INTERNET MARKETING

Recently, Facebook has been the focus of the social media privacy debate but it looks like now they have competition. LinkedIn just made its first big social faux-pas and with all of the publicity it is receiving it will give the people over at Facebook some time to breathe.

Over the past few weeks LinkedIn has received a tremendous amount of user backlash for its “social ads”. It all began in June when LinkedIn announced in a blog post that they were going to be “enhancing” their ads by using the people in user’s networks. The whole thing was very vague so no one really responded to this with anything resembling the rage that was to come. What they ended up doing was incorporating the photos of people in a user’s network into the ads. The crux of the problem was that the people pictured had never given explicit permission to LinkedIn allowing them to use their photos for advertising.

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I am a voracious reader. From the age of ten I don’t think I have gone any longer than a week without having chosen a book to read. My mother and father also loved to read and every available unit of shelving was crammed full of books (sometimes two or three rows deep) I can’t even begin to estimate the amount of time I spent staring up at the loaded bookshelves in our den and thinking: What now? Well thanks to BookLamp the process of picking your next book has gotten a little bit easier.

Now, online book recommendations are nothing new. When you buy a book on Amazon you can find suggestions of what else you might also like. But the metrics used to come up with recommendations are often based on sales data and marketing figures from publishers as opposed to the book’s content. This has proven frustrating to many people searching for books that they might like to read as the suggestions are sometimes completely irrelevant.

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It seems like Google is all anyone can talk about recently (including me). I was searching for something a little fresher for today’s blog post but Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings was blazoned on every web page and tech blog including the front page of the New York Times. So I thought I should write about it (call it media peer pressure).

What this purchase means for Google is that now they have complete control over Android phones from the operating system concepts to the actual manufacturing of the hardware it runs on. However, they are on watch by the FTC for the way that they are choosing to handle their purchase of external companies eventually integrating them into the Google brand and eliminating competition. Google claims that it will run Motorola as a completely separate entity but its competitors are suspicious, and with good reason. Google says that they see this as a highly “competitive” move for the smartphone industry.

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The internet seems to have become obsessed with Google+. Since its release it seems that it is all anyone can talk about. While I think that this platform has some intriguing features (most notably the ability for users to categorize how they know people and only share information with certain circles) I find it flawed in many ways. But we have to give it a break. After all, when Facebook first came out it was only for College students and contained little more than names and faces. Users can’t really expect it to have the same capabilities while still in its infancy. But, Google+ made a move today that should have Facebook execs worried if they weren’t already.

Today Google+ introduced a gaming platform for users. Many of the games included were some of the more popular on the internet included many by the well-known Zynga. I was always under the impression that Zynga had some sort of contract with Facebook considering that many of its games can only be accessed through Facebook. Apparently this is not true and Zynga has begun offering some of its less popular games to Google+ (don’t get too excited Farmers Farmville is not one of the games included).
One of the best things about this is that you can choose to only give gaming updates to people in certain circles. This means that those who don’t game on Google+ won’t be bombarded by meaningless game information from all of their friends. Another positive aspect of this is that Google is slowly inviting developers to develop games for its platform and have said that they are concentrating on “quality…over quantity” when it comes to apps which is good for users.

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They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, as of this week it is now worth 140 characters. Since its inception Twitter’s lack of an internal photo-sharing function has been bugging users. Until yesterday if someone wanted to Tweet a photo they had to go through a third-party site like Twitpic or yfrog.

Recently, Twitter has begun integrating services offered by other sites into its system and this seems like an extension of that initiative. Last spring Twitter purchased Tweetie (a Twitter app for mobile platforms) and effectively eliminated all mobile app competition. TweetDeck was a similar situation. And now they have teamed up with Photobucket. These three moves by Twitter have each spurred a wave of outrage from developers at third-party sites. These developers claim that Twitter has not given them notice of its plans to integrate these services into its site and that this is unfair. My question is, why would Twitter not integrate these services in the first place?

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Over this past weekend London’s residents were terrified. Buildings were aflame, cars were smashed and overturned and smoke clouded the air as gangs of masked youths terrorized the English city. Police forces were dispatched but their presence did little to quell the raging tide of aggression.  The attackers struck at night, were masked and enshrouded in smoke making identifying individuals very difficult if not impossible. The public demanded that they prosecute the people responsible but they had no way of finding them. What were the authorities to do? Who could they turn to for help? It turns out that the answer to this question was unexpected but highly effective. Social Media. Read more

Mobile marketing just got prettier. Layar Vision is a new mobile technology that incorporates the features and functions of augmented reality and QR codes. While QR codes direct users to a website or interactive experience through a black-and-white-speckled square, Layar Vision presents the user experience through a customized visual. This visual could be anything from a poster to a sticker.

Layar Vision technology creates fingerprints for objects in the real world and layers augmented reality experiences on top through a mobile device. To create a custom fingerprint, simply upload an image to the Layar software. Layar Vision creates a unique fingerprint that produces a digital experience when the image is scanned in the real world.

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There has been a lot of buzz lately about Facebook’s new facial recognition feature. Through the licensing of Face.com technology Facebook can now identify your face in pictures posted on the site which, while very cool, raises some concerns. Germany recently went so far as to ban Facebook use until this feature is changed. But does the invasion of privacy offer more pros than cons? It could, especially for those who advertise online.

The main point of concern is that once a face in a photo is paired with a name and an online identity it can also be paired with important personal information like social security numbers or credit card information. In theory, this would make it much easier for people to steal both your online and offline identity. However, as CNN reports, this technology is not sophisticated enough for this type of fraud. Yet.

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We’ve all been there. After a fight with a friend you spy in your newsfeed a passive-aggressive status update or a venomous blog entry, or a stinging Tweet. You struggle over whether or not to respond with an equally scathing remark or to be the bigger person and just eat some ice cream. While this type of behavior is accepted among college and high school students it is usually frowned upon in corporate situations. Or so I thought.

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Wait, what? Well, according to a recent article Village Instruments based an important manufacturing decision on feedback that it received from a recent Facebook poll of consumers.

Now, market researchers have employed surveys to gather valuable information from consumers for years. But, these surveys are conducted by market research firms and, if done correctly, are scientifically accurate. Professional surveys are heavily regulated to prevent experimenter bias, group think and other factors that can contribute to false results. Market researchers go through years of extensive training in psychology, statistics and marketing so that they can provide companies with the most accurate insight into their customer’s minds. So how can it be possible to find out what customers want by just… asking them?

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