• by Carrie Cummings , March 9, 2011

Say what you want, but spell my name right, the old adage goes, and Charlie Sheen certainly spelled internships.com right. On March 7, internships.com was just another Web site whose aim was to bring college kids and recent grads closer to the post-recession American Dream: the elusive (mostly unpaid) summer internship that often ends with a pat on the back and a gift card to Red Lobster.

But that all changed for internships.com when Sheen's manager contacted Ad.ly, a company that manages social media endorsements for celebrities, so the star-du-jour could begin engaging with fans in a way unfiltered by the media. Arnie Gullov-Singh, CEO at Ad.ly, says Sheen quickly learned how to use Twitter and was given tips on practices -- like what a hashtag is and how to use a twitpic. Sheen soon had more than two million Twitter followers and a bevy of endorsement offers. Gullov-Singh reached out to internships.com and provided the site with what he calls their "Super Bowl Moment," the kind that exposes a company to millions of consumers at once, turning a good business into a worldwide brand. The idea was simple: Sheen actually does need a social media intern and internships.com needed a celebrity.

Thus, the #TigerBloodInternship was born. Within the first hour of Sheen's tweet, internships.com had more than 95,000 visits. As of today, 74,040 applications from 181 countries have been received for the position (including one from this blogger). While no one in Hollywood is more talked about right now than Sheen, his attention is purely notoriety, and it's doubtful that many brands will benefit from him. Internships.com is the exception. In what capacity Sheen will be around this summer is really anyone's guess. One thing that's for certain, however, is that internships.com is #winning big.