February 28, 2012

Igniting Social Media: Technorati Interview with Sachin Agarwal, CEO of Posterous

First published on Technorati.

Putting privacy and control front and center of their blogging platform, Posterous wants bloggers to express themselves – in any way that is natural.  With ease of use and an intuitive tool, bloggers can add images, content and video within seconds – though what differentiates Posterous from many other tools is the ability to mobile blog

Embracing mobile technologies, Posterous CEO, Sachin Agarwal firmly believes that mobile is the future for the company and the blogosphere.

He also has some other lofty dreams in 2012:  making pixel perfect experiences on all platforms when using Posterous.

In Technorati’s video interview series Igniting Social Media, Charles Black (President of Technorati) had the opportunity to speak with Sachin Agaral (Founder and CEO of Posterous) about their platform and bright future.  Included in their discussion, Sachin talks about the mission of Posterous, the user experience,  upcoming features and enhancements, mobile technologies, defining “social”, monetization of “social”, social media resolutions, how Posterous differs from other platforms and advice for bloggers.

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What’s Your PinClout? Site Measures Pinterest Influence

First published on Technorati by Steve Woods.

I’ve enjoyed more than my fair share of free goodies, or “perks” as they’re called, from the social influence measuring site Klout. I suppose it’s because I’m on a number of social networks, and Klout lets me add almost all of them, to help contribute to my total influence score.

New social darling Pinterest, however, remains elusive as one of the add-ons to boost (or lower) my overall Klout score. Perhaps it’s due to Pinterest’s invite-only status as a network. I’ve spent a lot of time on Pinterest lately, discovering and sharing beautiful images and interesting sites, and it would be nice to get my efforts included soon.

Until then, someone else has already stepped forward and is trying to fill Klout’s Pinterest-free shoes.

PinClout‘s creators Chris Fay and Daniel Schimpfoessl see the rapidly growing socialized favorites site as a powerful platform. To Fay and Schimpfoessl, Pinterest, if leveraged properly, can “prove quite the upper hand for people and brands”.

With that in mind, they created PinClout to “empower people and brands with the tools necessary to monitor trends, understand activity, and gauge impact, easily.” In other words, they provide a standardized measurement of how well you’re doing on Pinterest.

So how do you find out your personal PinClout? Start by visiting PinClout’s site.

After creating a free PinClout account and providing your Pinterest username, you’ll receive a confirmation email. Click on the provided link and login. PinClout will immediately tally up your pins, repins, likes, how many people you follow (and follow you), comments and boards. A secret math formula does its magic, and you are provided a score out of a possible perfect 100.

According to their site, the average PinClout score is 29, so I guess I’m not doing too bad, for a dude. I ought to get back on and share some Chuck Norris facts…

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February 21, 2012

Pinterest Users Need to Read the Fine Print

First published on Technorati by Carole Ditosti.

You love Pinterest. It's the latest trend driving traffic to your blog – more than Google, Facebook and other social media sites. You've jumped on the Pinterest band wagon and use it to upload your images and pin other images that you think are funny or brilliant. Well, be careful. You may get into trouble if you didn't read the user agreement, says Boston Business Journal's Galen Moore.

Haven't your parents told you to read the fine print and obscure clauses at the bottom of pages? Of course they have and if you listened and practiced their wisdom, you won't be surprised at what Moore found out after he began implementing Pinterest, setting up an account and establishing some pinboards for visual appeal.

The following day, he took the pinboards down. 

Moore says, "Believe it or not, Pinterest's service agreement gives it the right to sell images that users upload." Now, I hear you saying so what? Well, it's trickier than so what.

Pinterest operator's terms of service, as presented by Cold Brew Labs begin to seem fuzzy when it comes to "Member Content." This is what is written.

By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.

You're still not concerned. You have pictures that you post and publish on Pinterest. You still own the rights to those pictures. Yes. But you've just gone into a free partnership with Pinterest FOREVER, THAT MEANS into perpetuity! They are able to SELL, transfer, stream, sublicense, use, adapt, modify, LICENSE and otherwise EXPLOIT your member content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.

OK. I get it. You are thrilled that you are being presented to the world. All that free publicity with your name posted on your stuff (not necessarily). You tell yourself that for their exploitation, you will eventually be able to sell as users become familiar with your art/work, linking back to your own websites (not always). And you'll make a bundle, so they can help themselves. And yes, Pinterest's presentation is awesome, attractive and you're gobsmacked by it as my Aussie cousins would say.

And that's OK if IT IS YOUR OWN STUFF. BUT! In the age of Megaupload, Pinterest has made sure Cold Brew Labs has done due diligence with this clause:

… you represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms.

When you upload to Pinterest, you publish a medium-sized version of the related image to the service. Publishers of user-generated content protect Pinterest. You are not protected. Moore's point is well taken Just make sure with everything you post, you have a "worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license." And here's the rub. If you publish something, first asking for permission (and are granted it) does the permission grantor understand that if it's on Pinterest, their images have just been made available to be bought by a third party? Better read them the fine print after you've read it over a few times. There may be a few snafus.

If you are a small business owner with much deeper pockets of course, your lawyers will be sure to check this out thoroughly. If you are somewhere in between, then get some appropriate and sound legal advice.

But Pinterest, concerned about hapless, unwitting copyright violators and extremely concerned about copyright holders has made things easier for holders to protect themselves against wayward and greedy pinners. They have released code which will allow websites to prevent material from being plastered on the Pinterest social pinboard without regard.

The code, accessible through the site's help page, works this way. An unauthorized pinner will see a message stating, "This site doesn't allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!"  The violating pinner will see this when the code has been added to the copyright holder's site.

Pinterest obviously acknowledges that its site could be used to violate copyright holders rights and it doesn't want trouble. Can you blame it? It has also received commentary from site owners who didn't want their material to be shared so it had to do something. Though some were not upset to see material shared, they were upset that attribution sometimes was lost in the pinning; it was as if their work was flying into space and no credit would ever be given that it was theirs, threatening by extension to the most absurd conclusion, the ultimate and ridiculous possibility of a courtroom Solomon's decision.(For some having to go to court to prove one's ownership is worse, especially if they have no up front fees to pay lawyers.)

So Pinterest has introduced this code at the right time, because the members (potential violators) seem to be growing exponentially. Daily users increased by 145pc starting January, 2012. According to reports, Pinterest logged 10m US monthly drop, ins the largest number of any independent website in history. And where there are users, the brands pile on, now over 100 of them in the past three months. The site has raised $37.5 million during that time frame.

With those legs, co-founder Ben Silbermann wants to do everything in his power to make things nicey-nice for site users, especially copyright holders. Come on. It's the savvy thing to do in order to ride the tide out into the deep sea of prosperity. His flexibility and readiness to deal with user issues carries with it good signs that the Pinterest ship is going to be cruising with the wind to its back for a very long time.

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What Your Facebook Personality Says About You

First published on Technorati by Karen Sonja-Carey Ashley.

Socializing on Facebook is a fantastic way to express yourself within your circle of friends while providing the best opportunity to peer into others’ lives. Facebook also reveals your personality tendencies as either braggarts or complainers. These are persons who use the popular “status updates” for unbridled self-indulgence.

Research reveals that Facebook can be tough on mental health particularly when it involves a large group of friends and is strongly associated with the site’s status update feature. The study was presented by the Society of Personality and Social Psychologists (SPSP) in San Diego, last month.

In its analysis, two self-esteem levels emerged, and it works something like this:

You connect on Facebook, suddenly entering a domain of kindred spirit and immediately feeling a sense of belonging. While socializing, you discover other linked groups that ask to friend them, further boosting your feeling of connectedness. As the threads run, your friends are competing, trumpeting their status achievements and comparing their lives to others on the site. What eventually unravels in your thread is reflective of a self-confident individual, bragging along with competitors or a self-loather, complaining to others about your crappy life.

Mudra Mukesh, a doctoral candidate in marketing says “for people with lots of friends…, the Facebook newsfeed turns into a parade of good news about other people’s lives: promotions, engagements, weddings, and new babies. Even if people know intellectually that people use Facebook to show off, all this information can make them feel worse about their own achievements or lack thereof.”

People use Facebook status updates to pump themselves up or complain. In a study published in the Journal of Psychological Science “people with low self-esteem view Facebook as a safe place to express themselves, than in face-to-face- interactions.” Individuals with low self-esteem vent their feelings with negative posts and are more inclined to depression after Facebooking.

The moral of the story is not that Facebook causes depression or encourages self-esteem issues but that it is a model of real life social interactions. The more circle of friends you have the more likely you will be exposed to ostentatious, self- indulgence from people at both ends of the spectrum. Being mindful of this fact will allow you to take it all in, at face-value only, and become comfortable in your own skin.

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Social Media is the Key to Career Success

First published on Technorati by  Adi Gaskell.

Traditionally social media has been seen as a hindrance to ones career ambitions.There have been numerous examples of people having been sacked due to their Facebook antics, whilst earlier this year a manager was dismissed for apparent misuse of Linkedin.

Research last year from Australia suggested that most social media profiles do more harm than good when it comes to getting that top job.  According to the findings, some of the biggest Cyber CV faux pas candidates make include posting inappropriate pictures (with 31 per cent of employers saying this counts against applicants) and posting discriminatory comments (37 per cent),

However, research released recently suggests that our social media profiles can actually be the most accurate way of predicting the success (or otherwise) of a job candidate.

They found that a 10 minute review of a persons Facebook page is a better indicator of personality and character than any more traditional application measure.

Participants were given training on how to rate a Facebook profile, answering specific questions relating to personality.  They would then spend 10 minutes evaluating each profile.

The following excerpt from the study gives an insight into how they went about their task.

“Those high in agreeableness are trusting and get along well with others, which may be represented in the extensiveness of personal information posted. Openness to experience is related to intellectual curiosity and creativity, which could be revealed by the variety of books, favorite quotations or other posts showing the user engaged in new activities and creative endeavors. Extroverts more frequently interact with others, which could be represented by the number of SNW (social networking websites) friends a user has.”

When the candidates were placed in a job they followed up on them six months later to see how accurate their predictions were.  Conversations with their supervisors revealed that the quick Facebook analysis was more conclusive than standard tests in nearly ever instance.

The researchers believed this was because the version of yourself painted on your Facebook page is more realistic than the idealistic version of yourself you paint in standard personality tests.

Thus far most recruiters simply scour social media profiles for reasons why they shouldn’t hire you, but if this research catches on it might not be long before your profile is used for much more than that.

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SMBs Forecasted to Spend $7.8 Billion for Social Media Marketing in 2016

First published on Technorati by Chris Marentis.

Social media is becoming more and more popular as a way for local businesses to market their brand, products, and services. And it makes sense. With a relatively easy-to-use platform and easily accessible user pool (in the millions on many platforms), social media can be a relatively inexpensive way to target leads and the consumer population. Not to mention, social media platforms are becoming more and more business friendly by providing tools and resources to help support local businesses, such as Facebook’s Ads, Insights analytical tool, and vanity URL creation capability (which can aid in getting found in external search engines), or Twitter’s platform redesign, to help make finding what users are looking for easier. Plus, they’ve already been a few business-focused social networking sites around long before Twitter and Facebook came around (i.e., LinkedIn).

Borrell Associates released a new report Main Street Goes Social: SMBs Give A Big Thumbs-Up To Social Media” offered through Research and Markets that captures social media practices of  more than 4000 Small and Medium Sized businesses (SMBs). Some of the stats and forecasts summarized in the report include:

2011

·      SMBs spent $1.1 billion on social media advertising in 2011

·      Almost 2/3 of SMBs reported having a social media presence last year (primarily on Facebook)

2012 and 2013

·      SMBs are forecasted to spend $2 billion in 2012

·      SMBs are forecasted to spend $3.9 billion in 2013

·      SMBs plan on spending 13.7 percent of online advertising budgets for social media in 2012

·      80% of SMBs are forecasted to have a social media presence by the end of 2012

·      Social media is listed as the 3rd highest category for online spending in the coming year ahead of streaming video, mobile, and banner ads.

It’s obvious that social media has and continues to create an impression on local businesses across the board, and Borrell estimates that SMBs will spend $7.8 billion—a sevenfold increase—in 2016!

The question is: how effective will SMBs be in implementing their social media strategies? Many local businesses tend to jump on board a few too many social media platforms all at once without thinking through their strategy. It’s important to ensure that when you’re looking at social media networks, they fit within your overall goals and marketing strategy. It’s also a good idea to start small and grow; in other words, choose a couple social media networks and fully set up your profile and optimize your sites to grow as quickly as possible. Then, once you’re stable with those, add additional social media platforms that align with your overall strategy and build your networks on them.

I completely agree that business of all size should participate in social media for a variety of reasons. They should just approach the subject and implementation wisely for maximum benefit without wasting time and money.

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Women ‘Family Travel’ Bloggers Rule

First published on Technorati by Kaleel Sakakeeny.

Used to be they were called “mommy bloggers,” but that was before their Klout scores soared and corporations avidly courted them.

And while I may be exaggerating, I’m not by much. This group of bright, engaged mothers  (and some dads) who travel with their kids and run homes and blogs, now run the family travel market and drive some of the most exciting conversations on line.

While CEO’s of hot start-ups and established web sites are pronouncing and  pontificating, these women bloggers and journalists are running high-profile Tweet chats with impressive prizes, turning out compelling, useful content and run one-of-a-kind Family Travel Conferences.

Anyone who has visited familytravelforum.com or travelingmom.com is quite aware of the electricity generated by  Kyle McCarthy and Kim Orlando, CEO’s of the respective sites.

Check in @familytravel4um and watch the fast-paced  conversations about travel zip by with family travel cohorts like @familyonbikes, @familyadvice, @momaboard, @familiesgo, @hvbabywillrvl, @foreverdaddy and @luxurytravelmom.

These are experienced travelers, sharing and having fun.

They are mostly women, all of whom have a vibrant thing going on with each other about all things travel: destination tips and trips; legal advice about single parents traveling with minors; top cities of the world; funny and touching stories; differing opinions, travel expos, etc.

They’re witty, unfailingly good-willed, and supportive of each other and family travel issues

On a Tweet chat I attended, there were a couple hundred participants, and although about 50 voices dominated, the others had their says too. The discussion went well past the cut-off time.

And you bet these family travel bloggers are  being noticed by big-time companies and corporations.

Why?

In part, as Ypartners points out, experience-based travel involving family and friends is the leading type of leisure travel. That is, visiting friends and relatives accounts for 50 percent of travel. Family vacations account for 42 percent of travel.

Several of these family travel voices recently created the first-ever Family Travel Conference .

Under the leadership of Ms. McCarthy and Orlando, it was  at New York’s classy Omni Berkshire Hotel .

Who sponsored it?  Norwegian Cruise Line, Disney Parks, Atlantis, The New York Pass and Visit Orlando, to name some of the backers.

The 2-day event was in invitation to 30 or so bloggers and journalists,  with family travel content experience. The blend of the traditional writer with Internet content creators was a wise move because the two groups learned from each other and provided differing viewpoints.

What was it like?

First, the Omni Berkshire was a clever choice of venue because it’s a smart hotel. The spacious rooms and cleverly designed spaces with accessible outlets, imaginative use of fabrics and plants is friendly and efficient.

There was a workshop on honing writing skills led by veteran family travel writer and syndicated columnist, Eileen Ogintz,  and Pulitzer prize nominee, Cindy Richards, who teaches at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

Kim Orlando, an indefatigable blogger and entrepreneur drove the Twitter dinner, which was more a live Tweet event than an  actual dinner. But it was more fun than most of  the conference dinners I’ve attended.

After a video workshop (Presenting Yourself: Ledes and Hooks),  participants scattered throughout the hotel, smart phones and video cameras in hand, and created on-the-spot content ranging from an inside look at the hotel’s kitchen, to tips from housekeeping on making a room look like new.

When the dust settles,  we probably were participating in the first of many such workshops about family travel, technology, monetizing content and  community.

What I found refreshing,  more so than conferences with top brass from from Google , Amazon and other legacy companies, was the openness and enthusiasm.

These “mompreneurs” combine humor with a depth of practical, real-world travel knowledge, and they make it all accessible by sharing.

With family travel a huge,  fast-growing niche ( 4.5 trips a year; 67% saying kids are never too old to travel with), this fast-talking cohort may well set the standard for online activity… and enviable sponsorships.

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February 14, 2012

An App To Mend Your Heart On Valentine’s Day

First published on Technorati by Dan Reyes.

You’ve probably at one point of your life been heartbroken so badly that you can’t get out of bed and are just consumed with thinking about the love of your life–or former love of your life.

Many adults rate relationship breakups among the worst events of their lives. How does a person’s psyche handle that kind of heartache? And is there a secret formula for mending a broken heart?

Trite but true, the only cure for breakups is time. It’s impossible to wrestle a romance-addled heart into submission and silence the echoes of past love at will. Can’t stop calling your ex but know you need to break it off in order to move on?

Enter the Ex-App, an app released from Apple and described as a lover break-up, not down app. The app keep you from breaking down and help you finally breakup and away from your ex.

Further, the Ex-App blocks you from making outgoing calls, text messages, or emails to your ex. It also tracks the number of consecutive days that you have stopped contacting your ex to help you stay motivated and committed to your new awesome ex-free life.

But wait, there’s one catch that you have to follow if you want this app to work, and that is, your ex has to be one of the people listed in your address book or contacts so the app can block him or her.

And the best part? This app is free to download at the Apple App Store. Enjoy!

Happy Valentine’s to all of you. Let the love and peace reign in our hearts and in our minds not only on this day, but always.

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Report: Deleted Facebook Photos Still Shows Up On The Site

First posted on Technorati by Dan Reyes.

Everybody knows that at the moment, Facebook is the biggest and the leading social network platform in the world. It is a brand name that needs no further introduction because of its global reach and massive popularity.

However, as popular as it is, Facebook is not immune to controversy. The social giant network has been hit and criticized as of late with its, you guessed it, privacy issues and concerns that’s being echoed by some groups and entities.

A recent report claims that “deleted” photos that are supposed to be deleted by Facebook users on the site still remains accessible through a direct link.

The report is indeed very surprising and downright concerning if you’re a Facebook user. You would think that for a 100 billion dollars company, it shouldn’t be difficult for Facebook to beef up their security and upgrade its servers in a heartbeat.

If you’re a Facebook user, now would be an ideal time to go through each and every one of your photos. Make sure you don’t have any embarrassing pictures there that is going to bite and haunt you sooner or later in your personal and social life.

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Lady Gaga’s New Social Network Launches

First published on Technorati by Steve Woods.

Lady Gaga knows Social, being the first person on our fair planet to reach 18 million Twitter followers. This is absolutely dwarfed by the over 47 million people who’ve “Liked” her official Facebook Fan Page. Let’s not even get into how many un-official Lady Gaga fan pages there are out there…

With a combined social community larger than the nation of France, why should the Monster Mom simply hand over her content and social data from fan interaction to those other networks? With well over a billion YouTube views, she’s a social media entertainment industry unto herself.

With that in mind, and with a desire for a more personalized interactive fan experience, Lady Gaga has launched her own long-awaited social network, called LittleMonsters.

An exclusive network, you can only get in by invite only. So get your paws up, visit LittleMonsters and give up your email address, then wait for the bouncers at the front door to open the chain for you.

What’s it like in Lady Gaga’s new site? CNN and Mashable have stated that it looks something like increasingly popular social interest-sharing site Pinterest, with those going Gaga sharing images and commentary with their friends, while voting for image popularity. Of course, that’s a pretty easy assumption to have, given the fuzzed out background behind the invitation box.

With LittleMonsters, Lady Gaga’s music machine can make its own advertising deals, fence in exclusive content, and even perhaps hold concerts online for her multitudes. At the least, she can control her online message, while providing a safe place for her Little Monsters to hang out and enjoy each other’s company.

These are heady days, indeed. Rawr!

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February 8, 2012

Mobile & Social Win Super Bowl

First published on Technorati by Alex Minicucci.

Last February, many marketers learned the hard way that including mobile and social into their brand’s Super Bowl marketing mix would be a game changer.

This year, marketers got it right—well, at least some.

Each year on Super Bowl Sunday, marketers have access to the eyes and ears of about 100 million people who are watching the game and anxiously waiting for the next jaw-dropping commercial. But for $3.5 million, they better make that 30-second time slot count.

InMobi released its Super Bowl XLVI Mobile Consumption Survey, which reinforced why marketers should have included some mobile component into their marketing mix.

• Nearly 40% of respondents used mobile devices in response to TV ads.
• 45% estimated that they spent 30 minutes or more on their mobile devices during the game.
• Twice as many respondents used their mobile devices during the first half of the game than the second half.

In addition, Altimeter noted several trends regarding how brands integrated mobile and social in this year’s Super Bowl advertisements:

• 11% of Super Bowl ads included emerging media technology (Shazam, Text Messages, Mobile Apps, QR Codes)
• 16% included social media calls-to-actions (Facebook, Twitter, Hashtags)
• 32% did not include ANY online references.

So which brands got the bang for their buck?
Several brands created successful interactive apps to accompany their commercials, including Best Buy, Toyota, Pepsi and Bud Light. The brands partnered with Shazam, an audio tagging application, and were able to link the Super Bowl ads with songs, giveaways and other content.

In addition, Chevrolet’s Chevy Game Time app gave users the opportunity to win prizes by answering trivia questions and polls.

Aside from mobile, many brands included social calls-to-action in their Super Bowl ads. In 2011, Nielsen found that Super Bowl ads that included social media tags that directed viewers to a link on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube were more 33 percent more memorable for viewers.

This year, hashtags were a common theme in many of the commercials. For example Audi’s anti-vampire ad included #solongvampires at the end, Bud Light Platinum included #makeitplatinum, and Hulu included #mushymush. The hashtags were used to get people tweeting about the brands, and it worked.

Links to Facebook were also included in the ads, of which many replaced traditional web links. Pepsi Max and General Electric among others included the URL of their Facebook Page at the end of their ad to drive consumers to the social networking site.

Also, GoDaddy experimented with a QR code at the end of one of their advertisements, which generated the best mobile website traffic ever for the company.

Each of these calls-to-actions was intended to drive consumers to a place where they can interact with the brand and create a dialogue. Some marketers really hit the mark this year and developed well-executed mobile marketing campaigns. Others, however, fell short.

Marketers and brands must understand the power of mobile and social in this day and age. We are a more technologically engaged, connected group of fans. People aren’t just rooting for their favorite teams while sitting on the couch eating chicken wings—they’re tweeting, conversing on other social networking sites and interacting with apps.

Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest television advertising event of the year. So marketers, don’t just throw a Hail Mary pass at developing a successful Super Bowl ad. Check the playbook, and create worthwhile ads by incorporating mobile and social—elements that are known to enhance the user experience.

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How Not to Manage a PR Stunt in a Social World

First published on Technorati by Marc Girolimetti.

By now, many of you have heard about the little stunt that online pawn shop, Pawngo, and their PR firm, 5wpr, pulled today in Boston’s Copley Square. 5wpr is run by Gawker’s favorite whipping boy, Ronn Torossian, who I’m convinced has the country’s largest collection of white sneakers and mauve tracksuits.

There already has been plenty of discussion regarding the stunt itself and yes Pawngo, you most definitely underestimated how provincial Boston is and well your name is floating in the Muddy River. Pawngo’s CEO, Todd Hills, might want to think twice about visiting the Freedom Trail.

However, in today’s rapidly moving social environment, it’s one thing to pull off a stunt that gets everyone talking about you. It’s another to use a fake account to manage the chatter and effectively act like a complete ass while doing it. Somebody, most likely the one intern at 5wpr, who was pissed they couldn’t go to the Super Bowl parade today, jumped all over everyone who mentioned Pawngo on Twitter.

Look at this image. It’s just a bunch of Mr T endorsed jibba jabba that only the brightest C student could bring to the table. What’s even more nefarious is using the fake account of a former NFL QB and current ESPN on-air personality.

Within an hour I had heard from @dougH, @holtmurray, @jimstorer and Technorati’s own, @BigGuyD, that they had been “Dilfered”. All of them mentioned Pawngo. All of them received a frat party’s worth of stupidity in return.

Given 5wpr’s reputation this isn’t a surprise, but if you’re Pawngo and your goal is to draw attention to yourself, why would the “person” responsible for getting out in front of it be not only be fake, but a fake idiot? It makes no sense that you would risk your reputation like that. If you visit @TrentDilferQB you’ll see a variety of copy and paste jobs regarding never hearing about Pawngo, sprinkled in with cheap insults, a fair amount of drug talk and some creepy obsession with Tom Brady.

It’s just another case of a company that was ill-prepared for a stunt. However, they chose to hide behind a fake account to deal with it, opposed to, you know, being professionals and owning it.

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Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Discusses Women Lagging Behind Men in Business

First published on Technorati by Carole Ditosti.

When women are outstanding, they are incredible! Look at Facebook’s CEO, Sheryl Sandberg. The highest-paid executive at Facebook, her salary of almost $31 million shows she is one of the highest paid self-made women executives. When her options on a further 38.1m shares vest over the next five years, in addition to the 1.9m shares she already has in Facebook she will be one of the richest women in the world.

The 42-year-old Sandberg joined Facebook from Google in 2008 after she met Mark Zuckerberg at a party then at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. After she climbed on board the Facebook train, she has revamped it into a vital, vibrant and determined business enterprise. Would Facebook have moved as smoothly to the company’s IPO filing last week without Sheryl Sandberg’s guidance? Not likely. In its S-1 filing, she is credited with “growing revenue, building commercial and developer relationships” and apart from Mr Zuckerberg, she is the only other person named as “key personnel.” Accordingly she and Zuckerberg have the power to significantly impact Facebook is they jumped ship.

So when Ms. Sandberg was speaking in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum about women in key positions in the business world, her remarks were well received and acknowledged. Among some of the points she made concerned inequalities and double standards. She discussed the “ambition gap” which impedes women from childhood all the way to corporate boardrooms.

“We reward men for being leaders, for being assertive, for taking risks, for being competitive,” she told a panel on the future of women in business. “(But) we teach women as young as 4 (years old) to lay back, be communal. We need our girls to be ambitious to achieve in the workforce.”

Her point is well taken When you receive the prospectus of the companies you’ve invested in, especially American corporations, check members of the boards. Usually, there is one black man and one woman. Rarely, are there more than one of each. The predominance is still white men, however, it is improving. Just 11.3 percent of the Fortune 500 companies had male-only boards last year, according to Catalyst, a New York based nonprofit that researches women and business issues.

Actually, at Facebook there are no women on the board. Google, Inc. and Linkedin Corp. have at least one female director. Of course, the irony is that Facebook’s 800 million users are mostly women, so Sandberg’s comments were quite telling and maybe indirectly directed toward her own company.

Of the Fortune 500 for last year, only 11.3 percent had male-only boards, according to Catalyst, a New York-based nonprofit that researches women and business issues.

“We’re long past having to defend or explain why women should be on boards, given all the data that shows how companies with female as well as male directors perform better,” said Anne Mulcahy, former chairman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corp. and a director at Johnson & Johnson Co., Target Corp. and Washington Post Co.

So why aren’t there more women in top positions and board rooms? Psychology, old boys network, a woman’s needs, the reasons are as variable as the women believing them. However, we must remember for centuries, women did not take a dominant role in business; their role was in the home raising children because there were no labor saving devices to rescue them like there are today. Only since the last century have women begun to make inroads and begun to overthrow their own self-limiting shackles. It takes time.

Sandberg indicates the psychology of women bosses as problematic; men in corporate settings are generally viewed as more likeable as they achieve more. Women achievers are perceived as less friendly, less likeable as their accomplishments mount. (They are often referred to as B—-es.)  Oftentimes, though men do this as well, women stab each other in the competitive back, especially women whose ambitions have died and who will never get beyond the lower rungs. Competition from colleagues at top levels is expected and can be dealt with and understood. But there is a lot of jealousy and undermining from lower level employees.

California-based author and branding expert Samantha Ettus was positive about Sandberg’s remarks. “She has an incredibly wide and expansive platform to deliver the message. As parents it’s easy to forget that the messages we give our kids as young as toddlers shape their futures.”

Paulette Senior, chief operating officer of YWCA Canada, discussed how the  double standards of role pressure, women bosses as less friendly, create stresses for female executives their male counterparts never face.

“It becomes tiring and draining because it is always conscious,” Senior said. “Women in leadership needs to become more of a norm. I’ve trained myself to see myself in a leadership role.”

Sandberg pointed out in the panel discussion that even in couples where both partners work full-time jobs, a disproportionate amount of cleaning, cooking and other house related activities fall to the women. “We try to equalize things in the workplace (but) we haven’t equalized things at home,” said Sandberg. Clearly, gender roles still abide and are hard pressed to disappear.

According to Susan Stautberg, co-founder of New York-based Women Corporate Directors, as Facebook prepares to raise $5 billion (U.S.) in an initial public offering, the composition of its all-male board shows huge problems with its business strategy. Stautberg’s organization promotes female board membership.

“It doesn’t make sense for a company that claims to be so forward looking to not have any women directors. If they just have an old boy’s network in the boardroom, they won’t have access to diverse ideas and strategies.”

Facebook, which began eight years ago in a Harvard University dorm room, had sales of $3.7 billion (U.S.) in 2011. Sandberg’s contributions have proved their weight in that “gold.”

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Google Plus Crosses 90 Million User Mark

First published on Technorati by Sahil Shaikh.

Google’s online social networking service “Google Plus” has now crossed 90 million user mark since its launch in June 2011.

Google+ which is also known as G+ is a social networking and identity service, operated by Google Inc.

Google+  was launched on June 28, 2011, in an invitation-only “field testing” phase. Early invites were soon suspended due to an increasing demand for new accounts. On September 20, 2011, Google+ was opened to everyone 18 years of age or older without the need for an invitation. It was opened for a younger age group (13+ years old) in most countries on January 26, 2012.

Google+  has now attracted over  90 million users around the world. According to independent analysis of its growth in December 2011, the site was adding an estimated number of 625,000 new users a day, which may total 400 million members by the end of 2012. The site’s popularity accelerated in December 2011, with almost a quarter of its total user base joining in December alone.

Interesting fact is that  Google+ user base growth rate is comparatively higher than that of Facebook and Twitter. Google+ statistics reveals that it had already made record for reaching 50 million users base in just 2 months and 28 days compared to Facebook that took 36 months and Twitter 30 months to reach same landmark.

Google CEO Larry Page stated that “I am super excited about the growth of … Google Plus, which now has 90 million users globally, well-over double what I announced just three months ago. By building a meaningful relationship with our users through Google Plus we will create amazing experiences across our services.”

Since Google+ launch on June 28, 2011, Google has added toolbars and other buttons on its websites to aggressively promote the service. Google+ iPhone app is the most popular free application in the Apple app store.

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February 6, 2012

Facebook More Addictive Than Tobacco

First published on Technorati by Adi Gaskell.

It has long been known that certain substances are addictive to us. Things like tobacco, drugs and alcohol are frequent offenders. New research suggests that social media might beat them all.

The research, conducted by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Management, found that people are more addicted to social media and email than they are to traditional vices such as smoking and drinking.

The researchers enrolled over 200 Germans from the city of Wurtzburg to test what kind of things they could not live without each day.  Each participant was equipped with a BlackBerry and asked several times throughout the day to identify desires they were having, and the strength of those desires.

The results were quite startling.  Whilst it is perhaps understandable, not to mention healthy, that sleep and leisure time topped the list, what is more surprising is that the next most addictive activity was social media usage.  This was followed by checking our emails.

“Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist,” said lead researcher Wilhelm Hofmann at Chicago University’s Booth Business School.

“With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs — long-term as well as monetary — and the opportunity may not always be the right one. So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still ‘steal’ a lot of people’s time,” Hofmann added.

The research comes after Cisco released findings last year revealing that for the younger generation, Internet access is as important as food and water.  One of every three college students and employees surveyed globally (33%) believes the Internet is a fundamental resource for the human race – as important as air, water, food and shelter.

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Study Finds Facebook Users Generate Informed Opportunity

First published on Technorati by Lisa Stephens.

Facebook use exemplifies habitual traits of use. A study released Friday from Pew Research, a nonpartisan fact tank with a pulse on the attitudes and trends of the American people, giving the world consensus derived of opinion, is basing its findings on information received from a phone survey issued last October and November consisting of responses from 2, 255 adults. This study is just one subject derived of a larger assignment entitled, “Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project.” This likely being evaluated since the timing indicates political relevance, with Facebook’s filing of a $5 billion initial public offering coming just two days earlier, and with the issues surrounding censorship and social involvement on social internet channels being newsworthy and a constant topic source on multiple levels, not to mention privacy policies for secure commerce and cooperative internet traffic. Phew.

The study reveals that users are most probably obligated to their use on some level. The researchers claim that up to 30% of those users surveyed were categorized as “power use” and that these users had no obvious use specification other than to say that they spent abundant time perusing the confines of the social network. While the inference is one that suggests friendly admiration, participation through approving of friendships and their interests, or qualifying respectful similarities between friendships, the report relies on amount of usage, rather than qualified usage, with 63 percent of users studied receiving friend requests in the survey month, and another 40 percent making a friend request. Close enough to call, but not distinct enough to clarify, these numbers only say that users may require more attention than they give, but it also suggests more time involved in character augmentation online through diverse contacts and interests. This increases areas for marketing glee.

“For most people, the longer they are on Facebook, the more they do on Facebook,” says Keith Hampton, the study’s main author and a Rutgers University professor. The ability for Facebook to convince participants to advertise and market is already evident. Marketers have more focused attention, more time-sensitive, and time proportionate opportunity through Facebook should they be “liked”…

But we already knew that!

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February 3, 2012

Pinterest Gaining Intensity and Support with Social Zealots

First published on Technorati by Lisa Stephens.

Pinterest is the hottest thing since cool boots … in fact, WSJ named it the hottest start-up in Silicon Valley.

Social media gets to be socially preoccupied with Pinterest. Doug Stephens, President of Retail Prophet Consulting suggests that Pinterest is the next big splash in the sea of community-based networking and marketing platforms. He says, “I see it as being an evolution …”. Adding that Pinterest’s visual stimulation creates an internet “where more people will be showing each other things.” Pretty things that deserve admiration, apparently.

Exploring depths of style, Pinterest interests with simple, free, and easy creativity. Other services such as, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, these sites toss links, pitch concepts, and bandy banter. Pinterest begs the thoughtful exchange of platitudes. It’s a place to linger a bit longer, and click.

Since its inception, Pinterest has gained attention from retailers to housewives, entrepreneurs to investors. Amazon uses it to express retail impressionism and art appreciation. In December, the site received nearly 11 million visits in one week, according to Experian Marketing Services, which was almost 40 times the number of visits recorded just six months earlier. Clearly, when pressed, polished, and carefully aggregated, Pinterest pays off.

“I think this is a real winner,” enthuses Paula Gignac, President of the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada. “There’s a huge amount of potential for the site to develop.”

Exploring the lighter side of social … sign up, fix a page, and pin… pin… pin to your creativity’s content and your interest’s fulfillment.

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