I’ve been following the blog of Asia “Justin2u” on Libero.it since its beginning, one month ago. Asia tries to exploit the six degrees of separation thing in order to meet Justin Timberlake in just one month. Since I cite this folklore theorem almost in every talk I give, people sent me the link to this “live experiment”, Asia’s blog. The sentence in the header explains it in this way: “Io conosco te ke conosci lui ke conosce l’altro ke conosce uno ke conosce Justin Timberlake e ke poi me lo presenta. E ke poi vuole il mio numero e mi kiama e mi kiede di arrivare e io vengo ;)” that is, in my opinion, a very funny way to explain the 6degrees thing: “I know you that know him that knows the other one that knows that one that knows Justin Timberlake and that he introduces me to him. And that then he wants my tel number and he calls me and he asks me to arrive and then I come ;)”. Loosely related, even Kevin Bacon tried to exploit the idea, creating sixdegrees.org: “With SixDegrees.org you can ask connections to donate to a charity.”
Asia is funny and very good-looking, she speaks in a funny very-youngish Italian (lots of “k” and “troppo + verb”). Check her first video I just uploaded on YouTube.

My bet is that she is not a normal girl just wanting to meet Justin but an actress, part of a commercial attempt to get some buzz about Libero.it social platform and of course I’m not the only one thinking so. Her blog is on Libero.it. All her videos were uploaded on libero videos (even while a lot of people in the comments kept suggesting to upload on youtube in order to get some non-italian connections, well she did upload her last video on youtube but i think it is just because she is going to reveal anyway her identity soon). All the friend blogs linked from her Libero blog are other Libero blogs. She invited people in chat and, guess what, yes it was on Libero chat. Actually before her blog I didn’t even know that Libero had blogs and videos and chats but now a lot of people in Italy know about it. So my bet is that she is an actress but of course I might be very wrong, well, I guess we will know in few days. By the way, I uploaded her first video (that was only on Libero video) on Youtube: if she is real and just wants to get the word out, she will be happy about this, otherwise if she is a commercial effort, someone will ask to remove the video from YouTube, simple eh?
Overall, I’m happy there is some clever marketer in Italy that is able to exploit the lonelygirl15 model, they didn’t invent it of course but just copying it quickly enough is something I’m very happy about. In case you don’t know, lonelygirl15 is an interactive web-based video serial centering around the life of a fictional teenage girl named Bree, whose YouTube username is the eponymous “lonelygirl15”. The series is presented through short, regularly-updated video blogs posted by the fictional characters, as well as through an optional alternate reality game. lonelygirl15 came to international attention as a “real” video blogger who achieved massive popularity on YouTube, a popular video sharing website, but was eventually outed by suspicious viewers as a fictitious character played by American-New Zealand actress Jessica Rose (from lonelygirl15 Wikipedia page). She got a lot of fame and actually she was hired by the United Nations in 2006, to fight poverty through an online anti-poverty video. Rose portrayed the lonelygirl15 character as she sat by herself in her bedroom talking to the camera. The subject matter in these videos focused on antipoverty (again from Wikipedia). I’m still incredibly surprised to see United Nations reacting so quickly to the buzz and using these non very conventional marketing strategies, though I’m not able at all to get a basic idea about their effectiveness.
Anyway, I guess we will not see Asia as United Nations Ambassador but still it was a clever way to get a lot of buzz around Libero social platform.
(In case you are wondering, all my links to Libero here are vote-abstain and nofollow so no Google juice, sorry ;-)