The Web site simplification trend may finally be seeping into professional sports if the New York Knicks' new Web site is a harbinger of things to come. That would be a welcome change, as most team Web sites tend to look like the Vegas Strip at dusk: they are loaded with flashing logos, messages, brands, offers, calendars, seating charts, scores, news, schedules, videos -- and yes, the occasional risqué shot of team dancers. It doesn't matter what sport you care to name -- whether it's NASCAR or curling, there is usually just too much of everything. The team has benched the NBA's Knicks site (www.nba.com/knicks) and started from scratch with a new, sleek social media-centered site, KnicksNow.com. The effort is part of the larger "You. Us. We. Now." effort launched this year. The new site ditches short-stay functionality like ticket sales and seating (that will remain on the old site) and focuses on content and conversation. Indeed, KnicksNow.com is intended less as a traditional team site than a social media hub. It has content like videos of players and photo galleries, but its central feature is real-time Twitter and Facebook feeds from players, staff and fans. Howard Jacobs, EVP, marketing and sales for MSG Sports, which markets the team, tells Marketing Daily that the strategy behind KnicksNow.com came from a key question: what is the future of fan engagement? "We realized that the conversations were taking place in all these other forums and online environments," he says. "The fans said to us that they don't have a place to go to get the very latest, the most-insider content that one could have. While there's a lot of activity on Facebook and Twitter, we needed a way to make it all come together. Part of it was to make a site that made it easy and efficient for fans to find content. The second thing was to add additional functionality." Jacobs says the old site wasn't built for long engagement. "The [NBA/ Knicks] site is heavy on utility: how do I find the schedule, how do I find tickets? Interactivity is relatively brief. Here it's all about dialogue: fan to fan, player to fan. When we looked around at how fans are engaging with people, bands, brands, or teams, it is with social media." The new site leads with a "Knicks Headlines" feature with current news, but below that are sections like a "Bockers in 140" section with Twitter feeds from players and staff; a "Player Profiles" section with dedicated microsites for each player that has video, photos, and Twitter/Facebook feeds; and "Click & Roll" navigation scrolls with content organized chronologically. Jacobs says a lot of the content is intended to offer an inside look. There are video features of what goes on at the Knicks' training facility and during pre and post-game briefings. "These are things [fans] have never had access to before." Visitors can sign on Facebook from the site and get "Knicks Points" for promulgating content to the social sphere, and posting videos or photos. The points are redeemable for tickets, accessories, and per Jacobs, seats on the Knicks bench, autographed jerseys, an opportunity to be part of a pre-game shoot-around, or possibly dinner with team stars. Jacobs says the team will promote the new site through MSG's network, via Knicks.com, on the big screen at the Garden. "Even as we introduce players before the game we are putting Twitter feeds on the board," he says. The Knicks are adding both location-based features and mobile versions of the site in coming weeks, as well as interactive tools that allow fans to create polls and debates on the site. The team says it has seen triple-digit percentage growth on Facebook, reaching more than 250,000 likes and a double-digit percentage increase on Twitter with nearly 45,000 followers. In addition, traffic on NYKnicks.com is up more than 40% year-over-year.
Microsoft unveiled a variety of updates and improvements Wednesday, both for Bing online and mobile search apps, at an event in San Francisco. Windows Phone 7 hit stores last month highlighting Bing, and Microsoft appears to have wasted no time releasing a series of minor enhancements that executives expect to add up to major results. The enhancements for iPhone and Android apps include Autosuggest, which refines restaurant and movie searches by making suggestions. Bing Vision allows searchers to use the camera phone to detect text in the viewfinder to initiate a search on the word that might appear on the product. If the object has a barcode, Bing will return product results. It will also search for a nearby business listing when pointing the camera and taking a photo of a landmark. "Mobile is a very interesting opportunity," Stefan Weitz, the director of Bing Search, told MediaPost during a recent conversation. "People are doing about 13% of searches on mobile devices. About half have a local intent. About 70% are part of a task chain such as 'barbecue joint on Market Street.'" The mobile app announced Wednesday let users share their current location through Facebook, Foursquare or Windows Live Activity Stream. They can check in through the home page or from a local listing page. Mobile features also include an iPhone app, Opentable and Grubhub integration, real-time transit predictions, reminders by creating to-do lists, and an enhanced version of StreetSide. Weitz also said Bing has seen traction with apps returned in search queries, particularly in the area of entertainment. The vertical launched in June has been more than 55 million casual games played in the interface, and a million audio streams from the function that allows searchers to play songs. Success seems to have led Bing to add similar functions in the categories of local and maps. OpenTable, now integrated into local search, allows people to book reservations from the restaurant details page in Bing. And when someone finds a location of interest, they can now get a 360-degree panoramic view from local search results. The feature requires Silverlight. Similarly, FanSnap will enable people to purchase tickets to concerts or sporting events through Bing's events details page. Maps provides the ability to get more details about shopping malls, airports and college campuses, as well as improved landmark listings, transit routing, and map app search to find information within the gallery. All the hard work seems to be paying off for Bing, according to recent stats from comScore. U.S. Internet users conducted 18.4 billion total core search queries in October, and 11.8 billion on Google, followed by Yahoo with 3.4 billion and Microsoft at 2.2 billion. Microsoft sites' domestic explicit core search market share grew to 11.8% in November -- up from 11.5% in October, according to comScore. Microsoft sites in November grew explicit core search volume by 31.3% year-on-year, down from 40.9% year-on-year growth in October. In the first two months of 4Q, explicit searches grew 36% year-on-year versus 40.4% growth in 3Q, the research firm said.
The tipping point came last night when I saw an ad for Kellogg in the box on my Yahoo home page where the weather usually resides. It promised $10 in "exclusive coupons," recipes, special offers, nutrition tips, etc., etc., all in return for identities and addresses -- online, offline and mobile (optional). No problem. Everybody loves a bargain. I now get $1.50 off if -- and a very big if -- I purchase any THREE packages of Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and/or Frosted Flakes Cereals. Earlier in the week while searching online for a butternut squash recipe or something, I somehow wound up at the new-fashioned recipe swap over at Kellogg's Mixing Bowl, where there are 135 members of the Comfort Food Bliss group, 33 members of Creative Crackers and a whopping 1,381 members of "Affordable Dinners ... FAST!" I could not find something along the lines of "Nutty and Fruity Organics" although "Homesteading Ideas & Heirloom Seed Swap" (102 members) has potential. I remembered reading somewhere about this social media thrust out of Battle Creek and sure enough, Brandweek's Elaine Wong had an interview a few months ago with Jose-Alberto Duenas, Kellogg's marketing vp of ready-to-eat cereals, about "How Special K Became a Social Media Star." One key insight of that article was Duenas' observation that "You can't, in a way, start from scratch with social media, especially because consumers have to have a certain level of engagement with the brand." That brings us to a piece in this week's Advertising Age by Brian Sheehan, formerly of Saatchi & Saatchi and now an associate professor of advertising at the Newhouse School, Syracuse University. He wants to know "Why Big Brands Are Dominating Social Media" when the cost of entry is so low. While granting that mega-marketers have more resources to experiment -- see Kellogg's efforts above -- he says it's a crisis of imagination. "Small brands need to think smaller! Big ones already are," he concludes. (Some pesky commentators respond "Posh, it really does all come down to resources.") Back to Kellogg. Last week it announced a new myPlan Special K app for iPhone and Android that offers people a new way to take the Special K Challenge. You know from print and TV ads, of course, that the challenge is a two-week "weight management" program that will get you into those "skinny jeans." I downloaded it and was amazed at how easy it can be to eat Kellogg's products morning, noon and night. Not that every recipe has a branded ingredient but if you want to make that bowl of Southwest Vegetarian Chili into "a meal," all you need to do is add some Special K Multi-Grain Crackers to chow down with some yoghurt and iced tea. Weight loss, of course, comes down to one very simple principle: You need to expend more calories than you take in. Kansas State University professor Mark Haub, whose field is human nutrition, demonstrated this when he lost 27 pounds over two months on a "convenience store" diet that mostly consisted of eating Twinkies, Doritos, Oreos and the like. (In front of his family, however, he primarily ate veggies to set a good example.) Haub was out to prove a couple of points. One is that portion control is the key to losing weight. Another is that people may be more likely to comply with a diet when they're able to eat foods they crave. Haub's earlier attempt to limit himself to just whole grains, dietary fiber, berries, bananas and vegetables and an occasional treat did not succeed. "It's unrealistic to expect people to totally drop these foods for vegetables and fruits," Haub told CNN. "It may be healthy, but not realistic." Finally, William Neuman writes in the New York Times this morning that Save the Children has pulled its support of a soda tax to battle childhood obesity. He suggests -- and Save the Children denies -- that existing and potential grants from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo to the organization may have something to do with the decision. We will save the debate over the merits and demerits of a tax on sweet beverages to key in on the food industries counterpoint. "The soda companies argue that it is unfair to blame their products for the obesity epidemic, which has complex causes," Newman writes. "They say that policies should be focused instead on getting people to exercise more." That is true. But they'd probably be wise at this point to start talking about portion control, too. The strategy is serving Kellogg well.
On the same day Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was named Time's Person of the Year, a new report finds that college students don't necessarily live up to the stereotype of an especially tech-savvy, social media-obsessed segment of society. The study, "College Students on the Web," by user-experience research firm Nielsen Norman Group, aims to debunk what it terms as "myths" about this demographic and its relation to the Web and social media. The link between college students and social networking, of course, results in no small part from the fact that Facebook was created by a college student for other college students at the outset. Yes, students keep one or more tabs permanently open to Facebook or other social sites -- but that doesn't mean they want everything to be social, according to Nielsen Norman. The report concludes, for instance, that marketers are misguided in assuming that social media is the best way to reach the college-age audience. When students want information about a company or organization, they turn to search engines to find their official Web pages, not social sites. "While it's no surprise that organizations targeting college students try to reach them on the Web, they're mistaken if they think the best path is through social networking sites," noted Jakob Nielsen, principal of Nielsen Norman, in a statement accompanying the 259-page report. "Sites like Facebook are simply not the first place that college students think to visit to get information about organizations." But the study, based on observations of 43 full-time college students in four countries performing different tasks on 217 Web sites, offers insights for marketers targeting college students online. Among the main points: Students like technology, but are not technical: Nielsen Norman found that while some are technology wizards, most expect the Web to be easy to use and to streamline their efforts without hassle. They don't want to work too hard to figure out how to do something. Students are unimpressed by fancy design: College students generally view Web sites as tools to help them get things done. They appreciate multimedia on certain sites like YouTube, but they don't want it at all times on all sites. They like it only when it serves their purpose. Furthermore, many access the Web through wireless connections and laptops that don't support multimedia that well. Students move fast and miss information: They immediately flee a Web site when confronted with a page full of dense text, not even bothering to read the first sentence. Their lack of patience and their confidence in their ability to use the Web reduces their interest in figuring out a Web site. The latest Nielsen Norman report is reminiscent of a separate study by social media expert Danah Boyd earlier this year, which indicated that college students -- contrary to popular belief -- care about privacy online. It found students not only tweak their privacy settings on Facebook, but are more likely to do so than a year ago.
MTV Networks (MTVN) has implemented Janrain Engage to give site visitors one log-in across the network of more than 50 properties, as well as the ability to share articles, comments, and video clips with friends on multiple social networks and sites including Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and MySpace. After about six weeks into deployment across seven sites, MTVN has identified positive trends through A/B testing, but it's too early to speculate about specifics because of the variety of sites the network runs, according to T.J. Marchetti, VP of social media product development at MTV Networks. "We replaced the Facebook Connect integration and then allowed all the brands to design specific experiences such as setting up how they would like to see registration screens," he says. The technology aims to remove hurdles and allow site visitors to connect and share content more easily. The content is shared on social networks and draws visitors back to the MTVN sites. The process is the same for TeenNick.com as it is for VH1.com, ColbertNation.com or TheDailyShow.com. The company plans to extend the deployment throughout 2011. The ability to post back to multiple social networks allows site visitors to share messages with friends. Larry Drebes, Janrain chief executive officer, says the MTVN properties now have a 12-to-1 referral rate. That means 12 additional clicks occur for the one post. "It's free marketing for the properties by the users," he says. Another advantage to outsourcing the social feature means it removes engineering burdens from MTVN, putting the responsibility on Janrain, Drebes says. That movement created a new service industry for Janrain. About half of the company's nearly fifty employees are engineers or have technical skills. He tends to hire the "Web heads" -- those a little on the "nerdy side." Web operators want to increasingly outsource technology not central to their core content, so Janrain staked out user management as a service where it can excel. There's a ton of operational behind-the-scenes plumbing, from privacy and security, that the company can support. As more focus turns to consumer data it will become more important for companies to get it correct. MTVN joins the list of entertainment companies adopting Janrain. They include Universal Music Group, EMI Music, Warner Music, Windup Records and Sonora, Terra Networks.
2010 was the year social video advertising officially arrived, according to new research from Web video analytics firm Visible Measures. Indeed, categories that produced millions of views in 2009 generated hundreds of millions in 2010, while the number of active brands in social video advertising more than doubled. In particular, campaigns like Old Spice's The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, Nike's Write the Future, and Pepsi's Oh Africa captured the attention of audiences across the world. Overall, the number of brands participating in social video advertising exploded. In 2009, fewer than 450 brands launched social video ad campaigns, while that number more than doubled this year to reach nearly 1,000 brands. In 2009, the industry saw less than 700 social video campaigns, including Evian's Roller Babies, T-Mobile's Dance, Cadbury's Eyebrow Dance, and Volkswagen's Fun Theory. In 2010, however, social video advertising was home to 1,800+ campaigns -- a 180% increase year-over-year. What's more, social video campaigns generated 820+ million views and 1.5 million comments in 2009, while in 2010, these numbers increased to 2.7 billion views -- a jump of over 3.3X -- and 4.4 million comments. In 2010, other participating brands included McDonald's, Burger King, Coke, Nike, Adidas, Walmart, Target, Verizon, AT&T, Ford and Volkswagen, to name a few. The most-watched category of the year was health and beauty, which collected over 390 million views -- 14% of all social video advertising in 2010. This is in large part thanks to Old Spice, which inspired over 180 million views for the year. Nearly 70 million of these views come from their revolutionary Responses campaign. By comparison, the entire health and beauty category attracted just 44 million views in 2009. Yet, as more brands incorporate social video advertising into their marketing mix, the competition only continues to escalate, making it more difficult for brands to separate themselves from the pack and stand out to their target audiences, according to Visible Measures. These trends are likely to continue into 2011, according to the firm. As more audiences come online and watch social video, we'll see more brands, more campaigns, and more competition, all in efforts to influence consumer choice.
The Web site simplification trend may finally be seeping into professional sports if the New York Knicks' new Web site is a harbinger of things to come. That would be a welcome change, as most team Web sites tend to look like the Vegas Strip at dusk: they are loaded with flashing logos, messages, brands, offers, calendars, seating charts, scores, news, schedules, videos -- and yes, the occasional risqué shot of team dancers. It doesn't matter what sport you care to name -- whether it's NASCAR or curling, there is usually just too much of everything. The team has benched the NBA's Knicks site (www.nba.com/knicks) and started from scratch with a new, sleek social media-centered site, KnicksNow.com. The effort is part of the larger "You. Us. We. Now." effort launched this year. The new site ditches short-stay functionality like ticket sales and seating (that will remain on the old site) and focuses on content and conversation. Indeed, KnicksNow.com is intended less as a traditional team site than a social media hub. It has content like videos of players and photo galleries, but its central feature is real-time Twitter and Facebook feeds from players, staff and fans. Howard Jacobs, EVP, marketing and sales for MSG Sports, which markets the team, tells Marketing Daily that the strategy behind KnicksNow.com came from a key question: what is the future of fan engagement? "We realized that the conversations were taking place in all these other forums and online environments," he says. "The fans said to us that they don't have a place to go to get the very latest, the most-insider content that one could have. While there's a lot of activity on Facebook and Twitter, we needed a way to make it all come together. Part of it was to make a site that made it easy and efficient for fans to find content. The second thing was to add additional functionality." Jacobs says the old site wasn't built for long engagement. "The [NBA/ Knicks] site is heavy on utility: how do I find the schedule, how do I find tickets? Interactivity is relatively brief. Here it's all about dialogue: fan to fan, player to fan. When we looked around at how fans are engaging with people, bands, brands, or teams, it is with social media." The new site leads with a "Knicks Headlines" feature with current news, but below that are sections like a "Bockers in 140" section with Twitter feeds from players and staff; a "Player Profiles" section with dedicated microsites for each player that has video, photos, and Twitter/Facebook feeds; and "Click & Roll" navigation scrolls with content organized chronologically. Jacobs says a lot of the content is intended to offer an inside look. There are video features of what goes on at the Knicks' training facility and during pre and post-game briefings. "These are things [fans] have never had access to before." Visitors can sign on Facebook from the site and get "Knicks Points" for promulgating content to the social sphere, and posting videos or photos. The points are redeemable for tickets, accessories, and per Jacobs, seats on the Knicks bench, autographed jerseys, an opportunity to be part of a pre-game shoot-around, or possibly dinner with team stars. Jacobs says the team will promote the new site through MSG's network, via Knicks.com, on the big screen at the Garden. "Even as we introduce players before the game we are putting Twitter feeds on the board," he says. The Knicks are adding both location-based features and mobile versions of the site in coming weeks, as well as interactive tools that allow fans to create polls and debates on the site. The team says it has seen triple-digit percentage growth on Facebook, reaching more than 250,000 likes and a double-digit percentage increase on Twitter with nearly 45,000 followers. In addition, traffic on NYKnicks.com is up more than 40% year-over-year.
Microsoft unveiled a variety of updates and improvements Wednesday, both for Bing online and mobile search apps, at an event in San Francisco. Windows Phone 7 hit stores last month highlighting Bing, and Microsoft appears to have wasted no time releasing a series of minor enhancements that executives expect to add up to major results. The enhancements for iPhone and Android apps include Autosuggest, which refines restaurant and movie searches by making suggestions. Bing Vision allows searchers to use the camera phone to detect text in the viewfinder to initiate a search on the word that might appear on the product. If the object has a barcode, Bing will return product results. It will also search for a nearby business listing when pointing the camera and taking a photo of a landmark. "Mobile is a very interesting opportunity," Stefan Weitz, the director of Bing Search, told MediaPost during a recent conversation. "People are doing about 13% of searches on mobile devices. About half have a local intent. About 70% are part of a task chain such as 'barbecue joint on Market Street.'" The mobile app announced Wednesday let users share their current location through Facebook, Foursquare or Windows Live Activity Stream. They can check in through the home page or from a local listing page. Mobile features also include an iPhone app, Opentable and Grubhub integration, real-time transit predictions, reminders by creating to-do lists, and an enhanced version of StreetSide. Weitz also said Bing has seen traction with apps returned in search queries, particularly in the area of entertainment. The vertical launched in June has been more than 55 million casual games played in the interface, and a million audio streams from the function that allows searchers to play songs. Success seems to have led Bing to add similar functions in the categories of local and maps. OpenTable, now integrated into local search, allows people to book reservations from the restaurant details page in Bing. And when someone finds a location of interest, they can now get a 360-degree panoramic view from local search results. The feature requires Silverlight. Similarly, FanSnap will enable people to purchase tickets to concerts or sporting events through Bing's events details page. Maps provides the ability to get more details about shopping malls, airports and college campuses, as well as improved landmark listings, transit routing, and map app search to find information within the gallery. All the hard work seems to be paying off for Bing, according to recent stats from comScore. U.S. Internet users conducted 18.4 billion total core search queries in October, and 11.8 billion on Google, followed by Yahoo with 3.4 billion and Microsoft at 2.2 billion. Microsoft sites' domestic explicit core search market share grew to 11.8% in November -- up from 11.5% in October, according to comScore. Microsoft sites in November grew explicit core search volume by 31.3% year-on-year, down from 40.9% year-on-year growth in October. In the first two months of 4Q, explicit searches grew 36% year-on-year versus 40.4% growth in 3Q, the research firm said.
The tipping point came last night when I saw an ad for Kellogg in the box on my Yahoo home page where the weather usually resides. It promised $10 in "exclusive coupons," recipes, special offers, nutrition tips, etc., etc., all in return for identities and addresses -- online, offline and mobile (optional). No problem. Everybody loves a bargain. I now get $1.50 off if -- and a very big if -- I purchase any THREE packages of Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and/or Frosted Flakes Cereals. Earlier in the week while searching online for a butternut squash recipe or something, I somehow wound up at the new-fashioned recipe swap over at Kellogg's Mixing Bowl, where there are 135 members of the Comfort Food Bliss group, 33 members of Creative Crackers and a whopping 1,381 members of "Affordable Dinners ... FAST!" I could not find something along the lines of "Nutty and Fruity Organics" although "Homesteading Ideas & Heirloom Seed Swap" (102 members) has potential. I remembered reading somewhere about this social media thrust out of Battle Creek and sure enough, Brandweek's Elaine Wong had an interview a few months ago with Jose-Alberto Duenas, Kellogg's marketing vp of ready-to-eat cereals, about "How Special K Became a Social Media Star." One key insight of that article was Duenas' observation that "You can't, in a way, start from scratch with social media, especially because consumers have to have a certain level of engagement with the brand." That brings us to a piece in this week's Advertising Age by Brian Sheehan, formerly of Saatchi & Saatchi and now an associate professor of advertising at the Newhouse School, Syracuse University. He wants to know "Why Big Brands Are Dominating Social Media" when the cost of entry is so low. While granting that mega-marketers have more resources to experiment -- see Kellogg's efforts above -- he says it's a crisis of imagination. "Small brands need to think smaller! Big ones already are," he concludes. (Some pesky commentators respond "Posh, it really does all come down to resources.") Back to Kellogg. Last week it announced a new myPlan Special K app for iPhone and Android that offers people a new way to take the Special K Challenge. You know from print and TV ads, of course, that the challenge is a two-week "weight management" program that will get you into those "skinny jeans." I downloaded it and was amazed at how easy it can be to eat Kellogg's products morning, noon and night. Not that every recipe has a branded ingredient but if you want to make that bowl of Southwest Vegetarian Chili into "a meal," all you need to do is add some Special K Multi-Grain Crackers to chow down with some yoghurt and iced tea. Weight loss, of course, comes down to one very simple principle: You need to expend more calories than you take in. Kansas State University professor Mark Haub, whose field is human nutrition, demonstrated this when he lost 27 pounds over two months on a "convenience store" diet that mostly consisted of eating Twinkies, Doritos, Oreos and the like. (In front of his family, however, he primarily ate veggies to set a good example.) Haub was out to prove a couple of points. One is that portion control is the key to losing weight. Another is that people may be more likely to comply with a diet when they're able to eat foods they crave. Haub's earlier attempt to limit himself to just whole grains, dietary fiber, berries, bananas and vegetables and an occasional treat did not succeed. "It's unrealistic to expect people to totally drop these foods for vegetables and fruits," Haub told CNN. "It may be healthy, but not realistic." Finally, William Neuman writes in the New York Times this morning that Save the Children has pulled its support of a soda tax to battle childhood obesity. He suggests -- and Save the Children denies -- that existing and potential grants from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo to the organization may have something to do with the decision. We will save the debate over the merits and demerits of a tax on sweet beverages to key in on the food industries counterpoint. "The soda companies argue that it is unfair to blame their products for the obesity epidemic, which has complex causes," Newman writes. "They say that policies should be focused instead on getting people to exercise more." That is true. But they'd probably be wise at this point to start talking about portion control, too. The strategy is serving Kellogg well.
And the winner is Mark Zuckerberg, in a walk! Of course, I'm talking about the naming of our beloved Facebook founder (after all, without him, many of us would not have found our business calling) as TIME's Person of the Year. And it really was a walk. Zuckerberg was apparently up against Hamid Karzai, Julian Assange, the Chilean Miners and the Tea Party, none of which have had the global impact this year of Zuckerberg, whose invention now has over 500 million members. And who gave away $100 million to the Newark school system. And who created at least one big privacy controversy. And who had a sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated movie made about him. (Maybe some of you would pick Assange, but tell me -- have you actually gone to Wikileaks and read all those documents? Nah -- you were too busy updating your status on Facebook.) Of course, the crowning of Zuckerberg as Person of the Year has made quite a lot of noise in the social media echo chamber. At this writing, according to the Facebook stats next to the story, it has been shared 133,000 times and "Liked" by more than 138,000. In addition, as if to underscore Facebook's influence, one of the ads accompanying the story is a Toyota-sponsored campaign that lets you make yourself "Person of the Year" by creating a faux-TIME cover, which can be created and shared on Facebook. It has more than 200,000 "Likes." Tell that to your colleague who doesn't think social ads work. But the purpose of this column is not to look at the formidable stats surrounding the Zuckerberg story, but to help you, Dear Reader, because I doubt most of you -- and most of the people who "Liked" TIME's choice -- have read the story, as I have. But it's an important read, even if it expends a little too much time on defending the real Mark Zuckerberg against the one portrayed in "The Social Network." (I get it -- he's not like the guy in the movie.) Despite that, writer Lev Grossman has written a really insightful story about what Facebook has done to us -- although not so much on what we have done to Facebook. Here then, are a few key passages, suitable for discussion at your next Meetup: Zuckerberg on whether serendipity really exists -- and, sort of, the concept of the check-in: "'We have this concept of serendipity -- humans do,'" Zuckerberg says. (The clarification is vintage Zuckerberg.) "'A lucky coincidence. It's like you go to a restaurant and you bump into a friend that you haven't seen for a while. That's awesome. That's serendipitous. And a lot of the reason why that seems so magical is because it doesn't happen often. But I think the reality is that those circumstances aren't actually rare. It's just that we probably miss like 99% of it. How much of the time do you think you're actually at the same restaurant as that person but you're at opposite sides so you don't see them, or you missed each other by 10 minutes, or they're in the next restaurant over? When you have this kind of context of what's going on, it's just going to make people's lives richer, because instead of missing 99% of them, maybe now you'll start seeing a lot more of them.'" On Facebook advertising (you knew this already, but here's how it's viewed by Goodman, someone who doesn't spend his days debating the business model for Twitter): "[COO Sheryl] Sandberg has been able to attract a roster of A-list advertisers, such as Nike, Vitaminwater and Louis Vuitton, by pointing out things they hadn't noticed about Facebook, like how much it knows about its users. Google can serve ads to you on the basis of educated guesses about who you are and what you're interested in, which are based in turn on your search history. Facebook doesn't have to guess. It knows exactly who you are and what you're interested in, because you told it. So if Nike wants its ads shown only to people ages 19 to 26 who live in Arizona and like Nickelback, Facebook can make that happen. In the world of targeted advertising, Facebook has a high-powered sniper rifle." (To which I'd note: Ouch!) On the pros and cons of Facebook friends: "For all of Zuckerberg's EQ [My note: That's emotional intelligence. See!? He's not at all like that guy in "The Social Network"!], Facebook runs on a very stiff, crude model of what people are like. It herds everybody -- friends, co-workers, romantic partners, that guy who lived on your block but moved away after fifth grade -- into the same big room. It smooshes together your work self and your home self, your past self and your present self, into a single generic extruded product. It suspends the natural process by which old friends fall away over time, allowing them to build up endlessly, producing the social equivalent of liver failure. On Facebook, there is one kind of relationship: friendship, and you have it with everybody. You're friends with your spouse, and you're friends with your plumber." On Facebook and addiction, divorce and narcissism (!): "An article published earlier this year in European Psychiatry presented the case of a woman who lost her job to a Facebook addiction, and the authors suggested that it could become an actual diagnosable ailment. (The woman in question couldn't even make it through an examination without checking Facebook on her phone.) Facebook is supposed to build empathy, but since 2000, Americans have scored higher and higher on psychological tests designed to detect narcissism, and psychologists have suggested a link to social networking. According to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 81% of its members have seen a rise in the number of divorce cases involving social networking; 66% cite Facebook as the primary source for online divorce evidence. Openness and connectedness are all well and good, but someone should give two cheers at least for being closed and disconnected too." In short, the story is as much about the effect of Facebook -- and, by extension, social networking -- on society, as it is about Zuckerberg, and that's how it should be. You may not agree with all of Grossman's conclusions. I, for one, wonder if the falling away of old friends has ever been a natural process or whether the reason it's been "natural" is because it used to be more difficult to stay connected. How many times have you been absolutely delighted that Facebook has let you reconnect with someone you always regretted losing touch with? Still, it's hard to debate the story's influence, and its role in creating a detailed picture of where we are, here in December 2010. So, while I've excerpted some of my favorite parts here, I suggest you go read it. You'll be glad you did. (Editor's note: we're currently programming our Social Media Insider Summit. You can check out the agenda here.)
On the same day Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was named Time's Person of the Year, a new report finds that college students don't necessarily live up to the stereotype of an especially tech-savvy, social media-obsessed segment of society. The study, "College Students on the Web," by user-experience research firm Nielsen Norman Group, aims to debunk what it terms as "myths" about this demographic and its relation to the Web and social media. The link between college students and social networking, of course, results in no small part from the fact that Facebook was created by a college student for other college students at the outset. Yes, students keep one or more tabs permanently open to Facebook or other social sites -- but that doesn't mean they want everything to be social, according to Nielsen Norman. The report concludes, for instance, that marketers are misguided in assuming that social media is the best way to reach the college-age audience. When students want information about a company or organization, they turn to search engines to find their official Web pages, not social sites. "While it's no surprise that organizations targeting college students try to reach them on the Web, they're mistaken if they think the best path is through social networking sites," noted Jakob Nielsen, principal of Nielsen Norman, in a statement accompanying the 259-page report. "Sites like Facebook are simply not the first place that college students think to visit to get information about organizations." But the study, based on observations of 43 full-time college students in four countries performing different tasks on 217 Web sites, offers insights for marketers targeting college students online. Among the main points: Students like technology, but are not technical: Nielsen Norman found that while some are technology wizards, most expect the Web to be easy to use and to streamline their efforts without hassle. They don't want to work too hard to figure out how to do something. Students are unimpressed by fancy design: College students generally view Web sites as tools to help them get things done. They appreciate multimedia on certain sites like YouTube, but they don't want it at all times on all sites. They like it only when it serves their purpose. Furthermore, many access the Web through wireless connections and laptops that don't support multimedia that well. Students move fast and miss information: They immediately flee a Web site when confronted with a page full of dense text, not even bothering to read the first sentence. Their lack of patience and their confidence in their ability to use the Web reduces their interest in figuring out a Web site. The latest Nielsen Norman report is reminiscent of a separate study by social media expert Danah Boyd earlier this year, which indicated that college students -- contrary to popular belief -- care about privacy online. It found students not only tweak their privacy settings on Facebook, but are more likely to do so than a year ago.
MTV Networks (MTVN) has implemented Janrain Engage to give site visitors one log-in across the network of more than 50 properties, as well as the ability to share articles, comments, and video clips with friends on multiple social networks and sites including Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and MySpace. After about six weeks into deployment across seven sites, MTVN has identified positive trends through A/B testing, but it's too early to speculate about specifics because of the variety of sites the network runs, according to T.J. Marchetti, VP of social media product development at MTV Networks. "We replaced the Facebook Connect integration and then allowed all the brands to design specific experiences such as setting up how they would like to see registration screens," he says. The technology aims to remove hurdles and allow site visitors to connect and share content more easily. The content is shared on social networks and draws visitors back to the MTVN sites. The process is the same for TeenNick.com as it is for VH1.com, ColbertNation.com or TheDailyShow.com. The company plans to extend the deployment throughout 2011. The ability to post back to multiple social networks allows site visitors to share messages with friends. Larry Drebes, Janrain chief executive officer, says the MTVN properties now have a 12-to-1 referral rate. That means 12 additional clicks occur for the one post. "It's free marketing for the properties by the users," he says. Another advantage to outsourcing the social feature means it removes engineering burdens from MTVN, putting the responsibility on Janrain, Drebes says. That movement created a new service industry for Janrain. About half of the company's nearly fifty employees are engineers or have technical skills. He tends to hire the "Web heads" -- those a little on the "nerdy side." Web operators want to increasingly outsource technology not central to their core content, so Janrain staked out user management as a service where it can excel. There's a ton of operational behind-the-scenes plumbing, from privacy and security, that the company can support. As more focus turns to consumer data it will become more important for companies to get it correct. MTVN joins the list of entertainment companies adopting Janrain. They include Universal Music Group, EMI Music, Warner Music, Windup Records and Sonora, Terra Networks.
2010 was the year social video advertising officially arrived, according to new research from Web video analytics firm Visible Measures. Indeed, categories that produced millions of views in 2009 generated hundreds of millions in 2010, while the number of active brands in social video advertising more than doubled. In particular, campaigns like Old Spice's The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, Nike's Write the Future, and Pepsi's Oh Africa captured the attention of audiences across the world. Overall, the number of brands participating in social video advertising exploded. In 2009, fewer than 450 brands launched social video ad campaigns, while that number more than doubled this year to reach nearly 1,000 brands. In 2009, the industry saw less than 700 social video campaigns, including Evian's Roller Babies, T-Mobile's Dance, Cadbury's Eyebrow Dance, and Volkswagen's Fun Theory. In 2010, however, social video advertising was home to 1,800+ campaigns -- a 180% increase year-over-year. What's more, social video campaigns generated 820+ million views and 1.5 million comments in 2009, while in 2010, these numbers increased to 2.7 billion views -- a jump of over 3.3X -- and 4.4 million comments. In 2010, other participating brands included McDonald's, Burger King, Coke, Nike, Adidas, Walmart, Target, Verizon, AT&T, Ford and Volkswagen, to name a few. The most-watched category of the year was health and beauty, which collected over 390 million views -- 14% of all social video advertising in 2010. This is in large part thanks to Old Spice, which inspired over 180 million views for the year. Nearly 70 million of these views come from their revolutionary Responses campaign. By comparison, the entire health and beauty category attracted just 44 million views in 2009. Yet, as more brands incorporate social video advertising into their marketing mix, the competition only continues to escalate, making it more difficult for brands to separate themselves from the pack and stand out to their target audiences, according to Visible Measures. These trends are likely to continue into 2011, according to the firm. As more audiences come online and watch social video, we'll see more brands, more campaigns, and more competition, all in efforts to influence consumer choice.