Betalabs is packing for San Francisco to attend the ad:tech, the largest online marketer conference.

It takes place in April 11 – 13 in the Moscone Center, downtown San Francisco, and nearly 250 companies are exhibiting such Microsoft Advertising, Rapleaf, comScore,  and LinkedIn, just mention a few ones. Among the absolut prominent speakers are directors from Google, PepsiCo, LivingSocial, Yahoo, BBDO, eBay, OgilvyOne and many more.

We are excited to see and hear about the latest and greatest from digital marketing, and especially social media, and we´ll be informing you via tweets @grupobetalabs and @menummila . We are also proud to join the Foursquare folks at the Foursquare HQ SanFran for the global Foursquare day party on April 16th! Follow us and do not hesitate to contact us for a chat. We will be more than happy to help you with social media strategy and analytics.

and the winners are…

Macy’s,

Merry Christmas

and

Santa Claus!

- Happy Holidays!

The social media phenomena 2010 – an overview

With only a few days till Christmas it is time to wrap up the social media year.  The major common denominator is huge growth supported by impressive figures, such as Facebook sales ($2bn up 150% from 2009 and value >$40bn), and users in LinkedIn, Twitter. The mobile location-based solutions such as Foursquare, Facebook places, Gowalla and others, have introduced a whole new social media element and increased the variety of channels thus even lowered the barrier to enter to social media.  Indeed, they managed to construct a bridge between physical and virtual presences by providing versatile user-friendly and game alike applications that take place in real physical environment.

Further big phenomena have been social shopping (group-shopping) like Groupon and the breakthrough of tablets, especially the iPad with a constantly growing number of applications. All these have resulted in a growing amount of companies adopting social media to their digital tools portfolio and a clear boom in social media advertising.

For 2011 we anticipate even stronger role for the content and a more disciplined approach for social media supported by strategy, policies, and advanced analytics. And naturally, there will be news and new applications galore probably addressing various types of crowd-sourcing and shopping, and of course mergers and acquisitions.

Some brands and their social media Christmas presence

For the end of 2010 we took a brief look at some brands’ Christmas campaigns and presence in social media. Amazing but the presence was not very impressive.

K-Mart’s  “Share Your Christmas Story” and Macy’s “Believe” were in our opinion the best ones. K-Mart has created its own Christmas Community with people sharing experiences, traditions, and photos. The participants can win gift cards. There is also a facebook application with the same name but we are not sure if it really is from K-Mart. We think that K-mart has a good tactic to engage but we found it esthetically fairly modest. Also operationally, the image link in one corner of the homepage only might indicate that the company does not yet really trust too much on social media. Otherwise the company page is very Christmas flavored and nice.

Macy’s “Believe” is a charity program with a Christmas wish list application with several social features such as a celebrity wish list.  Macy’s will donate to make-a-wish foundation $1 per each delivered letter up to $1 million. We really like the visual realization of the app as well as the way how it is optimized and linked with www.macys.com.  Total, “Believe” is a great combination of commercial initiative and social media and the best Christmas campaign we could find.

EBay has added a “Holiday” tab to its Facebook site which takes the visitor to a quite nice-looking page that is linked to www.ebay.com. The links to opposite direction are either totally missing or at least not well visible. Dell is one of the most successful brands in social media but it does not show any Holiday theme at all in Facebook which we find odd. Frankly, the large e-commerce retailers do not seem to celebrate Christmas with impressive social media campaigns.

The comparison of large European department stores with the US counterparts demonstrates the market maturity: From the group of eminent players such as Harrods, Galeries Lafayette, Kaufhof, KaDeWe, La Rinascente, and El Corte Ingles virtually none is running any significant Christmas campaigns in social media.

Santa Claus and other Christmas keywords

Last but not least we checked out how Santa Claus is doing in social media. Although there is only one real Santa Claus, there seems to be quite an amount of Santa Claus profiles in Facebook.  Of course there is only one twitter account for @Santaclaus with full 429 followers anda total of 3 tweets… Overall, the Santa is not doing well at all in social. We also found a deeper research on Santa’s social media strategy or rather the lack of it. We kindly recommend Santa to outsource social media for 2011 since that’s where his vast audience is.

Finally, we compared the tweets of some frequent Christmas keywords: Merry Christmas and Santa Claus in 3 languages: English, Spanish, and German. The statistics are provided by twitwinner. Please see the results below. Happy Holidays and Felizes Fiestas!

Every organization, regardless of the activity level in social media should establish guidelines for social media use of the employees. This is simply because an increasing amount of people – including the employees – uses social media.

The guidelines should not be a complex set of rules that hardly anyone understands but rather common sense instructions with ethical and legal considerations in order to avoid misunderstandings and critical information leaks, but also to define the type of preferred communication style.  By providing social media policy training to its employees the organization assures the tone and style of the dialogue and mitigates potential and costly risks involved to miscommunication. This means that well prepared guidelines do neither control nor disable your employees but rather empower them by maximizing the “safe areas” of conversation. It is crucial to remember that in social media the organization can never own the conversation neither can it totally control it but it can control the platform where the dialogues take place which makes it responsible.

How to create a social media policy that works?
(by University of San Francisco)

Two major approaches should be considered:

1. Standard approach where only selected employees are permitted to represent the organization, and
2. Enlightened approach where any employee can participate to public conversation.

The major differences are in control, training, content amount and style, motivation and encouragement, and protection. So which approach to select? That depends mainly on the organization size and the industry you are in. Apparently training and control are easier in SMEs than in large, global organizations, and some industries such as the financial and pharmaceutical sectors deal with more critical information that needs to comply with legal and ethical rules. For these reasons especially large corporations such as Intel, IBM and many more have adopted the enlightened approach.
Other key issues that should be taken into account are:

• Application (who does the policy apply to)
• Disclaimers (legal protection to all online presence)
• Transparency and Identification (use real names and mention the company that you work for)
• Perception (how to communicate personal and professional opinions)
• Negative Content (the tone and of voice of criticism)
• Confidentiality Policies (the confidentiality policies are also confidential)
• Disclosure of Financial Information
• Customer or supplier references (do not mention names or disclose any information of new products that
  are not yet launched)
• Use of company logos
• Posing in company uniform
• Copyright laws
• Conversations should add value (e.g. Interesting content, areas of expertise)
• Regulated industries
• Professional advice (act professionally, understand potential risks, protect yourself)
• Consequences (think twice, get informed about possible consequences)

What does a Social Media Policy look like?

The Best Buy CEO Brian J. Dunn tells in Harvard Business Review about their company approach. The company implemented a social media policy in 2009 after some undesired experiences in employee social media practices. Their policy applies to all some 180000 Best Buy employees and it is built on the following cornerstones:
- always disclose that you are a Best Buy employee when you talk about the company (protect the brand, protect yourself)
- keep nonpublic financial or operational data private
- in generally, “if you find yourself wondering if you can talk about something you learned at work – do not.”

Mr. Dunn also brings up some other key points such as the values, ethics, and confidentiality that the employees are expected to obey every day. Perhaps the major takeaway is that employee responsibility does not end when the day is over; it applies to all social communication, even when you are off duty talking with your family, friends or neighbors – both online and offline.   Please read more about Best Buy Social Media in Harvard Business Review December 2010.

Post writing / 12.14.2010

Read also on mashable about Social Media Policies of Best Buy, Adobe, IBM, and Weber Shandwick.

That’s why we want to join the largest gathering of digital marketers, experience the latest and sniff the trends!

Tracy Tuten: Want the truth? “Social media research is a developing field of study focused on using passive data collection of residual elements in social media vehicles to understand consumer behavior. In other words, social media participants leave behind a trail of multi-media data which can then be mined and analyzed to glean insight.”

And last but not least at the ad:tech, brands, agencies, publishers and service providers come together to share, network, learn and do business.
The ad:tech consists of a conference and exhibition and it takes place in Jacobs Javits Center, New York City, Nov 2-4 2010. (Nov. 2nd, the pre-conference)

Maybe we’ll see you there or if not, feel free to contact us later for news.

“Participation in Social Media and Interactive Marketing is no longer revolutionary. It’s crucial.

In 2009, companies with dedicated social media activity boosted sales by over 18%, while those with minimal or no presence saw a 6% decrease. As 2010 marks a shift in consumer mentality from recession to recovery, companies must adjust their strategies according to how customers make purchasing decisions. Brand differentiation will be key, and companies must be at the forefront in areas like social web, mobile apps and SEO in order to create a distinguished customer experience.” - iStrategy

Whether your goals are higher brand awareness, more website traffic, improved customer service, product development, reputation management, SEO improvement, or advanced recruiting, what you need is strategy.

We want to keep up with the best and latest thus will proudly be attending the iStrategy summit in London, Millennium Gloucester Hotel, Oct 5-6^th. Among the attendants will be the most prestigious and famous global brands such as Adidas, Chanel, Coca-Cola, Facebook, HSBC, Kelloggs, LEGO, Microsoft, Nike, Nokia, Pfizer, Puma, Red Bull, Sony, Twitter, and Walt Disney.

We are convinced that the summit will be very productive and exciting and we kindly encourage you to follow the tweets #iStrategy2010 and #grupobetalabs. Do not hesitate to contact us later in October to get assistance for your company’s social media strategy.

Let’s click together!

As the vacations are happily over in northern hemisphere and our previous blog concerned vacation planning and social media we now want to share our experiences of using social media or better said geosocial networking while traveling on vacations.  – What is geosocial networking again? It embodies the major characteristics of mobile, social and location-based applications something like a combination of Twitter, Facebook and a GPS capable smart phone. The users are sharing real-time short messages on the spot and the businesses in turn can deploy an information channel that incorporates applications with reward programs that can be monitored. These services pursue the objective of bringing the web and the physical world together in a funny, entertaining, and commercial way. This results in returning clients and loyal client bases among many other benefits.

There are a few dozens of geosocial applications out there but let’s have a look at some interesting players. No, we are not actively engaged in all these services but we believe they in many cases should form a part of companies’ social media architecture.  The review is based on company websites, our experiences as proud supermayor badgeholders, and some industry reports.

1. Gowalla

“Keep up with your friends, share the places you go, and discover the extraordinary in the world around you”.

Gowalla embodies a city guide, friends locator and a treasure hunt game. The users check in and alert their friends or other people nearby. Users then collect digital pins and stamps as incentives and share photos, experiences and hints with others. Pins will also be awarded for completing routes which means checking in at several interconnected locations. Gowalla works in a high number of locations worldwide and it has millions of users. It is very advanced what it comes to commercial and more sophisticated applications. It recently ran promotions on in Applestores and newly announced a co-operation with Facebook places, Nike+ and EpicMix where users can view the location of friends in Vail Resorts.

2.  foursquare

“We’ll help you meet up with your friends and let you earn points and unlock badges for discovering new places, doing new things and meeting new people”.

foursquare claims to have a 3 Million+ user base and it is meanwhile the best known geosocial application. The users check in at various types of places, unlock cool badges such as gym rat, jetsetter, photogenic and many more and can become mayors of frequent visited venues. Naturally, the users share the location, tips, ideas etc with their foursquare network.
The amount of stores and locations using foursquare is probably the highest of any geosocial apps and the company states that it is growing at 500-1000 new business inquiry pace a day. Foursquare is also the most common in business use and it has campaigns with Starbucks, Whole Foods, GAP, and Sephora among others. It also announced a co-operation with American Express introducing the concept of social currency.

3. Facebook places

“Share where you are and connect with friends nearby”.

Facebook introduced its fanciest app, the Places in August in the US and launched the service the later in September in the UK. Although Facebook is a follower in the rivalry of the location-based applications it can easily challenge the other companies by leveraging its 500m users and engage them with the brands even more accurately. We do not yet have user experiences from Facebook places.

4. Loopt

“Find out what happens around, connect and share”.

Loopt was first developed for Sprint Mobile Customers in 2006 and thus, is probably among the first geotagging services ever. It consists of 4 applications; Loopt star: go places, find friends, get stuff – Loopt: find who is around, what to do, where to go – Loopt pulse for iPad: what is happening around you – Loopt mix: chat with people around you.
Loopt shows real-time locations of friends and events and it also incorporates restaurant recommendations, later thanks to Yelp plus some other applications. It offers advanced privacy controls so that sharing occurs only among selected audience which is an important feature.

5. Booyah MyTown

” Explore your city and discover real-world MyTown deals near you; Unlock real-world discounts and offers at your favorite shops”.

MyTown is Booyah’s mobile game that was first introduced for iPhone only. This one is different from others since it involves purchasing and selling of places with virtual money and then collecting income when other users check in. It tracks users’ locations but displays it all in game format thus is very entertaining.  It has recently been enriched and it now incorporates even a bar-code scanner to support product campaigns for big brands such as H&M and Pantene. It claims to have more than 3 million users

6. Scvngr

”a game all about going places, doing challenges and earning points”.

By doing that it connects virtual and physical worlds as the other applications. They run currently a campaign with AT&T where the players can get $50 off a Samsung cell phone. Scvgr also works via sms but our guess is that it is only half as informative and entertaining that way.

7. Stickybits

“a fun and social way to attach digital content to real world objects”.

This is a very cool new application that allows users scan barcodes that are attached to music, videos, photos, text, products, and many more. We see many useful alternatives to apply the Stickybits capabilities:  for instance a cv or a company brochure can be attached to a business card by adding a bar code on it. The barcode reader application needs to be installed on users’ smartphone but it is easy. Stickybits works with brands such as Pepsi and Campbell.

8. Barcode Hero

“Now it’s fun and easy to compare prices, share recommendations with friends, and discover cool products. Never shop alone again”.

Scan barcodes, compare prices, share recommendations, unlock awards is the success formula of Barcode Hero for social shopping. Become king of shiraz or queen of cameras and tell it to everyone in your network.

9. Shopkick

“Rewards simply for walking into stores”.

This involves easy check-in and product scanning processes to collect kickbucks meaning coupons and discounts which can then be redeemed for various types of rewards. Shopkick has campaigns with Macy’s, BestBuy, American Eagle Outfitters, and Sports Authority among others.

10. Foodspotting

“ lets you find dishes, not just restaurants, thanks to foodspotters who report sightings of foods they love”.

This one differs from the previous ones since it is clearly restaurant targeting displaying delicious meals placed on map bridging physical restaurants all over the world to digital environment. The interface is very well realized, and the application proves how geotagging can increase consumer experience.

How to benefit from geosocial networking?

For users, the geosocial services are helpful since they offer a real-time, on-the-spot –based system to discover new places, give feedback and share it with the network which then knows it comes from reliable sources.  It is the transparency and the opportunity to influence that makes social networks so attractive and addictive that some people make it even to supermayors. Obviously the game format applications emphasize the latter characteristics.

For businesses the services have opened an opportunity to know in real-time who the clients are where they are located, and engage with them when they are in the neighborhood and likely to spend. Some apps enable product level accuracy of customer behavior which we consider unique and very amazing. The benefit of the huge variety of application is that each business can select the apps that are aligned with other objectives. Important to remember is that the apps come with basic statistics that helps the work at the back office. . And yes, the ROI can be calculated; McDonald’s announced recently that its Foursquare campaign which cost them $1000, resulted in 33% increase in store visits.

Geosocial networking: Conclusions

The geosocial applications have made it possible to connect the offline stores with digital world and it seems that only creativity is the limit. They truly enhance the client shopping experience, enrich the promotion tools portfolio, increase the amount of information, and improve the transparency. Although the major campaigns have been for big brands the geosocial apps offer an affordable way for mom-and-pop stores to create a simple CRM system to communicate with loyal clients. Therefore, there is a good reason to say that location based mobile social media should be a component of any social media architecture.

Any problems or concerns? Yes, roaming is expensive for tourists so free wifis should be provided. Some apps seem to require a lot of bandwidth and the systems are down fairly often. Privacy – users should think twice with whom to share information since check-ins mean that they are not at home. Meanwhile the applications offer decent level of privacy control.

Finally, by applying solid consideration and common sense the users can benefit from geosocial apps since they are entertaining, informative and useful and make many even simple daily tasks easier. Just go and select the most appropriate ones. The businesses should  which ones fit the best to their social media strategy.

Planning your vacation

Planning your vacation could result easier, funnier and cheaper in the era of social media where vast amount of precious information is only one click away. Nowadays companies like Expedia and Lonely Planet have up-to-date Facebook pages which provide relevant information for those wanting to plan their vacations. From best deals, special offers, information about a certain location and other useful advices social media has an answer. If you are more familiar with Twitter you should not worry because many of the companies that could help you book a vacation are present there. Some examples are: Expedia, Travelocity, Edreams, and many more.

The main advantage of using social media when planning a vacation is that you can receive instant feedback plus sincere recommendations and opinions of people who travelled before. Social media is like having a travel assistant helping you with all you may need, so do not deny yourself the pleasure of enjoying the benefits of it.

Hotels and accommodation

One of the main things that provide people with a good travel experience is the hotel or accommodation. Just by typing ”hotel” in the search box of Facebook you will get more than 500 pages of results with hotels that have a fan page on this social network. Probably, search would me more accurate if the name of the city you plan on visiting is added to the search terms. The main advantage is that by using this method you have a way to get instant feedback from other people that have visited the place. If services were poor or quality was under expectations considering the price paid, some unsatisfied customer has already posted something on the provider’s wall.

Let’s take the example of Hilton hotels which have a strong Facebook presence. Their page includes a series of elements in order to portrait the whole range of services offered by Hilton and all the facilities that their clients benefit from. The company has also integrated Twitter into their social media marketing mix and they use it to respond and communicate with clients.

Airlines and transportation means

Another key factor to guarantee the success of a vacation is represented by the transportation means chosen by the traveller. Depending on the destination, people may chose to fly, take the train, a ship, or even go by car, motorcycle, bicycle. Let´s have a look at the airline carriers in social media!

If you are wondering how social media influences the decision to choose a company over another the answer is pretty easy. Almost every carrier has a Twitter account or a Facebook page where people can share their travel experiences. Airlines have used social media even in crisis situations and we have detailed this subject in a previous article related to the volcano ash crisis. Airlines have also launched social media contests in their pursue of further engaging with consumers. For example if you live in Spain, Vueling launched an application that allows Facebook users to share their thoughts about Vueling. Based on the votes their status receives, users raise their chances of winning a free ticket for themselves and other 3 friends. Another carrier that has integrated Facebook and Twitter sharing is Lufthansa. With the help of this website people can share their location and flights with their friends and people around the globe.

Dinner and food

Depending on the type of tourist and eater you are, visiting a new country or destination could become a delight for your tastes. Difficulty arises when you arrive at your destination and the eternal question pops up: Where are we eating today? As any tourist you would like to pamper your tastes with the best meal possible; how to choose the best restaurant in a new town?

Travel guides can be left aside and social media can step in to solve the problem of where is the best dinner in town. Thanks to the new location based application, Foursquare you have access to the tips of thousand of users regarding where to eat. Let’s assume you are in a popular central area of a city, and you see many restaurants but you are not sure which one to choose; by opening Foursquare and clicking the tips sections you are going to receive suggestions from people who have visited the place before. If you are lucky you might even enjoy the benefits of a special offer depending on the city you are in.

Give feedback from your trip

Of course the success of a vacation depends on many more elements but nowadays problems that social media can not solve are getting less. Do not doubt to ask your friends for suggestions, or give feedback to the place you have visited. The real advantage and benefit of social media is that is a free channel. It is free in all senses. You do not have to pay for it, and communication is not restricted by anyone. So share your experiences with your friends and help social media do its magic for other people like you.

Finally, we would appreciate hearing how social media made your vacation planning easier so feel free to share your experiences with us! As we are going in a vacation also, the frequency of our blog posts is going to be lower, but we are still going to be active on Twitter. Follow us to keep in touch!

We wish you a sunny summer!

As we are specialized in social media, we wanted to see how famous companies across the world have boosted women’s passion for lingerie by using social networks. In the article below, we are going to present how exactly the lingerie industry has decided to use social media as a way to engage deeper with their target audience across the world.

Victoria’s Secret PINK

Victoria’s Secret is an international and famous lingerie brand, and their entrance into social media was welcomed with high enthusiasm by fans who now count almost 3,500, 000 on the official page of the brand on Facebook, plus another 2,500,000 on Victoria’s Secret PINK page.

Victoria’s Secret was an early adopter of social media, so the actions and campaigns the company develops using these tools are proof that the company has had time to figure the field out. The elements featured on the Victoria’s Secret PINK page also demonstrate the fact that the company benefits from a strategic direction regarding their social media activity, as well as the fact that many marketing aspects were incorporated into it. We could state that these were the main elements that drove the success of the company on these channels, and of course, the powerful and solid brand image and positioning of the company.

On their Facebook page, Victoria’s Secret promotes different aspects of their activity.  To promote their PINK line the company has founded another page. The Victoria’s Secret PINK page contains a special tab with their special offers, wallpapers and quizzes mentioning the brand, an icon for their Twitter account and other mobile services, plus photos of their latest collections and from their newest events. With Facebook the company has the chance to offer its audience everything that may appeal to them. Judging by the number of fans and reactions the brand is generating, we can not but assume that the company is doing a great job.

For answering and responding to questions, Victoria’s Secret uses Twitter. The company may have adopted this solution because their Facebook page is flooded with comments and also some “unrelated” links and comments. By using Twitter, they have the opportunity to address questions in a more structured and organized way.

Needless to say, that Victoria’s Secret can be considered an example of how Facebook can be used to interact with users. As we have stated before, the company benefits from a powerful brand image, but the actions it applied have boosted the success on social networks. This company has proved that it is exactly as it claims: a fun and open brand.

Intimissimi

Intimissimi is an Italian brand owned by the Calzedonia Group, and is recognized for their comfortable fabrics and the high quality of their products. The brand uses the franchise business model in order to expand. Regarding social media, we have found the official page of the company on Facebook which counts with more than 40,000 fans. Although, the company’s page wasn’t founded until the 20^th of April of this year, the fans didn’t take long to appear.

By analyzing the page, we have reached the conclusion that the company is still in a stage in which is trying to figure out social media. Responses to comments are posted in three languages (Italian, English and Spanish), although the majority of the fans are Italian customers. The content the company is sharing is limited and mainly displayed in Italian. The language preference could be due to the fact that the brand is more powerful and known in Italy, which is also their most penetrated mark.

What we have considered interesting in their approach is the fact that the company has installed a “Critics” tab, proving that it welcomes comments even if they are negative, and that it is willing to respond to any complaint a client might have.

Intimissimi still needs to establish a path and a direction for their social media strategy, but initial momentum is more than optimistic.

Etam France

Etam is a French lingerie brand which sells products made of high quality fabrics and designs with a romantic touch. Regarding their social media activity, the brand has established Facebook as a primary channel for communication. Etam sums up more than 10,000 people on their official Facebook page, and develops different actions for these audience in order to bond with it.

For their summer collection the brand is developing a campaign in which fans are invited to create their summer look. Etam has unveiled an application which allows users to create a summer look with Etam’s pieces, share their outfit with friends, gather the highest number of votes and impressions and win a prize offered by the brand. In terms of awareness, this application assures Etam that a high number of people will be exposed to their message since every time a person publishes it on the wall the message is passed along all their friends.

On the Facebook page the company also promotes their special discounts and offers. Etam’s activity on social media is in its initial stage, although the company is making many significant efforts to bond with their audience on social media.

Triumph Portugal

Triumph is a German lingerie company with stores around the world and with almost 8,000 people who follow its activity on Facebook. On this page the brand communicates with its fans in both Spanish and Portuguese, even though the page is titled Triumph Portugal. Across Facebook the brand spreads its message regarding special offers and programs with campaigns such as the Triumph Inspirational Award. The company engages with users by responding to comments and also promotes its latest collections by posting special photo albums.

Trimph is also a company known for its extremely well built website which provides visitors with extensive information about the brand. We consider it is only a matter of time and strategy until the company will incorporate the same level of perfection into its social media activity.

La Perla

La Perla is an international Italian brand with a wide distribution channel which assures the availability of the products in many countries of the world. The company is positioned as a top class lingerie producer and two years ago they were acquired by an American company, which helped the brand in its further growth on the American market.

On Facebook we have found a page that might belong to the company, although we are not sure. The page has more than 11,000 fans, but no interaction in behalf of the brand is present. This might be a sign of the fact that the page is founded by a fan or that the company doesn’t consider social media as a proper means to communicate with their fans.

Conclusion

Regarding social media activity for lingerie companies, Victoria’s Secret has raised the bar really high, so it is going to be really hard to live up to the standards set by it. Other retailers have also identified the potential in social media, so we foresee that major campaigns are going to be developed.

The lingerie market is different from any other because consumers behave differently regarding this specific product. In the majority of the cases, consumers are not rational, although they appreciate the functional benefits of the product. How companies are going to innovate and engage with their audiences on social media is still something we have yet to see. Women are more likely to engage with a brand on social media, as has been shown by recent studies, so this could become a further incentive for companies to jump in the social media train. Regarding social media, the difference between the American and the European brand is important, but we are confident that companies from the Old Continent will find room to innovate in this dynamic field.

Facebook steps up and addresses privacy issues

We talked in the previous Friday article about the rising concerns regarding privacy issues with which the company was confronted. This week, Facebook gathered another round of media attention by stating they are preparing a new set of privacy settings that will make this feature easier to understand for the average user.

All week, changes were revealed, and statements from Mark Zuckerberg and his team were quoted in order to better explain the measures taken and to further support Facebook’s vision of an open web. More information about what the new set of privacy settings means can be found here and(or) here.

The most interesting aspect of this action is Facebook’s decision of actually stepping up and openly discussing privacy. The company has introduced changes regarding this aspect before but never was user reaction so powerful. Facebook has gained the fame of a controversial company but until now critics weren’t so relevant in determining the company’s measures to improve the situation.

The launch of the Open Graph provoked a remarkable impression on both social media influencers and users. Not knowing exactly what information is available and who has access to it started vehement reactions to the extent of which an international Quit Facebook Day was founded. MySpace announcement of introducing easier privacy settings added more wood to the fire. We are anxious to see how users will react to the new set of changes and whether privacy concerns are going to be tamed or not.

Yahoo acquiring the Asian foursquare

We have mentioned before how Yahoo tried to acquire the trending social network, Foursquare. The negotiations did not come to an end, and Foursquare is still a company that belongs to its founder. Still, this week, Yahoo confirmed it has stepped into the location game, at least on the Asian market. Yahoo bought Koprol, an Indonesian version of Foursquare. This is an important strategic action in behalf of the company, who might win the Asian market if their actions are applied as planned. As we foresee it this is a subject that we are going to discuss in future editions. The potential of this idea, as we see it, is huge so it is going to be interesting to monitor how exactly Yahoo is going to grow and develop it.

Don’t forget to share your opinions with us in the comments section below.

It has been a while since social media is on everyone’s lips. The spectacular growth and penetration rates social networks like Facebook, Twitter or even beginners like Foursquare have achieved to transform social media into the favourite subject of every tech savvy person.

But was it social media?

Definitions vary depending on the person who is being asked. Words may be switched or different but everyone agrees that social media is an open space, an environment where people ask questions, express opinions, and share thoughts and content. Although,  we are aware that not everyone realizes that every time a status is updated an opinion is being expressed or information is being shared.

This brought us to the question of why is everyone so scared and concerned about privacy settings. As we have stated in previous articles, Facebook’s privacy settings and the direction the social media giant is giving to social media, has been a subject of many polemic discussions all around the world. Specialists are scared that due to Facebook´s activity, we might be entering an era of “over sharing”. Time magazine has released its cover story about Facebook privacy setting, highlighting again the way in which the social network is connecting users.

From our point of view, Facebook is applying a model that they have studied a lot before deciding to use it, and that the structure of it was established to satisfy people’s needs. Facebook users may not be aware of where their information is going, but they do want to read their friends information. The Open Web is a place created by people, and if it’s not Facebook that will connect them, then another network will do that. In the era of sharing, people need information, and advertisers do too. We have the tendency to believe that people won’t stop using social media just because of privacy settings. People need social media and the information it provides them with. What may be a good action for Facebook is to release a form that easily explains privacy setting to average users including the advantages and weaknesses of it. Users also need to focus more on what exactly they want to communicate via their social networks, and be conscious about the effects of their actions.

MySpace tries to bring back good old times

Meanwhile, what used to be the world’s biggest social network, MySpace, tries to take advantage of all the negative press Facebook is receiving, and proposed a series of easy to understand privacy settings to attract more users. Although, the announcement was made this week, no actual improvement has been released, so MySpace should move fast if it wants to regain the lost audience.

Foursquare still growing steady

News of buying and recent entries in the location based space have not stopped the amazing growth of Foursquare, and as it was announced today, the social network is expanding to dimensions that are hard to believe even by their enthusiastic founder, Dennis Crowley. The positive attitude of Dennis Crowley is contagious but whether Foursquare is going to be able to face the competition has yet to be seen. We have discussed more about this in an article here.

These were the news that drew our attention from this week’s happenings. What do you think about Facebook’s privacy settings? Should Facebook revise them or this is the direction that the web is heading to?

Later edit: Facebook has taken measures about its privacy settings. Mark Zuckerberg’s statement can be read here.