Google's Social Media Problem: It's Google by Erik Sass

Undeterred by the privacy debacle attending the debut of Google Buzz, Google appears to be preparing another sally into the world of social media, if a number of well-informed online rumormongers are to be believed, beginning with Digg founder Kevin Rose. The new service, which might be named "Google Me" (I'm going to go ahead and make that GoogleMe for Web style points) seems to be positioned as a competitor to Facebook. Because making predictions is always fun, I am going to guess that this new service, whatever its name, goes nowhere. And yes, I actually have reasons for thinking ...Read the whole story

  • Mzinga Upgrades OmniSocial Platform by Mark Walsh

    Mzinga Tuesday unveiled the latest version of its flagship OmniSocial social media platform for business users that promises cloud-based hosting, a more user-friendly dashboard and deeper analytics. The company has also rolled out a mobile version of OmniSocial via applications for the iPhone and BlackBerry devices. ...Read the whole story

  • financial services Visa Finds Success With FIFA Social Media by Tanya Irwin

    To drive additional interest, Visa is holding a promotion on the YouTube channel that runs until the tournament's end, July 11. Viewers can enter the "Visa Watch Your Way To Brazil" sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. In addition to the grand prize trip, fans will have the chance to win weekly prizes including $100 Visa gift cards. ...Read the whole story

Behavioral Targeting With A Social Twist by Laurie Sullivan

Some social media companies have begun to pitch themselves as behavioral targeting services. Consider SocialTwist, a social media marketing platform. The company's business model relies on a small widget that allows Web site members to forward marketing message with one click. The SocialTwist platform relies on human filtering as the primary targeting tool. The widgets don't include personally identifiable information, but the technology does track consumer's behavior. ...More

  • Study: Mobile Social Networks Leak Private Info by Wendy Davis

    Last summer, two researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and AT&T Labs reported on how social networks "leak" data to advertisers through referrer URLs. Now the same pair has published a new study concluding that mobile social networks leak information about users -- including, in some cases, their locations. ...More

  • Google, Trust Me: The World Doesn't Need Another Facebook-Style Social Network by Catharine P. Taylor

    And here I thought Google's new social network was called Google Buzz -- but reports this week say it's actually named Google Me. This is an offering that Google is apparently very serious about because Google Buzz, which launched earlier this year, didn't stop Google's social networking itch. No surprise there, as Google Buzz doesn't seem to have much, well, buzz. After an initial burst of publicity -- much of it to do with the early misstep of having user accounts auto-follow one another -- it's not exactly the talk of the town, which means it's not the social net ...More

  • Beyond Mobile Social's F-Words by David Berkowitz

    Whenever mobile social media comes up in conversation, I tend to hear a lot of f-words. Hopefully they won't be censored here, as the ones I'm referring to are Foursquare and Facebook. The f-words play important roles, but mobile social media is much bigger. To give a sense of how much bigger it is, I'll be discussing various forms of mobile social media that may be relevant when developing a marketing program. ...More