eModeration's Social Media Round-Up #3

Welcome to our round-up of all that's new, controversial or just plain weird on the social media scene in the last few days.

THE HEADLINES...

The UK Govt is to rush a controversial broadband tax into law before the General Election. The tax, which levies 50p per month on everyone with a fixed-line telephone, was first mooted in Lord Carter's Digital Britain, and could raid £175m to 'make high speed networks nationally available.'

First Direct's new campaign will highlight both positive and negative comments made about the brand, and includes a microsite which will aggregate every brand mention on more than 5m social media sites. Don't worry, perhaps it's like free-running. It seems counter-intuitive now, but in a year's time I'm sure we'll all be doing it...

There was some anxiety this week - and not a little resentment - as social-heavyweight Seth Godin launched Squidoo, a service which aggregates all conversations around Brand X and funnels them onto one page. The resentment began to bubble when it emerged that Brand X would have to pay $400 per month for the privilege of responding to any negative comments.

Further audible gulps came with the announcement of Google's Sidewiki, a new tool which lets anyone comment on any web pages - including brand sites. One furious but anonymous commenter said "This service is like posting a whiteboard in front of my house, that I'm not allowed to erase, and giving a marker to anyone that walks by."

THE LOWDOWN...

Squeeeal! Justin Timberlake casting rumours confirmed! The Timble is to play Napster co-founder Sean Parker in the The Facebook Movie - and look, he speaks Mandarin too! A Renaissance man indeed.

A rookie Redskins linebacker tweeted that his team's fans were "fake" and "dim wits", before asking "who are you to say you know what’s best for the team and you work 9 to 5 at Mcdonalds?” Touché, you'll agree. Sadly, the account has now been deleted.

The developers of the dystopic MMO Fallen Earth say their players thought female characters should look "more feminine". Which, if the results are anything to go by, translates as 'considerably younger' and 'no stranger to the surgeon's knife'.

Using just their phone number, DateCheck rifles through your prospective paramour's online drawers, and alerts you to Sleaze factor (past sex offences) and Compatibility (their star sign). Conveniently, it also lets you know their Net Worth. Pragmatic - or creepy? You decide.


ON TWITTER...

The micro-blogging upstart drew astounded gasps this week when they announced that a new financing round had pumped £100 million into the 3 year old service. With characteristic reserve, Twitter called the injection 'significant' - but the rest of the world was less restrained, and valuations zoomed straight to $1bn. The news predictably put co-founder Biz Stone's revelation that Twitter won't, after all, carry ads this year into the shade.

Following legal rumblings from Ewan McGregor amongst others, Twitter is moving swiftly towards an account-validation system. Other slebs who've been stung include Britney, the Dalai Lama - and David Milliband, who it turns out didn't tweet "never has one soared so high and yet dived so low. RIP Michael" after all...

MySpace has rolled out a two-way Twitter synch allowing updates to appear in Twitter feeds, and vice versa. Fits neatly with the recent news that Twitter's teen share is looking pink and healthy.

Some fabulously odd Twitter stats to mull here: a deathwish-tastic 11% of Twitter users tweet while driving, double the number of Facebook-users who do so. (Tiresomely, the stat has a useful point to make: it highlights Twitters superior compatibility with mobile phones.)

Just under a quarter of Twitter users have posted Tweets which seemed at the time to be of a pithy or hilarious nature, but which they later bitterly regretted. And for every user who tweets on a daily basis, there's one who never has, or who no longer does. Finally, key concerns of Twitterers remain, if not Neanderthal, then basic: the top 5 most frequent recurs on Twitter are “working,” “home,” “work,” “lunch,” and “sleeping.”

AND ON FACEBOOK....

The weather was rather changeable for Twitter's rival, Facebook:

On the upside, they partnered with Nielsen to launch Brand Lift. The new platform will poll those who have and haven't seen specific ads, and compare the two groups - offering brand advertisers performance measurement. And a new home page unit of engagement will help brands target potential customers with a pop-out window to register for free samples.

But the social giant also announced the death of Beacon - the no-opt-out monitoring platform which noted when a user visited advertisers' sites, then auto-invited that user's friends to join him or her. Disgruntled Facebook users launched a class suit - the $9.5 million will now be going to a foundation dedicated to online privacy and security.

And there wasn't a huge amount of love for The 'Book swilling around the marketing blogosphere either. Chris Brogan was a bit meh about the risqué ads he's being served ("Call me a prude, but I find these ads offensive") and wondered why Facebook isn't more concerned about scratching its shiny.

And Social Media Playground pointed out that the new sample pop-outs might be a way of charging brands for what they've been doing free for a while. As Todd Deffren says, "here's the trouble with Facebook: it’s a proprietary network... the rules change pretty frequently... and there’s little the average Corporate Marketer can do about it."

BRANDS ON SOCIAL...

Woo-hoo for Cadbury's Wispa and CocaCola's vitaminwater: the two brands saw considerable fan gains on their Facebook pages this week, according to Inside Facebook.

Boo-hoo for Sara Lee, whose social media campaign failed to rise. One eMarketer analyst was succinct: "I'm a mom and I didn't see the point."

A new, mobile-only social network is being launched by Albion London. The O2-backed network's members will get rebates for participating in user-generated marketing campaigns, and voting on the company's business decisions.

And finally, if you're a brand who's courting the bookish, steer clear of social networks: less than 3% of readers find them useful.

SOME MORE SOCIAL STATS

WHOOSH! (that's the sound of social networking usage on Smartphones skyrocketing). Nielsen reports a rise of 187 percent to 18.3 million unique users in July 2009. That figure triples the 6.4m users of a year ago, and Socnets now account for 32% of all Smartphone activity. Nielsen also reports that nearly a third of all mobile video is viewed by 24-35 year olds.

I'll have what she's having: Science Daily reports that there are two intriguing tipping-points in the conformity of groups. Researchers discovered that, after one menu-item has been ordered by 30% of a group of diners, the tendency to go for something different weakens. But after 80-90% had chosen the same dish, the instinct to be different kicked in again.

Yikes! 84% of companies don't measure social media ROI and 40% didn't even know whether or not they had the tools to do so.

Even the ones that are measuring don't feel that they are doing enough. The full results of the survey are definitely worth a look.


TEENS...

To highlight some of the threats which face teenagers online, US communications net Verizon have teamed up with the Ad Council to create a campaign which will run across mobile, web and TV. The ads spotlight the various forms of digital dating abuse with the tagline 'Where do you draw your digital line?'.

The New Jersey School Boards Association recently published their policy regarding staff, students and social networking. The paper, which other bodies can use as a template, advises that 'teachers should be friendly, and not friends'.

The new gTrend Teen Report was launched this week, based on a nationwide survey of more than 1,000 American teen influencers. The reports authors say they have identified 15 new trends around teens’ relationship with technology.

ALL RISE...

The Pizza Kitchen in Knox County has embraced social media - perhaps a little too warmly. After falling out with their marketing company, its owner posted his disgust - and allegations of the theft of his email list - on both Facebook and Twitter. The marketing company in question have now filed a libel suit against the restaurant.

Amongst many interesting takeaways from a recent conference which pulled together the legal brains from 100 top companies: companies are most at risk when employees contribute company-specific information online but don't disclose that they're an employee. Plus, it's not a good plan to block employees' access to social media, since it drives workers to their mobiles instead.

PalTalk has launched scattergun lawsuits against six virtual world/MMO developers, including NCsoft and Sony, alleging infringement of their patents for real-time chat during gameplay.

ELSEWHERE IN VIRTUAL WORLDS...

Linden Lab released some stats which reveal that globally users have spent more than a billion hours in Second Life. User hours have grown 33% year-on-year to an impressive 126 million, and they've transacted the equivalent of more than $1 billion USD between themselves.

Dizzywood, a virtual world for kids aged 8-12, has nabbed a National Parenting Publications Award. Previous winners include Club Penguin, and the Word Girl PBS Website.

The 20 fastest-growing Facebook apps are social games - with Zynga scoring particularly well. FarmVille hit 46 million, and Mafia Wars 23 million - placing them at number 2 and 4 respectively.


That's all folks!



Kate Williams, Research Consultant
w: www.emoderation.com
e: kate.williams@emoderation.com
w: +44 (20) 7250 4736
a: 24, Greville Street, Farringdon, London EC1N 8SS, UK
::Our blog: http://blog.emoderation.com
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Hill & Knowlton publish Social Media Principles for Employees

I'm loving the clarity of the Social Media Guidelines that Niall Cook of Hill & Knowlton has produced for his company, then shared with us all on Social Media Today.

They're good: clear and firm principles, uncluttered with workflow approval processes, and most of all, entirely common sense. Do read them and make use of them if you're in need.

What has especially attracted were two aspects: firstly, the way in which they are divided into three sections of social media use:
1. Personal use of social media
2. Professional use on behalf of H&K and its clients, and finally
3. Blogging on Hill & Knowlton's Collective Conversation.

This makes it easy for staff to see what guidelines apply to them.

Secondly, I really like how, in a wonderfully social-media-eats-itself way, these principles were crowd-sourced (internally at H&K, then externally via a reach out to the social media community at large), and then shared for all to use. Nice one Niall, thanks.

More and more companies are recognising the need for social media policies. The wise ones are not producing draconian lists of 'Thou Shalt Not's, but taking a mature look at where the potential for damage could be and addressing it. Check out a database of social media policies here. Do you have examples you'd like to share, or comments on Hill & Knowlton's?

Update 5 Oct 09: Thanks to MROC Talk for this, on Intel's excellent social media guidelines.
Update 5th Nov 09: A database of published social media policies, searchable by sector.

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eModeration's Social Media Round-Up #2

Welcome to our round-up of all that's new, controversial or just plain weird on the social media scene in the last few days.

THE HEADLINES…

Facebook became embroiled in global politics this week, after pressure from some residents of the Golan Heights, a disputed region connecting Israel to Syria which was captured by Israel in 1967. Until a few weeks ago, if you lived in Katzrin, a town in the region, your profile said you lived in Syria. Now users can opt to live in Israel.

Social Media – it’s Chicken-Lickin’ Good. When British supermarket giant Asda discovered that an employee had posted a video of himself licking frozen poultry, it used the same platform to hit back. Their own YouTube post features four of his shocked co-workers' expressing their clearly heartfelt dismay – and has effectively headed off the Domino’s Effect.

In a case which is either evidence of a serious social media addiction, or of chronic dim-wittery, a burglar left a hefty clue to his identity when he checked his Facebook page whilst on a job, and failed to log out before scarpering with the loot. Doop.

Doop 2: Martha Lane Fox's Digital Inclusion office (target: get 6m of the digitally-excluded online, ASAP) was this week hit by a thief, who broke into its offices and stole some laptops. One down, 5,999,999 to go.

It's all over between me and George Clooney: when asked about Facebook, the star responded that he would “rather have a prostate exam on live tv by a guy with very cold hands”, than a Facebook page. That’s a pretty vivid picture you paint there, George, and now I can’t get it out of my head.

US start-up The Whuffie Bank now gives you tangible evidence of your online reputation (also check out our previous post on ReputationShare). The non-profit’s algorithm assigns Whuffies to your comments, posts and mentions by others - in other words, it’s Karma for Web 2.0. Go on – you know you want to.


ON FACEBOOK THIS WEEK…

A stunner of a week for what is now, definitively, our favourite place to waste time online, per Nielsen. The social behemoth reached a humungous 300 million registered users – putting the Great Twitter/Facebook Face-Off into some serious perspective.

Not only that, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg simultaneously revealed that the company was already cash-flow positive – a milestone which it had previously predicted for ‘sometime in 2010’.

Facebook’s special sauce turns out to be ‘self-serve ads’ – targeted ads which advertisers can create on-site, in minutes, to reach particular demographics. According to Facebook’s Chamath Palihapitiya “all channels are doing very well, but that channel is just crushing it" and has been accelerating every quarter since it was launched.


AND ON TWITTER…

A mixed bag this week: researchers analysed half a million Tweets, and discovered that an astounding 20% of them were about brands. That’s 600 thousand brand mentions per day – time to get sentiment-mapping, folks.

And e-Marketer predicts 18 million Twitter users (that’s those who tweet at least once a month) by the end of 2009. That’s an impressive 50% up on their predictions of earlier this year - but not quite enough to worry Facebook, 120m of whose users check in once a day.

In that context, Facebook’s claim that that Twitter ‘is in the rear-view mirror’ seems entirely feasible - particularly when Nielsen's latest figures show that 50-64-year-old users are twice those of 18-24s, with 22% vs. 11%.

And eyebrows were raised when it emerged that Twitter’s private investors had valued the company at a breath-taking $1bn. That’s quite a figure, for a company with no revenue in sight.

And this week’s best Twitter headline goes to… The Guardian, with ‘Avatar Loss Horror Afflicts Twittering Classes’. (It was a temporary glitch, we’re assured.)


BRANDS ON SOCIAL …

Home retailer Habitat has made a sheepish return to Twitter three months after its spamming disaster (it hijacked an Iranian election thread to promo its Sale) hit the headlines: “We're back. Sorry it took so long. This time we want to get it right.”

TGI Friday's campaign to get 500,000 Facebook fans signed up reached its goal far sooner than anticipated – leaving many fans too late for the promised free burger. As negative comments piled up on their fanpage, the brand narrowly averted a backlash by extending the offer to the first 1m signups.

And..

Vitaminwater is crowdsourcing its next flavour - Facebook members can download a shareable application which lets them vote for their choice among ten flavor proposals. Each of those proposals will have been chosen according to the amount each flavour is discussed in online conversations on Twitter and other social media. Voters can also specify the vitamin content, write the ad copy, and design the packaging – with $5000 for the winner.


SOCIAL NETWORKS GOING NORTH…

Former Bebo CEO Joanna Shields heads up a new venture with Elisabeth Murdoch, which will meld TV production and social media.

And Nokia has bought micro social-networking site Plum in the latest expansion of its social media ambitions.

AND GOING SOUTH…

HMV is folding GetCloser.com, its social discovery network which launched last July to help film and music fans access content and find each other.

And poorly BusinessWeek, whose bid deadline is fast approaching, was revealed last week to have spent a hefty $16m creating its social networking site, which is thought to have generated just $600,000 in revenue.


SOME SOCIAL STATS…

The best overall way to raise a brand’s reputation is via forums and social networks, according to new research by Trendstream: 36% of 16-24-year-olds and 20% of 55-64-year-olds said brands who did improved their opinion - by 29% on average.

But these new stats from E-Tailing suggest that brands are still rather, erm, conflicted about grasping the social media nettle. 34% were concerned that consumers would think they were “using outdated marketing/ merchandising techniques” if they didn’t do so - but a whopping 49% were also worried that social media meant that “people can trash my products in front of large audiences.”

A study has revealed that more than half of ad impressions and a terrifying 95% of clicks in online ad buys could be fraudulent. Radar Research’s Marissa Gluck called it "the dirty little secret of the online ad industry”.

Mediaweek reports that increased user time on social networks is stolen from email and IM. Adults spend slightly over 3 hours a month in online communities, whereas back in the mists of time (well, 2003) consumers spent most of their online time emailing and IMing.

But overall, Content is emphatically king: time spent on content sites averages seven hours, a healthy increase of 88% from 6 years ago. Meanwhile poor old e-commerce was 18.7% down, with consumers spending a monthly 2 hours, 40 minutes on e-commerce sites.

AND ELSEWHERE IN E-COMMERCE…

A study by McAfee found that the majority of online shoppers – 65% - wait a day or more to complete their purchase. Far from being shopping cart abandonment, this behaviour might simply be indicative of the cautious shopper.

And while that species will inevitably expand as the recession continues, eMarketer predicts that the number of online shoppers will rise from 26.9m to 31.8m by 2013 – that’s over half the UK population.


ON THE BOX…

Rumours abound that Hulu, the free online viewing service, is already beta-testing a subscription version. Precisely what the premium service will consist of – better content? Zero ads? – is unclear, but analyst Laura Martin warns Trad TV businesses to be afraid – be Very Afraid – of Hulu.

The BBC is opening up iPlayer to third parties. Announcing the move, the Beeb’s head of future media let slip that the most searched term on the iPlayer was ‘Coronation Street’, the jewel in the crown of rival network ITV.

AND IN THE OFFICE..

Twitter breaks could become a regular feature of worker’s days – with those who check their SocNets at other times subject to disciplinary procedures. It follows research suggesting British firms are losing millions of pounds to social networks each day. You can view the social media policies of large US companies here by the way.


MOBILE HOME…

Socks up, mobile sites! While 31% of phone users browse the Mobile Web, they give an extremely limp 52 out of 100 average rating to dedicated mobile sites.

Those very same users are also ‘extremely ad wary’, according to research from Chitika: mobile as a whole hit a measly 0.48% clickthrough rate - just over half of the average non-mobile rate, which hovered at 0.83%.

And of all measly clickthrough rates, iPhone users' were the most measly. Though they browse the net the most, they were even less likely to click through than other mobile users, with a paltry 0.30%.

Perhaps matters will be improved by Microsoft’s launch of behavioural targeting service, which collects user data across Microsoft properties - Hotmail, Bing, Xbox and other MS-owned websites.


LEGAL BRIEF…

Evony has filed libel suit against a blogger for causing ‘significant damage to the company’s brand.” Though Evony is US-based, and blogger Bruce Everiss resides in the UK, the suit has been filed in Australia where libel is easier to prove.

A federal judge in California has ruled that video-sharing site Veoh is protected from liability for hosting pirated clips uploaded by its users. The law “does not place the burden of ferreting out infringement on the service provider," the judge wrote.

A California Judge has bashed out a compromise order which may suit the current slew of requests to unmask anonymous commenters. She’s ordered that a commenter's IP address be disclosed to an independent investigator: only if it turns out to be a specific individual will the name be turned over.

An ex-Congressman who did successfully unmask an online commenter has had the resulting libel suit thrown out. The court ruled that the comments were a matter of public interest, and that the ex-Congressman had "failed to demonstrate that [his] action has a substantial basis in fact and law.”

France's lower house of parliament has approved a bill which could see pirates who ignore email and postal warnings get their internet connections cut for a year - and face €300,000 (£267,000) in fines.

Entrepreneur Kevin Alderman, who sells virtual erotic goods in Second Life, launched a suit against Linden Labs for allegedly allowing other virtual marketers to offer knock-offs of his "SexGen" beds and other products.

Social game-maker Playdom responded cuttingly to a suit by competitor Zynga, who apparently accused it of nefariously accessing a document which contains "non-public … know-how and best practices for developing successful and distinctive social games." Playdom replied that the lawsuit "comes as no surprise given Zynga's penchant for litigation", and that the company has “no interest in Zynga’s ‘secret sauce’". Ouch.


ELSEWHERE IN VIRTUAL WORLDS…

By the end of this year, Virtual Worlds will hit the 150 mark , according to Kzero’s figures – and the total is set to double by the end of 2010, driven largely by media companies launching IP-driven platforms for their toy, film and tv properties.

There’s little doubt that we are now a society which wants what it wants, when it wants it – and so of course microtransactions are big business. Here, Massively explains all, and argues that we’re witnessing a rapid and far-reaching shift in the culture of MMORPGs.

With new free-to-play MMO titles like Earth Eternal in development and other titles ported from from Asia at a rapid-fire rate, has the market become oversaturated with free-to-play?


TOOLS AND TECH…

Vivox has launched VoiceChat, an App which allows Facebook friends to chat while gaming. The developers followed 100,000 users and found that those used voice chat in their games were four times more likely to be playing a game five weeks later than those who didn’t.

Twitter heroes Seesmic have come to the rescue of both time-strapped Facebook brands and fans. Page admins can easily update their content – and fans can view all their Pages as distinct entities and engage with them more easily.

Our friends and partners Crisp, the online child protection specialist, have unveiled Automated Behaviour Management (ABM). Working in real-time, ABM allows NetModerator clients to automate responses to low-level rule infringements such as sharing phone numbers or profanity, stopping potentially serious offenders from taking root in the game.

Social review tool provider PowerReviews is launching BrandConnect, which features two elements: Listener and Megaphone. Listener asks users to review a product in far more detail than usual, and also carries out a 2-stage review-moderation programme. while Megaphone gives customers the option to syndicate their reviews to Facebook, Twitter, and their blogs.

Rookie social network Vreebit.com launched last week. The site “combines the best of top social networking sites with new organizational, e-commerce and promotional tools, changing the way people connect, communicate and organize their social and professional lives”

Centaur Media has launched Reputation Online, an ad-funded site aimed at PR firms, agencies and brands looking to better manage their image on the web.

BillMyParents has gone live: Teens and tweens can use BillMyParents to purchase virtual goods and virtual currency for game play upgrades inside Gala-Net’s gPotato online game portal and Artix Entertainment’s AdventureQuest Worlds’ virtual game worlds.

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New 'fact finder' toy from Google

You need never be lost for words again. A colleague just sent me this link to Google Internet Stats, a search engine dedicated to serving up stats on whatever you're keen to find out about. I type in 'Social Networking' and this comes out:

• In mid-2008, social networking accounted for around 10% of worldwide online time. This is a category that didn't exist 3 years ago. Nielsen, March 2009

• Of the 282.7 million European Internet users age 15 and older who went online via a home or work computer in December 2008, 211 million visited a social networking site – representing a penetration of 74.6%. Comscore, February 2009

• eMarketer estimates that 39% of UK Internet users - more than 15.4 million people - will use social networks at least once per month in 2009. By 2013, the social networking population will reach 21.9 million and represent 50% of UK Web users. eMarketer, May 2009

• Over 90% of online merchants are planning to add rich media and social networking functions in 2009.Internet Retailing, February 2009

And when I entered 'Facebook', it gave me:

• 5% of all time online is spent on Facebook. Comscore, April 2009

I'm tempted to start tweeting out random facts - but no. I think I shall keep all this new knowledge to myself until lulls in the conversation at the bus-stop ...

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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.

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Facebook Lite - some good news, but lacking content for Fan Pages

Last week, Facebook unveiled their response to the sudden Twittermania sweeping the web: Facebook Lite. Currently available as a public preview in the United States and India, this stripped back version of their site is supposedly designed for users with slower Internet connections, but its competitive inspiration is very apparent.

Having spent a few days playing with the new version, impressions are mixed – some changes are actually huge improvements over the main site, while others are regressions or oversights that they will hopefully resolve when this rolls out. I wanted to go over a few of the most notable changes.

When you first log in to Facebook Lite, the most striking difference is how clean the home page appears. Facebook Lite has removed the lion's share of applications, and updates from friends and pages no longer compete for attention with numerous content panels. It looks very similar to Twitter's single-focus news feed.

One feature they tweaked was the “What's on your mind?” panel where members can post their status updates. Now, you have to select whether to write or post media, which is a step backwards for many – requiring multiple clicks to perform arguably the most common task on the site. Still, the Attach functionality is no longer in place – something I found to be a little cumbersome.

Profiles continue the notion of less is more. Again, without applications, the navigation is much leaner – now each profile is broken down into Wall, Info, Friends, and Photos & Videos. It took some time to realize that Friends also houses the list of pages the user is a fan of, previously listed under Info.

Overall, for a user, the site is much cleaner to use – stripping back anything that might be seen to slow, confuse or frustrate them.

However, what's good for the user isn't necessarily good for anyone wishing to promote their brand, products or services with Facebook. If you are not already a fan, finding a page is practically impossible with Facebook Lite. The fastest way is by browsing the items your friends are fans of, although it took a little exploration to even find that list.

It certainly makes sense to group pages with Friends in this way: however it is such a break from the current version of Facebook, that it won't be obvious to anyone.

Many organizations invest a lot of time and energy into their Facebook page as it is a great way to reach out to users on a site they already spend so much time on. Like MySpace for bands, Facebook offers a fantastic tool set to companies wishing to build their brand, promote their product, or build community without developing their own proprietary tools. Unfortunately, Facebook Lite pares pages down to the same minimal features as profiles.

In fact, it strips away a lot of features that many may take for granted – events (which, although you can view and create them as a regular user, appear to be completely absent from company pages now), customized tabs and widgets, selective landing pages, and many more. All that really remains are wall posts, photos and videos. Comparing any page side by site with its Lite counterpart highlights the difference this makes.

Without many of these features, page administrators have a very challenging set of restraints within which to create a compelling experience of their users.

One positive change to pages is the separation of the Wall and Fans. Separating posts made by the owners of the page and those made by its fans is a great distinction and makes it easier for a fan to see just the official updates.

As Facebook respond to feedback from this public preview, it will be interesting to see how Facebook Lite evolves.

Dale Price, eModeration community manager

Tia : I'm happy introduce Dale Price as a new community manager on the eModeration team, debuting here with an analysis of the new Facebook Lite. (Although I am slightly peeved that he's now managed to bag the ONE HUNDREDTH POST on the eModeration blog since we launched it back in January this year!) Congratulations to eModeration, and we hope you've found them of interest :-)

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Update on Maine Law preventing marketing to minors

On July 27th this year, we published a post on the new Maine Law banning the use of personal information about minors for marketing purposes. Briefly, the law regulates both the online and offline collection of personal information from users under the age of 18 and strictly prohibits any transfer of or use of personal information about minors for marketing products or services – regardless of from whom it was collected or whether a parent has consented to the collection and use. The law was set to take effect this month.

Unsurprisingly, it has created a huge outcry, with many companies affected asking for clarification and claiming that the law would be unworkable in its present form.

A coalition of media organizations and Web companies including maine colleges, AOL, Yahoo and eBay challenged the measure in court on Wednesday. The group claimed that the law violated the First Amendment, and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which bans the online collection of personal information from children under the age of 13. Among other arguments, they contend that the law would violate their First Amendment right to publish newsworthy information about teens, as well as restricting teens' right to receive information. The Web companies also say the measure would require them to block teens from their sites.

In the complaint, the Maine Independent Colleges Association, for example, protested that the law would prevent Maine colleges from sending marketing materials to minors who requested information without first obtaining parental consent. One problem is that marketers often don't know the exact ages of teens they are targeting. For example, a company might want to send ads to a list of college freshman that does not distinguish between the students who are 17 and those who are older.

The Maine Senate’s judiciary committee will review the bill before the new legislative session convenes in January. Maine's Attorney General Janet Mills told the Wall Street Journal today that she shares many people’s concerns about the constitutional issues presented by the statute and the rights of minors to access information, and therefore she will not be enforcing the law. Unfortunately, even though Maine’s attorney general will not enforce the law, private parties can still file costly class action lawsuits.

The challengers are seeking an injunction against the measure, which would allow private parties to sue for $250 damages per violation. The opponents say that because the law puts them at risk of civil lawsuits, the statute should be enjoined regardless of whether the Attorney General intends to enforce it.

“As well-intentioned as I think the sponsor is, [the bill] is just so poorly drafted that it causes a lot of problems that I don’t think they intended,” said Stephen Kline, counsel at Privo, an online identity and permissions-management company.

Thanks to Stephen for sending eModeration this update, and we'll be publishing further news on this as we hear it.

Update: 15th Sept 09
Stephen Kline has sent us through the following information:

"The coalition of colleges, media, and Internet companies that sued to enjoin enforcement of Maine’s Predatory Marketing law has agreed with the State of Maine to dismiss the suit after Maine’s Attorney General agreed not to enforce the law. The judge in the case agreed to the dismissal in a one-page order. http://bit.ly/AwwEf While the Attorney General’s non-binding agreement not to prosecute is a positive step, the dismissal still does not prevent the class-action bar from filing private suits. That being said, the judge attempted to warn off such suits by stating that “third parties are on notice that a private cause of action under [the Maine law] could suffer from the same constitutional infirmities” that both the coalition and the AG agree exist. The law is set to take effect Saturday.

Companies that currently collect personal information from minors should contact their lawyers for advice on the law’s application to their practices.

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The Learning Bubble - New Software Keeps Children Safe and on Track at Homework Time

This seems like a really good idea. A new (low-priced) piece of software is now available which parents and carers can use to keep their child interruption-free during set 'homework' hours. During the designated time period (set by the parent/carer), access is only authorised to certain educationally-approved sites, creating a 'quiet study time', uninterrupted by social networking, IMs or other distractions.

The Learning Bubble (tlb) comes complete with learning aids, quizzes, games and a growing list of educational websites, carefully chosen for their relevance to the curriculum. Using tlb, parents can define in half hourly increments how much time should be dedicated to homework and determine which sites may be accessed, while tracking the URLs their children have visited via an activity log. A Learning Button enables users to log onto their own school's learning platform, an online system designed to support teaching and learning. All tlb products feature a direct link to the Child Exploitation & Online Protection (CEOP) agency where children or parents can report inappropriate or suspicious behaviour, harmful content, cyberbullying, hacking and viruses.

Keeping children safer, and focused on learning. I like it a lot. Now, if they can think of a way to stop my preschooler from hitting his older brother over the head with a Ben 10 toy during homework sessions, they're really on to a winner ....

For more info on The Learning Bubble, click here

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80% of parents/carers not protecting their children’s online access, according to Ofcom report

Ofcom yesterday published a report into their research into the access by young people to online content via mobile, gaming and portable media players, and the issues of safety and privacy . Nearly eight hundred interviews were conducted with 11-16 year olds and their parents/carers. You can access the full report here and a digest of it here.

The findings make interesting reading - well, if you find masses of stats interesting, and in this case I do. My children are as yet thankfully too young to go online by themselves, but I’m painfully aware that it’s going to a only a few years before I’m confronted by this problem.

According to this survey, a majority of parents/carers report their children aged 7-16 own or have use of a games console (90%) or mobile phone (74%). Access to a portable media player is considerably lower, at around one in eight (13%). Of ALL parents/carers interviewed (not just those whose children have their own handset/console):

• 9% of all parents/carers say their child uses a mobile phone to go online
• 19% of all parents/carers say their child uses a games console to go online
• 3% of all parents/carers say the same for portable media players

It appears quite reassuring in regard to the number of children who have been exposed to inappropriate content via their mobiles – only four percent, and that was all text/SMS/photo and video material: nothing via the mobile’s ‘gated’ portal. That’s actually quite an interesting low when compared to the recent survey by Beatbullying, which found that more than one-third of teens aged 11-18 have been sent offensive or distressing images electronically. And Ofcom’s findings were not much more alarming as regards games consoles – around five percent say they have been exposed to inappropriate material.

However, the report does appear to have exposed a substantial gap in knowledge of both children and parents. Of the children interviewed:

• 28% think they need security information; e.g. on how to keep passwords and PINs safe
• 22% want more information n how to avoid inappropriate content online
• 20% want more advice on how to deal with cyberbullying
• 23% say that no-one has talked to them about cyber safety
• Over 25% say they wouldn’t know what to do if they encountered ‘inappropriate material’ on their mobile phone or games console

Of parents and carers:

• 35% of those whose child uses a mobile to go online are aware of access controls on mobile phones and of those, over half have activated them
• 32% of those whose children use their consoles to go online are aware of access controls on games consoles and of those, over two thirds have activated them. Scarily (if I’ve got this right!), if you track those stats back rather loosely, that means that about 80% of parents and carers whose children use devices to go online HAVEN’T activated access controls on mobiles and consoles.

Additionally:

• 21% of parents/carers say they don’t know enough about how to help their child stay safe online
• 10% would like additional support, particularly when it comes to filters and controls set by games suppliers and internet service providers, as well as more information on how to set online controls or blocks

CEOP said last month that they have reached their target of presenting the Thinkuknow programme & Safer Internet Day initiative to a total of 4.5 million children. That’s really great, but knowing the response I get from my oldest when I ask him what he learned at school that day (“Dunno-can’t-remember-can–I-play-the-Wii?”), I’m thinking that it’s their grownups we really need to reach. How best to do that? Comments below welcomed...

To help them, Ofcom has today published two new guides for parents and carers on how to use parental controls on mobile phones, games consoles and portable media players and, if they need to, how to report inappropriate content. Parental controls for mobile phones and Parental controls for games consoles and portable media players.

There are also some other great resources online such as Kidsmart, Digizen and Beatbullying.

Additionally, On Wednesday 25 November 2009, CEOP is organising a course in London for professionals who work with young people on this very subject: “Children and the role of technology in sexualisation, addiction and bullying: a practical guide to protecting young people”. For more information on the conference please email education@ceop.gov.uk or visit http://www.ceop.police.uk/training

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Pick us! Pick us! SXSW Interactive 2010 panel voting

Just back from weeks of relaxing sunshine, totally out of contact with all things social media and - agggh! My calendar has reminded me that there are only FOUR DAYS left to vote for the SXSW Interactive 2010 panels.

This is of especial important this time round as Crisp, eModeration and ReputationShare have teamed together (with a few select others) to put forward a panel at SXSW Interactive 2010.

"Hi ###, What's ###? Filters, Technology & Behavior Management" will examine the technical, social and legal challenges of UGC, behavior management and communicating within online communities, MMOGs, and social networks.
Excessive filtering and banning users is ineffective. Could intelligent content analysis engines used in tandem human judgment be the holy grail?

The panel plan to answer questions such as:

• What is UGC and who is ultimately responsible for what gets published?
• What is an intelligent content analysis engine?
• What is the current industry standard in content and filtering/analysis?
• How can I get my tech team and community team on the same page?
• What are the costs of building versus buying content analysis software?
• Who is responsible for reporting potentially illegal content?
• What about privacy policies, data protection and international sites?
• What are the legal risks to my site?
• How do we measure our ROI in behavior management technology?
• How can I be cost effective in monitoring UGC?

Panel members, should we be picked, will include: Rebecca Newton (Crisp), Tamara Littleton (eModeration.com), Linda Criddle (Reputation Share/SafeInternet.org/LookBothWays), Stephen Kline (Privo.com), Debbi Colgin (Outspark.com).

Please go to our page at SXSW Panel Pickers, register if you haven't already, and give our panel a plug. It only takes a minute, honest!

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