The following is my first attempt to create a roundup of social media news for those interested in the world of social media / mobile media but not able to catch the weekly news. The reference for this is Mashable (www.mashable.com). Would aim to do this weekly or bi – weekly. Looking for your views on what you think about this and how helpful it is.
Latest happenings from the world of Social Media
•Farmville cash invades supermarkets nationwide – The social gaming giant FarmVille has teamed up with Green Giant to put Farmville Cash coupon stickers on select produce in 4,000 stores nationwide
•Two new Facebook scams making the rounds – Hot on the heels of the Coca-Cola Facebook scam, which promised to reveal the “truth” about Coca-Cola (but in reality simply aimed to get a hold of your personal info), are two more spreading via Facebook status updates
•iPad’s social media magazine, Flipboard launched – Flipboard, which is now available in the iPad app store, is a start-up that calls itself the “world’s first social magazine.” It connects to your social media accounts — primarily Facebook and Twitter — and utilizes that information to create an interface that will feel familiar if you’re a magazine lover. It officially launches today.
•Facebook among the worst in Web Satisfaction survey with the worst being MySpace
•Time – lapse Twitter visualizations shows America’s moods – A group of researchers from Northeastern and Harvard universities have gathered enough data from Twitter to give us all a snapshot of how U.S. residents feel throughout a typical day or week. Not only did they analyze the sentiments we collectively expressed in 300 million tweets over three years against a scholarly word list, these researchers also mashed up that data with information from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Google Maps API and more. What they ended up with was a fascinating visualization showing the pulse of our nation, our very moods as they fluctuate over time.
•Farmville users plant 310 million virtual organic blueberries – Organic foods maker Cascadian Farm, situated in the foothills of the North Cascades mountain range in the state of Washington, was once known mainly for its high-quality organic foods in the real world — until it became part of Zynga’s wildly popular game FarmVille.
•Facebook has removed the ‘Most Recent’ News feed option for some users
•Facebook has reached 500 million members
•Oldest Twitter user, Ivy Bean dies aged 104
•Linkedin is now worth more than US$ 2 billion based on investments
•Seesmic Web supports Facebook and Linkedin – Seesmic has just updated its Seesmic Web app to include support for Facebook and LinkedIn
•Twitter shows photos and videos – A new Twitter setting called “Tweet Media” has rolled out to some of Twitter’s users, strongly suggesting that the company will soon embed videos and photos in the stream
•Facebook thinking of adding a dislike button
•British monarchy joins Flickr after Twitter and YouTube
Latest happenings from the world of Mobile Media and Technology
•Yahoo starts Testing Bing in search results – Yahoo search users may soon start seeing results served by Bing. According to Yahoo’s Vice President Search Product Operations Kartik Ramakrishnan, the company has “started testing organic (also referred to as algorithmic) and paid search listings from Microsoft for up to 25 percent of Yahoo! Search traffic in the U.S.”
•Google buys 20 years worth Wind Farm Energy – Google has just signed a contract with an Iowa wind farm to purchase clean energy at a set rate for the next 20 years.This move is in keeping with Google’s strong environmental stance; with specific regard to energy consumption and wind-generated energy, the company has been championing PowerMeter and has invested $38 million in wind farms this year alone.
•Google Image Search gets an overhaul – Instead of lines of images with text, Google Image Search results now display larger thumbnails with very little text through a hover effect. Text information such as file names, file size and URL are now included when you hover over an image.
Finally, Google has announced a product for advertisers: Google Image Search Ads, a new image-based ad format for Image Search.
•Apple has said that even Nokia Mini 97 has death grip issue
•Android devices get video calling via Adobe
•Foursquare reaches 100 million checkins as more and more organizations are realizing the need of this tool
•Ford to unveil 2011 Explorer on Facebook – Ford Motor Company is breaking with tradition in a big way. The company has been leaving digital breadcrumbs on the Ford Explorer Facebook Page, and in just a few days they’ll take to the web — instead of an auto show — for an all-day Facebook event to unveil the redesigned 2011 Ford Explorer.
•Nasa uses space lasers to map the world’s forests – NASA scientists have used data collected by the ICESat, Terra and Aqua satellites to create a topographical map that shows the height of forests around the world, from the rain forests of the Amazon to the redwood and sequoia forests of Northern California. They say their efforts have produced a collection and visualization of data that is the first of its kind
•Nook for Android has hit the market
•A new pluging will let you know whether Google is watching you – Another rad browser plugin called Google Alarm hit the Internets this week, which alerts you every time your personal info is sent to Google’s servers. How? Via notifications, a running tally of dangerous sites and, naturally, a super annoying, vuvuzela-like alarm.
•Dell streak Tablet says yes to Android Froyo and No to T – Mobile – Dell has confirmed that its Streak tablet will get the Android 2.2 operating system (Froyo) later this year, but it will not run on T-Mobile’s 3G network.
•Google Docs have added a translated feature
•Steig Larsson first author to sell 1 million books via Kindle
•Yahoo Japan has signed a search deal with Google
•Ask Q&A reinvents itself – The beta version of Ask.com comes with a new interface and is designed to provide a more semantic search experience. It includes a Q&A product that pulls from 500 million indexed questions and answers and queries appropriate Ask.com users for their answers. It will be released to users on an invite-only basis beginning today.
•Yelp testing Daily Deals feature
•Google App adds government addition – Google Apps has already landed a few big customers in the public sector — including the City of Los Angeles — and today the company forwarded its drive into the space by launching a new edition of its app suite: Google Apps for Government.
•iPhone has reached 17 more countries as of Friday, 23rd July
•India has developed the world’s cheapest tablet at US $ 35
•WikiLeaks publishes Afghan war reports – A website called WikiLeaks just published secret documents related to the war between the U.S. and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The documents detail deals, armed conflicts, strategies, politics, intelligence operations and some casualties from 2004 and 2010, painting the most complete, publicly available picture of the Afghan War yet
•Amazon Kindle 2 sold out
•Tinychat boasts 500 million minutes of usage and 300,000 news users every month – Not so tiny after all: Tinychat , a simple text, video and audio communication platform, is growing by leaps and bounds. First launched in February 2009 as a simple way to create Web-based chat rooms, Tinychat today is a full-blown chat system with lots of bells and whistles.
General happenings in the world of business in new media
•Apple posts record earnings and calls iPhone 4 as its most successful product launch – Apple has just posted its Q3 earnings for fiscal year 2010 and the company has once again bested its own records, this time reporting an astounding $15.7 billion in revenue and a net quarterly profit of $3.35 billion.
•Google mobile search and ads growing rapidly in 2010 – Not only has Google’s mobile search volume grown more than fivefold over the course of the last two years, but the click-through rates for its click-to-call mobile ads do 6-8% better than search ads without a number or URL associated with it, according to Mike Steib, director of emerging platforms at Google
•Free iPhone case to cost Apple US $ 175 million
•Paypal adds 1 million accounts per month – eBay Inc. has released its second quarter fiscal results, posting gains largely because of PayPal’s accelerating growth.
•Nokia’s killer smartphone hurts earnings – It’s no secret that Nokia’s failure to compete in the smartphone arena is hurting its business, and it shows in the company’s Q2 financial results.
•Allure to give US$ 725,000 worth of products through Microsoft Tags – Allure magazine has partnered with Microsoft Tag for its annual Free Stuff issue this August, allowing readers to use their smartphones to participate in $725,000 worth of beauty product giveaways, which are awarded on a first-come, first-win basis
•Microsoft sells 175 million copies of Windows in 7 months – Microsoft wiped away any doubts about its fiscal outlook with a record-breaking Q4 earnings report, primarily driven by sales of Windows 7 and Office 2010. In fact, Microsoft is reporting that more than 175 million copies of Windows 7 were sold in just nine months, making it the fastest-selling OS in the company’s history.
•Windows 7 and Office 2010 drive Microsoft to record revenues – In the most recent quarter, Microsoft generated $16.04 billion in revenue, a 22% jump from last year’s $13.10 billion. This is a Q4 record for the technology titan. Income also rose from $3.99 billion to $5.93 billion, an eye-popping increase of 49%.
•Old Spice sales double with YouTube campaign – Old Spice sales have increased 107% over the last month in part to the viral video campaign on YouTube
•Disney has acquired Playdom for US $ 763.2 million – Disney has officially acquired Playdom, the makers of popular social games like Social City and Sorority Life, for $563.2 million, with an additional $200 million that could be paid out based on performance.
•Samsung Galaxy S new ad mocks iPhone 4
•eWise raises US $ 12 million for Online Payments Technology – Online payments company eWise has raised $12.1 million in funding led by Balderton Capital with Total Technology Ventures , and Allen & Co. participating in the round.
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