Nike Kickin' It Social Again

It's like you can't throw a rock without hitting another Nike social community. Take for example, the just launched: NikeSoccer

This site itself isn't a social network, but it links out to a few of Nike's efforts on a few social communities.

Nike Soccer on Facebook It's a Mercurial Vapor Squad widget.

Nike Soccer on MySpace Up to almost 50,000 friends already.

Do The Test: Social Media Case Study

WCRS created an ad to promote cycling safety and used social media to spread it virally.

Some stats:
After just 2 weeks, the online version of the film received a total of 4.4million views.

• 1,500 comments video sharing sites

• circa 34,000 results on Google discussing the ad

• 4 fan groups on Facebook

• Page 1 on reddit & digg

After viewing, do note that they completely ripped off an academic video done over a decade ago.

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Cadbury - Bebo Style

The Cadbury Creme Egg has a nice presence on Bebo, along with apps, mobile games and over 19,000 friends.

Goo here

Saturn Brand Expands Orbit With Its Own Social Network

Saturn used Ning as their social networking platform. Their site pulled in 1,200 members within 3 weeks. They had hoped for 1,000 in 6 months.

Here's how they did it.

Zude, Where's My Digital Identity Hub?

Brian Solis: Essentially, Zude itself is a mashup of a WSIWYG Web site builder, DIY social network, and social media aggregator, strung together with drag and drop functionality.

I see Zude earning tremendous traction from consumer-focused brands and products. Businesses looking to appeal to mass audiences and also specific market demographics, niche communities within the Long Tail, can use Zude to create a variety of destination portals that are mainstream and also highly targeted and personalized.

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Zude

Gannett, Meredith Tap Ripple6 To Launch Branded Social Nets

Move over, P&G--looks like Gannett and Meredith want in on the branded social network game. The two media giants are the latest companies that have signed on with Ripple6, the social media technology firm that recently developed an online community for P&G's long-running soap opera Guiding Light.

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Yahoo! Open Throws Down The Gauntlet for The Open Social Graph

Yahoo! is rewiring itself while opening up to developers and making it more social. According to Charlene Li, "this is a significant step forward in the next phase of social networks and the social Web."re on what this will look like below).

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Yahoo! Open Strategy

Battle of the Social Community Maintenance Signs

Some social community sites have more personality than others, and it shows in their "scheduled maintenance" signs.

Check 'em all out

MySpace Apps Moves Out of Beta

MySpace Application Gallery, MySpace’s app directory which launched in limited beta back in March, is now fully live and open to the public.

The MySpace application gallery allows users to browse applications and integrate them into their MySpace page and profile, giving what MySpace describes as “a more engaging and entertaining online experience.”

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AtomicOnline Buys theFashionSpot, Aims to Launch Fashion Community

AtomicOnline is building a fashion-centric community hub, following its purchase of theFashionSpot, an online fashion destination for young women, earlier this year.

theFashionSpot debuted in July '01 as an invitation-only site where would-be "fashionistas" could critique designer collections. It serves 70,000 registered members and one million unique visitors per month.

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Nokia Explores Social Networking Ops with Spike Lee

Nokia is teaming up with Spike Lee to mix up a site which utilizes just about every social media tool: from a sharing community to a UGC contest to a blog to, but of course, a social network.

“This is not a marketing gimmick,” said Craig Coffey, Nokia’s vice president for North American marketing and a former PepsiCo executive. “The notion of social networking and entertainment is real.”

NYTimes article

Nokia Productions

Facebook Platform Faces Rough Road Ahead, Despite Successes

The Facebook developer community is thriving but faces a good deal of uncertainty about its future. That was the general message from a session held at the Web 2.0 Expo today called “The Facebook Platform: Finding Success in the Facebook Economy.”

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Social Media Referral Program Prompts 941% Increase in Sign-Ups

Zecco Holdings, Inc. developed an online customer referral program that awards people when they get friends to sign up for a new Zecco Trading account. They have built a financial social networking community that has access to free stock trading through its wholly owned subsidiary, Zecco Trading, Inc. PopularMedia, a social media marketing solutions agency, worked with Zecco to develop a viral marketing campaign that resulted in a 941 percent increase in Zecco Trading account sign ups.

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What's Next for Social Platforms?

Looks like "What's next for" is becoming a meme.

Anyway: "On a panel this morning, representatives from Facebook , MySpace , Bebo, Orkut/OpenSocial, and Six Apart talked about what we can expect in the coming year with regard to third-party applications, data portability/data sharing, monetization, and, of course, keeping the users happy slappy. The end result was clear from the start: Everyone is still a little fuzzy on where to go from here."

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Hop with the Jet Set

Sorry, nothing to do with that old Dead Kennedys' song. American Express has launched their own social community called Members Know for the jet set crowd.

Members Know

Majority Use Social Media to 'Vent' About Customer Care

It's no secret that blogs and social networks have become the preferred sounding board for consumers fed up with poor customer service. Now, a study from Society for New Communications Research has attempted to quantify the impact on brands.

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Target's Social Media Campaign

Here's another look on Target's campaign on Facebook.

Target on its social media campaign and best practices: be transparent and measure success.

Dave Evans thinks Target didn't take the second part far enough.

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What’s Next For Social Nets? A Marketer’s Dilemma

What is the future of social networks as more niche social networks come into play and strong players like MyYearbook, Buzznet and Bebo continue to grow? Where does a marketer place his or her bets?

Thoughts by Joe Marchese

Suffering From Facebook Fatigue?

Time Magazine's Anita Hamiliton on becoming part of Facebook's fastest-growing problem: application overload, a.k.a. Facebook fatigue.

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Top 10 US Social-Network Rankings Issued for March

Top US social-networking site MySpace.com's audience was up 8 percent in March compared with March '07, but second-place Facebook's doubled, growing 98 percent from a year earlier, according to custom lists compiled by Nielsen Online, writes MarketingCharts.

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Google is attempting to turn your home page into your social network

Social networks like Facebook and MySpace are often just one click of a bookmark away on users’ web browsers. Google looks to be one-upping them by turning its personalized home page, iGoogle, into a social network.

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Here's the site now with added video

Facebook vs. MySpace: The battle for global social network dominance

MySpace still has a hefty traffic lead over Facebook in the U.S., so it was big news when ComScore released 2008 data that showed Facebook gaining quickly on MySpace in international traffic. According to the data, Facebook already gets more international page views than MySpace and is gaining quickly in unique visitors.

In January, Facebook had 100.7 million unique international visitors compared to MySpace's 109.3 million; a difference of just 8% compared to a year ago when the difference was nearly 400%. While some other social networking tools dominate in specific international markets, no other platform comes close to the two U.S. giants in overall audience and reach.

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Facebook's Insider's Guide to Viral Marketing

Many businesses, from leading global brands to favorite local bands, are enjoying tremendous impact using Facebook Pages for free viral marketing. Facebook collected some of these winning strategies—along with the nuts of bolts of how to create and manage a Page—into an Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing.

Hot off the presses

Worldwide Social Network Market Share

Easy to understand even if it's in French.

Here's a breakdown by select countries.

Universal Music Gets Buzznet On.

After acquiring two significant music-related blogs (Stereogum and Idolator) in the past two weeks, social media network Buzznet has signed on Universal Music Group as an investor.

This is believed to be the first time a major music company has taken a role in developing editorial programming for a social media site; both companies will share in the revenue.

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Yay, 100th post!

MySpace Tool Allows Marketers to Manage Their Own Profiles

"A few months after opening its platform to outside application developers, the company plans to announce today that it will let advertisers directly manage, through a self-service tool, their branded profiles on MySpace.

"This is a vast change from the tightly controlled, often laborious process brands previously had to endure to have a presence on the social network. It's also a reaction, MySpace said, to advertisers' desire to use the community more as a standing customer-relationship tool rather than a three-months-and-split campaign tool."

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U.S. Lags in Social Media Creation, per Survey

In the U.S. and Europe, consumers are avid consumers of social content while less likely to create their own compared to other markets.

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Facebook Lexicon - New Tool for Marketers?

Facebook has a new app called Facebook Lexicon. Basically, it shows users what the most popular search terms are on Facebook.

There are more practical applications of this tool for marketers. How often is your brand being mentioned? What words/phrases/subjects are we bringing up more often - and when?

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WWE Smackdown Gets a Social Network

World Wrestling Entertainment has a pretty large fan base, and the sports entertainment company is hoping to leverage its loyal fans in the online sense as well. The official site of WWE has been around for some time, but after a few fan sites on other networks like MySpace and Facebook managed to gain a good number of users, WWE was further encouraged to add a community onto its own website.

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Social Networks as Focus Groups

Smart companies are creating new, ongoing dialogues with their customers via social networks. Most use them as another promotional channel, but some are really taking an interest in their customers and their opinions.

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Targeting Social Media Marketing Missteps

Skip past the 1st article about Kodak. It's not about them having the second largest social network in the world (Kodak Gallery).

The next section is about Target, and a successful campaign on Facebook. It's also about a mistake they made, by not being transparent. A useful lesson for marketers thinking about using social networks.

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Traffic To Social Networks Bounces Back

Social networking sites appear to be breaking out of their winter downturn. Here's a quick look at Facebook, MySpace adn Bebo.

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Edward Lorenz, Father of Chaos Theory, Dies

Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist who became the father of the modern field of chaos theory, died Wednesday of cancer in Massachusetts aged 90, MIT announced Thursday.

His studies led him to develop what became known as the "butterfly effect." The term stemmed from his 1972 academic paper "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas?"

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Citi Cautious About Advertising On Social Networks

Financial services giant Citi evidently doesn't realize there's more to social media networks than just user-generated content, and are, in their words, "proceeding very cautiously".

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MySpace, Facebook: Big not always better

According to CNN, huge social-networking sites are losing people, and advertising opportunities, to smaller, specialized sites.

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Redken Launches Social Network For Haircolor Pros

Redken launched what the company claims is the first-ever online social networking community for salon professionals who use the company's Shades EQ Equalizing Conditioning Color Gloss professional haircolor line: www.DoYouShadesEQ.com

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Blockbuster Sued For Participating In Facebook's Beacon Program

A Texas resident has filed a federal lawsuit against Blockbuster for participating in Facebook's Beacon program, which tells members about their friends' e-commerce activity.

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Avatars Feel The Burn (Or Not) In Facebook Experiment

Here's a thoughtful critique on Coke's Facebook app for Burn.

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Social Networking and Auto Shoppers

Social networking sites TeamSugar and Iyomu fare better than MySpace and Facebook in attracting brand auto shoppers. Automotive marketers are taking strong notice of this.

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Customer Service Meets "Lord of the Twitters"

Pete Blackshaw: "Is Twitter putting companies and brands to yet another torture test of credibility and accountability?

Yes.

Is there an obvious roadmap for companies to participate on this platform?

No, but we now have a wee bit of early learning."

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Building a Popular Social Media Profile

If you’re a new or not yet established brand, how should you use social media to build a reputation for yourself?

Apart from making sure your product/website is relevant to the social media channel, it is also useful to participate in social media communities as an end-user or brand representative.

http://www.doshdosh.com/building-a-popular-social-media-profile/

Maximizing Social Media Networking and ROI

"Measuring the ROI for social networking can be a little difficult because the returns you’ll get out of networking via social media are not direct and immediate. Chatting with another person on Twitter does not always give you an immediate benefit: however, you are building a relationship which you can leverage in the future."

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Southwest, Zappos and Twitter

David Armano has a gripe: "Social Networks are all about facilitating human connections, and instead of talking about how we can do this—I hear marketers asking "how do we monetize" and "how do we advertise" on them." He then illustrates successful brand social networking, using Southwest and Zappos efforts with Twitter.

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A Social Network for Achievers

"MyMission2 is a recently launched network that’s going after the aspirational crowd. You can jump start all sorts or relationships online, for dating and even for work. Why not for finding a mentor, too? I use the term mentor loosely, but the underlying concept of MyMission2 is to create a semi-automated process for finding others to help, and others that can help you."

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Openeco: An Online Community Helping Sun Become Greener

As David Douglas Sun’s vice president for eco-responsibility explains: "At Sun, transparency is a virtue. Sun launched Openeco – a forum to share ideas, facilitate discussion and find solutions. Yes, discussions can be done at a conference, but an online community is a quantum leap in lowering barriers and sharing ideas."

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Track Your Brand’s Social Media Buzz

"This is a big, fat, wide-reaching net of social media searches to alert you every time your brand or product is mentioned by anybody on a slew of social media sites, including flickr, twitter, friendfeed, digg etc."

More here.

How is Your Company Using Social Media?

This question was recently posed on LinkedIn. So far, it garnered 22 answers.

More here.

Will The Real Social Media Expert Please Stand Up?

According to Brian Solis:"How do you take on giants such as Sony, Bose, Philips, and Monster when you’re the new kid on the block? You start by becoming a sociologist. Then you go to your customers directly and “go native” by ingratiating yourself into the online cultures where they communicate. You become the very people you want to reach."

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Nike's Jordan Brand Uses Social Marketing Strategies To Build Consumer Loyalty

"Emmanuel Brown knows how to engage his customers. As director for digital and content for Nike’s Jordan brand, he knows his customers inside-and-out and has been widely successful launching innovative, digitally-driven programs such as Jordan Breakfast Club."


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Social Networking Profiles as Billboards with SocialVibe

"SocialVibe is an online popularity contest that turns corporate advertising into money for charity. Users compete for status and prizes by shilling for their favorite brands, while a cut of the proceeds goes to a charity of their choice. The more popular you are on social networks or elsewhere on the web (for example, if you author a popular blog) the more money you can raise for charity and the more chances you can earn to win prizes."

More here.

Niche social networker CCI acquired by Radio One

The deal, valued at $38 million, represents Radio One’s strategy to target the African American audience by expanding outside of radio into interactive.

More here.

Obama's Rivals Should Steal From His Social Playbook

"Today's web and the new media that underpin it are known for the ability to create instant sensations. From Digg's social news to CareerBuilder's Monk-e-Mail campaign, companies can advance from zero to 20 million viewers practically overnight. The viral nature of this highly social, user-driven environment enables complete strangers to connect over common beliefs, desires or interests and together create winners and losers. It empowers both the individual and collective voice. And isn't that what a presidential election is all about?"

Marketers can learn a thing or two from Obama.

Social Networks Still Not Advertiser-Friendly

AOL CEO Randy Falco underlines the problem facing social networks in a recent memo: "But despite drawing large, engaged audiences, other social networks have not been able to make the experiences relevant to users and marketers alike."

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How Intensely Talented is Your Mouth?

Colgate wants to know, with its UGC contest on MySpace.

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Telus: A Fishy Social Networking Campaign

Here's a look on how Canadian telecommunications company Telus successfully used a sponsored applications on Facebook.

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Gossip Girls Find Home on Bebo

Here's a smart instance of successful online targeting via a social network.

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Are Your Customers Ready For Social Applications?

Lego and Chevy seem to think so.

As Josh Bernoff says, "In the United States, as of about 6 months ago, 56% of all online consumers had participated in some sort of social application in the last month.... Only 18% of those online consumers had actually gone to the trouble of publishing a blog or Web page, uploading video or music, or posting articles or stories online.... But what makes the social world online is that people can participate in so many ways.

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Executives Must Realize and Learn The Power of Social Media

So says Marketing News, reporting on a multi-country study that reveals social media’s progress toward becoming a mainstream marketing communications tool.

As one MN blogger writes: "81.6% of companies are either either experimenting, expanding or integrating social media into its marketing efforts, but many marketers think the agency world is being left behind."

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Americans More Comfortable with Kids' Social Networking Use

No mention of virtual worlds in the article, so I have no idea why it uses Super Penguin from Disney's Club Penguin (a virtual world for kids). (Yes I'm being persnickity.) (Hmmm, back-to-back parentheses.)

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What Drives...sorry...Social Networking On Mobile Phones

The Future of Social Networking is Calling

More from Michael Arrington

What Drives BMW Fans to Get Creative?

I think I'm going to start using "drive" in every headline from now on.

BMW is using an already existing Facebook app to create a contest. Hmm, didn't I just mention something about MINI Cooper and graffiti and Facebook. Anyway, check it out here.

What Drives Folks to Join Social Networks

Many corporations are trying to find out why do people participate in social activity online? Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research has kindly listed nine reasons, which he feels is just a start.

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Twitter As An Early Stage Warning System For Brands And Companies

Comcast ignored Michael Arrington's phone calls regarding his internet outage. But they could not ignore his Twitters.

According to Arrington: "Within 20 minutes of my first Twitter message I got a call from a Comcast executive in Philadelphia who wanted to know how he could help. He said he monitors Twitter and blogs to get an understanding of what people are saying about Comcast, and so he saw the discussion break out around my messages."

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Arrington also points out that companies can easily do a brand search on Tweet Scan to join in any conversation or reach out to aggrieved customers.

Is Walmart Monitoring the Twittering?
According to Nick O'Neill: "Surprisingly yes! I checked out the volume of tweets pertaining to Walmart specifically and their appears to be a comment every half hour or so. I have to say that in the case of Comcast, they were able to prevent an uproar from Arrrington and while they haven’t replied to everybody, they are definitely listening."

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The Growing Impact of The Audience

When the audience is ignored, revolts occur. At SXSWi sometime back, a few panels were either undone or nearly undone by Twitterers and Meebo users.

How does this connect to marketing? According to Dave Evans, "As a marketer, you can tap into the back channels. You can use the social Web to learn about what your customers are saying to each other and to your potential customers. You can gain insight from conversations occurring now."

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Anatomy of a Twitter Mob
At SXSW, during a Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) interview, Twitter backchannel turned an audience into a mob. The session leaders, not having access to the backchannel, had no idea what was happening, or why the mood of the audience had changed so rapidly.

Meebo Users Plot Revolt During Dull Panels
Tom Parish, social marketing consultant and moderator of the panel, was unaware of the e-heckling going on online. Then halfway through the panel, an audience member stepped to the mike and informed Parish about the Meebo chat, completing the circle of digital life by injecting the online discussion back into the offline one.

Roll up, get your Olympic Torch Facebook app

The Samsung Virtual Torch Relay app on Facebook allows users to pass their own torch to other users, hence creating their own little bit of Olympic history.

Samsung are one of three sponsors of the Olympic Torch Relay, and is understood to be the only one using social media to promote itself.

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What Does It Take To Create A Sustainable Facebook App?

Any company planning to create a Facebook widget needs to read the following two reports from Asi Sharabi. In the first report Asi focused on the 100 most popular apps according to number of installs. The second report focuses on the apps that have the highest number of active users. Looking at these apps allows us to truly understand what makes a sustainable Facebook app.

Facebook Applications Trends Report #1

Facebook Applications Trends Report #2

Study: 'Influencers' Possess Less Clout

According to a new study from Canadian research firm Pollara, self-described social media users put far more trust in friends and family online than in popular bloggers, or strangers with 10,000 MySpace "friends."

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Trust in Peers Trumps the "A-List," Study Finds

The question of targeting super nodes vs. smaller groups is all coming down to trust. While the marketplace - both marketers and publishers - continue to focus on reach, they are missing the big picture. Trust is by far a more important metric, one that clearly rules when it comes to influence.

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Ad Opportunities For Pringo Social Networks

Content syndication platform Mochila is going to integrate its marketplace interface onto Pringo, which, like Ning, enables business to create their own social networks. This will help drive traffic to niche networks while availing new opportunities for segmented ad placement to advertisers.

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AOL to Integrate Bebo with a Personal Touch.

Dana Dunne is spreading the word about AOL and its $850m purchase of Bebo, a move that he sees as a return to AOL's roots.

He dismisses critics who wonder whether, given Bebo's youthful user profile, it will generate the sort of ad revenues needed to make the site a worthwhile purchase for such a substantial sum. "Advertisers still want to target them [teenagers]. They do spend lots of money targeting the youth market, and over time what was once youth someday becomes more established and evolve to another stage of their lives. This is the perfect medium to get to them.

More here

Another look

Facebook Unveils Instant Message Feature

Facebook fans are getting a new toy this week. With the launch of Facebook Chat, users will be able to communicate in real time with friends on the site.

Facebook Chat's release comes just weeks after AOL acquired Bebo, a social media network that boosts AOL's total network to 80 million unique users worldwide, the company said last month.

Question: will it have advertising features like AIM?

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Ning Vs. Flux

In the previous post, it was noted that Radiohead was using the Ning platform. Ning and and the newer Flux are just two ways brands can build social networks on the cheap.

Here's an interesting, if completely biased look at Flux from the head of Ning a few months back: Ning CEO Calls Flux And Viacom To The Mat

After reading this rant, it is almost ironic to note that Ning is Chinese for peace.

Waste Not, Want Not: Waste-Central

The band has unveiled a social network where fans can post videos, remixes, blog posts, photos and up to 100 music files each. The site runs on the Ning platform and features subnetworks dedicated to individual tour dates so that fans can hook up before the shows and chat about them afterwards. Everybody gets their own blog, playlist, photo gallery, video section, profile page and an email address for posting photos and videos from cellphones.

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Seven Brand Name Social Networks

A brief look at SocNet efforts from Pepsi, MTV, Martha Stewart, and um, Starbucks.

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Is This One Good?

Itog is a social networking site done up as a social opinion site, and uses the slogan: "Is That One Good?" When you join you can rate everything from music to movies to TV shows and more. Then you can compare yourself to others in the community.

ITOG

Thanks to Linda Roeder for the link.

Oh, and rather than post ITOG's logo or something from their site, I went with an image of Jurij Loza, who once sang a song called "Itog".

How to Dress Up a Social Network

Imagine a social network for window shoppers. Polyvore lets you mix and match clothes and accessories from a variety of online stores. You can compare your tastes with others in the community, even join or form groups like those found on Facebook.

Polyvore

More on Starbucks' Missteps

It seems Starbucks is missing out on a huge opportunity by not promoting their new online social community or as Debra Mastaler calls it, a glorified customer feedback form, within their already tremendous in-store community.

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MINIMania Hits Facebook

To celebrate the launch of the new Mini Clubman, MINI parked a site full of activities on Facebook, about a month ago. Play pinball, spray grafitti, and head over to the MINI site to build your own Clubman.

Mini Clubman

The Emergence of Micro Social Networks

A growing trend is emerging with companies launching their own social network sites. Peter Bowman calls these ventures “Micro Social Networks” as they mirror what micro-sites have done to promote brands for many years.

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J.D. Power Buys Umbria, Buzz Monitoring Firm

Marketing research firm J.D. Power and Associates has snatched up Umbria, a provider of online buzz monitoring and marketing intelligence services. Umbria of Boulder, CO, offers a platform for tracking consumer sentiment on blogs, message boards, public social networks like MySpace, and other conversation-based media.

According to J.D. Power President Steve Goodall: "Consumer-generated Web commentary is becoming a prominent part of our social fabric."

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Building Communities in Consumer Markets

Did a lack of social networks kill off the dinosaurs? Who knows? But one 'lil dino named Pleo has started up his own community, which already has attracted both consumers and developers. In a video interview, Ugobe's VP of Marketing talks about how building a social network for Pleo has saved the company lots of money, and helped consumers much faster than they ever could have years ago.

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MySpace Officially Announces Music Venture with Three of the Major Labels

MySpace has officially announced their new music venture, and as reported yesterday, Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, and Warner Music Group are all in as launch partners, leaving EMI as the only major record label not participating.

Also confirmed by the company, MySpace Music will offer:

- DRM-free downloads
- Ad-supported audio and video streaming
- Artists merchandise
- Concert tickets
- Mobile content (ringtones, wallpapers, etc.)

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Facebook Teams Up with iTunes, Goes Gunning for MySpace Band Territory

Build Your Customers' Social Technographics Profile

What's The Social Technographics Profile Of Your Customers? The gadget serves up Forrester Research survey data relative to Technographics. There's also a slideshow on the site explaining it all.

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U.S. Trails World In Social Media Growth

THE COUNTRY THAT GAVE THE Web both MySpace and Facebook turns out to be a world-class laggard when it comes to social media growth.

The U.S. trails emerging markets such as China, Brazil and Russia in the adoption of activities including blogging, social networking and video-sharing. China, for instance, has already surpassed the U.S. in the number of people starting their own blogs, at 43 million compared to 26.4 million.

Meanwhile, online social network membership in countries such as Brazil, Russia, Taiwan and Mexico is growing at more than 70% compared to less than 49% in the U.S.

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Coca Cola’s Burning up Facebook

We’ve seen some pretty interesting advertising campaigns that utilize Facebook’s platform for integrated applications, such as Bob Dylan’s. Most of them have been pretty cool, even in their blatant attempts to get users to spread a brand’s name around to their friends. Coca-Cola’s latest, however, seems like it could be fun.

It’s branding is rather subtle–if you add the app to your profile (click here), you may not even recognize that it’s a marketing effort until you’ve gotten it all set up and begin to play. The product being promoted? Coca-Cola’s drink Burn. The app itself? An avatar alter ego that goes clubbing at night, and reports back in the morning. That report shows up on your Burn app blog, your profile page, and even your newsfeed.

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Who is Kinsey?

She's 18. Lives in New York. Has almost 900 friends on MySpace. Does a video blog, which shows her brother acting crazy and writing in his own language. He may very well be a pod person. Her last blog got over 200,000 MySpace viewers concerned.

A fact about her brother Hank. He studies under Professor Fitzgerald, who just happens to be Peter Parker's professor at Empire State University.

If you know who Peter Parker is, then you know this is one very clever viral use of social networking for a brand.

Kinsey's MySpace page

Social Media Marketing Still Lacks Strong Metrics

Social networks rank behind blogging and online video in terms of popularity? Say it isn't so. Another interesting fact: the over 65 crowd is almost as likely to be influenced by social media as the young whippersnappers on their lawn.

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