Influx

A report in Mashable yesterday stated that social-gaming leader Zynga had made 14 acquisitions in the past 12 months. That kind of pace is quite extraordinary from what many consider to be a relatively small company- albeit with a potential market cap of $10 billion. It makes you think: 1. Category...

Used to be that celebrities owed it to brands to help make them famous and keep them in the spotlight. They still do, but it's going to be a different relationship moving forward. Soccer star Lionel Messi just went onto Facebook and got 7 million "likes" in a matter of hours. The ability for...

Here's a brief element of some nice research done by IBM, who went out last year and explored global consumer expectations of social media and contrasted those with the reasons executives believed consumers followed them on social sites.  The results are startling...Consumers want...To buyTo...

Google knows the future is about monetizing the power of people's social network. They know that personal recommendations are highly trusted and valuable to users, but they also know Facebook has a stranglehold on this space, but as of today, they trying to get a tiny piece of the potential pie...

The Social Network will likely emerge together with Inception as a contender for movie of the year. While the later uses fantasy to take us to a future world that's built from an understanding of present realities, The Social Network is very much about "the now" and the changes we've seen going...

The latest news that Target and Facebook getting together over gift cards for social gaming is fascinating for a number of reasons- 5 to be precise.1. Target demonstrates relevanceThe Facebook association shows that the retailer gets where the world is heading and understands the power of the...

Facebook is clearly in some kind of internal crisis with the recent departure of the CFO, it appears the company is engaged in some kind of soul searching around the need to demonstrate serious revenue growth. Time Magazine seems to believe that Facebook can never make money."The reason that social...

Clive Thompson has written an excellent piece for the New York Times on the world of social networking, digging deeper under the surface to understand what it's all about. One quote struck me as especially interesting and concerning for those of us in the branding/marketing business."Fritton joked...

Social networks are now becoming corporate and if you are a company there's no hiding. This trend means the people behind the company get to show themselves and interact with other human beings in the real world. The idea of one-on-one interaction can happen. If you trust your employees you can let...

Facebook emerged from college dorms late in 2006 and then exploded onto the cultural scene in the US, UK and Canada in 2007. With close to 60 million members and an audience that's doubling every 6 months, Facebook is the brand phenom of the year. Consider that over 50% of its audience use the site...

The rise of social networks and the promise of monetization is driven by the belief that recommendations hold significant value. There are numerous studies that show "Word of Mouth" as the leading source of influence on a person's purchase decision. However, WOM has become something of a general...

Facebook has been described as the Google of its generation. A new internet tool that brings accessible social networking to the masses. On a basic level, it does a fine job, it does all the things you want it to and it's easy to manage.The problem is that it's perhaps a little too easy. We get...

The rise of social networks has now become important enough for companies to create positions for people to manage them. Warner Brothers is looking to hire someone to do this for its bands. Someone who has a strong understanding of running or fostering community. Here are the job specs. Main goals...

"The deep structure of future human connection is being contrived, now, on the web, and it will slowly unseat other systems, like an oak tree growing in a churchyard, encroaching on the cathedral's foundations with roots that are deeper and stronger than artifice can achieve. This is in us, it is...

The latest population data for planet Facebook. Some strange findings:Hong Kong's population is bigger than China'sAustralia's population is bigger than France, Germany and Italy's combinedLondon's population is much bigger than New York and Los Angeles combined.CountriesKazakhstan 1,859Bahrain...