There’s a great piece over on Adage this morning about a recent situation involving Discovery Channel’s purchase of the Promoted Trend – the sponsored slot that appears at the top of the trending topics list on Twitter – for Shark Week. Those who use Twitter regularly know that the list of organically occurring trends is wildly unpredictable and can range from the benign (#bieberfever) to the not-so.
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The folks over at Econsultancy have released the Internet Marketing Strategy Briefing, a free report covering online trends in digital marketing. Yesterday they posted an excerpt about measuring social media. While much has been written about this topic what I liked about the Econsultancy piece is that it’s balanced, doesn’t place undue emphasis on any one “metric” and seems to provide a richer understanding of how a variety of data sources should be considered in measuring the value of social media practices.
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There seems to be a recent explosion in startups related to bringing mobile -based health solutions to a public that is both increasingly more comfortable exchanging personal data on devices, as well as more health conscious. One at the forefront, Azumio, announced yesterday that it has raised $2.5 million from a variety of investors and will use the money to expand its product line which currently includes Instant Heart Rate, Stress Check, and Stress Doctor.
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So I’ve received one of the coveted early invites to join Google+, the search behemoth’s full force foray into social media. Does it live up to the hype? Some have described it as Facebook for Grownups. Others say it’s fun but “empty” due to the current dearth of users, due in equal measures to the current invite-only membership as well as the fact that Facebook currently holds so many users who may not want to add yet another social media site to their daily roster. After my brief examination of the site and its features – because, to the emptiness point, I currently have only 4 friends – I think both assessments carry some weight. As someone who is a bit of a Facebook junkie, I can actually see myself migrating to Google+ over time – provided that more of the people I want to connect with do, as well.
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Virgin America announced that starting tomorrow and running through September 30 they will offer passengers on select routes the opportunity to check out a Chromebook laptop for use in-flight. The Chromebook is Google’s web-optimized machine, running Google’s Chrome OS. The offer is available to passengers traveling from the airline’s hub in San Francisco to Boston, Chicago O’Hare and Dallas.
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An estimated 12% of the U.S. Internet population, ages 8 – 64, owns or uses a tablet (an estimated 29 million consumers) and that number is expeted to almost double to 23% or 54 million consumers by early 2012 according to “A Portrait of Today’s Tablet User” a report by Magid Media Futures Sponsored by the Online Publishers Assocation. The report surveyed 2,482 people between the ages of 8 and 64 between April 15 and April 20, 2011 to determine who tablet users are, how they use tablets, and how they feel about content and advertising on the devices.
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With an upcoming July 1 launch of its WebOS 3.0 powered TouchPad, HP posted 9 new videos to their YouTube channel over the weekend touting key features and differentiators from that other tablet you might have heard about.
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Next Tuesday in New York the Business Development Institute is hosting the Mobile Financial Services Communications Leadership Forum. Product and technology leaders from financial services institutions including Citi and Deutsche Bank AG will talk about how the industry is moving beyond the concept of financial transactions on mobile devices and into a world where customers can be interacted with and even acquired via social media and other digital channels. They’ll also talk about what it takes to mobilize a large global firm that likely uses legacy technologies on the back end to leapfrog into new waters on the front-end.
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It’s certainly not surprising that the definition of the American family has been changing over the last quarter century or more. But it’s somewhat shocking the degree to which the once prototypical American household – married with 2 children – has declined. According to AdAge’s Stat of the Day, it now represents just 1 in 5, the lowest it’s ever been.
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