Microsoft wants you to “hold off” from buying a new iPhone or Palm Pre. Why? Apparently, June 2009 will be an “important month for Zune lovers”.

Rumors about a Zune phone have been spread before, but a recent one actually came from a Microsoft team (via the @officethemovie Twitter account).

Gizmodo points out that this account has “little-to-no-relation to the Zune project”. That might be true, but it’s still quite possible that the “rumor” was planted there on purpose or that someone leaked it by mistake.

Keep in mind that tweets can be deleted.

Why would @officethemovie NOT remove the potentially erroneous statement if it was a mistake? It’s been over 10 hours and the tweet is still there. Either the leak is real and everyone is making the wrong assumptions or we are soon to see a Microsoft “Zune” phone.

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Regardless of whether you are a marketer, journalist, software developer, CEO, or just a 13 year old kid with nothing to do, everyone could could use a little more time offline.

Here are 5 great reasons to spend some time away from the internet… before it’s too late.

1. There is nothing like breathing, smiling, far-from-perfect real people

The internet has come a long way and it now allows us to communicate with anyone, almost instantly, but giving the online world too much value can keep you from the much more important things in life. Real people are out there waiting for you to live life with them and the web will often make you forget it. When we are online, we are only interacting and collaborating with a minuscule part of the real people behind all those strings of data, misspelled sentences and  shaky videos. There is much to be lived with family, friends, and even strangers. You will need to disconnect in order to really connect with them.

2. Your ego is lying to you

Constantly writing about your thoughts, ideas, and opinions is a great way to express yourself, but freedom of speech doesn’t mean that you should only be concerned about your own 140 characters of brilliance. The more time you spend online, the less in touch you will be with reality. It is likely that you will get used to the comfort of hiding behind a screen and seeing others as a means to an end. It is also likely that you will place too much value on the idea of “being someone”. One thing is to present yourself in a good way and offer your skills and abilities to a world that might need them, but it’s another thing to think you need to be marketed 24/7 no matter what. You are not just a brand. You’re much more than that.

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We recently had the chance to interview the very funny and internet-savvy Andy Milonakis. We’ve been staying on top of Andy’s tweets to see what he’s up to. Here’s what we found:

@AndyMilonakis If I get 100K followers by June 1st, I’m gonna get a big tattoo of Oprah Winfrey #AndyInksOprah

If you’re not already on Twitter, you might finally have an excuse to do so. I mean, millions have already joined Twitter only to follow people like Oprah, Ellen, and Ashton Kutcher.

Why not do it for an actually worthy and long-term cause?

The Windows Mobile 6 Facebook App was released today. While WinMo users have been able to check out Facebook using a mobile web browser at m.facebook.com, a downloadable app has been expected for a while.

The good news is that it’s finally out. The sort of bad news is that it was developed by Microsoft (not Facebook).

As usual with Windows Mobile apps, this one came out later than other versions (iPhone, BlackBerry), and without all the hype.

So, here’s our take:

- Intallation: Not as intuitive as anyone would like. You need to connect your phone to your computer; download the app; open it with File Manager, and hope it installs.

- Performance: The first time we loaded it, it froze. This has Windows all over it. It did ok the second time, but it was a bit slow.

- News feed: This might be a matter of preference and the device you’re using, but we believe the mobile web site is simply smoother and easier to view. The mobile web version also gives you the ability to “comment” and “like“, while the WinMo app does not. Not cool. (more…)

Kentucky Fried Chicken’s “Unthink KFC” campaign looked like gold just 24 hours ago. Launching a new product (that actually looks ok), with the help of no other than The Oprah Winfrey, is a success in itself.

Especially for a restaurant that has not been doing well.

Unfortunately, failing to meet demands and angering people is probably not going to help them in the long-run.

Here’s why this is KFC’s Second Massive Fail (remember when rats conquered a KFC in Greenwich Village?):

1. Not enough chicken!

2. Oprah, the hypocrite?

3. Riots, long lines and racism

4. Poor coupon exclusions / explanations

5. Lame customer service

I don’t think I’m going to “unthink” KFC.

I haven’t been there in 5 years and now that I’ve attempted to get some free grilled chicken (5 times at 3 different locations), I don’t think I’ll go again for another 5 years.

So cheers, KFC. Job well done. Golden star in your face.

Netvibes allows anyone to assemble the best of the web in one place. By providing private and public digital dashboards for individuals, personalized pages for brands, and personalized intranet pages for enterprises, it may just be the best personalized start page out there.

CEO Freddy Mini told us about his role in expanding Netvibes, the importance of personalization, and his view on the current stage of the social web.

After you’re done reading, make sure to send Freddy a tweet and add the Social Nerdia Netvibes widget.

 1. Netvibes pioneered the personalized start page, but there are several options these days. What makes Netvibes the best?

Netvibes is the only personalization platform. With Netvibes you don’t customize someone else’s page you’re invited to, you really own the page. entirely. An example: Netvibes doesn’t have a big logo on the upper left corner to remind you you’re at some eelse’s place; at Netvibes you can get rid of the search engine if you’re rather use it separately from your personal page. In addition, Netvibes offers the largest widget gallery with 180,000+ widgets to really find what you are looking for to build your very own page. And finally, Netvibes offers you 2 pages: one private and one public. On the public page, your own URL will welcome all the widgets you’d like to share, like a super profile page. Who can match all this? :) 

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Andy Milonakis from MTV’s The Andy Milonakis Show is a great example of someone who has used the internet in very creative ways. His comedic talent has taken him from user-generated videos to his own TV show and several appearances on Loveline and Jimmy Kimmel Live. 

Andy was very cool to take some time to answer some questions for Social Nerdia. Make sure to check out Andy’s  show and send him a tweet after you’re done reading.

1. Did you really get started with web cam recordings and how did that happen?

I used to do a photo-based comic strip on Brian Lynch’s site Angry Naked Pat. After writing a bunch, one of them was a rap and I thought it would be better to do a video, but since it was a long time ago it was a pain in the a**. People still had dial-up modems, so I had to get different programs to compress the video small enough for streaming, and learn different ways of embedding the vids on the pages and stuff. It was a lot of extra work but it paid off to get into the game so early. YouTube is great, it makes my life a lot easier.

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