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Social Media News 4/12/10

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Twitter ads are here. Just launched last night, Promoted Tweets is a platform that allows advertisers to push messaging within Twitter search results. Twitter is expected to expand the ad system beyond search, one day allowing advertisers the ability to push paid tweets directly to user streams. User acceptance is critical, and Twitter has stated that branded messages will be “clearly labeled” as advertisements, according to AdWeek.

The Promoted Tweets vehicle isn’t the only new development currently brewing at Twitter. Recently, the micro-blogging service had acquired Atebits, the developer of Tweetie for iPhone and Mac. This move signals a vital shift in Twitter’s evolution: Twitter will now compete directly with third party developers and produce its own proprietary software. Notorious as an open platform, Twitter couldn’t be what it is today without the programmers who have built over 70,000 applications that have made Twitter more accessible to many users. With dollar signs in their eyes, Twitter is bringing some of that development in house and is putting itself at odds other developers.

On that note, friction also continues to rise between Apple and Adobe. Hostility has reduced these multi-million dollar corporations to childish antics and name-calling. Read for yourself: Apple Gives Adobe The Finger With Its New iPhone SDK Agreement; and Adobe Flash evangelist: ‘Go screw yourself Apple’. Can’t we all just get along?

Out with the old, in with the new. In the midst of ever declining market share, Palm is rumored to be looking for a buyer. News of the possible sell coincidentally come the same week that Microsoft unveils two new social media centric phones, Kin 1 and Kin 2. No word yet on whether Microsoft will pay royalties to Dr. Seuss for the names of the new devices.

Social Media News 1/19/10

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

What will Google and Apple go head-to-head on next? I think it’s going to be geographically sensitive ads. Apple submitted a patent which details how the iPhone could potentially pick up location-aware ads and apps for immediate and automatic download. Google was awarded a patent which teases real-time digital ads overlain on billboards and signs seen from Google Maps street view. It’s really interesting that news of these patents got picked up by the media in the same week.

Another thought to ponder is what does local, on-the-go mobile advertising mean for the likes of Yelp, Foursquare and Gowalla? Will one of these location-based social networking portals discover a new revenue model in location-based advertising? Maybe, maybe not. Leave a comment and tell me what you think. Each day, we’re moving closer to having our digital content on any screen, at any time, at any place. Marketers need to keep that in mind.

Many bloggers and industry analysts have pointed to how our society uses social media in a time of crisis. Haiti, of course, has seen a huge reaction in social media- the devastating loss and suffering has touched people from around the world. Like most people, I’m sure, I first heard of the news through my social media channels. And through social media, the Red Cross has raised an astounding $5 Million towards their rescue effort in Haiti. Below is a special section about the reaction to Haiti in social media.

Haiti & Social Media

The Earthquake in Haiti, Social Media, and Me: A Personal Reflection (Ad Age)

Red Cross Raises $5,000,000+ for Haiti Through Text Message Campaign (Mashable)

President Obama Finally Tweets – For Haiti – In Third Person (TechCrunch)

Haiti Earthquake Disaster: Google Earth, Online-Map Makers, Texts “Absolutely Crucial” (Fast Company)

Tweak the Tweet: New Twitter Hashtag Syntax for Sharing Information During Catastrophes (Read Write Web)

Mashable

Why Social Media Isn’t for Everyone

Local Faceoff: Yelp vs. Foursquare vs. Gowalla

Tech Crunch

YouTube Helps Vevo Overtake MySpace Music In The U.S. (Plus, Top Ten Music Properties)

Fast Company

iPhones Might Get Automatic Location-Aware Ads

Ads in Google Maps Street View: A Sign of Things to Come

Channel Web

Facebook Offers Free McAfee Software To Users

Google Docs Play Intensifies Cloud Storage Competition

Yahoo! News

P&G floats selling products on its own website

Apple may wipe slate clean for new tablet computer

Read Write Web

Google Plans to Upgrade Old Billboards in Street View

Twitter’s Growth Slows Dramatically

Blogs and Other News Sources

Google Docs gets file uploading, but no direct desktop sync (Ars Technica)

Netflix on Wii Won’t Challenge Microsoft, Sony (PC World)

Google Wakes: Dreams of Internet openness in China appear to be a fantasy (Forbes.com)

Google begins replying to more Nexus One complaints (Computer World)

Leave a Comment » | Social Media News | Tagged: apple, foursquare, google, google maps, gowalla, haiti, iphone, local advertising, location aware ads, mobile advertising, red cross, street view advertising, yelp | Permalink
Posted by Rachelle Maisner

Social Media News 12/14/09

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

After months of rumors and speculation, it’s official: the Google phone is real. It’s called the Nexus One, and several Googlers (Google employees) have been issued beta devices and are using them now. Google has been working on a partnership with T-mobile to offer the phone at a discount, after Verizon turned down the deal. However, the Nexus One will not be exclusively sold through T-mobile, it will be an unlocked device (unlike how the iPhone is tethered to AT&T). News about the Nexus One is all over the web, but a good place to start is with this Mashable article.

More changes to how Facebook handles privacy settings. With an update last week, users can now set privacy settings for each wall posting separately, and now Facebook profile information can be indexed by search engines (which has implications for real-time search). Be sure to read up on the changes from cnet News and PC World.

Holiday shopping is in full swing, and analysts have reported an up tick in online shopping this season. New research from comScore has shown just how much social media is effecting holiday shopping. Check out this TechCrunch article for details, stats and charts.

A great article from ChannelWeb discusses Google and Apple’s dance with acquisitions. Earlier, Social Media News reported Google’s acquisition of AdMob. Recently, Apple just purchased online music streaming service LaLa, which may revolutionize the way Apple sells music.

Mashable

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

8 Must-Have Traits of Tomorrow’s Journalist

Friendster’s Fate: Sold to Malaysian E-commerce Giant

Facebook Connect: 365 Days, 60 Million Users, 80,000+ Web Sites

What Do Seniors Do Online? Visit Facebook and YouTube, of course [STATS]

Nexus One: T-Mobile Partners on Google Phone

Ad Age

Augmented Reality Is Overhyped And Abused

Tech Crunch

Apple Brings iTunes Gift Cards To Its Facebook Fans, With Help From Black And GroupCard

Online Holiday spending Reaches $16 Billion; Social Media Continues To Influence Purchases

MySpace Kills Off Imeem API Without Warning Developers

Yahoo! News

How fakes sites trick search engines to hit the top

What the Apple-LaLa Deal Cpould Mean for Video Streaming

cnet News

Facebook backtracks on public friend lists

Facebook details new privacy settings

Fast Company

Today’s vision of Tomorrow: All Your Music in the Cloud

Major Print Publishers Gang Up to Pre-empt Apple, Already Make Mistakes

Cheddar for Tweets: @HuffingtonPost’s Twitter-Based Revenue Scheme

Blogs & Other News Sources

Facebook Simplifies Privacy Options (PC World)

Love The One Your’re With: Apple Wanted AdMob, Google wanted Lala (Channel Web)

HarperCollins Joins Ranks Of Those Delaying E-Books (WSJ)

Online, Offline, No Line (WSJ)

Google ponders risky Android solo act (CNN Tech)

1 Comment | Social Media News | Tagged: apple, apple and lala, ebooks, ereaders, facebook, facebook privacy, facebook update, google, google phone, lala, nexus one, online shopping, real-time search, shopping and social media, social media, social media marketing, Social Media News | Permalink
Posted by Rachelle Maisner

Social Media News 11/7/09

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Welcome to the Social Media News double-hitter! This week’s post will also cover last week’s headlines in social media. For the first time since I’ve been writing the Social Media News, I missed last week’s recap due to illness as well as being out of town. So here’s a two-for-one post to make up for it.

Twitter’s new List feature has been the talk of the town in social media during the past two weeks. I first made mention of the new feature in the 10/23 SMN post. Since then, there’s been thousands of articles and blog posts written up about Lists. Some of my favorites are these: Twitter Lists: FAQ and Strategies, Twitter Lists and Real-Time Journalism, 4 Ways News Organizations are Using Twitter Lists, and The Brilliance of Twitter Lists and Suggestions for Improvement. Twitter Lists are fantastic for grouping tweeps based on interest or profession, organizing various Twitter streams into topic categories, and allowing users to quickly access specific tweeps without having to be a follower. More over, an unexpected benefit from Lists is the creation of another way to judge popularity, authority and/or influence of every Twitter user: each Twitter profile displays how many times a user has been “Listed”. In addition to how many followers one may have, the number of Lists that a user has been listed on gives us a quantitative value of their Twitter social status.

Lists have been praised as the most useful improvement ever made on Twitter. However, the TwitterPeek is a new gadget hailed as one of the most useless Twitter tools of all time. The TwitterPeek is a small, smartphone-sized device meant for one thing, and one thing only: connect you to Twitter. It doesn’t do anything that just about any smartphone can’t do, and I believe the price tag is a little steep for a one trick pony: $99 for six months of service ($8/month after that), or $199 for a lifetime service plan. I much rather have a new Coach wallet, thanks.

On Wednesday Apple announced that it’s iTunes App Store has reached 100,000 iPhone apps. But as ReadWriteWeb reports, new data from AppsFire reveals that of those 100,000 available apps, only about 20% of them are currently used. The other 80% of apps are not actively installed on iPhones, iPods or iTouch devices. Classic 80/20 rule. Click here for the long-tail graph from AppsFire.

Following the news of Bing and Google’s deals with Twitter to include tweets in search result a few weeks ago, Google announced a new Google Labs experiment its calling Google Social Search. Here’s the idea: you create a social graph on your Google user profile by linking all of your social networking accounts like Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed as well as Google products like YouTube, Picasa and Blogger. Once your social graph is complete, information from those networks will be integrated into Google search results. When you search Google for a product, service, destination, or anything else, recommendations and comments from your friends, family and other contacts would be displayed alongside the normal Web results on the search page. In this way, the Google search engine becomes a recommendation engine. If this idea becomes mainstream, it will be a game-changer for SEO and SEM marketers, as organic search listings will compete against word of mouth from the user’s social circle. Watch the demo video and get all the details straight from the Google blog, and be sure to check out this great article from ClickZ: Social Media, Meet Search.