Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Social Media by the Numbers
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
- US Led Facebook growth in August 2010.
- Mexico and India are tied for second.
- The average Facebook user has 130 friends.
- Finally! We can sync our MySpace update to Facebook.
- Facebook is suing companies with similar sounding names. Teachbook is a tartet.
- Facebook starts testing “subscribe to” option to keep close tabs on certain friends or Pages.
- Mobile usage has gone up 62% in just 4 months (since release of Twitter’s own iPhone app).
- 16% of all new Twitter users are starting on mobile (up from 5% earlier this year).
- All Twitter apps will use Oauth so they can’t store your password.
registered users!
- Foursquare takes over Times Square. Foursquare didn’t pay. American Eagle just likes location services.
- MTV and Foursquare partner to create 1st ever cause related badge. STD testing.
- Check in to any music venue to have a chance to see the VMAs live. Partnership with MTV.
Social Media by the Numbers
Friday, August 27th, 2010
Numbers and Stats:
- The Facebook iPhone app is HUGE. It is said that more than half of app usage on iPhones (excluding native Apple apps like email) is from the Facebook app.
- Facebook is the 3rd largest US video site after Google and Yahoo.
< This is an awesome infographic. Take it in. Source.
Changes and additions to Facebook:
- Facebook tabs for Pages shaved a little weight. Maximum width for any Page tab is now 520 pixels, down from 760 pixels.
- “Since introduction of Facebook Places, Page growth and impressions-per post are down,” says Inside Facebook.
- Facebook Places! Check into locations and tag who you’re with.
- In the future, you’ll be able add image polls to questions.
- People can now tag Pages in Notes.
Brand News:
- The American Red Cross kicks butt with their Facebook Page. Generally speaking.
- Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger now enables users of its services to chat with Facebook friends via Facebook Chat.
Interesting Facts:
- Share and learn from how other people use Twitter.
- The Tweet Button can now live on your browsers bookmark bar.
- Lady Gaga is the #1 followed account on Twitter with about 5.8M followers. Who’s the most listed though? None other than Sir Justin Bieber.
Stats and Info in Bullets: SCG’s Weekly Social Media Digest Volume 3
Friday, July 16th, 2010Summer’s here, so why not buy a drink for your friend… on Facebook! That’s right, a REAL drink. Check it out.
Here’s some other cool and interesting stuff that happened this week in Facebook and Twitter. It’s stats and info in bullets:
Numbers and Stats:
- Facebook hits new traffic record with 141 million unique visitors in the US in June. Last year, this number was only 77 million.
- All of the below stats pertain to women aged 18-34 (Mashable reported on this)
- 1/3 check Facebook as soon as they wake up.
- 42% of women think posted photos of them “visibly intoxicated” are ok.
- 57% interact with people more online than face-to-face.
- 39% call themselves Facebook “addicts.”
- 21% check Facebook in the middle of the night.
- 63% network on Facebook.
- 58% use Facebook to keep tabs on “frenemies.”
- 50% are fine with being Facebook friends with complete strangers.
Changes and Additions to Facebook
- Microsoft launches Outlook Facebook integration. A Mashable exclusive.
- Microsoft’s Docs.com now lets Pages upload docs.
- Did you know that Facebook has a “Known Issues” Page?
- Facebook gives starter advice for new Page admins. In the pic is what they say to do.
Brand News
- Starbucks is the first brand to reach 10 million Facebook Likes. Congrats guys! 2M in a month, wow.
- Also, Facebook will always be free! Woo hoo!
- Twitter’s @earlybird has launched! Their first promotion was this week for a 2 for 1 deal to see Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
- Twitter search results now show people too reports Mashable.
*Microsoft is a client of Spring Creek Group.
Stats and Info in Bullets: SCG’s Weekly Social Media Digest Volume 2
Monday, July 12th, 2010It’s time for more! Lots of numbers in this one. Hooray for numbers! Any other cool stats or campaigns people saw this week?
Numbers and Stats:
- Facebook accounted for 75.73% of all social networking visits in the US in May.
- About 16B minutes are spent on Facebook a day.
- Facebook has about 60K servers.
- More than 3 billion photos are uploaded each month.
- 6B pieces of content are shared weekly.
- 1M photos are viewed every second.
Changes and Additions to Facebook:
- Facebook asking some people to set it as their default homepage.
Brand News
- Facebook “Like” buttons coming to email marketing. A report by Mashable.
- Ads work on Facebook according to Mulley Communications.
- Facebook only picked up 320,800 new monthly active users in June, compared to the 7.8 million it gathered in May. Info from InsideFacebook.
- Lady Gaga (the Page) became the first person on Facebook with 10M fans.
- Kraft Foods focuses messaging on Facebook by heavily promoting campaigns associated with Wheat Thins, Oreo, and Crystal Light. To note, they made their Oreo Facebook Page “more global.” Something other brands might consider.
- Windows Messenger leads this week’s list of fastest-gaining Facebook apps by daily active users (DAU). They gained 334K new DAUs.
- Facebook gifts die.
- Twitter search volume is up 33% since April reports Mashable.
- April = 600M search queries per day.
- June = 800M search queries per day.
- @earlybird – A new Twitter handle started by Twitter itself that tweets special offers to its followers. Link to Pete Cashmore’s CNN special column.
- Twitter’s official BlackBerry App exits beta thanks to beta testers.
- Rumor – Twitter may let users pay for self-promotion says Mashable.
- LeBron James gets 150K followers in 7 Hours and now has over 400K.
Thanks to InsideFacebook, Mashable, and CNN for providing being our resource for most of the content here.
Not-so-live Coverage of Actual Live Coverage of Apple’s WWDC
Monday, June 7th, 2010
If you’ve ever actually been near Moscone Center during WWDC’s opening extravaganza, you know what the scene is like – crazy. If you haven’t been, imagine thousands of guys walking around with their iPhones, iPads, iPods, iEverthings all waiting to hear their cult leaderesque, black mock turtleneck wearing guru tell them the “one more thing…” Now, that’s WWDC. We obviously didn’t get an invite to this year’s festivities – Katie Cotton swears she gave our invite to Gray Powell for safe keeping, but we never received it – but we did take some time to follow the excellent live blogs out there (including Engadget, gdgt, MacRumors, Technologizer and Wired) to bring you what we think are some of the highlights.
iPad
The big item already in market for Apple is the iPad, the tablet device that’s changing the way we look at mobile computing. With over 2 million units sold, Apple is averaging one iPad going out the door every three seconds – say what?
Steve Jobs noted that there are 8,500 native iPad apps in the App Store and thousands of apps downloaded every day… blah, blah, make with the iPhone news, Steve.
iPhone
Just when you think it’s all iPad, Jobs brought out the trusty iPhone (3GS style) and showed us a couple new items in the arsenal, but the one that stood out most was Netflix streaming over WiFi and 3G for the iPhone coming soon (free). This means you can now watch your Netflix videos and pick up where you left off on your PC, Xbox, iPad, and now iPhone.
Zynga came on stage to show off Farmville for the iPhone (a meh for us, but wow for them). Activision also talked about Guitar Hero ($2.99 in the App Store).
The big numbers were:
- 5 Billion (with a B) downloads
- With Apple now paying 70% of revenues to devs
- $1 Billion in revenues to developers.
Jobs threw a study out that showed RIM with 35% of market, iPhone with 28%, Windows with 19% and Android with 9%. To give a more-telling look, he also noted that iPhone is accounting for 58.2% of mobile browser usage and Android is 22.7%
And then, the moment all the fanboys were waiting for… iPhone 4
Jobs actually joked about the fact that people had seen the phone “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this… you ain’t seen it.” This humble blogger still thinks it would have been great to have the guy who left his prototype in a bar bring the phone out.
“24% thinner than the 3GS. Thinnest smartphone on the planet.” We’re going to spare you all the actual physical specs here and just link you to Engadget, but the fact that the actual bezel/band of the phone is being used as part of the antenna system is engineering genius. You can catch the well-produced video featuring Ive and his crew here.
Retina Display is basically one of the big selling features of the new iPhone 4, with crazy specs. This does mean that existing apps will look better, but if devs do a bit of work, they can take even more advantage of the new resolution and deeper levels of color.
From the teardowns of prototypes left in bars and the likes, we knew the battery would have a much-improved life – we just didn’t know how much.
For the first time, Apple introduced a gyroscope to the iPhone, and coupled with the accelerometer and compass, created six-axis control movements – yay for gaming. Now you can actually drive the tractor to plow your crops in Farmville.
Camera updates to the iPhone were definitely expected, and with a 5 megapixel camera, Apple actually was able to up their megapixels and still capture great low-light images by increasing the number of photons that hit the sensor and adding an LED flash. The camera can also take 720p HD video at 30fps.
But, Steve, how will we ever edit those videos on the iPhone? Well, they’ve got an app for that – iMovie for iPhone ($4.99 from the App Store).
The ability to capture, create, and syndicate HD video that can use geolocation means you have a fully-functioning social video device right in your pocket. No longer will you have to run around with your Flip HD and your iPhone getting footage and then heading back to your computer to do a quick edit before uploading to YouTube. This single factor could change the way we look at self-produced video on the Web – it’s the next level of usability.
At this point in the talk, there had been problems with the live demoes which required WiFi access and Jobs actually asked attendees to turn off their laptops and stop using wireless… funny.
iPhone OS 4 = iOS 4
Here’s the good stuff, the stuff that actually changes the way we interact with the mobile device.
The biggest feature in the new OS is the ability to multitask (run numerous applications at one time). This means users aren’t logging out of their favorite applications, but simply switching to a new one just like they would on their laptop. This means more time in social networking applications, more time when advertisers can be running ads through iAds, and more time being productive (given that you’re not spending all your time playing Zynga games). It’s yet to be seen how much this chomps away at the battery life, but Jobs did mention that the reason Apple didn’t come out with multitasking in earlier versions was because they were perfecting how to do it with an eye on battery consumption and performance.
There are also folders on the home screen (like we all knew) which allow you to place applications within them.
The enterprise crowd will love the increased support for enterprise mail systems (exchange) and Bing has been added to the search engine list available on the iPhone.
iAds
This recently-announced program would bring standardized advertising to the iPhone and help developers continue making free and low-cost applications. The platform launches July 1, 2010. Brands on board already: Nissan, Citi, Unilever, AT&T, Chanel, GE, Liberty Mutual, State Farm, Geico, Campbells, Sears, JC Penny, Target, Best Buy, Direct TV, TBS, and Disney. And they’re spending a lot of money, enough money in fact that Jobs said iAds are projected to represent 48% of all mobile display advertising in the second half of 2010. These numbers are big time when you think about the recent report on who is actually clicking on ads (hint: it’s not iPhone users).
And then, in classic Jobs style…
“It’s called FaceTime. WiFi only. iPhone 4 to iPhone 4. No setup.” The video chat feature uses both the front-facing and rear cameras to provide a face-to-face experience over WiFi, which is pretty awesome. The video they showed had some incredible uses, including the one below where users were actually chatting using American Sign Language (yay for accessibility!).
And that’s it! Check out the blogs I mentioned up above, and even Gizmodo, who wasn’t invited, but played nicely with everyone else throughout the day.
What’s Next?
Well, as Apple often does, they’ve changed the game a bit. This isn’t truly monumental, but whenever a product comes to market that shifts the way you use an everyday device, things change. It will be an interesting time as we see what comes out of Palm’s acquisition by HP, developments in the Android operating system and handsets, and the planned introduction of Windows Phone 7 Series devices further down the road. It’s an exciting time to be addicted to shiny objects.
Bye, Steve.
*Note: Microsoft, maker of Bing, Windows Phone and Xbox is a client of Spring Creek Group
**Another note: All photos in this piece are property of Engadget. We weren’t in attendance, and couldn’t take as beautiful of pictures even if we were.
Turn the Nestlé Facebook FAIL into a WIN for Your Brand in Five Steps
Friday, March 19th, 2010
If you’ve been watching, well, pretty much anything that’s not basketball today, you’ve no doubt seen the debacle that’s unfolding over on the Nestlé Facebook page. If not, check out this AdAge article for an overview.
However, this could just have easily been a case study full of WIN instead of a case study ripe with FAIL that will no doubt be included in the “what not to do” section of decks for years to come. At the core, the mistake wasn’t necessarily made on the Facebook page, but in the communication layer that exists between Nestlé and their agency (or possibly agencies).
To make sure this never happens to you, here are our five steps for creating PR and SMM WIN:
- Have a Plan – Oftentimes the jump into social media is made with a sort of “well, everyone else is doing it, we might as well do it too” sort of thinking – bad idea. Have a plan for what you want to accomplish in the social media space. This will help you divide duties among your groups and agencies.
- Divide and Conquer – Overlap isn’t your friend. When overlap in responsibilities occurs, that’s when things fall through the cracks. Give distinct responsibilities to your teams/agencies and hold them accountable.
- Lay the Groundwork for Communication – Funnily enough, communications companies are notoriously bad at communicating. By creating a clear path for escalation of problems/questions, you can sidestep the bullets being slung at your brand and gracefully respond with the correct information.
- There’s no I in TEAM – If your agencies decide to go all-out in competing for themselves alone, your brand will be the one that suffers. Create a sense of team within your larger group and emphasize that wins for the brand outweigh an individual’s wins— despite the compartmentalized nature of the work.
- If You’re Not Early, You’re Late – The social media world moves at a breakneck pace. In order to be on time, you’ve got to be early in thinking about what the next issue you’ll be faced with will be. Then you can bring your agencies together and create a plan of attack.
*NOTE: The Nestle image above was not changed in any way.
Getting the Digits
Friday, April 17th, 2009
The world (we’re talking the normal adopters here, not early adopters) is finally seeing the writing on the wall: social media isn’t going away. The thing about the rest of the world is this: they love numbers. And we’re not talking about just liking numbers: they love numbers. So naturally, those in the know are starting to pump out some increasingly astonishing numbers about the social media space.
In keeping with that trend, here are some of the numbers that jumped out at us in the past week:
100 million – Monthly viewers for YouTube in the month of March. That’s a lot of people watching meaningful videos.
2:1 – The near-equivalent ratio of YouTube to Hulu. At their current growth rates, YouTube is growing at a pace that puts it doubling the size of Hulu.
8 – The time, in months, it’s taken Facebook to grow from 100 to 200 million users. That’s more users than the population of Brazil.
‘Bout to Be a Tweetfight
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009Ashton Kutcher has thrown down the Twitter gauntlet, and as further explained in an article featuring our favorite headline of 2009, septuagenarian journalist Larry King has answered the challenge.
We were all set to write about how instead of a meaningless race to 1,000,000 followers, Kutcher should abandon this quest for popularity and instead follow the lead of Hugh Jackman and use his considerable Twitter powers for good–but then we saw the below tweet:
Making it seem as though Larry King does not care about malaria? Well played, Lady from Ghost‘s husband. Well played.
Regardless of who comes out on top, this will no doubt prove to be a battle royale of epic proportions. In this corner– old media and suspenders; in the other corner– social media and trucker hats.
UPDATE: Electronic Arts has apparently chosen sides and upped the reward for the lucky devil that becomes Ashton’s 1,000,000th follower. Better think of something quick, Larry.
Shiver Me Twitters
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
No matter on which side of the fence you may fall, there is one thing on which everyone can agree: pirates and piracy are a big topic of conversation on the Internet these days. Of course, we at SCG have taken notice of this recent trend and have taken a look at piracy-related issues of all kinds through the lens of social media. Observe the following:
- Mashable provides a comprehensive look at social media’s effect on piracy!
- Facebook says no to pirates!
- A former notorious pirate associate shares her feelings about social media!
- Was there any doubt that this man would get a Facebook fan club?
- Pirates sail in ships, and ships often have to weather storms, so while the following may only have a tenuous relationship to the supposed topic at hand, here is an interesting article about weathering a social media storm!
StumbleUpon Pulls a U-Turn, Breaks with eBay
Monday, April 13th, 2009The road to achievement in the startup biz is usually a one way street with many broken-down cars littering the shoulder. However, in the case of StumbleUpon, the content discovery engine is entering back onto the startup superhighway after an amicable split with former parent company eBay.
According to a release, original founder Garrett Camp said the group “realized there were few long-term synergies” between the content discovery engine and the online auction portal.
Some can argue (and they may be correct) that companies struggling with getting off the ground and gaining funding are usually out to be more creative. Let’s hope this return to their investor-backed roots will spur a bit of creativity and create an even better product – something more social perhaps?
