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.

More here

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.)

More here

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.

More here

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.

More here

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.

More here

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.

More here