Social Media News 8/12/10

Here’s your weekly recap of recent Social Media News.

Google Wave waves goodbye. In a blog post last week, Google announced that it will no longer continue to develop Google Wave as a stand alone product, citing low user adoption. Instead, Google will utilize some of Wave’s functionality in other projects and maintain some features as open-source code. The ill-fated online collaboration tool was extraordinarily innovative, however many users were at a loss for trying to find practical uses for the technology and how to integrate it into everyday life. This blogger was an early adopter of Wave and an outspoken supporter, however even I found the tool to be worthless when majority of my social contacts were not Wavers themselves. Google Wave had a lot of potential, but with so many existing technologies that allow users to share and collaborate already ingrained into our normal web habits (like email and social networks), there was never a strong enough need for Wave. Further, Wave was not an easy tool to adopt quickly: many users faced a large learning curve in understanding Wave’s functionality, and limited Wave invites at its launch presented a barrier to entry that may have stunted adoption from the onset.

Warm and friendly wins in social. Researchers from Relational Capital Group have studied the science behind making brands more people-friendly that offers strategic insight for social media. Chris Malone writes in a recent Ad Age article about  his team’s psychological study in perception and brand loyalty, and offers three actionable customer service strategies for social media. For more tips on how to connect with your audience in a warm and friendly manner, also check out 5 Ways to Build Your Blog’s Voice from ProBlogger.

MySpace just won’t die. One month after its profile redesign, Myspace is rolling out a new homepage to provide users with more utility and better access to MySpace’s best features. The former social media giant is focused on growing its user network, which includes luring back users that haven’t signed in for years, and specifically targeting 13-34 year olds. The homepage redesign is available to some users in beta, and will be rolling out across all users by August 16. The most important addition to the homepage is the new MySpace Stream, which functions much like the Facebook News Feed providing a feed of friends’ activities, media content, and events. Screenshots are available from Mashable.

Social Media: Strategy

What Are Social Media Good For? Putting a Face to a Brand – AdAge

5 Ways to Build Your Blog’s Voice – ProBlogger

What Facebook Questions Means for Marketers – Ignite

Looking Online to Verify Word-of-Mouth Recommendations – Brandweek

Hot or Not: E-mail Marketing vs. Social-Media Marketing – AdAge

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

RIM’s rumored ‘BlackPad’ tablet due in November? – Yahoo! News

The Dell Streak Shows The CE World How To Be Relevant In An iDevice World – CrunchGear

Social Media: Location-Based Services

HOW TO: Visualize All Your Foursquare Check-ins – Mashable

Facebook’s Foursquare competitor is imminent – cnet

Groupon + Foursquare = GroupTabs, Group Deals for Check-Ins – RWW

Digital Advertising

Google Rolls Location-Based Mobile Display Ads – Brandweek

Facebook, AOL quietly talking online ad hookup – New York Post

Twitter API to Get Ads Inserted, Revenue to be Shared With Developers – RWW

Internet Trends

MySpace to revamp site in aim to simplify – Yahoo! News

MySpace Launches a Revamped User Homepage [EXCLUSIVE] – Mashable

74% of Social Media Users Expect Cries for Help to Be Answered Within an Hour – RWW

Google & Verizon Propose Enforceable Net Neutrality – RWW

RIP Google Wave – Mashable

Twitter Still Grew 109 Percent In June, Fueled By Global Visitors - TechCrunch

Social Media News 7/27/10

It’s baaaaaack! After a three month hiatus, I’m so very glad to be blogging again and bringing you my weekly Social Media News.

Facebook has announced that it has officially reached 500 million active, registered users. That’s roughly the total population of the European Union. To celebrate, Facebook has launched its own app called Facebook Stories.  Facebook is inviting everyone to share their own personal Facebook story with the world, aiming to capture hundreds of thousands of personal experiences, lessons learned, reunions and revelations. Read more about it here on The Facebook Blog.

Filmmakers are working on a Facebook story of a different kind: a full-length feature film called The Social Network. Mashable rounded up what the founders think of the flick, reporting that Mark Zuckerberg had shared some negative comments about the movie at the recent D8 Conference.

The big news on the Twitter front is a possible new feature called Tweet Media. Twitter hasn’t released any notices about the feature, but a mysterious new privacy setting found by some users has caused speculation. It is suspected that by opting in to Tweet Media, users will be able to post and view photos and videos within the Twitter stream. The addition of multimedia within Twitter will force advertisers to change their Twitter content strategies in a big way.

Ford made news this week by revealing the new 2011 Ford Explorer on Facebook, before revealing it anywhere else. The Ford Explorer Facebook page, sporting over 50,000 fans, includes tons of multimedia content surrounding the Explorer, including a sweepstakes. Check it out at www.facebook.com/FordExplorer.

iPhone users rejoiced with news this week that the U.S. Copyright Office has made iPhone jailbreaking legal. What this means is that tech-savvy iPhone users can legally hack their phones to buy and use apps that are not sold within Apple’s iTunes App Store. Users should note that though jailbreaking is now legal, performing such a hack will void your Apple warranty. Also, jailbreaking is not the same as unlocking the iPhone, which is a hack to allow the iPhone to work with other carriers outside of AT&T.

Tweet Media

Twitter Begins Testing Inline Photos And Videos On Its Website – TechCrunch

5 Big Questions About Twitter’s Move to Multimedia – RWW

Twitter to Show Photos and Videos in the Stream [UPDATED] – Mashable

Social Media: Strategy

Bearhug Brings a Social Approach to Customer Service Management - Mashable

How to be the Life of the Social Media Party – ProBlogger

Old Spice Campaign Smells Like a Sales Success, Too – BrandWeek

5 Reasons Why Ford Continues to Kick Butt – ClickZ

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

Flipboard Launches as the iPad’s Social Media Magazine – Mashable

Amazon Customers Now Order $1 Billion of Products Per Year via Mobile – Mashable

Federal Government Rules in Favor of iPhone “Jailbreaking” – DMW

Jailbreaking iPhone apps is now legal – CNNMoney

Social Media: Location-Based

Inside Street Food’s Social Media Revolution [VIDEO] – Mashable

Brightkite Takes Branded Badges to the Next Level – Mashable

Go On Your Own “Eat Pray Love” Journey With SCVNGR – Mashable

Foursquare Reaches 100 Million Checkins – Mashable

Digital Advertising

Majority of Consumers Use Social Networks to Inform Buying Decisions, Says Study – RWW

Ford Makes New Friends The Right Way, Revealing Explorer On Facebook – MediaPost

Kelley Blue Book Goes Social For Stickers – MediaPost

Twitter Sees Sizable Ad Business – MediaPost

Internet Trends

Why QR Codes Are Poised to Hit the Mainstream – Mashable

YouTube Looks to Compete in Music Discovery – Mashable

StumbleUpon: The Silent Social Media Success Story – RWW

Ask Launches Social Network To Link Search With Answers – MediaPost

Social Media News 3/22/10

I read about a really interesting study reported by ReadWriteWeb about influence and the number of followers you have on Twitter.  Per the research findings, the number of followers you have on Twitter is an almost completely irrelevant metric for measuring influence. Read the RWW recap here, and see the actual report here.

Facebook hasn’t formally announce this yet, but the company has began to send weekly emailed reports on Facebook page metrics to their respective page admins. These reports include only metrics that are currently available to admins, so the weekly reports serve more as reporting summaries than anything else. Read more about this story at MediaPost.

Apple began to accept pre-orders for the iPad last Friday, with the promise that the first iPads will be arriving in the first week of April.  Rumor has it that over a hundred thousand  iPads have been pre-ordered, and some are speculating that more iPads will be sold in the first three months than iPhones sold in its debut. With all the attention the iPad is drawing, some are wondering if an iPad Killer is emerging… could it come from Palm? Or from HP?

YouTube and Viacom are in the mists of a copyright lawsuit, which has revealed a few embarrassing details about both companies in recently unsealed court filings.  Among other interesting tid bits, Viacom had tried to buy YouTube just before Google’s acquisition was finalized. Read more of the story here.

Social Media: Strategy

Will B2B Companies Embrace Social Media in 2010? – MediaPost

10 Essential Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers – Mashable

Making Social Media Connections, Budgets and ROI – MediaPost

The Million Follower Fallacy: Audience Size Doesn’t Prove Influence on Twitter – RWW

PCH Unveils Sweepstakes Social Media Service For All – MediaPost

Facebook Starts Weekly Email Reports For Page Administrators – MediaPost

5 Things You Need to Know About Location-Based Social Media - Mashable

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

Palm’s phone sales slump and its stock dives - Associated Press

Smartphones not enough for carriers at CTIA – Reuters

‘iPad Killer’ May be Palm’s Last Hope – PC World

Digital Advertising

iPad subscriptions could boost mag circulation – Associated Press

Google: Dynamic Data And Social Features Can Save Display Ads – MediaPost

Google Maps Test Ads in Australia – Mashable

Internet Trends

WordPress Guns for Web Content Management Duties – PC World

Facebook News Readers More Loyal Than Googlers – News Factor

Nintendo’s Miyamoto wants Wii in schools – TG Daily

Google Bringing The Web To TV? – MediaPost

Foursquare Adds Almost 100,000 Users in 10 Days – Mashable

Internet Law

Viacom, YouTube air dirty laundry in legal battle - Associated Press

The juicy details behind the Viacom-YouTube lawsuit – USA Today

When Your Trademark Becomes the Key to Your Competitor’s Internet Ad – MediaPost

Google May Leave China on April 10 – Mashable

Social Media News 3/15/10

Sigh. Guess what mega-huge interactive conference is happening right now in Austin? SXSW. Guess who didn’t get to go? Me… a social media blogger that blogs weekly on social media news, and I couldn’t be at the single most important interactive conference of the year. Yeah… It’s ok. At least I can pretend #fakesxsw.

(That’s “South By Southwest” for those of you who do not speak geek.)

Big News from SXSW

Universal Check-in App Confirmed: Brightkite’s Stealth Service - RWW

Big Changes Are Coming to Digg: More Power to Publishers, Less Power to Top Diggers – RWW

Twitter’s New “At Anywhere” Platform Allows For Deeper Integration Into Third Party Sites – TechCrunch

Sneak Peek: Rhapsody’s Upcoming iPhone App – Wired

SXSW: Pandora in the Car Could Kill Sirius – PC World

Foursquare and Rival Geo-Location Games Find Lots of Love at SXSW – DailyFinance

SXSW Feeds

CMS Wire SXSW News and Articles

Wired SXSW News

Mashable SXSWi

Social Media: Strategy

9 Killer Tips for Location-Based Marketing – Mashable

Exploring Why Social Business Will Drive 21st Century Enterprises – Social Computing Journal

4 Ways to Effectively Use Social Media as a Catalyst – Mashable

Why User Competency Matters in Social Design – Mashable

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

More Droids Sold In First 74 Days Than iPhones – Nexus One Sales Very Slow – TechCrunch

PayPal Launches Revamped iPhone App, Teams With Bump For Phone-Tapping Money Transfers - TechCrunch

Digital Advertising

LivingSocial Raises $25 Million to Take On Groupon – Mashable

Hitwise: Facebook Hits No. 1 In U.S. – MediaPost

What Kind of Brand Associates With Chatroulette?: French Connection Offers Shopping Spree to Winner Who Hooks Up Using the Webcam Chat Room – AdAge

Twitter Expected To Take The Wraps Off Its Advertising Platform Today – TechCrunch

Internet Trends

How Twitter and Facebook Make Us More Productive – Wired

A Short (and Personal) History of Social Media: Why It’s Important to Consider the Boring Basics That Keep Things Sustainable – AdAge

Why Wikipedia Should Be Trusted As A Breaking News Source - RWW

5 Ways to Use Google Wave for Business – Mashable

Foursquare Hits 347,000 Checkins in a Day – Mashable

Reuters to Journalists: Don’t Break News on Twitter – Mashable

Social Media News 2/22/10

It’s back! Social Media News has been on hiatus for a couple weeks, as my client work (and spending time with my Valentine) always comes first- but I am getting back on track with this week’s update.

In the social media sphere, change happens in a blink of an eye. While I was on break from blogging a lot of big things happened in this space, most notably the release of Google Buzz. The buzz about Buzz is that it’s Google’s latest life-streaming social media portal. Like Twitter and Facebook, Buzz allows users to keep in touch with friends and by sharing status updates, links, photos, and more.

Is Buzz a formidable threat to Twitter and Facebook? Maybe, but probably not. Buzz is integrated with Google’s email platform Gmail, and I’m guessing Google thought that would be a good way to gain immediate adoption en masse. But for many internet users, email use is in decline as social media use continues to rise. If Google had released Buzz two or three years ago it could have gained real traction, but unfortunately many would-be early adopters have already abandoned their Gmail accounts in favor of Facebook messaging (which is moving towards a full webmail service, code named Project Titan).

Also while I was off the grid, I missed a couple of birthdays. Flickr and Facebook both turned six years old this month.  That’s a pretty long time in Internet years; do you think they’ll make it another six?

Google Buzz

If Google Wave Is The Future, Google Buzz Is The Present – TechCrunch

Google Buzz: What It Means for Twitter and Facebook – Mashable

Google Will Ask Buzz’s Early Adopters to Confirm Privacy Choices – Wired

Google Buzz May Help Its Rivals More Than Itself – MediaPost

Facebook

PayPal and Facebook Credits Will Play Nice After All – Mashable

The Fun of Facebook Measurement – Gilligan on Data

Facebook Moves Towards World — Not Just Social Networking – Domination -MediaPost

Social Media: Strategy

5 Ways Airlines and Hotels Can Drive Revenue with Social Media – Mashable

HOW TO: Deal With Negative Feedback in Social Media – Mashable

How Much Blog Would a Blogger Blog If a Blog Chucked Its Comments? – MediaPost

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

Official Twitter App for BlackBerry Looks Really Good – Mashable

Fashion Show Goers Purchased Clothes Straight From the Runway Using a BlackBerry App – Gizmodo

Motorola Backflip Will Be the First Android Phone on AT&T – Wired

Digital Advertising

Online Video Gets an Ad Exchange – AdAge

Live TV’s Alive as Ever, Boosted by Social Media – AdAge

Pre-Roll Video Ads Still Hated, Here to Stay – AdAge

Beyond the Badge: Big Media Brands Strike Foursquare Deals – AdAge

Internet Trends

How Social Media Is Changing the Super Bowl – Mashable

Walmart Buys Vudu, Jumping Into Online Movie Rentals – Wired

School District Halts Webcam Surveillance – Wired

It’s Official: Google Can Sell Power Like a Utility – Wired

Checking In, Checking Out [a great article summing up the latest location-based mobile/social apps] – MediaPost

Social Media News 2/1/10

Apple’s iPad was the biggest news last week, drawing attention from every corner of the web. Within minutes of the announcement, hype turned into hysterics as the jokes started pouring in. Apparently #iTampon was the third most trending topic that evening. Many see the Maxi- I mean iPad as a huge threat to existing eBooks like the Kindle. I’m not so sure about that. Yes the iPad has a full color LED display, but one very important feature of a true eBook is eInk. This is a low res, black and white display with a low refresh rate that reduces eye strain, making the screen more like reading printed paper. To me the iPad is like a glossy magazine, but the Kindle is like a simple black and white novel. The bookworms that consume the most eBook content are going to stick with Kindle, and the iPad will appeal to people looking for a Netbook first, eBook second.

Interested in measuring ROI from your Facebook efforts? That’s about to become a little easier when Facebook rolls out its new conversion tracking tool. Facebook announced the upcoming feature at last week’s OMMA Social event in San Francisco. MediaPost embedded video from the discussion on this article.

Proctor & Gamble is officially in favor of social media marketing, embracing Facebook in particular and encouraging its brands to do the same. I found it interesting that in the article reporting on this topic, AdAge felt it was necessary to quote Ted McConnell, general manager-interactive marketing and innovation for P&G, with contradictory remarks from 2008. This one caught my eye:

“Who said this is media?” he said. “Media is something you can buy and sell. Media contains inventory. Media contains blank spaces. Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody. So it just seems a bit arrogant. … We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.”

With this quote AdAge is perhaps trying to demonstrate a riff in P&G’s ranks, though the remarks were said over a year ago and I have the suspicion that it may have been out of context. Whether McConnell supports social media marketing or not, this is a great quote with a lot of truth behind it. We can’t treat social media as advertising, it’s an entirely different kind of game. Ignite’s Jim Tobin was on the same wavelength in a recent Web Trends episode when he said, ”The web is the worst place in the world for interrupting people.”  I couldn’t agree more.

Facebook

P&G Embraces Facebook as Big Part of Its Marketing Plan – AdAge

Facebook Now Has Yahoo In Its Sites, Already Bigger In Pageviews (ComScore) – Tech Crunch

Facebook Develops Conversion Tracking Tool: What’s A Fan Worth? – MediaPost

Why Your Boss Hates Facebook – ReadWriteWeb

Baby Boomers and Seniors Are Flocking to Facebook [STATS] – Mashable

Foursquare

Does Foursquare Have A Douchebag Problem? - Tech Crunch

Will Foursquare’s Users Say ‘Bravo’ for Bravo? - ReadWriteWeb

Social Media: Strategy

Web Trends Talks Social Media Marketing with Jim Tobin [VIDEO] - Ignite Social Media

MediaPost’s OMMA Social SF 2010 [VIDEO] - MediaPost

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

Apple IPad Charges at Kindle and Netbooks – AdAge

Apple vs. Amazon: The Great E-book War Has Already Begun – Mashable

Firefox for Mobile Makes Its Debut – Mashable

AT&T Will Spend $2 Billion To Improve Wireless Network – Mashable

Digital Advertising

Study: Consumers Are Not Annoyed by Ads on Facebook – AdAge

Why Most Digital Ads Still Fail to Work – AdAge

Internet Trends

Apple’s Tablet and the New Splintered Web – AdAge

Proof the Splinternet is real – Groundswell

Google Exec: We’re Here to Help Newspapers – AdAge

Yahoo and the AP Reach a New Deal – But What About Google? – ReadWriteWeb

Social Media News 01-11-10

Nerdy fact, today’s date is a palindrome. Ok, moving on.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the yearly international tradeshow of the Consumer Electronics Association held every January right here in Las Vegas. It’s a pantheon of gadgets, computers, cameras, phones, TV’s, network technology and everything in between. At this year’s event more than 2,500 technology companies introduced over 20,000 new products, drawing 120,000 industry professionals from around the world. With more than 5,000 reporters, analysts and bloggers in attendence, the web is flooded with news coverage. If you have some time, explore social.cesweb.org, CES’s own social media aggregator.

With so much coming out of CES, this could have been a really long post. But it’s not going to be. Despite all the cool things I saw and heard from CES- 3D TV’s, a camera with a social sharing tool, a toy helicopter that you can control with an iPhone, a phone with a built-in digital protector… there’s no way I can feature all the important, new and geeky toys that relate to social media. It’s just overload. More and more, our everyday consumer electronics are becoming more social. Check out how MoSoNex is bringing your favorite social networking sites directly to your TV- this company was named Honoree for the Best of Innovations 2010 Design and Engineering in the category of social networks.

Media Post

Quantcast: Mobile Web Growing Fast

Apple Acquires Quattro Wireless In Mobile Ad Play

Google Hails Nexus One As Convergence Device

Losing Argument: Study Finds Spam Works For Weight Loss Pitches

TechCrunch

FriendFeed Clone Cliqset Upgrades Real-Time Platform With Sharing, Groups And Firefox Add-On

Songbird Lands Deal With Philips, To Come Bundled With Millions Of Portable MP3 Players

Denied AdMob, Apple Buys Competing Ad Platform Quattro Wireless For $275 Million

Mobile Ad Impressions On Android Double Since October

Photocheck.in: A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Foursquare Check-Ins. Or At Least One.

Nexus One Coming To Verizon And Vodafone, First Of A “Series Of Devices”

What Happened To bit.ly’s Market Share?

The Other HP Slate Runs On Android

Mashable

The Twitter Flatline: Why Doesn’t Twitter Grow? [STATS]

The Connected Car: Ford Introduces MyFord Touch

Vimeo to Launch Support for 1080p

Samsung to Launch App Store For HDTVs

DivX TV: Online Television, No Box Required [VIDEO]

Xbox 360’s Full-Body Motion Controls: Coming This Holiday Season

New Tweetdeck for iPhone Brings Geotagging and Maps

Foursquare Changes the Game … Literally

CES 2010: Google Nexus One & Apple iSlate Cast a Shadow

Blogs and Other News Sources

Social Media Marketing Becoming More Strategic (Social-Media-Optimization.com)

MagicJack’s next act: disappearing cell phone fees (Yahoo! Tech)

MSNBC Buys BreakingNews.com to Go With With @breakingnews [UPDATED] (ReadWriteWeb)

Facebook’s 1st CTO Launches His Next Company [Screen Shots] (ReadWriteWeb)

Congratulations CES for becoming the hottest, consumer advertising buy on the planet (Trenchwars)

CES: The Network Is Our Top Priority, AT&T Says (Digits WSJ Blog)

Despite Risks, Internet Creeps Onto Car Dashboards (New York Times)

Freebie Twitter Listening Tools

Gotta love freebies. Yesterday, I started off my first day at the Consumer Electronics Show by attending a free session called “The Twitter Revolution: How The Real-Time Web is Changing the CE Landscape.” Steve Broback, founder of a social media agency called the Parnassus Group, was one of the speakers and shared some of his favorite freebie Twitter tools during the session. Here’s a recap of his recommendations:

search.twitter.com

This is square one. If you’ve never tried any listening tools, start with Twitter Search. Twitter Search can help reveal the current topics around your product, brand, industry, competitors, etc. It can also give you an initial look into consumer sentiment. Dave Taylor, who was another speaker on the panel, suggested combinations of queries that included, “I hate” or “I love”. There’s wealth of consumer research just at your finger tips with the humble Twitter Search.

TweetBeep.com

This is the Google Alerts of Twitter. TweetBeep allows you to get email alerts of keyword mentions on Twitter, every hour. TweetBeep also offers a premium version which allows you to get alerts every 15 minutes.

Trendistic.com

Trending Topics on Twitter.com are the top ten most mentioned words/phrases on Twitter in real-time. Trendistic is cool because it provides more information on the current Trending Topics, and it also allows you to search terms and view trend graphs for those terms, up to 180 days if you register.

PeopleBrowsr.com

This is a new one to me. It appears to be a Twitter management tool, like Hootsuite and Seesmic and Tweetdeck, but on a whole new level. I’ll have to play with this for a bit before I can really say much about it- but on the surface is looks very robust. If you’re a PeopleBrowsr user, leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Cloud.li

Broback called this “the cool Twitter tool that nobody knows about.” It’s a simple website that will create Twitter word clouds around your search terms, and will allow you to click on those terms to dive deeper. This is a good site for discovery.

BackTweets.com

All of the tools mentioned so far, Broback explained, have something in common. They are based on keywords. This last Twitter tool is different. BackTweets will allow you to enter in a web address and find Tweets that link to that address. This is really cool. It will show you the most recent tweets that have tweeted a given URL, and it even counts the short links like bit.ly and tinyurl.

Hope some of these can be useful to you. There’s so much you can learn about your customers by just spending a little time online and digging through Twitter. Happy hunting, I’m off to another great day at CES!

Social Media News 1/4/10

Welcome to the year “twenty ten!” Make sure you start the year off right by reading this article about the grammatically correct way of saying “2010.” Or, check out www.TwentyNot2000.com

In this first edition of Social Media News, I want to talk about a growing fad called FourSquare. The user base of FourSquare pales in comparison to say Twitter, but I’ve touched on the geo-location social networking service in a few blog posts (the first one in my 9/11/09 post), and I believe it’s definitely worth taking notice.  FourSquare allows registered uses to “check-in” at restaurants and retail establishments, or any place that has a physical address, and the service will allow users to keep track of their history and the whereabouts of their friends. Currently, apps are available for iPhone, Android, and now PalmPre.  The user with the most check-ins will become the “Mayor” of that establishment, a designation that holds little value other than bragging rights.

Restaurants hip to social marketing are now exploring FourSquare promotions, such as giving discounts to their Mayors. Today, yours truly has been crowned the Mayor of Dunkin’ Donuts, and here’s hoping I can get a free coffee out of it! FourSquare promos can be used as a free distribution channel for coupons and discounts, and also spur competition between potential Mayors- who are probably your biggest local brand advocates.

Remember when I mentioned Google Caffeine way back in an August blog post? Probably not, so here’s a refresher. Google has been working on “secret project” called Google Caffeine to update how Google finds content on the web by improving the search algorithms. Though the average user won’t notice a huge difference, it’s important to note because it does change how Google indexes news and social media. Read more at TechCrunch here.

I’m an AT&T customer, and I hate AT&T. So I’m very pleased to share this snippet of AT&T’s folly in social media during the brief hours iPhones were unavailable on the AT&T website:

Something worth noting is AT&T has a responsive, stellar public relations team that uses a Twitter account, a YouTube channel and a Facebook page to interact with the media and consumers. The story could’ve been defused in a matter of minutes with a clear, believable explanation. Instead, AT&T used its PR to respond with an empty statement, leaving the world guessing the reasons for the suspension of iPhone sales in New York.

Read the full article– AT&T: The Communications Company That Failed to Communicate in 2009.

Ad Age

What We Can Learn From the Top Viral Videos of 2009

Gmail Points to Possibilities of the Coming Data Decade

Planning Your Next Move in Ad Land

Fast Company

What Can We Expect From the Consumer Electronics Show?

Uh-oh — Robots Can Learn and Generalize

Geotagging’s Seasonal Danger: Burglary

Is Google-AdMob Deal Bad for Consumers and Apple?

TechCrunch

Cheap Beer If You Check-In… Or Just Tweet

At Foursquare Venues, the Mayor Eats For Free

Google Is About To Get Caffeinated With A Faster Search Index

Privacy Theater: Why Social Networks Only Pretend To Protect You

Meebo Launches Self-Serve Meebo Bar, Takes A Look Back At Its Big Year

World Map of Social Networks Shows Rise of Facebook

Blippy Already Showing Off $1 Million Worth of Your Credit Card Purchases

The Rumors Are True: We Spend More And More Time Online

Mashable

In 2010, Your iPhone Could be a Credit Card Reader

REVEALED: The 100 Most Social Brands of 2009

BROWSER WARS: Google Chrome Overtakes Apple’s Safari

Foursquare Launches on Palm Pre

HOW TO: Do Almost Anything Online in 2010

Wired

AT&T: The Communications Company That Failed to Communicate in 2009

Boxee Beta Is a Web Video Streamer’s Dream

MySpace Replaces Embedded Imeem Playlists With Ads

Reports: AT&T Stops Some iPhone Sales in NYC (Update)

Blogs and Other News Sources

Google Nexus One Sold Directly and Only by Google, Officially Supported By T-Mobile (Gizmodo)

Apple Dominates Social Brand Ranking (Brandweek)

Social Media News 12/28/09

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!

Mashable

Digital Revolution? Kindle Ebooks Outsell Real Books on Christmas

The Year in Review Captured on a Google Wave [VIDEO]

5 Ways Social Media Changed Fashion in 2009

Pepsi to Skip Super Bowl Ads in Favor of $20M Social Media Campaign

Social Media Experts Make Their Predictions for Trends in 2010

Apple Tablet With 7″ Screen Coming in January [RUMOR]

Ad Age

What Studying Your Links Can Teach You About Your Marketing

Twitter At A Crossroads: Audience Growth Won’t Be Enough in 2010

Brand Week

Many Small Firms Forgo Web Sites

Top Digital Trends of 2010

Facebook to Surpass MySpace in Ad Revenue

Blogs And Other News Sources

2009: Year of the Social Network (PC World)

Consumer Groups Try To Block Google Purchase of AdMob (Yahoo! News)

Get Started With Google Wave (Wired)

Radian6 Sentiment Analysis Review – Does Natural Language Processing Work? (Ignite Social Media)

Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: The Real-Time Web (ReadWriteWeb)

How Social Could Disrupt Search (Social Computing Journal)

The Value of Sharing: Social Engagement (ShareThis Blog)