You can already become a fan of Facebook Pages with a text message (for example, text “fan mashable” to FBOOK). Now, you can also subscribe to a Pages’ updates via SMS, via a link that has been added to the sidebar of Facebook Pages.
Once subscribed, you’ll get the same updates from Pages that you currently get on your homepage. This functionality is much like that Facebook already offers for regular profiles, where you can subscribe to SMS updates for things like status updates and friend requests from regular user profiles. Unfortunately, some carriers (most notably, T-Mobile) don’t yet work with Facebook Mobile, which makes this feature unavailable to all.
As Nick O’Neill notes, this once again moves Facebook further towards Twitter, who already lets you subscribe to individual user’s updates via SMS. Facebook Pages – or public profiles as they are sometimes called – are part of the social network’s answer to Twitter, and with SMS now enabled, they have duplicated much of the functionality.
Is it enough to stop Twitter’s torrid growth? Probably not, at least for a while. Twitter currently has enough mindshare with the mainstream media that “follow us on Twitter!” is not likely to soon be expunged from their vernacular. And while anecdotally it would seem that more Facebook users are using the site in the way they want them to – posting frequent updates of “what’s on your mind” – the volume doesn’t seem to be anywhere near what’s seen on Twitter.
24 Apr 2009 20:50:14 | Stan Schroeder | Lists,Twitter Lists,Web 2.0,social media,social networking,twitter,web,hashtags,trends,What The Trend | Comments
When you open Twitter search, you’ll see a bunch of trends that people on Twitter are currently talking about. Sometimes they’re self explanatory; but sometimes it’s hard to fathom what these micromemes are about, even after browsing through dozens of tweets.
So, how do you figure it out? You can search for them, but sometimes they’re so fresh or so specific that it’s hard to find out what they’re about. There’s now a simple tool that does the job perfectly, and it’s called What The Trend?
What The Trend?
The site retrieves the latest trends from Twitter’s API and gives visitors the opportunity to answer what they’re about. For example, there’s a recent trend called “twoonday”. What The Trend explains that “Twoonday involves changing your avatar to a cartoon character to cheer everyone up.”
If you know what a certain trend is about and you want to help, you can simply edit the blurb on top of the page for each trend, without registration.
The application gives you a list of tweets, related news, and photos for each trend; it also has a Twitter account which you can follow here.
Other Options
Another simple way to find out more about Twitter trends is by using Twist. It’s a great tool for tracking trends, but it also has a nifty hidden feature: if you mouse over a trend, it’ll give you a shortened Wikipedia entry for the term (if one exists, of course). This method doesn’t always work but it’s very quick and can be helpful.
Twopular is another service that can help you quickly identify what trends are about. It lists current trends and gives you a Yahoo News and Google News search for each term. This approach only works well for trends that have been covered by mainstream media.
Next Tuesday, April 28, is the date of our second NextUp NYC event brought to you by Mashable, NextWeb and 92YTribeca.
The topic for the second event in the series is Lessons from the Local Internet Startup Community, featuring presentations from Snooth, Aviary, Savvy Auntie and Behance. The meet up concludes with a panel discussion hosted by Mashable’s Editor-in-Chief, Adam Ostrow.
The first NextUp NYC was a sellout success, and this event has only 100 tickets remaining: please purchase your tickets as soon as possible through 92YTribeca as there will be only a limited number of door tickets.
Tickets: There are only 300 public tickets available per event. Tickets are on sale now through 92YTribeca. No further tickets will be released once these sell out.
Location: 92Y Tribeca, 200 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013
Pricing: $20 in advance, $25 at door. NOTE: all revenue from ticket sales goes directly to 92YTribeca, a non-profit organization.
“DUB gives you a simple, smart way to exchange contact information from your mobile phone. The contact data loads directly to your existing mobile address book and updates automatically whenever your contact changes their information (phone, email, address, etc.). Create your mobile business card at www.dubmenow.com”
Get ready for the event:
• Create a DUB ID (name, biz name, etc.) to connect instead of email or phone • Group Exchange – “DUB 48ky” to exchange contact information with NextUp NYC 4/28 Attendees (or text ‘dubme 48ky’ to 32075) • Address book back-up – phone dies untimely death, DUB has all your contacts ready for the new phone • Google Maps – DUB tracks where you exchanged contact info and plots it on Google Maps
Sun Startup Essentials
“The Sun Startup Essentials program extends to startups all the benefits of our program; benefits designed to get startups sailing to success with the right IT infrastructure. These include introductions to interested investors; discounted servers, storage and desktops; open source software such as MySQL; discounted web hosting; and free technical support and advice from Sun engineers.”
Opening Presentations by:
Philip James, CEO and Mark Angelillo CTO of Snooth
“Philip James and Mark Angelillo are the CEO and CTO of Snooth respectively. Snooth, with over 500,000 users per month, is the world’s largest wine site - a cross between a social network and a price comparison search engine. The site features over 1 million wines with millions of reviews and allows users to compare prices and shop from over 10,000 stores in over 50 countries.”
Melanie Notkin, Founder and CEO, Savvy Auntie
“Savvy Auntie is the first multi-platform media company designed for PANKs - Professional Aunts No Kids - a term Melanie coined for the 50% of American women who are not moms and have been untapped and under-served until now. Targeting these influential women with discretionary income and time often spent on the children in their lives and on themselves, SavvyAuntie.com is the first online community for cool aunts, great aunts, godmothers and all women who love kids. Right out of the gate, SavvyAuntie.com attracted blue ribbon advertisers and sponsors, including Hasbro, Warner Brothers, Disney, Sephora and Dell. Melanie has been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Business Week, Mashable, NBC, CBS, among many others, and is a regular panelist on Fox News.”
Michael Galpert, Co-Founder of Aviary
“Aviary is a suite of powerful creative applications that you can use right in your web browser. We’re on a mission to make creation accessible to artists of all genres, from graphic design to audio editing. Michael is one of the founders of Aviary, and is driven by a passion to help others do what they love. He currently sits on the advisory board for Web 2.0 Expo New York and is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. He helps organize Barcamp New York and is actively involved with the NYC-based tech community group NextNY.”
Scott Belsky, Founder and CEO of Behance
“Scott Belsky is the Founder/CEO of Behance, a company with a mission to organize the creative world. The Behance Network is the leading online platform for creative professionals to showcase their work. The Action Method is a revolutionary online application for productivity and action management.”
Closing Panel moderated by:
Adam Ostrow, Editor-in-Chief of Mashable
Adam Ostrow joined Mashable in April 2007 and is Editor-in-Chief, responsible for day-to-day editorial coverage and direction. Previously, Adam worked at numerous startups, including co-founding one of the first hosted blogging communities, MindSay. Today, in addition to his responsibilities at Mashable, Adam is building ReadBurner, a news aggregator that analyzes what’s being shared on social networks, in RSS readers, and with microblogging tools. Adam will be discussing how to navigate the blogosphere, both from the perspective of an editor and that of an entrepreneur, as well as the trends he sees driving the next generation of Web applications.
24 Apr 2009 19:46:42 | Jennifer Van Grove | Search,spark-of-genius,social bookmarking,worio | Comments
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.
Quick Pitch: Worio’s discovery engine works alongside your traditional search engine to recommend information that’s interesting to you.
Genius Idea: Search is an activity that’s integrated into most of our daily lives. Regardless of our search engine preferences, most of us search to find or discover information. Recognizing that we may not always find what we need, or we might be missing something we didn’t know we needed, Worio has created a search-enhancing product to display recommended information based on your queries.
You’ll need to create a Worio account, or login in via Facebook Connect, but once you do, Worio’s custom discovery search engine travels with you, enhances your social bookmarking experience, and makes search a social experience.
With Worio, search becomes smarter. You can search on site, or use Worio in your browser’s search toolbar to search from wherever you are on the Web. You can search Worio, Google, Yahoo, or Live, with standard search results displayed on the right, recommended results from Worio on the left, and an option to view related results from your Worio library.
All search results can be saved to your Worio library or shared with friends. If you opt to save an item, a new dialogue box opens with a list of automatically generated tags, the option to add new tags, privacy settings for the item, sharing options, and a comments box for notes. Since at the core of Worio itself is a search engine, it’s easy to quickly search your own library via keywords or tags to find anything you previously saved. Plus, Worio’s integration with Delicious means you can import and sync all your bookmarks with your Worio library.
We’re not sure what we like more, the fact that our Google searches get smarter, or the fact that we can save all items to our combo Worio/Delicious library for instant future access. In any event, Worio’s product is a nice addition to the search marketplace that builds on the services we already use rather than attempt to replace them.
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. Reviews: Delicious, Google
On April 14, Australian actor/producer Hugh Jackman pledged to give AUS $100,000 to charity via Twitter - that’s around $72,000 USD. Twitter users made pitches in 140 characters or less explaining why their chosen charities should receive the cash. Today, Jackman announced the recipients of the donation live on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show. The audio of the interview is embedded below, courtesy RyanSeacrest.com.
PLAY AUDIO:
Unable to choose just one deserving charity, Jackman split the $100K between two causes. $50K went to Operation of Hope, a not-for-profit medical foundation that donates surgical procedures to children in developing countries born with facial deformities.
The remaining $50K went to Charity:Water, a New York-based initiative that brings clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. It’s a cause that’s very familiar to those in the social media space: in September 2008, Mashable, our Twitter followers and Twitter users Paull Young and Sarah Townsend raised enough to fund the building of a well. And in February 2009, we were proud to play a part in Twestival, a global Twitter fundraiser that earned a staggering $250,000 for the cause. This month, the Twestival drill began in Ethiopia, and the team posted videos (below) documenting the event.
Social media - and Twitter in particular - has played host to scores of successful charity campaigns. You can read more about these in our charity section.
A business built on top of a business built on top of Twitter? That’s what Chart.ly, a TwitPic for stock market investors of sorts, is launching today. The service is designed as an add-on for StockTwits, the investment community built around Twitter users appending stock symbols (i.e. - $GOOG) to their tweets.
Chart.ly lets users upload stock market charts – which are the lifeblood of many traders –and share them via Twitter with a shortened Chart.ly URL. When you upload a chart, Chart.ly lets you include the stock symbol, some tags, and the tweet you’d like to send out. These tweets are then simulcast to the StockTwits community, which sorts all tweets about specific stocks (so, for example, you can see all tweets about $GOOG, the stock symbol for Google, in the same place).
The site has the full support of StockTwits, with investor Howard Lindzon adding an endorsement to the front page - “Behold… chart.ly for stocktwits! Sharing stock charts has never been easier.”
The big thing the site needs is its own charting tool, and that will be launched in the next couple weeks, Chart.ly creator Adarsh Dilip tells me. In the meantime, Dilip suggests using sites like bigcharts.com to generate the chart, and Chart.ly to upload and share on Twitter and StockTwits. Ultimately, Chart.ly fills a need within the Twitter ecosystem (for a clientele with money, no less), and should benefit from the continued growth of Twitter and StockTwits.
24 Apr 2009 16:30:50 | Adam Ostrow | News,facebook,myspace,owen van natta | Comments
Earlier this week, we learned that MySpace’s current CEO Chris DeWolfe was on the way out, and fellow co-founder and default friend to millions Tom Anderson’s future was uncertain. Today, at least one piece of the puzzle has been filled in, as MySpace has announced that their new CEO is Owen Van Natta, a former Facebook executive.
In a statement, Jonathan Miller, Chief Digital Officer of MySpace parent company News Corp said, “Owen combines a deep understanding of social networking, a keen business sense and the operational experience to guide MySpace through its next phase of growth. I’m confident his leadership will be an invaluable asset. I plan to work closely with Owen to shape our long-term vision around this vibrant community that already attracts more than 130 million users worldwide.”
In less corporate speak, Miller is essentially saying that someone from Facebook – the social network that unseated MySpace as world #1 – is exactly the person to bring MySpace back to prominence. At Facebook, Van Natta was Vice President of Operations and Chief Revenue Officer.
Which, makes his choice a bit surprising perhaps – MySpace’s problem isn’t really with monetization (at least compared with Facebook), but a feature-set that simply doesn’t measure up to its competition. On the other hand, Van Natta’s most recent job – CEO of Project Playlist – leaves the exec well-positioned to grow MySpace’s crown jewel – its online music service.
Let us know your thoughts on the selection in the comments.
24 Apr 2009 13:54:28 | Stan Schroeder | Microsoft Yahoo,News,Search,Yahoo,microsoft,web,partnership | Comments
You feared this moment, I know: since Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo never really amounted to anything, the story is bound to resurface every now and then until something final actually happens.
This time, Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer said at an event in Germany that Microsoft is still interested in a partnership with Yahoo. “I have said many times that we no longer are interested in acquiring Yahoo, but we’d see the potential to create real value by partnering with Yahoo,” he said.
At one point, Steve Ballmer wasn’t too enthusiastic even about a possible partnership; however, he has softened his stance in the past months. As time passes, however, one has to wonder if these two companies together can really build anything interesting anymore.
A hashtag is a great way to bring people together around a topic on Twitter - just add a hash symbol (#) to the front of a word and encourage others to add it to their tweets about the same topic. Everyone can easily find these tweets by searching for the hashtag on Twitter Search. Twitter memes like #SXSW helped Twitterers follow conference activities and events both on the ground and from afar, but for the most part, people all but stopped using the hashtag once SXSW was over.
So, how can we create a lasting meme? Simple. Make it happen weekly. Much of this started with the genius of @micah’s #followfriday. But hey, why stop with #followfriday? Here are 24 daily Twitter memes to help you meet new Twitterers and discuss common interests.
Have more daily Twitter memes to add? Tell us about them in the comments.
Monday
1. #meowmonday - If you’re an animal lover or have any kind of pet or cat-related Twitter account, this is the one for you.
2. #musicmonday - Quite possibly one of the most fun Twitter meme days. Tell people what you’re listening to, or hook Twitter into your last.fm or blip.fm. The meme also has its own Twitter account, @musicmonday.
3. #followmonday - Created by @warmyellowlight, #followmonday is just like #followfriday, but why wait all week for Friday to come around?
4. #mutantmonday - “To promote those who are doing some gnarly things in the world.”
5. #monkeymonday - A way to enjoy your Monday by posting pictures, videos, jokes and stories about monkeys. Users also promote their funniest Twitter Friends.
7. #nopantstuesday - Appears to have originated from the eighth annual no pants subway ride, a prank where New Yorkers and some in other cities ride the subway without pants.
11. #healthyhumpday - Created by @goodhealth, #healthyhumpday is like #followfriday for health-related Twitter accounts and links.
12. #wisdomwed - Recently created by Mashable Associate Editor @BenParr, #wisdomwed “helps spread knowledge across Twitter by sharing a piece of useful advice with followers on Wednesdays.”
13. #winewednesday - Twitterers discuss their favorite wines, ask questions, and provide advice.
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Influxis is an official Adobe hosting partner and resource for the Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server. Influxis provides Flash hosting plans for all levels of use – beginner to enterprise. With a reputation for exceptional customer service, Influxis provides an extremely reliable international network of FMS servers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.
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BizSpark is a program which offers new software businesses and entrepreneurs access to Microsoft design, development, and production tools with no upfront costs for up to three years. Members can also connect with a nationwide community of Network Partners – investors, incubators, service providers, and entrepreneurial organizations – who are keen to help.
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The Sun Startup Essentials program extends to startups all the benefits of our program; benefits designed to get startups sailing to success with the right IT infrastructure. These include introductions to interested investors; discounted servers, storage and desktops; open source software such as MySQL; discounted web hosting; and free technical support and advice from Sun engineers.
Yield’s Web Marketing Suite is a fully automated, integrated search marketing system that optimizes natural search, paid search, and landing pages. Accessible via any web browser, it is a complete, easy and profitable way for businesses to generate new traffic and get better conversion rates at a lower overall cost.
Woot.com thinks your time is valuable, but they think your money is more valuable. Every day, take 10 seconds to stop by and see the one thing Woot’s selling. Got more time? Peruse the product narrative and listen to the daily podcast. Is your time basically worthless? Dive into the communities, jump over to shirt.woot, wine.woot, and sellout.woot. By then it’s time for lunch.
BoonEx provides free, open-source, downloadable software for creating social networks, media sharing communities and online dating sites. BoonEx Dolphin comes with video chat, video player, music player, video comments, whiteboards, messenger, groups, events, media sharing, blogs, friends and much more. Control, customize and redesign your community site; change profile fields; change navigation and pages the way you like; deploy in different languages; run on servers cluster; experiment and enjoy!
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24 Apr 2009 09:36:31 | Stan Schroeder | News,Opinion,Web 2.0,facebook,social media,social networking,web,democracy,terms of use,voting | Comments
Facebook today announced the preliminary results of the site governance vote; an important step in the history of Facebook in which the users were called to vote on the site’s future terms of use. The results aren’t fully processed yet, but approximately 74.4 percent of users voted for the new Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities over the existing Terms of Use.
The incident that kickstarted this initiative was the sudden change in Facebook’s Terms of Use (later reverted) under which all of the content you’ve ever uploaded was Facebook’s to be used in whatever way they want, even if you quit Facebook altogether.
Over 600,000 users participated in the vote. Facebook has around 200,000,000 active users, which means that only 3% voted; a very small number if you compare it to, for example, the US presidential elections of 2008., where the overall turnout was 61.6%. Obviously, only a small fraction of Facebook users take the service seriously enough to actively participate in its governance, even if it only takes a couple of seconds to vote.
What does all this mean? Well, the proposed new document should now become Facebook’s new Terms of Use. From the official blog: “Assuming the auditors confirm the preliminary vote result in favor of the proposed documents, we’ll be adopting the Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities as the governing documents for the Facebook site.” Facebook believes that now they can put an end to the Terms of Use turmoil. As Ted Ullyot says on the official Facebook blog, they “strongly believe that our proposed documents satisfied the concerns raised in February.”
It’s not that simple, though. What Facebook did here is offer two choices; what if you liked neither? The new document was created based on the “comments from users and experts received during the 30-day comment period.” Taking comments into consideration is nice; but Facebook had the last word in the actual creation of the document.
Perhaps this entire talk about the democratic process on a social network seems silly, but once you go that way, why not go all the way? A modern democracy has a lot of tools that are supposed to make sure that the will of the majority really gets carried out; perhaps as a next step in its journey towards a real democracy (assuming that’s what Facebook wants) they should consider voting for representatives from the user base, creating a board that will actively participate in the creation of governing documents for the site.
What do you think? Does Facebook really needs to be a democracy? Was setting up a vote for the new Terms of Use enough, or should users have been able to actively participate in its creation? Please speak your mind in the comments.
24 Apr 2009 02:29:22 | Jennifer Van Grove | social media,spark-of-genius,user-generated content,Weather | Comments
This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.
Quick Pitch: iMapWeather.com is the first weather news site to incorporate social media in a Google Map display.
Genius Idea: Typical online weather maps give you an overview of conditions, a five day forecast, and location search functionality. iMapWeather, which can be embedded on any website, takes the mundane out of weather maps and makes the search for climate-related information a social experience with user-generated content and impressive weather-related data all overlaid on a Google Map.
The map itself comes with a boat load of data you can opt to display. From the bar at the top, you can select to get a look at breaking weather news, go to a specific location, select from the type of weather to display, opt to hide or show community content, and save custom views of the map. Plus, you can also setup email custom alerts for saved locations on the latest severe weather storms or local weather conditions.
iMapWeather members can add public or private 200 character bursts, add events, post photos, and upload videos to locations on the weather map. Given all the location-aware information, and the ability to add friends, iMapWeather definitely has its own location-based social network feel.
Should you want to offer your site visitors a more comprehensive and social weather map, you’re passionate about tracking severe weather activity, or you want to participate in a collective weather sharing experience, then iMapWeather is a great place to start.
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
24 Apr 2009 00:46:40 | Jennifer Van Grove | Google,News,gmail,ppt,tiff | Comments
We applauded when Gmail added a super fast online viewer for PDFs. But today’s news is worthy of an even heartier clap, because now all of us Gmail users can view TIFF and PPT files right from our browser.
Gmail’s announcing that they’ve upgraded their web-based viewer to support PowerPoint and TIFF files. Even though you could view PointPoint files as slideshows before, today’s update brings zooming, copy/paste, print to PDF, and no longer requires Flash. Sweet.
In your Gmail inbox, you should already notice that now next to every TIFF and PPT file, there’s a view or download option. Selecting the view option will open up the file in a new browser tab and offer thumbnail views, multiple slides per page, zoom, print to PDF, and an edit online link that takes you to Google Docs for online editing.
Today’s news means that it’s even easier than ever to avoid unnecessary downloads to your desktop. As frequent TIFF and PPT file receivers with tons of press information packed inside, we couldn’t be happier (even though we did notice a few bugs with PPT files in Firefox). Share your thoughts on the updated viewer in the comments.
23 Apr 2009 23:00:16 | Jennifer Van Grove | News,meebo,social networking,im,instant messaging,meebo community IM,MyYearbook | Comments
Meebo, the web-based instant message app with multi-network and client support, has been adopting a new philosophy of late. Instead of making you come to them, they’ve decided to go where you are.
Just recently the company brought Meebo to your desktop, but they’ve also been ramping up their Community IM program to bring Meebo to your favorite destination social networks. Starting today, users of the popular high school site myYearbook will reap the rewards of Meebo chat being integrated into their entire site experience.
Despite having a design that screams neon, myYearbook’s already been able to raise funds, cash in on Lunch Money, and grow their dedicated base of high school groupies. These very same youngsters will no doubt spew OMGs all over their new Meebo chat windows (which could easily pass as Facebook IM) once they realize the new functionality exists.
Meebo IM on third-party sites, like myYearbook, looks and functions quite similar to Facebook IM. So via Meebo, members can view friends online, have multiple browser chats, and receive real-time notifications of status updates. Meebo Community IM also packs a mean punch by sticking to the core of what they do best: letting users chat with friends across multiple networks.
myYearbook is just the latest addition of social networking sites integrating Meebo IM. Last fall, Community IM launched on Flixster, and now there’s 25 total partners using the Facebook-like chat on their own sites.
Apple has announced that there have now been more than one billion apps downloaded for iPhone. The milestones comes just over three months after the company surpassed 500 million downloads, and about nine months since launching.
While it’s certainly an enormous milestone, how does it compare to some other massive numbers that various Web companies have reached recently? Here’s a look at a few huge stats:
Facebook now has 200 million members. It reached that mark just 8 months after hitting 100 million members, and has become the world’s biggest social network by a significant margin.
23 Apr 2009 21:00:26 | Jennifer Van Grove | News,google reader,social bookmarking,social networking,twine | Comments
Twine is the site where social bookmarking meets social networking, and it’s recently been hot on the heels of Delicious in terms of traffic.
Moving full steam ahead, the site has just launched a redesign to their home page, Google Reader-like functionality for processing items in Twines (groups of feeds for example), and a number of new features to make the experience more intuitive to new users. Twine is also ready to start cashing in on user behavior, adding social product ads that will evolve to become semantic in nature.
Until today, Twine’s been challenged by their not-so-obvious interface that doesn’t quite convey the value of being able to add and track feeds in topic-based groups, or twines, with social functionality. The redesign attempts to solve that problem, highlighting what they offer that’s better than competitors: tools and tracking options to make the search, discovery, and storing of information and topics painless.
The biggest improvement is the news reader view, mirroring the style and functionality of Google Reader, for keeping up with activity in Twines. Plus, the new welcome tab better illustrates product features, shows how users can leverage the reader to drag and drop Twines and gloss over or dive into new items. The filter box also gives users the option to quickly sort twine items by various content types.
Twine’s also added in-line commenting, consolidated conversations, and ads as product blurbs to their item detail pages. Eventually they’re going to build out the advertising piece of Twine detail pages to function as pictured in the image above. So ads will be contextually associated to Twine content, integrated within the page, and include options for sharing, commenting, and purchasing advertised products and services.
Some other minor improvements include more recommendations (Twine’s strong suit is tailored content recommendations), Tweet this functionality that’s more obvious, and tweaks to improve the user interface.
We think the reorganization of Twine content is a smart move that will not only inspire more users to create more Twines, but help new users get the big picture. We’re also intrigued by Twine’s attempt to integrate contextual ads with social content, and think they may have found a winning way to reach niche audiences.
As Simon Cowell might say, this story is utterly disappointing and self-indulgent. But the fact that YouTube and ITV have been unable to monetize the Internet sensation that is Susan Boyle is a rather significant blunder, and highlights some of the archaic ways that business is still done between old and new media.
By some estimates, video of Boyle’s performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” on Britain’s Got Talent has already asmassed more than 100 million video views on the Web. However, according to The Times of London, Britain’s ITV - who owns the rights to the show - and YouTube - where most of the views have taken place – have been unable to reach a revenue share deal, meaning no ads have been served, and more than a “million-pound windfall” has been missed.
The holdup is apparently over ad formats, as ITV wants pre-rolls and YouTube doesn’t. The Times of London quotes ITV’s director of online saying, “We don’t want to be part of YouTube’s standard terms and conditions, because content like Susan Boyle is unique … I think both sides are being hard-nosed and commercial about it.” YouTube, the article notes, prefers overlay and text ads, which have been increasingly showing up on videos around the site.
While these two sides bicker over ad formats and revenue sharing, the bottom line is that the majority of Boyle video views are likely behind us as the sensation fades and we await the unlikely singing hero’s next performance. Even if these two companies do eventually reach a deal, there is only so much cream left to skim off the top at this point. Who’s in the wrong here? Both companies.
On the YouTube side, you can’t tell me that they couldn’t have quickly switched on pre-rolls for ITV and a sensation of Boyle’s magnitude. On the ITV side, you would have to think that they’d rather have some advertising – regardless of format – than miss the boat completely. Moreover, everyone loses, because while these two companies squabble, embedding Boyle’s YouTube video remains disabled, preventing even larger viral distribution.
Ultimately, a couple million dollars isn’t going to make or break either YouTube or ITV. But this story does illustrate that old and new media still have a long way to go in finding ways to work together and not snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Stuart Foster is a marketing consultant in the Boston area. He specializes in brand management, social media, and blog outreach. He authors a blog at Thelostjacket.com.
One voice in mainstream media just wants to sit down and have a scotch with you. That person is Colonel Tribune, the social media face of the Chicago Tribune whose Twitter account and Facebook page have amassed a good deal of attention. What you may not know is the story behind him and his creation. Who is Colonel Tribune? What is the genesis and future for this unique news entity?
Daniel Honigman, whose official title at Tribune Interactive is Social Media Strategist, has a reporting background and was the key voice in bringing the Colonel into the conversation. He spearheaded and is also behind much of the Tribune’s current social media strategy. Honigman is the man behind the hat.
Creation
The Colonel was launched in 2008 with the purpose of trying out content sharing and strategies for the Chicago Tribune. Some initiatives were out there, but according to Honigman, 99% of the conversations were taking place outside of the Tribune’s main site. “Essentially, we wanted to find our audience regardless of the medium. The Colonel acts as a touch point for the Tribune and serves as our voice on the web. Thus we needed a front man, which turned into Colonel Tribune. Who is kind of a goofy man about town but is an actual person. He would even answer questions that you might have.”
The “original” Colonel of the Tribune was Mccormick, a former editor of the paper. He is the model on which the Colonel is based. So his historical persona, what he liked to eat, and gentlemanly voice is able to deviate between serious/soft/hard.
Here is what separated the Colonel from other marketing efforts: the Colonel was just one component of a larger strategy. ”Our efforts to be listening to and following our audience were run primarily through his voice… He became a part of our comprehensive strategy. The Colonel tries to open the doors to let folks in. He tries to give the audience a voice, much like a community manager for a major company would. The news biz has never been about news, the news attracts audience that attracts advertising. We spend tons of money trying to attract readership and engage in daily conversations. We are audience centric and the Colonel allowed us to take it to a new level.”
Execution
Did Honigman gain immediate success? Nope, but he had a few champions on the executive team that saw the potential for greatness and went with the concept. “We went under the radar,” he said, “added tribune support as the project became more effective. We definitely used a periphery approach and not a top down initiative. You can change culture from the outside, you just have to have the right idea. The Colonel did have some key benefactors in Owen Youngman, VP and Bill Adee, Digital editor, and served a direct need: Humanization of the Tribune and engaging bloggers/readers in their territory on their terms.”
He went on to elaborate, “Think of it this way: everyone has had a story buried. The fact is if newspapers ceased to exist how would reporters deal? Most reporters don’t have that attitude. My solution? Network and take a blogger’s approach to reporting. Talk with folks who want to expand and begin to build a list/grow. Eventually you will have built up trust…” Essentially, Honigman was able to build a brand and network for the Tribune for the new media age. A brand that interacts, has conversations with, and helps his audience regularly.
The Colonel is now an offline presence as well and regularly holds tweetups. How did he make the leap offline and to other avenues of conversation? By investing the time and really building a comprehensive strategy for success. The Colonel isn’t just about the Tribune; he’s about Chicago: “Step outside. Meet the audience. Friendship comes from meeting someone and sharing an experience with them,” said Honigman. “The Colonel wants to be your friend and help you out. We could have just left the Colonel behind the curtain but we wanted to take that spirit of helpfulness and engagement further so we organized various events and tweetups.”
For a long time the Colonel remained a closely guarded secret of the Tribune. He wouldn’t show up for events that Honigman would host by claiming to be sick or just too busy working. ”The Colonel needed to be a representative of the Tribune but one person isn’t responsible for all the work being done behind the scenes: a team is,” explained Honigman. “Plus, it was a lot of fun maintaining a certain air of mystery around the Colonel. We could be more cryptic and thus have more fun with the brand.”
This raises another important issue: there is only so much original content. “Developing our staff (the Colonel is now assisted by a team) and creating more of a push for conversation is hard work. Whether it’s an informed decision or entertainment we want to make sure that the Colonel is going to be there.”
“Colonel Tribune isn’t a model, per se, but our front man in the digital space, and folks have really connected with him, and through him, to the Chicago Tribune,” Honigman said. His recommendation to other news organizations? “Don’t worry about reinventing the wheel, but keep your ear close enough to the ground so that you’re not late to the party, when something new does go on.”
The Future
Honigman sees the future of news reporting going a different way than the static broadcasts that have existed in the past: “Don’t underestimate the legwork you’ll do just creating those micro-level connections with your end users. You must learn to embrace your audiences, wherever they are. How will you do that? However you can.” So new media news reporters bashing your head against the wall in bureaucratic futility? The template for excellence is here. You just need to keep making good on your efforts.
Have any questions for the Colonel? I’m sure he’d be happy to answer them: @ColonelTribune.
Considering that Facebook applications already monetize heavily through advertising, this news isn’t surprising, but it’s significant nonetheless. A Facebook Page – specifically that of celeb magazine US Weekly – has sold a sponsorship to State Farm.
While the deal is part of a bigger campaign that State Farm is running with US Weekly, according to AdAge, “Us Weekly plans to use Facebook page sponsorships as added value or independent ad inventory for other advertisers after that.”
US Weekly’s Facebook Page currently only has about 3,000 fans, but it’s not hard to imagine other brands, especially those with substantial Facebook audience, selling similar sponsorships soon. The interesting question is who will control this ad inventory – the brands, ad networks, or Facebook themselves?
Facebook has been testing their own ad network for applications, while there are already dozens of third-party networks that specialize in monetizing apps. It would seem that Facebook would be most interested in selling ads to the actual page owners, in the form of the “Become a Fan” ads that are increasingly visible when you login to Facebook. Meanwhile, Facebook already places its standard ads on Pages, as you can see in the US Weekly page.
In any event, we’re just at the starting line when it comes to monetizing Facebook Pages. But expect a host of monetization options to soon emerge, ranging from simple sponsorships like State Farm-US Weekly to cross-promotion of other Pages.
Before Twitter, before Facebook, before MySpace - heck, even before Friendster, there was a service known as GeoCities. For those who grew up on the Net in the 90s, it was about as close as you get to what we know today as social networks. It was essentially an organization of like-minded user-created homepages in different topical communities like sports, entertainment, and tech.
Yahoo bought the company near the peak of the dotcom bubble for more than $3 billion, which, along with the rise of alternative services, quickly spelled the end of GeoCities’ prominence. Today, it appears that the end of GeoCities is being made official, as Yahoo has closed the service to new accounts and posted an FAQ with some details as to how the shutdown will go.
It’s certainly not surprising that GeoCities is shutting down, as Yahoo has been in cost-cutting mode for months and the service would seem to have little fit in its current business. The company offers a fairly generic explanation of the move: “We have decided to discontinue the process of allowing new customers to sign up for GeoCities accounts as we focus on helping our customers explore and build new relationships online in other ways. We will be closing GeoCities later this year.”
If you’re not familiar with GeoCities, Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive overview of its rise and fall. But if you are familiar with it, it’s official end is certainly a bit nostalgic. I can still remember the URL of my GeoCities page (a Geocities Page of the Day, no less!), though somewhere between Yahoo acquiring the company and me going to college, it disappeared. In any event, share your favorite GeoCities memories in the comments!
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When you open 
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As Simon Cowell might say, this story is utterly disappointing and self-indulgent. But the fact that YouTube and ITV have been unable to monetize the Internet sensation that is 
Considering that Facebook applications already monetize heavily through advertising, this news isn’t surprising, but it’s significant nonetheless. A Facebook Page – specifically that of celeb magazine 
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