DECEMBER 11, 2008

Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect were both recently opened up to the public, spurring some discussion about the future of net IDs and profile portability. At the heart of this discussion is the idea that people can use a single profile for different kinds of net activity. Facebook Connect will allow users to send news about their activity on other sites to their Facebook newsfeed. Google Friend Connect is a more open service that allows users to access their info and any networking site that uses Google’s OpenID. As social networking and online services have exploded in popularity in recent years, services that help organize the clutter have been in fairly high demand. The Connect services approach the organization challenge in a new way: they make profile information more mobile so that users can feel like they have personalized information on tap wherever they go online.

As Facebook continues to dominate the social network world, and with the latest announcement about Facebook Connect, it is interesting to consider how Facebook is expanding and what model of growth would work best for the community. In this TechCrunch interview, Mark Zuckerberg talks about the “ecosystem” of developers that has grown around the Facebook platform and how his company tries not to compete with developers in order to encourage good growth in the ecosystem. Since Connect will draw in more and more developers, Facebook’s situation is a great example of how, in the technology sector, companies are now focused on fostering a community of developers who actually create services and experiences for consumers.  This accelerates innovation because the community of developers creates a constant stream of products for the regular user community.

More than 40% of surveyed women in their 40’s participate in social networks, says a study by SheSpeaks. Other results from the survey show that over 70% of women with children ages 13 to 17 had reviewed products on social networks. Targeted social media advertising has had mixed results, and the debate on how to measure ROI in general for social media advertising still rages on. However, these poll results seem to reaffirm the value of marketing towards mothers with teenaged kids, a powerful consumer group.

During the Mumbai attacks, Twitter and Flickr bustled with activity as users posted firsthand accounts and images. Both services were very useful during times of crisis, as people use the sites to find breaking news and first-hand accounts. Flickr user Vinukumar Ranganathan posted over two hundred photos of the attacks as they were going on, drawing hundreds of thousands of views on his Flickr account. Citizen reporting has proven to be a very compelling source of information, especially at times when the world is thirsty for any small bit of information about a crisis.

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NOVEMBER 10, 2008

Starbucks Shared Planet is a new site aimed at promoting corporate responsibility and environmental stewardship. This is a great example of a company being directly inspired by consumers to be more transparent about its operations. Michelle Gass, the senior vice president of the company, even outlined specific goals the company hopes to achieve by 2015. By inviting customers to suggest ways for the company to become a better community leader, Starbucks is really investing in long-term relationships with them.

The presidential election this year was definitely a historic one in many ways, not the least of which was the use of social media to mobilize voters. Another example was PBS and YouTube’s collaboration on “video your vote”, a site for user-submitted videos documenting peoples’ experiences with voting. YouTube has been very active this year in collaborating with various companies to cover the election; it co-sponsored the first Democratic debate, formed an election center called YouChoose, and debuted many popular videos such as will.i.am’s “Yes We Can”. It’s no wonder than many people have dubbed this election the “YouTube Election”.

I’ve written about Barack Obama’s use of social media before. After the election, the Obama team set up a website at Change.gov to set the tone for the new administration. The website asks visitors to share their own experiences with the election, as well as their hopes for the future. Although the website does not have many social media components yet, it seems that some will be added in the future. Adam Ostrow from Mashable wrote an excellent post on the unprecedented potential of social media as a communication tool for the presidency; I particularly agree with his point that social media can encourage citizens to get more involved and informed about policy making.

Yammer is a new tool based on Twitter that won top prize at this year’s TechCrunch50, where 50 new tech start-ups were presented and officially launched before an audience of “influential VCs, corporations, fellow entrepreneurs and press.” Like Twitter, Yammer allows people post short “tweets” to share links and hold brief exchanges, but it focuses on internal corporate communications. Every company on the Yammer network is a closed group; you must have a work email at that company to be able to talk in the group. It seems like there’s a very real need for an enterprise version of Twitter, as Yammer adopters have noted its usefulness for enhancing office culture. Maybe we’ll even try it out at TMG!

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OCTOBER 27, 2008

Once again, here’s a brief summary of some interesting news and up-and-coming developments in social media! As always, you can also check out previous social media summaries here.

Dell has created a Facebook page that focuses on providing social media tips and strategies for small businesses looking to get started with using social media in their communications work. This is a very simple, yet valuable resource that really enhances Dell’s image as an industry leader among large companies using social media. Ever since the “Dell Hell” blogger uproar in 2005, Dell has really stepped up to the plate and implemented better blogger relations, multiple blogs, Twitter accounts, and a useful crowdsourcing site.

Plum has launched its Share Space Pro platform, which can add social networking features to a company’s website. Share Space is similar to Ning, a popular platform for creating standalone social networks, but it is more geared towards adding features to an existing website in a clean, easy process. I agree with Jeremiah Owyang’s prediction that demand for products to “socialize” a page with minimal fuss will increase in the near future– I can imagine that there is a need for products that simplify the process of tweaking software to add social networking features to a site.

Fat Muffin is a new crowdsourcing site with an interesting focus: it crowdsources ideas for advertisement campaigns. The community is semi-closed, meaning that those who want to sign up must first receive an invitation from a friend already in the community. Currently, the site has three clients: Prometheus Springs, Babyspot.com, and Ayrwolf. Although the site is still in a closed beta state, it’s a great example of how versatile crowdsourcing can be, with the right management system in place. Unlike social networks that serve to let people communicate directly with each other, these idea-focused websites need a system in place to condense and select the best ideas for serious consideration from the companies.

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OCTOBER 1, 2008

This summary is part of an ongoing series that highlights recent news in the social media world. You can go here to view past summaries.

According to data released by Cone, Inc., 93% of consumers believe that companies should have a presence in social media. Additionally, about 60% of consumers interact with companies online, and 25% interact with these companies at least once a week. Consider these figures a sign that social media, despite the frantic and fleeting nature of Web 2.0 startups trying to get a piece of the action each month, is very well established as an expected mode of communication.

During the presidential debates last week, the Twitter sphere was a great place to go for some instant crowd sentiments. Tweet volume directly corresponded with certain phrases uttered by the candidates– how much easier could it be to gauge the issues or statements that were the most provocative? What I find interesting about this is how easily Tweets can be captured and analyzed. I feel empowered by the idea that I can make sense of the Twitter noise by following keywords; it offers a great change in perspective.

Speaking of the election and Twitter, another great way to tap into what Twitter denizens are saying is to visit Twitter Election 2008, a site dedicated to gathering data and streaming tweets that have anything to do with the election. Even if it’s easy to feel lost in the hundreds of thousands of Twitter users, there’s no denying that I still feel pretty significant when something I say about one of the candidates makes it onto the front page stream on this site. Tomorrow, I’ll be watching this site during the vice presidential debate!

InsideCRM has a great article detailing the various ways government agencies have been using social media. Some of these may surprise you– for instance, did you know that the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency) has partnered with an activist social network called Care2 to promote awareness of the deterioration of coral reefs? By partnering, the agency is able to leverage the social network to put public events and awareness campaigns in motion. Government agencies have also been using internal wikis to get their work done; the intelligence community has a large intranet called Intelink that contains a wiki called Intellipedia. This allows analysts to find each other across agencies in order to collaborate on projects. These examples all show how effective social media can be in helping government agencies become more responsive and tuned in to public sentiment.

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SEPTEMBER 12, 2008

As part of the social media team here at TMG, I like to try to stay on top of all the new developments coming out. I’m going to start posting bi-weekly summaries of interesting social media news; many of these topics reflect growing technologies online and innovative ways to use these technologies, so hopefully it will be interesting to you!

LinkedIn, a popular social network for professionals, partnered with CNBC in hopes of bringing users of both sites added functionalities to help them share news content. In this blog post written by Dan Nye, the CEO of LinkedIn, I found his third bullet point about the implications of the partnership to be interesting: “Community-generated content from LinkedIn will also be broadcast on CMBS programs.” Looks like user demographics on social networks are becoming more valuable to news sources like CNBC.

We see some more adoption of social media in the nonprofit realm, as the AARP recently announced that their revamped site will feature a social network. The Arthritis Foundation also added social media tools to their website in August, allowing members to create blogs, profile pages, and RSS feeds. It seems like nonprofit organizations can really benefit from the use of social media tools, since their goal is often to inform and represent a specific group of people. These new site features will help people get to know others who face similar challenges; the nonprofit organizations are establishing themselves as community centers for their target audiences.

Google released Chrome, its new web browser, this past week. The technology realm has been completely overrun with commentary on Chrome, since the browser brings some new offerings to the table. Google has developed Chrome to handle multiple rich web applications better than any other popular browser. Since social media involves many of these rich web applications, Chrome widens the possibilities for programmers as well as users. I think it might be interesting to see developers work with the Chrome technology to make it even more social media friendly, like the Flock browser that was based on Firefox 3 technology.

InvespBlog interviews a top anonymous Digg contributor, shedding some light on how he earns money from his Digg activities. The contributor charges up to $1,200 dollars for a story that gets on the front page of the site. Digg tries to combat any sort of abuse of the system by advertisers, and has attempted to do so by changing its algorithm in the past. However, they fight an uphill battle to figure out how best to represent the most popular and relevant stories without allowing users and advertisers to take unfair advantage of the system. It seems that the social media spirit of group sharing and voting causes difficulties to developers who want to create sharing platforms that accurately reflect popularity.

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