Social Media Evangelists

JellyBarn, a leading provider of applications, widgets, and games, is pleased to kick off it’s social media contest - Social Mastermind 2009. Aimed at forward-thinking brands and marketers, companies can submit a social app concept for the chance to win a full-scale social campaign worth $100,000.

Devin Day, JellyBarn CEO and social app veteran, believes the contest will generate great ideas and help accelerate the awareness and value of social media. “Social applications hold enormous potential for brands to connect with their audience and drive revenue, especially in this tough economy,” he said.

The fun begins at http://www.jellybarn.com/mastermind/, where contestants are challenged to submit their idea for a web application, game, or widget. A panel of brilliant minds from Google, Hi5, PerfSpot, Yahoo!, Razorfish, and others will review and rate the entries on overall concept and originality.

U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, ‘The
Oprah Winfrey Show,’ ‘Anderson Cooper 360,’ U2, Britney Spears, Lance
Armstrong, Dwyane Wade, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, The New York Times,
CNN and More are on Facebook

Over 175 Million Users Can Connect to the Famous on Facebook

Recognizing that political leaders, celebrities, professional
athletes, media outlets, and public figures are always looking for
innovative and creative ways to directly reach their audiences,
Facebook today introduced new tools for the most popular influencers in
the world to broadcast messages instantly and connect with the millions
of people using Facebook each day.

Those who use Facebook’s new public profiles, currently called
Facebook Pages, will be able to share all types of content with an
unlimited number of users. Shared content can be brief messages or may
include photos and videos and will soon appear in News Feed, Facebook’s
popular service that streams what people you care about are doing,
thinking, saying, watching, photographing and reading right now.
Facebook users can then easily make connections, comment on posted
content and join the online conversations with the famous - just as
they can with a family member, friend or colleague.

To showcase the new, rich features, Facebook partnered with several world-renowned individuals and organizations:

• President Obama is rallying support for new U.S. policies and initiatives
• “The Oprah Winfrey Show” is giving viewers a new way to interact
• U2 is connecting with fans of their new album
• CNN is providing breaking developments to news junkies
• Stanford University is sharing its discoveries and knowledge
• The NBA’s star athletes are posting photos and video highlights from their games
• LIVESTRONG
  is empowering cancer survivors and advocates in the global fight
  against cancer and raising awareness about the LIVESTRONG Global Cancer
  Campaign

“We are excited about our new presence on Facebook and the new
capabilities it offers for us to connect with fans and potential
guests,” said Sheri Salata, executive producer, “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

“Facebook is such a cool and easy way for me to connect with my fans while I’m on the road,” said Britney Spears. “I love that I can update my status, blog and post videos and photos all in one place.”

“This new Facebook profile for ‘Anderson Cooper 360′ allows us to have a constant dialogue with a community on Facebook,” said David Doss,
senior executive producer of “Anderson Cooper 360.” “We’ll be
communicating breaking news and insider perspective directly from the
360 newsroom.”

“Connecting our supporters with our new profile helps us build
awareness for our cause, spread vital disaster relief information and
quickly mobilize millions of volunteers through updates and Facebook
events,” said Gail McGovern, president and CEO of the American Red Cross.

People can sign up or log on to Facebook at www.facebook.com to connect with any of these celebrities and public entities at the following URLs:

• American Red Cross: http://www.facebook.com/redcross
• Anderson Cooper 360: http://www.facebook.com/andersoncooper360
• Ashton Kutcher: http://www.facebook.com/ashtonkutcher
• Baron Davis: ht’p://www.facebook.com/barondavis
• Britney Spears: http://www.facebook.com/britneyspears
• CNN: http://www.facebook.com/cnn
• Demi Moore: http://www.facebook.com/demimoore
• Dwyane Wade: http://www.facebook.com/dwyanewade
• Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: http://www.facebook.com/joinarnold
• Governor Sarah Palin: http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin
• Lance Armstrong: http://www.facebook.com/lancearmstrong
• LIVESTRONG: http://www.facebook.com/livestrong
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon: http://www.facebook.com/latenightwithjimmyfallon
• Michael Phelps: http://www.facebook.com/michaelphelps
• National Basketball Association (NBA): http://www.facebook.com/nba
• NBA Development League: http://www.facebook.com/nbadleague
• Paul Pierce: http://www.facebook.com/paulpierce
• President Barack Obama: http://www.facebook.com/barackobama
• President Nicolas Sarkozy: http://www.facebook.com/nicolassarkozy
• ServiceNation: http://www.facebook.com/servicenation
• Stanford University: http://www.facebook.com/stanford
• The Colbert Report: http://www.facebook.com/thecolbertreport
• The New York Times: http://www.facebook.com/nytimes
• The Oprah Winfrey Show: http://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfreyshow
• The Today Show: http://www.facebook.com/kathieleeandhoda
• WNBA: http://www.facebook.com/wnba
• U2: http://www.facebook.com/U2

The company has created step-by-step instructions for any public
figure or organization wanting to create a presence on Facebook. In
addition, Facebook offers best-practice suggestions for public figures,
non-profits or other organizations, entertainers and bands. This can be
found at http://www.facebook.com/publicprofiles.

Evolving to Profiles for Everyone and Everything on Facebook

Facebook is moving towards offering everyone and everything on the
site the same experience as with profiles - personal web pages that
currently represent each of the more than 175 million users on
Facebook. In the next week, all administrators of Facebook Pages will
have the opportunity to make changes to the new design and can publish
the updated design for all users to see whenever they choose. On March 11th, these Pages will automatically change to the new profile design.

Public profiles will be familiar to all Facebook users because they
have the same look and function as the current profiles, including
these popular features:

• Wall - The Wall displays the most
  recent and relevant information on a profile. The Wall is a collection
  of what a celebrity or public entity shares as well as what those
  connected to them are sharing. People can now easily comment on the
  content posted.

• Publisher - Just as a user can add
  content such as status updates, photos, and videos to any of their
  connections’ profiles, the Publisher provides a simple interface for
  sharing content.

• Tabs and Applications - Celebrities
  and public entities choose the default Tab that all users see when they
  land on their profile. Some applications that a celebrity or public
  entity has added to their profile are featured on the Boxes Tab.

• News Feed - Users will receive
  updates in News Feed from public profiles just like how they receive
  updates from their friends and family. Every time users visit Facebook,
  they’ll see the latest content from their friends, celebrities, and
  others they care about.

Jive, the Social Business Software leader, announced that Intercontinental Hotel Group (LSE: IHG.L) implemented Jive Social Business Software to connect and engage with its 40 million Priority Club Rewards members.

IHG’s vision for the new community, Priority Club Connect, is to become the central online gathering place for Priority Club Rewards Members and other like-minded travelers to engage with the Priority Club Loyalty Program and connect and share their traveler experiences. Additionally, Priority Club Connect encourages members to talk directly with IHG management through a video blog on the community and to participate in special offers available only through the community.

IHG evaluated a variety of solutions before selecting Jive for the Priority Connect initiative. IHG selected Jive because of the community software’s ease of use and flexibility, allowing it to be easily integrated into their existing platforms. By leveraging Social Business Software from Jive, IHG is building customer loyalty and affinity for the IHG brand.

“This initiative is one of the ways we’re engaging some of our most valued customers,” said Cassandra Jeyaram, Social Marketing Manager, IHG. “We see the Jive software platform as an opportunity to continue to expand our social marketing initiatives with relative ease and minimal costs.”

“We are excited that IHG selected Jive,” said Dave Hersh, CEO, Jive Software. “Social Business Software helps produce a breakthrough in the effectiveness of marketing initiatives and loyalty programs.”

Jive delivers the leading enterprise-class suite of Social Business Software applications for Global 2000 companies and governments. Jive’s collaboration solutions are the first to effectively manage employees, customers and partners on a unified platform. Jive is purpose-built for tens of thousands of users and millions of page views.

Jive was recently named a community platform ‘Leader’ by Forrester Research and recognized in the ‘Visionaries’ quadrant of the Enterprise Social Software Magic Quadrant report produced by The Gartner Group.

Recently formed Liquid Media LLC of Boulder, Colorado is focused on simplifying how businesses create and distribute advertising. Its patent-pending technology eliminates unwanted advertising for consumers. At the spring DEMO 2009 Conference, Liquid Media demonstrates and launches the industry’s first consumer-controlled advertising service found on the web at www.loyal2me.com. Also released today is Loyal2Me’s first business tool called VoiceTouch. The VoiceTouch web account allows businesses to create and immediately deliver voice advertising campaigns to their customers quickly and easily. New Jersey’s Aquamedica Spa (www.aquamedicaspa.com) Owner, Valentina Chistova, says, “Liquid Media’s VoiceTouch tool has allowed the spa to fill empty appointments at a rate unseen by any other marketing tool.” VoiceTouch focuses on the use of voice for its advertising campaigns because it increases the response rate and adds richness and personalization that no other media can achieve. Liquid Media’s clients have loyal customers and the VoiceTouch campaigns leverage personal relationships, and offer real value (i.e. discounts) for the consumer. Since VoiceTouch is a web-hosted service, voice advertising campaigns can be created and sent within minutes. The VoiceTouch service allows the business to measure the effectiveness of the campaign and how much business to expect in the next few hours. Imagine it; on-demand revenue generation is now possible using the VoiceTouch account. Liquid Media is creating a social marketing community where advertising is created and shared from businesses to consumers. Businesses get an additional benefit of Loyal2Me.com that allows the consumers to share their most valuable advertising with their friends with their own account on the Loyal2Me.com web service.

Today, Liquid Media also announces Loyal2Me.com VoiceRocket accounts for the consumers. The VoiceRocket accounts are free to the consumer and will be free forever. These consumer accounts allow the consumer to take control of their advertising environment only giving permission to those companies they want to hear from. The VoiceRocket accounts also allow the consumers to share hot deals with their friends and create their own instant voice messages to their friends and family. Valentina Chistova also comments on her client’s control, “The consumer control allows me to confidently create and send campaigns, at will, knowing that the consumers control frequency and timing of their messages. I won’t bother them and they will respond. Loyal2Me is a fantastic service. My customers can forward my advertising to their friends and family giving me the benefit of ripple marketing.”

Second Street Media Solutions introduced today the first iPhone-friendly application for local newspapers, TV and radio stations to host their own mobile sports contests.

More than 400 local media properties are slated to use this new iPhone web application beginning March 15 when they start hosting Second Street’s UPICKEM online college basketball contest, according to Co-Founder Doug Villhard.

The UPICKEM online contest - both on the iPhone and on the web - features the local media’s own branding and advertising and enables players to make and follow their picks right on their phones.

“The online basketball contests have always generated a lot of interest for us and our listeners,” said Ron Cariker, Director of Marketing & Interactive for Citadel Broadcasting, Oklahoma City. “But we are especially excited this year because more of our audience is getting the news through their mobile phones. We now have another way to engage them at our site and another way to provide value to our sponsors.”

The iPhone-friendly game is included in all of UPICKEM’s packages, takes no additional time to set up, and works on other smart phones like Windows Mobile and newer BlackBerry models like the BlackBerry Storm.

Online contesting participation has doubled in the last year, according to Second Street Media Solutions, which had 193 media properties hosting the UPICKEM basketball contest last year and expects more than 400 local newspapers, radio and TV stations to line up local advertisers and sponsors and host the game next month.

Online promotions, including contests, are slated to triple by 2012, both through mobile and web, according to local advertising expert Borrell Associates.

WebWatch Publishes Guide on Social Media Privacy, Photos and Video

If you use social media and networking Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace, you may not be aware of important personal privacy concerns until something embarrassing happens. Consumer Reports WebWatch has published a guide to help you avoid that, while navigating our increasingly complicated digital lives, called “Photos on the Web: A Consumers Guide” at http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/pdfs/photos_report.pdf

Written by WebWatch adviser Fred Ritchin, director of PixelPress and professor of photography and imaging at New York University, the report covers topics such as fake photos and the implications of “photoshopping,” copyright concerns, urban legends and more.

Ritchin just published his second book, After Photography (http://www.afterphotography.org), and you can join an ongoing blog discussion about these issues at that site, and also at WebWatch’s blog, The Unsponsored Link (http://blog.consumerwebwatch.org/2009/01/photos_videos_and_the_web_tips_1.html).

The report is part of WebWatch’s “Look Before You Click” campaign supported by a CyberAwareness Grant from the New York State Office of the Attorney General and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. It includes the following digital literacy tips:

- As anyone who has tried to take a family picture with young children and pets knows, the “perfect” photographic moment is hard to achieve. The well-worn consumer caution, “if it looks too good to be true, it is,” can be applied to photos and video on the Internet as well.

- As anyone who has purchased school pictures knows, you can pay a few extra bucks to have your child’s photos “retouched” to remove blemishes, chocolate smears in the corner of the mouth and other anomalies. On the Web, context is critical. “Before-and-after” images demonstrating weight loss, the miracles of skin creams, and attractive potential mates just waiting to talk to you should be treated with skepticism.

- Technically, it’s easier to alter a single image than hundreds of them, as would appear in frames in video. However, digital video editing software can raise similar manipulation concerns.

- Manipulated or not, when placing images of yourself or your family online on community, social networking or video sites such as Flickr, Facebook and YouTube, consider the ramifications carefully. Photos and video that enter the digital domain, usually remain. They may follow you for a long time, and they may present a picture to a future employer, or spouse or partner you might regret.

- You may decide to play around with software such as Photoshop. Consider your responsibility as a Web publisher and tell people on your Web site, blog or photo file if you drastically alter the composition of a photo in order to make a point.

“Putting a photo or video online can be kind of like letting a genie out of a bottle, or a horse out of the barn - you can’t easily remove a photo or video from the Internet once it’s there,” said Beau Brendler, WebWatch’s director. “Take some time to self-edit, and don’t put personal information like your name, address, phone number or e-mail address up with videos and photos.”

WebWatch has also published a fact sheet for staying safe on social networking sites, which you can find at http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/pdfs/socialnetworks.pdf

As IT departments struggle to justify technology spend during trying economic times and vendor companies look to capitalize on the exploding market for social technologies, Forrester Research, has released new research that tracks the business value, maturity, and future adoption of enterprise Web 2.0 collaboration tools. According to Forrester, social networking tools and internal wikis will have the greatest impact on workplace collaboration.

“Web 2.0 collaboration technologies solve problems that enterprises have today, but most companies have not used these tools anywhere near their potential,” said Gil Yehuda, senior analyst, Forrester Research. “This new research illustrates to enterprise users where the smart money is invested and where to place their strategic bets. In the current economic climate, Forrester believes collaboration tools can save enterprises operation costs by getting people and processes together quickly and efficiently.”

“While so much of the buzz around Web 2.0 has focused on the business-to-consumer market, the greatest opportunity today for vendors is in the business-to-business collaboration space,” said Oliver Young, analyst, Forrester Research. “Some Web 2.0 collaboration technologies have shown a faster-than-normal life cycle, so it is critical for vendors to take stock of the enterprise tools that have the greatest long-term potential and invest wisely in those technologies.”

Forrester previously estimated the enterprise Web 2.0 collaboration market will hit $1.8 billion by 2013.

Forrester predicts the following Web 2.0 collaboration technologies will continue to experience growth:

• Social networks will transform the nature of work. Social networks provide context to content. Cultural resistance exists, but Forrester believes this will eventually break, allowing workers to connect with like-minded colleagues and enabling a collaboration channel that previously didn’t exist in the enterprise.
• Wikis help transform collaboration. One of the most promising Web 2.0 technologies for the enterprise, users report success with Wiki endeavors, particularly when sponsored by business leaders and connected to business processes, and the market shows signs of strong growth.
• Blogging is not going away - but it does not capture or hold the attention of an enterprise audience. Social networks will breathe new life into internal blogs by providing more context to blogged content, but Forrester found that blogging alone does not capture the attention of an enterprise audience.
• RSS is underappreciated in the enterprise. This ubiquitous technology provides a mechanism to get content to people where they need it, rather than expecting people to find it.

The following Web 2.0 technologies have large and resilient ecosystems and can last for several years or even decades but, over time, the markets will become highly consolidated, customer numbers will flatten, and revenues will level off or decline:

• Podcasting is on the decline. Users tell Forrester that podcasts in the context of enterprise productivity and collaboration are neither very engaging nor immersive, and the vendor landscape is shrinking.
• Forums are underused. While forums will continue on as a fundamental enabling technology for collaboration, the marketplace is flat, and forums will become part of larger community-focused packages.

Search engine giant Yahoo has partnered with SearchMonkey to feature local directory listings from Citysearch, Zagat, Yelp and LinkedIn, along with Yahoo Local.

This partnership means that SearchMonkey’s local applications will now be available to Yahoo users as a default, without them having to download any additional programmes.

Content from the sites are also now more likely to appear in relevant Yahoo search results, offering a greater level of exposure to local business owners.

A search for a particular product or service yields a Citysearch listing, with comprehensive links to its profile, reviews and a map. In some cases, more than one enhanced listing for each business will appear from different providers.

SearchMonkey is designed to allow site owners and developers to incorporate structured data into their search results after installing a suitable application.

The SearchMonkey platform uses semantic web data used to help computers understand information in websites. It then builds data, such as film ratings, into the search results that Yahoo presents.

British Airways has launched a social media platform called Metrotwin.com linking the world’s two most dynamic hubs; London and New York. British Airways is the first airline to launch a social media platform of this kind.

Metrotwin is an online community that provides expert recommendations of the best places in both cities and extends the idea of ‘town twinning’ to the level of restaurants bars, shops, neighbourhoods and other places.

Chris Davies, British Airways Digital Marketing Manager, said: “British Airways is a company which connects people and social media is about connecting people. We fly more people between London and New York than anyone else. Creating a community website about the best of what’s on offer in the two cities we know best is a credible and useful tool.”

Metrotwin’s online community helps people navigate the vast number of web pages about these two cities and find the best content quickly. The website will enable users to review, rate, save, create profiles, suggest ‘twins’, follow other members recommendations and make their own maps and lists.

Metrotwin gets to know your preferences and provides Amazon-style personalised recommendations. In addition, the “Metrotwin Index” gives every place a score out of 100, which changes dynamically, based upon user behaviour. As the site grows new features will be considered based upon feedback from the Metrotwin online community. In the coming months this will extend to mobile phone applications.

The project is a collaboration between three agencies engaged by British Airways. BBH led the commercial proposition and strategic vision, Made By Many were brought in to create the design of the service & content partner network, and Agency.com as a partner focused on development and delivery.

Mel Exon, Global Business Director on British Airways at BBH, said “As great world cities go, the dynamism, cosmopolitan diversity and sheer size of London and New York uniquely qualify them as drivers of global culture across media, finance, fashion, the arts & entertainment. Metrotwin is a useful, real-time & “twinned” view of the best that both cities have to offer, all in one place.”

The 42-year-old web guru, in an effort to show Wikipedia’s impact thus far, referenced a recent trip to a slum in India where he “met this young man on the street who told me that he had used Wikipedia to pass his 11th grade exams.”

“Wow, that’s really cool, right? We’ve had some impact, even in such a place where I’m talking to this guy, and there’s mud streets, and cows, and it’s really quite a different environment from London.”

Wales’s popular online encyclopedia allows anyone with an Internet connection to make entries and edit content.

Speaking on the sidelines of an awards ceremony in London, Wales said: “We’re really just at the beginning, still, of collaborative efforts.”

“So, I think we’ve still got a long way to go.”

He acknowledged collaboration has its limits, noting that if “we said we want to write a novel about loss, and redemption, probably not so much public collaboration, that’s really an individual vision and a view of the world.”

“But for basic factual information, I think having an open public dialogue and debate and democratic process, seems to be very powerful.”

He said, however, that as computing power increases, “we need to really think about what are the political controls we need to have in place to prevent governments from abusing that kind of information.”

Wales’s remarks come after a report last month which warned that European governments are rapidly eroding civil liberties in a bid to gain “unfettered” access to individuals’ personal data in the name of tighter security.