This week we’ve got an awesome collection of giggle-inducing videos, including Anderson Cooper’s Ridiculist laugh-fest, the world’s shortest escalator, a volleyball-playing dog and more. So grab that cup of coffee, take a seat and get ready to laugh your way into the weekend!
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews. 
CNNPolitics.com is all ears for President Barack Obama‘s State of the Union address Tuesday, Jan. 25, at 9 p.m., and the Republican response shortly thereafter.
Members of CNN’s political team – which includes lead political anchor Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Candy Crowley, John King, Piers Morgan, Kathleen Parker, Eliot Spitzer, senior political analysts Gloria Borger and David Gergen, and political contributors Roland Martin and Erick Erickson — will blog and offer real-time analysis on Political Ticker, and CNNPolitics.com will provide articles, op-ed pieces, analysis, interactive features, and photo galleries prior to the speech.
Obama’s address will also be live-streamed on CNN Live and via the cable news network’s apps for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.
If you’re not in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, you may not be able to check in to foursquare, but fear not: Fellow app GetGlue will sate your check-in appetite by offering stickers to users who check in to CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin or MTV’s New Year’s Bash with Whitney Cummings and Jersey Shore cast members Pauly D and Snooki, Mashable reports.
Users who check into the CNN coverage before 11 p.m. ET Dec. 31 will also be eligible for a special sticker, according to Mashable, which added that GetGlue CEO Alex Iskold said New Year’s Eve will mark the first time GetGlue will attempt to drive users to a live event.
CNN is accepting donations for the Top 10 CNN Heroes of 2010, with the help of Facebook, as readers can support the honorees’ causes by clicking the Donate Now tab on the CNN Heroes Facebook page, along with donation modules on the Facebook pages for CNN and Anderson Cooper 360.
CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute will air on the cable network on Thanksgiving at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, featuring the best of what CNN called a “multiplatform campaign that shines a spotlight on individuals who go to extraordinary lengths to serve others.”
Those who donate via Facebook will be able to view an exclusive thank-you video from CNN Heroes host Anderson Cooper, and they can share information about their donations via the social-networking site.
The online donations are powered by virtual currency Facebook Credits, and Facebook is waiving its processing fees as part of the program.
The Top 10 CNN Heroes were selected by a Blue Ribbon Panel that included Muhammad Ali, Sir Richard Branson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Ricky Martin, and Holly Robinson Peete.
CNN will air one-hour documentary Taliban Saturday, Dec. 11 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, but related content will be available on CNN.com three days earlier, as visitors to www.cnn.com/taliban (not active yet) will be able to view video excerpts and an interview with Norwegian journalist and guerilla reporter author Paul Refsdal starting Wednesday, Dec. 8.
The online component will also include historical timelines of the Taliban and the country of Afghanistan.
Taliban features anchor Anderson Cooper speaking with Refsdal, who has spent more time with the Taliban than any Western journalist, about his experiences behind enemy lines in Afghanistan.
Yesterday, TVNewser reported on the 95 page (!!) magazine the Church of Scientology distributed outside of CNN headquarters attacking Anderson Cooper.
Well, now it looks like the scientologists are taking their fight to Google.
The church has purchased ads though Google’s AdWords service. Any user that searches Google for “Anderson Cooper,” “Anderson Cooper CNN,” “AC360″ and “Anderson Cooper Scientology” among other queries is greeted with the ad pictured above.
Clicking on it takes you the Church’s website attacking Cooper.
No one ever said the Church of Scientology isn’t web-savvy…
When CNN relaunched CNN.com last October, one of its new features was a weekly game called The CNN Challenge. The premise: let a CNN anchor guide you through questions from the week’s news. It even sold advertising around it, with Ford on board as the launch sponsor.
Now, in what may be a first for cable news, the online game has jumped to television. On Friday’s edition of “AC360,” which featured a live studio audience, Anderson Cooper did his best Alex Trebek impersonation, and had his three guests Mary Matalin, Donna Brazile and John Leguizamo compete in a live version of the CNN Challenge.
Matalin won, with a charity of her choice getting a donation.
One thing is for sure, Cooper looks a heck of a lot more comfortable when he is the one asking questions. When he was a contestant on Jeopardy! In March, he couldn’t quite compete with that legendary quiz master Cheech Marin.
Barclay Palmer, a former Senior Producer of the now-defunct “Amanpour” show on CNN, is joining Reuters as global executive producer for talent and content development.
Palmer, an 18-year CNN veteran, has worked in Newsgathering as well as the shows Moneyline, NewsNight with Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper 360.
Palmer was brought on by former CNN executive Chris Cramer who is now Reuters’ global editor of Multimedia.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper is Tweeting his way through Ghana today. Tomorrow the anchor gets an interview with Pres. Obama who will arrive in the nation later today.
From ac: just arrived in ghana. A lot of excitement here about Obama’s trip. Everyone wants to see him. I’ll be tweeting all weekend.
From ac: ghana is cool. Accra, the capitol is bustling with energy. Posters welcoming Obama are everywhere. It’s great to be back in africa.
• TVNewser has more on some of the other U.S. network coverage from Ghana…
Fire up the ole’ Internets, because CNN is turning its one-hour financial special tonight into a two-hour online extravaganza.
CNN.com Live will present pre- and post-show coverage in conjunction with the Money & Main Street special on CNN TV. The pre-show begins at 7:30pmET, followed by the CNN special at 8pmET with Anderson Cooper and Ali Velshi, and the online post show at 9pmET with Velshi.
CNN.com Live will enable users to comment on questions posed from CNN financial correspondents directly on the site’s live video player via Facebook Connect. CNN.com Live’s anchor Melissa Long will host online-exclusive specials before and after CNN’s television event, featuring CNNMoney.com anchor Poppy Harlow.
CNN.com Live will also tap into CNN’s user-generated community, iReport.com.
