Now, platforms like Kickstarter, Polyvore, Pinterest, Etsy, Storenvy (and the list goes on) allow consumers to put the power back in the hands of the people. Rather than just following trends, consumers are revolutionizing the industry. They can’t find what they want from the big brands, so tastemakers are creating what they (and their friends) want.

Check out this great recap of our convo below!

TIME curated a list of the top 50 Web sites that the “editors find to be useful, entertaining, innovative or just plain addictive,”  with Blogads’ partner Lamebook making the cut!

Lamebook.com is a popular and consistently hilarious resource to view the latest ridiculous and lame posts that people find worth sharing on Facebook. TIME described Lamebook as being “less about Facebook and more about human nature — whether you’re into social networking or not, there’s something for everyone here.”

We here at Blogads are thrilled for Lamebook’s recognition, and we highly suggest for anyone interested in the absurdity of human nature to check it out. Make sure to also check out the other sites that TIME highlights here.

Looking for a recipe on Pinterest? Hope you like processed pork products, because the majority of pins you’ll find in the Pinterest “recipe” search is straight up spam. Disguised as logos from allceripes.com and French recipe database (I think?) Recettes De Chez Nous, these pins actually lead you to a wide variety of spammy sites. I found spammy sunglasses shops, spammy SEO farms disguised as financial help blogs, and other spammy pinterest boards filled with more spammy links. (I clicked through for research, OK?)

The other form of spam I’ve seen from Pinterest made it all the way to my inbox. Pretty simple way to game the system, this spammer mentioned us in a pin. Thanks for thinking of us, Valarie!

Spam has become a sort of right-of-passage for the modern social network, but not since I received a spam email containing blocks of text pulled from the Hobbit has a spamming scheme been so transparent. Even the comments on the spam pins are spammy:

I AM ALSO A HUMAN THAT LOVES THE SITE THAT HAS BEEN PINNED.

Anyone who’s used Pinterest even once knows that people pin acutual photos of things, not just site logos. If you’re gonna spam my recipe search, at least show me a picture of a spam fritters.

Spam fritters photographed (and presumably eaten) by flickr user lint01.

What are the worst spam pins you’ve seen on your favorite Pinterest boards or searches? Let us know in the comments.

Two years ago, Coke abandoned efforts to build its own social infrastructure “in favor of approaching customers at the places they already hang out, like Facebook and YouTube.” Meanwhile, Pepsi was reallocating cash from Super Bowl spots to its philanthropical crowd-sourcing campaign, The Refresh Project.

Today, Pepsi has caught up on Twitter, but is getting hammered by Coke in other social metrics:

Does the data reflect the general public’s apathy about doing good things for strangers? The feel-good vibe seemed to work for Coke’s Happiness Machine. That campaign, primarily YouTube-based, featured a Coke Machine dispensing a variety of goodies, and probably cost a fraction of what Pepsi spent on The Refresh Project. Giving flowers to a cubicle denizen is clearly not more morally worthwhile than giving grants to non-profits and community organizers, but according to the bottom lines, socially and economically, Coke’s stripped-down approach to social marketing is working.

Coke has been losing market share to the Dr. Pepper Snapple group over the last three years, but so has Pepsi, and at a greater rate.

So is the trick to bubbling social success focusing on existing social networks, rather than pioneering your own? Pepsi now looks to be trying Coke’s formula. Last week, PepsiCo downsized its agency roster, dropping 65% of the shops that had been working on its complex and busy marketing strategy. Interestingly, one of the smaller shops being let go is Brooklyn’s Huge, which had worked with Pepsi on the Refresh Project.

photo via flickr user tudor 

The Kony 2012 campaign is off to an amazing start, spreading awareness of brutal guerilla Joseph Kony on a global scale with the help of famous and influential Twitter users. But the Twitter campaign is just the first step. Kony 2012 is encouraging people to cover their cities with Kony signs and posters in a global event scheduled for April 20. However, many of the young activists Kony 2012 is counting on to “Cover the Night” may have other plans for that day, as April 20, also known as 4/20 or 420, is an international stoner holiday and day of protest.

Here are three things that could go wrong for Cover the Night due to this scheduling conflict.

1. Potential activists might be too exhausted to participate after a day of rallies and overconsumption of THC.

2. Cover the Night participant could grab the wrong poster on the way out the door.

3. Some marijuana smokers are prone to paranoia and conspiracy theory.

Michelle Malkin‘s new Twitter headline site, Twitchy, scooped the world on today’s Joseph Kony story. The #stopkony hashtag and viral film “Kony 2012,” about Joseph Kony, was originally posted to Twitter by pop star Rihanna at 7:40 pm last night.  Twitchy wrote about Kony at 3:01 am, shortly after the hashtag started to trend.  HuffPo picked up the Kony story six and a half hours later, and the Washington Post didn’t cover it until almost noon.

Joseph Kony is a Ugandan guerrilla, whose rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, has abducted tens of thousands of children over the last 26 years. The film was made by Jason Russell, of the humanitarian group Invisible Children, with the goal of capturing Kony and trying him in the International Criminal Court.

If you own a Facebook brand page, here’s a good lesson about showing “Everyone” vs showing only your own posts as the default. Some angry customers have been filling Netflix’s Facebook wall with threats of boycott if the online movie distributor doesn’t pull its ads from Rush Limbough’s radio show.

Other customers, like the ones below, went to Facebook, opened the Netflix page, and had no idea that they were walking into a firestorm.

Each year, when Blogads hosts #SUXORZ at Social Media Week NY, we think its the last. We naively believe that corporations, politicians and celebrities will finally learn how to do The Social Media right. Lucky for the mob of 150 social media fanatics that joined us at the Gershwin Hotel on Wednesday night, 2011 defied and our optimism and was full of spectacular social media screw-ups.

This year’s SUXORZ panel was the final panel of the Blogads Social Media Spectacular. As in prior years, Blogads’ CEO Henry Copeland was the ring leader. Henry was joined by 360i’s VP of Emerging Media David Berkowitz, creative technologist and integrated marketer BL Ochman, DigiDay Editor-in-Chief Brian Morrissey, and sex & relationship author Twanna A. Hines.

The crowd showed up early to libate up on complimentary beer and wine, then grabbed their noisemakers and popcorn and settled in to jeer the best of the worst in social media.

Want to take a peak at SUXORZ? Maybe you were there and need a new Facebook profile pic. In any case, check out our SUXORZ 2012 album.

THE DECK

Betting on the worst social media campaigns of 2011 via noisemakers? Priceless #SUXORZ #SMWNYC

— Megan Grissett (@MeganGrissett) February 16, 2012

This is corn-based crack. Srsly. RT @dberkowitz: @NickBlogads this is amazing <bleep>ing popcorn #suxorz

— Brian Slattery (@BrianSlatts) February 16, 2012

ROUND 1: #tinears

These folks proved that it’s a little too easy to click that “send” button when you THINK you have a great idea.

Winner: Ashton Kutcher tweets pro-Paterno (and anti-taste)

Runners up:

• Brazilian condom maker, Olla Condoms, sends Facebook friend request from unborn children
• Nikon pisses off customers by saying on Facebook that “a photographer is only as good as the equipment he uses” and then refusing backing off
• Jockey asks on Twitter if Tebow can win your free underpants, is only RT’ed 26 times

I agree, @bmorrissey!! Ashton is a bad thing for social media. #suxorz #smwnyc

— Elizabeth Mee (@Liz2586) February 15, 2012

Condom maker wins definitely #suxorz

— Justin Mandaro (@PeckinTheFix) February 15, 2012

ROUND 2: Don’t Mess with Bloggers

What happens when you kick a swarming nest of bloggers?

Winner: Ragu spams dad-bloggers with video making fun of them

Runners up:

• Conagra (with Ketchum) misleads bloggers by inviting them to dine with a celebrity chef, then feeds them canned food
• Yahoo! exec CCes fired bloggers on bagel brunch invite
• PR guy calls The Bloggess a “fucking bitch” (Brian Morrissey flipped the script and nominated the Bloggess for the #SUXORZ for being “overly entitled” and not letting the issue go.)

ROUND 3: Fun with hash tags

“Hey, we hear there’s something called a hash tag! Let’s try to use one!”

Winner: Durex writes a seriously offensive #DurexJoke 

Runners up:

• Amid the revolution, Kenneth Cole uses #Cairo hashtag to promote Spring collection
• Entenmann’s piggybacks Casey Anthony #notguilty trending topic to sell cookies
• Toyota spams Super Bowl tweeters to push its cars

#suxorz event is HILARIOUS… Posts re: #notguilty and #durexjoke have be rolling on the floor! (Not really though… LOL worthy for sure)

— Nikita(@Nikita_Ban) February 16, 2012

I wanna follow @entemanns and @durexsa thanks to #suxorz

— Tim Fogarty (@n0her0es) February 16, 2012

ROUND 4: Twitter Hijacking

Before choosing your brilliant hashtag or account name, make sure it’s not taken already in social media. And then make sure that people actually like you.

Winner:  Netflix launches Qwikster without checking out @Qwikster, a king stoner, first 

Runners up:

• To magazine’s chagrin, fake Cat Fancy Twitter account tweets awful things about cats
• #McDStories aren’t all positive
• #QantasLuxury backfires miserably

PALETTE CLEANSER: Well-Played

The #SUXORZ panel isn’t completely focused on failure. Here are some social media wins from the last year:

• American Airlines bashes back at bully Alec Baldwin on Facebook
• Heinz rebounds from e-commerce bottleneck, gives away LOTS of free catsup
• Freshdesk goes to war with bully Zendesk
• Tucker Max punks Izea

ROUND 5: Trying too hard

If you don’t really get social media, you really shouldn’t use it.

Winner: Woody Harrelson goes on Reddit, refuses to answer “anything” in an AMA (ask me anything) forum

Runners up:

• On Facebook’s behalf, Burson-Marsteller urges bloggers to write anti-Google op-eds
• LG (with Ogilvy) tries to hire covert blogger “brand ambassadors”
• Kayak pulls ads from “All-American Muslim,” calls show terrible, says “we’re not bigots…”

“If you don’t know what reddit is, they don’t even want you there.” -@dberkowitz #suxorz

— Jared Currier (@JaredCurrier) February 16, 2012

well it was only a matter of time until @reddit made its presence known – yikes. #IAmAfail #SUXORZ #smwnyc

— LBi US (@LBiNewYork) February 16, 2012

ROUND 6: Politics

Because politicians need to show how relatable they are, they manage to hash up social media, too.

Winner: Anthony Weiner… need we say more?

Runners up:

• Rick Perry shoots homophobic video in Brokeback jacket
• Pets don’t support Newt, no matter what his site says
• Dmitry Medvedev joins Facebook, gets bashed by Russian Facebookers

“Blow your horns for (Anthony) Weiner”. Learning so much about bad social media usage at #suxorz #SMWNYC

— Tory Marlin (@vlmarlin) February 16, 2012

“Medvedev is the Ashton Kutcher of authoritarians” says @bmorrisey for his off-brand move to Facebook #suxorz #SMWNYC

— Susan Halligan (@srhalligan) February 16, 2012

ROUND 7: Shut up!

Forgetting that social media is, y’know, social, these folks didn’t want to hear from their customers.

Winner: Boners BBQ tells Yelping customer to go play “hide and go f*ck yourself.” 

Runners up:

• Chapstick deletes Facebook comments related to its ad featuring girl’s posterior
• Dr. Pepper starts a battle of the sexes on Facebook
• SapientNitro makes silly music video touting its expertise, deletes negative Facebook comments

Boners BBQ lol! #suxorz

— Audy Kramer (@audrickkramer) February 16, 2012

“Who the fuck drinks Dr. Pepper?” @funkybrownchick#SUXORZ

— Blogads (@Blogads) February 16, 2012

ROUND 8: Audience Choice

We asked the #SUXORZ mob what their favorite social media #FAIL of the last year was.

Winner: JetBlue places QR codes in subway, where no one has Internet access.

FINAL ROUND: DUREX VS WEINER

In softball tournament fashion, we split our nominees into two groups and had the audience vote via noisemaker, as they had done all night. Then we pitted the two round-robin winners against each other. After all was said and done, Durex was named the most unforgivable social screw-up of the year.

So durex is the wiener, sorry winner #suxorz twitpic.com/8kh0an

— aurore quercy (@auroreinthecity) February 16, 2012

So durex is the wiener, sorry winner #suxorz twitpic.com/8kh0an

— aurore quercy (@auroreinthecity) February 16, 2012

MORE REACTIONS FROM THE #SUXORZ MOB

We had another great turnout this year. Here are some more of the night’s best tweets.

Killin’ it. This is the best $20 I’ve spent in ages. RT @brianslatts: “hashtags are the new emoticon apparently.” – @bmorrissey #suxorz

— Sarah (@cicutoface) February 15, 2012

For reals winning the crowd addition #SUXORZ on my disdain for QR codes has me giddy. Thanks @hc @dberkowitz

— Don Steele (@donsteele) February 16, 2012

ton of paparazzi here – feeling both flattered and self conscious #usemygoodside #SUXORZ #smwnyc

— LBi US (@LBiNewYork) February 15, 2012

Thanks for the laughter and tears. #SUXORZ

— Amanda McCormick (@AmandaMcCormick) February 16, 2012

Check out Heidi Cohen’s blow-by-blow coverage over at SmartBlog on Social Media and Susan J Campbell’s wrap-up on her Copywriting Solutions blog.

Do you have your own favorite terrible social media blunder? Submit it to the SUXORZ Facebook group, and maybe we’ll trash it next year.