Sprinkles is the world’s first cupcake bakery spread across 5 cities in US and growing rapidly. They also have a thriving fanbase on Facebook with 81,000 fans. They also use their page to ask customers what’s the next location they want and what they think of the new flavor. But the interesting bit is that each day on the site, Sprinkles announces a secret word, such as “ganache” or “bunny,” and the first 25 or 50 people to show up at any of its five stores around the country and whisper that word get a free cupcake. Apart from driving footfalls, the promotion also gets them a larger Facebook fanbase.

IKEA opened a new store in Malmo, Sweden, and didn’t have a large budget to get the word out. It engaged an agency called Forsman and Bodenfors to create a special launch campaign. The agency created a Facebook profile for the store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Over a two-week period, they uploaded images of IKEA showrooms to his Facebook photo album. The first person to tag their name to a product in the pictures, won it. The viral nature of Facebook newsfeeds and links meant that the word got out and Swedes asked for more pictures so that they could tag themselves to a new piece of furniture.

Check the video below:

Link via Sarin Suares.

Avnish who maintains A Common Fan’s Sports Diary – my favourite sports blog – has launched a section called Sports Quotient (SQ). On SQ, you’ll find posts which are too short to be called an article and a tad too long to be called a tweet. These articles make for nice conversations and are strongly recommended to those who, apart from having a great IQ and EQ, would also like to boost their SQ.

• Infibeam – Well on it’s way to being India’s Amazon.
• Cleartrip – Definitely the best Indian travel site.
• Burrp – Lifestyle/Locals portal.
• Phulki – Music search engine

I’d appreciate your opinions too.

• Emails from moo as a follow-up once you make a purchase.
• Digg-style customer survey/development aid UI at Please Fix The iPhone.
• The ability to email the future at l8r though such a service is better if it were inside Gmail.
• Boss is Around? Look Busy. link on workosaur. This feature was integrated thanks to a suggestion from Yash.
• Prompts on Google Groups when one posts a question. Try here. Observe what happens when you fill in the subject box. Such prompts should be a must for any Q&A site or Discussion Forum(s) in order to prevent repetitive questions and topics.

Now throw away your business cards. Instead, go to smsmeon.com and grab a keyword. I have taken nimish. And configured my response message with my Name, Designation and Contact Details. So, if anyone does want my contact details I can simply ask them to sms nimish to 56070. Neat.

• The Video Player at Howcast. I’d recommend you to check a video made by Howcast Studios.
• Warholizer, Motivator and other editing tools for digital photos at BigHugeLabs.
• The uber-cool UI of t-shirt search engine ShirtSeek.com.
• Cric Chat on Cricbuzz which makes following cricket on the site much like watching cricket at a pub compared to the plain-vanilla experience dished out on other cricket sites.
• Phulki, the Hindi/Tamil music search engine – It outclasses guruji.com and in.com with a cleaner and more intuitive design – Phulki uses the same browser window for music search and play without allowing the search to interfere with the continuous play of music.

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a conference that brings the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). The TED Site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. I assume that is a compelling enough description to prompt anyone to have a look. Awesome site to spend your time on.

• The CD/DVD Player Simulation used for the Music Player at The Raghu Dixit Project Site.
• Ability to design your own shoes on the NIKEiD Store.
• Airfare Graphs and Airfare Alerts on Cleartrip.
• Everything about burrp! Local – design/UI, content, search & discover features (through user-generated lists and proximity), burrpers Choice Awards, site-wide highlight given to contributors.
• SMS Reminders on burrp! TV.