Mar
26

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (03/26/10)

by Feedback

Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest and coolest social media tools? If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place. (& if the answer is yes, leave a comment with your favorites). I have searched the World Wide Web for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way.

Here are my picks of the week:

Bing & Google Maps:

This week, Bing launched a Foursquare app, which allows people to see tips and comments on places from Foursquare users. This is part of Bing’s larger Map Apps feature, which allows Bing to bring relevant data from their partners into their maps. Google Maps was also mentioned this week, they’re testing out including hotel prices on Google maps.

More Bing News:

Other changes to Bing were announced this week. They have added a Bing Box to their search results. For popular search categories (such as celebrities, cities, companies, musicians) the Bing Box will include the official website of the top search result, as well as other relevant information. Bing also announced that there will be a new set of search appropriate tabs under the search bar, and a new page dedicated to automotives.

Twestival 2010:

Thursday was Twestival 2010, a global event where tech & social media savvy people gather together to raise money for charity. All proceeds from the events that took place went to Concern Worldwide, an organization dedicated to reducing suffering & eliminating poverty. Why it matters: It helps raise money for charity, raise awareness for the cause, and paves the way for more social media fundraising campaigns.

Digg’in the iPhone:

Digg’s iPhone app launched this week, and within 24 hours became the #1 news app worldwide. Digg is also incorporating social media into their awareness campaign. They’re giving an iPad away everyday for two weeks. All you have to do is follow taptaptap on twitter and tweet about the app. To learn more about the give-away go here: http://bit.ly/a4ywsG

Twitter’s Contributors Feature:

Twitter has finally started rolling out the contributor feature, which allows multiple people to tweet from one account while still having their individual names noted. As TechCrunch noted, “Contributors is thought to be part of Twitter’s plan to give premium features to businesses.”

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Mar
05

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (03/05/10)

by Feedback

Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest and coolest social media tools? If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place. (& if the answer is yes, leave a comment with your favorites). I have searched the World Wide Web for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way.

Here are my picks of the week:

10 Billion Tweets:

Late Thursday night, Twitter hit, and has now surpassed, 10 billion tweets. That’s a lot of Tweets. Other milestones: Twitter broke 1 billion Tweets in November 2008 and 5 billion Tweets just four months ago.

Social Media In Dollars & Cents:

Staying on the topic of billions, my second pick of the week is how much different social media networks are worth. According to SharesPost, Facebook is worth $11.5 billion, Twitter is worth $1.4 billion, and LinkedIn is worth $1.3 billion.

YouTube Captions:

YouTube automatic captions are now available on ALL English language videos. Google’s translation technology also makes it possible to translate captions into over 50 different languages. Google noted that there will be over 700 million people who will suffer from hearing impairment by 2015, so this will be a great tool to help address those needs.

ShareThis Gets More Social:

Share buttons are getting more social. This week, one of the largest sharing button networks, ShareThis, has introduced Share Stream, a site that shows you what your Facebook friends are sharing across the web. Soon, your Twitter followers will be included in this new share stream as well.

Facebook: Larger Photos:

Facebook has officially launched resized photos. Facebook has increased photo image size by almost 20%, giving users a higher quality photo. As AllFacebook mentioned, “While on the surface this isn’t a big deal, Facebook runs the largest online photo storage product which means this is a relatively substantial technical feat.”

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Feb
12

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (02/12/10)

by Feedback

Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest and coolest social media tools? If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place. I have searched the World Wide Web for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way. Here are my picks of the week:

Foursquare & Zagat:

Last week, Foursquare teamed up with Bravo! TV. This week, they’ve partnered with Zagat (a restaurant review and rating website). Users can now follow Zagat on Foursquare, and get insider tips and reviews on restaurants located in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston. There’s also a Zagat foodie badge that can be earned by dining at Zagat rated restaurants.

Tweet Growth:

A month ago, we saw stats that Twitter wasn’t growing. This week, there’s new stats out saying it is. The newest study, done by Pingdom, looked at the amount of Tweets being generated, and took into account all Tweets, including those form third-party Twitter applications. There was the key findings of the study (via Pingdom):

  • December 2009 was the first month Twitter processed more than one billion tweets (with 1.036 billion tweets)
  • January 2010 had 16 times as many tweets as January 2009
  • The activity on Twitter has doubled since August 2009
  • January 2010 saw more tweets per day (39.5 million) than the whole of September 2008

Google Buzz:

Most of you have probably heard some buzz around the web about Google Buzz. This week, Google introduced Google Buzz, a new social tool that allows you to share updates, photos, videos, and more…all via Gmail. You can share items publicly with the world, or privately with friends, and you can also connect Buzz with other sites such as Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, and Twitter. Watch this video to learn more about Google Buzz.

Google Buzz Kill?:

Not all the buzz surrounding Google Buzz is positive. Articles such as What’s Wrong and How to Fix it, Google Buzz Privacy, and Google Buzz? More Like Buzz Kill, shed light on some of the issues with Google Buzz. A major concern was that privacy settings were too complicated to change, so on Thursday, Google fixed that issue. As for Google Buzz in general? The verdict is still out on whether it will catch on.

Bonnaroo:

If you know Dean Browell (@dbrowell) or follow him on Twitter or Facebook, you probably know the entire Bonnaroo line-up. Why? A.) because well…he loves Bonnaroo B.) Because Bonnaroo was very savvy about how they spread the word about their line-up. Bonnaroo used MySpace to slowly trickle out the news of whose performing at Bonnaroo. Announcements began and 12pm on Tuesday, and didn’t end till 9 pm, which meant people were abuzz all day about specific bands that had been confirmed. This kept Bonnaroo in Twitter trending throughout the day, kept people talking about Bonnaroo, and got everyone even more excited about the upcoming festival.

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Dec
11

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (12/11/09)

by Feedback

Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest and coolest social media tools? If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place (& if the answer is yes, please leave a comment with your favorites). I have searched the World Wide Web for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way. Here are my picks of the week:

Google Chrome:

On Monday, Google announced that Google Chrome was finally available for Mac, Linux, and other extensions. Although PC’s have had this web browser since last fall, most Mac users didn’t get to test it out until this week. Google Chrome has the features we’ve come to expect (speedy and secure) as well more modern features including crash protection and an easy to use address bar (in which you can type in web addresses or keywords for a search).

Pandora Moves Automotive:

This week, Gigaom reported that Pandora is preparing to move into the automotive space. According to Pandora’s CTO, half of Pandora’s mobile listeners are using their phones or iPod touches in the car (by plugging in). Plugging in to jam out to Pandora may eventually be a thing of the past; Pandora has already struck a deal with Ford, and is planning to release more information at next months CES event.

Real Time Results:

On Monday, Google began adding real time results to its search engine. This real time search will gather content from Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace as it’s created. Only Public updates from MySpace and Facebook will be included in real time search results.

Facebook’s Privacy?:

Last week, I wrote about how new privacy settings were coming to Facebook. Well this week they’ve started rolling out these features. The only thing is, status updates and shared content seem to be less secure as a result. According to Read Write Web, Facebook’s new default option is to allow status updates to be visible to “everyone.” Here’s some of the reasons why Facebook changed their policy: http://bit.ly/4ATT3A

Best of 2009:

Now that it’s December, a lot of people are coming out with the “Bests of 2009.” This week, Apple released their top songs, movies, and apps of 2009 (view all here: http://bit.ly/6CFVwV) which included picks such as Kings of Leon’s “Only by the Night” (Album), Twilight (movie), and Sims3 (app). The Top 10 Viral Videos of 2009 are also out (http://bit.ly/5FmJqn), as is ReadWriteWeb list of Top Startup Products of 2009 (http://bit.ly/6hzeYY)

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Dec
04

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (12/04/09)

by Feedback

Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest and coolest social media tools? If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place. (& if the answer is yes, leave a comment with your favorites). I have searched the World Wide Web for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way. Here are my picks of the week:

Cyber Monday:

On Monday, many celebrated the online deals “holiday” known as Cyber Monday. Well, the stats are in. Traffic went down 9% from 2008, while overall sales increased 13.7% over last year. And, a strictly online store made the most sales of the day. Out of the top 500 retail sites, Amazon had the most sales (15.53%). Another thing online users saw a lot of on Monday, other than deals, was the Fail Whale. Issues with the Lists feature caused Twitter to have errors throughout the day.

More Privacy on Facebook:

Marc Zuckerberg wrote an open letter from Facebook on Tuesday, announcing that an update to privacy settings will be coming to Facebook in the next few weeks. These privacy settings include the elimination of regional networks, more privacy settings (including privacy options for individual status updates), and a less confusing privacy setting page.

Be Square:

Square is a new mobile phone payment service being created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. This week, their website became live, taking us one step closer to having this device available for our mobiles. It appears this payment service will work with both iPhone and Android phones. For more information and to see Square being used, watch this TechCrunch video: http://bit.ly/7oTyH7

Project Rushmore:

On Wednesday, Yahoo released more detail on what they’re calling “Project Rushmore,” a plan to integrate major social networks into their search engines. We now know that Yahoo is planning to integrate Facebook Connect into its search engines, Flickr, and its email. Good move, since Bing and Google have already announced social media elements to come.

I Love You, Social Media:

Social Media. We love it. But do we love it enough to marry it? Well, no… but for one happy couple, the groom loved it enough to use it while getting married. Tweeting, and changing his relationship status to “married” from his mobile phone at the Altar ensured no one missed the news of the wedding. Watch the YouTube video here: http://bit.ly/5ExvxE

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Nov
23

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week- Thanksgiving Edition

by Feedback

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday full of family, food, football…and in this case, social media. I have created a social media guide to Thanksgiving, with 5 picks to make sure you have a tech savvy, and of course, a Happy Thanksgiving.

Tweetsgiving

Bring social media and giving together this Thanksgiving- with Tweetsgiving (@Tweetsgiving). Tweetsgiving is a global celebration created by Epic Change that is scheduled for November 24- 26, 2009. The whole idea is to give thanks using social tools and give back to a common cause.

You can participate by attending a gratitude party, spreading gratitude on the web, or by hosting a house party: http://bit.ly/1VoyKS

Tweetsgiving in Richmond through Social Media Club: http://tweetsgivingrva.eventbrite.com/

Football

There are tons of free, pro football apps (the one I use is Pro Football Live) that you can get scores with- so you won’t have to miss a touchdown while at the table on Thanksgiving.

Also, NFL online has your Football guide for Thanksgiving day. Here’s the line-up:

Packers Vs. Lions
12:30 pm on Fox

Raiders Vs. Cowboys:
4:15 pm on CBS

Giants Vs. Broncos:
8:20 pm on NFL Network

Black Friday

If you love technology as much as I do, you’ll want to know what deals are out there on all the latest and greatest high tech gadgets…especially on Black Friday.

To find technology related deals, and any other deals on Black Friday, check out any of these websites:
Blackfriday.info
Crunchgear.com/bf09
bfads.net

Want to find deals via your iPhone? If so, you can download TGI Black Friday (free) or the Black Friday Wish App ($3.99).

Thanksgiving Recipes

I’m sure your Thanksgiving menu is almost complete, but if you find yourself in need of a last minute recipe, you can turn to Facebook or your iPhone for help.

The Food Network on Facebook has a whole page dedicated to recipes for Thanksgiving. You can even “attend” an event called “RSVP for Food Network Thanksgiving” and get special planning tips and recipes.

There are also tons of apps you can download for your iPhone, such as
Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List (Free) or iCooking American Celebrations ($0.99).

Embrace Thanksgiving, Socially.

Are you a fan of Thanksgiving? If so, literally become a fan…on Facebook.

Love Turkey? Follow @Butterball on Twitter.

Other ways to embrace social media on Thanksgiving:
• Send your friends and family special Thanksgiving wishes via Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace
• Post your favorite pictures from Thanksgiving on Flickr
• Check-in on FourSquare while running around on Black Friday

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Nov
06

Anna’s Social Media Pick’s of the Week (Week of November 1, 2009)

by Feedback

Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest and coolest social media tools? If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place. (& if the answer is yes, leave a comment with your favorites). I have searched the World Wide Web for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way.

Here are my picks of the week:

Google Dashboard

Google knows where you’ve been searching, and now, you can know what Google knows. On Thursday, Google launched a dashboard where you can view all of the data associated with your account- be it recent searches, calendar items, or emails. The best part about the dashboard is that it contains direct links where you can control your personal settings, allowing you to increase privacy settings & clear your web history. View the Google Dashboard here

Verizon Vs. AT&T

Verizon & AT&T seem to be battling it out these days. Verizon’s new smartphone The Droid, is positioning itself as better than the iPhone (View “iDont” Commercial here) & Verizon is positioning their 3G Coverage as better than AT&Ts (View “There’s a Map for That” Commercial here). This week, AT&T has filed a False Advertising lawsuit against Verizon. AT&T believes the “There’s a Map for That” ads are misleading, stating that customers might mistake the map portraying 3G coverage for a map portraying wireless service coverage. Oh, can’t you two just get along.

There Really is an App for That

Well, one thing the iPhone does have over all of the new Smartphone’s coming out is the number and variety of apps they have available for purchase. On Wednesday, Apple announced that there were 100,000 apps available at the iTunes store. The surprising thing is that of those only 20% are being used. & keep in mind that over 2 billion apps have been purchased by iPhone and iTouch users. It sounds to me like we have a lot of un-tAPPed apps to discover.

Yahoo’s Search is More Musical Too

In last week’s “Pick’s of the Week,” I discussed Google’s new music search features. This week, Yahoo! announced that they have made their search more musical too. Now, when you search for music on Yahoo!, the results will include popular YouTube videos related to your search. Results will also include videos of top albums and songs.

Facebook: Now You Can Dislike

There‘s been a few times that I’ve wished there was a “dislike” button next to the “like” button on Facebook. Like, when people say “I’m studying all night long for a really hard exam,” or “I have H1N1.” I don’t like when people are stressed or sick. Now, with a plug-in from Firefox, you really can “dislike” something with a click of a button. But, as this article from Mashable warns, be careful what you dislike. You might not want to go around disliking status updates from friends that say “I got a job” or “I’m going to be a mother;” If you do, that you might end up with a few less friends in the process.

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Oct
28

Facebook & Twitter on XBox: Video Sneak-Peek

by Feedback

Dean of Feedback provides a quick walkthrough of the Facebook and Twitter features coming to XBox Live users in November. These two special versions of the apps include some interesting features and some equally interesting omissions. Find out how XBox 360 users will connect in this video.

-Dean (@dbrowell)

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