Microsoft & Klout and Facebook & Gifts: Your Social 6, Weekend Edition
Hi everybody, and happy Monday! Hope you had a good weekend, and didn't spend it reading news across the Internet from a myriad sources. After all, that's what I'm here for. This weekend had a few gems; here are some of the highlights:
#6: Gamification: where play meets productivity and engagement (Opinno)
#5: Is the Social Media Card the New Business Card? (San Francisco Chronicle)
#4: Is California's law barring demands for social media passwords any good? (Techdirt)
#3: Former Employee Explains Why He Was Fired From Facebook (Mashable)
#2: Why Klout Deal Is Not The Answer To Microsoft's Social Search Strategy (ReadWriteWeb)
#1: Facebook Shares Jump More Than 6% After Gifts Launch. (Hooray For New Revenue Streams.) (TechCrunch)
Gilt, Pepsi, Wilcoxson, iPad Mini, & Social Scoring dominate the Social 6 roundup
Wow, yesterday was a pretty packed day on the Interwebz. In fact, it was tight enough that ReadWriteWeb's piece on how journalists are using SoundCloud or The Next Web's Can TV go social without being ruined? article didn't make the cut. Oh, and there's the list of 100 Worst Songs Ever from AOL radio that was clicked on & shared an incredibly amount, but I thought that's not what you guys want, is it?*
Here's your Social 6 roundup:
#6: iPad Mini News: Pictures, Pricing, Release Date, Rumors Leak Out (News For Shoppers)
#5: Social search is largely about food & Italian leads the pack [graphic] (The Next Web)
#4: If You're Interested In Influence, Social Scoring Is Of Historic Importance (Fast Company)
#3: For Gilt, selling on Facebook 'was like trying to sell something at a bar' (Business Insider)
#2: Wilcoxson's Ice Cream Sparks Social Media Firestorm (Huffington Post)
#1: Pepsi's head of social sums up his strategy in one word: 'Homophily' (Business Insider)
*Admit it, you clicked on the worst songs ever list.
Klout, iPad Mini, and Facebook Top the Weekend's Social 6 Roundup
I'd be lying if I said this was the most action-packed weekend on the Interwebz ever. It wasn't. In fact, a few of the stories I shared over the weekend (and you guys clicked on, shared, repinned, etc.) were published on Friday. Still, I think there are some gems in here - two apiece for Facebook and gamification, for those of you interested in those topics. I'll let the news & views speak for themselves:
#6: Facebook Kills Photo-Tagging Suggestions for EU Users (Mashable)
#5: Ten ways to gamify your grid (Hypergrid Business)
#4: Facebook to curb frictionless sharing (CBS News)
#3: Klout's recent updates get a thumbs-up from many marketers (BostInno)
#2: Gamification of the enterprise (Computer World)
#1: iPad Mini Rumors: Apple's Manufacturers Confirm Redesigned, Smaller Tablet (iDesignTimes.com)
Facebook Plugins, Animated GIFs, and Social Media Myths: Today's Social 6
I got flack from some of you guys for being excited about Twitter blocking animated GIFs in profile pictures, but sorry; I hate them. That was clearly one of the bigger stories of the last 24 hours, but Napkin Labs and my post on Facebook's Shared Activity plugin made waves too.
Here's your Social 6:
#6: iPhone 5 and iPad Mini To Have Exchangeable Batteries? (Tapscape)
#5: 8 Social Media Myths Busted (Business 2 Community)
#4: Why Health Care Needs Social Media (Huffington Post)
#3: Napkin Labs launches Facebook ‘Fan Center’ to give brands more qualitative customer relationships (The Next Web)
#2: Twitter Blocks Animated GIFs in Profile Pics (Mashable)
#1: Mixing sharing with privacy: Facebook debuts its Shared Activity plugin (jeremygoldman.com)
Mixing sharing with privacy: Facebook debuts its Shared Activity plugin
Via its Developers blog, Facebook today announced the launch of its Shared Activity plugin, which gives users the ability to control the activities they share to Facebook directly from any web app.
The plugin offers developers a simple way to implement user controls needed to work with Facebook's Open Graph built-in actions.
More from the Developers blog:
"The Shared Activity plugin lists a person's activities published from your app to Facebook including Open Graph activities, Like button stories, and comment plugin activities. For example, when an individual uses a music app, she could modify the privacy settings, through the plugin, for specific song listening activities, without needing to go back to Facebook to control what's shown. Similarly, if a person, through a travel app, likes a restaurant or reviews a hotel, and decides that these activities should only be viewable to a select group on friends on Facebook, he can control this within the plugin as well."
This is one of many recent steps Facebook has taken to encourage the general public to share more, while at the same time assure consumers that their sharing activity can be modified at any time. It will be interesting to see how quickly the Shared Activity plugin gains mass adoption.
Klout, Unfriending Experiments, and iTunes: Today's Social 6 News Roundup
Of course there's still some Apple news that was widely clicked on and shared yesterday, but we're past "the worst" of it. Today we also have some news about tools that can help optimize your social media posts, the need to stay within Facebook's promotional guidelines, and also new upgrades to a popular storefront called iTunes. Oh. wait, that's Apple. Darn it. Anyhow, here's your Social 6 news roundup:
#6: Is lack of NFC hurting iPhone 5's buzz? (Ecommerce Times)
"It doesn't take long for the excitement over a new iPhone launch to disperse, leaving a vague sense of unfulfilled expectations in its place. In the case of the iPhone 5, one of the larger disappointments is the lack of NFC technology. Never mind that few retailers are equipped to accommodate it, and the vast majority of consumers don't even know what it is."
#5: Four Apps That Can Help You Make An Impact With Your Social Media Postings (Business Insider)
"Running around the Internet looking for pertinent news and topics to your business and your customers is like running through a sprinkler as a kid – you might occasionally get lucky with a cool spot, but most of the time you’ll probably be miserable, aching for that next cool spot. Since it is the Internet, there are certainly enough tools out there to help a small business along, but deciding on one might be difficult. I’ve found a few that you might want to take a look at, including a convenient one called ChatterJet."
#4: How to Increase Your Digital Klout (Mashable/Revolution TV)
"On this episode of Revolution, Fernandez talks about the rise of his company, its challenges in measuring digital and real world influence. He also gives tips on what consumers and businesses need to do to make their online influence matter most."
#3: My big unfriending experience on Facebook (Facebook)
"Social Experiment Time! If you see this status & don't think you'll ever talk to me again, feel free to unfriend me! No harm, no foul. I'm just taking a stand that social media isn't about numbers, and is about making valuable connections with people (and brands). The world's becoming increasingly cluttered, and I'd hate to be part of that clutter in your own digital life."
#2: Apple rolling out redesigned iTunes store for desktop & iOS (VentureBeat)
"Along with the announcement of the new iPhone 5, Apple announced some big changes to its iconic music and media store iTunes.The new iTunes’ iOS store app redesign optimizes the screen to focus more on products (such as music, apps, and games)."
#1: 50% of Facebook brand pages are violating Facebook's promotional guidelines, and consequences are severe (Daily Mercury)
"Sunshine Coast social media expert Donna Hamer has warned businesses breaching Facebook rules that they risk having their pages wiped by administrators. Her comments follow those of social media law expert Jamie White who said 50% of Facebook business pages were in breach of Facebook's Promotional Guidelines."
Quora, Chain.ly, Coca-Cola, The Walking Dead: The Social 6 News Roundup for 9/6/12
The last 24 hours saw a nice mix of news, from Coca-Cola and The Walking Dead's major milestones to a hot new startup, a great piece on how to best leverage Google+ to make connections, and more. Let's get to it:
#6: Chain.ly Is the Craigslist for Finding People Who Can Help Out
"Chain.ly is a community board that wants to impact the world by making Internet-driven connections less serendipitous. While Twitter hashtags or Reddit campaigns can sometimes lead to success, Chain.ly hopes it will be a go-to platform for people to find the help they need...co-founder Bruno Ligutti added, 'We want to position Chain.ly as the Craigslist meets Kickstarter — not a fundraising website but a social platform for asking for help.'"
#5: Quora Arrives on Android, Complete With Voice Search, Widgets And A Deep Search Integration
"After a long wait, Quora just arrived on Android today...Quora is launching the Android app simultaneously in Google’s Play store and Amazon’s appstore. The app allows you to do almost everything you can on the site."
#4: What my Google Plus “About” Page Does for Me
"The untouched missing element in LinkedIn is the lack of any means of real-time communication...contrast this with Google+: people search terms and tags, come upon content-sharers whom they may not already be following and Circle us or comment on our posts."
#3: ‘The Walking Dead’ Celebrates Facebook Milestone With Awesome Poster
"AMC’s The Walking Dead just passed the 10 million fan mark on Facebook. That’s a big number — especially for a television show on cable TV.To celebrate the event, AMC created an awesome graphic to thank fans of the show. A pitch-perfect homage to the movie poster from 2009′s The Social Network, the graphic even has its own tagline: 'You don’t get 10 million fans without eating a few.'"
#2: With Embeddable Timelines, Twitter Widgets Become More Interactive
"Twitter announced a new feature today that’s supposed to make it easier for publishers to embed a timeline of relevant tweets — the company describes it as a way for 'publishers, writers, developers, and any Twitter user to drop a rich, interactive piece of Twitter into their websites.'”
#1: Coca-Cola Is First Retail Brand to Pass 50 Million Facebook Fans
"Coca-Cola passed 50 million fans on Facebook shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday...[it] is the first retail brand to hit this milestone. Disney, Converse and Starbucks, three of the other most popular retail brands, each have fewer than 40 million fans on Facebook at the moment."
The Social 6: News Roundup, 9/5/12
MistoBox aims to boost your morning Cup of Joe w/the “@birchbox of Coffee”
"A new monthly delivery service, MistoBox, describes itself as “the BirchBox of the micro roasted coffee industry”...the company, which was founded by Connor Riley and Samantha Meis while in an entrepreneurship program at the University of Arizona, launched in June after just passing its Kickstarter goal of $9,000 in funding."
How Pinterest and Instagram are changing your brand strategy
"In 2008, Steve Jobs took the stage at the Macworld Expo and shared what seemed like a startling statistic: “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year…People don’t read anymore.” Many are saying this statement could be seen as a foreshadowing of the explosive growth in visual content. But that wouldn’t really be accurate. Direct marketers have long known this; creating compelling visual content has been at the center of their world for years."
Android dominates Southeast Asia’s smartphone market: Report
"In a study of the major countries in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, 31 percent of smartphones were found to be running Android. Apple’s iOS has about 19 percent of the market with Blackberry, Symbian, and Windows Phone rounding out the remaining shares."
Social Media's Issue: Does It Drive Sales?
"“The next 12 months are the make or break time for social media, but I do think the investments have been there. People have sizable communities and want to make them ROI [return on investment] positive. We will really see if the metrics prove one way or another,” said Maureen Mullen, New York University think tank Luxury Lab, or L2, director of research ."
Wolfram Alpha's new "Facebook Report" lets you be a rockstar at mining your FB data
"Nearly 50% of my Facebook friends are married, which adds up to 123 people total. Meanwhile, 20.1% or 51 of my friends are in a relationship, and 13 are engaged. All this information I now know thanks to a new “Facebook Report” by Wolfram Alpha, which will gift you with more knowledge than you could possibly ever want to know about yourself and your Facebook profile."
Marissa Mayer is now reviewing *every* single serious candidate for employment at Yahoo
"Back in early August, there were reports that new CEO Marissa Mayer intended to do what Google's cofounders have always done: review every single new hire the company makes. Now, according to a Yahoo executive involved in hiring, Mayer is actually doing it....Yahoo has about 15,000 employees and it is hiring all the time, so this is no small task."
The Social 6: Stories You Missed This Past (Long) Weekend, 9/4/12
Welcome back to work, guys! Not surprisingly, there wasn't a tremendous wealth of news & views out there to curate from the long weekend, but here are some of the highlights you may have missed:
#6: My1Login’s test page is a nifty way to see exactly how weak your password choices are
"The password management service My1Login offers a smart way to remember all of those passwords and key phrases by literally boiling them all down to one. Now it is also offering a Web page where visitors can find out why they might need a password manager and measure the strength of passwords they might consider to be safe."
#5: 6 Tips For Using Instagram In Your Social Media Marketing
"Marketo released an infographic recently with 5 steps to success using Instagram in your marketing. They are...Curate…Snap…#Hashtag…Engage…Repeat…[and one more,] Measure and Improve."
#4: 5 tools for managing your contacts and boosting your network
"In a lot of ways, a contact manager can incorporate new, innovative services to not only help users take a smarter approach to meeting new people but also transmit readily available information from social media profiles directly into that contact profile...here’s a breakdown of five applications that are breaking the barriers of the traditional contact managing system on the computer as well as mobile devices."
#3: Job Seekers: Beware These Social Media Traps
"First impressions are everything, but sometimes they creep up on you. As a job candidate, 86% of potential employers will look at your social profiles — even if you don’t explicitly share those links...Column Five Media put together an infographic [included below] of tips for using social media to make first impressions — and included a few things every job seeker should avoid."
#2: Ever wonder what the top 25 pages are on Facebook are? Here they are.
"Entertainment continues to dominate the list of most popular Facebook pages, according to our PageData tool, which counts the number of fans added to a page daily. After Facebook’s own pages for its mobile app and main company page, the most Liked pages are those of entertainers, athletes, TV shows, games, and a few international brands."
#1: Facebook Improving Site Integrity Systems To Combat False Likes
"Facebook updated its site integrity system today in an effort to crack down on fake likes, a move that the company says will benefit legitimate users and page owners.The company says the improved automated efforts will detect and remove Likes obtained by malware, compromised accounts, deceived users or purchased mass Likes. While Facebook says it has always protected against these threats, the new system will specifically be tailored to identify and erase suspect Likes."
The Social 6: 8/31/12 News Roundup
The last 24 hours or so had a bunch of news (& views), considering it's late August. Here are some of the highlights:
#6: The #1 Oversight in Social Media Community Building
"No matter now compelling your content, how widespread your reach, how generous your reward, community attrition will be the undoing of any social media campaign leaving you to constantly rebuild sand castles at the foot of waves.To avoid this a brand of any size launching nay campaign must studiously walk through five stages:..."
#5: Facebook Sponsored Stories: Engaging Content is More Important than Ever
"Brands wanting to connect with fans need to be even more creative about the content they post, especially if you plan to use Sponsored Stories. Your fans still want to look smart in front of their friends, share funny photos and feel like they have a connection to something larger than themselves. Even if you pay for that positioning, these rules still apply."
#4: Bing rolls out a dedicated tool for searching your friend’s Facebook pictures
"Today, Bing announced and released ‘Friends’ Photos,’ a tool that allows you to search the social giant for specific pictures that your friends have uploaded....Bing’s recent redesign includes Facebook integration, but this new tool is a singular tool, unlike the right side-bar in the New Bing."
#3: Twitter launches 'Certified Products' to further encourage the apps it wants
"Twitter launched a new certified products platform Wednesday. The program is initially launching with three verticals Twitter says are “based on the needs we see from partners every day” — Engagement Products, Analytics Products, and Data Reseller Products...the 12 partners launching today are Attensity, ExactTarget, HootSuite, Mass Relevance, Radian6, Sprinklr, SocialFlow, Crimson Hexagon, Dataminr, Topsy, DataSift, and Gnip."
#2: Is Google selling off a portion of Motorola?
"Google (GOOG) supposedly wants to sell a portion of its recent acquisition of Motorola, and has hired Barclays Plc (BCS) to do the dirty work of finding a buyer. Google wants to sell the “Home Business” division of the messy ex-techno-giant, which it acquired for $12.5 billion in May. Bloomberg opines that this unit might net about $2 billion."
#1: I Am A President -- Obamamania Shuts Down Reddit
"In another social-media first, President Barack Obama took to Reddit today to become the first sitting head of state to moderate the site's "AMA," or, ask me anything, series.
The chat lasted an hour, and got so much attention that it shut the site down during his post."
