Mobile News

How can crisis comms experts keep up with all the latest technologies?

This is the third and final installment of our series with crisis communications expert Neil Chapman who led crisis communications for BP during the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 and is now a senior associate at Wixted Pope Nora Thompson . Chapman gives us his view on how digital media (and particularly social) have transformed crisis communications strategy. Chapman runs instructional workshops and training in the field of crisis communications. These are some of the most frequent questions he fields, which he will answer here for SMI readers. For part 1 of this discussion, please visit and for part 2, click here . I’m a communicator. I deal in words

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How can crisis comms experts keep up with all the latest technologies?

The website is dead and other predictions for 2012

We’ve published in the past some interesting pieces of social media research from Mike Schwede who has always taken an interesting look at how the public responds to and impacts the major stories of the day from the Greenpeace siege on Nestle to the shortlived love affair with Pippa Middleton. He joins us here for a look at some big observations for the year to come. My visit to LeWeb 2011 with  Tobias and  Barbara in December was very inspiring, especially the personal conversations with Internet entrepreneurs, app developers and social media pros. What seemed important to me for 2012, and will certainly be a big part of the discussion I’ve outlined here: LoMoSo will be central – local, social, mobile. Mobile Internet use will increase sharply, especially with customers who already have a high online affinity. Its importance will actually exceed that of desktop use. This fact has an impact on the requirements of your website, or on search advertising strategies

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The website is dead and other predictions for 2012

The Guardian launches new ad model for N0tice

Last month we told you about the launch of n0tice , a hyperlocal online community “noticeboard” incubated by The Guardian . Yesterday, they flipped the switch on a new advertising platform. Yes, the “SoMoLo” revolution will be ad-supported. Here’s how it will work, explains Matt McAlister , Director of Digital Strategy at Guardian Media Group: Today we’re launching ads for noticeboards. Noticeboard owners can earn revenue by selling featured positions for classified listings or ‘offers’ as we call them, similar to the traditional yellow pages model. They will earn 85% of the revenue generated on their noticeboards, and they will have options for sharing their earnings with charities. Featured offers cost users £1/day (or the equivalent base-level regional currency) and include both a visual enhancement and priority ranking on the page

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The Guardian launches new ad model for N0tice

Social media spotlight: Twitter overhauls micro-blogging experience

Twitter has announced it will see in the New Year with a major redesign for its site and mobile apps, aiming to simplify its interface and give advertisers a better platform to engage with users. The changes will happen in two key areas: brands and civilians (or ‘private users’). Civvies will allegedly see increased functionality through four new buttons: Home : The news feed, now featuring embedded media content. Connect : @replies and @mentions, now offering the option of entering another user’s handle for instant information and connectivity. Discover : A dedicated space to search for trending topics and hashtags, which will identify stories and trends based on connections, location and language (how long until we see stories suggested on the basis of tweet content?) Me : The user’s profile, presented in a more aesthetically-pleasing manner. The redesign has yet to be rolled out universally, but a poll of Mashable readers suggest that 41 percent of respondents ‘love’ the new changes. Most criticism appears to focus on issues with the mobile apps, specifically missing features in iOS. The big news in this announcement, though, is really what’s going on with brand pages.

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Social media spotlight: Twitter overhauls micro-blogging experience

Consumer recommendations a driving force in social commerce

It’s been said that online commerce is the engine of retail. And what’s the fastest growing segment of online commerce? It appears to be social commerce, and this new study on our online shopping habits from e-commerce specialists at ChannelAdvisor sheds light on why. The Global Consumer Shopping Habits Survey gives further evidence as to why customer recommendations and reviews have become such an important part of the buying process. Consider these findings: 90% of those surveyed read product reviews from other shoppers before buying. 83% said reviews affect whether they actually purchase an item. 53% said that comments posted to Facebook and Twitter pages play a role in their buying decisions. More than one-third (34%) have become “fans” of retailers on Facebook. 83% are likely to visit a retailer’s website if it’s been recommended by a Facebook friend.

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Consumer recommendations a driving force in social commerce

Crisis control: The stupidity of silencing social media

When protesters took to the streets earlier this year in Tunis, Cairo and Benghazi, the teetering autocrats in charge acted swiftly. They shut down the Internet and mobile connections in an effort to wipe out the opposition’s lines of communications and stop the Facebook-fueled revolution before it could rock the palace gates. The effort proved fruitless, as many of us in the West confidently predicted. With Gaddafi’s dramatic fall in recent days, these despots have now all been swept from power, the first victims of an out-of-touch, gerontocratic ruling class felled by the power of youth and technology and social media. With this in mind, why did Britain’s Home Office think then that blocking or reducing the public’s access to Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry Messenger (talk about out of touch!) during times of urban rioting would make the streets of the UK any safer? Luckily, cooler heads prevailed. There will be no freeze of Facebook during the 2012 Games. Twitter will not be toppled by MI5 the next time hoodies take to the streets

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Crisis control: The stupidity of silencing social media

Social Commerce Spotlight: Foursquare muscles in on daily deals, but doubts loom

With 500,000 merchants on their books, Foursquare has been offering its users daily deals for some time. But without taking a cut from these, and with a focus on growth rather than – gasp – monetization, the app – which recently passed the 10 million user mark – has been bereft of meaningful revenue. Until now. The high-flying check-in service this week announced that it’s joining forces with a number of daily-deal providers to offer its users ‘deep discounts that you buy ahead of time – from five amazing companies’. So through Foursquare, users can access a range of deals from LivingSocial, Gilt City, Zozi, Buy With Me and AT&T Interactive (no Groupon yet, but talks are heavily rumored , robbing us of the chance to pun about them “getting their Groupon.”) And crucially, Foursquare will get a cut of these deals (but they won’t specify exactly how much). Finally, it would seem that Foursquare has found a way to fulfill its ambition of ‘going beyond the check-in’. But to whose benefit? On the face of it, it makes sense for these brands to work together; while Foursquare (with its staff of just 75) has all the location-based brownie points, it has no salesforce, and while LivingSocial et al have the sales power to hook the best, most appealing offers, it could use a more effective partner in relaying them to their users ‘on the go’

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Social Commerce Spotlight: Foursquare muscles in on daily deals, but doubts loom

Social Commerce Spotlight: When 500,000 merchants isn’t all that much

Earlier this week, geo-based social networking site Foursquare announced it surpassed 500,000 merchants. That’s over half a million businesses reaching out to the mobile-savvy generation, gleaning valuable market research and raising awareness of their brand. But this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s top dog in the mobile/social commerce sector. 2011 has been an impressive year of growth for Foursquare. Back in February, for example, Mattel rolled out a huge campaign (in the name of lurve) to get Barbie and Ken back together – and thanks to his sound social media skills (and after a tumultuous journey of tears and laughter), Ken finally checked in to Barbie’s heart. The Superbowl also got a boost when Foursquare decided to make it the focus of their new ‘ promoted venues ‘ experiment, adding an extra dimension to check ins by asking users which team they were rooting for.

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Social Commerce Spotlight: When 500,000 merchants isn’t all that much

What’s in Zynga’s S-1, and what can it tell us about future of social gaming?

That’s the question posed by IHS Screen Digest, analysts who’ve been covering the gaming market since the early PlayStation days. As they note, Zynga is expected to file in the coming days its required S-1 financial docs for curious investors to peruse, the final big step before its IPO. It’s a stock market event that will define whether social gaming is the next big thing, or whether it’s just a lot of wilted digital turnips, or whatever it is they’re trading on Farmville these days. So how big will this IPO be for the social sector? It actually has the heft to impact more than just the gaming sector, says Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games at IHS. He adds: Not only will this preliminary filing completely legitimize the social network games market, which has experienced tremendous growth since its inception three years ago, it will also underline the game sector’s increasing shift away from a traditional product-based business to a digital, online and service-based growth opportunity.

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What’s in Zynga’s S-1, and what can it tell us about future of social gaming?

Guest analysis: Are Google Maps Getting Tighter Radii?

Our SEO expert Andrew Shotland spends a lot of time pondering the algorithmic guts of Google Maps. Could it be all that user-generated data it’s incorporating into Maps is making locations actually harder to see? Let’s find out. By Andrew Shotland I just wanted to use “radii” in a headline… Mike Blumenthal tweeted yesterday that he thought the radii of the Google map for various local queries had gotten smaller. To me it seemed like the radii hadn’t changed much but the map pins had gotten bigger so I decided to compare the map that displayed for me a few months ago for “san francisco restaurants” v. what I see for that query today: “San Francisco Restaurants” Map October 2010

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