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.’”

-Anna (@alucas9)

My top picks for social media news for the week of February 12, 2011:

Twitter Translation Center

This week, Twitter launched a translation center that uses crowdsource translations to quickly translate Twitter into different languages. The translation center will be used for French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Indonesian, Russian, and Turkish translations.  Visit the translation center at http://twitter.com/translate and follow @translator for updates.

A Win for Watson

“I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords,” Ken Jennings wrote on the screen in the final Jeopardy round this week.  This was in reaction to a three day series where top Jeopardy players Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter went up against… a computer. Not just any computer, IBM’s Watson computer was equipped with servers that equaled the size of 10 refrigerators (loaded with around 200 million pages of text). After the three day battle, Watson’s earnings totaled $77,147, Jennings’ winnings totaled $24,000, and Rutter’s earnings totaled $21,600. Watson was awarded $1 million dollars for the win, 100% of which went to charity.

National Broadband Map

The National Broadband Map, an initiative of the Obama administration, has gone live today. All Things D describes the initiative: “Nestled within that amount was $350 million to draw a map showing a detailed, block-by-block inventory of the existing broadband infrastructure in the U.S. It took two years, but the results were unveiled by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration today on the Web site Broadbandmap.gov.” It was found out that 68% of American households have access to a cable modem, a DSL Line, or a home fiber connection, 28.3% do not use the Internet (Woah!), and 5% to 10% do not have access to acceptable broadband speeds.

Social Bing…

This week, Bing announced a social toolbar update. The Bing Bar 7 allows web users to view Facebook, email, weather and other favorite sites without having to open a new tab. Facebook is Bing’s latest toolbar integration, allowing Facebook users to get information quicker and easier. Watch this video to learn more.

…Vs. Social Google

During the same day that Bing announced their new social toolbar, Google announced additions to social search. Contrary to Bing, one thing you won’t find in Google’s social search is Facebook. However, Google is integrating other popular social channels into search. When you are signed in to your Google account and search, you will now see results from people you’re connected to on Blogger, Twitter, Flickr, and Quora. Watch the following video to learn more.

-Anna (@alucas9)

Flying Facebook Style:

Facebook is the most visited site on Gogo inflight Internet. So, in conjunction with Gogo, seven major airlines are offering free Facebook access on Wi-Fi enabled airlines for the month of February. North American flights for Virgin America, United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta, AirTran, US Airways and Alaska Airlines will offer free Facebook access.

VeriPhone:

Pre-orders for the Verizon iPhone, which began on Thursday, have already sold out (they sold out within 17 hours). Not to worry, the Verizon iPhone will be available to order online on February 9^th, and will be in stores on February 10^th. Reviews are already coming in, and as expected, Verizon appears to have better iPhone service than AT&T.

Egypt’s Back on the Internet:

Image from CNET News

After a 5-day net blackout, Egypt’s Internet is back.  Sources say the Internet is back for the same reason it was taken away: to quell protests. The internet ban could have economic repercussions for Egypt. As The Huffington Post reported, “The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says the blocked services account for roughly 3-4 percent of economic output, resulting in a loss of $18 million per day for the Egyptian economy.”

Social Super Bowl:

Super Bowl weekend is finally upon us. Foursquare and the NFL have partnered up for the big game. If you check into the “Super Bowl Sunday” location and shout about which team you’re rooting for, you will receive a team-specific super bowl badge. Unlocking the badge also gets you 20% off of merchandise at NFLShop.com.

Also keep up with Twitter updates and trends at http://sbtwitter.nfl.com/. If you’re tweeting during the game, use the hashtags #superbowl and #sb45. The NFL also has a grid that displays real time trending around Super Bowl related topics.

iAd Success:

This week, a Nielsen study came out that compared Campbell’s mobile ad success with their TV ad success. Apple’s mobile ads (iAds), which debuted seven months ago, had an effectiveness study done and found that:

“Those exposed to one of Campbell’s IAds were more than twice as likely to recall it than those who had seen a TV ad. Indeed the five-week study, conducted by Nielsen, showed that consumers shown an iAd remembered the brand “Campbell’s” five times more often than TV ad respondents and the ad messaging three times more often.”

IAd respondents said they intended to purchase Campbell’s four times more than the TV group and that they liked the ad five times more. TV and mobile audiences were queried separately in mobile and online surveys. The TV audiences were part of Nielsen’s panel, while mobile users were recruited within various apps.” (Adage)

-Anna (@alucas9)

For those of you who haven’t been able to keep track of the most notable social media news of the week, not to worry. Here are my top 5 picks of the week:

Egypt & the Internet

Reports (like this one) have been coming in the past few days that Egypt’s government has censored the Internet. Last night, it appears that the government shut down the majority of Egypt’s Internet service. This is thought to be in reaction to the massive street protests over President Hosni Mubarak’s rule that have been spreading virally through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and SMS. It is reported that the most major social media channels have been blocked, cell towers have been deactivated, and Internet service has been taken away.

Captcha Who?

Facebook is amping up security by introducing social Captchas. So, instead of having to type in the warped letters (that sometimes make pretty awesome fake band names: http://twitter.com/#!/captchaband) as a security measure before posting, you will have to identify the name of a Facebook friend from a photo of them. As Facebook says, “We will show you a few pictures of your friends and ask you to name the person in those photos. Hackers halfway across the world might know your password, but they don’t know who your friends are.”

Old Spice Man Is Back

The Old Spice Man is back. He released a new video this week, which already has over 400,000 views, alerting fans that new Old Spice videos are on the way. For the next spot, Old Spice will be searching for a superfan to release the video through. As Mashable reported, “…the video will be e-mailed to one superfan sometime in the next couple of weeks, but well before the ad breaks on February 7, the day after the Super Bowl. The Procter & Gamble brand will not be advertising during the game…” Welcome back to the man who smells like a man, man.

LinkedIn Goes Public

LinkedIn is going public! This week, LinkedIn filed the initial public offering (IPO) paperwork. The price, date for the offering, and number of shares has yet to be disclosed. However, the corporation is hoping that selling public stock will raise them over $175 million dollars. To learn more about LinkedIn’s financials and their IPO plans, See this article.

Deck.ly

This week, Tweetdeck unveiled deck.ly, a platform that allows users to post more than 140 characters to Twitter. Apparently, Tweetdeck users have been requesting this for a while:

“From day one [of Tweetdeck], it was one of the things almost everyone was screaming about,” says Mr Dodsworth. “I’ve been very protective of the fact that [140 characters] is a platform limitation of the services we sit on top of and we have to have an element of respect for that. Going around that core tenet of Twitter could be a sensitive move. We don’t know how they feel about it. But we are tailoring to an audience that wants functionality the general user of Twitter doesn’t care about.” (Via FT Techhub blog)

-Anna (@alucas9)