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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!

eModeration's Social Round-Up #11

2543443 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:34:00 GMT

THE HEADLINES ...

HM Customs and Revenue is clearly in a state of some denial about the extent to which their pet subject is a byword for catatonic boredom: they have allowed the Boss Of All The Taxmen to have a go at delivering their new YouTube ad, instead of getting a professional in. If you are currently experiencing the agonies of insomnia, I advise you save this treat till bedtime. The Telegraph serves up a list of HMRC’s competitors for the title ‘Most Boring Video on YouTube (at Number 1: 'watching paint dry') here.

It sounds like the punch-line to an (admittedly low-hilarity) Tech joke, but apparently not: the internet really could run out of addresses within two years, unless more companies migrate to a new naming protocol, warn experts.

Over at BoingBoing, they claim that the top secret global Ante-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has been leaked – and that it’s blimmin’ bad news for us all. Amongst other things, ISPs might be forced to take proactive responsibility for pulling copyrighted material – which BoingBoing says would sound the death knell for YouTube, and much of Web 2.0.

One of the joys of remote working is being able to do so in your pyjamas (or, in my case, a maroon velvet smoking-jacket and spats.) Now Linden Labs has spoiled it all by launching Second Life Enterprise, where companies can do virtual business behind a firewall. My friends, pyjamas won’t cut it now.

Charles Dunstone, the increasingly vocal chief exec of TalkTalk, has castigated the government for the second time this month – this time over its plans for a broadband tax to fund the rollout of high-speed broadband to non-profitable rural areas. He warns that around 100,000 low-income households will be forced to give up their Internet connections because they will not be able to afford to pay the tax.

THE LOWDOWN ...

Twitter dejection appears to be catching. Following Stephen Fry’s attack of the dismals last weekend, Katie Price (aka Jordan, glamour model extraordinaire) has posted a series of overwrought tweets telling her ‘haters’ to do their worst, and saying that she feels she can do nothing right. Celebs and Twitter – an unhealthy combination, prone to increase self-loathing and thence end in tears?

It would be fair to say that Facebook's recent redesign has not gone down too well, and last week we reported that the group ‘Change Facebook Back to Normal’ has 1.4m rebels and rising. We hadn’t clocked, however, that the proto–revolutionary expertly fomenting this dissent is… a 14 year-old boy called Jonathan Woodlief, from North Carolina. Asked for a quote, the boy’s dad said "He's doing what on Facebook?" There goes the allowance.

IN OTHER NEWS ...

Crime and Security Minister David Hanson has confirmed that a number of suspects have been held this year by the police’s e-crime unit, in connection with cyber attacks on government depts. The minister declined to elaborate, citing national security – but did reveal that the (rather Gilliamesque) ''Office for Cyber Security'' had been established ''to monitor the health of cyber space and co-ordinate incident response''.

Is social networking destined for the same spam-bedevilled fate as email? The big networks need to do some urgent thinking, warns Graham Cluley of security firm Sophos, if they don’t wish users trust in the blossoming marketing platform to be crushed. Sophos found that 1 in 4 companies had been exposed to spam, phishing or malware via sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.

MSN, the wallflower at the social media party, is finally getting a makeover from Microsoft. The site’s dramatically-different design is now sleeker and more minimal – and focuses on video and importing key feeds like Twitter and Facebook.

Sharp intakes of breath from cable companies, with the announcement that Apple is having another go at Web TV – this time with an iTunes-based subscription service.

And amid growing concern that some social gaming app developers are scamming both users and advertisers, MySpace boss Owen Van Natta has announced a “zero tolerance for app scams” policy – particularly those which sign users up for a repeat transaction without telling them.

ON FACEBOOK ...

It’s been a sedate few days for Facebook and Twitter – a pleasant change after the giddy whirl of the last few weeks, during which announcements came at breakneck pace from both. As you catch your breath and mop your brow, we bring you The Buzz Bin’s Facebook Fan Page Best Practices, followed by Jason Falls on why Facebook mentions of your brand won’t show up on your monitoring service...

ON TWITTER ...

... and for Afters, we have Mashable’s Twitter Lists How-To, plus a wee peek at Peek, the handheld device for mobile tweeting which launched this week.

ON YOUTUBE ...

Google’s YouTube wants to convince media companies like Disney that it's better to sell advertising space around illegally-uploaded material, than to take it down. According to YouTube their ContentID system can identify material even if it’s been customized by users - they hope that this will reassure copyright-holders, who will then play along.

BRANDS GET SOCIAL ...

Sainsbury's has been slow off the Twitter mark – its @JSainsburysPlc has made 9 posts since its launch in March. Now, though, it’s taking a leaf out of its celeb spokesman Jamie Oliver’s book, and launching @sainsbury’s, through which they hope to inspire shoppers with recipe ideas.

Kodak has launched a branded YouTube channel, ForMom, which encourages mothers to upload content on various topics that will make other mum’s live a bit easier.

US cake brand Mrs. Freshley's has launched a Facebook search to find “the real Mrs. Freshley” – someone who embodies the spirit of the brand which, till now, has not had a fixed persona.

Sara Lee Deli had lassoed some new Twitter followers whilst helping the fight against hunger. On Monday they donated $1 per follower (to a max of $25K) to Share Our Strength, which fights childhood hunger in the US. Followers used hashtags and retweets to help the campaign go viral.

ON MOBILE ...

Finally. After iPhone’s 2 ½ years unchallenged at the top of the market, here comes a competitor to make Apple twitchy. Buzz is getting busy around Motorola’s Droid – here’s a peak at the latest of its super-stylish (if slightly baffling) commercials.

VIRTUAL AND GAMES ...

Linden Lab announced its Q3 figures this week – with user-to-user transactions jumping 54% year-on-year, to $150 million. Total user hours, however, rose by a meagre 13% year-on-year, which Linden ascribed to the introduction of their bot-banning policy. Monthly repeat logins for September 2009 peaked at 750,446 - a 23% increase year-on-year.

Bebo launched its Social Games Experience ecosystem this week. The site section includes developer tools and games, fronted by the Games Homepage, which allows users to access social games apps and communicate around them.

The Chinese authorities have told NetEase, which operates World of Warcraft in China, that the game is in "gross violation" of Chinese regulations and that they must stop new account registration immediately.

Kzero have updated their very useful Brands in Virtual Worlds slideshare – it now includes campaigns from Hush Puppies, NBA, and Skittles amongst many others - and you can give it a quick once over here.

THINKING ...

If, in this light news week, you found yourself with a spare two minutes, you could do much worse than cast your eye over David Armano’s sharp assessment of where social media might lead us in 2010.

Real People

2116546 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:33:00 GMT

I often wonder how many 'virals' have been viewed by real people.

I'm not talking about those figures that may have been faked by bots and all that underhandedness, but people outside of the industry we all have the privilege of working in. Ok, I know we are real people that consume so our viewing figures do count but if I had a quid for the amount of friends I've mentioned 'famous' viral campaigns to and they've never heard of them I'd probably have about £20.

Part of our job is viewing work being produced by our competitors so sometimes (well, most of the time) I'd love to be able to reclaim a YouTube view so as not to add to the clip's figures, or at least mark myself as "work in the industry, just checking out the promotion, not actually interested in the product".

Bono boost for YouTube

2228399 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:00:00 GMT

YouTube is on a roll at the moment, which looks like being a good thing for users, advertisers and agencies alike after a period of what felt like continual negative press.

The video-sharing website has revealed it got close to 10m streams for a live broadcast of a U2's Rosebowl concert on Sunday, meaning it was the single largest event the site has streamed to date.

Given that the 20th most watched show in the US last week attracted 11.8m viewers (The Mentalist), the U2 YouTube audience gives you an idea of the site's enormous reach and the type of league it is now playing in. Admittedly, the 10m figure, which was spread over 2+ hours, doesn't drill down to how many people actually watched the broadcast.

However, after repeated questions being asked about YouTube's ability to monetise its huge popularity, it's nice to see things moving in a positive direction.

The U2 concert comes hot on the heels of the Google-owned site announcing earlier this month that it now serving up more than 1bn streams per day. And don't forget Channel 4's recent decision to put its entire programming output on YouTube free of charge and the introduction of Google's AdSense for YouTube's search.

With sites like Hulu breathing down YouTube's neck, it's great to see YouTube fighting fit. Healthy competition between these sites - unlike the search arena where Google has a far easier ride - is proving beneficial for everyone.

eModeration's Social Media Update 19 - 26 October

2543443 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:15:00 GMT

Welcome to eModeration's digest of all that is intriguing, alarming or odd in the world of social media. We'll be posting bite-size morsels of nourishing news not once, but twice a week - so check back soon!

THE HEADLINES...

The Web 2.0 world was reeling this week, after Microsoft slapped it round the chops with a real-time search double-whammy.

Whammy one: Microsoft has inked deals with both Facebook and Twitter, allowing status updates to be integrated into the Bing Search engine.

Then, while the social world was rearranging its expression to read ‘not in the slightest bit surprised, saw it coming a mile off actually’, came whammy two: Google is about to do precisely the same thing.

The CIA has invested in social monitoring company Visible Technologies. Now the guy who manually checks through a zillion 'u comin 2 mai partee?’ posts in the hope of one which reads ‘the quick coyote has met the cunning fox’ can finally go home to his wife and kids.

A Tory govt would jack the 50p tax which the present govt say will bring rural broadband up to urban speeds - in apparent contrast to the speech David Cameron gave in January. Oh dear - there’s nothing Middle England likes more than a snipe bid on a pair of BNWT driving-gloves – and you can’t do that on a 1meg connection, you know.

Meanwhile Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw confirmed that persistent file-sharers would not be ‘cut off willy-nilly’ – news which might reassure the British public, 70% of whom oppose an internet ban for file-sharers. Kudos also to Mr Bradshaw for a unilateral revival of ‘willy-nilly’ despite grave risk to his gubernatorial dignity.

THE LOWDOWN...

Some companies do find this Woman thing so hard, don’t they? At a Yahoo-hosted hack weekend for developers in Taiwan, company-hired lap-dancers provided the entertainment. Really, What Were They Thinking? (We’re going to have to agree on an acronym for that, aren’t we? I like DERBRAIN – you?)

Quick, come and see Bill Clinton through X-ray Specs! A twitter bug left the former prez accidentally exposing his tweets - click here for the twitillating details.

Twitter is now the platform of choice for Slebs who are up for a ruck. "Giving some celebrities Twitter is like giving a kid a loaded gun," says a PR firm chief. In the case of Perez Hilton, whose first tweet to Rumer Willis was “welcome to Twitter, Potatohead”, more like “a loaded gun and a kilo of Skittles”. 

This is more like it. A gamer customized a Super Mario World level so that "Lisa will you marry me?" was spelled out in gold coins. See? Romance isn’t dead. It’s just not so good with, you know, face-to-face interaction these days.

According to Netimperative, 1 in 10 UK adults is ‘not interested in getting online’. Right... Got it... No, sorry, you’re going to have to run me through that again.

AND IN OTHER NEWS...

Interesting times for Yahoo. Though revenue dropped, net income is up by a whopping 225% due to fierce cost-cutting. What’s more, they’re launching a rival to the Huffington Post, which will use a combo of smart tech and smart humans to offer link excellence and tip-top writing.

Apple is still the people’s darling – the company saw a crunchy 47% rise in profits in the quarter to September - news of which bounced shares by 7.5% to an all-time high.

Amazon is also confounding the recession, with a Q3 profit surge of 68% year on year. Founder Jeff Bezos lays the laurels at the feet of Kindle, which is now at the heart of Amazon’s strategy.

Channel 4 is offering targeted ads around its YouTube programming; meanwhile speculation that Hulu may start charging for content next year is starting to look like concrete fact.

Microsoft and T-mobile now claim they have recovered most, if not all, of its Sidekick users' missing data. Finally: when display ads do badly, it could simply be that they are pug ugly. Aesthetic failure is often to blame for limp performance, according to Dynamic Logic.

ON FACEBOOK...

The ‘Book’s deal with Bing, which will integrate status updates into search results, is expected to go live within two months. As the Telegraph points out, the thought of unseen millions reading “wooohooo - trolley’d!“ should give a sense of urgency to those who have yet to master Facebook’s privacy settings.

Facebook’s graph is so steep they need crampons: in the US, it now gets an astonishing 1 in every 4 page views. Market share is up 194% since last year, and there are now over 45 million updates a day.

It won’t come as a dreadful shock, then, to hear that MySpace’s new CEO has conceded defeat in its battle with the social colossus. Owen Van Natta says the company now aims to be a music hub.

ON TWITTER...

Twitter, meanwhile, appears untroubled by Facebook anxiety: CEO Evan Williams nonchalantly declared last week that “the world is big enough for Facebook and Twitter”. Despite flat-lining stats, Williams was pretty chipper about a near-future revenue stream – and indicated that mobile is looking very alluring to the microblogging service, which last week celebrated its 5 billionth tweet.

Each one of which will now be accessible through Bing and Google: According to Venturebeat, Bing’s Twitter search will have tag clouds and organize results according to both age and popularity. Retweets will move an entry up, as will embedded links – the most popular of which will be sortable too.

GOOGLE...

It’s not yet entirely clear what Google’s Twitter/Facebook search will look like – but news of the deal tops a great week for the search powerhouse.

It reported an 8% revenue increase for Q3, and announced plans to spend heavily on long-term growth. The first pennies go on a six-nation roll-out of its enterprise-aimed ‘Gone Google’ marketing campaign.

Google is also dipping a toe into the smartphone market, with a branded Android phone of its own - and launching a music service, which according to Wired will offer streaming, and enhanced search.

ON YOUTUBE...

As if there weren’t enough real-time excitement turning our pretty heads, YouTube announced Comments Search, which will allow real time search of conversation topics on the network.

It’s also testing a new advertising model, which melds AdWords with YouTube videos and allows advertisers to target video ads via keywords.

BRANDS GET SOCIAL...

Run, kitty, run! Petco has launched a ‘Howl-O-Ween’ comp, which allows owners to upload photos and videos of their Halloween-bedecked pets.

Ask.com launches a Facebook-integrated microsite, which asks users to celebrate their greatest deal.

Cheez Doodles wants to expand its share of the teen-market, and is offering them the chance to “Rock the Cheez” by creating virtual bands online.

Honda’s ‘social experiment’ – its ‘Everybody Knows Somebody Who Loves a Honda’ Facebook page - has been a roaring success. The page, which allows owners to connect with Honda-lovin’ friends and strangers globally, has topped 2 million fans.

ArmyStrongStories.com, a blogging system that lets anyone in the service make a post, is letting soldiers’ voices be heard and driving recruitment for the US Army.

Ford’s latest wheeze is the Fusion 41 social media campaign, which is seeking 8 socially-savvy fans of the Ford Fusion to compete in a relay race - the winner gets their vehicle paid for.

Lonely Planet is testing an App which uses Google Wave to give independent-minded travelers recommendations and reviews, which they can transform into content-rich itineraries.

Coca-Cola has sent a team of young Happiness ambassadors to visit each of the 206 countries where Coke is sold, and share the secret of each nation’s happiness, via social media.

Procter & Gamble's marketing team is flushed with success: they've launched a search for 5 people who, for the not-at-all-bad salary of $10k for a month’s work, will man their ‘Charmin Restroom’ in Times Square.

Arsenal and Spain midfielder Fabregas took over Nike's Football Page on Facebook last Thursday, answering questions and posting behind-the-scenes photos.

UNDER THE GAVEL...

A judge in California has provisionally okay'd Facebook’s settlement of the class suit arising from its Beacon ad programme.

Another in New York has ruled that Facebook is protected by the Communications Decency Act, in a teenager’s defamation suit.

conix Brand Group has settled - to the tune of $250,000 – the FTC’s complaint that they illegally collected children’s data.

And two former Yale students have settled the suit they brought against anonymous posters whom they allege defamed them on law-grad site AutoAdmit. They weren’t able to sue the board itself, but managed to identify some 8 or 9 of the bloggers.

SOME SOCIAL STATS...

The numbers who post or read status updates on social sites has shot from 11% to 19% - that’s almost a fifth of us – in under a year, according to Pew’s new report.

63% of online mothers regularly use socnets, against 11% three years ago – and 44% look for recommendations – and complaints - before buying.

UK e-commerce growth slowed to a snail’s pace this year, up only 7.6% against last year’s 15%.

US ad-spend figures were even less perky, with a predicted 2.9 % drop from last year – the first since 2002.

ON MOBILE...

The rate at which Africans are buying mobile phones is breaking world records with a rise of 550% in 5 years – changing lives across the planet.

Volkswagen is marketing their new GTI via an iPhone app, and nothing else. In 2006 they spent $60m introducing the marque – the new app will cost $500,000.

Out of the lab and into the market – smartphones will help grow augmented reality from a $6m to a $350m industry by 2014, says new research.

VIRTUAL AND GAMES...

Virtual goods sales in the US and Europe could expand by as much as 150% this year, with more growth to come, says Business Insider.

Pocoyo, the Spanish preschooler cartoon series, is launching a virtual world, with some free zones and premium content by subscription.

Civilization – one of the all-time Gamer Greats – will next year get a Facebook version, under the name Civilization Network.

Open virtual world Meez Nation is to integrate with the MySpace platform – reaching even further into its teen user base.

That's all folks!

These social media updates are painstakingly put together by our research consultant Kate Williams. If you'd like to listen at the horse's month (so to speak), she's @emodkate on Twitter.

What’s your poison?

2347496 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:07:00 GMT

For malicious virus writers it’s virtually anything that’s breaking news. Most recently it’s been Google search results for the hype-rumoured death of rapper Kanye West and the managerial status of Harry Redknapp at Spurs, but in the past we’ve seen everyone from Michael Jackson to Barack Obama succumb to their wicked ways. Of course, their real tour-de-force was purporting to offer anti-virus software which was actually a virus in itself! If nothing else, should us marketers have a sneaking admiration or perhaps even learn something from their wily ways?

The sheer speed at which they appropriate and hijack today’s talking points and turn them into evil deeds? Any self respecting web designer would surely envy their click-through rates. Obviously they’re going for the lowest common denominator, but it’s the seemingly instant ‘tapping into’ the zeitgeist that’s most impressive.

The fact is, by the time many organisations latch onto to a web trend, it’s already upped and left the building. Take the way that ITV, YouTube and Simon Cowell missed out on the potential windfall from selling advertising against clips of Susan Boyle. Act in haste and reap the benefits, indeed.

Channel 4 / YouTube deal confirms Andy Duncan is still in the game

1641923 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:16:00 GMT

Channel 4’s departing chief executive Andy Duncan has no plans to go quietly at the end of this year, as proved by last week’s announcement of a ground-breaking content tie-up between the broadcaster and YouTube.

By the time Duncan is carrying the last of his belongings from the shiny building in Victoria, internet users should be able to view a selection of ad-funded C4 content, including Skins and Hollyoaks, via Google’s video site for free.

The move could be a significant development towards generating digital revenues for both C4 and YouTube.

The non-exclusive, three year deal allows C4 to keep control of its own advertising sales, and some non-C4 content to boot, while reportedly giving the broadcaster the larger share of revenue.

Martin McNulty from internet marketing agency TrafficBroker agrees the partnership has the potential to be very interesting for C4, noting it "opens the broadcaster up to a much bigger advertising market, that is liquid". He suggests that if traditional content providers can tap into the auction-type ad sales model that has already made adwords a success for Google, it could be a major break through.

Just as significantly, the deal is also the first real sign that exiting Duncan has a list of ‘unfinished business’ concerning commercial partnership which he has every intention of completing.

Last month, he told me he hoped to be able to announce "two or three commercial partnerships" before he steps down as CEO, and refused to rule out a tie-up with BBC Worldwide.

The deal, already dismissed by most as being dead in the water, gained renewed credibility yesterday when Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw called talks between Channel 4 and BBC Worldwide "encouraging."

Whether the BBC is now more minded to play ball or not remains to be seen, but Duncan clearly has a point to prove and his legacy in mind, which could make for an interesting final quarter. Watch this space.

eModeration's Social Media Round-Up 10 - 17 Oct 09

2543443 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:21:00 GMT

Here's eModeration's round-up of what struck us most over the past week or so. Compiled by our research consultant, Kate Williams. She's @emodkate if you want to tag along on Twitter.

THE HEADLINES...

After six long months, YouTube has finally inked a landmark deal to take Channel 4 content shortly after broadcast. Top pop TV, for example Skins and Peep Show, will now be available free of charge - and C4 has managed to cling to ad sales around the content.

More than 10 million UK adults have never used the Internet, according to a new report for Martha Lane Fox, the government’s Digital Inclusion Champion. 17 per cent of the population have never been online – and 4 million of those are already socially excluded.

"Internet? What the Divvil’s that?", barked the Duke of Edinburgh, who acknowledged this week that he was baffled by technology in general and remote controls in particular, generally lying on the floor to operate the set instead.

And a rough old week for T–mobile, and anyone else with their their data in the clouds. The company faces sky-high legal bills after two separate class actions were filed in response to the 'catastrophic' loss of data faced by users of their Sidekick smartphones. The outage appears to have been caused by a server malfunction at Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft, who now claim that 'the majority' of the lost data is recoverable.

THE LOWDOWN...

Gordon Brown faced the Wrath of Mum this week in a live web-chat on parenting site Mumsnet. Mumsnet members, who have a rep for being both straight-talking and politically-savvy, expressed their disappointment rather sharply – but the PM managed to avoid a stinging slap to the back of his knees.

Swing it, Daddio! The Conservatives, meanwhile, are hanging with Der Youth, having commissioned a 40-second ad on music-streaming service Spotify. Don’t tell, but had I been picking the Tory best-placed to connect with the young, I might have pretended not to see doughty Eric Pickles’ hand go up.

In a Backslash Backlash, the Father of the World Wide Web™ Sir Tim Berners-Lee has admitted that, had he his time again, he would go //-free.

Hoorah! those Facebook Fails just keep on coming. Maxi Sopo, a 26-year-old suspected of bank fraud, wanted all his friends to know what a grand old time he was having lying low in sunny Mexico. Unluckily, he’d already made the schoolboy error of adding a law-enforcement official to his list of friends.

Finland has declared fast Internet access a legal right. From July, Finnish telecom companies will be obliged to provide the nation’s 5.3 million citizens with at least 1 Mbps, with even faster speeds in the pipeline. “We think it’s something you cannot live without in modern society. Like banking services or water or electricity, you need Internet connection,” said an official.

All rather galling for Sweden, who actually broke their bit of the Internet last week. The .se domain was out for a whole hour on Monday, before they fixed it up with a rubber-band and some blu-tak, and managed to jump-start the motor.

I Tweet Dead People. Yes, it’s come to this - the first social media séance, or “Twéance” [baboom-tish], will take place on October 30th, when UK psychic Jancye Wallace will attempt to contact Dead Slebs via Twitter.

No need, I feel for ornamentation – this story speaks perfectly well for itself. The Glo Bible has high-resolution photos, virtual tours, interactive timelines and a slick, youthful publicity campaign featuring a soft-rock soundtrack - and is available in the UK for a very reasonable £59.99.

I’mma let you decide whether t’laugh or cry / When Miley Cyrus raps her Twitter goodbye.

And in spookily-related news, Hollywood execs are cracking down on movie-industry celebs who leak info through their Twitter and Facebook accounts. No idea why.Finland has declared fast Internet access a legal right. From July, Finnish telecom companies will be obliged to provide the nation’s 5.3 million citizens with at least 1 Mbps, with even faster speeds in the pipeline. “We think it’s something you cannot live without in modern society. Like banking services or water or electricity, you need Internet connection,” said an official.

The IAB (that's the US Interactive Advertising Bureau) got a bit shirty this week in response to Federal Trade Commission’s new guidelines on bloggers and brands. The new rules, it claims, stifle free speech by restricting online communication – “the cheapest, most widely accessible communications medium ever invented” - more harshly than they regulate trad forms of media.

Social news site Digg says their new ad format, which allows users to vote ads up or down just as they would other site content, has surpassed expectations. Those ads with the most Diggs are super-exposed, whilst the least popular eventually drop off the edge of the world.

ON FACEBOOK...

Hoorah! those Facebook Fails just keep on coming. Maxi Sopo, a 26-year-old suspected of bank fraud, wanted all his friends to know what a grand old time he was having lying low in sunny Mexico. Unluckily, he’d already made the schoolboy error of adding a law-enforcement official to his list of friends.

Threadsy, a site which aggregates users Facebook, Twitter and email, is developing an app which would allows its users to ‘abhor’ an item in their Facebook feed. Harrumph. As my dear grandmama used to say, if you ain't got nothing nice to say, shut up and browse elsewhere ...

Other than that, it’s all about the numbers this week for Facebook. In the UK, The ‘Book is cookin’ - it claims one in every seven page views, up 86.1%. And although Google grabbed the official ‘most visited’ title, Facebook was the clear moral victor, with each of their users racking up a higher number of pages per visit.

US stats are also looking good for the social giant. According to Experian, Facebook and MySpace are making like elevators, with the former’s share of social traffic zooming from 19.9% to 58.6% over the last year, while the latter’s plummets from 66.8% to 30.3% – a stomach-lurching 55% plunge towards oblivion.

ON TWITTER…

The People’s Medium? Twice this week, Twitter users have wielded national influence. First against Trafigura, who had attempted to place a watertight legal gag around the Guardian newspaper, banning them from reporting details of the oil company‘s alleged waste-dumping in the Ivory Coast. But with #trafigura topping trending topics, the company’s legal reps Carter-Ruck retreated, leaving the Guardian (and indeed anyone else) free to publish.

Then, following expressions of outrage from Tweetmeisters Derren Brown and Stephen Fry, Twitter users jammed the Press Complaints Commission’s website with a flood of protests at the Daily Mail’s Jan Moir. In her daily column she’d written that gay singer Stephen Gately’s death was “not, by any yardstick, a natural one”. Mass accusations of homophobia forced the Mail to edit the piece, while several top brands, including Nestle and M&S, asked for their ads to be withdrawn.

Having recently launched its translation programme, Twitter closed a deal with India’s largest mobile operator, potentially adding 110m users – many of whom will only ever experience a web connection via their phones - to its stats. And Twitter finally added limited reporting features last week: now users can designate certain accounts as Spam, alerting a “Trust and Safety” team to investigate further.

BRANDS GET SOCIAL…

Last week, some big brand marketers urged their compadres to loosen their white-knuckle grip on the wheel, and embrace the impact that user generated content is having on brand reputations.

Luckily, a slew of brands launched social media campaigns this week, and heading the pack is First Direct, with a campaign that aims at total transparency. They’ve opened a real-time site which aggregates all comments (whether positive or negative), highlights trending keywords, and even provides graphs so that users can analyse the stats.

Lufthansa has created a cunning Twitter/Facebook app to support its ‘passion for precision’ slogan. The app sends status updates from travellers’ Twitter or Facebook accounts at take-off and landing, to promote the airline’s excellent on-time record.

You tweetin’ to me? Sony’s Crackle.com partnered with YouTube for a full-length screening of the cult classic Taxi Driver, which includes the audience’s real-time Twitter updates.

Audi is launching a branded virtual world and game on Sony PlayStation Home later this year - serendipitously supporting this report, which points out that German car brands dominate the social media landscape, while Japanese and U.S. luxury car brands have much to learn.

MySpace is offering their users the chance to see their inner thoughts writ large on more than 300 digital screens, in a team-up with outdoor-media owner Titan. The 3-week campaign is called "Step Up to the Mic", and will allow users to upload both images and messages to sites in the US, UK and Ireland.

MTV Europe’s Music Awards have partnered with teen-world Habbo Hotel to create a virtual ‘awards ceremony’ space. The branded area, where users can hang out backstage and compete for virtual awards, is already claiming 14m unique visitors per month.

Sony Ericsson’s virtual space-hopper flash mob has attracted more than 27,000 users to a dedicated microsite, where they can customise their own virtual hopper, right down to the height of its bounce.

SOCIAL STATS AND FACTS…

A sheaf of UK stats to shuffle through this week. Nearly twice as many UK internet users have a social networking profile than did two years ago – with three-quarters keeping their profiles private, compared to 48% back then. And 41% of web users look at a SocNet site daily, up from 30% in two years ago, according to Experian Hitwise.

Virgin finds that 29% of us feel liberated when we lose our mobile/internet signal in a social environment – but more than a third of us feel highly stressed. UK ad spend dropped again – but the good news is, the downward trend might be bottoming out. Bellwether reports the lowest fall in 6 quarters, while online ad spend actually rose for the first time since 2008.

VIRTUAL AND GAMES...

With a reported 11m Facebook members playing FarmVille daily, social gaming goes from strength to strength. And FarmVille’s maker Zynga is on the lookout for its next cash cow which, it turns out, might actually be a fish. According to Trademork, the developer registered ‘FishVille’ last week. I’m sure it will grow on us.

Speaking of fish (as we were), games giant Electronic Arts has shed a reported $250m on social-gaming company Playfish. Playfish have amply demonstrated that the social games-virtual goods combo is a strong one, with their 2009 revenue expected to hit $75m.

eModeration is a community management and moderation agency, and we do these blogs 'cos we're very interested in all things social media. If you like what you read and want some more, just pop over to our other blog.

Love the new Paul Whitehouse hairdresser ad?

2664107 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:16:39 GMT

Wasn't sure about Aviva's ad series with Paul Whitehouse as a goth and the one as a silver surfer. But loving the new one as a hairdresser. What do others think?

The king is dead long live the king?

2604343 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:09:00 GMT

I was at MIPCOM last week and talking to the great and good of the TV industry got me thinking will the internet replace TV or does TV just need to adapt.
For 50 years, the TV industry has delivered content and generated revenue effortlessly along the way. But technology is in danger of pulling its plug.

Can it alter its business model to chart a course into more profitable waters? Or is TV irreversibly sinking?

Advertising revenues are down and news that UK online advertising has overtaken TV doesn’t make the picture any brighter. And look at these facts and figures:

•   By 2010 Generation Y will outnumber Baby Boomers
•   96% of generation Y in the first world have joined a social network
•   Years it took to reach 50 million users: Radio (38 years), TV (13 years), Internet (4 years), iPod (3 years).
•   Facebook has added 100 million users in less than 9 months
•   The second largest search engine in the world, based on number of searches conducted, is YouTube
•   Only 14% of people trust advertisements
•   Only 18% of TV campaigns generate a positive ROI for advertisers

Okay, TV is facing some serious challenges, increased competition from online channels, new technologies, lifestyle changes – call them what you will – but cheer up, the business model might be on its last legs, but there's life in the old dog yet...

The answer for TV – embrace the online culture.

One billion consumers use social networks and the like. How can TV tap into the commercial potential of such vast numbers of people? The difficult part isn’t to create a presence; its knowing what presence should be created, where and for what purpose.

LISTEN CLOSELY
The truth is you're involved in the social media space whether you choose to be or not. Listen in to the online buzz in sites like Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, Flickr, the various forums, communities and blogs. Social media search engines like whostalkin, Social Mention, Delver or tuSavvy are great to use alongside Google analytics to get a good overview of your social media profile and performance. But for a detailed assessment, get a social media reputation audit done by a professional – you’ll be able to use this score as a benchmark for improvement.

START TALKING TO PEOPLE
Word of mouth - one of the most powerful forms of marketing, and it works so well online. If you’ve got something great - everybody’s talking about it. If you don’t - everybody’s talking about it. Before getting involved in social media, think carefully about your approach. Be prepared to share information or even tell the behind the scenes stories.

START SHARING YOUR CONTENT
Social media channels have a rather large ‘Welcome’ mat don’t you know and getting involved in this space will have a positive effect offline too. CBS has attributed a 200,000 increase in viewers in one month to the strategic placement of sample content on YouTube.

USE VIDEO PLATFORMS (DON’T TRY TO COMPETE AGAINST THEM)
YouTube probably presents the biggest threat but also biggest opportunity for content owners. Did you know that currently an average of 20 hours of video is uploaded every minute? OK, some of it may be there illegally, or poor quality, but audiences flock in their droves. Google, YouTube’s owner, has very deep pockets, so while it continues to build its audience, the commercial pressure is off (for now). And legal wrangles over copyright issues are unlikely to derail them, a recent ruling in Universal Music Group's copyright infringement lawsuit against Veoh Networks shows that social video sites may actually not be breaking any laws at all, at least not in the USA.

Then there’s Monty Python who placed free clips on their YouTube channel with click-to-buy links underneath. It's reported that even though the online content is free, Monty Python's DVD sales skyrocketed 23,000% on Amazon and reached #2 on the Bestseller list.

DISCOVER NEW REVENUE STREAMS
Content has an intrinsic value. Viewers will subscribe to watch it (if it’s good enough), advertisers will pay to be labelled alongside it (for the right price), but the online model is still evolving.

But take Facebook - it has 300m users - audience figures are potentially not the problem - it’s all in the packaging. Subscriptions models using Facebook apps are a potential money-spinner for content owners. Users don’t want to pay multiple subscriptions to access content (hello, Hulu!) so multi-layered content for niche audiences just needs to find suitable homes.

CREATE ONLINE ONLY CONTENT
Broadcasters can show content on their websites, but this is only the starting point. Bebo has a track record for commissioning its own content (KateModern and Sofia's Diary), funded by tactical sponsorships and product placement.

Joe Hughes, Yomego – the social media agency.