Social media has certainly given the power back to the consumer. But sometimes the consumer doesn’t do nice things with that power. While it could be a matter of perception (the overwhelming sentiment of most brands in online conversational analysis is positive), it certainly seems like the only time we take note of brand mentions online is when someone is whining or bitching about them. AT&T is one brand that gets unnecessarily beaten about its head and face a lot online. I’ve never quite understood this, perhaps because I’m A) Practical in nature and understand…
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Most Topular Stories
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What Happened To Saying Something Nice?
Social Media Explorer8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 am -
Throw Away the Maps
chrisbrogan.com6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amPeople judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The… -
Technology and antivirus company AVG prices IPO
News from SMP1 Feb 2012 | 4:00 pmTechnology and antivirus company AVG prices IPOWith the world focused on Facebook’s IPO, technology company AVG Technologies N.V., more widely known as an antivirus software maker couldn’t of picked a more volatile time to press release details of... -
Taste everything well before serving up your social media offerings
Socialmedia.biz8 Feb 2012 | 5:09 amIf you want to succeed in running a kitchen for the homeless in Washington, DC, or have wildly successful social media marketing campaigns, it all comes down to one thing: do you respect and appreciate your guests? Do you cut-corners and just serve slop or do you prepare organic, healthy, and delicious meals with an obsession for presentation and taste? I volunteer as sous chef at a Washington, DC, homeless kitchen. They serve fresh, organic dinners to folks who really need a healthy meal. Miriam's Kitchen treats everyone who dines there as respected and honored guests. I have learned a lot… -
Nginx Continues Growth, Adds Commercial Offerings
ReadWriteWeb8 Feb 2012 | 4:30 pmAccording to the Netcraft Web Server Survey for February 2012, Nginx was "the only server to experience a non-negligible market share increase this month" by picking up 0.27 percentage points. Good news for the upstart Web server, just as the brand-new company behind Nginx takes the wraps off its commercial packages. Nginx has had quite the growth spurt over the past year. In February of last year Nginx had 7.57% of the market, or about 21 million domains hosted with Nginx. Microsoft had 20.04%, or about 57 million. Apache was at 60.10%, with more than 171 million domains. Sponsor…
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Social Media Explorer
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What Happened To Saying Something Nice?
8 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amSocial media has certainly given the power back to the consumer. But sometimes the consumer doesn’t do nice things with that power. While it could be a matter of perception (the overwhelming sentiment of most brands in online conversational analysis is positive), it certainly seems like the only time we take note of brand mentions online is when someone is whining or bitching about them. AT&T is one brand that gets unnecessarily beaten about its head and face a lot online. I’ve never quite understood this, perhaps because I’m A) Practical in nature and understand… -
Get Out of Your Own Way: 5 Excuses Marketers Use to Avoid Social Media ROI
7 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amYou see it everywhere. Management teams and marketers desperately want to understand how social media is delivering to the bottom line. Marketers are getting tons of pressure from their management teams and are desperate for a way to prove their strategies are working. With so many chomping at the bit to get at true return on investment (ROI), how has it remained so elusive? Has social media become the marketing channel that we know we need to have, but can’t demonstrate why? What if Social Media ROI was really simple, but we let a bunch of excuses get in our way of measuring it? -
Empowering Your Employees With Social Media
6 Feb 2012 | 10:00 amEditor’s Note: This is a guest post by Emily Eldridge, Senior Vice President of Pure. It’s tempting to think that employees’ online discussions about your company should be curbed. Most company policies in the modern workplace exist to protect us from lawsuits – and to ostensibly protect employees from themselves. While it’s understandable to want control over our corporate image, this fear dimishes our employees’ ability to communicate. A stronger approach is to empower our staff to be brand advocates. Advocate for Your Employees Companies should decide whether their… -
How Small Businesses Can Go Big With Social Media Marketing
6 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amIt’s no secret to many of you — it-getters in the sense that you at least read Social Media Explorer and are likely bought in — that social media marketing can have a huge impact on your business. But we still see more case studies from major brands playing in the social channels than we do small businesses. With the fact that 44 percent of small businesses don’t even have a website, much less social media efforts, it’s no surprise that there’s a gap between success cases in small versus medium and large businesses. Small businesses typically face one… -
Integrating Social Media Across The Organization
3 Feb 2012 | 6:00 amOperationalizing social media across the organization is perhaps on of the most challenging aspects of social media for companies and brands. Too many look at social media as a consumer-facing communications channel and forget that departments from HR to research and development and even internal collaboration among divisions can all be helped by social technologies and strategies. We’re addressing that issue at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth in several discussions, one major one led by Zena Weist, Vice-President of Digital Strategy for Edelman. Her experience at brands like Embarq, Sprint…
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chrisbrogan.com
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Throw Away the Maps
6 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amPeople judge us by the path they’ve seen us walk before. They can’t anticipate our future steps. We, ourselves, look to how things have been, what seems to be the lay of the land, without realizing that the maps are not the territory. Want to succeed at work? Then don’t try to do your job. Instead, work towards something larger, more meaningful, and something that blends your convictions internally with your best ability to help others externally. Want to create something new? Then throw away the old, or maybe join two disparate old things together into something new. The… -
The Next Social Networks
5 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amThe rage in social networks right now is Pinterest, partly because it’s probably the first social network that has a much higher adoption rate by females than males, and partly because it’s an interesting concept: somewhere between visual social bookmarking and scrapbooking. What also might not be immediately obvious is that it’s just “easier” to interact there. In that way, Pinterest has something in common with Instagram, which is community around photos. What I’m interested in, though, is Gentlemint, which I keep calling “Pinterest for… -
Learn From Adele – Build Your Platform
3 Feb 2012 | 1:30 amJacq and I just watched Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall (amazon affiliate link), and though every song was just wonderfully done, I found myself fascinated by what Adele was doing in between each song. Because even though most people would be interested in hearing her belt out her amazing repertoire of hits, what I took away from the performance was Adele’s real magical ability: the ability to resonate with her audience. What Adele Could Teach You About Impact I’m writing something about this right now for my upcoming book with Julien Smith, but I had to share some of the… -
Rob Gokee is a Musical Wizard
2 Feb 2012 | 8:05 amI had such a great experience working with award winning musical composer Rob Gokee. We did some musical work together, and the process was so amazing. Rob helped me create my theme song for Shhh! The Secret Show. So anyhow, he and I sat down to do an interview, and it’s a bit long, but it’s totally worth it. We talk about what collaboration feels like at a distance, what it takes to get music like this made for your own show, and a lot more. Rob’s a hero to me, and has been part of the community for a while. I was so fortunate to have worked with him. Can’t see the… -
Build Your Platform – Start
30 Jan 2012 | 1:30 amThe following is part ONE of a series called Build Your Platform. If you find it interesting, please consider subscribing for free to get the rest of the series. This post is long. You might want to bookmark it for later. The age of social media oversaturation is upon us. People are declaring Twitter bankruptcy to go along with their email bankruptcy. They cite not wanting to start on yet another social network as their reason for not getting more involved with Google+. And just as soon as you start getting into Pinterest, you hear about Path, but wait: there’s Gentlemint, which is…
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News from SMP
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Technology and antivirus company AVG prices IPO
1 Feb 2012 | 4:00 pmTechnology and antivirus company AVG prices IPOWith the world focused on Facebook’s IPO, technology company AVG Technologies N.V., more widely known as an antivirus software maker couldn’t of picked a more volatile time to press release details of... -
Can The X Factor muster another number one?
8 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pmCan The X Factor muster another number one?UK X Factor 2011 winners Little Mix (covering Damian Rice’s Cannonball) were beaten to the Christmas number one by the Military Wives Choir (Wherever You Are composed by Paul Melor). The girl band (... -
Integrated Social Media Marketing Event touches down in Asia February 2012
4 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pmIntegrated Social Media Marketing Event touches down in Asia February 2012Integrated approach leverages social media for enhanced engagement and brandingPacific Conferences’ Integrated Social Media Marketing Conference offers actionable insights i... -
Weight Watchers kicks off 2012 TV ad and social media campaign
2 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pmWeight Watchers kicks off 2012 TV ad and social media campaignWeight Watchers UK kicks off its first TV and social media campaign of 2012, and the timing couldn't have been better as we see in the New Year. Marketing magazine reported ... -
Social media analysis for the UK X Factor finale
23 Dec 2011 | 4:00 pmSocial media analysis for the UK X Factor finaleThe X Factor social media infographic week 10 from the live shows finale 2011 for series 8Elemental's UK X Factor social media analysis and infographic for the Week 10 finale. The grap...
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Socialmedia.biz
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Taste everything well before serving up your social media offerings
8 Feb 2012 | 5:09 amIf you want to succeed in running a kitchen for the homeless in Washington, DC, or have wildly successful social media marketing campaigns, it all comes down to one thing: do you respect and appreciate your guests? Do you cut-corners and just serve slop or do you prepare organic, healthy, and delicious meals with an obsession for presentation and taste? I volunteer as sous chef at a Washington, DC, homeless kitchen. They serve fresh, organic dinners to folks who really need a healthy meal. Miriam's Kitchen treats everyone who dines there as respected and honored guests. I have learned a lot… -
TaskRabbit: Crowdsourcing comes to your neighborhood
6 Feb 2012 | 5:11 amA mobile marketplace for getting stuff done from JD Lasica on Vimeo. Start-up offers location-aware marketplace for getting stuff done One of my favorite new iPhone apps and online services is TaskRabbit, a platform that allows people to hire other people to complete tasks in their own towns or neighborhoods. The concept is drop-dead simple but difficult to pull off. Founder Leah Busque says TaskRabbit lets folks "outsource small jobs and tasks to other people in their neighborhood" — say, if you need dry cleaning or groceries picked up, house cleaning or yard work done, Ikea… -
Why you should care about the mobile Web
3 Feb 2012 | 5:22 amImage by BigStock Photo Ready or not, the mobile revolution is upon us! There is a lot of hype out there about how many people own mobile devices and how much time people spend on them. Over the past two years, I've been charting and chronicling the rise of the mobile Web and the changes that it is unleashing on American society. Let's look at some overall numbers: Today there are 5.3 billion mobile device subscribers in the world. There will be nearly as many mobile devices as there are people in the world by 2015. There are 48 million people in the world who have mobile phones, even… -
Social media, tech & marketing events: February
1 Feb 2012 | 6:02 amThe Social Enterprise Conference will be held Feb. 25-26 at Harvard. Guide to events & conferences for the coming month Who would have guessed that February has become one of the busiest months of the year for social media, technology and marketing conferences? Look at the list of conferences below, which run the gamut from Women 2.0 Pitch to Vator Splash to Lift, Strata, TED, SMX West, Wisdom 2.0, the first SOBCon Europe and the year's first Social Media Strategies Summit. And don't forget Social Media Week, the multi-city global conference running Feb. 13-17. For the full year,… -
Can PR leave behind magical thinking for science?
1 Feb 2012 | 5:00 amDon’t let your social media hypothesis dictate your conclusion While neither marketing nor social media are sciences, one needs to use scientific principles to be most effective when it comes to both branding and prospecting online. It doesn’t take an Einstein to succeed in social media marketing, but to does take a scientist. Are you rigorously collecting metrics and data to see if what you’re doing is resulting in sales conversions or extending your brand or are you relying on things you’ve learned from The Secret? Is your social media marketing campaign relying too much on…
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ReadWriteWeb
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Nginx Continues Growth, Adds Commercial Offerings
8 Feb 2012 | 4:30 pmAccording to the Netcraft Web Server Survey for February 2012, Nginx was "the only server to experience a non-negligible market share increase this month" by picking up 0.27 percentage points. Good news for the upstart Web server, just as the brand-new company behind Nginx takes the wraps off its commercial packages. Nginx has had quite the growth spurt over the past year. In February of last year Nginx had 7.57% of the market, or about 21 million domains hosted with Nginx. Microsoft had 20.04%, or about 57 million. Apache was at 60.10%, with more than 171 million domains. Sponsor… -
Do Your Users Get You? Test Them With Solidify
8 Feb 2012 | 3:59 pmZURB launched yet another free and handy design application to help anyone test Web products they're working on. This one is called Solidify. It takes care of one of the most annoying parts of building an interface: testing clickable prototypes. Solidify lets you build a working test of your design and give it to users to see if it makes sense to them. It also gives you analytics on how your testers performed. Along with the new app, ZURB opened a new apps page showcasing all the great Web design helpers it has made, many of which we've covered on ReadWriteWeb. ZURB's tools let you make… -
Google Confirms Motorola Licensees Pay 2.25% Per-Unit Royalties
8 Feb 2012 | 3:45 pmIf all goes according to plan, the same company which last year asserted that patents were essentially legal weapons in an unfair war against the Android operating system, will find itself the owner of one of the largest technology portfolios anywhere in the world. Today, Google took steps to assure many of Motorola Mobility's (MMI) existing licensees that it would adhere to that company's existing reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) licensing practices for mobile technologies. This after Apple sent a letter to a European Telecommunications Standards Institute last November 11 - as first… -
Akamai Invests in Obliterating America's Broadband Speed Deficit
8 Feb 2012 | 3:30 pmLast week, my colleague David Strom reported on the latest annual "State of the Internet" report from content delivery network Akamai. The report showed that while Americans are finally experiencing faster average broadband speeds on a quarter-by-quarter basis, those speeds only began eclipsing those of Sweden in the second half of 2010, and still have about 40% of gap to close if it hopes to achieve par with Japan - which, at this rate, it might do in about a decade. If Web connection speeds are, as Google has said so often in touting the performance of its Chrome Web browser, essentially a… -
Add Change Tracking to Online Text Editing with Ice.js
8 Feb 2012 | 3:01 pmIf you're looking to add change tracking to a Web app, you might want to take a look at Ice from the CMS group at the New York Times. Ice (or Ice.js) is an implementation of change tracking for any content-editable element on the Web. It can track changes (inserts, deletes) from multiple users, and has some optional plugins for converting "smart" quotes and creating em-dashes. Sponsor Hands-on experience is probably the best way to get an idea what Ice.js can do. The current demo shows a plain content-editable element with Ice.js as well as a TinyMCE instance using Ice.js as a plugin. The…
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Mashable!
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7 Pinterest Clones: Can You Tell the Difference?
8 Feb 2012 | 7:11 am“It’s like Pinterest, but…” Welcome to my inbox for the last several months. Just as the world now has a Groupon and a Birchbox for everything, so too is Pinterest creating a wake of copy-cat sites. We’re not talking about sites that merely incorporate Pinterest’s design elements. There are sites that have copied Pinterest’s style, functionality and even portions of its name. Pinterest hasn’t released user numbers, but one study found it drives more traffic to websites than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. Copy-cat sites are another… -
Brazil Sues Twitter Over Speed Trap, Roadblock Tweets
8 Feb 2012 | 6:55 amIn what may be the first test of Twitter‘s new international censorship strategy, Brazil is suing the company over tweets that warn drivers of police roadblocks and speed traps. The suit, filed in a federal court in Goias by the attorney general’s office, is also going after users who compose the tweets. Brazil’s government is levying fines of $290,000 until Twitter changes course. The government charges that such tweets break the law and directly endanger “life, safety and property,” CNN reports. The roadblocks, the suit contends, may thwart purveyors of other… -
Sprint Reports Strong iPhone Sales in Q4 2011
8 Feb 2012 | 6:39 amSprint‘s Q4 2011 earnings report is out, and the results aren’t stellar, but strong iPhone sales are among the highlights. The company reported a $1.3 billion net loss on a $8.72 billion revenue, with much of the losses attributed to iPhone subsidizing costs. Sprint said its iPhone sales in the quarter were 1.8 million, 40% of which were to new customers. However, one has to keep in mind that if Sprint sold more iPhones, its loss would be even bigger. Overall, Sprint now has 55 million net subscribers — 1.6 million more than in Q3 2011; 33 million of those subscribers are… -
8 Legal Steps for Starting Your Business
8 Feb 2012 | 6:23 amThis post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. With each new year, budding entrepreneurs look to turn their vision into a business. These startups are often overflowing with tremendous ideas, energy and optimism — but don’t always have a roadmap for the legal aspects involved in starting a business. In the flurry of drumming up new customers, getting ready for a website launch and building the first prototype, it’s all too easy to put off some of the less… -
Paul McCartney’s Next Performance Is Coming to You Live, and for Free, on iTunes
8 Feb 2012 | 5:48 amEver since The Beatles and Apple kissed and made up in 2007, Apple products and its fans can’t seem to get enough of the fab four and its surviving members. The service already has the legendary group’s 13 studio albums (added to iTunes in 2010) and now Apple is helping former Beatle Paul McCartney promote his latest album with a free live stream of his performance from Capitol Studios in Hollywood, Calif., on Feb. 9. The album, Kisses on the Bottom, is not a Beatles retrospective. Instead, McCartney is treading the well-worn path of countless other aging rockers and singing songs…
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CenterNetworks
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Deal Site Smackdown: The Valentine’s Day Edition
8 Feb 2012 | 6:06 amNext Tuesday is the annual holiday known as Valentine’s Day. The day is named after St. Valentine and over 150 million cards are exchanged – here’s the full history of this very special day. This year the new deal sites are holding a cage match with each site offering a deal with a national floral delivery service. Most of these deals expire asap so you should be quick if you want to grab some flowers for your sweetie. Also note that the delivery fees are higher for a delivery on Valentine’s day. Lastly, I see some of the local cities within the deal sites are also… -
Top 10 Russian Web Startups of 2011
7 Feb 2012 | 5:37 amYakov Sadchikov, President & CEO of visual search engine Quintura, has put together the following list of the top 10 Russian web startups for 2011. In September 2011, Russia became the largest Internet market in Europe with 51 million online users. Who are the top emerging internet companies that disrupt the Russian market. Find out below a list of top 10 Russian web startups of 2011. 1. Oktogo.ru Having raised $5 million in venture capital from European early-stage investors, Oktogo.ru is #1 in Russian online travel. Russia’s ‘Booking.com‘ Oktogo.ru has not only collected the… -
NCR Sells Blockbuster Express Kiosks To RedBox
6 Feb 2012 | 4:27 pmSomehow I thought this year would be the end for the Blockbuster Express kiosk machines. Back in November they changed their pricing model and it seemed like it just became a lot more expensive to rent from Blockbuster Express versus rival RedBox. As an infrequent movie renter, I found the Redbox machines to have a better selection and a better price – and you can nearly always find a free movie rental code for RedBox. Today RedBox has agreed to acquire the kiosks and “other assets” from Blockbuster Express. RedBox notes in their release that the deal is worth up to $100… -
Shark Tank Recap – February 3
3 Feb 2012 | 6:48 pmBelow is a recap of the February 3, 2012 episode of the ABC show Shark Tank (episode 301). If you are unfamiliar with Shark Tank, the concept is simple – entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of investors and the investors have to provide at least the amount the entrepreneur is seeking for a deal to be completed. Pitch #1 – Chord Buddy Founder Travis Perry created a plastic gadget that you place onto an acoustic guitar to help you learn how to play the guitar. As you learn how to play, you remove pieces of the Chord Buddy until you have completed removed the gadget and are… -
SXSW Releases 2011 Demographics
1 Feb 2012 | 1:46 pmAnother year, another SXSW festival coming up in just a few weeks. What will this year’s event hold? Last year seemed like a big shift for both the event and for attendees. The event was split up into many locations (I think this was a huge mistake), more commercialization than ever and it seemed like lots of people came to Austin but didn’t buy a badge – they just surfed the hallways of the convention center and also attended lots of Sixth Street non-official events. Each year the event grows larger and hotel rooms display sold out signs earlier and earlier. I wonder if…
