about the semantic web so you can optimize your site for it
- Tim Berners Lee’s 2001 dream is going to come true and there soon really will be a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries.
- Content is indeed king and any brand that isn’t producing content people want to read is going to find itself without traffic, fans, or, soon, sales
- Google does indeed plan to organize, and own, the world’s information and our access to it. While Yahoo has a similar goal, they are way behind in the race.

With its latest ad, Hyundai has outdone Ford India’s misogynistic celebrity kidnapping and bondage ads for Figo.

The Hyundai ad, entitled “Pipe Job,” was created by the ad agency Innocean Europe. Despite Hyundai’s denials, Forbes says Innocean is an in-house agency at Hyundai.

The ad shows the man taping a hose from a Hyundai ix35‘s exhaust pipe in an attempt to commit suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide. We watch him as he sits in the car, in the dark garage, waiting to die. Then the light comes on and the door opens and we see the tag line “The New ix35 with 100% water emissions.” Apparently the message is “you can’t kill yourself with this car.”

Just as Ford India denied that it actually had approved the Figo ads, and later was proved to have signed off on them, Hyundai initially said the ad had no official approval.

I don’t believe them, and I wonder if you do. I think Hyundai Europe, like Ford India and many other companies that issue denials for ads that have already delivered their marketing messages, knew full well that “Pipe Job” existed, even though they denied it and apologized.

Otherwise, how else could the ad have been conceived, storyboarded, cast, shot, and edited without Hyundai’s knowledge? Frankly, if it was, I’m Queen Elizabeth.

Hyundai North America distances itself
Hyundai North America is distancing itself from its European counterparts with this statement:

We at Hyundai Motor America are shocked and saddened by the depiction of a suicide attempt in an inappropriate UK video featuring a Hyundai. Suicide merits thoughtful discussion, not this type of treatment.

The ad’s been removed in a few places, but what goes on the Internet stays on the Internet, and it’s still available on many sites, including this one. And after this one’s removed, it’ll pop up somewhere else. Because that’s how the Internet works. UPDATE: The video keeps being taken down in one spot, only to appear in another. It is not going to disappear. Here’s the latest version. I’ll keep finding them because people need to keep seeing how disgusting this video is.)

Holly Brockwell has a beautifully written post about how seeing the ad made her feel. Her father succeeded at committing suicide by car.

“I understand better than most people the need to do something newsworthy, something talkable, even something outrageous to get those all-important viewing figures. What I don’t understand is why a group of strangers have just brought me to tears in order to sell me a car. Why I had to be reminded of the awful moment I knew I’d never see my dad again, and the moments since that he hasn’t been there. That birthday party. Results day. Graduation.”

My dad’s suicide
I lost my father to a similar suicide when I was 2 1/2. I don’t know if he left a note.

Seeing that ad makes me feel like I just got hit in the heart. I’m sure tens of thousands of other children left behind by suicide share that feeling.

I cannot begin to fathom what was going on in the heads of the people at Hyundai and its agency.

But I sincerely hope that the next time they sit down to brainstorm, they’ll think about how their words and images might affect other people. And I hope that everyone who communicates with the public will do the same. Please.

Bonus link: Engage the viewer..when you’re already married
- PepsiCo pulls Mountain Dew ad deemed racist and misogynistic Syracuse University professor Boyce Watkins called the ad “arguably the most racist commercial in history.”