August 26, 2008

Social Media is Key Component of Back-to-School Marketing Supply List

More retailers are turning to social media as part of their back-to-school marketing campaigns, according to Jupiter Research. From Facebook to widgets, from virtual worlds to online video, retailers are targeting youth, who may not share the same feelings as their parents about a tough economy.

“The back-to-school season has grown in importance for retailers and leads into the all important fourth quarter sales period,” explained Patti Freeman Evans, Research Director and Online Retail Analyst at JupiterResearch. “With the shaky economy expected to impact the amount of money consumers spend on back-to-school shopping, retailers are using social media to capture the attention of younger consumers.”

Examples of social media back-to-school implementation are JC Penny and Sears. Both retailers used integrated marketing campaigns, using tv ads to drive youth online where they can view tips on getting the same looks seen in the campaigns.

To promote its two new clothing lines, department store J.C.Penney created an online game called "DorkDodge" in which a girl has to navigate through a number of undesirable boyfriends to find her dream date. The retailer also launched an integrated marketing campaign showing teens how they can “get that look” with an array of clothing brands sold at J.C.Penney stores, featuring the theme of “The Breakfast Club.”

According to David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch, “Retailers experimenting with Web 2.0 experiences will largely find benefit from them in the form of branding and awareness building rather than direct sales as social media has shown little direct impact on actual online retail sales.”

What do you think of using social media in your seasonal campaigns? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading: Back-to-School Offline Purchases Influenced by Online Ads Live Search Cashback Launches Back-to-School Rebates

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

August 18, 2008

ConnectU Co-Founders Place 6th in Olympics Rowing

Facebook competitor ConnectU's co-founder twins, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, placed 6th in men's pair rowing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Their time was 7:05.58 on a 2,000-meter course. Australia won the gold with a time of 6:37.44.

How they find time to train and run a startup is beyond me.

The Winklevoss twins along with co-founder Divya Narendra are suing Facebook for stealing their idea. The three recruited Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg during their time at Harvard.

via CNET

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 12, 2008

Facebook and Hi5 Lead Global Growth Among Social Networks

comScore has released data showing explosive growth rates for social networking sites Facebook and Hi5 globally, with 153% and 100% respectively. With worldwide social networking growth rates at 25%, that certainly is a big piece of the pie.

Facebook's biggest percentage growth came in Latin America, at a whopping 1055%. Meanwhile, Facebook added the most members in Europe, at 27 million newbies. This should come as welcome news to Microsoft, who recently announced a search partnership with the social network and owns a 1.6% stake in the company.

Here are all the charts and data to keep a numbers junkie happy:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

August 5, 2008

Friendster Names Googler as New CEO

Friendster has named Google's regional managing director of South Asia, Richard Kimber, as its new CEO. It has also raised $20 million in funding.

Despite the waning of its popularity in the United States, Friendster is the #1 social network in Asia, and the 9th largest website in the world.

"Friendster is growing at an enormous rate in Asia Pacific and is clearly leading the competition. I believe this is partly because the Internet is transforming the lives of everyone, and it will probably become one of the greatest liberators of our time," said Kimber. "Utilizing the Internet to connect to your friends is one of its greatest benefits, and is changing the way relationships work globally. With more than 75 million users, it is clear that Friendster has already made a dramatic impact. I look forward to growing our business further as we continue our global growth and strong focus on Asia."

Related Reading: Friendster Drops Yahoo For Google Consumers Ok with Social Ads, But Rarely Find Them Targeted

via NYT

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 1, 2008

7 Location-Based Social Networking Applications for the iPhone

Earlier, I wrote about the estimates for location-based social networking to reach $3.3 billion in revenues by 2013. The iPhone is leading the way with several new location-based social networks developed by third parties for the new iPhone 2.0 software.

Here are 7 social networking apps that use location-based technology:

Twinkle is a Twitter app that incorporates a location-based feature. Not only can you view your usual Tweets from the people you're following, but you can also view Tweets from people nearby who you might not already be following. They're kept on a separate tab, so you don't have to worry about them getting mixed in with your established following.

Twittervision lets you see Tweets from all over the world.

Zintin simply lets you interact with people nearby. It has "walls" like Facebook, and you can scribble on the photos of your friends.

iFob is designed to help users find other members nearby, and by nearby, they mean people in the same coffeeshop as you. iFob has an app for Windows and is working on an app for Mac OS X.

WhosHere helps you find people close to you with the same interests.

Loopt lets you find out where your friends are and what they're up to at that location.

Limbo also lets you find where your friends are, but also has a group chat feature.

What do you think of location-based social networking? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading: 24 iPhone Applications That Accelerate Mobile Search

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Location-Based Social Networking to Generate $3.3 Billion by 2013

Location-based social networking is projected to generate worldwide revenues of $3.3 billion by 2013, according to ABI Research. But the business model may not be advertising driven.

“Location-based mobile social networking revenues will reach $3.3 billion by 2013, but successful business models may differ from what many observers expect,” says ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte. “While location-based advertising integrated with sophisticated algorithms holds a lot of promise, the current reality rather points to licensing and revenue-sharing models as the way forward for social networking start-ups to grow their customer base and reach profitability. Recent evidence: the agreements between GyPSii and both Garmin and Samsung. Similarly, Loopt has established partnerships with all major US cellular carriers.”

This brand of social media has already started to take off with the recent release of the new iPhone platform. Users are now allowed to download applications designed specifically for the device. This has generated a slew of location-based social networks (as well as search apps).

Related Reading: Local.com Gets Location-based Search Patent Apartment Guide Launches Mobile GPS Search Application

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 28, 2008

Social Networking and Employees: Where Do You Draw the Line?

With the rise of social networking, employers are left wondering if or how the trend affects their bottom line. Many have decided that Facebook and MySpace in the workplace are not appropriate (for content or productivity reasons) and have banned the sites from being accessed at their offices.

To which I say: Good luck with that!

With the onslaught of iPhones, resisting social media (and I don't mean for marketing purposes) will prove to be futile anyway. Go ahead. Fire someone for accessing their Facebook iPhone app. But don't be looking for any "Best Places to Work" awards anytime soon.

And when morale is down, productivity goes down. Call it anecdotal, but the places I've worked at with low morale lose productivity to gossip and office politics. What they're really looking for is support in a difficult workplace. So ban social media all you want, your employees will still find ways to "waste time." Or as I like to call it, not go completely mental.

On the flip side, social networking more often than not helps your business. Think of all the contacts that your employees have. All those college and high school pals now have careers in a variety of industries. Perhaps there are great partnerships to be had in these vast social networks.

Or when its time to hire a new employee, these networks are a great place to start.

Social media is also a great way to stay on top of your industry - to learn about things that are happening, what's new. You can't do it all yourself - or even with just your marketing team. What if a guy/gal in IT catches wind of a new program being implemented at a competitor? Chances are, they'll find it out via a social network, blog, Twitter, etc.

I say kill those largely unfounded fears and allow social networking in the workplace. Like the rest of business and life, it won't be perfect. But it can be reasonable.

By the way, one of the new hot things in social media is internal social networking, sometimes referred to as enterprise social media. This can foster genuine channels of good communication among departments across your company.

What's your opinion? Yay or nay to social media for employees? Leave a comment and tell us how it is!

Related Reading: Do Social Networks Bring Out the Animal in Us? Small Business Owners Need Twitter and LinkedIn

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

July 25, 2008

Social Media Metrics: How Internet Famous Are You?

Monitor, monitor, on the wall, "Who's the most Internet Famous of them all?"

Wired.com has launched a new, free service for everyone who wonders how Internet famous they currently are.

It's called the "Celebrity Meter." It won't tell you how whether you have celebrity friends, but it will let you know - in rough numbers - how much of an online celebrity you are.

Wired’s Celebrity Meter launched in beta this morning. The program uses data from Google’s Social Graph service to see how many people are following you on MySpace, Twitter, and a personal blog/site. It takes into account things like incoming links and number of friends or followers to give you a numerical score — which you can then compare to other big names in the blogosphere and across the Web in general.

We know Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble and Mike Arrrington will be battling for the top spot.

Wired writes, "Of course, it’s not a complete view. The measurement doesn’t account for FriendFeed, Facebook, or a lot of other social services just yet. But it’s still hard to resist giving it a whirl."

We agree.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 24, 2008

Microsoft and Facebook Enter Into Search Partnership

Microsoft Senior Vice President Satya Nadella announced at the company's financial analyst meeting that their partnership with Facebook has been extended to include search.

The existing partnership has Microsoft serving up banner and sponsored ads on the popular social network. Last year, Microsoft paid $240 million to own a 1.6% stake in Facebook, a private company.

Microsoft expects Facebook members to see the integrated Live Search, including search ads, by the end of the 2008.

Earlier today, Facebook announced a new initiative, opening up its platform to aggregate feeds from other sites, including local search site Citysearch and other social networks such as Digg and Twitter.

In March, Microsoft announced its alternative to Google's OpenSocial, a data portability partnership across 5 social networks: Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Tagged and LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced a reorganization which will split the Platforms and Services Division into two new divisions: Windows/Windows Live and Online Services.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Facebook Connect Aims to Aggregate Social Media While Protecting User Privacy

In May, Google announced a new initiative called Friend Connect that enables site owners to add social media to their websites, and allows internet users to connect their social accounts more seamlessly. But while Facebook was initally part of the effort, later they banned Google's Friend Connect from their site, citing issues with privacy and the redistribution of user data.

Instead of waiting for Google to comply, Facebook has announced their own initiative: Facebook Connect. It's designed to do basically be a FriendFeed - to aggregate information from users' various profiles on numerous social sites in order to view it all in one place. Here's the details of what to expect:

  • Trusted Authentication - easily authenticate into partner sites using your Facebook account
  • Real Identity - leverage your real identity across the Web in a trusted environment
  • Friend Linking - take your friends with them wherever they go, enabling trusted social context anywhere on the Web
  • Dynamic Privacy - assurance that the same privacy settings users have set up on Facebook will follow them wherever they decide to login throughout the Web
  • Social Distribution - share actions on partner sites with your friends back on Facebook through feeds

Straight out of the gate, the following sites will utilize Facebook Connect:

Digg Citysearch Twitter Seesmic (online video conversation tool) Six Apart (blog publishing platform) Hulu CBS.com CNET CollegeHumor Disney-ABC Evite Flock (social media browser developed on Firefox) Kongregate Loopt (new social network for iPhone) Plaxo Radar Red Bull Socialthing! (think FriendFeed) StumbleUpon The Insider Uber Vimeo Xobni

What do you think of Facebook Connect? Let us know in the comments!

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 8, 2008

Ex-Google Exec Heads to Bebo Europe

Ex-Googler Kate Burns has been tapped by social networking site Bebo to head up their European operations, according to the Guardian. Burns previously was Google's managing director for the UK. She also helped launch DoubleClick and AltaVista in the UK.

Bebo was recently acquired by AOL for $850 million. The site boasts 40 million members worldwide. AOL's Platform-A recently announced a guaranteed CPM for Bebo developers. Platform-A was the largest ad network in March.

Also in March, Microsoft announced a data portability with 5 social networks, including Bebo. However, AOL joined Google's OpenSocial initiative in May. Google owns a 5% stake in AOL, and was recently given permission to unload the stock, though it has yet to do so.

Meanwhile, rumor of a possible Yahoo-AOL merger have reared its (ugly?) head again, but today reports are suggesting any deal would not be completed in July. Yahoo's shareholder meeting is August 1.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 30, 2008

Mike Moran Exits IBM, Joins Converseon

Mike Moran is leaving IBM after 30 years to take a position in the newly created role of Chief Strategist at social media marketing agency, Converseon. Moran will be involved in the development of Conversation Miner as well as provide consulting to Converseon clients.

“We’re thrilled to have Mike join us,” said Rob Key, Converseon CEO. “He brings to the table the perfect combination of industry-leading expertise with hands-on knowledge of how to internally adopt and promote these practices within complex, enterprise environments. As we often say, social media can be technically relatively simple, but culturally quite difficult. His experience will be invaluable as we help leading brands develop and execute innovative social media campaigns. He will also play a key role in consolidating Converseon’s position as a leading social media marketing and consulting agency offering end-to-end services, from listening to engaging to measuring.”

While at IBM, Moran led several search technology projects including IBM's OmniFind search and text analytics products, the first commercial linguistic search engine, and automatic categorization technology for business search at ibm.com. He has been granted multiple patents and is the author of Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules.

“With their focus on pushing the edges of innovation in reputation management, search marketing and social media, Converseon is the ideal fit for me,” said Mike Moran. “I look forward to working with their standout team and clients.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 23, 2008

So Far, Twitter Falters On The Political Front

This weekend, the Personal Democracy Forum hosted a Twitter-only political experiment. The participants gave it the old college try, including a Time magazine blogger and Obama and McCain representatives. At least so far, Twitter falters on the political front.

My main complaint is that it's too hard to follow the topics among the participants. Also there's no simple way to browse all their tweets together, beyond the most recent 20 messages. Finally, a search mechanism is conspicuously missing in action.

To see the commentary, please link to any of these formats: (1) individual tweets from Time’s Ana Marie Cox, Mike Nelson for Obama, and Liz Mair for McCain; (2) side-by-side tweets from all three; and (3) mixed tweets based on time posted.

One bright light? The participants intended to communicate about the presidential candidates' tech policies and positions. Everyone adhered to that mission pretty faithfully, and here are a few tweets about net neutrality:

* For the last q tonite, we acknowledge the elephant in the tweets: Net neutrality. Responses in the AM, pls. (Jun 21 22:21:31) * JSM warns "caution" ( http://tinyurl.com/69y9b8 ) abt the gov't enforcing net neutrality-that means he's against it, y? (Jun 22 17:14:59) * Re: Net Neutrality. Barack has set clear goal of NN and an open Internet: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/ (Jun 22 18:18:10) * What I’ve said previously being noted, JSM favors market-based approach except where gov’t intervention abs. nec. (Jun 22 19:45:49) * But note JSM pledge to seek perm. ban on internet taxes & track record of leadership on keeping net free of taxes. (Jun 22 19:46:20)

While Twitter messages seem almost long enough to say something, it takes too much effort to "connect the dots" among the participants. Old-fashioned chat rooms worked better than this!

Posted by Deborah Richman at 4:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 17, 2008

iWidgets Launches Public Beta, Makes Widget Development Easier

To compete in social media or with open source search applications, widget development is key. But it can be costly if you don't know what you're doing. iWidgets is demystifying the widget development process by launching their platform into public beta. The service is free to use and brings widget creation to a wider audience.

“Private beta users were so enthusiastic about iWidgets, we knew the market was ready,” said Peter Yared, CEO of iWidgets. “Our robust tools provide an unmatched ability to display personalized content from a source website without requiring experienced programmers. The result is incredibly viral - a fun, interactive application people want to use and share.”

Widgets created through iWidgets can be used on iGoogle, Facebook, MySpace and others.

If you've been holding back on widgets, are you inclined to check out iWidgets? Give us your thoughts in the comments.

Related Reading: Testing Applies to Widgets and Accessories, Not Just Landing Pages

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 20, 2008

SEW Experts: Social Media Marketing in an Enterprise Environment

Social media sites like MySpace or Facebook, and even long-standing social media tools like blogs remain a mystery to many large organizations. In today's Enterprise Search Marketing column, "Social Media Marketing in an Enterprise Environment," Aaron Shear explains how that's all beginning to change, as more big businesses find ways to incorporate these elements into their overall marketing strategy.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 16, 2008

Forget The Video CameraTwitter Child's Birth

In what may be the ultimate use of social media, Adam Audette - or just audette on Twitter - is twittering the birth of his child. Live from the hospital are messages on the stages of the process.

We are being brought along for the ride as it starts: It's on! Heading to the hospital w/ an extra car seat in the back. I'll update when we're checked in

http://twitpic.com/14vs