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Facebook launches question and answer application

2010-07-30T00:11:00.000-07:00

Who needs Jeeves when you have Facebook! Facebook just launched a new question and answer application that will allow you to pose questions to its sea of over 500 million users. As Facebook explains, “With this new application, you can get a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics.” You can pose questions about potential vacation spots, future gadget recommendations, or pretty much anything you want. Facebook does warn: “Keep in mind that all questions and answers posted using the Questions application are public and visible to everyone on the Internet. If you only want to ask a question to your friends or a specific group of people, you can still pose it as a status update on your profile targeted to those people.” There you have it. Thoughts?

Facebook makes move into search with Questions

2010-07-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

Facebook has made its first steps into the search market.

The social network has launched a trial of a feature called Questions, which allows people to pose queries to the site's 500 million users.

The service has been rolled out to a select group of Facebook members and will "evolve over time", the site said.

It will go head-to-head with other services such as Yahoo Answers, Twitter and search engines such as ask.com.

"The core of search is a question," said Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of the blog Search Engine Land.

Mr Sullivan said Questions was a return to this age of more personalised search.

"You can now put questions out there in a way we used to do before everyone was online," he said.

Expensive business

Earlier this year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that the future of the web was one where friends, or what he called "your social graph", guide you online.

Many interpreted this as a direct challenge to the dominance of Google's automated search.

However, said Mr Sullivan, Questions was not going "to kill Google".

Continue reading the main story

"It's very difficult to challenge Google as general search leader," he said.

"Indexing and ranking the web is very expensive and Facebook has no skills in doing that.

"But what they do have is social connections, which allows users to put out those questions to others who they trust."

The new feature allows people to quiz the entire Facebook community by clicking on the "Ask Question" button.

"Keep in mind that all questions and answers posted using the Questions application are public and visible to everyone on the internet," said Blake Ross of the firm in a blog post.

"If you only want to ask a question to your friends or a specific group of people, you can still pose it as a status update on your profile targeted to those people."

Users can also create polls, add photos to questions and tag them with a specific topic.

"The questions you ask will be shown to people who have expressed interest in the particular topics you tag, as well as to your friends and friends of friends," Mr Ross wrote.

However, Nate Elliott, Principal Analyst at research firm Forrester, said he did not think that entering the search market was Facebook's main motivation for launching the feature.

"It is looking to generate more data on its users," he told BBC News.

"The more they can get people to raise their hands and say 'I want to know more about a subject' or 'I am an expert in a topic', the more it allows them to target marketing and advertising.

"Whenever it does anything new these days, you have to ask how does it help them collect more data and learn more about its users."

"Then around 15 years ago we underwent an incredible revolution with the arrival of search engines."

YouTube Banned in Russia Over Racist Video

2010-07-29T03:41:00.000-07:00

A court in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia has demanded a Russian ISP block access to YouTube because the site hosted “Russia for Russians,” which was judged to be an extremist video.

The court’s decision also applies to the Internet Archive and three online libraries, Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru, all of which were found to host writings by Adolf Hitler.

With this ruling, Russian authorities join a long list of governments that have blocked access to YouTube at some point or another, including China, Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. YouTube material has also been censored in the U.S. and U.K.

Generally, these bans are instituted because the videos on the popular hosting site show something a government would rather its citizens not see, from state police brutality at a protest to unflattering depictions of its leadership to “immoral” or sexual content.

However, this particular ruling stems less from a desire to protect a country’s internal PR and more from a desire to keep Russian media — including citizen-generated and social media — free from the possibly harmful influences of ultranationalist, racist and xenophobic speech. The phrase “Russia for Russians” itself is a slogan of hatred used against the multi-ethnic society that exists in Russia today, and searching for the phrase “Россия для русских” on YouTube will return a number of disturbing videos typical of the white nationalist movement around the world.

But intentions aside, this ruling still constitutes what many other governments would consider a prohibition or restriction of free speech.

The owner of Rosnet, the ISP affected by today’s decision, is Aleksandr Ermakov. He spoke to media today, saying essentially that the court had thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

“All of mankind is using this website. And providers like ours do not violate Russian law. But we are still being forced to close the website so that our users can not log on and watch the videos. This is absurd! According to this logic, we have to demolish all buildings that have swastikas on the walls. Or when two people are discussing a bomb over the phone, we have to take away the phones from all people across Russia.”

More on Rosnet’s legal position can be found at this website.

Moreover, a Google rep told The Moscow Times, “To limit access of Rosnet users to the whole YouTube.com site, not to a particular video, breaches the right for freedom of information, guaranteed by Article 29 of Russia’s Constitution.”

What’s your opinion of the court’s ruling? In attempting to safeguard ethnic diversity, did they go too far in the direction of inhibiting free speech and free information? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Image & Source: Mashable

How To Shout On Social Media Sites Without Screaming

2010-07-29T03:29:00.000-07:00

No feature that I can recall in recent memory has polarized the social news sphere more than the ability to mass-alert stories to other users for immediate votes. StumbleUpon has the “send to” feature, Propeller has “site-mail,” and Digg has “shouts.” As I’ve said before, the feature is a great one in principle but can be a horrible one in practice. As with any tool you give to people, half your job is to educate them on how to use the feature and set some guidelines so that it’s not abused.

Social media loses its soul if you take away the social aspects, and sharing stories with others is one of the most essential elements. Even without a shouting mechanism, these sites have had other methods of sharing. Each user has a profile where they can list their contact information, which you can use to share stories with them, and for the most part, email works just as well. Shouts (or site-mail, etc) are more controversial because they are so streamlined and because you don’t really need to know the user at the other end before you shout at them, that they can very easily be abused by spammers to promote bad content.

Personally, I think shouts serve as a stop-gap until more robust mechanisms are implemented that allow users to find stories that they would like to see (based on past activity and declared preferences, e.g., a recommendation engine) but haven’t seen yet. The same feature would also help determining which of your stories should be sent to which friends. That said, the solution is not to remove the feature, but to make sure it serves its purpose. In fact, most sites that have implemented a shouting feature have already realized that the system needs improvement. Digg doesn’t allow you to shout to all friends anymore, Propeller only allows you to do five at a time, and StumbleUpon has always allowed one at a time.

Prefaced with all that, here’s a look at how to use these sharing mechanisms without offending anyone’s sensibilities.

1. Embrace shouts. The first step to fair participation in the shouting system is to embrace shouts yourself. It’s simply unfair to be shouting at others while not accepting shouts back from them.

2. Shout to shouters. At a very basic level, when trying to determine who you should shout at, start off with those friends of yours who shout at you.

3. Shout once. Most people are okay with infrequent shouts, and many are even okay with one shout a day. Don’t, under most circumstances, shout the same story to the same person twice, or more than one story to the same person in the same day. Sharing is fun, but too much of anything is bad.

4. Don’t shout randomly. Chances are that many of your friends already checked out a submission from you. Check to see who’s already voted on something before you blindly start shouting at people who you shouldn’t shout at.

5. Get personal. Shouts are supposed to be your personal recommendation to other users. This is not always possible and not always efficient, but if possible, try to make your shouts personal. If it’s an article that is appealing to one particular user for some reason that you have discussed before, bring it up.

6. Shout eloquently. Shouting random submissions that you know aren’t getting traction because they’re no good is not the right way to go about sharing. Share only your best, and, if you can, good submissions from other users.

7. Don’t just shout. Sure, the feature is popular because it allows people to share stories, but at the same time it is a much more powerful on-site, micro-blogging tool. Don’t just use it to share stories. Use it to talk to other users, share your thoughts, send personal comments, or even shout to yourself to update your current status.

Disney Acquires Social Gaming Company Playdom for up to $763.2 Million

2010-07-29T02:50:00.000-07:00

Disney has officially acquired Playdom, the makers of popular social games like Social City and Sorority Life, for $563.2 million, with an additional $200 million that could be paid out based on performance.

The company is one of the remaining big players in the social gaming space, competing against the likes of Zynga and its wildly popular FarmVille Facebook game. Playdom raised $33 million in funding just last month to help it acquire smaller social gaming companies.

Playdom will keep its headquarters in Mountain View, California. Playdom CEO John Pleasants will become an Executive Vice President of Disney’s Interactive Media Group.

Clearly Disney is serious about the social gaming space; the acquisition comes less than a month after the media giant acquired iPhone app development firm Tapulous. The company sees a lot of synergies between its new social gaming properties and its highly visible brands. “We see strong growth potential in bringing together Playdom’s talented team and capabilities with our great creative properties, people and world-renowned brands like Disney, ABC, ESPN and Marvel,” said Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger in a statement.

Image & Source: Mashable

Twitter Unveils Plans to Draw Money From Ads

2010-04-12T23:13:00.000-07:00

Twitter will unveil on Tuesday a much-anticipated plan for making money from advertising, finally answering the question of how the company expects to turn its exponential growth into revenue.

The advertising program, which Twitter calls Promoted Tweets, will show up when Twitter users search for keywords that the advertisers have bought to link to their ads. Later, Twitter plans to show promoted posts in the stream of Twitter posts, based on how relevant they might be to a particular user.

Several companies will run ads, including Best Buy, Virgin America, Starbucks and Bravo.

“The idea behind Promoted Tweets is that we want to enhance the communications that companies are already having with customers on Twitter,” said Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief operating officer.

Since Twitter started in 2007, its growth has resembled a hockey stick, increasing almost in a vertical line. According to comScore, Twitter.com had 22.3 million unique visitors in March, up from 524,000 a year ago, and that does not include the millions more who use the service through third-party smartphone and Web applications like TweetDeck or Tweetie.

Yet Twitter has been slow to monetize those users. Its founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, have said that it is following Google’s path — building a service that many people use, then figuring out how to make money. Though Twitter already has some revenue from deals to license its stream of posts to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, Twitter’s announcement is the first significant step toward a business model.

The ads will let businesses insert themselves into the stream of real-time conversation on Twitter to ensure their posts do not get buried in the flow.

Starbucks, for instance, often publishes Twitter posts about its promotions, like free pastries. But the messages quickly get lost in the thousands of posts from users who happen to mention meeting at Starbucks.

“When people are searching on Starbucks, what we really want to show them is that something is happening at Starbucks right now, and Promoted Tweets will give us a chance to do that,” said Chris Bruzzo, vice president of brand, content and online at Starbucks.

When a Twitter user searches for a word an advertiser bought, the promoted message will show up at the top of the results, even if it was written much earlier. The posts say they are promoted by the company in small type, and when someone rolls over a promoted post with a cursor, it turns yellow.

The ads will also be a way for companies to enter the conversation when it turns negative. Several companies have created tools to measure sentiment on Twitter, but until now, businesses can do little with that information. Even if they write a post in response, it also quickly gets lost in a sea of complaints.

Companies will “be able to increase awareness in that instance when the iron is most malleable,” said Anamitra Banerji, who manages commercial products at Twitter.

If a new movie is getting negative reaction, the studio could use the ads to link to a positive review, for example.

Businesses have been eager to wade into conversations on social media, said Bernardo Huberman, senior fellow and director of the social computing lab at Hewlett-Packard’s research and development arm and co-author of a recent study that found that chatter on Twitter can forecast box-office revenue for movies. But he is not convinced that it can change people’s opinions.

Studios have already been writing Twitter posts about new movies. “Our study shows that the influence of those tweets was minimal compared to the conversation that people were having about those movies,” he said. “Media like Twitter and Facebook are so enormous that it’s very hard to imagine it would be easy to manipulate the conversation.”

Twitter will measure what it calls resonance, which takes into account nine factors, including the number of people who saw the post, the number of people who replied to it or passed it on to their followers, and the number of people who clicked on links.

If a post does not reach a certain resonance score, Twitter will no longer show it as a promoted post. That means that the company will not have to pay for it, and users will not see ads they do not find useful, Mr. Costolo said.

At first, companies will pay per thousand people who see promoted posts. Once Twitter figures out how people interact with the posts, it will figure out alternate ways to charge advertisers.

In the next phase of Twitter’s revenue plan, it will show promoted posts in a user’s Twitter stream, even if a user did not perform a search and does not follow the advertiser.

For example, if someone has been following people who write about travel, they could see a promoted post from Virgin America on holiday fare discounts.

Anyone who uses Google has grown accustomed to seeing ads alongside their search results, but Twitter users could resent seeing promoted posts in their personal content stream.

Twitter is aware of that risk. It is still figuring out how to determine which promoted posts should appear. It could be based on topics they are writing about, geographic location or shared interests of people they follow.

“One of the reasons we’re not rolling that out right now is because we only want to show tweets that help the user experience,” Mr. Costolo said.

Once Twitter figures out how to measure the number of people who read posts other than on Twitter.com, it will also allow third-party developers to show ads and share revenue.

Early on, Twitter’s founders said they wanted to avoid showing ads as other social networks do, displayed on the right side of the page. The new ad platform is different, Mr. Costolo said, because the promoted posts also exist in the organic Twitter stream.

“The ability of companies to engage with customers around this interest graph is more compelling than trying to wedge yourself into these social interactions,” he said.

source: NYTIMES

Twitter Acquires Tweetie

2010-04-10T05:01:00.000-07:00

Twitter has just announced that it has acquired Atebits, the company behind the popular Tweetie iPhone app and Mac desktop application.

Tweetie’s creator, Loren Brichter, will be joining the Twitter team as well. The app will be renamed “Twitter for iPhone” and be made free in the next few weeks. Twitter CEO Evan Williams explained the move in a blog post:

“We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve entered into an agreement with Atebits (aka Loren Brichter) to acquire Tweetie, a leading iPhone Twitter client. Tweetie will be renamed Twitter for iPhone and made free (currently $2.99) in the iTunes AppStore in the coming weeks. Loren will become a key member of our mobile team that is already having huge impact with device makers and service providers around the world.”

Twitter also specifically mentions that an official Twitter iPad app is indeed coming: “Developers, services, and publishers will be able to leverage the Twitter iPhone and iPad applications to create additional innovative tools and integrations for users,” Williams said in today’s announcement.

The move comes less than a week after a controversial blog post from Twitter investor Fred Wilson, Principal of Union Square Ventures. In it, Wilson explained that he is looking for Twitter apps to not fill holes in the Twitter platform (e.g. photo sharing, mobile apps) and instead focus on innovative products and “killer apps.” The post caught the attention of developers, who feared that Twitter itself would begin competing with their applications.

Google Adds Flickr and Picasa Photos To Street View

2010-03-03T04:44:00.000-08:00

Google has been showing crowdsourced photos from its own Panoramio service in Street View for just about a year, and it’s now announced that user photos from both Flickr and Picasa are being added to the mix.

The integration works the same way it has since last February; when images are available, a small box labeled “User Photos” will appear in the upper right of the Street View interface. But with all the new photos in the system, Google’s found a novel way to show nearby and related photos.

Google Adds Flickr, Picasa Photos To Street View

Image & Source From: Search Engine Land

Google News Tries Sharing With Facebook, But Where’s The Buzz Button?

2010-02-25T20:42:00.000-08:00

Google News is testing out a new design, as I reported earlier this month. It includes trending topics on the left and new personalization options. But today someone in the bucket test noticed something different. The sharing options changed. Each story can be shared via email, Google Reader, or Facebook.

Most people won’t see this. It is just in a limited test. But it does suggest that Google is starting to seriously think about ways to drive more sharing of content across the Web. But why push content to Facebook and not to Twitter? And for that matter where is the Google Buzz button?

Of course, sharing to Google Reader is the same as sharing to Buzz (that’s how sharing works on Buzz), but Google should push the Buzz brand here if this feature ever becomes widespread. Google Reader itself has long had many sharing options, including the ability to send posts to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Blogger, and StumbleUpon. It’s about time Google News got better sharing options as well. Currently, the only sharing option is via email.

The fact that Google is testing with Facebook is also interesting, and shows a growing embrace of its social rival. Some Facebook updates are now appearing in Google’s realtime search results. In which Google product will Facebook turn up next?

Yahoo, Twitter in deal to share content

2010-02-23T23:36:00.001-08:00

The move reflects Yahoo's deep desire to tap into the increasingly social nature of the Web. The company reached a similar agreement with social networking site Facebook in December.

In a battle to woo back Web surfers who are spending more time on social networking sites, Internet portal Yahoo has clinched a deal with Twitter to share content across both properties.

Yahoo reached a similar agreement with Facebook in December, making it easier for users to share Facebook status updates and other information.

Twitter offers millions of messages posted every minute. "The information in one single tweet can travel light years farther with this Yahoo integration," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in a statement. "Tweets in more places brings relevance where and when you need it most."

The move reflects Yahoo's deep desire to tap into the increasingly social nature of the Web. It's a trend propelled by Facebook and Twitter, which have become major forces in driving and directing online traffic. Yahoo missed its golden opportunity to cash in on the rise of social networking when Facebook rebuffed its $1-billion-plus takeover offer.

The partnerships with Twitter and Facebook will roll out later this year. The deals will enable users to take material from both sites without having to leave either one, said Jim Stoneham, vice president of communities for Yahoo. Specifically, users will be able to access their Twitter feed on Yahoo's sites. They will also be able to update their Twitter status and share content from Yahoo. And Yahoo search and media properties will include Twitter updates.

Twitter will start showing up in Yahoo search results right away.

Like Facebook, Twitter is a big catch for Yahoo and others because of its explosive growth. Last year it inked two search deals with Microsoft and Google reportedly worth $25 million.

"We are focusing on making Yahoo where you can stay in touch with people and information in one place," he said.

Microsoft and Amazon Sign Patent-Sharing Deal

2010-02-22T22:34:00.000-08:00

In a new deal announced today, Microsoft and Amazon will gain access to each other’s portfolio of patents, including patents related to the Amazon Kindle and the shopping giant’s Linux server technology.

The patent cross-license deal makes both companies closer allies, as they are now sharing some of their most important intellectual property, although Microsoft didn’t specify in its announcement exactly which product IPs it would share with Amazon. However, it is known that patents for the Amazon Kindle and the shopping giant’s Linux server technology are part of the patent-sharing deal.

In addition to the sharing of intellectual property, Amazon has also agreed to pay Microsoft an undisclosed sum. Microsoft says that it has engaged in over 600 of these types of agreements, although we bet the Amazon deal is one of the more high profile agreements.

Details are limited at best, and we’re emailing both sides to get more information. At first glance though, it seems that Microsoft’s interested in bettering its cloud computing and server technology, something Amazon is famous for through Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Its Kindle technology could also be useful to Microsoft in whatever tablet it may build to compete against the Apple iPadApple Ipad.

Google Buzz Not a Twitter or Facebook Killer, Says Google Exec

2010-02-22T22:27:00.000-08:00

Google Buzz is not a rival to Facebook or Twitter , says Google exec Bradley Horowitz — instead he sees it as a platform for conversation, and hopes other services will be able to flow in and out of Buzz.

In an eWeek interview earlier this week, Horowitz, Google’s VP of product management, was asked whether Buzz was intended as a challenger to Twitter and Facebook. He replied:

“Absolutely not. Per what I just said, this is creating a new category of communication. It’s filling a niche, which is not currently met in the market. I think something unique is happening on Buzz that will continue to evolve. It’s hard to create a trend line or extrapolate too much from six days of use, but certainly conversation and the conversational Web is a place where Buzz has excelled. I think it is unique and offers a compelling interesting experience.”

Salesforce.com launch professional social media platform

2010-02-22T22:07:00.000-08:00

Salesforce.com has launched a private beta programme for Salesforce Chatter, a real-time enterprise collaboration application and platform.

Salesforce.com says the platform is the first ever trusted, secure enterprise application that allows companies to collaborate in real-time through profiles, feeds and status updates.

Salesforce.com hopes Chatter will help remove the cost and complexity of legacy software such as SharePoint and Lotus Notes from companies.

According to Salesforce.com Chatter delivers relevant information to users based on the people, documents, and apps they decide to follow.

The Chatter social networks feature allows companies to pull in relevant information from social media about the company and its customers. For example, employees can monitor the Twitter conversation about a particular prospect or competitor from within Chatter.

Chatter users will be able to create business profiles with professional information, helping colleagues to quickly identify individuals who can help contribute to the success of their project or task using relevant, context-specific information.

Salesforce.com says that status updates will ‘break the cycle of chasing critical information'. Through this feature, employees can even share files and links to provide additional context around a project, sales deal or customer support case.

The company adds that real-time feeds will provide employees with personalised updates from people, applications and documents, while application updates will publish all relevant status updates from a customer's Sales Cloud, Service Cloud or custom Force.com applications.

The apps also have the ability to post status updates that can automatically flag time-sensitive developments like a new sales opportunity or change in customer contact which empowers employees to harness the real-time power of Chatter to do better business.

"The end of legacy collaboration software like Microsoft SharePoint and IBM Lotus Notes is here," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com.

"Consumer Internet services like Facebook and Twitter have shown us better ways to collaborate. Using the same social features and real-time feeds popularised by these consumer services, Salesforce Chatter changes the game for collaboration in the enterprise - all without the cost and complexity of software."

Employees from one hundred industries around the globe, including Reed Exhibitions, Schumacher Group, and TransUnion have been invited to collaborate in the programme and will be able to access Chatter's real-time feeds via BlackBerry or iPhone mobile devices.

The Chatter private beta will allow customers to provide feedback to salesforce.com on the technology experience before it is generally available.

9 Tips For Getting More Twitter Followers

2010-02-14T10:51:00.000-08:00

Ashton Kutcher and CNN rank high in the “most popular” category when it comes Twitter -- Kutcher’s @aplusk commands nearly 4.5 million followers, and CNN's @cnnbrk boasts almost 3 million.

Most small businesses won’t reach those numbers, but they certainly can aim high. A large Twitter following can translate into a long list of potential clients; with hundreds or thousands of followers, a mere tweet can serve as major public relations and marketing -- all in less than 140 characters.

But amassing followers isn’t simply typing in some new business news or announcing a new product or sale, then clicking update. Check out some tips from well-followed Tweeters.

1. Create a solid profile. Include a recognizable background image and a link to your website, and write up a sharp bio describing your company. This is your business card. Tweeters using third-party clients like Tweetdeck may only see a thumbnail image of your business when deciding to follow or not.

“You want to communicate something relevant about your business,” says Kate Farber (@KateFarber) of RF Binder. “We speak to [our followers] as friends, not customers. [On Twitter, we] don't solicit or advertise our product.”

2. Expand the reach of your Twitter handle. Along with your name and other contact information, add a link to your Twitter profile onto your company homepage, email signature and any other online profiles.

3. Tweet often. Bryce Gruber (@BryceGruber) of The Luxury Spot tweets anywhere from three to ten times a day. This frequency has given her followers a chance to know the personality of her products and services.

“When your followers grow to know you and feel personally invested in you, they're more likely to retweet your posts to their followers.” Gruber has amassed over 1,500 followers since beginning to regularly updated on Twitter four months ago.

4. But tweet within reason. Stephen Bender (@StephenBender) of Bender Media is wary of over-tweeting for fear of overexposure. “Just like email campaigns, flyers and commercials, [Tweeting] too often is a negative if your message is tuned out.”

Also, keep your following to follower ratio balanced, adds Farber.

5. The reciprocity of the tweet: the retweet (RT). This is the simplest and least aggressive way to join the conversation. Retweeting is a stamp of approval. Observe how others tweet then decide what your business likes and agrees with; tweets worthy of retweeting typically use popular keywords and have original and pithy content.

“With each tweet, we are actually building more connections,” says John Cascarano of Lock and Mane (@lockandmane). “A single RT by someone with 500 followers gives your brand exposure to 500 new people. Those are also 500 people who are interested in the kinds of products or services you are offering.” A typical @lockandmane tweet: Tell us your winter hair emergency. We can help.

6. Use Twitter tools:

· WeFollow and TweetTop help find people tweeting about specific topics and industries.

· LocalTweeps and NearbyTweeps track down people in your area.

· JournalistTweets and Twitterati follow popular journalists and bloggers.

· The Twitter search option keeps up on any mentions of your Twitter handle, your business, and your industry.

Joao Rodrigues, @riocvb, uses the “LTG” model. “First I listen to what is happening that may be relevant to my followers or that they may not already know, then I tweet about it.” Rodrigues' tweets almost always then give back with a link to a shortened URL including news or an image to support a tweet.

7. Use hashtags. #FollowFridays (#FF) and #TrendingTopic (#TT) are two of the more popular hashtags. Replying to and reposting hashtag topics then acknowledging them on #TT and #FF exposes tweets to a much larger audience. Lev Ekster, owner of mobile cupcake truck @CupcakeStop, uses #FF and Twitpics to highlight specials. He also tweets with hashtags to discuss topics around the business without promoting the business directly.

“Hashtagging everyday words and brands like "#coffee" "#toyota" or "#homework" will help gain popularity,” says Gruber. “If you tweet: "I just bought a new #toyota #hybrid, too bad its part of the #recall," any of those items are active searches for Twitter users right now. When someone searches #toyota, your tweet will come up. If they like it, they'll follow you.”

8. Think virally. The Internet is chock full of news, entertainment, and humor. Mix in your own personality and spin and people may follow. Gruber pastes links from CNN.com and PerezHilton.com and suggests headlines like "'Tom Cruise: Arrested for Cocaine’ or anything else that would really grab someone's attention.” Keep celebrity follows at a minimum so as not to cyberstalk, says Bender. “If you are able to engage a celebrity or anyone with a huge following, getting them to reply or retweet you will amp up numbers big time.”

9. Reveal exclusive information just to followers. For Farber, that’s providing “unique insights and exclusive content about your company and sharing sneak peaks.” Farber asks followers for input on new products or services, and uses Twitter to resolve customer service issues. Cascarano's followers who find themselves in a hair emergency “can literally tweet us a question and we'll give an answer. Want Mary J's Grammy hair? We can tell you in real time.”

Most importantly, remember that Twitter isn’t the online destination for a sales pitch. These tactics are all meant to indirectly market yourself -- overt tweet pitching will typically get you unfollowed.

source: OPEN Forum

AOL Looking to Buy Mashable?

2010-01-07T03:52:00.000-08:00

AOL’s solo act may be getting off to an interesting start if this current rumor has any validity. Now, of course, this is a rumor so it will be handled as such. But, hey, if it’s good enough for Gawker and the news remains slow like it is, why not join in, right?

According to Gawker’s Valleywag AOL is courting Pete Cashmore’s project in order to help move along their ‘content is king’ search initiative.

AOL is interested in buying the world’s largest tech blog, Mashable, we hear from a source at the internet conglomerate. And in fact the two sides have been talking, people outside AOL have whispered to one another, and to us.

A sale to the content-obsessed internet company would mean Mashable’s founder Pete Cashmore really would have everything.

So how would Mashable benefit AOL?

A deal would work for AOL, newly spun off from Time Warner, as well. CEO Tim Armstrong wants a “laser focus” for the company, on content. He’s already bought a local content company from himself and launched a strategy to tailor content to internet statistics like search queries.

Mashable’s proven ability to generate great numbers and game Google and Twitter is part of the appeal, then, our AOL insider tells us. The site excels not only at writing Google-friendly content but also at earning a flood of links on social networks, most notably Twitter.

Who wouldn’t want that right?

The AOL insider who likes to keep the blogosphere up to date on inside activities at the company that is trying to rebuild itself tells Valleywag more

Mahsable has “definitely been brought up in meetings as possible driving force behind Seed,” said our AOLer, referring to the stats-driven system for farming out editorial work to freelancers. The notion that there have been acquisition talks between the two companies is mere rumor at this point, but it has not escaped AOL’s notice that Mashable writes the sort of content advertisers pay for at a time when AOL’s own editorial staff has been heavily reduced amid company layoffs, said our source, clearly no fan of Seed: “Mashable has been getting so Mainstream News, and their writers get paid in Twitter followers and air, so it just seems like a good fit.”

Valleywag is doing their due diligence though and was able to get a response from Cashmore about the speculation and the comment about his writers’ pay scale.

Cashmore writes us, “We don’t comment on speculation, but we do hold our writers in high regard and pay a competitive salary for their tireless efforts.”

So what if AOL does buy Mashable?

What do you think will happen to the wildly popular blog? Would AOL be able to reap the full rewards of having such a property with just attaching its name to it? What might that association do to the blog’s image and reputation? What do you think?

source: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2010/01/aol-looking-to-buy-mashable.html

Vimeo to Launch Support for 1080p

2010-01-07T03:32:00.000-08:00

In case 720p wasn’t enough for your gorgeous, transcendent works of motion picture art, Vimeo will begin hosting 1080p videos by the end of this month.

Unfortunately, that you’ll have to be a Plus member not just to upload these files but to view them as well. Plus members pay $60 per year or $10 per month — worth it if you’re a big fan of the sort of art-house fare that makes up Vimeos niche, not so much if you’re not (though according to the top 10 video sites poll we ran recently, a lot of you are).

1080p videos use 1080 horizontal lines to draw the image, as opposed to 720 for 720p, 480p for 480, and so on. More lines mean a sharper image on screens that can handle the resolution.

YouTube (YouTube) already rolled out 1080p videos a month ago, but it bears mentioning that most computer displays and mobile devices have lower resolutions than 1080p, which is (along with bandwidth limitations) one of the reasons 1080p hasn’t taken hold on the web yet. Nevertheless, 1080p is now the HDTV standard, especially for larger televisions.

Source: http://mashable.com/2010/01/06/vimeo-1080p/

Teens Banding Together to Cut Down on Facebook

2009-12-23T20:52:00.000-08:00

There’s no doubt that for many of us, Facebook consumes a goodly proportion of our time; on average, we spend 5 percent of our time online. For some teenagers, time spent on the 350 million-strong social network has gone beyond time spent and into time sunk. It’s prompted a spate of young users to devise ways of cutting down, taking breaks or simply deactivating their accounts altogether, according to The New York Times.

Some are even banding together to provide social support for curtailing the Facebook (Facebook) obsession. Two teens at San Francisco University High School, Hally Lamberson and Monica Reed, made a pact to only log in on the first Saturday of every month. Ann Arbor, Michigan, sophomore Neeka Salmasi enlisted her sister to change her Facebook password for her every Sunday evening and not give the new credentials back to her until the following Friday.

Other strategies include giving up Facebook for Lent, “punishing” Facebook usage breaches with embarrassing Wall messages, deactivating an account temporarily or going cold turkey for the entire senior year after Facebook proved too distracting during college applications. Psychology professionals and school administrators alike acknowledge that usage of the social network can all too easily reach problematic levels of distraction. Dr. Kimberly Young, director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery, said she’s worked with dozens of teens trying to break the habit: “It’s like any other addiction… it’s hard to wean yourself.”

Author and teacher Rachel Simmons credits the new Facebook Live Feed format with exacerbating an already addictive online medium: “You’re getting a feed of everything everyone is doing and saying. You’re literally watching the social landscape on the screen, and if you’re obsessed with your position in that landscape, it’s very hard to look away.”

Do you or someone you know have a preferred strategy for limiting the time you spend on Facebook? Do the parents out there have any guidelines they use to help teens maintain a healthy relationship with their online networks?

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/technology/internet/21facebook.html?_r=2&ref=education%3Cbr%20/%3E

Youtu.be: Because YouTube Needs Its Own URL Shortener Too

2009-12-22T11:45:00.000-08:00

If anything dominated the social media world last week, it was URL shorteners.

Recently Facebook Launched its own URL shorteners, called Fb.me. Read Here

Google has also launched his own URL Shortner, said goo.gl. Read Here

Now Google subsidiary YouTube has joined the URL shortening bandwagon. It has just announced youtu.be, the official short link of the world’s largest video site.

Read What this Goo.gl and Fb.me Mean for Bit.ly?

The shortener is exclusive to YouTube links (no surprise). Its primary function is to share YouTube videos and channels with friends, mostly through YouTube’s AutoShare feature, which syndicates your activity on YouTube to Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere. and just like Fb.me, you can manually add the video code to the end of youtu.be and get the appropriate video. Youtu.be/c6K9P58Yf7E, for example, leads to the video I recorded of how the SF Zoo uses Twitter.

This is an expected but smart move on the company’s part. I know that my AutoShared YouTube links have sometimes been long and ugly beasts. This should fix that problem and open AutoShare to even more users.

YouTube Is the Top Social Media Innovation of the Decade

2009-12-22T11:29:00.000-08:00

As the decade draws to a close, there’s at least one thing we can say about the social media space with a fairly high level of confidence: it’s here to stay. That said, looking ahead to the next ten years, it’s incredibly hard to predict how we’ll use social media — let alone which services will still be relevant — when we get to 2020.

Already this decade we’ve seen the dramatic rise and fall of numerous social media services. This year’s Facebook could be next year’s Friendster, and even as I write this, there are signs that 2009’s media darling — Twitter — may have already peaked.

But there’s one innovation that in all likelihood won’t only endure, but thrive, in the decade ahead. It’s also the innovation that has most embodied what we’ve come to define as social media since 2000, while at the same time, showing absolutely no signs of slowing down. That innovation is YouTube.

Read Full Story at: http://mashable.com/2009/12/22/youtube-2010/

India survey says Facebook affects productivity

2009-12-22T11:23:00.000-08:00

Indian firms are losing productivity because office staff spend too long on social networking sites, a survey says.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) says workers use Orkut, Facebook, Myspace and Linkedin for "romancing" and other purposes.

Office employees questioned in the survey spent on average an hour a day on sites like Facebook, leading to a loss in productivity of nearly 12.5%.

The findings were based on responses from nearly 4,000 corporate employees.

'Dangerous'

"Close to 12.5% of productivity of human resource in corporate sector is misappropriated each day since a vast majority of them while away their time accessing social networking sites during the office hours," according to the findings of Assocham's Social Development Foundation survey.

"As a matter of fact, [the] growing use of browsing sites can be dangerous for overall productivity and IT companies have already installed software to restrict its use," Assocham secretary general DS Rawat said.

The survey questioned 4,000 employees between the ages of 21 and 60 in Delhi, Bangalore, Madras (Chennai), Cochin, Indore, Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai (Bombay), Pune, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Lucknow and Kanpur.

The survey found that 77% of workers who had Orkut accounts used them during work hours.

Nearly half of office employees accessed Facebook during work time.

Moreover, four in every 10 workers built their entire Orkut or Facebook profile at work, the survey found.

Some 83% saw nothing wrong in surfing at work during office hours.

According to the survey, 19% of companies allow use of social networking sites only for business purposes, while 16% allow limited personal use.

Only 40% of the employees interviewed said that their companies allowed staff full access to social networking sites.

The survey also says that 84% of respondents in India's major cities show signs of internet addiction - they do not take breaks at appropriate times, they spend more than a "normal" amount of time online, and can get irritable if they are interrupted while surfing.

In September, Portsmouth City Council in southern England banned staff from accessing Facebook on its computers after it was revealed they spent on average 400 hours on the site every month.

The move was expected to stop the "waste of public cash".

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8423888.stm

Twitter Was Hacked Earlier By The Iranian Cyber Army

2009-12-18T03:01:00.000-08:00

Iranian hackers brought down micro-blogging website Twitter for around two hours this morning.

The attack took place at around 6am and left the site's estimated 30m users unable to send messages or post 'tweets'.

The main Twitter homepage had been replaced with a black and red screen featuring an image of a green flag.

We’ve received multiple tips right around 10 pm that Twitter was hacked and defaced with the message below. The site was offline for a while.

We’re looking into this and awaiting on a response from Twitter.

The message read:

Iranian Cyber Army

THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY

iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.

U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don’t, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To….

NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?

WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST ;)

Take Care.

The site reappeared around two hours later, with staff telling users: 'We are working to recovery from an unplanned downtime and will update more as we learn the cause of this outage.'

It is believed that Twitter's DNS records were hijacked in the attack meaning that users who were trying to visit the site were actually redirected to the new page.

The DNS, which stands for Domain Name System, connects the name of a website, in this case twitter.com, to the servers which hold its contents.

A short statement was issued on the company's blog.

It read: 'Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed.

'We are looking into the underlying cause and will update with more information soon.'

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1236873/Iranian-hackers-bring-Twitter-cyber-attack.html#ixzz0a2I3OPNq

How CNN Stays on Top of SEO

2009-12-16T23:03:00.000-08:00

What’s the biggest SEO challenge for a large media company such as CNN? According to Topher Kohan, the SEO Manager at CNN, keeping up with breaking news is the most demanding part of the process.

On the positive front, because CNN has a TV station, they are able to essentially tell people what to search for. However, on the website, they have to determine what people are searching for on their own. In an interview with WebProNews, Kohan said keywords need to be included in the headline, title, and meta description.

As for the future of video SEO for news sites, Kohan told us that he sees microformats as a key ingredient to getting content seen. Google further indicated this when it announced its support of Yahoo’s SearchMonkey RDFa and Facebook Share in September.

Kohan believes these partnerships will allow SEOs to give the search engines more information, which will be better for everyone. Since he expects to see a set of standardized tags within the next 18 months, Kohan advises SEOs to get on board with the coming changes in order to start preparing now.

source: source: http://videos.webpronews.com/2009/12/15/how-cnn-stays-on-top-of-seo/

What Kind of Damage Could Goo.gl and Fb.me Do?

2009-12-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

It’s tough to tell what goals Google and Facebook have with Goo.gl and Fb.me respectively. Currently, fb.me works with the sharing of links from Facebook pages, mobile interfaces, and Facebook usernames, while Goo.gl is operating only on two of Google’s many services.

Don’t expect that to last, though – Google and Facebook are just beginning to play around with their URL shorteners. In time, they’ll be integrated with more of their products. All link sharing links from Facebook pages to Twitter and elsewhere will eventually use fb.me, while Google could add it to Friend Connect or even make it a way to share search results.

The real damage to Bit.ly though could be if either company decides to make their shorteners standalone products. Both companies could provide some detailed analytics for links shared via their shorteners. Whether either company is thinking about this strategy though is anybody’s guess.

source: http://mashable.com/2009/12/14/goo-gl-fb-me-bit-ly/

What Do Goo.gl and Fb.me Mean for Bit.ly?

2009-12-15T20:47:00.000-08:00

While URL shortenering has become an increasingly important business in the wake of Twitter and its 140 character revolution, we’ve never seen anything happen to the space that compares to what has happened today. First Facebook’s fb.me was revealed to be in use for link sharing. It took almost no time at all for Google to follow up with the announcement of Goo.gl, which is now part of the Google Toolbar and Feedburner.

Think about it: two of the world’s most powerful tech companies have jumped onto the URL shortener bandwagon. While it’s a major validation of the market potential for the space, it presents a unique challenge to market leader Bit.ly

Are Google and Facebook out to take out Bit.ly? Can the #1 most popular URL shortener hope to compete against the likes of these tech titans?

The answer is yes, as long as Bit.ly retains its ace card.

Want More to Read, click here: FACEBOOK

source: http://mashable.com/2009/12/14/goo-gl-fb-me-bit-ly/

FB.ME - URL Shortener From Facebook

2009-12-15T03:01:00.000-08:00

URL shorteners, like bit.ly, have become a popular way for people to share links on Twitter while taking up as few of the allotted 140 characters as possible. But saving space is just one of the benefits that shorteners provide. Others include getting traffic analytics like how many people are sharing links from which sites. So it’s especially interesting that Facebook is rolling out what appears to be its own URL shortening service, called fb.me.

A URL shortener makes increasing sense as a Facebook feature, because the site is trying to be more open and connected to other web sites and Internet-connected devices.

Facebook recently began automatically shortening URLs that appear in its mobile interface. So, instead of text link to a Facebook photo appear as http://m.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=35877484&id=1310743&l=a373e8038d, you might see it see as http://fb.me/3Bkj7CW, as Polaris Ventures’ Ryan Spoon noticed (see his screenshot, below).

Fb.me also works as a substitute for any other Facebook page. So if you can write http://fb.me/starbucks instead of http://www.facebook.com/starbucks, as blogger Saad Kamal points out, meaning brands with Pages can more easily do things like share links to Facebook on Twitter.

source: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/12/14/facebook-testing-new-url-shortener-fb-me/

Google Introduce Its Own URL Shortener - But Not For Broad Consumer

2009-12-15T01:56:00.000-08:00

Google made a couple of announcements today that actually combined for perhaps a more interesting announcement than either of them as stand-alone news items.

First, Google has added a new share button to the Google Toolbar, which allows users to share any site on the web via their social network of choice. Second, Google announced that with Feedburner, you can now set your feeds up to post to Twitter.

The thing that these two announcements have in common is that they both utilize a new URL shortener from Google. They tried to slip that in their quietly a couple of times, but then went ahead and made an announcement about the service itself.

The shortening service is located at goo.gl, but it is not available for broad consumer use at this point. Google is just using it itself to compliment the aforementioned services. In other words, you can't just go to goo.gl and shorten a URL yourself. However, Google says that in time, it may offer such an option.

Google URL Shortener at goo.gl is a service that takes long URLs and squeezes them into fewer characters to make a link that is easier to share, tweet, or email to friends. The core goals of this service are:

Stability – ensuring that the service has very good uptime
Security – protecting users from malware and phishing pages
Speed – fast resolution of short URLs

Google URL Shortener is currently available for Google products and not for broader consumer use.

The Google privacy policy applies to the Google URL Shortener. Please note that Google may choose to publicly display aggregate and non-personally identifiable statistics about particular shortened links, such as the number of end user clicks.

Google Launches Free Online Dictionary

2009-12-15T01:25:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure whether this is something new, but apparently Google has an online dictionary that lets you find definitions and synonyms in almost thirty different languages, pulled from a scope of different sources and impressively fast.

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR BETTER VIEW

Previously, Google used to offer up an automatic definition from various third-party sources like Dictionary.com or Answers.com. However, now as you can imagine there’s a little blue "definition" link on the right side of any word or phrase search, which links directly to Google’s own homebrew definition answers.

Google does have a special keyword called “Define:keyword” that lets you search for the definition of any word almost instantaneously. The “define” operator is still pulling data from various 3rd party sources instead of Google’s own dictionary. But I’m sure this is going to change in the near future.

Check out the Google Dictionary: http://google.com/dictionary

If you have any feedback about this new tool, do send them via comments!

New Privacy Settings From Facebook

2009-12-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

Last week, Facebook rolled out their new privacy settings to their 350 million + users and of course created a backlash of angry users while providing new functionality.

So what's changing?

Mandatory Privacy Setting creation
If you weren't aware of the privacy settings before, you will be now. You will not be able to go "Facebook-ing" without first going through the new "easy setup" of your settings first. I tried repeatedly to find a way around this, so that I didn't have to reconfigure my settings, but alas, I was thwarted. While this is a tad annoying if you would rather keep your existing settings, this does promote the novice user from unknowingly distributing more about themselves than previously. Users can choose from the recommended settings, choose to configure their own, or use a combination of the two.

Specific Profile Element Control
Ever want to post a comment without the spider web of your network being able to see it? Well now you have the ability to apply security per post. Don't want your work friends seeing that comment about you being at the Nationals Game instead of work? No worries, you can modify that specific post, while not giving them the idea that they are "on lockdown." Want to hide just your political views from your friends? Go for it. Facebook now offers you the ability to specify individual elements in your profile, including posts, as being accesible to certain user groups.

A Better User Experience for Updating Privacy Settings
As a frequent Facebook user, I have a multitude of privacy settings set up for groups of members, but still some data would get out there from time to time based on my network associations, a confusion with whether or not a particular setting would control something, or because I forgot someone was in a subgroup. Now, along with the required privacy setup, Facebook has created an easier to understand privacy settings page, that is straight forward as to what elements are available to which people. Additionally, there is no longer a specific setting for your networks. All networks and peeps start in the same common group from which you build your settings, so there should be no worries about overlooking a segment of your friends list when it comes to your information.

So what's wrong with Facebook's new settings? What are so many users up in arms about?

The biggest issue seems to be revolving around not being able to control all your data. No matter what, some information on your profile will be treated as "publicly available" to search and applications. These items include your profile photo, name, current city, gender, pages, friends list and things you are a fan of. Some of these items used to be controllable, but are no longer. This information is also open to the Facebook applications that use the Facebook API's. This information will be shared with the application as soon as one of your friends adds and app.

But Facebook is apparently trying to appease its users...somewhat.

As of a few days ago, Facebook made some changes to its new settings do to public outcry, most notably with your friends list. Originally, your friends list was something that was treated as publicly available to all users Now, Facebook has modified their changes to say that you can hide your friends list completely from all users, if you so chose, but that is the only option, and this information is still accessible via applications.

For more information on Facebook's privacy changes go to Facebook's profile or visit their release on their changes at Facebook's privacy post.

source: http://www.examiner.com/x-15869-DC-Web-20-Examiner~y2009m12d13-Facebooks-new-privacy-settings

Google is Beating Bing & Yahoo Again, Now In Real-Time Search

2009-12-08T01:37:00.000-08:00

Google unveiled its real-time search interface today and it looks much, much better than what rivals Yahoo and Bing have done so far. The new Google real-time search functionality will appear on selected search results pages, below News results, above or below top ranking natural search results - sometimes just above the fold of the page.

The new type of results are well-integrated, unobtrusive, diverse in contents and formatted simply. It appears to be a job very well done. It's hard to believe that neither Yahoo nor Bing have created an experience anywhere near as compelling.

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR BETTER VIEW

Bing is a Bummer

Bing's "real-time search" comes in the form of a special page for Twitter results. On that page you see a tag cloud of popular terms on Twitter, links shared regarding those terms and a few recent tweets in which each link appeared. It's not very visually appealing. In fact, it's downright ugly. It's also not integrated extensively into the main Bing site.

Search results on Bing come only from Twitter and links share on Twitter. There are a lot of low-value retweets displayed. Twitter is of course just a small part of the real-time web.

Yahoo is MIA

Yahoo! on the other hand, displays Twitter as a tab in a select few news search results pages. That tab offers links being shared on Twitter, not tweets themselves. It's very hard to find a search result that uses Twitter results, though, on Yahoo!

Google Is The Winner So Far

Google's implementation, at least in this demonstration, brings real-time search front and center, displays commentary from Tweets, links being shared through a variety of channels and will soon display messages from MySpace and Facebook. It's broader, the User Experience is better and it's more prominent.

Source: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_is_beating_bing_yahoo_again_now_in_real-tim.php

YouTube goes feather light for broadband hungry users

2009-12-06T23:02:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons YouTube - the world's largest video sharing site - does not have great traffic emanating out of broadband starved countries such as India is that its videos tend to be heavy, and also the number of distractions that are present on the page.

Yes the distractions such as the scores of links on the page, related videos, channels names, etc are a necessary evil (and in a perfect broadband scenario a great value-add to the viewer), but they can be also be dispensed with and the viewer won't miss much.

So, not surprisingly, YouTube said it is now experimenting with a lightweight version of its video player pages, christened "feather". As YouTube puts it: "Let's face it: in this age of instant gratification, even several seconds of loading time can feel like an eternity. With all of this in mind, 'Feather', an ultra light watch page, launches today in TestTube, our ideas incubator where we test out new products. As you can see by the below screenshot, the player still features prominently, but will default to standard quality. Related videos, comments and other familiar features from the current watch page are kept to a minimum.

All of this results in a user experience that aims to keep things simple and the videos loading and playing quickly. If we see adoption go up along with improvements in latency, we'll look to roll this out of TestTube and make it more widely available." If you are one of those affected by slow speeds, you can try out the new Feather pages on www.youtube.com/testtube, the web page where YouTube puts out its experiments for the general public.

Leading technology site CNET says: "It's worth noting the feature does not yet appear to work on all videos just yet. We had the best luck on popular videos, including those from YouTube's featured section. Also, if you're a YouTube power user who regularly makes use of things such as video replies and user comments, it's worth staying on the standard version of the service."

source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/73661/India/YouTube+goes+feather+light+for+broadband+hungry+users.html

Learn How to Measure Your Popularity on Twitter

2009-12-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

You've got followers and post regularly, but ever wondered how popular you are on Twitter? An online tool that evaluates "tweets" can tell.

Public relations consultancy Edelman recently launched TweetLevel (http://www.tweetlevel.com), a free tool that measures the importance of a user on the popular social networking site, how trusted they are as well as the influence they wield.

The tool uses an algorithm developed by the agency which takes into account the quality and quantity of "tweets" or micro-blogs of up to 140 characters, and allows users to compare their own importance to that of anyone they choose to follow.

"Unlike most rankings that look merely at the number of followers someone has, TweetLevel gives you a really clear picture of who is important within this increasingly influential forum," Jonny Bentwood, Edelman's Head of Strategic Analysis and who created the algorithm, said in a statement.

The tool gives points to users in four categories -- how many people listen to what you say; how many people follow you; how actively you participate and whether people believe you.

Each score is rated out of 100, with the higher your score, the more important you are.

The statement said that entertainment blogger Perez Hilton, Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher and social media blog Mashable were among the highest scorers on TweetLevel.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/23/AR2009112301154.html

Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher flirt on Twitter

2009-12-06T22:24:00.000-08:00

Hollywood star couple Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher have turned to online flirting - when they posted a series of messages on Twitter.com, uploading pictures of themselves to form a photographic conversation.

The couple was sitting in separate rooms of their Los Angeles home when the ‘Ghost’ star wrote a greeting on her hand, took a photo and pasted it on Kutcher’s Twitter page, reports the Daily Express.

They even made dinner plans inking words on their skin and even allowing Moore’s teenage daughter Tallulah to join in.

However, the online conversation turned a bit racy at the end with Moore scrawling “Bed time?” across her hand and chest, followed by, “Race you to the bedroom,” with Kutcher replying, “4 sure (sic).” (ANI)

Source: http://connect.in.com/ashton-kutcher/profile-28043.html

Google may planning pay-per-view TV on YouTube

2009-12-04T20:47:00.000-08:00

Google is in talks with TV executives to develop a streaming service for commercial-free television shows on YouTube was reported Thursday. According to the Wall street Journal and a number of technology websites, Google is planning to make programmes available a day after airing for as little as 2 U.S. dollars. It is unclear whether this would be available only in the United States.

Apple TV already offer a similar service though programmes may be downloaded for future viewing. The BBC already offers British licence payers the facility to watch programmes for free and to download them. However downloaded content has to be played within one week as it has a built in expiry date. The BBC sercice is also only available to UK residents.

In October this year Britain's Channel 4 television station signed a landmark deal with YouTube, becoming the first broadcaster worldwide to make full-length TV shows such as Skins, Hollyoaks and Peep Show available to users of the Google-owned video-sharing website.

The deal had been under negotiation for around last six months and has enabled Channel 4 to make its existing 4oD online video catch-up service available via YouTube shortly after shows have aired on television.

When launched in early 2010, YouTube users will be able to watch the shows free of charge, with Channel 4 selling the advertising around the content. The broadcaster has also made 3,000 hours of archive programming available including shows such as Brass Eye, Derren Brown and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

The service is only available to UK residents however, whether via the Channel4.com website or YouTube. Video on demand is growing, but Michael Grade, outgoing executive chairman of ITV and former Channel 4 head, has warned of the effect it may have on traditional programme making. Soon after Channel 4 signed the deal with YouTube Grade said such deals will mean that "Americans will take the lion's share of the internet value in our content in this country, very soon".

Speaking to the Lord's communications committee, he admitted that ITV is likely to do a deal with an American video-on-demand aggregation service such as Google or Hulu, the online TV joint venture backed by News Corporation, NBC Universal and Disney, in order to keep pace with the digital evolution of the industry. "None of that money that goes to America will get invested in the UK", Grade said. ITV was one of the partners in the ill-fated UK online video service Kangaroo, alongside Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide, which aimed to provide a British-run competitor but was closed down by the competition regulator in February.

Social Media Marketing Tips for eCommerce Sites

2009-12-02T22:59:00.000-08:00

While social media marketing is enormously effective in growing your e-commerce business, the unpalatable truth is that it requires a goodly amount of time to do it right.

Doing it right is crucial, because if you do it wrong you will do more harm than good.

If finding time to manage your social media presence and marketing campaigns is a problem, then perhaps you should look at some ways to streamline your efforts, and accomplish more in less time.

In other words: Work smarter, not harder!

Here are a few tips on how to use your time productively in social media marketing:

Use analytic software to check incoming links from the social media sites you frequent. You should create a profile and begin interacting with others at each social media website with inbound traffic. Look at it this way---these folks are already generating some buzz about your business, so you’re a giant leap ahead right off the mark! While you’re at it, be sure to sign up for alerts so that you will be notified when your business is mentioned on the social site anywhere. Most social communities send emails, but Twitter sends alerts to your cell phone, which might be even better.

If you haven’t already made a video for YouTube as part of your marketing campaign, do so post haste and then make that video so that others can share it and pass it on. YouTube thoughtfully provides a simple copy and paste code that makes a video instantly share-able. Sharing is the cornerstone of going viral! Every person who shares your video is helping you with your job of social media marketing.

Have a blog! The major search engines LOVE blogs! Having a business blog means that your ecommerce business will automatically have a leg up with Google. Besides that, the blogosphere is a jumpin’ place right now. Blogs are hot! A blog offers customers and potential customers a place to comment on blog posts, ask questions about your company, etc. Anything that creates some buzz about your business is a huge help in social media marketing. You must post to your blog diligently, by the way. You can’t just create it and then walk away indefinitely. A blog must be fed fresh content on a very regular basis to be effective.

There are lots of other ways to manage your time efficiently when tending to social media marketing, but those will get you started!

Nikon, Twitter and Ashton Kutcher Launch New Social Media Marketing Campaign

2009-11-29T20:39:00.000-08:00

Let’s face it. People love celebrities, and celebrities who have active Twitter accounts — those who truly use them to engage with their fans, can attract huge followings.

Ashton Kutcher is a celebrity from television, film, and of course, he’s married to Demi Moore. He’s also a Twitter celebrity (check out his Twitter page here). He tweets frequently and about all aspects of his life. His followers love him for it, and he made no secret of his attempt to be the first Twitter user with 1 million followers. Today, he has nearly 4 million followers.

That’s an audience that Nikon wants to connect with.

Ashton Kutcher has been appearing in Nikon television commercials for awhile now, so when Nikon had the idea to hold a video creation contest where people were asked to make 140-second commercials with its Nikon D5000 camera. what better way to drum up some hype for the promotion than involving Ashton Kutcher and his 4 million followers on Twitter?

Kutcher tweeted about the contest as did a few other celebrities Nikon added to the celebrity mix backing the promotion. Ultimately, those tweets about the Nikon promotion could be seen by a potential audience of their over 6.5 million combined followers — with just a single tweet by 4 celebrities.

I’ve actually witnessed celebrities working their magic and increasing their Twitter followers rapidly and in huge numbers. I’ve witnessed celebrities drive widespread awareness via Twitter for charities and boost donations. Brands like Nikon are recognizing that while celebrity endorsements on television commercials and in print ads might not be as effective as they were years ago, celebrity brand advocates who engage large numbers of consumers through Twitter just might be a goldmine.

What do you think? Is the Nikon and Ashton Kutcher promotion the start of a new trend of celebrity endorsements of brands via Twitter?

Post is written by: Susan Gunelius

President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc.,

Site: http://www.KeySplashCreative.com

Will Facebook Be the Next Big Online Shopping Site?

2009-11-26T20:46:00.000-08:00

If you are an ecommerce entrepreneur who thinks that Facebook is just a place to hang out and socialize, you are missing out on the power of social media marketing and what it can do to help grow your online dropship business.

There are over 200 million active members on Facebook, and that number is growing by leaps and bounds.

70% of those members say they use and engage with one or more of the 52,000 applications, or apps, on Facebook.

Internet retail strategists are saying that Facebook might well be the next big online shopping website. According to the Financial Times, at least 20 major retailers are opening storefronts on Facebook in time for holiday shoppers.

As more and more retailers turn to the internet and social media sites to help bolster flagging sales due to the economy, Facebook could actually become a major retail destination.

If you aren’t paying attention to what these big companies are saying and doing, and aren’t tapping into that vast reservoir of potential customers yourself, you are making a grave mistake!

Basically, what it all boils down to is that if you are in ecommerce, you need to have a presence on Facebook.

You should be active in other online communities, as well, but for now we’re just talking about Facebook and its potential to help your online business expand.

By leveraging Facebook business related apps and options, you can provide your customers with a new channel for interaction, plus get new customers as your Facebook fans tell others in their circles about you!

Here are some of the Facebook apps for business pages:

* Events: Here you can organize online parties or gatherings, and also spread the word about upcoming business events such as sales, contests, freebies, etc.

* Notes: Here is where you can share news about your business, or engage with your fans through written entries.

* Video: This is great! Here you have a high quality video platform for Facebook pages. Remember---people generally love videos, especially if it’s something informative or amusing!

* Discussion Boards: This is a golden opportunity to do some good PR work and interact with your customers and prospective customers.

There are more business apps available on Facebook. But that gives you an idea of the fantastic marketing possibilities!

10 Rules for Viral Marketing with Twitter

2009-11-19T03:18:00.000-08:00

Social media is a force to be reckoned with in today’s society, and Twitter is one of the most powerful social media forces around at the moment.

If you intent to use Tweets and Twitter for social media marketing, read on for a few handy pointers on how to go viral:

1. Create a remarkable personal brand! Competition is fierce on the World Wide Web! You have to make yourself stand out. Seth Godin’s fantastic book The Purple Cow can teach you a lot about this principle, as well as how to apply it. Determine who you want to target, and then provide that target audience with high quality content that solves a problem for them. Dare to be different! Be unique!

2. Follow those people with similar interests as yourself, and you will attract and build followers with the same interests. The whole idea here is not to build up a vast following, but to build a following of people who are genuinely interested in or likely to be good prospects for your widgets/business.

3. Build assets with your followers! Don’t just jump in there and start with a sales pitch. Give people something of value so that they will want to follow you.

4. Tweet often! You don’t have to try and compress War and Peace into 140 characters every time, but try to keep your Tweets of high quality, interesting, informative---something that people will want to read!

5. Remember that Twitter is for conversations, not one person with a megaphone broadcasting one way messages. Respond to Tweets by others, be complimentary, strike up a conversation.

6. Take possession of a niche. Whatever your niche may be, own it. Your focus here should be on solving problems for others as applies to your particular niche.

7. Comment on blogs within your niche or that correlate with your niche, and be sure to include your Twitter URL. This can help accrue the kinds of followers you want to attract.

8. To get retweeted, which of course you will have to in order to go viral on Twitter, you must add conversational value, tweet about interesting things, share news or other content that people will want to pass along.

9. Mind your social media manners! Don’t be a jerk. Don’t be a know-it-all. Don’t be pushy. Don't be a spammer. There are rules of etiquette that apply to social media. If you are unfamiliar with them---learn before trying to get on Twitter or any other social media site.

10. Last but not least: Ask for a retweet! Yes, just ask. To do this, you simply put “Please retweet” at the end of your message.

These 10 handy tips can help you go viral on Twitter, and will be valuable in social media marketing!

About Author: Amanda Brooke

Survey: Social Media Users Open to Marketing Messages

2009-11-19T03:16:00.000-08:00

The findings from a new Performics and ROI Research survey of more than 3,000 consumers show many reasons to get excited about social media marketing strategies.

In short, substantial groups of users indicated a willingness not only to engage with but also to buy from brands on social networking sites.

· 34% reported having used a search engine to find information on a product/service/brand after seeing an advertisement on a social networking site

· 30% have learned about a new product, service or brand from a social networking site

· 32% said messages about printable coupons on social sites resonate with them

· 28% said messages about sales or special deal notifications resonate with them

The study, as well as recent brand success stories, help dispel previous, lingering misconceptions about consumers being turned off by marketers attempting to sell through social media.

Take Dell, for example. A June 12 Reuters story, "Twitter helps Dell rake in sales," detailed Dell's successful efforts to leverage Twitter for sales. Dell reported raking in "more than $3 million from Twitter followers who clicked through its posts to its Web sites to make purchases," including more than $1 million in the six months prior to the report. "The company posts six to 10 times a week to its DellOutlet account, where the majority of Twitter-based sales have come from … almost every post includes a coupon or a link to a sale, and about half of the posts are Twitter-exclusive deals." These successes illustrate an important point also uncovered in the study—that extending coupons or special deals through the socialsphere can work wonders.

While the findings refute some misconceptions about social media, they also shed light on why a shrinking minority of consumers don't want to socialize online. Of those approached for this study, 30% reported no active use of social networks and so did not qualify for the full survey. We wanted to know why they don't network online and discovered:

· 77% simply lack interest

· 28% are concerned about privacy

· 27% don't have time for social networking

· 13% don't want all the connections

Overall, the survey determined how various segments of consumers use social networks in their daily lives, specifically in regard to finding out about different types of products and in relation to other media channels. The study found that marketers who embrace the medium and communicate relevant messages in consumers' language and on their terms could gain customers and grow sales.

Important considerations

Marketers seeking to capitalize on a ripe environment to brand and possibly sell can start by asking some internal questions about social media use now and moving forward, including:

· Have we considered direct marketing as a viable social media strategy?

· Can social networks equal or better the ROI of other performance marketing channels?

· Can we make immediate tactical adjustments to maximize ROI for the holiday season?

· What type of long term adjustments should we consider for 2010 and beyond?

As marketers better understand social media users and the associated opportunities, they should keep exploring the channel's emerging opportunities, beginning with four important applications:

1. Increase social chatter: Talk about products and services in the social space

2. Create promotions: Implement strategies to further direct marketing and merchandising efforts

3. Microtarget: On Facebook, marketers can microtarget social media advertisements to reach members of niche target markets with laser accuracy and efficient media buys

4. Track results: Ensure the right metrics are in place to track social successes and failures

Social media users' willingness to interact with and potentially buy from brands through social networks presents marketers with a unique opportunity to tap into an advertising channel growing in use every single day. It is an environment that appears ripe for brand engagement, promotional marketing and selling events. Focusing on strategic marketing opportunities in social is becoming a priority, and these research findings validate this.

About Author:

Michael Kahn (Michael.kahn@performics.com) is senior vice president, marketing, at Performics and a monthly contributor to Chief Marketer. For a copy of the survey findings, e-mail Addie Reed at areed@preturn.com.

Salesforce Announces a “Facebook for the Enterprise”

2009-11-18T20:40:00.000-08:00

In September, Salesforce.com announced Service Cloud 2, the next evolution of its web based CRM product. With Service Cloud 2, Salesforce.com focuses on integrating social media with companies existing customized CRM systems.

Today at the Dreamforce Conference, Salesforce.com announced Salesforce Chatter, which the company describes as “enterprise collaborations meets real-time social computing.” Think of it as adding a private social network into an enterprises existing cloud computing platform.

Chatter is part of Salesforce.com’s new Collaboration Cloud. The company is billing the product as “Facebook (Facebook) for the enterprise.” The key advantage of Chatter is that it can build on the existing Force.com library of custom applications, meaning that all of those apps can now have a social component to make collaboration easier and more efficient.

Chatter won’t be available until sometime in 2010, but it’s interesting to see Salesforce.com jumping on the intranet social networking and collaboration bandwagon. Existing systems like Microsoft’s SharePoint and Box.net offer similar features and functions, but Salesforce.com might be able to lure customers who already use its CRM products or Force.com apps into migrating to CHatter.

What do you think about workplace collaboration taking on a social media model? Let us know in the comments!

Published By: Christina Warren

Obama: I’m Too Clumsy for Twitter

2009-11-17T21:31:00.000-08:00

zSpeaking to a Group of Chinese students in Shanghai, US President Barack Obama said he’d never used Twitter because he’s too clumsy to type on the phone.

The question he was asked, however, was far more important than his typing skills. In China, many of the services we use everyday – Twitter (Twitter), Facebook (Facebook), MySpace (MySpace) – are either heavily censored or completely blocked. One of the Shanghai students asked Obama “Should we be able to use Twitter freely?”

“Well, first of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone,” Obama replied. Fair enough, although as an avid BlackBerry user, he should be able to use Twitter without problems; we reckon lack of time is to blame rather than typing problems.

He continued, however, with a short lesson on the importance of freedom of speech:

“I should be honest, as president of the United States, there are times where I wish information didn’t flow so freely because then I wouldn’t have to listen to people criticizing me all the time. But because in the United States, information is free, and I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me, I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don’t want to hear.”

Speaking to an auditorium of hand-picked students, in a country that also happens to be one of the world’s biggest markets and US trading partners, Obama was probably careful to criticize the Chinese government too vehemently. But even this cautious answer was clear enough: Twitter is an important communication channel, and censoring or blocking it is wrong. We wonder when the Chinese government will realize the same.