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eModeration's Social Media Round-up #14

2543443 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:19:00 GMT

Welcome to eModeration's weekly round-up of all that is intriguing, alarming or odd in the world of social media, compiled by Kate Williams (@emodkate). This week: President Obama's thumbs; Twillionaires; and 'intextication'.

Next week, eModeration is sending me on a social-skills course (day one: eating with implements) - so the next round-up will be on Friday the 4th December. See you then.

THE HEADLINES ...

President Obama has revealed that his absence from Twitter is due to a lack of dexterity in the thumb department. He was asked by a group of Shanghai students if they should be able to use Twitter freely – and the thumb quip launched a careful response about freedom of speech: “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.”

Stephen Fry this week claimed that Twitter celebs like himself can now opt out of the ‘pact with the devil’ which required them to open up their private lives to journalists, in return for press coverage of their work. Now, he says, Twillionaires like he and Britney can “reach their circulation just by typing into my keyboard.” Grave news indeed for Sleb magazines, which are already clinging on for dear life to the sinking ship of print.

Facebook came in for widespread and heavy criticism this week, for failing to follow Bebo’s lead in including a ‘Report’ button developed by the Child Exploitation and On-line Protection Centre. CEOP’s boss Jim Gamble urged the social networks to adopt the feature, which allows young users to log bullying, hate speech and sexually explicit content, and to contact trained advisers: “there is a responsibility, a duty of care, to the young and the vulnerable”, he said.

The scam offers scandal could spiral still further: a team of Sacramento lawyers is investigating complaints that unauthorized charges were made without users’ knowledge – and are considering class actions against Facebook, MySpace, Zynga, and Offerpal amongst others.

Yes, it’s that time of the decade already: as we inch painfully towards 2010, the Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences bestowed Webby Awards on the top 10 internet moments of the last 10 years. Amongst the chosen: Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone, along with the birth of Wikipedia and the Iranian elections.

Channel 4’s landmark deal with YouTube went live this week, unleashing around 5000 videos – 80% of which are full lengths shows – upon a grateful nation. Peep Show and Gordon Ramsay's F Word are among the goodies, which Channel 4 is hoping will lure in fresh advertisers.

The Digital Economy Bill was amongst those trailed in The Queen’s Speech yesterday. The bill proposes that those caught in the illegal-download act would first be sent warning letters – but would lose their connections if they continued to break the law. No mention, though, of the hotly-disputed Broadband Tax, which now looks likely to be slotted into the Finance Bill, due in 2010.

THE LOWDOWN ...

Every now and again comes a piece of news to which the only response is a brief contemplation of the expression “it takes all sorts to make a world”, and here is just such a one: a French company has developed a set of bathroom scales which will tweet your weight to your followers.

Teens are risking their own lives, as well as others’, by texting while driving- and worse, the figures seem to show that they’re learning from their parents. A new report claims that people are well aware of the dangers of texting on the road – but their desire to stay connected to their networks is stronger than their desire to stay connected to the tarmac.

Which leads us neatly to the American Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year shortlist, which, in an example of terrifying cultural serendipity, this year contains the word ‘intexticated’: the condition of being distracted by texting while driving. Sadly it was pipped at the post by ‘unfriend’ - possibly more useful but not quite as clever.

UK Twitterers are confirmed lefties - the Citizen Smiths of the Interweb. The news comes from a joint poll by Prospect Magazine and YouGov, which found that the average Twitter user is under-35 and London-based – and somewhat to the left of the Labour Party.

Trying to sell your house? Facing a wall of indifference, despite your original features and your central location? Could be that potential vendors are put off by your slow broadband connection. ISPreview.co.uk's survey reveals that 75% of people won’t buy a house – even an adorable one - if the best broadband ISP speed it could achieve was just 1Mbps.

IN OTHER NEWS ...

Yelps of excitement here, as Bing is launched in the UK – with enhanced visual search, Twitter integration and an “instant answers” service for real-time news on football scores and suchlike. But should Google be perspiring slightly and watching its back – or has it nothing to fear from the young pretender? iCrossing reveals the Five Things You Need To Know about Bing.

Bebo, whose web TV slate includes KateModern, Sofia's Diary, and The Gap Year, has nixed all new commissions, following parent company AOL’s announcement that it would slash 100 jobs globally.

Despite Rupert Murdoch’s admission last week that his paywall plans were likely to be delayed, it’s been announced that Times Online will start charging for content in the spring. James Harding, editor of The Times, said the site would offer 24-hour passes, as well as subscriptions.

The European Interactive Advertising Association – which includes stalwarts like AOL, the BBC, and Condé Nast amongst its members – predicts that online advertising will laugh in the face of the recession next year, with a projected 7.6% year-on-year rise in Europe, and a further 15% increase predicted for 2011.

And if further proof were needed that it is customers who are now directing the brand message, 360i reports that 77% of social media search results are generated by individuals with no affiliation to the brand.

ON FACEBOOK ...

It’s good news for Facebook this week: it towers above the nearest competition in the British social network league, netting half of all visits in UK last month. Twitter languishes a distant fourth, with a contextually-microscopic 1.9% of UK visitors.

But wait! Whispers of coming gloom can be heard, as research by WPP Group’s Mindshare suggests that the crucial older teen and twentysomething demographic might be drumming its fingers and looking round for something new.

Sony is catching up with rivals Microsoft, which recently hooked Facebook and Twitter to their Xbox 360. New software for the PlayStation means that gamers can now link their PS3s to their Facebook accounts to share game-play updates with friends.

ON TWITTER ...

Despite the recent slowdown in Twitter’s growth, it can still produce stats that make us gasp: according to Pingdom the average number of Tweets per hour is 1.1 million; the daily figure is 27.3 million; and at this rate, we’re looking at 10 billion tweets a year.

The typical Twitter user is male, and in his late twenties/early thirties – and wants brands to listen and respond to his questions, finds new research from InSites. News which sits uneasily against this other study, which finds, amongst other interesting tidbits, that 76% of brands on Twitter are infrequent users - and only 9% use it as a customer-service channel.

BRANDS GET SOCIAL ...

Marmite has formed a secret society – the Marmarati – to develop an extra-strong version of the loveit/hateit yeast-based spread. Members were chosen because they expressed their love for the Unilever-owned brand on social networking sites, and fans will be able to win a sneak-pretaste of the new spread by uploading marmite-centric content.

Mydeco.com, which sells homewares and furniture, has inked a deal with Sony's PlayStation Home to sell iconic pieces of virtual furniture – for example, the famous Marilyn ‘Lips’ sofa – on the community-based network.

Maclaren, who produce children’s buggies, recently offered a voluntary product-recall on one million of its pushchairs, amid reports that children had lost fingers in their folding mechanisms. But it found itself at the wrong end of a sharp social-media stick when UK customers discovered that only US customers were included – and this week it was force to roll out the offer worldwide.

For this year's Los Angeles Design Challenge, Audi has tapped its Facebook community of famously partisan fans to help design a fantasy Youthmobile for release in the year 2030 – you can see some of the designs here. http://www.facebook.com/audi

ON GOOGLE ...

The tech world was agog this week, as rumours swirled that Google’s eagerly-awaited new Chrome operating system might be available for download as soon as next week, with Search Engine Journal suggesting that the traction being gained by Windows 7 might be motivating a hasty launch.

Eek. Californian developer Frank McCabe created a programming language in 2004, and named it Go. He published a research paper about it in 2004. And a book in 2007. All the more surprising, then, that Google has just called IT”s new language by the same name. McCabe says he doesn’t have a trademark and can’t afford a lawsuit, but is determined not to let the search giant steamroller his prior claim.

Meanwhile, the Swiss data protection organization says its complaints to Google about breaches of privacy in Street View have fallen on deaf ears. It alleges that the company has refused to fix insufficiently blurred faces and numberplates, which could lead to individuals being identified in ‘sensitive’ locations - outside hospitals, prisons and schools.

Google means business with its latest policy on scam and malware advertisers who use Adwords – it’s imposing a blanket policy of ‘guilty till proven innocent’ on all suspect ads, and a lifetime ban on confirmed scammers.

Social Search, Google’s snazzy new feature which allows users to combine search with social data, has gone down – and according to a baffled Mashable, will remain down till early next week. What, Mashable wonders, could have happened to Social Search that could possibly take that long to fix?

ON YOUTUBE ...

YouTube has launched a dedicated channel called YouTube Direct, specifically for citizen journalists to bring their work to a larger audience. The tool allows media companies to connect directly with user-reporters, and request and rebroadcast news clips.

The video-sharing site is also testing a new approach to making online ads relevant – allowing users to skip the ones that bore them – with the idea that they will then engage more deeply with the ones that they do in fact watch.

ON MOBILE ...

T-Mobile faces consumer wrath again this week after it emerged that one of their workers had been selling customers’ details to a rival company - a major breach of data protection regulation.

In the first mobile-Twitter deal, Orange have snagged an agreement with Twitter to let users upload photos by text, via Snapshot - a custom picture platform developed by Orange.

73% of marketing execs think mobile is the UK’s ‘most likely to expand’ medium, says the IAB, whose survey canvassed the opinions of 100 senior agency reps.

VIRTUAL AND GAMES ...

Hi-yah! Kung Fu Panda World – in development for the last 2 years and targeted at kids of 8-12 – is to be launched in early 2010. The world will feature high levels of parental control, and will offer both long-term and one-day subscriptions.

Despite a spot of bother with its in-game ads – which some have suggested are rather dastardly - social games company Zynga’s investors are clearly chomping at the bit. The upwardly-mobile games enterprise, whose biggest success is the Facebook mega-game Farmville - has just received a massive injection of cash: $15.1 million to be precise, bringing its total haul to over $54 million.

Quick work: Gravity Bear, who declared as a social games developer less than four weeks ago, has already unveiled Battle Punks, a Facebook app which it bills as a ‘3D social game. It’s due to launch in open beta before 2010.

Subscription revenues for Disney’s Club Penguin were up a cozy 4% last quarter, contributing to a overall increase in revenue for the company - despite an icy economy.

That's all folks!

Brands need to be more human on Twitter

255762 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:47:00 GMT

InSites Consulting has released some of the results of its Ultimate Twitter Study which has the typical Twitter user as a male in his late twenties/early thirties, who is quite tech savvy and active in IT, media/advertising or the consulting business.

It says these Twitter users address questions to brands, hoping they are listening and will answer with Google, Apple and Amazon coming out as the most discussed brands on Twitter, according to the InSites Consulting study**.

Twitter user is a professional male
The research says that the profile of the typical male Twitter talked about above is strikingly comparable to that of early internet users. It says that people on Twitter seem to be quite influential in the offline world in one way or another and often tend to be industry experts, journalists, bloggers etcetera.

It also asked those using it how they would describe it. The user definition came back as this: they defined Twitter as a social network of friends and/or business contacts enabling them to share and discover interesting, exciting, inspiring or funny news or hyperlinks in a very fast way.

Being human on Twitter
As for brands it points out what to many is increasingly obvious: brands on Twitter need to observe tweets very carefully and engage in a conversation with brand followers in a very personal way instead of merely spamming them with ads or abuse (aka not doing a Barry Judge - Best Buy' chief marketing officer). Brands need to remember that if they are on Twitter then users will address questions to them and expect to be listened to and answered.

InSites says Google, Apple and Amazon are the most discussed brands on Twitter, according to its research followed by a mix of tech companies and other strong global brands like Starbucks, Disney and HP.

Tom De Ruyck, senior research consultant at InSites Consulting describes Twitter as a "conversation hive" (I like: the densely packed idea and works pretty well) offering brands the opportunity to tap into it and learn from what consumers are saying about them.

He also makes a good point about how negative tweets (often sent in the heat of the moment) shouldn't be retreated like a threat, but rather an opportunity for client services teams to take immediate action and make customers happy again. That really is one of the key points to remember: how a negative engagement can be turned around by being open, honest and responsive.

Why do people use Twitter?
Insite says most people start using Twitter out of curiosity and the urge to stay connected with people and trends within their industry. As for the people they follow it says it is those who are able to make them curious, smile or wonder. It is also, of course, a great way to share and it says 20% of tweets contain a link to a blog, website or movie.

Twitter is also Insite says replacing a lot of blogs. We've all seen it. Those personal diary type blogs that defined the early blogosphere are fast disappearing (like the recently self outted Belle du Jour) as people tweet instead. I'm guessing that two or three years ago *** My Dad Says would have been a blog and not a Twitter feed.

"A couple of years ago everyone suddenly had a blog to share their personal thoughts with friends, family and the rest of the world," says De Ruyck, "Today we see that these kinds of blogs are disappearing one by one. It takes several hours a day to update them for only a handful of readers. The big blogs with thousands of readers will continue to exist and are updated by a professional team of online journalists. Twitter is a new phenomenon: sharing highly personal thoughts in 140 characters from anywhere you want and without too much effort. In other words, micro-blogging is the new, more efficient version of the amateur blog."

Follow me on Twitter

**In May 2009 InSites Consulting launched the Ultimate Twitter Study. Members of the online TalkToChange research community, who use Twitter, were invited to take part in this Twitter study and promote it to their followers and friends. In total 620 ‘real’ (=average of 17 tweets/day for 14 months) tweeters from all over the world took part in the study. Over 50.000 tweets were analyzed in qualitative, quantitative and observational research methods.

Agencies not using social media well

255762 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:19:00 GMT

The ad agency world is not shining when it comes to using social media to market itself, according to new research, but is pretty good at setting things up blogs and Twitter accounts and then infrequently updating them.

Overall, the **research from search consultants RSW/US found that very few agencies are using social media for new business prospecting.

The implications for that seem blindingly obvious: if you're pushing social media at your clients, but are not actively using it yourself (or just as bad using it well) then what kind of message does that send out?

Of social media used, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are those that agencies are most often using. LinkedIn seems to be getting the most activity (56% use it most often), which the report says makes sense as it is a good resource for new business people looking to track down prospects.

However, while there are many signed up to LinkedIn there are far fewer (the report suggests) using it to share ideas or active participate in a community or LinkedIn group.

Overall 57% of agencies surveyed have a Twitter account; 74% LinkedIn; 56% a blog and 67% a Facebook page.

Those figures strike me as low. Why every agency doesn't have a blog is beyond me. It's cheap it is easy and in this business there is a great deal to blog about and to highlight to clients and new business prospects alike.

Even the 56% with a blog are pretty poor at updating: 45% never blog and 21% blog once a month or less. Once a month???

With Twitter the figures are worse. Of those on Twitter 74% tweet once a week or less indicating that agencies are taking a very passive approach to social media when the whole point about being social is being active and engaged.

To be fair Facebook fares better than Twitter and blogs, but I wonder if the social network is as useful here as Twitter or a blog.

Having a page on Facebook is not bad thing, but it doesn't strike me as useful as a regularly updated agency blog.

That said if you are not actually updating your agency blog or tweeting you have to wonder what activity is taking place on the Facebook page.

This is a US report, but my guess is the situation in the UK is even worse. On that note, there is a story on Ad Age today that asks the question: Are UK Shops Losing Their Touch in the Digital World?

While Daniel Bonner, European chief creative officer at AKQA and Adam Kean, joint executive creative director of Publicis, London, put in a good defence, former Saatchi & Saatchi creative director Dave Droga (now Droga 5 in NYC) argues that TV, press and outdoor are the primary focus of UK agencies; that there is less integration; and a tendency to default play it safe. Pretty damning stuff.

Former TBWA creative director and Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury founder Steve Henry, who of course has a blog on this site damns UK agencies further by saying that creativity is at an all time low. Ouch.

"The new interactive model requires a new mindset and a new skill set. Not everyone is able or willing to make the transition.

"Agencies have not risen to the challenge or brought in new skill sets, and their clients are looking elsewhere," he said.

Follow me on Twitter

**The samples came from databases of 6,000 marketing service companies that range in size from under $5M in capitalized billings to over $50M.
212 agencies responded to the survey.

You Retweet Me

2154489 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:57:00 GMT

It used to be that we got validation when other people commented on our blog posts. Now that warm feeling happens when people repeat one of our tweets. As Twitter replaces RSS, the RT replaces comments.

Ok, I promised not to write about Twitter anymore, but this is more about the twitterverse.

Dan Zarrella wrote a great report on The Science of Retweets, which naturally got massively retweeted. But it is the emotion of the RT that created it in the first place. Because it wasn't a function that came with the app, but an invention by the users. A retweet is a compliment. A vote of solidarity. An event promotion. A shout out to someone you know. A way to get the attention of someone you want to know.

Now that Twitter has finally added a built-in retweet button, I hope it doesn't change the nature of the gesture. A retweet is that slap on the back everyone needs. Please RT if you agree.

You should follow me on Twitter so we can retweet each other.

eModeration's Social Round-up #13

2543443 — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:25:00 GMT

Welcome to eModeration's twice-weekly round-up of all that is intriguing, alarming or odd in the world of social media, compiled by Kate Williams (@emodkate).

This week: News Corp and Google; Twitter's wailing grumps; Britney's encounter with the Dark Side; and why Stephen Fry is like a giant St Bernard.

Check back soon!

THE HEADLINES ...

Rupert Murdoch plans to hide his content away so Google can’t see it. He told Sky News that he’ll prevent the search giant from indexing News Corp sites, to ensure that users pay up to view his news.

Many commentators pointed out inconsistencies in Murdoch’s interview, not least the vexed question of how readers would find the content if not through search engines – at least 25% of traffic comes via Google alone. All in all, the news was taken as the paid-content equivalent of Custer’s Last Stand.

But hold on, paid-content naysayers – is that the cavalry I hear? A new poll finds that ¾ of us would consider paying a 10p micropayment per article – with Jeremy Clarkson, Charlie Brooker and the redoubtable Richard Littlejohn being most likely to tempt us to splash the cash. So perhaps there’s life in the old paywall yet.

COI boss Mark Lund says that digital is the key to solving Britain’s social ills, by increasing trust and brokering a new relationship between citizen and government. “Digital is at the heart of behaviour change and to make the revolution we need."

The social gaming ads controversy continued, with Facebook banning Zynga’s FishVille before it had barely had a chance to wiggle a gill, blaming ‘deceptive ads’ for the red card. Now Zynga has decided to nix all cost-per-action ads till further notice.

Parents are obsessed about the perils which face children outside the home – but are far less clued up when it comes to the dangers of the internet, according to Prof Tanya Byron, who investigated the possible dangers posed to children by videogames and websites for the government. "An integral part of development is risk taking. Children are taking risks online because we live in a risk-averse culture."

Toyota is in a little hot water – having purloined some UGC photos for a crowd-sourced ad campaign, without asking the photographer his work first. The image, along with some others which the car company aggregated from Flickr, has now been removed – Digital Marketing offer advice for brands eager to avoid a crowd-sourcing headache here.

THE LOWDOWN ...

A Stephen Fry recommendation is the digital equivalent of an enormous St Bernard jumping up to lick your face. Flattering, but leaves you floundering on the floor, scrabbling for your glasses and a tissue. Fry, who also revealed that he now considers himself to be a ‘content provider’, says that he has to warn websites that he’s going to recommend them, or they crash within seconds.

From the sublime (Mr Fry), to the ridiculous. Poor Britney Spears has had her Twitter updates hacked, and, for a while there, was posting as a Lucifer-lovin’ Satanist who longs for the new world order. Which isn’t true, of course - unless pop music really is the work of the devil, as my old headmistress was fond of saying.

The Telegraph raised an eyebrow at the £3175 per year which the taxpayer coughs up for Lord Mandelson’s three Twitter accounts. Between them, @bisgovuk, @digitalbritain, and @BIS_Science have 9,894 followers. About 30p a follower on my calculations - cheap at half the price.

Hurrah – a story which contains Facebook, the Law, and a Young Person - and yet doesn’t end in a jail term. A judge has accepted that the Facebook update which 19-year-old Rodney Bradford posted at 11:49a.m. on October 17 gave him an alibi for the mugging charge he faced.

The first of the Twitcoms? The Twitter account of Justin Halpern, who passes on the world-weary, no-bull pronouncements of his 73-year-old dad (Example: "You look just like Stephen Hawking...Relax, I meant like a non-paralyzed version of him.”) has been snapped up by CBS, who will turn it into a comedy series [Advisory: red-blooded language].

IN OTHER NEWS ...

Bing UK is not yet up to scratch, according to sources close to Microsoft. The site has been in beta for four months, but isn’t yet fully relevant to us Brits, who are quickly turning back to Google. Microsoft is now hiring natives to create UK-centric search categories.

But it’s not all bad news for Microsoft – seems Microsoft sites harness 15 percent of worldwide online time – swiftly followed by Google and Yahoo, with Facebook bringing up the rear.

Enterprises are grasping Twitter to their bosom – business use is up a tweet-tastic 250%, from just six months ago. Facebook is also benefitting, with workplace use ballooning by 192%, despite the 20% of companies who block social sites.

The IAB has said that online media companies need to significantly raise their game if they want brands to really get behind internet advertising – at the moment, ad formats and creative simply aren’t making the grade, according to AdAge.

Hmm. We seem to be rather conflicted at the moment when it comes to research. Lightspeed says that ‘only’ 33% of consumers trust social nets to help them make purchasing decisions, compared with 68% who trust search, product reviews and comparison sites.

While Performics is pleased to find that (a separately-surveyed) third of us think social media is a good place to find out more about brands – and touts the fact that 25% have clicked directly to an online retailer or e-commerce merchant as evidence that, contrary to conventional wisdom, hard marketing may not be a social media no-no.

LinkedIn and Twitter have partnered up – their users can now publish Tweets on LinkedIn, and vice versa. In a simile which really only works if you are a fan of high-calorie nut-based confectionary, Biz Stone said the deal was “like bringing peanut butter and chocolate together to make the perfect combination."

ON FACEBOOK ...

A quiet few days at Facebook Towers – though brands will be quietly pleased about the launch of ‘Friends of Connections’, which will allow them to personalize ads to target the friends of their fans.

The ‘Book also launched a new set of guidelines for brand promotions, which contained a few significant changes concerning where promotions and competitions can live. Brands pondering their next Facebook foray could consult Fresh Influence’s ‘Five Things You Should Know‘ – a handy breakdown for brands to flick through.

ON TWITTER ...

Facebook must have been sniggering into their hands this week, as Twitter faced the same wails of disgruntlement that have been plaguing Facebook recently. The complaints concern the rollout of Twitter’s new Retweet feature, which makes it impossible for Retweeters to edit or add comments. Hubspot's Dan Zarella warned that these will “completely eviscerate most of the value out of Retweets" - but Ev Williams insisted that the feature was here to stay, and was deliberately designed to be super-simple so that tweets can be clearly attributed and traced.

The horizontality of Twitter’s stats is causing some comment in the Socialsphere, with mashable’s Stan Schroeder pointing out the oddness of Twitter's grinding halt, given its till-now explosive growth, and the media’s current obsession with its cultural importance. But, he expands, none of this will matter in the long run – Twitter is becoming ‘part of the net’s infrastructure. It doesn’t have to be popular, it merely needs to be there.’

ON GOOGLE ...

Google’s world domination plans are going swimmingly – it now intends to pimp the web, having been working quietly on a replacement for the HTTP protocol, which will make the internet infinitely faster.

Time for some Caffeine then. Google announced the launch of their latest incarnation, telling the waiting world portentously that “we believe Caffeine is ready for a wider audience. Soon, we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data centre’. Rather brings to mind Donald Pleasance, stroking a white Persian and pressing big buttons, no?

The search giant also launched a big upgrade to Latitude, adding location history and location-based alerts. The latter will let you know, via email or sms, when you’re near friends and connections. And took another step towards social with the introduction of a Twitteresque ‘Following’ feature to Google Wave. The follows can be temporarily removed from your inbox at the click of a button, to avoid social exhaustion.

BRANDS GET SOCIAL ...

Alfa Romeo is using Twitter to promote its MiTo model to a youthful, more urban audience. Users are challenged to spot one of 1300 MiTo-shaped stencils around major UK cities, and post a photo of it with the hashtag #MiToStencil when they do.  

Burberry has used Facebook to launch a new site – called Artofthetrench.com – which encourages fans to submit images and comments on the brand’s iconic outerwear.

Tesco is bringing x-factor-style thrills to the nation with the launch of ‘performance pods’ outside some stores, where users can record an audition video to be entered into a competition run by talent search site 1Click2Frame.

Nikon is leveraging Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter presence to launch its Nikon Film Festival, a UGC contest which offers $100,000 for the best video. The festival, whose theme is ‘a day through your lens’, kicks off with Ashton’s own entry, in which he records a day he spent in Africa with wife Demi.

ASOS has relaunched its fashion-forward community, having consulted members on how to improve its features. Users will now get RSS feeds, emails to notify them when fellow members reply to their posts, and a spanky new look.

Disney follows other Hollywood studios in using Facebook and Twitter to drip-feed advance promotion for upcoming films, this week releasing two new posters for Tim Burton’s March-slated 3-D extravaganza Alice In Wonderland’. 

UNDER THE GAVEL ...

The government has had to climb down from its April announcement of a new law to prevent more than 30,000 registered sex offenders from accessing social sites like Facebook, after it was ruled likely to restrict the right to privacy. The Home Office is seeking leave to appeal the Court of Appeal ruling.

Privacy campaigners are still determined to pursue Blockbuster for its participation in Facebook’s Beacon programme – they’re urging the court to reject an argument from the video chain that its ToS requires mandatory arbitration in any class action.

SOCIAL STATS ...

Almost 65% of consumers surveyed by Razorfish made first bought a brand because of a digital experience - via website, microsite, mobile coupon or email.

And there’ll be tumbleweed blowin’ down Oxford Street this December, if these figures are anything to go by: a new study finds that 93% of us plan to buy our gifts online this year, with a quarter buying more online than last year. What’s more, 17% of us are looking to social sites like Facebook for gift-buying, with 60% of that number looking for offers and discounts, and another 52% checking the wish-lists of friends and family.

A full 23% of the women surveyed by Q Interactive and Social Media World Forum visit social games like Farmville and Causes several times a day – and more than half have used virtual currency. Plus, they’re not averse to watching ads to get it – many more details here on MediaPost.

Looks like the younger women are, the more brand-social they are. Gen Y women make double the mentions of brands and products of their Gen X compadres, and are significantly more influenced by blogs, according to a study by PopSugar and Radar Research.

ON MOBILE ...

Last week Verizon sold an astonishing 100,000 Droids in a week. This week, Apple effortlessly trumps them with a jaw-dropping 30,000 iPhones sold by Orange in 1 day. Remember folks, that’s 30,000 of a smartphone which has already been freely available for a full 2 years.

News which neatly supports Nielsen’s prediction that the majority of mobiles will be smartphones by 2011 – just a couple of years away.

VIRTUAL AND GAMES ...

Massive and comScore have worked out a way to get detailed insight into how in-game ads work for gamers, building a picture of engagement for the first time.

Games developer Playfish has been caught by Electronic Arts, for a reported $400m. The purchase means that EA is now Facebook-forward, as well as leading the way in console, PC and mobile gaming.

Microsoft is pulling the plug on up to 1 million Xbox Live players who have illicitly modified their consoles to play pirated or other-region games.Twitter and Facebook Come to Xbox Live November 17 SAVE The rest of the ToS-obeying Xbox Live community will be enjoying a Twitter and Facebook dashboard from November 17th.

Habbo-creator Sulake have announced the launch of Bobba Bar, a series of virtual social venues for mobile users. Over-17s can make friends with and date other guests via an avatar which can be customized to a total of 1 billion combinations.

THINKING ...

If you’ve got any downtime over the next days, the following might get your brain-cells whizzing:

iMedia Connection looks further into ad networks and online reputation-protection for brands - and finds it not as straightforward as you’d think.

In case the worst-case scenario should arise, here are some steps to take in order to make your company’s crisis-plan ‘social-media compliant’.

Finally, if you are suffering from social media shellshock, you will appreciate this guide to reducing the noise, whilst remaining connected.

That's all folks!

Bing: It's still here!

1713999 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:59:00 GMT

Just a few days ago we were having a discussion in the office about Bing and its seemingly terminal beta status... Following a bit of a debate regarding the rationale for leaving something in beta in one market whilst you launch in another (in summary: it enables a test-and-rollout approach for both the technology and the marketing and also enables two rounds of PR, one for the beta and one for full launch) we decided that it couldn't be long until Bing got a full roll-out. In fact the only reason we figured it hadn't already happened, given that the functionality now appears to almost exactly mirror the US 'full Bing experience', was due to Microsoft not wanting to detract from the recent Windows 7 launch.

Well now we're left wishing we'd all started a lottery syndicate, or at least that I had posted our prediction here first, because Bing just went and launched properly in the UK.

As I approached the usual slot I set aside for writing this blog it seemed like the most important thing for me to comment on this week but now I'm actually putting hands to keyboard I'm questioning the importance of the move. After all the product is no different today than it was yesterday and 'beta' as a notion seems increasingly irrelevant - Google leave products in beta for years, as evidenced by the 'feature' that re-introduces the Beta badge in Gmail just in case you got somewhat attached to its presence during the five years that service remained in beta.

What I thought would be more interesting then would be if I revisited my original thoughts on the subject - back when Bing launched I went through five reasons why Bing still has a long way to go. So, how far have they gone?

1. It was ugly. It still is ugly. Sorry, I still can't stomach that logo and still think the start images should be full screen.

2. The launch timing was all fumbled. The first few months of less-than-full functionality mean that many people will have tried a less-than-perfect product. It's not ideal. Now the product is the full version it is important it gets a real marketing push.

3. Google were already catching up. I argued that Google were rapidly catching up with the areas where Bing was supposedly pushing the envelope. Google Options does, to a certain extent, add extra functionality but I'm not sure how many searchers even know of its existence and Squared is very interesting but relatively unknown (and still... you guessed it, in beta).

4. Bing isn't social. Bing still fails to utilize passport data in any way that benefits users although, to be fair, no-one else seems to be doing much in this area either.

5. They just don't get the audience. Interestingly all the signs point towards the fact that Bing is no longer targeting the 'power searcher'. Integration with Ciao and Bing Cashback don't exactly scream 'savvy searcher' but at least Bing seem to be going after a more realistic audience now. Perhaps the audience talk was never any more than PR spin.

The latest (and much more significant) news is that Bing (along with Google) will use Twitter to introduce real-time search to their results and that they will be partnering with the computational engine Wolfram Alpha to provide answers to actual questions. More than anything this at least proves Microsoft's commitment to continuing to push Bing forward - important because almost every other search engine launch feels remarkably static in comparison to Google. It will be interesting to see if Google are working on something of their own to compete with Wolfram...

Finding Brand Republic and sister sites on Twitter

255762 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:47:28 GMT

If you want to follow Brand Republic and our sister sites on Twitter this is the place to find all the relevant account names and the low down of what kind of tweets you will be getting.

Brand Republic

@Brandrepublic - Brand Republic's main home on Twitter. This is not an RSS feed. Here BR will post the biggest news stories and try to share other material we like as well as respond and chat.

@Brandrepublic2 - This is our full automated RSS feed that includes all news stories published on Brand Republic including those from Campaign, Marketing and Media Week.

@BRjobs - This is Brand Republic's main job feed and the one to follow if you are looking for a job in advertising, digital, marketing or media.

Brand Republic staff and editors

@RichSutcliffe - Brand Republic's editor

@GordonMacMillan - Social media and international editor at Haymarket and former editor of Brand Republic

Campaign magazine

@Campaignmag - This is where you will find Campaign on Twitter delivering the latest advertising news, new ads as well as comment.

Marketing

@MarketingUK - The home of Marketing magazine.

Promotions & Incentives

@P__and__I -The of home Promotions & Incentives magazine for the latest new and views on promotional marketing, POS, vouchers, campaigns and merchandise. Published by Haymarket.

Marketing Direct

@Mdirectmag - The home of Marketing Direct on Twitter with the latest news and opinion from the world of direct marketing.

Revolution

@revolutionmag This is where Revolution magazine posts all of its news, comment and acts as the official voice of Revolution.

We supplement this by retweeting from our personal Twitter accounts to add personality to the Revolution brand.

@GJ - Gareth Jones, editor.

@Andrewmccormick - Andrew McCormick, deputy editor.

@lil_liz - Elizabeth Clifford-Marsh, reporter

Re: Good social media courses in London?

255762 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:10:59 GMT

Hi there are a lot conferences and courses looking at social media and Brand Republic is running several of its own to help readers get to grips with everything that is going on in this space.

Our first on Twitter in a couple of weeks is sold out - but we are running a second in February (Winning Formulas To Maximise The Potential Of Twitter) that you might be interested in.

You can find more details of Winning Formulas To Maximise The Potential Of Twitter on our events website.

Hope that helps.

LinkedIn and Twitter partner up

255762 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:11:00 GMT

On its blog today LinkedIn has announced a partnership with Twitter. Much needed I'd say and particularly for LinkedIn, which I think desperately needed a real-time web shot in the arm.

As Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder says in this little video with Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn (they describe the partnership like peanut butter and chocolate, which errrm maybe sounds nice to some - but to me sounds absolutely disgusting and wrong) below the business use case for Twitter has turned out to be much bigger than anyone imagined.

Twitter has proved to be a key plank in every social media strategy being looked at by most brands. Stone is absolutely right when he says this applies equally on the personal level in business and that Twitter has essentially become part of our resume (CV to you mate).

That's why hooking up with LinkedIn makes so much sense. Stone says: "The general idea of putting a little twitter in everything is being able to inject into LinkedIn a little bit more of this fresh here's what's going on with these other things, but with a little bit of a curated sense in terms of your professional life."

When you set your status on LinkedIn (do people do that? I need to use it more) you can now tweet it as well. This could make people more inclined to visit LinkedIn. At the moment it is not a daily visit for many people that I speak to like Twitter or Facebook. Although I'm not a heavy LinkedIn user and I know there are no doubt many more who turn to it on a more regular basis.

LinkedIn says its rolling out features over the next few days and here's what you will get:

1. On LinkedIn

First you join your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to allow you to share articles you’re reading and letting people view your Twitter account name on your LinkedIn profile. To do that all do is check the Twitter box under your Network Updates box on the homepage and follow a few simple steps.

2. On Twitter

As part of the setup process, you can choose to either send all your tweets or select tweets from Twitter back to LinkedIn as a status update. So that means you might see an article you want to share on LinkedIn, but many not every single tweet.

More on the LinkedIn blog

Follow me on Twitter

eModeration's Social Round-up #12

2543443 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:10:00 GMT

Welcome to eModeration's twice-weekly round-up of all that is intriguing, alarming or odd in the world of social media, compiled by Kate Williams (@emodkate). Check back soon!

THE HEADLINES ...

Good news! It turns out that using the Internet may not, after all, lead to alienation/sharp reduction in moral fibre/early grave (delete as applicable). A new study reveals that social media use is associated with real-life social benefits – for example, they find that blog-writers are more likely to confide in someone from a different race; photo-sharers more likely to discuss serious issues with someone of another political party; and – my very favourite – internet users in general are more likely than non-users to visit a café.

Once upon a time, when MySpace was the blushing belle of the ball and had princely suitors competing for its hand, it inked a $900 3-year deal with Google which allowed the search giant to become its sole search provider. But now the magic spell is broken: $100 million of that will not be going to MySpace after all, having been partly dependent on traffic levels. What’s more, Rupert Murdoch’s plan to rebuild his business model by secreting news content behind a pay-wall won’t be coming-off as soon as he’d hoped. And plans to combine with other publishers would quite possibly breach competition regulations, according to the Guardian. Bad news indeed, as print earnings crash from $134 million to $25 million.

Google is attempting to allay users’ privacy worries with Dashboard, which provides a single-page view of all the different pieces of information which Google holds on them. Hmm, not sure myself. A smidgeon too close to that movie moment where we find that Nice-Neighbour-Guy‘s bedroom wall is covered in long-lens photos of the girl-next-door, and he’s got an axe in his wardrobe.

THE LOWDOWN ...

Three cheers for Walmart, for putting comments and reviews at the heart of their strategy. And a manly pat on the back for not realizing that their new range of coffins and urns would prove irresistible to a stream of clever-clogs commenters: “I picked one up to bury my cat in. Other than having room for about 100 cats, it worked well.”

Hyundai score a social media gold star for cheering up the crestfallen victim of possibly the worst piece of parking that any of us will ever see. CCTV footage of the squishing of Todd Jamison’s 2004 Hyundai Elantra went viral – you can watch it, and the cockle-warming video of his surprise gift from Hyundai, on Mashable.

The guy who invented the first mobile phone - which on the evidence of other tech firsts probably required a winch-and-pulley system to transport - is 80. And he isn’t all that impressed with how the mobile story unfolded, telling a privacy conference this week that “whenever you create a universal device that does all things for all people, it does not do anything well.”

IN OTHER NEWS ...

Online advertising revenue was the only cheerful note in ITV’s limp financial report this week. It leapt 8% to £27m for the nine months to 30 September, despite an overall group revenue plunge of 11% to £1.3bn.

A new social net, neatly-named Honk, uses existing social networks to gather opinions from friends and family about the cars each has owned – helping drivers decide their next ride.

US e-commerce has drooped again. According to Comscore, Q3 spending was down 2% year on year to $29.6bn - which means that for the first time, year-on-year revenue has declined two quarters in a row.

Online retailers aren’t taking the news lying down, however: many are planning to increase their social media presence in the run-up to the holiday season. 60.3% have upgraded their Facebook pages, and a similar number have tweaked their Twitter pages - while 40% have improved customer ratings and reviews.

ON FACEBOOK ...

As all eyes turned to Facebook in the evolving controversy surrounding scam offers in social games and apps, they announced on their blog that they were taking firm action to prevent advertisers and users from being suckered. According to Nick Gianos, of Facebook’s platform team, “this battle is not new - and it’s far from over.”

Twitter may be the dashing young pretender, but The ‘Book is still king of the social castle as far as consumer brands are concerned. According to Business.com’s new study, 83% of them have a presence on Facebook – but only 45% interact on Twitter.

And, when you look at those Social Scales, it’s hardly surprising. Facebook is putting on half a million users every day; the beefy giant now weighs in at a belt-busting 325 million users.

ON TWITTER ...

Which is not to say that Facebook shouldn’t keep a wary eye on Twitter's stats. While its own users are creaking up in age, from 26 to a dessicated 33, it looks as though Twitter’s users are finally getting younger. They average out at a comparatively youthful 31, with the 18-24 age group accounting for 37% of users, compared with 19% in December ’08.

Twitter is testing its new Retweet feature this week, hoping to enable information to spread even more quickly across the site. According to VentureBeat’s mockups, there’s a retweet button, and a tool for tracking a link or idea back to its source.

And while Twitter’s in the mood for a spring clean, they’re running the Hoover round trending topics. As the site’s ballooned, trending topics has become more and more unwieldy – but now Twitter promises we’ll begin to see more relevant results appearing.

And if you’re still Lost with Lists, @mashable is your friend. They’ve started some jolly useful ones, including one for social media (there’s a link to make suggestions of anyone they might have – ahem – missed...)

BRANDS GET SOCIAL ...

Car brand Infiniti has flipped its usual strategy and is breaking its new TV ads on Facebook and other social media sites, following its home page takeover last week on AOL, Yahoo and auto sites like Cars.com.

20th Century Fox are promoting Night at the Museum 2 with an augmented reality insert in the Times’ T2 section. Users are directed to a dedicated site, and when the insert is held up to a webcam, characters will appear to jump out of the screen.

Nestle’s Skinny Cow has shifted the hub of its marketing to its Facebook fanpage, launching a £2.5 million campaign to encourage women to share their cheekiest and sneakiest ways to say ‘Oh yes I can' to life's little indulgences.

Teen virtual world Habbo Hotel is supporting the release of vampire flick 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon' with alluring offers including film-related virtual goods, and the tantalising prospect of unscheduled chats with the film’s stars.

NBC Universal is adding social media features to its main Olympics website, NBCOlympics.com website in the runup to the 2010 Winter Olympics, incorporating Facebook Connect, which will let users to chat with their Facebook friends as they watch events.

Godiva chocolates are launching a virtual goods campaign to support their new range of desserts. Animated cakes and chocs open to reveal flash-based chocolatey-rich media , then offer the option of becoming a Fan, visiting the brand's website, or forwarding the treat to a friend.

Chick-fil-A’s Cows, who encourage us to eat more chicken (thus less beef) have been herding in traffic to its microsite, doubling visits in a week without promotion. And its Facebook page has just hit 1m fans – up from 20,000 fourteen months ago, when it was still run by a volunteer enthusiast.

ABC.com is using the premiere of the sci-fi remake V to launch ABC Social: Episode Commentary, which will allow Web viewers to comment live to their Facebook friends.

SOCIAL STATS ...

Twenty-something mothers are now the most social and device-dependent demographic, beating college students for the first time evah. Mr Youth’s new survey says Millennial Moms (b.1977-1996) are digital trendsetters (as well as being Mistresses of the Overshare ...)

Twitter users are enthusiastic followers-up of brand mentions. Nearly half of them use search engines to look up products they’ve heard about on the network, compared to 34% of other social network users, according to Performics’ new study.

VIRTUAL AND GAMES ...

In a marked failure of imagination – or a sensible ‘stick with what works’ business plan, we can’t quite decide – Zynga have launched their follow-up to Farmville. It’s about fish, and it’s called Fishville.

THINKING ...

If you’re interested in reaching teens, this is worth a once-over: MediaPost says there are three rules: think global, act local, go social.

And iMedia offers CMOs useful advice here about the tricky matter of brand protection in an online world.