Apr
02

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (04/02/10)

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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:

YouTube Redesign Rollout:

On Wednesday, YouTube rolled out a major redesign. The actual interface was revealed two months ago, & this week, the redesign was rolled out to millions of YouTube video viewers. Mashable describes the new YouTube as leaner and less cluttered with simplified navigation.

Facebook- Fans to Like:

This week, Facebook announced that they will be changing the way they ask users to connect with a page by replacing the word fan with like. So, instead of becoming a fan of a Page, you will be able to like a Page. This was announced on Monday by alerting Facebook advertisers that “fan” buttons will be replaced with “like” buttons on ads.

Twitter Homepage Change:

Twitter has completely changed their homepage. So now, Along with the search box and sign in or sign up information, Twitter’s homepage shows a sample of who’s on Twitter, what they’re tweeting about, and what big topics are being discussed.

Facebook Community Pages:

This week, Facebook has added an option for users to create Community Pages. A page falls into this category if it is an unofficial page, i.e. not for a company, brand, or public figure. So for example, if you want to create a Facebook Page for records or old radios, you’d use a Community Page. If the Community Page you create gets enough fans, it will be adopted and maintained by the Facebook community.

iPad Coming this Saturday:

For those of you eagerly awaiting the iPad, you may be in luck this weekend. On April 3, the iPad hits Apple stores. Wi-Fi only iPads go on sale this Saturday in Apple stores and select Best Buy stores. & As one would expect, iPad apps are now live on iTunes. The Wi-Fi & 3G capable iPads will be available later this month.

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Mar
19

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week – From Times Square (03/19/10)

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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. & this week I’m doing my picks from Times Square in NYC!

@Anywhere:

At SXSW Twitter announced the @anywhere platform, but did not give us any insight into their advertising model. @anywhere is an app that will allow people to access Twitter information on any site on the Internet.

Facebook Search:

This week Facebook announced an update to their search capabilities that uses the search bar to incorporate more relevant results based on your networks connections.

Location Battle:

SXSW interactive was all about the location apps, specifically Gowalla and Foursquare. Both were used a ton at SXSW but it was Gowalla that beat out the competition in the SXSW web awards winning for the mobile category.

March Madness Apps:

March Madness top 24 started on Thursday so for all you sports fans, I have some app recommendations for you so you don’t miss the scores. If you’re in a tournament there are apps such as ESPN Tournament Challenge where you can check your standing, there’s also tons of free apps to keep up with the scores such as NCAA’s March Madness On Demand Lite App.

Facebook # 1:

Reports came out this week from HitWise that Facebook beat out Google as the most visited site for the week ending March 13th. This is the first time Facebook has beat our Google, becoming the most visited and most popular U.S. website

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Mar
12

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (03/12/10)

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. (& 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:

Location, Location, Location

Facebook & Location:

This Tuesday, it was announced that Facebook will soon be adding location-based features to their site. Starting next month, the 400+ million Facebook users will be able to start seeing the current locations of their friends. Facebook will be announcing more details at the f8 conference at the end of April.

Twitter & Location:

Twitter is also putting more weight on geolocation. This Tuesday, Twitter turned on geolocation on their website for the first time. Twitter’s geolocation feature has been live through its API since last November, but this is the first it’s being integrated into the main Twitter website.

Foursquare & Location:

Foursquare is also upping their location-based app this week. They’ve revamped their iPhone app, announced new analytics tools for businesses, and has had their biggest check-in day ever. As foursquare tweeted on Thursday, “today is officially @Foursquare’s biggest day ever, Broke 275k checkins hours ago. Wow.”

Google App Marketplace:

This week, Google launched a new app store called Google App Marketplace. This new online store allows you to find, purchase, and use web-based applications easily through Google, and it allows developers to sell software directly to Google’s customers. View this video to learn more: http://bit.ly/99ZEVE

SXSW:

Today marks the kickoff of South By Southwest, a conference/festival in Texas that mixes interactive, music, and film. The interactive portion starts today and goes through March 16th. For those of you heading to SXSW, Mashable has The Complete Social Media Guide for SXSW 2010. For those of you not heading to Texas, you may want to check out your favorite social media sites this weekend to get the latest news and updates.

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Feb
26

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (02/26/10)

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Anna’s Social Media Picks of the week

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:

Facebook Pages & Google Real-Time Results:

This week, Google has started including Facebook Pages in their real time search results. Google announced this via status update on Wednesday, stating that “Public status updates from Facebook Pages now in real-time search: http://bit.ly/6YpCdy More about Facebook Pages: http://bit.ly/aYnAxf 04:10 PM Feb 24, 2010.” As of now, Facebook’s public user updates are not displayed on Google, but Twitter and MySpace updates are.

Rickroll Removed—and Brought Back:

This week, the original Rickroll video was removed…and then brought back. Earlier this week, the original “rickroll” video was removed from YouTube due to a copyright violation. The removal of the ever so popular (with over 30 million views) video of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” caused a bit of a stir over the internet. But not to worry…it’s back! It was mistakenly flagged by someone and is back of for your viewing pleasure…or displeasure

Facebook Patents the News Feed:

Facebook has patented the news feed! The patent, which was awarded to Facebook on Tuesday, gives Facebook executives the rights to “dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network.” This could have serious implications for other social networks. Read more about the patent and what it could mean in this ReadWriteWeb article.

What Not to Do with a Twitter Account:

If you’re going to invite people to follow your company on Twitter, you might want to make sure you give them the right Twitter handle. As Mashable reported this week, Denny’s Restaurant Chain made this mistake on their eat-in menus by inviting customers to “Join the Conversation” and follow @dennys on Twitter. The problem? @Dennys is the Twitter handle of a Taiwanese Twitterer named Dennys Hsieh, not Denny’s official restaurant account. Oops!

Who’s Using Social Media?

Well the largest 100 of Fortune 500 companies are. As Mashable reported, a new study completed by PR firm Burson-Marsteller, found that 79% of Fortune 100 companies use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs. 2/3rds have a Twitter account, over 50% have a Facebook fan page, 50% have a YouTube channel, and 33% have a corporate blog. The article also stated that There are a bunch of other interesting stats in the study — including proof that consumers actually do like to engage with companies via social media, making all those channels worthwhile.

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Feb
19

Dean & Jeff Take Over Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (02/19/10)

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Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest and coolest social media tools? YES. If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place. Anna JEFF AND DEAN searched the World Wide Web for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way. Here are my OUR picks of the week, hosted by Dean Browell (and EXTRA CREDIT POINTS to those who identify where our intro noise reference comes from):

Robble Robble:

One of the funniest critiques of the Foursquare “check in” craze we’ve seen… As people Tweet that they are at a location, PleaseRobMe.com aggregates those check-ins to make the point that you just admitted you aren’t home.

Facebook #2 in Visits, #1 in Attention/Engagement:

Maybe this whole social media thing is just a fad… But probably not. Looks like it’s truly becoming what the web just is in some ways. Facebook just overtook Yahoo for the #2 spot for website with the most visits and if you’re looking at pure attention and engagement it’s already #1.

PR vs. Social Media:

Kevin Smith’s embarrassing Southwest Airline problem turned into a he-said-she-said that proved doubly embarrassing for the airline who not only erred in their original judgement against Smith, but in multiple attempts to clean up their mess online. It exemplified the power of the Tweet and the helplessness of PR spin when up against social media. Need a better example? Richmond has it’s own going on right now.

Simple Tourism on Foursquare:

There’s a great article on how destinations can use Foursquare to market themselves. I love the one about helping visitors fulfill their “bucket lists” in particular.

BONUS - Facebook | New Privacy Controls for Your Applications:

Facebook might be a bit of a mess right now, but at least we can keep our friend’s Farmville Zombie Mafia Ninja’s out more effectively.

Don’t have any sympathy for Anna, she’s where the photo above was taken. We’re busy putting her mouse in a jello mold.

- Dean (@dbrowell) &  Jeff (@ideaman)

for 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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Feb
05

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (02/05/10)

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 (and 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:

Super Bowl & Social Media:
This Sunday is marks the 44th Super Bowl. & from a social media perspective, this Super Bowl is unlike any other. Pepsi decided to create a large social media campaign in place of a super bowl spot, companies, such as Coca Cola, are using social media to generate buzz around their Super Bowl spots and the NFL is even getting fans involved socially. The NFL created hashtag #SB44, and if you tag your Tweets and Flickr photos with this, it will show up on the official NFL site’s SB44 Page.

Facebook Redesign:

This week, Facebook began rolling out a major homepage redesign. Changes include:

  • The notifications bar has moved to the top menu
  • The left menu is now used to display friends content
  • Search is being emphasized more
  • Easier to view photos, send/receive messages, chat, and interact with gamesRea

Read more from the Official Facebook Blog.

Hovercards:

On Wednesday, Twitter began rolling out a new feature to help improve user experience. Named Hovercards, this feature allows you to see additional information about a user just by mousing..ehem..hovering over the username. You will be able to see the users bio, whether you follow them or not, and easily interact with them all without leaving the page you’re on.

Happy Birthday to Facebook:

On Thursday, Facebook celebrated their 6th birthday. In Zuckerberg’s blog, he wrote: “Facebook began six years ago today as a product that my roommates and I built to help people around us connect easily, share information and understand one another better.” It has grown from that to a global, massively popular networking site. Today, over 400 million people use Facebook.

Bravo & Foursquare

Foursquare is teaming up with traditional media. This week Foursquare and Bravo TV announced a partnership. On Monday, Bravo began offering specialized Foursquare player badges for players who visit any of the 500+ Bravo locations (the locations are based on select Bravo shows.) Bravo also plans to offer incentives and prizes for viewers who participate. It will be interesting to see if other advertisers follow suit and how such badges will change the make-up of Foursquare.

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Jan
29

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (01/29/10)

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 (and 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:

iPad:

On Wednesday, Apple had their much anticipated press conference, where Steve Jobs introduced apple’s latest product, the iPad. Here’s the facts:

  • 9.7 inch display
  • Runs iPhone apps
  • Can be used as an eReader
  • Holds music, photos, and movies
  • Has Wi-Fi capabilities
  • Comes in 3 different memory sizes
  • Starts at $499

The verdict? Well, according to Twitter, it’s split down the middle. A study from Trendrr revealed that 48% of tweeters reacted positively to the iPad unveiling & 52% did not.

Twitter’s Local Trends:

After a test roll out last week, Twitter has finally made local trends available to all. As of now, everyone can view trending topics for 15 different cities and 6 different countries. So, if you want to see real time results of what’s trending in D.C., or even Brazil, now you can. Worldwide trending is still available, and Twitter is working to get more locations added to the list.  Learn more from Twitter’s Blog spot here.

The Facebook Friend Study:

An interesting study documented this week says our brains can’t keep up with the amount of friends we have on Facebook. It’s similar to a study done in the 1990’s known as Dunbar’s number, which concluded that the human brain is only capable of managing friendships with 150 people. The study is now in the process of being done again, and this time it’s taking online relationships into account, such a Facebook friends. The preliminary findings are out, and the interesting thing is that it appears nothing has changed…our brains are still only capable of maintaining 150 relationships- be it online or offline.

Data Privacy Day:

Yesterday, January 28, 2010, was International Data Privacy Day. Data Privacy Day is a day used to raise awareness and promote online privacy education. Many social media publications “celebrated” by providing a bit of privacy education. AllFacebook has an article on the 5 Facebook Privacy Tips You Need To Know Now, Wired has an article discussing the necessity of safe passwords, and a ReadWriteWeb wrote an article on some of the issues with privacy online.

LinkedIn’s Connection Browsing Updates:

It was announced this week that LinkedIn will soon be rolling out new ways to browse connections. LinkedIn is adding a panel that makes it easier to browse contacts by location, company, or industry. The social networking site  is also tagging connections with keywords, such as “colleague”, “classmate”, and “friend,” and has added an option to browse by recent activity.

-Anna (@alucas9)

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Jan
15

Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (01/15/10)

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:

Haiti Relief

Since disaster struck Haiti this Tuesday, with a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, social media has become a huge mechanism for disaster relief. Here are some ways social media is involved in helping:

- There have been over $5 million in donations to the Red Cross for Haiti, via Text Message

- Facebook pages and groups have rallied support, such as Facebook’s new Global Relief Page

-Google donated $1 million to Haiti Ground Support

- Word of mouth spreading via Facebook and Twitter users

Google Considers Pulling out of China

In December, Google’s infrastructure was attacked. The attack, which originated in China, was an attempt to hack email accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Google has now decided to take a new approach to China. At the risk of having to pull out of China altogether, Google has made the decision to no longer censor results on Google.cn. Read the full Google Blog post here.

I’m with COCO

Last week was all about bra color on Facebook; this week, it’s all about CoCo. You may have heard the rumors that NBC was going to move The Jay Leno Show to later in the evening, pushing back the Tonight Show and The Late Night Show. Conan O’Brien wasn’t the only one upset by this decision- his fans have taken to social media to spread their disapproval. “I’m with CoCo” is a Facebook Page dedicated to supporting Conan regardless of what happens with the network…and it already has over 150,000 fans.

Growing Matters

Growth matters to Facebook, which is trying to expand our friend lists. This week, Facebook has made the automatic friend finder front and center on your news feed, showing three of your current friends who have used this feature, in attempt to get you to use it too. Growth also matters to Twitter, which is defending their growth. On Monday, Mashable posted an article showing stats on how Twitter hasn’t grown for several months. On Tuesday, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams tweeted about how usage is on the rise:

“Across all metrics that matter, yesterday was Twitter’s highest-usage day ever. (And today will be bigger.)”

Facebook Criminal Caught

In other social media news, the “Facebook criminal” has been caught. Craig “Lazie” Lynch escaped from a minimum security prison in September 2009, where he was serving a seven year sentence for burglary. After his escape, he taunted police on Facebook by posting pictures and status updates while on the run. It is not known whether Facebook lead to his arrest, but Lynch was apprehended in England on Tuesday night. When he escaped, he had 199 fans, and now has over 11,000 fans. He also had a Page, which has since taken down by Facebook, that had over 40,000 fans.

-Anna (@alucas9)

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