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Social Media News 12/28/09

Monday, December 28, 2009

Welcome to the end-of-the-year edition of Social Media News! Below you’ll find lots of links for reviews of 2009 and predictions for 2010. These are just some of the ones that I believe are important- you can find many more at just about any news site that covers social media. Some bloggers say 2009 was the year of Social, others say 2010 will claim that title. Either way, this is an exciting time for social media, and the new year promises to bring a lot of innovation and change.

With all of the new technologies and innovations that have been crafted for analyzing social media to date, this Ad Age article points out a simple but often over-looked metric: the shared link. Link tracking can reveal what is the most desired content of your website, who are your biggest brand advocates in social media, and what informational channels are the most influential. Here’s an eye-opener from the article:

While verticals and brands vary, upward of 20% of traffic to many websites now arrives via shared link, and this traffic is growing and valuable. Indeed, the shared link is emerging as the essential unit of measure, the increasingly relevant currency.

Just to touch on some of the biggest news this week: the FTC is investigating the Google/AdMob deal, the Apple tablet is rumored to debut in January, Pepsi has decided to fund a social media campaign instead of advertising in the SuperBowl, and for the first time ever, sales of eBooks surpassed real books.

Happy New Year!

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.