Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Obama leads McCain in race for the virtual White House

The United States presidential election looks set to go down to the wire, but there is one area where Democratic candidate Barak Obama is clearly leading his Republican rival John McCain – virtual friends.

A report by the Pew Research Centre's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Obama has 1.7 million Facebook supporters and 510,000 MySpace friends, compared to 309,000 and 88,000 respectively on the two internet sites for 72-year-old McCain.

On the vide-sharing site YouTube, 11 times more people had tuned into the official Obama channel last month than the McCain equivalent.

Researchers from Pew say Obama worked hard to connect with online voters early in the campaign, although McCain is desperately trying to make up ground.

Tapping into these online networks is seen as an important way to woo younger voters.

Published by SmartCompany (http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/20080916-Obama-leads-McCain-in-race-for-the-virtual-White-House.html?source=cmailer)

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Study: Baby Boomers Love Social Networks Too

The widely known maxim is that if parents like what the kids are listening to, it's time for the kids to ditch that music and move on. So what happens when mom requests you as a friend on Facebook?

The notion is not inconceivable, according to a new Entertainment Trends in America study by The NPD Group, Port Washington, N.Y. Social networking sites used by teenagers and young adults are also being adopted by baby boomers (aged 44-61). The findings show that 41% of baby boomers have visited social networks, such as MySpace or Facebook, and 61% have been to sites with streaming or downloadable video.

The study, which surveyed 11,600 consumers online, also found that over 57% of Web users overall have stopped at social networking sites in the past three months. Baby boomers stopped on average of eight times in that period.

"There is an older demographic that is shifting over the youth-centric things on the Web," said Doug Akin, evp-brand development at Mr. Youth, New York. "There is a humor to having one's mom as a Facebook friend in some circles. But it's not actually cool for most people."

He noted that few brands that cater to an older crowd have made a My Space page or a Facebook presence mandatory, somewhat of a miscue.

NPD's findings confirm what many marketers already know: "Younger brands" like Apple and Red Bull have paved the way, and now "older brands" must realize that there's a more mainstream approach to reaching all types of consumers, said Akin.

BMW—with an average buyer aged at about 45—earlier this year used Facebook as a medium to promote its new 1-Series.

Most brands, however, have done a poor job of making themselves known to older consumers. "What we've found is that technology, media and consumer goods are doing a good job of marketing, overall, in social networks," said Jeremiah Owyang, senior analyst at Forrester Research. "Everyone else is failing."

Owyang said that older social network users are there for different reasons than younger users and are less likely to leave messages or otherwise interact with others. A Forrester study conducted earlier this year found that 41% of 18- to 24-year-olds leave comments or create content on social networking sites; only 14% of those 55 and over use the sites for the same purpose.

"It tells me that younger consumers want to engage, while older [consumers] are there for information. Which is a good place for any marketer to be," Owyang added.

NPD also found that baby boomers that are engaging with social networks or streaming video are 15% more likely to buy CDs and DVDs than their unengaged peers.

"Overall, these sites offer a great opportunity to marketers at many age levels, but the boomer visits are really a surprise," said Russ Crupnick, NPD's entertainment industry analyst at. "These things may be targeted to a younger audience, but as we are seeing, there are more older people who enjoy these services."

Published by BrandWeek (http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/digital/e3i651eebcf2abebf43eeabffccbdc658d3)

XCOM Media helps brands achieve the nirvana of one-to-one communication through online strategy and consultancy, design, development, web 2.0 and social networking, email marketing, mobile marketing, viral marketing, campaign management, technology and tools and analytics, with lower costs and higher returns than all other forms of marketing.

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Monday, September 8, 2008

Facebook's search engine second fastest growing on the web



What did Microsoft get when it signed a deal in August to serve ads against search results on Facebook? The right to make money off the second-fastest growing search engine on the Internet, according to a ComScore study. Facebook served 173 million search queries in July 2008, up 10 percent from 157 million in July 2007. Facebook doesn't allow its users to search the rest of Web from its site. Even then, its search engine reached a sixth the size of Microsoft's own.

A dandy of a deal for Microsoft? Perhaps not. Look closer at ComScore's chart and you'll see that the fastest-growing search engine is MySpace, which gets all of its search ads from Google. Google doesn't make much money from them, though, CEO Eric Schmidt admitted earlier this summer. Probably because no one searches MySpace for something to buy. Will Facebook prove any different?

Published on Valley Wag (http://valleywag.com/5046097/facebooks-search-engine-second-fastest+growing-on-the-web)

XCOM Media helps brands achieve the nirvana of one-to-one communication through online strategy and consultancy, design, development, web 2.0 and social networking, email marketing, mobile marketing, viral marketing, campaign management, technology and tools and analytics, with lower costs and higher returns than all other forms of marketing.

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