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Marketing: Retailers Try Twitter for Promoting Holiday Shopping Deals

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December 18, 2012

Retailers are taking a more aggressive approach on Twitter this holiday season, using the social network to heavily promote products and deals. An example of this strategy involves Best Buy, which is using Twitter differently this year than it did in the past. “Last year, the electronics retailer bought ads on Twitter to promote sales the week of Thanksgiving, and not much else,” writes the Wall Street Journal. Continue reading Marketing: Retailers Try Twitter for Promoting Holiday Shopping Deals

Twitter Answers Instagram with Image Filters for Android and iOS

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December 12, 2012
  • Twitter has responded to Instagram’s latest social network assault (making Instagram photos incompatible for immediate viewing on Twitter) by releasing its own line of image filters in an update for both Android and iOS.
  • The eight filters — vignette, black & white, warm, cool, vintage, cinematic, happy and gritty — were designed exclusively for Twitter. Users can also use crop, zoom and auto-enhancement tools, writes The Verge.
  • The filters allow users to preview how their images will look using any of the filters in a 3 x 3 grid (including no filter).
  • The development is “thought to be a direct response to Facebook’s purchase of Instagram earlier this year,” and will only heighten the tensions between the social media giants, suggests the post.
  • “To be sure, Instagram has a massive lead, and a very passionate community,” notes CNET in related coverage. “But Twitter has a nine-figure user base, and now that it is offering filters — albeit just eight, while Instagram has 18 free filters — it can begin to chip away at its competitor’s lead.”

Firmware Update for Sony Bravia TVs adds Twitter, Facebook, YouTube HD

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December 6, 2011
  • Sony announced it has updated firmware for its Bravia LCD TV sets, enabling viewers to get tweets, post on Facebook and watch hi-def videos via YouTube HD.
  • Bravias have also added compatibility with a version of the Remote Keyboard application, previously available only on Vaio PCs and Xperia smartphones.
  • “Finally, you can now get live Twitter updates along the bottom of your screen and even use a Shazam like feature called Track ID to determine the names of songs, or their artists, that are played during your shows or commercials,” reports Engadget.
  • The press release emphasizes keyboard compatibility: “You can already use your smartphone or Vaio keyboard to control your TV and surf the Web — and now you can use other laptops too. From typing a Web address to searching for information about the latest movies, it makes entering text on-screen even easier than using your TV remote.”
  • The free update is currently available for those with compatible Bravia TVs.

Tweet Seats: Will More Theaters Reserve Sections for Social Interaction?

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December 5, 2011
  • Some theaters and performance groups are setting aside “tweet seats,” special sections for patrons to live-tweet during performances.
  • Rick Dildine, a theater festival director in St. Louis, says tweet seats have “become a national trend.”
  • “Coast to coast, theaters are experimenting with how to use ‘tweet seats’ effectively,” he explains. “The arts are evolving right now, they are participatory… Social media is a tool we rely on, and we have been unafraid to experiment with it.”
  • Some have placed tweet seats in the back row of theaters to minimize disruption, while others (including Carnegie Hall in NYC and the Kennedy Center in DC), “have not tried tweet seats and expect audience members not to access their phones during performances,” reports USA Today.
  • The article cites some interesting success stories of performances incorporating tweet seats, including a recent example involving the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO). “Tweeting the CSO’s performance was like attending a members-only social event in the midst of a traditionally formal setting,” said tweeter Jennifer Nissenbaum. “I could communicate openly about my reactions to the music, musicians and conductor — without speaking a word. Plus, I had the opportunity to engage others, and get their reactions to the performance.”

Groups Take Sides in Battle Over Proposed Internet Censorship Bill

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November 18, 2011
  • Nine Internet giants (Google, eBay, AOL, Facebook, Yahoo, Zynga, LinkedIn, Mozilla and Twitter) have joined forces to place full page ads in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and The Washington Times expressing their objection to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act.
  • The measures protect against copyright infringement by requiring “technology companies and Internet service providers to block access to any website that the entertainment industry believes ‘engages in, enables or facilitates’ copyright infringement,” reports Digital Trends.
  • The proposed pieces of legislation “have strong bipartisan support in Congress, as well as backing from the Motion Picture Association of America, a variety of Hollywood union organizations, and even Master Card and Pfizer.”
  • In a related post, The Next Web reports that the Business Software Alliance (BSA) supports SOPA and commends Congress for “curb[ing] the growing rash of software piracy and other forms of intellectual property theft that are being perpetrated by illicit websites.”
  • Member of BSA include Adobe, Apple, Dell, Intel, Microsoft and 24 other tech companies.

Measuring Tweet Rate: TweetTV Joins the Ranks of Social TV Guides

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November 10, 2011
  • TweetTV is a social TV guide that ranks available shows based on what people are tweeting about.
  • Users enter their zip code and TV provider, which makes the search more personally specific. You can view the tweets of certain shows (filtered by “experts” or cast members) or break it down by trending network.
  • Additionally, you can launch private or public video chats for each show.
  • “Not only does TweetTV empower TV viewers, but we think this creates a fantastic opportunity for networks and brands to engage with their social audience in a very direct way,” founder Bradley Markham said.

New Search Features: Twitter Quietly Adds Top News and Top People

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November 7, 2011
  • Twitter quietly added new features to its interface recently, designed to help users easily search relevant content.
  • “Twitter’s website now includes a featured ‘Top News’ section at the top of search results to showcase relevant recent news articles about a certain topic,” reports GigaOM. “The site also has a new ‘Top People’ window that similarly showcases Twitter users that correspond with search queries.”
  • Twitter is quietly testing the new features on some of its users.
  • “It’s a nice move for Twitter, which has been working to position itself as a place for people to consume all kinds of news,” suggests the post. “Twitter has established itself as a great platform for crowdsourced information and citizen journalism, but these new features should help to make the site equally useful for finding stuff from traditional content producers such as news organizations.”

Vengeful Librarians: Is the CIA Monitoring Your Tweets Every Day?

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November 7, 2011
  • In an effort to strengthen its counterterrorism and counterproliferation measures, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency actively monitors over 5 million of the 140 million tweets posted daily.
  • The CIA monitors Twitter and Facebook daily, regularly briefing President Obama on popular posts and trends.
  • The McLean, Virginia-based monitoring team — called the “Vengeful Librarians” — tracks news and social media sources, using language to pinpoint origin.
  • “The CIA team has also used Twitter to monitor reports of real-time events, and can focus on a few Tweeters who are publishing accurate reports,” reports Digital Trends. “The team found that, in these situations, other Twitter users actively stamp out erroneous information when it is reported, which proves the usefulness of Twitter as a primary source for breaking news.”

Digital Economy: U.S. Companies Push for New Internet Trade Rules

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November 4, 2011
  • “Google, Microsoft, Citigroup, IBM, GE and other top-tier American companies on Thursday urged the United States to fight for trade rules that protect the free flow of information over the Internet,” reports Reuters.
  • The coalition criticized federal requirements for companies to have their data centers within a country’s borders to provide services. Additionally, the group argued against governments blocking access to services such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and YouTube.
  • The group says future U.S. trade pacts must “reflect the new realities of the global economy: specifically, the contribution of the Internet toward economic growth, toward job creation and exports,” said Bob Boorstin, director of public policy for Google.
  • “Even when Internet curbs are intended to support legitimate public interests such as national security of law enforcement, businesses can suffer when those rules are unclear, arbitrary, unevenly applied or more trade restrictive than they need to be to achieve their objectives,” suggests the group’s paper.
  • “We want the free flow of data just like we want the free flow of goods and services,” said Nuala O’Connor Kelly, chief privacy leader at General Electric. “In the information age, data is our widget.”

Shall I Buy Enables Social Shopping: Foodspotting for Everything Else

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November 3, 2011
  • Shall I Buy is a free iPhone app with the goal of combining instant social feedback for shoppers to make better purchasing decisions and possibly combat buyer’s remorse.
  • A shopper can share a video, picture, price and location to engage potential followers and incite comments, and allows sharing of links through Facebook and Twitter.
  • “The app is done simply, taking heavy styling cues from Instagram, but in doing so it’s effective and easy to use,” reports TheNextWeb.
  • The post cites two potential downsides: 1) By default, users receive a great number of push notifications, and 2) It would be helpful to have “a way to configure notifications inside of the app itself,” rather than going to the website.
  • Robert Scoble equates it to “Foodspotting for everything else.”

Viacom Says MovieTracker Quantifies Social Buzz for Hollywood Movies

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November 3, 2011
  • Viacom’s NextMovie.com has attracted more than one million viewers in its first 12 months, according to comScore. This week the site will add MovieTracker, developed with social intelligence platform Trendrr.
  • The new add-on is designed to track and quantify related social activity by ranking “the top 25 films according to social buzz for movies in production, coming soon or in theaters,” indicates The Hollywood Reporter.
  • “There isn’t really another product quite like this for movie fans,” explains VP and general manager of NextMovie Scott Robson. “The MovieTracker isn’t based on box office performance, which is how most movie rankings are compiled. Instead, it’s driven purely by the social conversation around movies. It’s the first time that what movie fans say — on Twitter, on Facebook and in the blogosphere — really matters in a quantified way.”
  • The feature is expected to be available early next year as an app for iOS and Android, allowing mobile access.
  • “The MovieTracker will launch initially on NextMovie.com, but it will appear soon after across multiple Viacom Media Networks properties, including MTV.com, VH1.com and the Logo sites,” says Robson. “It’s also possible that versions of the MovieTracker at some point will appear on air, on the MTV Radio Network and more.”

Mary Meeker Offers Updated Analysis During Web 2.0 Summit Presentation

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October 31, 2011
  • At the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Mary Meeker updated her Internet Trends analysis that she has presented for the past eight years. Meeker is a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and was formerly managing director and research analyst at Morgan Stanley.
  • Meeker offered some compelling data this year (the ReadWriteWeb post features some great trend charts and statistics). Highlights include:
  • Globality — China’s Internet users add up to almost twice the number of U.S. users.
  • Mega-Trend — Empowering people worldwide with mobile devices.
  • 55 percent of Twitter traffic and 33 percent of Facebook traffic comes from mobile devices.
  • User Interface — Touch, sound and movement is the new UI.
  • 85 percent of world’s population now covered by commercial wireless signals.
  • Smartphones and tablets outshipped PCs (notebooks and desktops) in Q4 2010.
  • Mobile apps and advertising has been growing 153 percent/year over past four years.
  • Social networking time is surpassing portal times.

New Report: 40 Million Mobile Users Access Social Networks Daily

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October 24, 2011
  • The number of Americans who use social networks has grown 37 percent over the past year, according to comScore.
  • In August for example, 72.2 million Americans accessed social sites or blogs via mobile devices.
  • “Nearly 40 million U.S. mobile phone users, which accounts for more than half of the mobile social media audience, use social sites while on the go nearly every day,” reports Computerworld. “As a result, mobile devices are an increasingly important part of the burgeoning social media market.”
  • The new comScore study also indicates the number of mobile users who accessed Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn increased by at least 50 percent for each service in the past year.

Facebook and Twitter Dominate Social Scene: Google+ Losing Momentum

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October 14, 2011
  • The Hollywood Reporter suggests that Google+ may be losing momentum in its foray into social networking, citing data analytics from Chitika recently published in The Next Web. Facebook and Twitter are currently maintaining dominance in the social space.
  • “Our monthly referrals from there are down 38 percent since their peak, while Facebook referrals are up 67 percent and Twitter referrals up 51 percent over the same period,” reports TNW.
  • After Google+ attracted 10 million users in less than a month, expectations rose. But according to Chitika, Google+’s initial spike in traffic was short lived, leveling off just four days after its launch.
  • As one Google engineer stated on his Google+ page, the social network is “a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms” and “a knee-jerk reaction” to Facebook.
  • “Bottom line: Facebook is still the king of social networks and will be for the foreseeable future,” adds THR. “Plan your marketing campaigns accordingly.”
  • In a related post from Gizmodo, Google+ claims 40 million “users” — but the question remains regarding how many are actually using it: “‘Users’ here, being loosely defined, since Google+ is a relative ghost town of privately shared links about how Google+ is a ghost town.”

Facebook Unveils New Features to Keep You from Using Other Networks

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October 10, 2011
  • Facebook has announced a few new features to help users organize information and friends, “features that could, put simply, eliminate your desire to use any other social network,” reports The Next Web.
  • New Friends Lists are created automatically based on similarities in profile information (people you work with, go to school with, etc.). There is also a Close Friends list and Acquaintances as well as Suggestions that allow you to manage friends lists easily.
  • Facebook also features the Subscribe button “eliminating your desire for any other network.” Similar to Twitter’s “follow” you can subscribe to non-friends and select what specific information you’d like to receive from them (like updates, photos, and/or games). Users can post information publicly or just to friends (so subscribers won’t see).
  • Latest from Facebook, The Next Web reports in a related article, is the ability to tag non-friends in comments and posts.
  • These changes may help users to navigate information and target certain groups of friends more easily.

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