Advocacy 2.0

Nevada GOP to report presidential caucus results via Twitter

2012-01-27T22:17:00.000-05:00

Las Vegas Sun reports: How do you increase your numberof Twitter followers exponentially in a matter of a few days? Use your accountto report the official results of a major presidential primary contest.

The Nevada Republican Party announced today it willrelease its official caucus results live on Twitter and will also use Googlemaps to display the live results visually on its website.

While it’s the second time election results werereported via Google maps—Iowa did it in January—it’s the first time a liveTwitter stream has been dedicated to reporting official results.

“The Nevada Republican Party wanted to be veryinnovative, very cutting edge, and utilize these platforms as a way to getthese results out in the fastest most effective way we think that has been doneto date,” said Jim Anderson of Cap Public Affairs, the consulting firm hired bythe party to help conduct the caucuses. “We think we’ve got a tool for thiscaucus that could be a model tool moving forward for primaries and caucus forstates all around the country.”

Before the results are released, Twitter willauthenticate the party’s handle — @nvgop — to ensure the information is secureand accurate. That handle, which had only 609 followers as of noon Friday, willbe used to report aggregate results.

A second Twitter handle will be established to reportprecinct-by-precinct results as they roll in. The name of that handle hasn’tyet been released.

Silicon Valley changes lobbying game

2012-01-27T11:17:00.000-05:00

Politico reports: Silicon Valley was once criticized fornot “getting” Washington and being slow to start lobbying. Now, as itcelebrates what appears to be a victory in its Capitol Hill fight overfast-moving copyright bills, the tech industry may see itself as an innovatorin lobbying, using the tools it created to beat the opposition at its own gameon its own turf. “There’s a new kind of lobbying,” said Ron Conway, a prominentinvestor in the Valley. “It’s from the grass roots. It’s as pure as lobbyingcan get — individual to individual.” The events of the past week have been “atremendous watershed moment in lobbying and advocacy,” said Andrew Shore, atech industry lobbyist at Jochum Shore & Trossevin. “Anyone who doesn’t payattention to it will be at a severe business disadvantage in the coming years.”
Readmore here.

Breaking: Aneesh Chopra, WH CTO, is leaving his position

2012-01-27T10:38:00.002-05:00

Aneesh Chopra, the White House chief technology officer, isleaving his position, an administration official confirmed to POLITICO. TheWhite House is expected to put out a statement today.

Obama campaign launches first TV ad and uses my favorite campaign word ever = "unprecedented"

2012-01-27T09:10:00.000-05:00

AP reports: President Barack Obama launched his first television ad of his re-election campaign, defending his energy record against criticism from a Republican-leaning outside group in a sign that the presidential race is entering a new phase even though Republicans have yet to pick a challenger.

The ad, released Wednesday, responds to a $6 million ad campaign by a group backed by the billionaire Koch brothers accusing Obama of conducting pay-for-play politics in the bankruptcy of California energy company Solyndra, which imploded despite a $528 million federal loan.

Obama's ad opens by citing "secretive billionaires attacking President Obama with ads fact-checkers say are not tethered to the facts." It says that the president has added 2.7 million clean energy jobs while reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil, calling Obama's record on ethics "unprecedented."

The voiceover ends by saying, "President Obama. Kept his promise to toughen ethics rules and strengthen America's energy economy."The Obama campaign has bought ad time in Michigan, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Iowa and on national cable television, according to a campaign official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak publicly about internal campaign strategy. Here is the ad:

Why social media isn't a waste of time (infographic)

2012-01-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of: Schools.com

Twitter able to censor tweets in individual countries

2012-01-27T08:55:00.000-05:00

The Guardian reports that the censorship tool is likely to raise fears that Twitter's commitment to free speech may be weakening.

Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis.

The additional flexibility announced on Thursday is likely to raise fears that Twitter's commitment to free speech may be weakening as the short-messaging company expands into new countries in an attempt to broaden its audience and make more money.

But Twitter sees the censorship tool as a way to ensure individual messages, or tweets, remain available to as many people as possible while it navigates a gauntlet of different laws around the world.

Before, when Twitter erased a tweet it disappeared throughout the world. Now, a tweet containing content breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed. That is similar to what internet search engine Google has been doing for years when a law in a country where its service operates requires a search result to be removed.

Read more here.

Study: Workers Spend $1,000 Yearly on Coffee

2012-01-27T08:49:00.000-05:00

Fox 5 reports: American's weakness for coffee is proven once again in a new survey conducted by Accounting Principals .
In a telephone survey of 1,000 Americans who were currently employed, ages 18 or older, the participators were asked how much money they spend on "work-related" expenses.

Despite recent tough economic times, results showed that 50 percent of the American workforce regularly spent money on coffee. This totaled, on average, $1,000 a year on coffee alone.

Broken down ever further, it was found that more men splurge on coffee than women (54 percent versus 45 percent). And the younger crowd, ages 18-34, spent almost twice as much on coffee than their older co-workers ($24.74 versus $14.15 weekly).

comScore: U.S. Online Holiday Shopping Already Up 14 Percent To $9.7 Billion

2011-11-23T11:03:00.001-05:00

TechCrunch reports: It looks like will be a joyful holiday season for many online retailers this year. comScore is reporting that holiday retail e-commerce spending for the first 20 days of the November to December 2011 season is already up 14 percent from the same period last year. Wednesday, November 16 was the heaviest online spending day of the season to date at $688 million.

comScore is forecasting that total online retail spending for the holiday season will reach $37.6 billion, 15 percent increase from last year’s season. For background, the 2010 holiday shopping period saw a 12 percent increase from 2009.

In a recent survey conducted with consumers, holiday shoppers say that retailers’ promotional activity for the early part of the season has increased in relation to last year. Specifically, 33 percent of respondents indicated that they are seeing more discounts, sales and promotions vs. last year compared to just 7 percent who said there were fewer.

First Football Endzone Hashtag Touches Down in Mississippi

2011-11-23T11:00:00.001-05:00

Mashable reports: :

The ol’ endzone dance just got even more social. When players in this Saturday’s Battle for the Golden Egg — the annual college football clash between Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi — celebrate after scoring a touchdown, they’ll be doing so on top of a massive Twitter hashtag.

In what’s believed to be a first for college football programs, Mississippi State has painted #HAILSTATE — the school’s traditional rallying cry and fight song — in its north endzone.

College teams typically decorate endzones with the title of their school, mascot nickname or a colorful pattern. But Mississippi State’s Twitter-based variation has already created buzz in the sports world.

“It’s a phenomenal idea,” Dallas Mavericks owner and Broadcast.com founder Mark Cuban said in an email to Mashable. “It’s a fun way to involve social media at the game, and to TV viewers it’s going to stir up some emotions between both teams.”

“I can definitely see the the Mavs and other teams doing it,” Cuban added.

Mashable: “Tweet” and “Social Media” added to Merriam-Webster Dictionary

2011-08-28T22:33:00.000-04:00

In further confirmation of social media’s penetration into the language, Merriam-Webster has added both “tweet” and “social media” to its Collegiate Dictionary.

M-W, which announced the move Thursday, is a bit late to the game. The Oxford English Dictionary just added “tweet” and “retweet,” not to mention “sext,” last week. Collins English Dictionary added “Twitter” as a verb and a noun in 2009.

M-W’s Collegiate Dictionary, the country’s best-selling dictionary, added 150 words, just a few of which are tech-related. Others include “m-commerce” and “crowdsourcing.” Among the other new additions are “fist bump,” “bromance,” “cougar” (in reference to middle-aged women on the prowl) and “helicopter parent.”

This was the first time M-W added new terms since 2009. Back then, the dictionary added “vlog,” “webisode,” “flash mob” and “pdf.”

Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large for the dictionary, says the new terms are decided upon in an informal manner. “It’s just a process of seeing a word used frequently and in many different sources,” he says, noting that inclusion in outlets like The New York Times is a big consideration.

NYT: Condé Nast deepens its social connections

2011-08-28T22:32:00.000-04:00

Readers of the online versions of Condé Nast publications will have to look no further than the bottom of their screens to see what content other readers have deemed worthy of a “Tweet” on Twitter or a “like” on Facebook. And right below that social media will be a hefty dose of advertising.

On Monday, the magazine publisher will begin using a module called the Condé Nast Social Sidekick at the bottom of article pages for the Web versions of magazines like W, Style.com, Glamour, Self, Teen Vogue and Lucky. “Consumer engagement has become a top priority,” said Louis Cona, chief marketing officer at Condé Nast.

The company is hoping the new tool will encourage readers to view content from other Condé Nast sites, while giving advertisers like Gucci, the premiere sponsor, the option to showcase their own multimedia promotions.

In a statement, Robert Triefus, the worldwide marketing and communications director at Gucci, said the new module “allows us to reach the broad and highly qualified target audience associated with Condé Nast brands.”

NYT: In Britain, a meeting on limiting social media

2011-08-28T22:31:00.000-04:00

British officials and representatives of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry met Thursday to discuss voluntary ways to limit or restrict the use of social media to combat crime and periods of civil unrest, while trying to dodge charges of hypocrisy and censorship that trailed Prime Minister David Cameron’s call to restrict use of the networks after this month’s riots.

The government’s home minister, Theresa May, according to one account of the meeting, said that the aim was not to “discuss restricting Internet services,” but to instead “crack down on the networks being used for criminal behavior.” A spokeswoman for Ms. May said the government “would not be seeking any additional powers.”

DFP: GM reshuffles marketing unit again

2011-08-28T22:30:00.001-04:00

General Motors continues to tweak its marketing department, one of the most turbulent during the company's restructuring, by creating global brand heads and shuffling some management.

Joel Ewanick, who took a newly created global chief marketing officer position in December, has pushed a two-pronged worldwide brand strategy, emphasizing Chevrolet and Cadillac. He started by encouraging Chevrolet's well-funded U.S. team to coordinate and share more with marketers in the other 130-plus countries that sell the brand. The next step, he said, was to create a global Chevrolet chief.

Chris Perry, Ewanick's former Hyundai colleague who had run all GM's U.S. marketing since early this year, now heads Chevy marketing worldwide, Ewanick said in an interview Friday. The U.S. marketing job, which had changed hands four times since GM's 2009 bankruptcy, has disappeared. Ewanick will supervise the global brand heads.

Management shake-ups have characterized GM's restructuring since its bankruptcy, with the marketing department having the fastest revolving door. Ewanick, of Hyundai fame, arrived last year after a several-week stop at Nissan, to run GM's U.S. marketing. He quickly scrapped plans and agencies for Chevy and Cadillac advertising and then, about a year ago, brought in Perry to run Chevrolet.

NYT: For top-ranked Djokovic, next makeover is in marketing

2011-08-28T22:29:00.000-04:00

Pressed against a barricade, fans glimpsed Novak Djokovic and readied their cellphones. Necks craned. Cameras flashed. Djokovic, the Serb now deep into a historic tennis season, had created an impromptu mosh pit at a recent tournament here.

The scene underscored the defining characteristic of his season: change, on all fronts, with more promised. In the past year, in a relatively extreme makeover, Djokovic changed his serve, his diet, his publicist, his fitness regimen and, because of all of this, his standing in men’s tennis.

The next phase — making Djokovic a household name, among the world’s biggest sports stars — will continue next week in the United States Open, where he was named Wednesday the No. 1 seed in the men’s draw. While Djokovic has surpassed his rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer on the tennis court, he now hopes to at least join those two, who both reside on Forbes magazine’s list of the top 10 most powerful athletes, in areas such as endorsements, fame and global exposure.

“Of course, the world is looking at me differently,” Djokovic said. “I don’t want to sound like I’m pretending that I’m modest, but I don’t really consider myself a star, or something like that.”

Perhaps Djokovic was not widely regarded as a star — merely a very good professional tennis player — until his dominance this year. He has won 57 of 59 matches and nine tournaments since January because his game, a combination of speed and endurance and a counterattacking baseline style, robbed opponents of a precious element in tennis — time.

Suddenly, Djokovic himself is pressed for time. The task of coordinating the effort to boost his image falls to Goran Djokovic, Novak’s uncle and chief marketing strategist. This week alone, he planned 30 to 40 business meetings, while Edoardo Artaldi, the new publicist, handled the 30 or so daily media requests.

It takes time to appear on national talk shows (he taught Jay Leno and Katie Holmes a Serbian dance), time to sift through marketing pitches, time to pursue Djokovic’s next dream, acting, in Hollywood.

“Our job is also to show the world, to show the United States, that there is a new No. 1 in the world,” Goran Djokovic said, leaning forward Tuesday in the lobby of the Mondrian Hotel in Manhattan. “We have to adjust everything, what we are doing now. But let’s say we are preparing for that all our life.”

Gigaom: The Twitter effect: We are all members of the media now

2011-08-28T21:58:00.001-04:00

Anyone who has gotten the latest news about Steve Jobs’ resignation or the revolution in Libya from Twitter is probably used to the idea that the real-time information network has become a powerful tool for journalism — a point we’ve made often. But that reality is still filtering down through the world of political reporting, as a recent piece in the American Journalism Review describes. Just as CNN created the 24-hours news cycle for television, Twitter has accelerated that news cycle to the point where news breaks every minute of every hour, and a tweet is almost as good as a page-one scoop. Not only that, but anyone can do it.

Read more from Mathew Ingram here: http://gigaom.com/2011/08/25/the-twitter-effect-we-are-all-members-of-the-media-now/

Gigaom:Pound for pound, Pandora ads now worth more than radio

2011-08-28T21:57:00.001-04:00

Internet radio company Pandora reported the financial results for its first three months as a public company on Thursday. The Oakland, Calif.–based company confirmed that while it still has a long way to go before it reaches the listener levels of terrestrial radio, its ads are now just as valuable as traditional stations’.

Pandora posted total revenue of $67 million during the second fiscal quarter of the year, more than doubling its revenue from the same period one year ago. Revenue from ads accounted for the lion’s share of Pandora’s Q2 sales, totaling $58.3 million.

And while Pandora did not turn a bottom-line profit for the quarter — the company’s net loss was $1.8 million — it seems to be impressing Wall Street with the traction it has gotten thus far. On a phone call with investors and analysts after the stock market closed on Thursday afternoon, Pandora confirmed that pound for pound its ads are just as valuable as those broadcast on traditional radio.

Read more from Colleen Taylor here: http://gigaom.com/2011/08/25/pandora-ads-traditional-radio/

Gigaom: Fluid personal communication in the era of Facebook, Skype and Google+

2011-08-28T21:55:00.001-04:00

This week’s announcement of Skype’s acquisition of GroupMe, and the recent introduction of Facebook’s Beluga-based Messenger, are part of something much bigger than group text messaging: The landscape of personal online communication is changing. The very communication paradigms we’re accustomed to — email, text messaging, chat and wall posts — are starting to be blurred and redesigned. In the next generation of social media interaction, users will communicate online in ways that better mirror their organic interactions in real life. Welcome to the age of fluid personal communication.

Read more from Yoav Shoham here: http://gigaom.com/2011/08/27/fluid-personal-communication-in-the-era-of-facebook-skype-and-google/

College freshmen turn to Facebook to find roommates

2011-08-07T20:54:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reports: For generations, one of the first challenges of going off to college was meeting the stranger the school chose to be your roommate. Today, a growing number of students are bypassing that tradition and making the choice themselves through online social networking.

Addicted to smartphones: the latest Ofcom communications results

2011-08-04T14:07:00.000-04:00

Guardian reports:
Almost half of teenagers own a smartphone and 60% claim to be 'highly' addicted. Find the latest results of the Ofcom communications report. The popularity of smartphones just keeps rising according to the latest survey results from Ofcom's annual communications report.

Teens seem to be the biggest fans of smartphones such as Blackberrys, iPhones and Androids with 60% admitting to being 'highly' addicted to their phones. The survey results show just how smartphones have taken over the market - in the first quarter of this year 48% of mobile sales were smartphones.

The Hill likes its communication tools traditional

2011-08-01T20:51:00.003-04:00

ExecutiveGov reports: Most members of Congress use social media to reach their constituents but staffs still favor more traditional forms of communication, a Congressional Management Foundation report says.

FierceGovernmentIT reports senior managers and social media managers still view e-mail newsletters and franked mass mailings as more important than social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The CMF found 81 percent of managers saw the e-mail newsletters as somewhat or very important, and 80 percent said this is the case for mass mailings as well.

However, the newer forms of media are catching up. AFP reports 74 percent of managers said Facebook is somewhat or very important for communicating their members’ views, 72 percent said the same for YouTube and 51 percent said it of Twitter.

“These technologies are starting to change how Congress communicates with their constituents and is allowing members to reach citizens who otherwise might not engage in the democratic dialogue,” said Bradford Fitch, CMF president and chief executive.

Click here to read full report.

Gap makes big move into social and digital advertising

2011-08-01T20:48:00.003-04:00

Straits Times reports: Gap Inc is spending a lot more on digital and social media in its first major marketing campaign since a management shake-up in February, as the apparel retailer tries to lure younger customers.

The autumn marketing campaign, which focuses on Gap's 1969 jeans brand, will mainly be distributed through the company's Facebook page, Pandora Media , Hulu and trend-watching websites including DailyCandy, FabSugar, Glam, LookBook and Refinery29.

This fall, Gap is allocating about 40 per cent more money to digital and social media than the year-ago period. That means less spending on traditional media like TV, radio and magazine ads and billboards.

A spokesman declined to give a dollar figure. However, Gap as a whole spent US$119 million (S$143 million) on marketing in its latest fiscal quarter and typically spends more later in the year.

The shift is being overseen by Gap chief marketing officer Seth Farbman, who joined the company in February, when Art Peck replaced Marka Hansen as president of Gap North America and top designer Patrick Robinson was ousted.

Navy eyes Google+ as outreach tool

2011-08-01T20:46:00.001-04:00

USA Today reports: The Navy may soon use another social media outlet alongside Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to reach sailors and their families.

Google+, Google's latest social network venture, may be the next way the Navy shares news, videos and pictures of the service's daily affairs.

"We're considering it," said Lt. Lesley Lykins, the Navy's director of emerging media integration. "We're still waiting to see the platform itself."

The Navy is evaluating Google+, as well as a handful of other outlets, including Swayable, a website that asks visitors to say which of two options they prefer, and a program that was used to stream the carrier Enterprise's homecoming online in July, Lykins said. A few factors are being considered, including operational security; the Navy needs to be sure that sensitive information, like ship movements and capabilities, can be kept secret.

That Channel Versus - the one with hockey and cycling - to be called NBC Sports Network

2011-08-01T20:38:00.001-04:00

Philadelphia Inquirer reports: NBCUniversal plans to rename Versus, Comcast's ratings-challenged sports channel, as the NBC Sports Network in January 2012. The goal of the name change is to make the sports channel more popular with fans so that Comcast can charge higher per-subscriber fees.

Al Jazeera English Arrives in the Big Apple

2011-08-01T20:34:00.003-04:00

NYT reports: Al Jazeera has not gained distribution on any major U.S. cable or satellite system. Nonetheless, the Qatar-based news channel is making headway. On Monday, Al Jazeera will be carried in New York City for the first time, though only by subletting space from a channel owner.

Pew Report: E-reader ownership doubles in six months

2011-07-31T20:35:00.001-04:00

From Pew Report executive summary: The percent of U.S. adults with an e-book reader doubled from 6% to 12% between November 2010 and May 2011. Hispanic adults, adults younger than age 65, college graduates and those living in households with incomes of at least $75,000 are most likely to own e-book readers. Parents are also more likely than non-parents to own these devices.

Tablet computers have not seen the same level of growth among U.S. adults in recent months. In May 2011, 8% of adults report owning a tablet computer such as an iPad, Samsung Galaxy or Motorola Xoom. This is roughly the same percentage of adults who reported owning this kind of device in January 2011 (7%), and represents just a 3 percentage-point increase in ownership since November 2010. Overall, the highest rates of tablet ownership are among Hispanic adults and those with household incomes of at least $75,000 annually.

For full report - click here.

16.8 Hours = Average number of hours US internet users spend watching online video

2011-07-31T20:16:00.002-04:00

comScore just released new data for online video watching in the US. The report shows that that 178 million U.S. internet users are watching online video content for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer. The report also stated that the audience engaged in more than 6.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month, an all-time high.

Here are the top ten online video properties:

1) Google sites
2) VEVO
3) Yahoo! sites
4) Microsoft sites
5) Viacom Digital
6) Facebook.com
7) AOL
8) Turner Digital
9) Hulu
10) Amazon sites

For the complete report - click here.

TechCrunch Giveaway: Two Free Tickets To Disrupt SF #TCDisrupt

2011-07-31T20:10:00.005-04:00

TechCrunch a is giving a pair of tickets to Disrupt SF scheduled for September 12-14.

To be a part of this contest - click here for more details.

Foursquare now has 10,000,000 users

2011-07-31T20:10:00.004-04:00

Foursquare announced that 10,000,000 accounts have been created since the tool went live in March, 2009.

To celebrate this achievement they have rolled out a timeline of benchmarks, an info heavy chart of cool facts and check-ins as well as a wonderful time elapse video of the world showing when and where accounts have been created.

Check it here at https://foursquare.com/10million.

Google+: The Complete Guide

2011-07-31T20:08:00.000-04:00

Mashable's complete guide to Google+ = click here for more info.

Missouri Forbids Teachers and Students To Be Facebook Friends

2011-07-31T20:06:00.000-04:00

Mashable teports: If you’re a student living in Missouri, you’d better not be Facebook friends with any of your teachers – that will soon be illegal.

According to Missouri Senate Bill 54 that goes into effect on August 28, any social networking — not just Facebook — is prohibited between teachers and students. It’s all part of an effort to “more clearly define teacher-student boundaries.” However, KSPR reports that It’s only direct social media contact that’s prohibited; teachers are allowed to create Facebook Pages where all students have direct access to the teacher in a more public setting.

Inappropriate contact between students and teachers is at the root of the legislation. Senate Bill 54 is designed to protect children from sexual misconduct by teachers, compelling school districts to adopt written policies between teachers and students on electronic media, social networking and other forms of communication.

Teachers and students usually shouldn’t be friends, anyway, so on the surface this sounds like a good idea. However, we wonder how this will be policed. Will the state be allowed access to Facebook accounts, personal computers or Internet service provider records to see who’s befriending teachers or students? Inappropriate relationships will be hard to detect, especially since teachers and students engaged in such relationships would probably be concealing their communications, electronic or otherwise.

Durbin introduces online tax bill, has Amazon support

2011-07-31T20:05:00.000-04:00

The Hill's Hillicon Valley reports: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will introduce a bill on Friday to allow states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes.

The measure has the support of online giant Amazon.

Sens. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Jack Reed (D- R.I.) will co-sponsor the bill, titled the Main Street Fairness Act. Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) will introduce a companion bill in the House.

Supporters of the bill argue it will close a loophole that allows online purchases to go untaxed, giving an advantage to online retailers over traditional, brick-and-mortar stores.

“Our bill levels the playing field to give Main Street businesses a fighting chance,” Welch said. “When a consumer can walk into a store, try out a product and then go home and buy it online without paying sales tax, Main Street businesses and downtowns lose."

The retail trade groups National Retail Federation, International Council of Shopping Centers and Retail Industry Leaders Association support the measure.

AP, NKorea news agency plan AP bureau in Pyongyang

2011-07-01T23:32:00.000-04:00

Yahoo! Finance reports: The Associated Press and the North Korean state news agency have signed a series of agreements, including one for the opening of a comprehensive AP news bureau in Pyongyang, the organizations announced Wednesday.

A memorandum of understanding agreed by the AP and the Korean Central News Agency would expand the AP's presence in North Korea to a level unmatched by any other Western news organization. It would build upon the AP's existing video news bureau, which opened in Pyongyang in 2006, by allowing AP text and photo journalists to work in North Korea as well.

Growing Fiber Internet in Rural America: A Stimulus Success Story

2011-07-01T23:27:00.000-04:00

Epicenter @ Wired.com reports:: If you think the Obama administration’s stimulus package is about digging ditches, you’d be right — at least when it comes to funding broadband efforts in rural areas.

Take for instance the Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation reservations in northwest North Dakota, where the Reservation Telephone Cooperative (ResTel) is putting in a 50-Mbps connection to the Elbowwoods Memorial health care center. That connection, made possible by fiber optic cable and broadband stimulus funds, will enable the center to connect patients to doctors and doctors to specialists.

“With this technology, we will have rapid analysis; our tribal members will have access to state-of-the-art medical care and services; an x-ray can be taken and read by a radiologist at a facility miles away,” says Tex Hall, the nation’s chairman. “Our providers will talk to physicians at clinics like Mayo in Rochester, Minnesota, about critical-care patients; our dialysis patients will have immediate access to nephrologists 200 miles away and we will be able to monitor a diabetic patient from their home. Importantly this will be state of the art, no slow upgrades, no fuzzy images; we will have real-time second-by-second network monitoring."

Moscow Embraces Emoticons

2011-07-01T23:24:00.000-04:00

Brand New reports: This introduction might be a little choppy because my Russian goes as far as Google Translate will take me. As a personal initiative architect Nicholas Pereslegina and designer Alexander Pershikova have launched their very own brand for the city of Moscow without any government involvement (or maybe even approval). And this is not just some proposal on a Behance page, this is a full-on brand with merchandise and souvenirs already hitting the streets of Moscow. The concept of the new logo is Surprise + Smile = Wow.

Check out the complete campaign here.

E.W. Scripps Co. issues Social Media Policy

2011-07-01T14:29:00.000-04:00

Poynter reports: The publisher of the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, the Knoxville News Sentinel, and other newspapers (it owns TV stations, too) tells employees that “while the use of social media enhances the company’s commitment to providing a vast array of information to our local communities on a variety of platforms (including blogs, Facebook and Twitter), the use of the broad array of social media by Scripps employees requires special attention.”

To see the policy - click here.

TheWrap Expands Entertainment Role With Reuters; Adds Critics

2011-07-01T14:27:00.000-04:00

paidContent reports: Hollywood upstart TheWrap.com is getting a leading role with Reuters (NYSE: TRI). The wire service and the startup founded by Sharon Waxman in 2009 are expanding their relationship, with TheWrap replacing The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard as Reuters’ lead provider of entertainment news effective today. One result is a serious expansion into criticism to meet Reuter’s needs.

Ten Ways Social Media Can Improve Campaign Engagement and Reinvigorate American Democracy - Brookings Institution

2011-06-29T00:12:00.000-04:00

Brookings Institution reports: Social media are the ultimate in disruptive technology.

They change information delivery, business organization, online content, news coverage, and the manner in which individuals process new developments. As shown during the 2008 campaign, these digital tools represented a textbook example of voter mobilization and electoral impact. They were, in the words of Engage Partner Mindy Finn, the “central nervous system” of campaign organizations. Using social networking outreach tools such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter, a number of Democratic and Republican candidates raised money, identified supporters, built electoral coalitions, and brought people in closer touch with the electoral process.

Despite social networking’s track record for generating democratic engagement, though, it has proven difficult to sustain political interest and activism online over time and move electronic engagement from campaigns to governance. Faced with a polarized political environment and arcane debates over legislative provisions, many Americans have opted out of the civic participation which was so prolific during the last presidential election cycle. Many voters remain cynical and disengaged from the political process at the very time when the electoral stakes are very high.

This week, the Brookings Institution Center for Technology Innovation convened a distinguished set of experts to offer advice on using social networking and digital tools to reinvigorate democracy and extend electronic engagement from campaigns and grassroots-activism to governance. Participants included Macon Phillips, special assistant to the president and director of digital strategy at the White House; Mindy Finn, a partner in Engage and 2008 director of e-strategy for the Mitt Romney campaign; Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project and author of a new study on how people’s social networking activities affect their civic and political engagement; and Diana Owen, associate professor of political science and director of American Studies at Georgetown University. We also heard advice and commentary from hundreds of activists who attended the event or tweeted comments during the live webcasting of our event.

To see the top ten list - click here.

Why Social Media Will Make or Break 2012 Election Campaigns

2011-06-29T00:10:00.000-04:00

Jay Samit - DigitalNext @ Advertising Age posts: Three ways social media will make or break 2012 Election campaigns and what you need to know.

Read more here.

Obama 2012 Campaign to Go Beyond Email, Text

2011-06-29T00:07:00.000-04:00

AP reports: Call him the Digital Candidate: President Barack Obama is asking supporters to use Facebook to declare 'I'm In!' for his re-election campaign and is using Twitter to personally blast out messages to his nearly 9 million followers.

Emails to supporters seek small-dollar donations in exchange for campaign coffee mugs or a chance to win dinner with the president. The campaign's website helps supporters find local events, plan meetings and raise money while its digital team develops the next big thing.

If Obama broke new ground in 2008 using email, text messages and the Web to reach voters, Obama version 2.0 aims to take the Web campaign to the next level — harnessing the expansive roles that the Internet and social media are playing in voters' lives.

Zynga Targets a $20 Billion IPO

2011-06-29T00:06:00.000-04:00

WSJ.com reports: Tech IPOs test sky-high values. Zynga preps offering that would put 'FarmVille' game maker at $20 billion. IPO could happen Wednesday - June 29.

Google Takes On Facebook With New Social Network Google+

2011-06-29T00:03:00.000-04:00

WSJ.com reports: Web giant unveils latest bid to gain ground on Facebook's social-networking turf.

Read the article here.

New York Observer to emphasize long-form, scoops with new web design

2011-06-08T18:20:00.000-04:00

Yahoo! News reports: Change has been perhaps the most reliable constant at the New York Observer in recent years. In the past two years alone, the Manhattan weekly blew through three top editors and about as many redesigns in print and online.
But Elizabeth Spiers, the paper's newest editor-in-chief, says the publication is "going back in the direction that it probably should have stayed on," and she's now ready to unveil the latest changes at the salmon-colored weekly.

Redesigns will debut both for the paper and its website Wednesday. On the print side, the face-lift isn't all that drastic. "The former design had several elements that work well in magazines on white glossy paper, but not so much on salmon newsprint--aggressive use of white space, heavy fonts, large photo illustrations," Spiers told The Cutline. "So we basically went back to treating it like a newspaper, tabloid format or not. ... We didn't rip the whole thing up and start over, but I think this version's a lot cleaner and more readable."

The Pilates approach: How CNN is trouncing its competitors on the web

2011-06-08T18:19:00.000-04:00

Nieman Journalism Lab reports: For the past several years, news outlets that cover the media industry have focused predominantly on television ratings when reporting on the cable news wars — a metric that, at least until recently, has been almost exclusively dominated by the Fox News Channel. But underlying all the ratings horse-race stories has been a burgeoning thread of discussion on one metric that Fox isn’t ruling: online readership.

Using numbers from multiple analytics firms, it has long been apparent that CNN beats not only its cable news competitors on the web, but nearly every other major news source, as well. According to comScore, CNN received an average of 8.5 million unique U.S. visitors a day for the first three months of this year, figures that dwarf MSNBC’s 7.4 million daily visitors and Fox’s 2.3 million. A comScore spokesman provided me with charts showing that CNN, with 75.9 million US visitors, is beaten only by Yahoo! News Network’s 88 million. In U.S. monthly uniques, CNN outperforms MSNBC.com (51 million), AOL News (40 million), Fox News (20 million), CBS News (16.4 million), and The New York Times (32.9 million).

Figures from Compete tell a similar story, though with radically different numbers — 27.7 million uniques for CNN, 18.3 million for The New York Times, and 14.7 million for Fox News. And unlike MSNBC.com, Yahoo!, and AOL, CNN doesn’t have a major news portal funneling traffic to its site.

Television Executives Predict Bulk of TV Content Will Be Available Online and Via Mobile Within Two Years

2011-06-08T18:15:00.000-04:00

Adweek reports: Executives from Disney, Turner, and Comcast were in unanimous agreement that we are only two years away from 75 percent of TV content being available online and on mobile devices. At the Elevate Video Advertising Summit in Midtown Manhattan this afternoon, Matt Strauss from Comcast Interactive Media, Jeremy Legg from Turner Broadcasts, and David Preshlack of Disney and ESPN predicted that TV "everywhere" was imminent, and that in the same timeframe the networks will be almost completely agnostic about where and when their video content is being viewed.

"It's interesting to think of what the definition of a TV is," said Comcast's Strauss. "My kids think an iPad is a TV. People don’t think of TV anymore, they just think of video. For us, in the broader context of what we’re doing, we’re beginning to migrate everything to Internet video."

The Olympics: ESPN Upends TV Sports

2011-06-06T16:50:00.000-04:00

Adweek reports: Ebersol will be conspicuous by his absence when NBC submits its bid to the International Olympic Committee on June 7. Simply put, his ouster has created a power vacuum in sports broadcasting—and it won’t take long to gauge how that void will disrupt the bidding that starts this week. (Fox will lead off on June 6. ESPN follows suit on the morning of June 7.)

Without Ebersol in the game, ESPN is widely seen as the network with the best shot at stealing Olympic gold. While network president George Bodenheimer has no designs on becoming the next Ebersol—the ESPN chief is all business where Ebersol is renowned for his personal narratives and weepy profiles of Olympians—a win in Lausanne would effectively sideline broadcast TV’s sports profile.

A ’roid-ripped, cash-generating machine, ESPN practically has a monopoly on big-time sports, boasting the rights to the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball. With its triumphant coverage of the 2010 World Cup, the network demonstrated it can handle a massive global event.

So preeminent is the brand that ABC promotes its marquee sports broadcasts under the banner “ESPN on ABC.” If not an outright capitulation, it’s a tacit nod to ESPN’s standing. Should the Disney contingent win the bid—CEO Bob Iger will make the trip to Lausanne with Bodenheimer—ESPN will serve as the nerve center of the Olympics coverage, while ABC will play a more peripheral role.

ESPN boasts a notable advantage: its parent company is mulling over a side deal that would establish it as a member of the IOC’s elite sponsorship circle, the Olympic Partner Program. The entitlement would add $100 million to ESPN’s total bid, although the prospect of Mickey Mouse shilling for the Olympic brand would go a long way toward earning ESPN a reduced fee.

“It’s a one-horse race. ESPN has cash flow for days and they can offer the IOC the sort of brand equity no other network can touch,” says one Olympics observer. “The IOC is always talking about appealing to the younger generation, and what’s more appealing than Mickey Mouse?”

Read more here.

Apple's New Newsstand Feature Creates Direct Line to Periodicals Readers

2011-06-06T16:39:00.001-04:00

Publishing Executive reports: A new section of the App Store, Newsstand, will allow mobile users to browse all their newspaper and magazine subscriptions in one place, it was announced today at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Apple's Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iOS software, highlighted the new feature while presenting upgrades and enhancements to the company's mobile operating system. The new feature facilitates easy news updates and offline reading. New newspaper and magazine issues are automatically downloaded to Newsstand using the same subscription features built into the app store.

The new feature, already dubbed the "iBookstore for Periodicals" by the Cult of Mac website, creates a "bookshelf" interface separate from the app store dedicated to managing newspaper and magazine subscriptions and single issue purchases. Publication covers or icons will appear in a folder on the iPhone or iPad screen, according to the macgasm blog, eliminating the necessity of separate apps for viewing each publication.

"Publishers had been looking for the additional shelf space so they wouldn't have to fight for attention with Angry Birds and other apps, while background downloading will make it easier for users to get the latest content," notes All Things D.

Nike’s New Campaign Focuses on Action Sports

2011-06-06T16:14:00.000-04:00

NYTimes.com reports: Move over, Michael Jordan: here comes P-Rod

In an attempt to leave no sport unmarketed, Nike, the sports apparel manufacturer, will begin the next phase of its current “Just Do It” campaign with a focus on action sports like skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing.

The new campaign, called “The Chosen,” is Nike’s largest effort at moving into action sports, and will feature athletes like the skateboarder Paul Rodriguez (or P-Rod), the surfer Laura Enever and the snowboarder Danny Kass.

“When we looked at action sports, we saw a unique consumer segment that was underserved in terms of product innovation,” Mark G. Parker, Nike’s chief executive and president, said at a shareholder meeting in May.

Action sports are a $390 million business for Nike, and executives hope that figure doubles over the next five years. Nike’s biggest competitors in the youth-oriented action sports arena include brands like Quiksilver, O’Neill, Volcom and Billabong.

Big brands that want to enter the action sports market have to contend with the somewhat insular culture of certain sports and with the athletes’ loyalty to smaller, edgier brands. For the last few years, Nike has been on a steady mission to penetrate the market by creating sub-brands like Nike 6.0 and buying smaller brands like Hurley.

And they seem to be getting it right.

“They did their homework,” said Bernie Baker, the former Hawaii editor at Surfer Magazine and the contest director for the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing, who cited Nike’s “relentless promotion of youth events” as one of the driving factors in the brand’s success. “When that logo is on the deck of a surfboard, from 200 yards away it’s the same as a Quiksilver logo. You recognize that design.” Nike began teasing the campaign in early May with a 30-second version of the commercial online. Viewers who watched the short could respond to a Facebook page for the campaign debut Thursday, when a three-minute and 30-second version of the commercial will be shown followed by a 23-minute behind-the-scenes film.

Read more here.

The Thriving (Online) Shelter Magazine Industry

2011-06-06T16:10:00.000-04:00

NYTimes.com reports: Since Domino, the beloved shelter magazine, folded in early 2009, its staff members have gone on to lucrative consulting jobs, top editing posts, even television gigs, but none have advanced as swiftly as Michelle Adams. At Domino, Ms. Adams was a 24-year-old assistant answering phones and running around Manhattan in search of blankets in exactly the right shade of purple. Two years later, she’s the editor in chief of Lonny, a shelter magazine she co-founded. Already it has a cultlike following and has given rise to a mini-boomlet in online design publications.

Her newfound influence was confirmed recently when the publisher of Traditional Home magazine, Beth Brenner, another ex-Domino staff member, proposed a collaboration with Lonny. “I was an assistant, and she was the publisher,” Ms. Adams said, referring to their roles when they last worked together. And then, she said, “All of a sudden. ...”

Lonny appears online, but it is oddly identical to a traditional print publication in format, with a table of contents, recurring features and a software platform that recreates the experience of flipping a magazine’s pages. Its latest issue — the 11th — features lush photographs of homes in Los Angeles and New Orleans, advice from the celebrity caterer Lulu Powers and a makeover of Lonny’s Midtown offices that show how to create “your own chic and functional workspace,” all with a spunky tone and service-y approach lifted straight from Domino.

Ms. Adams’s editorial venture has attracted big-name advertisers (Kravet, Room & Board and Bloomingdale’s all ran ads in the latest issue), as well as competitors. Since Lonny started, in October 2009 — at a time when many traditional shelter magazines, including House & Garden, Metropolitan Home and Blueprint, had gone out of business — three more online shelter magazines have popped up. There’s Rue, a San Francisco-based publication that reads like Lonny’s hipper downtown sister; High Gloss, which made its debut in February; and Matchbook, which appeared a month earlier and takes a broader, lifestyle-oriented approach, as personified by a character the founders, Katie Armour and Jane Lilly Warren, call “the Matchbook girl.” (As in, “The Matchbook girl pens handwritten notes to her grandmother.”)

The real estate blog Curbed has jokingly labeled this publishing phenomenon the “Design-Pubs-Powered-by-PDF-Flipbook-Technology-Issuu category” (a reference to the Issuu software that most of the magazines use), and calls Lonny its “Grande Doyenne.”

Anecdotal information provided by the magazines — based on surveys and profiles of their Facebook and Twitter followers — suggests that most of the readers are young, fashion-conscious women drawn by the approachable tone. Jenn Newman, a 34-year-old singer who lives in Brooklyn, is an example.

“Lonny says, ‘Here’s incredible style,’ but they’re showing readers how to translate it into their own aesthetic,” she said. “It takes the snobbery out of design.” Ms. Newman also reads Rue, which she ranks second behind Lonny, and said she likes the way stories in online magazines are free to stretch out, offering more “eye candy.”

But she does wish Lonny were available on the newsstand. “I would pick it up in a heartbeat,” she said.

Read more here.

20 Impossible Interview Questions From Facebook, Goldman And Citigroup

2011-06-03T15:43:00.000-04:00

Business Insider reports: To get you prepared, here are 20 real job interview questions that such companies as Google, Capital One and Goldman Sachs asked internships candidates.

The interview questions were compiled by Glassdoor.com, an online job community that encourages people to anonymously share that inside look at jobs and companies.

Click here to see the questions.

3 ways to segment your Facebook fan base

2011-06-03T06:29:00.000-04:00

iMediaConnection.com reports: Social media strategist and co-author of "The Now Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Businesses Faster, Smarter & More Social," Jay Baer, recently posted a blog on calculating what Facebook is worth to a business. In it he writes, "The number of Facebook 'likes' you've accumulated is akin to your email list. The number of thumb-ups and comments on your musings (posts) is your Facebook feedback rate, which is statistically similar to click-through rate in email."

Baer's insightful post got the author thinking about additional similarities between email marketing and Facebook marketing. In both cases, acquisition and lead gen are paramount. One of the strongest -- certainly the most quantifiable -- KPI for both is audience size. C-level marketers are always looking at email database and Facebook fan base sizes to get a pulse on how scalable their owned media channels are.

Taking the email-Facebook juxtaposition in a different direction, it's useful to consider how the two relate to each other where audience segmentation is concerned. With email, you can segment your audience based on a number of data sets -- both demographic and psychographic -- and alter your message and content accordingly. Segmenting the audience to deliver a more-targeted message is the best way to increases open and click rates.

In comparing this with Facebook, we know the basic demographic makeup of our fans by looking at Page Insights. But there is additional psychographic segmentation that we can do by looking at acquisition methods, entry points, and post-type responses. While Facebook does not allow us to contact our audience by segment, we should understand these segments and start to shape our ongoing communication strategies accordingly.

In segmenting a Facebook fan base, the author looks at three categories:

The causal fan
The casual fan
The committed fan

To read more - click here.

Best Book Publicists on Twitter

2011-06-03T06:26:00.000-04:00

GalleyCat reports: It’s a strange new world for book publicity–budgets are shrinking, online outlets are multiplying, and self published authors are struggling to find support.

To help publishers, writers, and publicity experts connect, GalleyCat updated their Best Book Publicity and Marketing Twitter Feeds directory this week. Add your favorite book marketing or publicity professional (or yourself) to their growing list.

Click here to see the list.

Majority of companies shut out PR from the top table, research finds

2011-06-03T06:24:00.000-04:00

PR Week reports: Three out of five companies do not have senior PR people at board or executive committee level, research from Hotwire Group has found.

A Hotwire survey of senior global comms professionals, found that although 84 per cent of senior communications professionals rated communications as the function that has the most influence on corporate reputation, only 41 per cent said that a PR professional sits on their company's board or executive committee.

Brendon Craigie, CEO, Hotwire Group, said: ‘Digital and social media has put the spotlight on the communications function and the stage is set for PR to sit at the top table within more organisations. For this to happen we need to think bigger, be more sophisticated in how we measure success, and be bold in the manner we seize opportunities.’

The report showed that 50 per cent of senior communications professionals have experienced a budget increase in 2011, compared to 2010. However, when it comes to allocating resources, more than a quarter (27 per cent) still spend less than 10 per cent of their budget on digital and social media.

Respondents (46 per cent) also stated that PR has the greatest influence over social media, compared to 36 per cent who rated marketing as the most influential.

The research also looked at the impact social media is having on locally and globally coordinated communications. Results found that 22 per cent of senior communications professionals stated social media has led to more locally controlled PR initiatives and 22 per cent felt that it had created more globally-led campaigns.

The results came from a global online survey carried out with the Holmes Group as part of Hotwire’s Innovation in Communications conferences in London, Paris, Sydney and Munich.

HuffPost: White House Beefs Up Online Rapid Response

2011-05-23T14:35:00.001-04:00

The Obama administration has created and staffed a new position tucked inside their communications shop for helping coordinate rapid response to unfavorable stories and fostering and improving relations with the progressive online community.

"This week, Jesse Lee will move from the new media department into a role in the communications department as Director of Progressive Media & Online Response," read an internal memo from Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, provided to The Huffington Post. "For the last two years, Jesse has often worn two hats working in new media and serving as the White House's liaison with the progressive media and online community. Starting this week, Jesse will take on the second role full time working on outreach, strategy and response."

The post is a new one for this White House. Rapid response has usually been outsourced to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), if not done on an ad-hoc basis by administration officials. And it signals that the White House will be adopting a more aggressive defense of the president and his policies as his re-election campaign gears up.

Lee has played that role in the past, including writing a semi-infamous White House blog post that said Fox News' Glenn Beck was lying about the administration on his show. His new gig comes with its own Twitter account, precisely for the purposes of disseminating push back.

An equally telling requirement of Lee's new job, however, is that of crafting strategy for outreach to the progressive community. Lee has been tasked with that responsibility in his previous incarnations, both as a member of the DNC online team during the '08 election and as a senior new media adviser with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

His new post may require even more delicate hand-holding. Instead of managing the administration's web presence, he will be pressing to make the administration more popular on the web. In that respect, his Twitter account could also become an interesting window into the status of the always emotional, occasional testy dance between progressives and the president. Lee enjoys good relationships with much of the online community but as a member of the administration for the past two years he has also had his moments of friction.

Two Thirds Of Moms Shop With Their Smartphones

2011-05-13T22:29:00.000-04:00

Mashable reports: Most smartphone-wielding mothers put their phones to work while they shop, according to a survey by mobile ad network Greystripe.

In a survey of 239 mothers, whom Greystripe recruited using mobile banner ads in its network, 66% acknowledged that their smartphones play a role in their shopping trips.

Around 45% said they use their phones to locate the nearest store. The next most common use of smartphones was to compare prices. Only 15% of the women surveyed said they actually made purchases using their phones.

Since Greystripe has an interest in portraying mobile phones as an excellent place to target mothers while shopping (women make the majority of household purchase decisions, and this makes them a favorite target of the advertisers Greystripe courts), it’s not the most reliable source of research on the topic.

Other research about mobile phone marketing and women has shown more varied results. Last year, a company conducted mobile shopping survey of 1,600 women that found 94% of them were interested in more mobile shopping and mobile marketing.

In the same month, social network SheSpeaks conducted an online survey of similar size that found only 10% of women have downloaded any shopping-related applications to their mobile devices, and 62% are not even interested in doing so.

C-SPAN shows off Foursquare badge

2011-05-13T22:05:00.000-04:00

Hillicon Valley reports: C-SPAN unveiled a Foursquare badge on Friday that users can earn by checking into five of many politically significant locations in Washington.

The public affairs network has been one of the most active media organizations on the location-based social network, leaving numerous tips and historical tidbits at locations around town including the Capitol, the White House and the various Congressional office buildings.

Now users who check into five of those sites can earn the badge. Users may also earn points towards the badge at key political sites nationwide such as locations in New Hampshire and Iowa related to the the early presidential campaign activities.

Marketers Shift More Dollars Toward Social Media

2011-04-06T21:16:00.000-04:00

Advertising Age reports: At Ad Age's Digital Conference, Converse, Lexus, Dell and Best Buy Reveal digital strategies. For all the bluster around how digital marketing will disrupt traditional advertising, some marketers have already started to shift more media dollars toward social sites.

At Ad Age's Digital Conference today, Converse Chief Marketing Officer Geoff Cottrill said the footwear maker is spending less than 10% of its marketing dollars on traditional media with the other 90% going toward emerging media.

"Social media is unavoidable," he said, pointing out that on platforms such as Facebook, a brand manager no longer controls the conversation around the brand's image. "When you realize you can contribute to the conversation, the better off you'll be," he explained. While that strategy of standing back may be a risk, it stands as the best tactic in an arena where authenticity is the underlying conceit.

Luxury car maker Lexus is also concentrating more of its media efforts toward digital plays. While TV is a key ad strategy for Lexus, it's "less than 50% of our media spend," CMO Dave Nordstrom said. "Most of the rest is on some form of emerging media." He pointed out Lexus' sponsorships on YouTube and work on its iPad apps. "We've got to go many different ways," he said. "Consumers are consuming media in many different ways, you have to give it to them in bits and bytes the way they're used to consuming it."

Still, other major companies see more direct sales potential in social media. Dell CMO Karen Quintos talked about the the challenges chief information officers face when it comes to procuring products and that they often turn to social networks for help. "Ninety percent of CIOs today are making their purchase decisions through social media," she said. Dell is looking to build that kind of socially driven recommendations into their product descriptions.

Google to Revamp YouTube With 'Channels'

2011-04-06T21:13:00.000-04:00

WSJ reports: Google Inc. is working on a major overhaul of YouTubeas it tries to position itself for the rise of televisions that let people watch online video in their living rooms, according to people familiar with the matter.

YouTube is looking to compete with broadcast and cable television, some of these people said, a goal that requires it to entice users to stay on the website longer, and to convince advertisers that it will reach desirable consumers.

The site is planning a series of changes to its home page to highlight sets of "channels" around topics such as arts and sports. About 20 or so of those channels will feature several hours of professionally produced original programming a week, some of these people said. Additional channels would be assembled from content already on the site.

It is planning to spend as much as $100 million to commission low-cost content designed exclusively for the Web, people familiar with the matter said.

The pending changes are a big bet by the world's most-popular video site to push in a new direction. Between the Wild West of user-generated content and the pricier precincts of full-blown TV shows, Google is hoping to carve out a niche of original, professionally produced Web videos that it hopes will cultivate loyal viewers.

Swiss Lead in Speed: Comparing Global Internet Connections

2011-04-06T21:12:00.000-04:00

Nielsen Wire reports: The days of dial-up Internet access (speeds up to 128Kb) are numbered as consumers around the world opt for the fast and even super-fast Internet connections now available. The Nielsen Company recently measured and compared connection speeds on home computers during February 2011 across nine countries and analyzed whether speed affects the amount of time consumers spend online. The connection speeds were divided into four groups: ’slow’ (up to 512Kb), ‘medium’ (512Kb – 2Mb), ‘fast’ (2Mb – 8Mb) and ’super-fast’ (8Mb+).

In all but one of the nine countries measured, ‘fast’ is now the most common connection speed and only a small percentage of people are on ’slow’ speeds. On average, across the nine countries, 19 percent of Internet users connect at ’super-fast’ speeds, 47 percent at ‘fast’ speeds, 26 percent at ‘medium’ speeds and 8 percent are on ‘slow’ speeds. Only Brazil contradicts this trend with almost half (48%) of home Internet users on ‘medium’ connection speeds and almost one-third (31%) on ‘slow’ speeds.

Switzerland has, by far, the fastest-connected population, with 88 perecent of consumers online at home connecting at speeds greater than 2Mb – and 38% having a ‘super-fast’ 8Mb+ connection. Following Switzerland, the U.S. (29%) and Germany (27%) have the greatest concentration of people on ‘super-fast’ connections. In fact, all three countries now have more people connecting at ‘super-fast’ speeds than at ‘medium’ speeds (512Kb to 2Mb). Compared to the opposite end of the spectrum, Brazil has 8 times more Internet users on ‘medium’ speeds (48%) than on ‘super-fast’ speeds (6%).

Who Watches What (and How Much)? U.S. TV Trends by Ethnicity

2011-04-06T21:11:00.000-04:00

Nielsen Wire reports: How and what Americans watch on TV varies to some degree based on their ethnicity according to a Nielsen report of TV viewing and usage trends in 2010.

In November 2010, African-Americans used their TVs an average of 7 hours 12 minutes each day–far above the total U.S. average of 5 hours 11 minutes. Asians used their TVs the least, just 3 hours and 14 minutes on average. African-Americans also used DVD players and video game consoles more than average.

Across all households, White households’ primetime usage increased by 5.0 rating points with DVR playback, more than any other group. Asian homes had usage growth of 3.1 rating points, while African-American and Hispanic households increased their usage by more than 2 rating points with the additional DVR playback. These increases more than double when cut back to DVR households.

StumbleUpon's social makeover makes a splash

2011-04-05T22:32:00.000-04:00

USA TODAY reports:StumbleUpon is emerging as a TV Guide to the Facebook masses.

The Web discovery destination has garnered gobs of traffic for its service that helps people zero in on Internet interests and share them across mobile devices and Facebook. It’s also caught the eyes of investors, who last month took a $17 million stake in the company for its promise as a next-generation social-sharing tool, not to mention advertising bonanza.

StumbleUpon has thrived where others haven’t because Facebook and Twitter became the venue of choice for sharing, says Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Land. “StumbleUpon is channel surfing, and that’s a behavior the online audience apparently wants to do and it translates really well to mobile.”

San Francisco-based StumbleUpon wasn’t the first company to gain massive traffic piggy-backed on Facebook. Also, others offer similar services, such as Reddit, Digg, Mixx and Posterous.

Still, CEO Garrett Camp, 32, is enjoying the spotlight in this growing category that owes much of its newfoundsuccess to the explosion of mobile phones and tablets. Camp attributes StumbleUpon’s growth, in part, to its ease of content surfing.

“People don’t want to type in URLs,” says Camp, explaining his service in an interview here. “They just want to click a button and find something cool.”

Roughly 50% of tweets consumed are generated by just 20K elite users

2011-03-27T21:47:00.001-04:00

Yahoo! Research reports: research looking at several longstanding questions in media communications research, namely in the context of the microblogging service Twitter, regarding the production, flow, and consumption of information. To do so, the Yahoo! Research team exploited a recently introduced feature of Twitter---known as Twitter lists---to distinguish between elite users, by which we mean specifically celebrities, bloggers, and representatives of media outlets and other formal organizations, and ordinary users.

Based on this classification, the team found a striking concentration of attention on Twitter---roughly 50% of tweets consumed are generated by just 20K elite users---where the media produces the most information, but celebrities are the most followed.

The team also found significant homophily within categories: celebrities listen to celebrities, while bloggers listen to bloggers etc; however, bloggers in general rebroadcast more information than the other categories.

Next they re-examined the classical ``two-step flow'' theory of communications, finding considerable support for it on Twitter, but also some interesting difference. They found that URLs broadcast by different categories of users or containing different types of content exhibit systematically different lifespans. And finally, they examined the attention paid by the different user categories to different news topics.

Full report here: http://bit.ly/hkzRUU

Who is the most valuable Englishman? Rooney? Firth? Beckham? Ives?

2011-03-26T10:33:00.000-04:00

Mail Online reports: on Jonathan Ive.

The boy from Chingford who is now senior vice-president of industrial design at Apple. Ive has given style to a family of machines that has changed the way the world thinks.

Transient, global, instantaneous, intelligent, wireless connectivity is a bigger idea than the French Revolution. More than any other individual, Ive has decided what this idea should look like. And it looks beautiful, desirable.

In the nearly 20 years since he joined Apple (which dropped the word 'Computer' from its corporate name in 2001), sales have increased ten times.

Ive could be defined by his devotion to detail. When Apple boss Steve Jobs asked him in the late Nineties to create colourful, cheap cathode-ray-tube computers – what would become the first iMac – Ive spent hours in a sweet factory to get inspiration for the colours that would tell the world this wasn’t just a machine for work: it was for fun, too.

And so it has been for nearly 14 years – the time Ive has been Apple’s star designer, a fact little known and less publicised in his native Britain due to the obsessive culture of secrecy at Apple. (His laboratory remains sealed off even from the rest of Apple’s leafy corporate ‘campus’ in San Francisco.) The impact of the 44-year-old, Essex-born, Staffordshire-raised graduate of Newcastle Polytechnic has been incalculable.

He is worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the company, which is itself currently valued at a staggering £200 billion. The last decade has belonged to him: his designs for the Californian company have revolutionised everything from music and television to mobile phones and hand-held computers.

By designing that first iMac in 1998 and its ever more sleek successors, then the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Ive has helped turn Apple Inc from an also-ran popular chiefly with designers into the second biggest company in the world, with a higher turnover than Google or Microsoft. He will receive £15 million in Apple shares alone next year.

It is hard to know what is the greater intrigue: recent conjecture that he is preparing to walk away from Apple to relocate to his beautiful Grade II-listed mansion in Somerset so his children can be educated in the UK (false – he is not, and the property is now standing empty); that he will step out of the shadows and assume Steve Jobs’ role when the great man stands down (highly doubtful); or what – or perhaps more accurately who – propelled him to leave for the U.S. in the first place and deny Britain the talents of one of the most influential designers of the modern age.

A look at the social media battleground in 2011 federal election

2011-03-25T16:44:00.000-04:00

Winnipeg Free Press reports: In the federal election of 2000, only a handful of candidates boasted their own websites. Flash forward 11 years, and the Internet has become a critical element of all election campaigns.

Research suggests Canadians are among the world's most engaged users of the Internet, spending an average of 42 hours online a month.
And social media have dramatically transformed the Internet from a mere information source to an election battlefield, with sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all playing key roles.

With an estimated 16 million Canadian users, Facebook is the most popular social networking site in Canada. But it hasn't yet been a major factor in a federal election campaign. Most candidates have pages, but haven't used them effectively to interact with voters. In the 2008 election, the site did become the base for the vote-swapping movement that encouraged people to trade their votes in swing ridings.

Twitter has been around since 2006, but 2010 was the year its use spiked among Canadians and Canadian politicians. Data from comScore.com, a company that measures digital markets, says the site reaches about 4.5 million Canadian.

YouTube is often the first place, and sometimes the only place, to watch campaign advertising, whether for the parties or other groups. Analysis from comScore.com says Canadians are among the world's heaviest users of the site, each watching an average of 147 videos a month.
In fall 2010, Harper held a YouTube interview, where he took questions from Canadians. No word yet on whether the experiment will be repeated during the current campaign.

MobileMobile device applications, commonly referred to as "apps," were a big hit in the recent B.C. Liberal leadership race. They've also been developed for several municipal campaigns.

But at the federal party level, only the NDP have so far rolled out an app for iPhone. It includes photos and videos, a polling station locator and a link to donate to the party. It also allows users to request lawn signs or to volunteer.

Marketing to China

2011-03-25T16:38:00.000-04:00

BusinessWeek reports on : how Pacific Trade International's Mei Xu conducts Marketing to China and how she turned a Maryland candle maker into an $85 million home products company that sells in the U.S. and her native China.

What kind of opportunities are there for American small businesses in China?
If you go to Shanghai, there are all these European small business people from places like Holland, England, and France. They're from small countries, so they are born with a trader's mentality. They know there is not much to lose and so much to gain in China. Americans often think only about market share in their own country.

How is China different from the U.S. for an entrepreneur like you?
It's very fragmented. There are no national chains like Target (TGT) or Wal-Mart (WMT). But there are 10 cities with more than 10 million people, and in Shanghai there are more than 20 million. If you open 10 stores in Shanghai, you can have a brisk business. You just have to pick the right battles.

What mistakes do companies make in China?
A lot of people think, "There are 1.5 billion people in China. If I sell each of them a set of forks and knives, I'll be very rich." But even a major company such as McDonald's (MCD) had trouble because they insisted on selling hamburgers. Chinese people didn't eat beef. You have to acknowledge life is different.

How does a home products maker such as you woo the Chinese?
We had to design a whole new product line for China. Americans like candles that smell like cookies. Women burn them in their homes so their husbands and children come home and think they have been cooking. The Chinese like floral scents.

Advocacy 2.0 is now Advocacy 206 on LinkedIn

2011-03-24T23:05:00.001-04:00

Great to see continued growth of Advocacy 2.0 on LinkedIn - this group now has 206 global members - thanks for support and interest.

to join simply visit: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Advocacy-20-1884322?mostPopular&gid=1884322

Looks like Social + Digital Advertising just got more important in China

2011-03-24T11:01:00.001-04:00

AFP reports that Beijing targets luxury ads amid wealth gap .China's capital has banned outdoor advertising that promotes hedonistic or high-end lifestyles as the government seeks to ease public concerns about the country's widening wealth gap. The Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce said in a recent statement that businesses were given an April 15 deadline to rectify such ads, along with any that excessively promote "foreign" things. It gave no details on which "foreign" things were deemed objectionable. Such promotions help create a politically "unhealthy" climate, it said. Violators could face fines of up to 30,000 yuan ($4,600), the state-run China Daily said Monday. Newly forbidden words include "supreme", "royal", "luxury" or "high class", which are widely used in Chinese promotions for houses, vehicles and wines, it said. Authorities in the southwestern mega-city of Chongqing last week issued similar rules that barred real estate advertisements from using phrases including "best", "unique" or "irreplaceable". Chinese officials are struggling to cool criticisms over a widening income gap at a time when high inflation has put economic pressure on the country's hundreds of millions of low-income farmers and industrial workers. Premier Wen Jiabao said earlier this month that "resolving unfair income distribution" would be a major objective under a 2011-2015 state economic plan. The brokerage firm CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets predicted in January that China would become the world's largest luxury goods market by 2020, accounting for 44 percent of worldwide sales and bigger than the entire global market is now.
AFP

"That is Dr. Facebook to you"

2011-03-21T22:16:00.000-04:00

Dayton Business Journal reports: Interacting with friends, posting photos and updating status changes are common practices on Facebook.

But now more users are relying on the social networking site for health information.

In fact, 41 percent of people said they use social media as a health care resource, according to a National Research Corp. survey of nearly 23,000 U.S. residents. Most of them -- 94 percent -- said they turned to Facebook for medical content such as diet and exercise tips and health education videos. And some respondents even said the information was likely to impact their future health decisions.

With more citizens turning to social media for health care decisions, hospitals and other health care providers are taking steps to ramp up their social media presence.

Patients are using these social media sites for multiple purposes such as:
• To view health education videos;
• Get diet and exercise tips;
• Learn about upcoming health events; and
• Study disease awareness and
• Health statistics.

And thousands of patients are flocking to the health agencies' social media pages because, unlike traditional Web sites, they allow users more ways to quickly interact with staff and other patients -- from watching videos featuring doctors giving health advice to commenting on a health agency's Facebook wall about the treatment they received at the facility.

Red Bull's marketing to expensive?

2011-03-21T22:14:00.000-04:00

Stuff.co.nz looks at Red Bull's business operations in New Zealand and concludes the marketing costs wiped most of its net profit.

Red Bull New Zealand, the local unit of the worlds biggest energy-drink maker, posted a 7.5 per cent gain in sales in 2010, the second-best result since it first launched here more than a decade ago.

Kiwis bought $30.3 million of Red Bull last year. The drink gives users a caffeine hit equivalent to coffee, along with taurine, an amino acid first found in bull bile, hence the name.

Sales rose from $28m in 2009, according to the company's latest annual report.

Increased marketing and administration expenses, and a year-earlier foreign exchange gain, wiped out most of its net profit, which fell to $888,771 from $10.7m.

With an Austrian parent, fluctuations in the euro-kiwi cross rate tend to dominate its earnings.

Red Bull competes with V, the energy drink sold by Frucor, which claims 60 per cent market share and boasts ingredients including taurine and guarana, a potent source of caffeine.

While Frucor does not separately disclose sales for V, it is selling about $90m of the drink a year, based on results of Red Bull, which has 20 per cent of the market.

To Groupon or Not Groupon?

2011-03-21T22:10:00.000-04:00

MiamiHerald.com reports: Websites that offer deep discounts and daily deals are all the rage. Millions of consumers use social-buying sites like Groupon and Living Social in search of a bargain. Even Facebook is planning to enter the social-buying space with a new feature called “Buy with Friends.”

While it sounds like a great deal for the consumer, is it a wise marketing move for the small business owner? Can marketing your small business on a deal-of-the-day website like Groupon or Living Social really boost your bottom line?

How Candidates in 2012 Can Rise to Top of the Media Trough

2011-03-21T21:31:00.000-04:00

Guest Columnists @ Advertising Age: When playing word-association games, if someone say "trough" the next word is usually "pig." However, for me, the reply would likely be "media."

In this age of ample, on-demand and a la carte information, the problem for political campaigns is that information is unequally dispersed, intermittently precise, often incomplete and without context. In other words, the trough is full to overflowing with political information, but quite a bit of it is, well, slop. Americans might be gobbling up media, but much of it is little more than junk calories.

This was evident in a recent Kaiser Foundation poll that found an astonishing 22% of Americans incorrectly believe that the 2010 health-care reform bill had been repealed in 2011, while another 26% were unsure or would not say it was.

Despite the hyperconsumption by viewers -- and because of the news media's desire to feed them the "hot" stories of the moment -- it is clear that Americans are more informed about some issues, like what Charlie Sheen had for breakfast today, and less informed about others, like the status of health-care reform.

But even if we had a politics-only trough, viewers would still be overwhelmed and campaign managers would still have their work cut out for them.

It might be helpful to visualize the contents of our media trough in layers. At the top, voters become informed through a cocktail of news and opinion. News about the candidates and campaign mechanics is available from any number of sources. News is reported and amplified in real time by traditional-media and digital-media outlets adding the political equivalent of color commentary coupled with the play-by-play pace in the race to report news. This information trough is filled further by a perpetual barrage of punditry supplemented by the social-networking sites and tools such as Twitter that allow for celebrity and peer punditry to be interjected into the formation of likely voters' points of view. This ballooning layer of immeasurable content is not just informing voters, but influencing them.

In this media environment, if you are involved in one of the professed "high profile" or "nationalized" races (i.e., the ones we all talk about), your voters will become, in essence, political insiders. On the other hand, if your campaign is not one of these high-profile races, and at the bottom of the trough, then you will receive less attention, analysis and context. Your voters have to dig for them or, more likely, will simply be influenced by the fragments that manage to sporadically bubble up through the top layer some time before Election Day.

#Birthday Tweet

2011-03-20T22:32:00.001-04:00

Monday - March 21 marks the fifth anniversary Twitter. Since March 2006 Twitter has secured 190m global users.

A 2010 winner: The Internet #winning

2011-03-17T22:51:00.000-04:00

POLITICO reports: As the majority of voting-age Americans turned to the Internet for election news during the 2010 campaigns, they were worried that the Web contributes to the increase of political extremism, according to a report released Thursday.

“People recognize that there’s a downside,” said Aaron Smith, the report’s author and a senior research specialist at Pew Internet. “They sort of see it on a broader level, where they have concerns that the Internet promotes extremism … but they think it has value for them personally, and they are not falling into those kinds of things."

The report from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that 54 percent of voting-age adults used the Internet for political activism and information-seeking during the 2010 campaigns.

Among self-described Internet users, the numbers were much higher. Smith found that nearly three-quarters of Internet users turned to the Web for campaign information. Yet nearly 55 percent of all Internet users feel that the Internet increases the influence of those with extreme political views.

According to the report, 54 percent of all voting-age adults used the Internet for political activism and information seeking during the 2010 campaigns.

“The take-away from this political election is that these online spaces — whether they are social-media tools, online news sources or blogs — … are now part of the standard tool kit for people engaged with politics,” Smith said.

More Republicans Than Dems Watched Political Web Video in 2010

2011-03-17T22:50:00.001-04:00

ClickZ reports: A higher percentage of Republicans watched online political video before the 2010 election than Democrats, according to a post-election study. In fact, "The Internet and Campaign 2010" report published today by Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project found that a larger portion of Republican voters engaged with politics and political content online compared to Democratic voters.

Pew based its findings on mobile and landline phone interviews of 2,257 over-18 adults between November 3 and 24, 2010 - directly after the 2010 elections. Sixty-nine percent of GOP voters are "online political users" compared to 56 percent of Democratic voters. Pew defines online political users as people who went online to get political news, take part in activities such as watching videos or fact-checking, or used social sites for political purposes.

And Republicans have overtaken Democrats in the online video-watching category. During the 2006 midterm season, a larger percentage of Democratic voters online - 24 percent - watched political Web video than Republicans - 19 percent. In 2010, the right leaped ahead, with 40 percent of Republican voters online watching political video compared to 32 percent of Democratic voters.

It just got 40% more expensive to support Team Obama in 2012

2011-03-17T22:48:00.000-04:00

NYTimes.com reports: The top contributors to President Obama’s re-election campaign were given an ambitious set of marching orders on Thursday, with an elite group of 450 donors each asked to raise $350,000 this year to help finance what is likely to be the most expensive political race in the nation’s history.

Jim Messina, who is managing the president’s re-election campaign, announced the new goal during a closed-door meeting of the Democratic Party’s national finance committee and advisory board. The amount is more than twice what top Democrats were asked to raise four years ago, several participants of the meeting said, and the donors could be given an even bigger goal next year.

As the 2012 presidential campaign gets under way, both sides are already engaged in an aggressive money chase. Prospective Republican candidates have been lining up contributors for months, and outside groups are setting high targets for how much they intend to invest in trying to influence the race.

Mr. Obama is not expected to have a challenger for the Democratic nomination, but he is wasting no time starting to raise money. By next month, he and at least some Republican contenders are planning to open fund-raising committees with the Federal Election Commission.

This week, Democratic donors from across the country have gathered here for a series of briefings and strategy sessions that are essentially serving as the unofficial opening to Mr. Obama’s re-election bid.

If all 450 top Democratic contributors meet their goal for 2011, as outlined by Mr. Messina, the tally from this group alone will be $157 million this year. The campaign is also relying on a large portion of its money coming from small contributions on the Internet.

In the last presidential campaign, the members of the party’s national finance committee and the campaign advisory board were asked to raise $250,000 for the entire campaign cycle. The new goals underscore the likelihood that the 2012 presidential campaign could shatter records.

The Obama campaign raised about $750 million in the 2008 race. This could be the first $1 billion campaign, a figure that Republicans have been repeatedly invoking to encourage their donors to raise more money for candidates and the national party. Democrats say the figure is inflated.

Blame Tweetdeck - sure, why not?!?

2011-03-17T22:45:00.000-04:00

The Consumerist reports: The social media marketer whose f-bomb tweet on Chrysler's official Twitter account cost him his job and his firm the car maker's account blames his screwup on Tweetdeck, reports WXYZ.

The program lets you manage multiple Twitter accounts. He said his tweet was intended for his personal account and that he had deleted the Chrysler account from his Tweetdeck a long time ago, but somehow it still went out on the Chrysler twitter feed.

His attorney told WXYZ that his client has a case. ""A simple web search shows a number of other users have encountered the same issues," he said.

Tweetdeck told WXYZ that they're not aware of such a problem but would be willing to look into it.

As a social media marketer, he should know that the best thing to do when you're caught in an embarrassing situation is to apologize, accept responsibility and move on.

Operation Sock Puppet

2011-03-17T22:44:00.000-04:00

Guardian.co.uk reports: The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an "online persona management service" that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China's attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as "sock puppets" – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations "without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries".

Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: "The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US."

He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

Social media popularity can predict stock prices #cashmoney

2011-03-17T22:42:00.000-04:00

VentureBeat reports: A new study conducted by a doctoral student at Pace University, in association with Famecount (which tracks how popular brands are according to social media) concludes that social media popularity can reliably predict daily stock prices.

The study tracked three brands, Starbucks, Coca Cola and Nike, over the course of 10 months in 2010-2011. The number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers and Youtube views were used as measures of each brand’s social media popularity. This data was tracked against daily stock price movements for each of these companies, relative to an index of consumer stocks (which reflects how well the stock market is doing in general) and keyword search trend data (the number of searches for “Starbucks” reflects general public interest in the brand and should show spikes due to major announcements).

Social Media for You and Your Company

2011-02-26T13:50:00.001-05:00

Social Media for You and Your Company

View more presentations from Marc Ross.

Melissa Leo launches Oscars ads for herself

2011-02-11T20:25:00.000-05:00

AdFreak reports: You're a woman of a certain age in Hollywood (whose last name is not Streep), and even though you're an Academy Award front-runner, you feel like you need a little extra oomph to get the powers that be in your corner. Melissa Leo, nominated for best supporting actress for her smack-talking mommy fiercest in The Fighter, has bought her own ads in trade magazines to pump her chances with the Academy, and keep her top of mind in the 'What have you done for me lately?' entertainment business.

It's not unprecedented, but it's rare that actors do their own heavy lifting on the awards-marketing front. (History has shown that it can end up serving the intended purpose, or it can backfire.) Leo, whose résumé is dotted with well-respected indie films and seminal TV series, told Deadline that she wanted to create her own traction. After all, it's tough to land many magazine covers these days with Natalie Portman around. At the very least, the 50-year-old actress got to shed her Fighter white-trash wardrobe for something much more glamorous. Still to be determined is whether the campaign, with the single word, "Consider," will be seen as classy or crass

Personal Democracy Forum 2011

2011-02-02T22:57:00.001-05:00

Personal Democracy Forum is the world’s leading conference exploring and analyzing technology's impact on politics and government.

This June 6-7, there's going to be only one place to be if you're interested in how technology is changing politics, governance and society-- the eighth annual Personal Democracy Forum conference in New York City. We're pleased to announce that we'll be gathering at New York University this time, at the beautiful Skirball and Kimmel Centers.

Register + more info - click here.

Digital Technology Networking Happy Hour - Atlantic Media

2011-02-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

Digital Technology Networking Happy Hour
Thursday, Feb 10 5:30p
at The Watergate Complex, Washington D.C., DC
Price: free

Join Atlantic Media Company as we host a networking happy hour for media-minded, digital technology and IT professionals from the Washington DC metro area. You will have the opportunity to network with other professionals within the industry, learn more about the Atlantic Media Company, and some current opportunities including: web developers /designers, digital business development & project/product managers.

Please RSVP to Lauren Taylor at ltaylor@atlanticmediacompany.com by February 8, 2011

Advertisers pay an average of $1.07 to attract a Facebook fan

2011-02-02T22:20:00.000-05:00

The Wall Street Journal/Digits blog reports: It costs Facebook advertisers an average of $1.07 to convince one user to become a fan of a brand, a study finds. But a fan's true value depends on what brands do once they've acquired them, according to this blog post. "On Facebook, the magic of marketing happens when brands activate their fans in ways that inspire people to share those messages with their friends," says Facebook spokesman Brandon McCormick.

Do Not Blast: Hill Staffers Want Personalized Notes, Digital or Otherwise

2011-01-31T20:48:00.000-05:00

techPresident reports: Email and the Internet are, to be sure, making it functionally easier for the American public to reach out and touch their senators and representatives on the United States Congress, finds a new report out from the Congressional Management Foundation's Partnership for a More Perfect Union. But, according to congressional staffers surveyed as part of the study, that doesn't mean there's been a corresponding boom in the public's ability to actually shape the course of events happening on Capitol Hill. The rate of communications has swung upwards, finds the report, 'Communicating with Congress: Perceptions of Citizens Advocacy on Capitol Hill,' (pdf) but the quality of the messages has headed in the opposite direction. A full 97% of the congressional aides asked as part of the report said that ' electronic communications have increased the number of constituents who communicate with their offices.' Yet at the same time, 65% of those same staffers said that 'email and the Internet have reduced the quality of constituents' messages.'

Twitter Goes to Capitol Hill

2011-01-30T22:30:00.000-05:00

NYT reports: Adam Sharp fits in well in the Beltway political scene where he used to work — first in the office of Senator Mary L. Landrieu, and then as the executive producer for digital services at C-Span. But his new job, as Twitter’s Washington liaison, requires a slightly different skill set.

Now Mr. Sharp, a 32-year-old with brown hair, glasses and a sprinkling of pale freckles across his face, is the human embodiment of Twitter, an energetic and smiling ambassador for that ubiquitous blue bird, ready and willing to answer questions, troubleshoot and offer free tips.

When Twitter hired Mr. Sharp late last year, his job was not to convince a few slow-to-adapt House members that they needed to get with the times. Instead, he is trying to help the thousands of politicians and government employees already on Twitter to use it better.

“His job strikes me as making lots of friends and helping lots of people, and who would not return a phone call from Twitter these days?” said Howard Mortman, the communications director for C-Span, who worked with Mr. Sharp. “I think he is getting incredible access, the kind of access many folks would be jealous of, because he is offering a service that many people want these days.”

Mr. Sharp was an obvious choice for the job. He has always had something of a geeky, techie side, and has been known to walk around Capitol Hill greeting people by their Twitter handles. When he proposed to his wife, he laid everything out first in an elaborate PowerPoint presentation — complete with satellite photos of the exact spot in Rock Creek Park where he planned to drop to one knee.

Twitter officials, who did not make Mr. Sharp available for an interview, emphasize that he is not a lobbyist. In fact, he is not even trying to sell politicians on the virtues of Twitter.

Social media marketing explained in 61 words

2011-01-29T11:09:00.001-05:00

You can buy attention (advertising)

You can beg for attention from the media (PR)

You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales)

Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.

Source: David Meerman Scott

Books to Read

2011-01-29T11:02:00.000-05:00

"In Cheap We Trust" by Lauren Weber

"Viral Loop" by Adam L. Penenberg

"Create Your Own Economy" by Tyler Cowen

"Bright-Sided" by Barbara Ehrenreich

"Googled" by Ken Auletta

"Busted" by Edmund Andrews

"Change by Design" by Tim Brown

"Adland" by James Othmer

"In-N-Out Burger" by Stacy Perman

"Strategy for Sustainability" by Adam Werbach

"Buy-ology: by Martin Lindstrom

22% of online Americans used social networking or Twitter for politics in 2010 campaign

2011-01-27T21:17:00.000-05:00

Pew Research report: "After first gaining prominence as tools for political engagement during the 2008 presidential election, social media became a regular part of the political environment for voters in the 2010 midyear elections. Some 22% of online adults used Twitter or social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace in the months leading up to the November, 2010 elections to connect to the campaign or the election itself.

In contrast to the 2008 race—in which Democratic voters led the way in their use of online social networks for political purposes—Republican voters and supporters of the “Tea Party” movement caught up with Democrats in their use of social media in 2010.

“The social networking population as a whole has grown larger and demographically more diverse in recent years, and the same is true when it comes to political activity on social networking sites.” said Aaron Smith, Senior Researcher Specialist and author of the report. “These platforms are now utilized by politically active individuals of all ages and ideologies to get news, connect with others, and offer their thoughts on the issues that are important to them.”

Full report - click here.

What’s Your Social Profile Worth? About $4.00

2011-01-27T21:12:00.001-05:00

Marketing Pilgrim reports: If you went to the store and bought $4.00 worth of goods, that’s not going to keep the place open for business. But when 1 billion people each spend $4.00, now you’re on to something.

Deloitte has just released the 10th edition of their “Predictions for the Technology, Media and Telecommunications” report and one of the questions is “Social Network Advertising: How Big Can it Get?”

The answer, they say is about 4 billion in 2011. That’s a combination of advertising, virtual goods and social network ecommerce. When you pull out only the advertising dollar, the ARPU (average revenue per user) drops to $3.50 which is still an expected rise over the $3.00 ARPU for 2010.

Full report - click here.

TODAYonline | World | Obama goes back to his old social-media campaign playbook

2011-01-27T21:10:00.000-05:00

TODAYonline reports: President Barack Obama is turning to his 2008 playbook by leaning on social media to help push his agenda through a politically divided Congress, gearing-up for next year's re-election campaign.

Mr Obama and his aides are following up the President's State of the Union address on Wednesday by mixing traditional set-piece events - remarks at a Wisconsin factory on Wednesday - with a flurry of public outreach via Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The administration took to the Internet ahead of Mr Obama's address with an online video for supporters laying out his themes.

On the day of the speech, the administration supplemented live coverage by major broadcast and cable news networks with a live stream on the White House website.

Mr Obama, whose campaign collected email addresses to raise record amounts of money in the 2008 presidential race and used text messaging for votes, has combined the official website with commercial online outlets to communicate. Last year, he held a YouTube townhall on health-care and introduced an application for Apple's iPhone to provide content from the official White House blog and links to pictures and news.

Those outlets help connect the administration with voters and "make you feel a part of it," said a former spokeswoman for the Democratic Party, Ms Karen Finney. "People love all that behind-the-scene stuff."

Obama No Longer Leads The Pack On Social Media

2011-01-27T21:07:00.000-05:00

NPR reports: The Obama social media operation was a juggernaut during the 2008 campaign. On Facebook and Twitter, in text messages and on YouTube, there was no comparison between Republicans and Democrats.

So the reality just two years later is striking: In social media, Republicans have caught up.

That's the conclusion of a report being released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

'Lots more people — including Republicans, independents, supporters of the Tea Party — are just as active in this space as Democrats used to be,' says Lee Rainie, director of Pew's Internet and American Life Project. 'So the Democratic advantage, in some sense, is being washed away by the mainstreaming of the populations who are using these tools.'

Meet New York City’s 27-Year-Old Digital Chief, Just Don’t Snoop on Her Facebook Wall

2011-01-27T21:04:00.000-05:00

NY Mag reports: Rachel Sterne had to know she was in for some public scrutiny after Mayor Bloomberg announced her appointment as the city's first-ever chief digital officer this week. Presumably the 27-year-old entrepreneur and Columbia Business School professor was hired in part for her social-media savvy and public presence online. Her work with GroundReport, the citizen news portal she founded in 2006, also seems likely to inform the next logical step of aging initiatives like Bloomberg's 311 system. Indeed, Sterne, who will take home $115,000 for the gig, told the Times, 'A big part of this is listening to New Yorkers and being responsive,” and said she planned to use Twitter and Facebook to do it. But after the Journal culled messages from her Facebook wall about the new job, Sterne ended up changing her privacy settings to reduce her digital footprint, or footprint-in-mouth, if you will.

Bears’ Jay Cutler a victim of social media

2011-01-27T21:01:00.000-05:00

Boston Herald reports: When Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler left the NFC championship game in the third quarter, the reaction was immediate and breathtaking in both its scope and tone. Current and former players - in stunning violation of their sport’s code of honor - ripped Cutler for quitting on his team.

Grassroots advocacy checklist

2011-01-25T20:22:00.003-05:00

What is grassroots advocacy?
Grassroots advocacy is educated, motivated and mobilized voices of many individuals who communicate their opinions on issues and legislation to elected officials and policy makers.

Why grassroots?
1. Expands the reach and influence of your organization from Capitol Hill to Main Street
2. Connects politicians with constituents and companies
3. Keeps issues the industry cares about engaged in the political debates of the day

Who participates?
CEOs
Employees
Vendors
Customers
Stakeholders
Small Business Leaders
Retirees
Industry Opponents
Media

Advocacy Strategy – How?
1. Identify the issues that matter most to the industry
2. Educate employees how those issues affect them and where their elected officials stand or voted on the issues
3. Motivate them to take action on those issues
4. Mobilize them to communicate, vote and engage their elected officials

Ideas for Advocacy
Grassroots
Grasstops
Coalitions
State Partners
Member Companies
GOTV – “Get Out The Vote”
PACs

Advocacy Action
1. Targeted approach with focused and clear approach
2. Build a national grassroots/grasstops network of industry stakeholders and activists
3. Develop internet presence and capabilities
4. Boost local contacts and leaders
5. Increase local and district events with elected officials and industry
6. Influence legislation and public policy

Measure Advocacy
1. Local Meetings/Plant Tours
2. GOTV
3. Grassroots
4. Industry Wide Database
5. PACs
6. Industry Fundraising

Think Advocacy
1. Email Newsletters
2. Target legislative priorities
3. Robust web capabilities and presence
4. Organize local events and meetings
5. Launch an “Advocacy Week”
6. Conduct grassroots training sessions
7. Develop a GOTV program – America Votes

Promote Advocacy
1. Quality vs. Quantity
2. Embrace all communication
3. Localize your efforts
4. Give up control
5. Create a culture of advocacy

Interest groups vie for a moment of Obama's time in State of the Union address

2011-01-23T10:20:00.000-05:00

WashPost reports: It has been a frenetic few weeks for the country's leading oil industry group: Lobbyists for the American Petroleum Institute have repeatedly phoned the White House, cajoled agency higher-ups, even bought big newspaper ads touting the virtues of oil and natural gas.

The goal of all this activity isn't to win support for a crucial piece of legislation in Congress, but something much narrower - convincing President Obama to say something, anything, complimentary about Big Oil in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Each January, industries and interest groups of all kinds badger the White House with requests for a mention in the speech, which sets the political agenda in Washington for the year. Even a brief call-out from the president can be an important advantage in the contest for increasingly scarce federal dollars.

With so much competition, sometimes the effort to get a line in the speech falls short, said Jack Gerard, API's president and CEO. But "sometimes you are pleasantly surprised. So we continue to push, push, push, push."

This year, with the president far more constricted in what he can realistically promise, pleasant surprises may be especially hard to come by.

Obama will deliver his speech before a Congress with fewer Democratic faces, and one in which both parties fear the repercussions of the nation's sluggish economy, high unemployment rate and rising debt. The address won't feature the long list of costly giveaways familiar in good times. Instead, the speech - like last year's - will center largely on Obama's economic plans.

"My principal focus . . . is going to be making sure that we are competitive, that we are growing, and we are creating jobs," Obama said in a preview video of the speech sent to supporters Saturday. He declared the deficit another priority, calling on Washington to "reform government so that it's leaner and smarter for the 21st century."

#DCWEEK registration is open.

2011-01-11T20:54:00.000-05:00

First 2000 free: http://www.facebook.com/l/87913I6MLKlrcvQziPsvAHNRISw;bit.ly/i2FU8J.

UW-Madison tops internet brand rankings

2011-01-10T23:20:00.000-05:00

Media-Newswire: The University of Wisconsin-Madison ranked first among U.S. colleges and universities in a new study examining higher education 'brand equity' on the Internet.

The TrendTopper MediaBuzz Internet analysis was conducted by Austin, Texas-based Global Language Monitor and studied 300 institutions. The rankings were compiled using a mathematical model to measure how often colleges and universities appear in the global electronic media, on the Internet, in the blogosphere and across social-networking sites.

UW-Madison ranked first, with the University of Chicago, Harvard University, MIT and Columbia University rounding out the top five.

The ranking reflects broad success in academic reputation, research, alumni affairs, global influence, electronic media relations and social media, says Paul J.J. Payack, president and chief word analyst at GLM.

The measurement was conducted in the final week of December 2010, with the same period in 2009 used as a benchmark. Although it would seem logical that the excitement around the recent Rose Bowl run would have tipped the rankings, Payack says he corrected for football and it was not a factor.

"We look at colleges as parents or employers might view them: as brands," he says. "Why would you buy a new Lexus instead of a old Ford? What has more value to you?

"The 'flight to quality' continues unabated," he adds. "The savvy consumer of the education marketplace appears centered on the price-sensitive 'public ivies' and technology-centered schools.

Social Media in China: The Same, but Different

2011-01-10T07:03:00.000-05:00

Thomas Crampton posted his recent article which recently appeared in China Business Review, the magazine of the US-China Business Council.

"As Chinese consumers spend more time online, foreign companies should deepen their knowledge of domestic social media platforms. Much has been written of late about the PRC government’s efforts to control and censor the Internet. The government’s censorship of websites is an important issue, but it is not the top priority of the country’s 420 million Internet users (netizens).

Their top priority? Connecting with other Chinese online. The Internet has opened access to information for ordinary Chinese citizens in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Coming from a world where information was pre-filtered by editors at state-run media, China’s Internet is freewheeling by comparison.

Companies should learn how Chinese consumers use social media and take advantage of the platforms to conduct consumer research, launch products, manage public relations crises, and more.

Rather than eliminate social media, restrictions on foreign websites and social media have resulted in a flourishing home-grown, state-approved ecosystem in which Chinese-owned properties thrive. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are blocked in China, but their Chinese equivalents are expanding. By some measures, usage of Chinese social media is some of the most intense in the world. A Boston Consulting Group study found that Chinese Internet users are online for an average of 2.7 hours per day, considerably more than other developing countries and more on par with usage patterns in Japan and the United States (see Understand and Tap Into China’s Digital Generations)."

2014 Screen Futures: 40% of TVs Will Have Net Connections

2010-12-28T22:08:00.000-05:00

MediaPost reports: In five years, almost 40% of televisions produced for the U.S. market will have at least one TV set in the home with Internet connections and services.

Media research publisher Futurescape says this will amount to 43 million U.S. television homes out of 115.9 million overall U.S. TV homes. Other research suggests that 57 million U.S. TV homes will be viewing -- at some time -- regular full-length TV programs from online sources on their TV sets.

U.S. numbers register at a slower pace than global TV trends, where it is expected that 54% of all flat-panel TV sets that will be shipped in 2014 -- 148.3 million -- will have Internet-connected TV services.

Aggressive TV maker Samsung says 70% of all its TV sets will be Internet-connected in 2014. Right now, the TV set maker says 17% of its production is Internet-connected TVs.

Trends in Consumers’ Time Spent with Media

2010-12-28T22:01:00.001-05:00

eMarketer reports:: The average time spent with all major media combined increased from about 10.6 hours in 2008 to 11 hours in 2010, according to eMarketer. TV and video (not including online video) captured the lion’s share of all media time, about 40% each year. The internet’s share of media time increased over the same period, from 21.5% to 23.5%, as did mobile’s share, from 5% to 7.5%. The share of time spent with magazines and newspapers fluctuated between 10% and 7.5%, while radio and all other media—video games, movies in theaters and outdoor media—declined.

U.S. Top 10s and Trends for 2010

2010-12-23T16:55:00.000-05:00

Nielsen Wire: The Nielsen Company released a list of the most popular media and consumer spending trends in the U.S. for 2010, covering everything from the most popular television shows, to the most liked commercials, book sales, purchasing trends, top mobile apps and more.

Click here to download Nielsen’s top 10s and trends in the U.S. for 2010.