Study: Social Media Transforming Our Influences on What to Buy

Blog Post by Tom Smith, Universal McCann

For the last two years I have been running global research at Universal McCann that tracks the usage of social media. The results of which have clearly demonstrated the massive growth in usage that is occurring across the world.

The most recent report interviewed 17,000 people in 29 countries and is called “When did we start trusting strangers.” It conclusively proves that as we thought, social media is now directly impacting the way we buy products and services. The publishing of billions of thoughts, opinions and experiences online in the form of blog posts, videos, ratings, reviews and photos is fundamentally changing the way everybody online sources opinions on products, brands and services when they buy something.

This has huge impacts on the way that advertisers and brands have to think about social media - moving involvement from a “nice to have” to an “essential to have.”
When did we start trusting strangers?

The clear trend that emerged was that consumers were sharing opinions in unprecedented numbers. Instant Messenger and email were the top online channels for informing people about products and services, with 44.5 %, 42% having done so in the last month. But more importantly, social channels where opinion spreads wider have become hugely significant, with over 29% having commented on a product or brand on a blog and 27% having posted an opinion on a social networking profile.

The level of commentary varied between product categories. At the top were the entertainment categories, with 60% having recommended a film and 52% music. But technology wasn’t far behind; 57% have recommended home technology, 54% portable technology and 54% a mobile phone service.

In fact, it has become so easy to influence that we can now consider everyone, well certainly everyone online, an influencer to some degree. Of course we’re not all equal, some people shared more influence than others, the prolific bloggers, photo sharers and the video uploaders – the sort of people who read Mashable, are at the forefront.

The result of this new revolution is that we look to and trust new sources for information and the research clearly shows we now trust the opinions of strangers we read online as much as our closest friends and certainly more than advertising. This demonstrates the fundamental importance of the social media revolution that we are living through now.

What do we say to our clients? Participation in social media is not a choice, it is now a default. This is a consumer revolution, they choose who takes part and they are already talking about and commenting on all brands. It is down to companies to decide whether to be actively or passively involved.

Secondly, transparency is essential. Consumers are constantly commenting on products and brands, so honesty and openness are vital. Companies should share their inner workings. Mistakes have to be admitted quickly and control has to be loosened to allow consumers to discuss, share and interact with your brand.

Most importantly, invest in product. The number 1 reason that consumers review a product is a good experience, or a friend having a good experience. In a market driven by consumer recommendation, good companies will shine out.

It’s also remembering that Brands have a major advantage over consumers. They have the resources and contacts to create exceptional online experiences, content and services all of which can establish their presence and reputation online. In fact, brands have some of the most interesting stories to share and have every right to share them. This content needs to be in social networks, blog and video sites, not hidden away in branded websites.

Tom Smith is Head of Consumer Futures at Universal McCann, a global media planning company. Tom’s role is to understand the impact of technology on consumer trends, in particular how it impacts advertising, marketing and media consumption.

(Source - http://mashable.com/2008/10/13/social-media-influence-on-what-to-buy/)

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.

To view our work or to find out how XCOM Media can help your business contact us.

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)

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.

To view our work or to find out how XCOM Media can help your business contact us.

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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Social Networking: Common Mistakes Small Businesses Make

Social Networking: Common Mistakes Small Businesses Make

Posted by Kelly Spors

Many businesses these days are venturing into the Wild West of social media, trying their hand at things like blogging and Twitter and creating profiles on social-networking sites. But along the way they’re making lots of mistakes.

These mistakes shouldn’t be taken lightly. How your business is perceived in the Web 2.0 world will affect your reputation and your ability to connect with customers, associates and potential customers. (Who wants to hire a company that can’t even manage an engaging, thought-provoking blog?)

Sta.rtup.biz, a small-business social-networking site, recently had some thoughts on how small businesses are botching their forays into the social-media world. Here’s a look at some of the most common mistakes from them and other social-media experts:

– Bare Profile: Signing up for a Facebook account is the easy part. Before you blast emails to 1,000 of your customers and friends, a business should spend some time thoughtfully building a profile with an attractive photo, background and contact information.

– Too Little Personality: Lighten up. The social-media world is about engaging customers on a more personal level. Your “About Me” shouldn’t just be dry facts about your business. Make sure you add some personal touches. Humor often helps.

– Too Much Hype: Using social media shouldn’t be about blatantly selling a business. It’s about making connections and creating credibility so that people will like you and trust you and eventually want to buy from you. Use it to interact and meet new people – don’t get overly promotional.

– Not Enough Fresh Content: Engaging others through social media needs to be an ongoing, frequent process. You can’t just build a profile and let it sit idle. Preferably you want to be refreshing your content regularly (daily, if possible) so people come back for more.

Published by The Wall Street Journal (http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/08/21/social-networking-common-mistakes-small-businesses-make/)

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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How Australia's big banks are harnessing the power of social networking: Boyd

Tony Boyd

Australia's oldest bank will soon be Australia's biggest bank. It will also have the credentials to be classed as the country's most connected bank.

The merger of Westpac and St George will bring together two banks that have put plenty of thought and effort into harnessing the power of online social networking. Their rivals are struggling to catch up.

Westpac showed its management had moved a long way up the technology yield curve with the launch in May of a social networking site for female business customers called the Ruby Connection.

The Ruby Connection is the brainchild of Westpac's women's markets division headed by Larke Riemer. It was developed to support the needs of women in business. It grew out of Westpac's research into the needs of women customers.

The research found that Westpac's branch network had failed to connect with female customers. Women believed they were not treated with the respect they deserved. The research showed women wanted to do research before making financial decisions.

The bank's response to the research was a series of educational seminars that have evolved into a web site that aims to educate, providing a place for customers to meet online and talk about business, life and whatever is on their minds. The Ruby Connection has more than 20 blogs from an eclectic mix of businesswomen.

Westpac's engagement with social networking goes beyond the Ruby Connection. It allows staff to use popular social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace during work hours provided they abide by the bank's internet code of use.

The bank recognises that Gen-Y will want to use social networking sites. It sees a business case for staff to access knowledge and participate in communities. For example, Westpac staff have shared their experiences online following voluntary work with Cape York Partnerships.

The merger with St George will bring together two like-minded organisations.

St George takes the view that in the current tight labour market organisations need to accommodate the interests of younger staff to attract and retain them. With that in mind, the bank allows staff to access Facebook. In addition, St George is rolling out an internal instant messaging service.

The bank says it is just experimenting with the Facebook access during work hours to see if it has any impact on staff retention and productivity.

Gartner research analyst Brian Prentice says it is smarter for companies wanting to utilise social networking in business applications to allow it to develop from the grass roots upwards. The worst thing would be for a company's IT manager to issue an edict that Facebook was the new vehicle for collaborating on projects.

Prentice says that, at its simplest, social networking can be defined as a group email. But he would not be surprised if the group email evolved into staff getting their information from a manager through reading his blog. But it would be some time before social networking in the enterprise reached what Malcolm Gladwell called the "tipping point". "We have not quite hit the critical mass that will make social networking self reinforcing," says Prentice.

He says, however, that only businesses from the “dinosaur era” would ban their staff from accessing social networking sites at work. After all, how can you deny people the right to do personal things at the office when they are working 50 to 60 hours a week.

Gartner research director Nikos Drakos said in a report released this month that overly restrictive policies and controls can substantially inhibit community growth and can lead to the failure of the social application initiative. "Managing an appropriate balance between freedom and control is crucial to community growth and maintenance, and must be tuned continuously."

The Gartner research has found that 10% to 15% of corporations ban access to social networking sites from their corporate network.

Richard Kimber, chief executive of social networking site Friendster, told Business Spectator that social networking sites were ideal for providing the framework for customers of financial services businesses to interact.

Kimber is the former head of Google in South Asia and before that spent about 20 years working in online banking and broking. He was CEO of FirstDirect in Britain, head of personal ebusiness at HSBC and worked at Westpac and Macquarie banks.

He says that social networks can link staff in the workplace, customers and competitors and that the differentiator for successful companies will be the technology.

“Obviously, given my background in financial services we are looking at ways you could use financial services with social networking,” he says. “Social networking is any network of people who have common interests. So you could imagine a network of investors or network of investment professionals who want to share ideas using a social network.”

Kimber says social networking sites differ from Google in their advertising proposition because they offer the combination of all of the users' attributes, across all the demographics, combined with great reach.

“The interesting thing is you can get targeting and reach through a social network whereas you usually have to trade off one or the other. You either have a lot of reach or not much targeting, or you have got really good targeting or not much reach. You actually have the best of both worlds.”

Meanwhile Westpac's major competitors are trying to catch up. NAB allows its staff to use Facebook and MySpace during work hours provided it is within the bank's principles on appropriate internet access. The bank may use social networking in business applications but that will have to wait until its systems are upgraded over the next five years.

ANZ says it has no specific policy on social networking websites but is reviewing the business case for their use.

This article first appeared on Business Spectator.

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/The-Briefing/20080819-How-Australias-big-banks-are-harnessing-the-power-of-social-networking-Boyd.html

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.

To view our work or to find out how XCOM Media can help your business contact us.

Business is embracing Web 2.0

Mike Preston

More and more businesses around the globe are using web 2.0 tools, with firms in our region leading the world in their adoption of blogs and podcasts, a new McKinsey report reveals.

While most businesses now have some web presence, web 2.0 goes beyond the humble website to include things like online sales and communication software, social networking, blogs and RSS.

According to a survey of more than 1600 executives around the world by the consulting firm, in 2008 the average business now uses 2.5 web 2.0 tools, up from 2.2 last year.

For businesses in Australia and the Asia Pacific, the blog is the web 2.0 tool of choice. Just on 48% of executives in the region say blogs make the biggest difference to their company – more than in any other part of the world.

Podcasts are also popular in the Asia Pacific, with only Indian business placing more value on the audio downloads.

The Europeans are particularly keen on web services such as online software, with 62% saying it is important, while executives in the US and Canada are most likely to say social networks are the most useful aspect web 2.0.

Managing knowledge, improving customer service and achieving better integration with suppliers are three most common tasks web 2.0 technologies are used for.

It appears the local preference for blogs and podcasts must be working, with the executives in the Asia-Pacific reporting by far the highest satisfaction level with their web 2.0 tools.

Around the world, just 21% of managers says they are satisfied web 2.0 is working for them, behind the 22% that report dissatisfaction. In the Asia Pacific, by contrast, satisfaction is at 40% and dissatisfaction at just 8%.

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/The-Briefing/20080731-Business-is-embracing-web-20-McKinsey.html (Published by SmartCompany)

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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21 Considerations Before Your Business Starts A Social Network

Social networks are all the rage and are recommend social tools for businesses. However, there are potential pitfalls to consider before you facilitate interaction between customers and your business.

Here are 21 things your business should consider before starting a social network:

Internal (Your Business Capabilities)

1. Can you invest the necessary resources to run a social network properly? Can you afford the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to properly create and staff this resource?

2. What is the role of marketing, sales, IT, customer service, advertising, HR, etc.? Social networks often delve into all of these departments and more. Make sure all of your teams are engaged, enthused, and prepared.

3. While the potential ROI of a social network is proven, is this the best investment of your time? If you don’t have a unique product or your customers aren’t enthused (or your product isn’t any good), don’t look to a social network to solve your problems.

4. What are your expectations - number of members, amount of content, etc - on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis? Create little benchmarks to ensure you do not go far off course.

5. Will your employees have their own voice on the network? Will they use their full names? This transparency can be daunting, but it can also provide high emotional buy-in from employees.

6. Is the correct employee in charge of the social network? This is often not the highest paid or the most experienced.

7. Which came first: customer need, company strategy, or cool technology? If it’s anything besides customer need, reconsider everything.

External (The World You Compete In)

8. Are your audience Joiners? You should read Li and Bernoff’s book of the same name, but at the very least check out the free Groundswell tool from Forrester. If your audience isn’t likely to join any social network, it’s highly unlikely they will join your social network.

9. What value does the community offer your customer? Do not think of the social network as a marketing tool - its primary existence is for the good of your customer.

10. Who are your network’s competitors? If someone is already offering the service you want to provide, don’t spend time trying to re-invent the wheel.

11. What does your network do better than anyone else? Use that strength to separate your network from imitators and provide a quality service to your customers. If you cannot identify that unique quality, consider piggy-backing on someone else’s network.

Before The Launch

12. Who approves interaction or content? What is the chain of command? Is your process streamlined to react to breaking news or is it clogged with a bunch of red tape?

13. How will negative comments be handled? Have you prepared a code of conduct for participants? Will constructive criticism be considered honestly and without pride?

14. How does the social network affect the priorities of your business? In other words, is it clear to your employees when they should opt to work on the social network as opposed to their other tasks?

15. How will you promote the network? Will there be a URL on your print advertising? Should customer service mention the website? Use existing channels to promote this new one.

16. What capabilities will members have? Can they speak to each other, create profiles, or upload files? All of these aspects have their complications.

17. Are there different levels of engagement? For instance, could a member of your social network take on an administrative or editorial role? What are possible levels of engagement and how do members move up?

18. What motivation do people have to participate? What is their incentive?

19. Is your network “sticky”? Is there a reason for participants to tell their friends?

After The Launch

20. What will you do with the community once you have it? Will you have the infrastructure set up to benefit from customer insights, free market research, justified criticisms, helpful customers, etc.?

21. How will you gauge success? While the potential ROI of social networks is great, it is rarely as cut-and-dry as most other marketing. Are visitors more important than commenters? How is beneficial engagement quantified?

http://onlinemarketerblog.com/2008/07/22/21-considerations-before-your-business-starts-a-social-network/ (Published by Online Marketer Blog)

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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Social Networking: Rules of Engagement

It is important when entering into a social network space that rules and guidelines are in place.

This was adapted from the Channel 9 (MSNBC) doctrine incorporating user comments. It provides a template to where rules can be made to make the most out of brands social network presence.

1. Social networks are all about the conversation. It should inspire the brand and it's customers to talk in an honest and human voice.
   
2. Be a human being. Social networks is a place for us to be ourselves, to share who we are, and for us to learn who our customers are.
3. Learn by listening. When our customers speak, learn from them. Don't get defensive, don't argue for the sake of argument. Listen and take what benefits you to heart.
4. Be smart. Think before you speak, there are some conversations which have no benefit other than to reinforce stereotypes or create negative situations.
5. Don't shock the system. Lasting change only happens in baby steps.
6. Know when to turn the mic off. There are some topics which will only result in problems when you discuss them. This has nothing to do with censorship, but with working within the reality of the system that exists in our world today. You will not change anything by taking on legal or financial issues, you will only shock the system, spook the passengers, and create a negative situation.
7. Don't be a jerk. Nobody likes mean people.
8. Commit to the conversation. Don't stop listening just because you are busy. Don't stop participating because you don't agree with someone. Relationships are not built in a day, be in it for the long haul and we will all reap the benefits as an industry.
9. You should set goals before you can determine your strategy. Increase awareness, raise positive sentiment with your brand?
10. Define who you want to target. Also find out where they hang out and what tools they use to communicate.
11. Don't just use tools that everyone else is using, choose tools that best align with your goals and technologies that your target audience use.

For more information visit http://channel9.msdn.com/About/ to see the original.

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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Digital spend set to rise

Natalie Apostolou

Digital media spend remains on the rise and could replace some traditional marketing mediums within five years, a recent industry survey has claimed.

The research suggested that the number of companies spending between one quarter and half of their marketing budget on digital media will increase by more than 40% over the next five years.

Currently, 10% of organisations allocate funds to digital marketing, but that figure will increase to 51% by 2013, according to the results.

Dr Michael Valos, a senior lecturer in marketing at Deakin University said digital media was a significant opportunity for marketing strategists.

“While some are already experimenting with it, I think we will see over time that organisations will start to replace traditional media for digital alternatives,” he said.

He also claimed that social networking opportunities such as Facebook and MySpace were being underused by marketers. “There really needs to be a widespread shift of marketing understanding as we enter the digital media age,” he said.

Meanwhile, while the majority of survey respondents practiced search engine optimisation and search engine marketing, more than 20% percent of respondents did not.

He added: “There’s no doubt that digital media is a growing market. However, right now the riskiest approach for organisations would be to ignore it,” Dr Valos said.

http://www.digital-media.net.au/Article/Digital-spend-set-to-rise/200280.aspx

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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Businesses prefer Facebook

Businesses prefer Facebook

Thursday, 24 July 2008

Small and medium sized businesses are more likely to have a presence on Facebook than any other online social network, according to a poll conducted by web company Netregistry.

Almost 30% of the 1200 small business respondents polled said they use Facebook, ahead of 13% who use LinkedIn and 12% who use MySpace.

Other online communication tools were also popular, with 13% saying they use blogs, 12% internet forums and 11% YouTube.

But while many people associated with small businesses are using social networking, it seems very few are doing so with a business strategy in mind – 72% of people polled said they do not have a social media strategy in place.

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/20080724-Businesses-prefer-Facebook.html

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.

To view our work or to find out how XCOM Media can help your business contact us.

Facebook Growth Explodes Globally

Comscore has just released the latest data on Facebook growth patterns, which clearly show that Facebook’s recent push to expand abroad has paid off. The site has seen extremely high growth rates across Latin America, The Middle East, and the Asia Pacific. Europe, which accounts for a much larger user base, continues to grow at a steady clip as well.

North America still accounts for nearly 40% of Facebook’s monthly growth, but its rate remains fairly constant, hovering at an increase of around 47,000 uniques over the last seven months.

Earlier this year Facebook finally managed to catch up to MySpace’s total unique visitors, largely on account of its rapid global expansion (MySpace continues to dominate in the US market).

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/23/facebook-growth-explodes-globally-levels-off-in-the-us/

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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Myspace To Join OpenID

MySpace To Join OpenID, Bringing Total Enabled Accounts to Over A Half Billion

Michael Arrington

MySpace will announce support for the OpenID single sign-on framework sometime this week, we’ve heard from multiple sources. This will be the second largest implementation ever and will bring the total number of OpenID-enabled accounts to over half a billion. MySpace’s 200 million user IDs join Yahoo’s 250 million or so accounts, plus accounts from a number of other large providers.

Like most large company integrations, MySpace is at first becoming an OpenID issuer only, and may integrate as a relying party down the road. We’ve argued that becoming an issuer is essentially a land grab for user identities. The integration work on accepting OpenIDs from others is harder, and the payoff is less.

MySpace may also be writing code to extend the OpenID spec and allow easy integration of their Data Availability product to sites that accept MySpace OpenIDs.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/myspace-to-join-openid-bringing-total-enabled-accounts-to-over-a-half-billion/

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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Facebook's Beta Re-Design Officially Launches

July 20, 2008 — 07:51 PM PDT — by Adam Ostrow —

Update (9:55PM PT): Facebook has issued a press release announcing the new design, indicating that “access to the new design will be limited at first and gradually become available to all.”

As expected, Facebook has officially rolled out the beta for its new design this evening. To get it, you can now to go www.new.facebook.com, which will convert the site to the new look. You can still roll back to the previous version by clicking a “Back to Old Facebook” link at the top of the site.

From top to bottom, the design is a lot cleaner than the current Facebook, and certainly is a big attempt to make the site less cluttered while placing an emphasis on a number of features – most notably the mini-feed and status updates. This is immediately noticeable in the homepage, where the new Facebook features just two columns versus the three in the old version, with requests, links, and other current homepage features consolidates on the right, with your News Feed on the left occupying the majority of the real estate.

Moving to the user profiles, as expected, user profiles are now tabbed, with the defaults being Wall (your feed and wall posts), Info (your profile info), Photos, and Boxes (applications). On your own profile, Facebook is clearly trying to push status updates, asking a variation of the very same question posed by Twitter “What are you doing right now?” Profiles are also now two columns, making more space for the mini-feed and the other new tabs.

So far, it’s unclear how Facebook plans to promote the new site to users and get them involved in the beta. While those of us in the tech blogosphere have been expecting the changes since early this year and been following each new twist and turn closely, it’s a major change in look and feel that will likely be dramatic for mainstream users.

Presumably Facebook has learned its lesson from previously poorly communicated roll outs like News Feed and Beacon, and so far has been doing an excellent job of keeping the developer community informed of the design changes. Meanwhile, keeping the option to revert to the old Facebook for a while should help Facebook weather what will surely be some confusion and anger from ever-fickle social networking users. There’s also a prominent link for users to submit their feedback on the new look.

Last week, when a preview of the new site was briefly available, our audience was decidedly split with their reviews, so it will be interesting to see your opinions now that the beta has officially arrived and working as expected. Let us know what you think in the comments.

http://mashable.com/2008/07/20/new-facebook-launches/

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Online social networking reaches mothers at home with their kids

Simon Canning | July 07, 2008

WEBSITES and advertisers targeting the parent market are embracing the latest online trend of social networking to further expand their reach.

Last week, one of the leading sites, Kidspot.com.au, had a soft launch of extensions to its site that aim to turn it into a social networking forum for mothers.

Children's product giant Huggies has also invested heavily in its own social networking and information portal, the Huggies Club.

That site has 160,000 members and Huggies has teamed with computer and printer company HP in an industry first to use HP's Snapfish photo technology so mothers can print photos, with revenue to be shared between HP and Huggies.

And just weeks ago, social networking site MySpace released research results that revealed more than 73,000 of its Australian users defined themselves as mothers and that marketers were beginning to home in on them as a distinct market.

About 80 per cent of them used the site as a way of taking a break from the kids and as a means of touching base with women in a similar situation, often using it as a support network.

Kidspot.com.au founder Katie May, who is a former marketing director at Seek.com.au, said the changes were aimed at getting people to spend even more time on their website.

"I think the important thing for the website will be to continue to be putting on traffic, but we are also looking at growing the relationship with our visitors," she said.

Ms May said the site, which was started three years ago, initially based its business model on being a directory for parenting services and products but had since grown to include forums, news and other information.

"A lot of the traffic comes for the directory but people then go on to use four more pages," she said.

"It is still a bit too directory focused. The soft launch will make it softer and warmer."

Kidspot now derives its revenue from a mix of paid search results and advertising, and Ms May said the sector was undervalued and had huge potential.

"There are about 2.5 million households with a child under 14 in Australia and these are the women we are trying to attract," Ms May said.

She compares the site's 500,000 unique users to the circulation of The Australian Woman's Weekly.

Fairfax Digital is in the market with its Essential Baby, while independent website Bubhub operates from Queensland.

Ms May estimated that directory advertising alone in the sector could be worth up to $47 million, with display advertising in the "hundreds of millions".

"But if we target them not just as mums but as women, then it is a very, very large market," she said.

Kidspot also recently launched its first above-the-line advertising campaign using billboards.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23977935-26077,00.html

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.

To view our work or to find out how XCOM Media can help your business contact us.