eModeration's Social Media Round-Up

Our research consultant, Kate Williams, has compiled a round-up of all that's new, controversial or just plain weird on the social media scene in the last few days. We hope to bring you these updates more or less weekly - let us know what you think of them!



NEWS UPDATE ...

OMG! We’re like, sooo lost! Two Australian girls who became stuck in a storm tunnel chose to update Facebook rather than dialling the emergency services. By sheer chance, one of their friends was online and alerted rescuers, who later said, with admirable restraint, that the development was 'worrying'.

One-Night Stand is Tourist Board Hoax: In a move that is surely the very definition of 'counter-intuitive', the Danish Tourist Board have admitted that they are behind the YouTube video in which a Danish woman asks for the unknown father of her baby, conceived after a drunken one-night stand, to step forward.

Walmart Stays Schtum: No relief for the retailer, who sensibly did nothing as the UGC site 'People Of Walmart' - which spotlights the, erm, distinctive fashion sense of their core demographic - continued its viral journey.

Govt performs U-turn to allow product placement on British TV despite last year saying it was a 'line that we shouldn't cross'. It's thought that plunging ad revenues have contributed to the change of heart.


ON SOCIAL NETWORKS ...

An astonishing week for Facebook, which is circling its upstart competitor Twitter with shark-like eyes and pitiless determination. Hot on the heels of real-time search and the FriendFeed acquisition, the social giant has rolled-out Facebook Lite, a pared-down version of the main site which is aimed at users who value speed, basic functionality and simplicity. So that'll be Twitter users, right? See our own blogpost on Facebook Lite for an analysis.

Facebook Connect, which increases users's ability to share news and comments, has already pushed Facebook's dominance to 58% of visits.

Now - in a move which can only be described as an attack on Twitter's jugular - Facebook has announced the the launch of @Mentions - the ability to reference friends, groups, pages, and events in status updates. The upshot is that Twitter loses one of its core USPs - now what's to stop people turning to Facebook for conversation and breaking news?

For brands, the move could be a game-changer. On the one hand, Facebook Lite lacks some of the tools that they currently use to engage users. On the other hand, they'll be able to track each mention of their brand, turning Facebook's massive 250m audience into one gigantic, integrated customer service and market research conversation.

As if all that won't have Twitter all a-tremble, a new study has found that, while Facebook enhances ones ability to process information, Twitter makes you dumber. Psychologists have announced that the complexity of Facebook's offer improves "working memory", while the brevity of Tweets fails to engage your brain. Poor Twitter.

Still it’s not all bad news for the micro-blogging service – in something of a turnaround, Biz Stone this week wrote to each user announcing changes to the Twitter ToS, which pave the way for targeted ads in and around Tweets. In combo with his plans for an analytics dashboard and verified corporate accounts, Stone claims he’ll be in profit by the end of this year.


ELSEWHERE IN SOCIAL...

Vkontakte.ru plans global roll-out: The Russian social net - which serves a mammoth 1.4 billion page views each day to its 42 million users - announced plans to launch vk.com in 12 new languages by the end of October.

World's oldest Twitterer turns 104: In proof that there’s no upper ceiling in social, Ivy Bean (great name!), who's accrued a jaw-dropping 35,000 followers since she first started tweeting in May, celebrated her birthday this week.

Hospital staff face discipline for 'lying down' on Facebook, after they were caught posting pics of themselves on the page for the "Lying Down Game". The game requires people to be photographed lying face down in an unlikely location - in this case ward floors, resuscitation trolleys and the building's helipad. Yeuch.

"I'm Free!": Debenhams staff tweet @work during its 'Spectacular Twitter Experiment' this weekend. For one day only, six members of Debenhams staff in the Oxford Street store will become Twitter Assistants - answering and responding to customer requests via the social network.


SOCIAL STATS...

Fat Tuesday for Brands on Facebook? New data says Tuesdays are the day in which click-through rates are highest - at 9.89% - on Facebook's brand pages.

Consumers trust online strangers more than friends, with 47 percent scouring customer review websites when purchasing, according to Brandweek - just trumping the 46 percent who turn to real life friends.

But some of British biggest brands are failing to engage with customers online: a colossal 77% of people believe that companies are not connecting with them. What's more, a mere quarter of women say that social networks like Facebook influence their buying decisions - despite 75% using them more than they did a year ago.

Elsewhere, a recent study by Experian Hitwise found that, although the early adopters of social networks were young professionals, the least well-off and most disadvantaged are now the most frequent users of Web 2.0.

Porn Spammers target social networks, with about 15% of Twitter traffic, 10% of MySpace traffic and 7% of Facebook traffic consisting of porn spam, according to security experts.


TEENS ONLINE...

Internet and mobile fonez R damaging education, according to a new survey. Nearly three quarters of kids polled said they would not even make an excuse to leave class to answer a phone call, and a quarter thought it was acceptable to copy information directly from the internet into homework.

Channel 4 has launched a story game about online privacy, identity and trust to raise awareness about privacy amongst teens. "Smokescreen" is based on a cutting-edge simulation of a fictional social network, and aims to highlight the pleasures and pitfalls of living one's life online.

And when the President of the Unites States warns kids to be careful on Facebook, you gotta listen up. When quizzed how to go about becoming President one day, Obama warned, “I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life."



IN VIRTUAL WORLDS...

Free-to-play MMOGs now account for more than half virtual goods transactions: game companies are increasingly focused on virtual goods and microtransactions, as ad-based models sink in the recession, and players shy away from expensive console games.

Sony creates crack team of online detectives to target in-game spammers in their MMOGs - including EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies and Free Realms. Spammers scatter unsolicited ads for items such as extra weapons and playable characters.


GOOGLE NEWS...

A busy week for Google, who finally admitted that they were working on software which would allow newspapers to charge for content.

The search engine also announced that it would include YouTube video reviews in Google Product Search.

And full Google service was resumed in China after a crackdown on "unhealthy" internet content. The Chinese government "recognised Google's positive attitude" and "very good work" to eliminate pornographic content.


AND FINALLY...

Following the closure of seven microsites last month, Sky TV axed its motoring site. It seems that though the site had shown sustained growth, it hadn't delivered sufficient returns.