According to Nielsen NRG’s 2012 American Moviegoing report, owners of wireless mobile devices go to movie theaters at a higher rate than the average cinema fan. The report also suggests that smartphone and tablet users spend more money on entertainment in general. Interestingly, about 30 percent of moviegoers explained that comments on social media sites had affected their choice of films to attend. Continue reading Nielsen Study Says Mobile Users Make Better Moviegoers

Twitter’s acquisition of Bluefin Labs will allow the social media giant to better understand and value promoted tweets. Bluefin Labs, an MIT startup, analyzes reactions to specific TV shows and advertisements by not just measuring how many people comment on a particular item, but also ranking the amplitude of the sentiment. By analyzing the effectiveness of television advertisements, Twitter can help companies create effective Twitter ads as well. Continue reading Twitter Acquires Bluefin Labs to Analyze Promoted Tweets

The 34-minute Super Bowl power outage caused a Twitter uproar, but while many fans used social media to make jokes, Oreo seized the opportunity to launch a viral marketing campaign. Oreo’s 15-person Super Bowl social media team reacted quickly to the blackout, tweeting an ad that read “Power Out? No problem.” The Tweet was accompanied by the image of a single Oreo in a half-blacked out setting with the caption, “You can still dunk in the dark.” Continue reading Oreo Goes Social for Spontaneous Super Bowl Advertising

Hackers have carried out a sophisticated attack on Twitter, prompting the company to release a statement explaining how its “investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information — usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords — for approximately 250,000 users.” The nature of the attack suggests it could be part of a larger effort. Continue reading Twitter Hacked: 250,000 Users Affected by Recent Attack

Early numbers indicate that last night’s Super Bowl between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers broadcast on CBS set new records for number of TV viewers and amount of social activity on Facebook and Twitter. Interestingly, the two events that triggered the greatest number of Tweets did not involve the teams or players, but rather Beyonce’s halftime show and the partial blackout during the third quarter. Continue reading Super Bowl Sets New Records for Viewing and Social Activity

A recent survey suggest that while six out of 10 small business owners say they believe social media tools are valuable to their company’s growth, just three percent of the 835 surveyed believe Twitter has the most potential to help the company. Twitter faces challenges convincing small business owners of the advantages of using the short-messaging system to reach customers and expand their brands. Continue reading Small Businesses See More Potential in LinkedIn Than Twitter

Twitter is getting ready to launch its advertising API sometime in the first quarter. Many have speculated that 2013 would be the year that the social network would reach the $1 billion mark in advertising revenue. The introduction of mass-market advertising could help achieve this milestone. The API will target large advertisers and their agencies by providing the opportunity to launch scaled-up campaigns across Twitter. Continue reading Sources Indicate Twitter is Ready to Launch Advertising API

Twitter recently acquired Vine, an easy-to-use new app that allows users to share six-second looping video creations with friends on social networks. “Instead of the standard video-sharing experience, you record videos by holding your finger on the screen. By lifting your finger, you can momentarily pause the recording, making it possible to create a miniature narrative out of multiple scenes,” explains Wired. Continue reading Twitter Acquires Vine, Hopes To Spark More Video Sharing

Facebook’s new Graph Search feature may benefit from upcoming upgrades. When Graph Search was first released, the feature relied primarily on “likes” and check-ins to provide results, but these are ineffective tools since most people do not check-in when they go to places they like, and others like pages ironically rather than honestly. But bringing in further analysis of comments of posts could help improve the accuracy of Graph Search. Continue reading Facebook: Struggling Graph Search Feature May Be Improved

The use of second screen apps is on the rise and many companies are looking to not only capitalize on that growth, but to continue transforming the interactive viewing experience. Among them, TweetTV is trying to separate itself from the pack by offering a real-time social TV guide that serves as a one-size-fits-all solution across all devices. Continue reading TweetTV in Beta: Your Real-Time Interactive Social TV Guide

Employees sometimes take to Facebook and Twitter to discuss work-related matters — and employers usually don’t like that. But according to federal regulators, employers don’t have a say in the matter. In fact, regulators are passing down orders indicating employers have to scale back on policies that limit what their workers can say online. Continue reading Do Employees Have the Right to Discuss Work on Social Media?

Analytics provider Next Big Sound has released its State of Online Music report, which provides a detailed look at how social networks, streaming services, online radio and digital downloads are impacting the way consumers discover and share new music. Online growth was staggering in 2012 with a 45 percent increase in new plays, 67 percent increase in new fans and 6 percent increase in new profile views. Continue reading Next Big Sound Tracks Online Music Discovery and Sharing

Twitter has released the Twitter TV Book, a breakdown of tweet-based analytics of second screen viewers in the United Kingdom. The analysis includes details regarding user demographics, devices used, television program genres and tweeting habits. Twitter says about 60 percent of the UK’s 10 million active users tweet while watching television. Continue reading Twitter TV Book Examines Second Screen Tweeting in the UK

President Obama signed into law an amended version of the Video Piracy Protection Act, which will allow Netflix and other rental services to integrate viewing data with social media sites. Customers must consent to the shared data, which will share data related to watching, rating, and saving on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Netflix hopes the integration will increase viewing hours and customer subscriptions. Continue reading VPPA Update Enables Netflix to Share User Data on Facebook

The second annual Year End Stats Report from social media intelligence platform Trendrr indicates that 2012 saw a major surge in social interaction involving TV programs, with significantly increased chatter across Twitter, Facebook and various social apps. Growing interest in social TV chatter was also evidenced by the recent Nielsen announcement to create the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating. Continue reading Report: Social TV Chatter Sees Dramatic Increase in 2012