Active Tweeters
At the Web2.0 Summit Twitter CEO Dick Costolo shared statistics on active users. Twitter now has 100 million month active users, and of those 50% log in everyday. Twitter isn’t catching up to Facebook just yet. Facebook has more than 800 million active users, and of those 50% log in everyday.

iPhone 4$:
With a dual-core AA5 chip, new camera and optics, iCloud and Siri (Apple’s voice recognition app), the iPhone 4S is pretty impressive. Sales for the newest iPhone are pretty impressive as well. Let’s look back a bit: it took 74 days to sell the first million iPhone’s and it took three weeks to sell three million iPhone 4′s.

Drumroll, please.

It only took one weekend to sell 4 million iPhone 4S’, making a new iPhone sales record.

Now, for those of you who don’t have it yet, the question is “To upgrade or not to upgrade?”

Social & Mobile
Highlights from a recent ComScore Study:

Those using social networks from their mobile device grew 37% in the past year and more than half accessed social networks almost every day.

Facebook’s mobile audience is approaching 60 million users. In the past year, mobile posts grew by 50% on Facebook,  75% on Twitter and 69% on LinkedIn.

70% of mobile social networkers posted a status update from their phone and the majority of them read posts from brands from their device.

“Social Jobs”
Facebook and the Department of Labor are working together to connect job-seekers and employers through Facebook. Called Social Jobs,  “The partnership’s goal will be to facilitate employment for America’s jobless through the use of social networks.” Social Jobs aims to provide job postings and resources for job-seekers and recruiters. Like “Social Jobs Partnership” on Facebook to learn more: https://www.facebook.com/socialjobs. (With never-ending privacy issues, I wonder if people will be weary of “Social Jobs” as many don’t want potential employers seeing any part of their Facebook life.)

Are You LinkedIn with your Classmates?
While Facebook was adding features to help users find jobs, LinkedIn was busy adding a feature to help users expand their network. “LinkedIn Classmates” is a new feature that makes it easier to connect with alumni from your college/university. As LinkedIn described,  “In the years since college, your classmates have become experienced professionals, industry experts, potential clients and trusted colleagues – in short, people who can help you expand your horizons.” This new tool allows you to see where alumni work, what they do, and where they live. You can also see what you have in common now, making it easier to network and connect with them.

-Anna (@alucas9)

This very change, as small and undramatic as it has been incorporated, provides a fantastic look into the future of search and the contextual web. Consider how the open display of credibility and validation will change how we find information. We already see the results of that, in theory, in how search already plays out. We assume that the relevance determined by the wizard behind the Google curtain with every click of a “search” button.

Is there an assumed trust that all of those people who find this useful or like something are being sincere and are for real? Certainly, just as we assume when we search now that what appears first is truly relevant (paid ads aside – not that the first unpaid ad hasn’t ostensibly paid to be listed high via optimizing, etc.). AllFacebook.com wonders aloud about “like baiting” as well, but in some ways that still feels less nefarious than engineering a page that has no business showing up so high in a ranking to appear first, even if it actually has no relevance– a practice that happens every day in our typical search.

But then imagine how the actual display of the relevance, such as number of likes, incorporates the, “Is This Review Useful”-ization of the web. In some ways it’s fundementally taking the algorithm away from tinkerers and into the hands of motivated consumers — for good or ill. (And I’m not saying this is a good or bad thing, just fascinated that and how it’s happening.) Facebook wants to create a “social semantic search engine” that essentially runs off of the interactions of people as relevance fuel, not meta data tricks. This very urge and their platform and critical mass of interactions in which to try it means we will have a lot to chew on in the near future as the underpinnings of information display in search give way to new supports.

Google’s caching Tweets and displaying in some first searches. Facebook is listing by Like. Where will we be next year as sentiment creeps not just into our results, but into the algorithm itself?

-Dean (@dbrowell)

10 Things You Need To Know About the New Facebook Privacy Changes: http://bit.ly/cVvLoP
Can you imagine a company that makes physical products being able to backpedal this fast and publicly? No? Me neither. Check out the ever-helpful AllFacebook.com for tips on those new privacy controls.

The Half-Life Of A YouTube Video Is 6 Days: http://bit.ly/dkJUYO
Or: why you need to get that video up FAST.

Why Facebook Community Pages Are No Big Deal For Brands…Eventually:  http://bit.ly/cUEQNe
One of the single most perplexing things for brand managers right now is the sudden appearance of “Community Pages” – a weird cross between Wikipedia and a living Facebook Wall, these have cropped up for some but not all random subjects, brand names, employers and more. This article explains why over time they won’t be so confusing or important, but right now they’re causing consternation…

PA Becomes First State to Join Foursquare: http://bit.ly/c7IjKq
You know you want the, “PA Retail Polka” Badge :)

Why BP Isn’t Fretting Over Its Twitter Impostor: http://bit.ly/aEOmgv
While the comedic value is sometimes hit and miss, the fact it has been left alone is telling enough. Read why BP isn’t pulling the plug on a sarcastic rival PR horn.

We had an incredible time at the New England Society of Healthcare Communications this week in beautiful Stowe, VT. Feedback presented the keynote, moderated a panel on social media and New England hospitals, and gave a talk/discussion on generational differences. The NESHCo group is a great group of folks!

For those just joining us from that conference or others:

The gnome is watching you...

Feedback on Facebook (Facebook.com/FeedbackFB)
Where you’ll find  our active links, commentary, great discussions, photos, video and more on a daily (heck, hourly) basis… just click “Like” and you’re in!

Feedback on Twitter (@feedbackagency)
Twitterers can get their fix on our stream here, linking to great articles, thoughts and more!

And of course here on our blog and on YouTube (user: FeedbackVideos) you can catch Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week.

Have a safe holiday weekend everyone!

-Dean (@dbrowell)

Feedback on Facebook (Facebook.com/FeedbackFB)
Where you’ll find  our active links, commentary, great discussions, photos, video and more on a daily (heck, hourly) basis… just click “Like” and you’re in!

Feedback on Twitter (@feedbackagency)
Twitterers can get their fix on our stream here, linking to great articles, thoughts and more!

And of course here on our blog and on YouTube (user: FeedbackVideos) you can catch Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week every week. We’re thrilled you’re here and hope you enjoy what you see – contact us (804-893-3437) for more!

-Dean (@dbrowell)

Twitter’s ad model for Promoted Tweets is based on a per-thousand buy of viewers who will see a Tweet at the top of their search results that has been chosen for “promotion” by a paying company. This result will reside at the top regardless of when it was posted, meaning companies can circumvent the deafening cry of other Tweets about the same subjects that could bury their comment over time or over frequency.

This also makes for an interesting paid-placement opportunity for dealing with public relations nightmares, or quickly reacting to industry or popular trends, shoe-horning in a brand’s thoughts into every search.

The actual form of the ad? Essentially it’s just a “Golden Tweet” or “Timeless Tweet” that has all the same properties of a normal Tweet, plus “promoted” tag, that allows for interaction as normal and obeys all rules except for the chronology. Presumably this timelessness is how it will be inserted even in search queries from third-party applications.

One underreported function is that company’s appear to be able to promote Tweets they didn’t generate. In other words, a Tweet selected for promotion may be an incredibly positive review, for example. Consider industries such as healthcare, where slim official Tweeting by hospitals means meaningful Tweets are buried under a flood of job posts, etc.

Promoted Tweets is an interesting and unique development from Twitter, who before now has eschewed advertising and frequently stated they were interested in models that did not deviate from Twitter’s core functions (i.e. an integrated advertising design rather than interruptive such as banner ads). The success of Promoted Tweets and the other models coming in subsequent “phases” remains to be seen, but in my opinion appears promising.

-Dean (@dbrowell)

@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 13^th. This is the first time Facebook has beat our Google, becoming the most visited and most popular U.S. website

-Anna (@alucas9)

This means all sorts of potential uses, from even more specific community uses to a very robust search angle (ReadWrite Web does a great run-down here). For now we’ll have to watch as the first to bat roll out the feature in third-party applications – Twitter hasn’t actually devoted any new features on their own website toward the feature. In fact, even their more powerful search tool (based on Summize, R.I.P.) still bears the older location-search based on the city users name in their account.

One of my questions with the opt-in model is whether opt-In refers only to whether my Tweets communicate to the public where I am—in other words, does Twitter have a way to know where I am even if I’m not including it in my Tweets? Before last week they tweaked the privacy policies of Twitter users to nod to Geotagging:

“You may choose to note your location in your Tweets and in your Twitter profile. You can control your location information in your account settings.”

Seems clear that it truly is turned off from a Tweet standpoint- but is there an angle where you have not chosen to make information public but Twitter could still collect it? In Twitter’s policies there is an interesting line:

“Most of the information you provide to us is information you are asking us to make public.”

Huh. “Most.” Hmm.

“We engage certain trusted third parties to perform functions and provide services to us. We may share your personal information with these third parties, but only to the extent necessary to perform these functions and provide such services, and only pursuant to obligations mirroring the protections of this privacy policy.”

A thorough description of Geotagging on Twitter exists on their Zendesk help forums here. In it one can find a few key phrases that aren’t as comforting:

“Anyone can see it: even if you delete it, we cannot guarantee it will be removed from every partner.”

Translation: Twitter has “partners” that will be caching (or already are) your Tweets. Note the language change here – they specifically refer to “apps” and “application developers” prior to this in the piece, but in this line they use the word “partner” explicitly. Given recent announcements by Microsoft, Google and just last week Yahoo, this bodes well for the longevity of Tweets being extended beyond the short shelf life they have now.

“Turning it off does not remove historical data. You can, however, remove all of your prior data.”

Translation: Twitter sees a distinction between “historical” data and “prior” data. This may seem confusing, but it’s an important point when you look at it in context of the “partner” comment—Twitter may not be the one archiving its history.

In the section, “How do I remove location information from a tweet?” they instruct:
There are two options for removing location data:

“Delete the tweet”

or:

“Remove all of your location history by clicking the ‘delete all location data’ button on your settings page. This can take up to 30 minutes, but it will scrub all location information from prior tweets completely. It is good to note, however, that this does not guarantee the information will be removed from all 3rd party application’s copies of the data.”

Translation: If it takes 30 minutes, this means they have to scrub the location from each Tweet, insofar as a “Tweet” is an archived and distinct piece of data that has several moving parts. It does make me wonder whether this signals an opportunity to have discrete parts to Geotagging rather than just the binary on or off. For example, perhaps I just want to indicate the city rather than my exact location (and don’t want to go through the tedious process of updating my account profile every time)? This kind of nuance has been available with Brightkite for years now, it will be interesting to see where Twitter goes and how quickly others like Foursquare can adapt and incorporate.

Geolocation is certainly a good thing, and exactly what we knew Twitter had to add. Watch how fast Facebook starts pulling back the curtain on what they’re working on. But in the meantime: Does all this mean custom ads based on Geolocation? Tweeting habits crunched and analyzed by Twitter and “partners” for all sorts of advances? Lots of ways this could shake down. Grabm your popcorn folks and watch what plays out as the app developers scramble to let your holiday travel Tweets tell us you’ve gone over the river and through the woods…

-Dean (@dbrowell)

-Dean (@dbrowell)