My top picks for social media news for the week of February 20, 2011:
Google Search Update:
Google has been working to try and enhance search, and this week, their update to search will have a noticeable impact on 11.8% of queries. The Official Google Blog describes the change:
“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”
eMarketer Study:
A recent study by eMarketer showed that by the end of 2010, more than half of U.S. Internet users were on Facebook monthly. In contrast, only 9% were using Twitter. By 2013, eMarketer expects there will be 152.1 million U.S. Facebook users and 27.7 million Twitter users. See the following chart for more information:
Facetime for Mac:
Facetime for Mac is now available in the Mac App Store. For $.99, Mac users can now Facetime iPhone 4 users, Mac users, or iPad users. The app even supports HD video calls. Download it here.
(Oh, and if you don’t have a Mac yet, Apple just announced their latest MacBook Pro).
“Like” Chipotle?
NBC has taken to social media to promote their new show, The Next Great Restaurant. The campaign is simple: Like “The Next American Restaurant” Facebook Page and watch the show promo video and you’ll get a coupon for Buy One Get One Chipotle (Fine print: The promotion runs through March 6th and the coupon expires 7 days after you view the video). “The Next American Restaurant” Facebook Page fan count has been growing substantially and is at nearly 150,000 fans.
Higher Ed Report:
A recent study indicates that colleges may be Facebooking students before accepting them. As AllFacebook described (in their article titled: Facebook Profiles Now Part of 80% Colleges’ Admissions Outreach),
“Recruiters aren’t the only ones looking at candidates’ Facebook profiles. Four out of every five college admissions offices look up prospective students on the social network. That statistic comes from the college admissions test-prep company Kaplan, which surveyed admissions counselors from ‘some of the top colleges and universities.’”
Consider the political demonstrations going on in the world. I followed the Egypt crisis to the extent that I understood what bearing it had on America, but as for Libya and Wisconsin, quite frankly it’s bad timing for the American attention span. Most of us have moved on, and are hoping for the best in those places (or, ignorant as it may be, just not caring either way). There’s too much else going on (hear about Bieber’s new haircut?) to pay attention to it all (we’ll just hope the Wisconsin thing doesn’t cause a shortage in cheese production).
It’s out of control. News aggregators and apps and social networks are supposed to make it easier for us to find, read and share the news, but technology is starting to make news consumption and distribution more complex. By now, most Americans are starting to settle on a small number of ways to get the latest scoops: they may read a newspaper, or browse a news website. Some also rely on interactive media, be it a morning email, a shared article by an acquaintance, or an RSS feed. The tech savvier of us will use a combination of these services for news, including some of the more niche apps for iPads and iPhones. I’ve started narrowing the services I use to get news to simplify my own news-getting life, which I hope makes it easier to stay on top of things.
Charging for a single news story is going to prove unsuccessful, as – let’s hope – I’m sure any media company is well aware by now. Even charging for in-depth investigative pieces is going to be a stretch for many readers who don’t have the time or interest to read or the desire to pay, unless the cost can be kept to mere pennies. My hope is that paid content at Media General or other companies would be stuff like vital public court documents that are of value to business owners (as 
28
Um meme é universal/A meme is universal
by Feedbackmeme – (n.) in Internet culture, an idea that is shared digitally across a culture. Also, typically funny.
When things on the Internet spread like wildfire as they often do, we might be tempted to assume that since we – the English-speaking Americans of the world – began using the web in earnest, that Internet culture is ours and ours alone.
But that, of course, is not the case.
From the cryptic blogs in the Cyrillic alphabet hosted on LiveJournal blogs to the old oekaki online drawing boards in Japan, foreigners have contributed just as much as Americans to the humorous or interesting posts we find on eBaumsWorld.com, that are emailed to us by friends, or are shared on Facebook. Digital emoticons, for example, are now used by the masses but first started popping up in international Usenet groups, one of the first forms of large-scale message boards from the 1980s. A smile or frown emoticon says the same thing no matter your nationality.
The Tenso meme, using a screengrab from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
The principle of how an Internet meme catches on also applies to viral videos, save one crucial detail: creating memes requires considerably less skill and equipment to create, capture and share with the Internet. And unlike videos, a photo meme can transcend the language barrier. A video that begins in America may only reach an English-speaking audience; but a funny picture that requires no caption or language knowledge to understand could end up flying around the world.
Tenso, which originated in Portuguese, is a beautiful example of such a meme.
Tenso memes are typically four-panel comics that showcase something that might not have been obvious in the original image. In most cases, this is drawing attention to someone who has a less than desirable facial expression in a photograph. An example, shown right, is taken from a concert scene in the film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World where an extra has a rather absurd face that doesn’t fit in with the crowd so much.
There are several instances of Tenso photos popping up on a forum called “Fórum Uol Jogos,” a popular Portuguese-language destination primarily for Brazilian Internet denizens to discuss pretty much anything from the latest video games to silly pictures like these.
Many memes are images adapted from their original media (a music video or a movie, for example) and applied to other pictures. Take the meme simply known as Dorgas, in which a Brazilian forensics dog has its picture taken in front of a large supply of narcotics. In the meme, people place a quote bubble above the dog’s head, and meme participants change what the dog is saying. The head of the dog has even been Photoshopped into the wildly popular “Advice Dog” meme, as well.
The Drago meme incorporated into the colorful Advice Dog meme.
Memes like this cross-pollinate on a near constant basis, turning pictures of a dog with a bit of text and point-blank humor into images that are instantly sharable and almost universally understood. It’s subtle humor that makes for big laughs and, if done correctly by a marketer, gives customers a reason to pay more attention to their brand.
So, to recap, memes must be:
- Simple.
- Funny.
- Universal.
“Language” is not necessarily included. Get all three of those right and you might have just created the next big Internet sensation.
- Brad (@bcarr)