R&R Partners: Moving Minds » Twitter

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

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

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

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

Rachelle Maisner is an Interactive Producer for R&R Partners, and writes about social media at FiveFeetOfDynamite.com.

Social Marketing News 3-15-10

Rachelle Houle-Maisner, Interactive Producer — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:17:37 +0000

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

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

Big News from SXSW

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

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

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

Sneak Peek: Rhapsody’s Upcoming iPhone App - Wired

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

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

SXSW Feeds

CMS Wire SXSW News and Articles

Wired SXSW News

Mashable SXSWi

Social Media: Strategy

9 Killer Tips for Location-Based Marketing - Mashable

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

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

Why User Competency Matters in Social Design - Mashable

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

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

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

Digital Advertising

LivingSocial Raises $25 Million to Take On Groupon - Mashable

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

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

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

Internet Trends

How Twitter and Facebook Make Us More Productive - Wired

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

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

5 Ways to Use Google Wave for Business - Mashable

Foursquare Hits 347,000 Checkins in a Day - Mashable

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

Rachelle Maisner is an Interactive Producer for R&R Partners, and writes about social media at FiveFeetOfDynamite.com.

Social Marketing News 3/1/10

Rachelle Houle-Maisner, Interactive Producer — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:59:03 +0000

March 1st brought joy to many Facebook users, a date which marks the end of Facebook app Notifications. Apps on Facebook are no longer able to send updates via Notifications, which are now reserved mainly for friend activity. Find out what alternatives app developers now have at this Mashable article.

Twitter and YouTube are also rolling out new features. On Twitter, the new “Be Found On Twitter” feature allows users to opt-in to share their email address and/or phone number, making it easier for contacts to find them. For YouTube, it’s a massive redesign that will improve the user experience by adding a video queue feature and improved playlist design. The redesign also includes the release of an AutoPlay feature, which will allow YouTube to be consumed more like TV, allowing the user to sit back and just watch one video after another in a push model rather than the current pull model. Find out more about these releases under the New Features heading below.

“Have you heard of Chatroulette?” The latest fad of social media, Chatroulette is a video chat service which will randomly pair you to another video conferencing user. It’s a bare bones interface with minimalistic functionality- basically just two web cam windows and a chat room. The site connects users to complete strangers, there is no way to control who will pop up on the other side. Some believe that Chatroulette will become as popular as Twitter, though it’s not the first interactive video conferencing site, and probably won’t be the last. I don’t think Chatroulette will be able to go mainstream without significant investment and added functionality. If the interest continues to increase, there’s a good chance that established social networking platforms like Facebook will adopt video conferencing as a new feature, which may kill Chatroulette before it has a chance to get out of the gate.

Want to know how your brand compares to your competitor in social media? Try uberVu Compare. A freemium social media comparison tool, Compare is a new product from uberVu that performs a side-by-side comparison of two brands based on their social media performance. It could be considered overly simplistic for veteran social media analysts, but this a great tool for a quick snapshot of social media presence.

“Crowdsourcing” is a still a hip buzzword. Grogger is a new platform that allows you to crowdsource your blog content. Mash together the words “group” and “blog”, what do you get? A “Grog”! For people that believe two heads are better than one, Grogger is an appealing tool that allows a community of users to write, edit, and vote on blog content. For more details, read the TechCrunch review.

New Features

Be Found on Twitter: Connecting Our Dots in the Social Graph - RWW

Twitter Comes To Yahoo – PC World

YouTube Redesign Keeps You Watching - RWW

Facebook to Say Goodbye to App Notifications on March 1st - Mashable

Chatroulette

Did Chatroulette Just Launch the Interactive Video Conferencing Boom? - AdAge

Chatroulette, by the Numbers - WSJ Digits

Social Media: Strategy

Most Super Bowl Ads Don’t Go Viral - AdAge

Vitrue Adds Facebook ‘Wall Apps’ To Social Platform – MediaPost

Compare Social Media Performance Head-to-Head with uberVu - Mashable

Oh Yeah, Well I’m Going To Twitter You! – MediaPost

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

Scribd Makes Push Into Mobile - MediaPost

Consumers Are Pushing Up Sales of Smartphones - Yahoo! News

Digital Advertising

Measure the Web Like TV and Brand Advertising Will Follow - AdAge

Sources: Twitter Ad Platform Quite Google-Like – MediaPost

Display Ads Stimulate Search, Confirms Eyeblaster Study – MediaPost

Internet Trends

Social Networking In Matters Of Life And Death – MediaPost

Grogger: A New Platform That Lets You Crowdsource Your Blog’s Content - TechCrunch

E-Cards Are Dead… Except on Mother’s Day - RWW

Time Spent on Social Networks up 82% Around the World - BrianSolis

How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement - Mashable

Facebook to Take 30% Cut of Developers’ Facebook Credits Revenues - Mashable

Rachelle Maisner is an Interactive Producer for R&R Partners, and writes about social media at FiveFeetOfDynamite.com.

Social Marketing News 2/22/10

Rachelle Houle-Maisner, Interactive Producer — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:39:06 +0000

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

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

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

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

Google Buzz

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

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

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

Google Buzz May Help Its Rivals More Than Itself - MediaPost

Facebook

PayPal and Facebook Credits Will Play Nice After All - Mashable

The Fun of Facebook Measurement - Gilligan on Data

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

Social Media: Strategy

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

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

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

Social Media: Consumer Electronics

Official Twitter App for BlackBerry Looks Really Good – Mashable

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

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

Digital Advertising

Online Video Gets an Ad Exchange - AdAge

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

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

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

Internet Trends

How Social Media Is Changing the Super Bowl – Mashable

Walmart Buys Vudu, Jumping Into Online Movie Rentals – Wired

School District Halts Webcam Surveillance – Wired

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

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

Rachelle Maisner is an Interactive Producer for R&R Partners, and writes about social media at FiveFeetOfDynamite.com.

Freebie Twitter Listening Tools

Rachelle Houle-Maisner, Interactive Producer — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 00:53:11 +0000

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

search.twitter.com

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

TweetBeep.com

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

Trendistic.com

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

PeopleBrowsr.com

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

Cloud.li

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

BackTweets.com

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

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

My Twitter Dilemma

Arnie DiGeorge, Executive Creative Director — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:38:14 +0000

I have been at 1,560 to 1,570 followers for at least a year. I waver back and forth between the two numbers. My popularity is measured from one to 10 on any given day. I can’t seem to attract any new followers. I feel like Clark Griswold circling Big Ben in European Vacation where I can’t get out of the circle.

Don’t get me wrong; I love each and every one of my current followers. Of course, if some of them were to show up at my home I would probably have to go all Samuel Jackson on them. Of course I would be going all @samueljackson on them since I am not verified and neither is he. But I digress.

I decided to ask the one guy on Twitter who could immediately diagnose my problem, @guykawasaki. He is always sitting there staring at me with that wonderful smile, ready to help those in need.

@GuyKawasaki, I have been at just below 1,600 followers for more than a year. What is wrong with me? Be honest. I can take it.

No answer from Guy. I should have addressed him as Oh Great Twitter Lord Kawasaki since he has over 203,000 followers. I must have sounded like a tiny squeal from a microorganism riding a rodent to the Great Kawasaki. Or the Great Kawasakis, since I have heard he isn’t the only one writing his pieces. He is verified by the way.

What can I learn from Lord Kawasaki? Well, he tweets a lot, 39,779 and counting. He is the firehouse that answers the question, What’s Interesting? That’s straight from his Twitter page. This is not a lie by the way. A little mind could bloat from the large supply of knowledge launched from the giant beak of Kawasaki and Alltop. If Guy did answer, he would probably say – @guykawasaki, the answer you seek is in the tweets, my son.

I don’t need 200,000 followers. That’s when it gets really scary. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are outside Guy’s house right now with high-powered binoculars in a nondescript van. But I should have more than 1,570. It’s getting embarrassing.

So what do I have to offer? Well, I often tweet some pretty interesting stuff. I think I have a pretty good sense of humor. I’m an executive creative director at a successful advertising firm. I’m told that is a good job. I’m an early adopter. I think I have my finger on the pulse of the new and exciting. So what’s wrong with me? Maybe it’s the number of tweets.

Using a highly complicated mathematical formula called “division,” I was able to deduct that the number of tweets really shouldn’t matter since Guy has over 200,000 followers and only 39,779 tweets. Still, it couldn’t hurt to tweet more.

Maybe it’s my profile. Guy is the authority on what’s interesting. My profile says, “I left the iron on.” And there is a picture of a man standing in front of a burning house as my background. I tend to tweet on great pop culture stuff I find: art, advertising, etc. However, my bio and background picture would never alert you to that fact.

Also, I’ve never used any of the services that claim to find you followers. That always seemed like cheating. Plus, they probably wouldn’t be the “right” followers. And who wants a bunch of unqualified followers? Not me. Blocking the twitter hookers is hard enough.

It could be that what I find interesting, only slightly less than 1,600 other Twitter folk find interesting. No, I can’t accept that. I won’t. That’s failure talking.

Another little birdie told me she didn’t like my picture. Guy is looking down from the heavens at his brethren. I am on a boat (not my boat) looking away, detached, nonplussed, unconnected. Guy is saying, “Hey, wonderful little humanites out there, I am thinking for you. Don’t worry, I have you covered.” I am saying, “Hey, I’m on a boat. You are not on a boat.” She also told me that there isn’t enough of you in your voice, people don’t know what to expect from you, use your position and become the authority you are. Wow, I have a hard enough time doing that at work.

The bottom line is that Twitter is a strange bird. And way more goes into it than meets the eye. It isn’t enough to just be interesting. You need a voice, a purpose, a personality, a strong profile, a meaningful picture, the ability to interact with others and a ton of energy to gain more followers. And even then there are no guarantees.

I don’t know if I will ever get past the 1,600 mark. I’d have to change my picture, tweet way more, be more interesting, interact more, be more me, and just plain be more special. And I think I might have reached my “special” ceiling. But I won’t quit Twitter. I like being a part of the collective whole – the giant twitter brain. And every once in a while, when I get a nice retweet or a #followfriday, it makes me feel like I am just that much closer to – GUY.

2009 Was Lame, but Not Totally

Sean Corbett, Corporate Director of Digital Marketing — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:25:36 +0000

For many of us, 2009 will forever be remembered as the year that sucked. Bad! I don’t need to go into why 2009 sucked, do I? You probably have 2,009 reasons why ’09 was garbage. So … I was feeling a little unlike myself the other day and asked some of the folks here at R&R to send me some of the most noteworthy things to happen in 2009 not related to war, the economy or lost jobs. Here is a little sample of what they sent (remember R&R is an ad agency and people who work in advertising are, well, a little interesting to say the least):

All Twitterpated for Twitter

Rob Santwer, a digital marketing consultant at R&R, cited the rise of Twitter as his noteworthy event. Rob likes getting his news and information quickly, and Twitter makes him happy because it’s another example of how America’s ingenuity can bring about change in the world (reference the medium’s impact on the political process in Iran). He’s not alone. According to eMarketer, 12.1 million people use Twitter and that number is expected to climb to 18 million in 2010. I found a great Twitter blog that details the top new events, hashtags, sports events, people, etc., on Twitter in 2009. It’s cool. Check it out.

K9 Cop Meets R&R Employee

We had an overzealous R&R employee come to work at 5 a.m. recently. He showed up before sunrise to prepare for a presentation. Sounds like a job in advertising, doesn’t it? The only problem: The building alarm had gone off before he got here. He walked in through the back door, sat down at his desk and started working. Little did he know the police were searching the building with canines. You know … big, mean dogs with really keen noses and razor-sharp teeth. Our employee heard voices and popped up from his cube to say hello. A very large canine cop came running down the hall and lunged at the R&R employee. A human officer, who was just as stunned to see the R&R employee as the employee was to see to the cops, reached out and grabbed the dog’s collar just as his hot kibble breath reached our employee’s nose. Pat Carrigan, our director of Production Services, was thankful for the officer who saved our employee from the mouth of the police doggy.

Gaga for Gaga

Robin Milgrim, an art director in our Las Vegas office, is clearly gaga for Gaga. I can’t say I blame her. After years of pop stars badly regurgitating someone else’s lyrics to dance moves someone else invented, 2009 brought us Lady Gaga. Robin says it best when she writes:

“I’ve never been a fan of pop music, but I think the rise of Lady Gaga stands out this year. As an art director, I am wooed by her attention to theater and fashion. Whatever you think of her, or her music, Lady G stands out as a true artist – aware and in control of every aspect of her image. I say again, in control. Her actions are considerate and calculated. In a celebrity-driven world where so many are just vying to get airtime at any cost, Gaga makes a focused effort to entertain us on every level. She’s not entirely innovative, and could not have existed without artists like Madonna, Cher, Bowie, Elton and MJ laying the pavement, but she has taken everything her predecessors have done and rolled it all into one solid package, giving it just enough of a twist to make her stand out and feel fresh. As someone who generally gives credit to the world of alt/punk for breaking new ground, she gains my props for not being afraid to be controversial and for successfully mixing weird and sexy. Hence the bloody climax at the VMA’s… She makes me want to dress up like I did in the ’80s and dance my ass off in a gay club. As advertisers, I think we can learn a lot from her.”

Tiger, Tiger, Woods, Y’all!

OK, 2009 sucked big time for Tiger Woods, if not more for his poor wife and children. There is so much to say about Tiger Woods – where do you start? Jason Bailey, R&R’s research manager, found it just too ironic that Golf Digest ran a cover pre-TigerGate issue dated January 2010 – which, as you know, is like 10 mistresses later. The cover reads, “10 Tips Obama Can Take from Tiger.” As Jason says, “The unintentional comedy is a hole in one … ba-dah-dum!”

Anonymous Giving

Up north in Salt Lake City, our creative director, Kyle Curtis, lives next door to a nice family who lost their 16-year-old in a car crash. Anonymous donors reacted to the tragedy by paying for the 16-year-old’s funeral and bought the family a new car. Not that it can ever replace the loss of a child, but as Kyle says, “+1 for humanity.”

Cronkite Signs Off As We Sign on

Tara LaBouff, our public relations account supervisor in Phoenix, wrote this regarding the passing of Walter Cronkite and what it means to news in America:

“The news model is changing frantically as traditional outlets accept that they must compete with citizen journalists and digital delivery formats. When Walter passed away, it truly felt like the last page of an epic novel. Journalism as we knew it for the past century is now being practiced so differently from before. There is rampant speculation rather than presentation of facts, chronic interviewing of reporters by other reporters (rather than true subject matter experts), and few outlets employ fact checkers. The up side? Citizens have more ability than ever before to participate in the news discussion and digitally broadcast their side of the story. Going forward, whether journalism experiences another Walter Cronkite is still unwritten. For the moment, who America turns to as the “most trusted voice” appears to be the person most like you with a screen name and profile pic.”

So as we wave goodbye to 2009 and say hello to 2010, I want to wish you a happy and healthy new year. Remember, even when things seem to suck, you can always find something to smile about. I learned from this little exercise that good people still exist, Twitter is both good and maybe a little evil, Tiger should not give Obama advice, Gaga is good for pop music, and to not come to work early. But most of all, I learned people will always persevere and that human nature compels us to move forward. And, moving forward is positive enough for me.

Until 2010 … this is R&R’s resident Web geek saying “stay classy” blogosphere.

Hope I don’t get fined for this

Sal DeFilippo, Web Content Developer — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:55:05 +0000

I don’t have the latest version of the company handbook handy, so I’m a little hesitant to post this blog.

No, it isn’t that I’m concerned about posting potentially objectionable content. The only way my blog posts would be considered offensive or disturbing would be if my picture accompanied them. Fortunately, our site spares you of such visual anguish.

The problem, you see, is that it’s Friday afternoon and I’m engaging in social media on the company’s dime. If I post this before 5 p.m. and Tweet about it, I may be breaking some corporate policy and I can’t really afford a $7,500 fine right now.

The idea of being fined 7.5K for harmlessly using social media at work is silly, you say? Well, I’d agree. But apparently, it’s not so far-fetched to the folks at the NBA.

Case in point: Milwaukee Bucks’ first-year player Brandon Jennings made a classic social media rookie mistake last weekend, updating his Twitter account shortly after the Bucks won a thrilling double-overtime game against Portland.

Here’s what Jennings posted: “Back to 500. Yess!!! “500″ means where doing good. Way to Play Hard Guys.”

The league didn’t take issue with the content itself, although as a writer, I’d have fined Jennings for his missing decimals, using “where” instead of “we’re” and his bizarre capitalizations in the last sentence. OK, OK, I’ll stop being the grammar police. It’s Twitter, after all, and he’s not paid for punctuation.

The problem, as the NBA sees it, is that his post came at 10:39 p.m. — 15 minutes after the game ended. The league’s policy is that players can’t tweet during “game time,” which is defined as beginning 45 minutes before the game starts (which really isn’t game time, but whatever) and ending after players have finished talking to the media following the game — hardly a concrete guideline. What if nobody wants to talk to them? Are they done in five minutes?

Today, the league gave Jennings 7,500 reasons to wait a while longer before publicly sharing such privileged information as his team’s balanced won-loss record.

His response to the fine on Twitter slam-dunks my point home perfectly:

“I understand I got fined, but 7500? For being happy over a win, you would of thought I said something bad. I mean it was a big win for us.”

It’s not as if Jennings lambasted an official over a call, took shots at teammates or coaches or any of the other stuff that generally draws fines for professional athletes. This is one technical foul the league just should not have called.

Guys shouldn’t be tweeting from the free-throw line, sure, but 15 minutes after the game ends is no longer game time in my book. Especially after double overtime.

He was pumped about a big win and wanted to tell his fans about it. Is that a $7,500 offense? No.

Hey, speaking of the clock running out – it’s after 5! I just looked it up, and our policy says I can post something on social media after “shift time,” defined as beginning 45 minutes before my first cup of coffee and ending after I have finished talking to my boss about why I didn’t finish everything on my task list. Looks like I’m safe to post.

Social Marketing News 12/7/09

Rachelle Houle-Maisner, Interactive Producer — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:27:01 +0000

Editor’s note: Social Marketing News will now be posted each week on Mondays. Be sure to check our R&R’s Friday Inspiration posts every Friday.

Social Marketing News from 11/14/09 covered Rupert Murdoch’s statement about preventing Google from indexing News Corporation publications. This week, Google announced an update to its “First Click Free” program, partly in response to Murdoch’s threats I’m sure. First Click Free allows web users to access paid content, like news from newspaper websites, for free if they found that content through Google search. Now Google is giving more control to publishers, allowing them to lock out unregistered users after a defined number of page views. Google allows paid content providers to limit up to five free page views, per day- after that, users would be redirected to a registration page. Google search plays a huge role in helping users discover paid content, providing a significant amount of site traffic to many of these large publishers. So it makes sense for publishers to allow their content to be indexed by Google. However, publishers of premium content are also interested in making a profit. It will be interesting to watch what happens now, if News Corp. really does decide to completely block Google indexing, and if they decide to make an exclusive deal with Bing. If you’re still confused about First Click Free, check out this great 5-Click FAQ from Wired.

Google also announced a deal with Twitter this week to integrate the microblogging site with its own social media service, Google Friend Connect. That’s really interesting, because Google and Twitter are both in the race for real time search, so in a way Google and Twitter are competitors. It’s also interesting in light that Yahoo! and Bing have recently made deals with Facebook, and Google has yet to follow suit. Check out the Bing announcement here, and the Yahoo announcement here.

Speaking of Facebook, there’s a lot of talk about Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of privacy changes. If you’re worried, don’t be. The announcement, which was posted in a Facebook note to users, doesn’t reveal sweeping new privacy changes. It does say that Facebook is doing away with regional networks, which is a good thing. This only relates to privacy in that you won’t be able to share your photos and posts to all of your selected regional network, which would be the town you live in or the college you attended. If you’re anything like me, you didn’t do that anyway. Users have always had the option to select who sees what, and I generally limit my content to Friends, or Friends of Friends (if you need help understanding how to manage your Facebook privacy settings, leave a comment).

A more significant bit of Facebook news came from Mashable in a reveal of screenshots for the next redesign. This interface update is more extensive than the simpler News Feed/Live Feed update. I’m looking forward to the launch, these new layout changes should improve Facebook’s engagement and usability.

The best tablet computer interface that I’ve seen to date is this demo from Sports Illustrated. SI appears to be moving in the right direction transitioning from print to digital media.

If you’re considering a new mobile site, or looking to improve, check out this article from WSJ: Squeezing Web Sites Onto Cellphones.

Wrapping up, I wanted to point out two important articles from Brandweek. Be sure to read Why Social Sites Are Less Friendly to Video Ads, and A Marketer’s New Worry: Are My Ads Retweetable?