Discounters are upping their digital game this school year, with both Walmart and Target making it easier for shoppers to do more of the season’s heavy lifting online. Walmart says it has launched a microsite called classrooms.walmart.com, which compiles thousands of classroom supply lists, with schools in all 50 states participating. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer says it is the first major retailer to digitize supply lists, which allow shoppers to buy items either online or at their local store. (Local school supply lists will also be available in Walmart stores, it says.) And at Target, a site called Target.com/college and the Target mobile app will direct shoppers to a new feature called uStyler, which allows kids to mix and match dorm looks, and then share via social media. It has also introduced a sweepstakes called the Target Stuff Scholarship, where one lucky winner gets “a one-year supply of Ramen, a one-year supply of makeup and enough flip flops to outfit the entire dorm floor.” To enter, ramen-lovers complete a video interview and post it on their social media pages. A panel of judges will look at the five entries that generate the most votes, and select the final winner. Target also has list features, which can be printed at in-store kiosks, promotions, and coupons. And of course, the Minneapolis-based chain is continuing its after-hours bussing program, now in its 11th year, private shopping events for incoming freshman at 69 colleges and universities across the country. The chain is also offering an additional 5% off online orders using the REDCard, as well as free shipping. For stores, back-to-school kicks off the important fourth quarter, and is the second-most-important sales event of the year, after the winter holidays. But Walmart says that for parents, it may even be more symbolic, with 76% of the moms it surveyed regarding it as more of a fresh start than January 1. Nine out of 10 even make school-year resolutions, it reports, with 78% vowing they will be more organized this school year, 75% hoping to save more money, and 61% making healthy eating a higher priority.
Businesses that are building online reputations through Google+, Facebook and Twitter along with search tools are finding their hard-earned recommendations disappearing, impacting their reputation and rankings in search results. Since Google migrated Google Places to Google+ Local in May, taking Zagat along with it, adding reviews and recommendations behind the Local tab in social network, there have been problems. Some business owners complain that new reviews don't show up and others mysteriously disappear. Abel Carpet Tile and Wood had a decrease from 25 reviews to 18. Mike Fasano, company owner, began to ask clients to write reviews on Yelp instead -- but the only "problem is most people use Google to search and not Yelp." Aside from recommendations and ratings, reviews contribute to rankings of Web sites and pages in Google's organic search results. The glitch could have small businesses reducing the money they spend with Google on AdWords. Fasano said he cut his monthly spend on Google in half since the problems with recommendations and ratings began. Paul Farah owns a taxi cab company in Phoenix. Until Google integrated Places into Local, he had 25 reviews. Some 22 had five stars; two negative reviews; and one with a rating, but no comment. A few weeks ago, half of the reviews disappeared from Google sites, leaving Paul's Taxi with 13. Now he has three. "I suddenly went from a five-star rating down to a one star literally overnight," he said, explaining that business has declined by one-third this weekend compared with the last few weeks. Google tries to copy old reviews when businesses migrate from Google Places accounts to a Google+ pages, but Larry Kim, founder and CTO at WordStream, admits it appears the search engine isn't migrating certain reviews that look like spam. It is also possible the migration process from Google Places to Google+ business pages is buggy and broken, and legitimate reviews are getting lost in the process. "This is really unfortunate for local businesses, because building an online reputation can take a long time, and is a tremendously valuable asset to lose," Kim said. "There are a lot of Google business pages that have old reviews on them, which leads me to believe that this is some weird bug or spam filter." As an experiment to see if a review would post, Farah created a Yahoo email account and then went down the street to Kinko's and logged into one of their computers to review his own business. It never registered. One issue seems related to new Google+ accounts. The system will not allow people to open an account and then post a review. Google explains the issues around disappearing reviews, but the problem continues. Farah isn't the only small business that is struggling. Some small business owners like Drake Hatfield, who runs Hatfield Media, a video production company in Louisville, Kentucky, got so frustrated he made a new Google+ page and decided to start the review process from scratch. Graphic designer Nick Harris explains that reviews seem to appear and disappear without notice. "This is the third time I have had to ask customers to write reviews on my Google Places page," he explains."As a small business, this is killing me."
Brand-focused social graph analytics firm 33Across this morning announced a $13.1 million round of equity funding, which it plans to use to “significantly expand” its presence in the advertising and publishing industries. The funding comes six months after 33Across’ acquisition of so-called “interest graph” tracker Tynt, and its current client roster includes more than 600,000 publishers and more than 375 Fortune 1,000 marketers. The round was led by new investor Pelion Ventures, with continued support from existing investors Flybridge Capital, Greycroft Partners, First Round Capital, iNovia Capital, Panorama Capital, QED Investors, Metamorphic Ventures, and Great Oaks Ventures. To date, the company has raised more than $26 million in total. The company said the funds would help accelerate an already healthy rate of growth, noting that revenue grew 468% since it launched in 2008. “The term ‘social graph’ is more often associated with Facebook than any other technology company,” stated Chad Packard, General Partner of Pelion Ventures. “However, there is a wide-open race underway to determine who will most successfully leverage anonymous social data gleaned from billions of actions taking place across the ‘rest-of-Web’. Clearly, we and our investor partners have placed our bets on 33Across.”
Gearing up to grow its media holdings, social-media marketer and ad network Say Media has raised $27 million in funding. Led by new investor NEA, existing investors Shea Ventures and Correlation Ventures also participated in the round. Say Media CEO Matt Sanchez said Thursday that the investment was more than enough to scale its media network, and continue to build its leadership team. “We are well-positioned to lead the publishing industry into a digital world," he said. Just last week, the company said Kim Kelleher, currently publisher at Time, would be coming on board as the company’s new president in September. Say Media was formed in 2010 with ad network VideoEgg's acquisition of blogging services company Six Apart. For a time, the combined company sought to compete with largely lifestyle-based vertical ad networks, like Glam Media and Federated Media. More recently, however, Say has been focused on what it calls new publishing "experiences," like the one it created for Jane Pratt's women's lifestyle destination, XoJane.com, last year. In essence, the site attributed higher engagement levels to several Say Media innovations, including cross-promotion of relevant content, simpler user experiences and faster load times. In addition to Kelleher, Say recently added Christina Cranley, former SVP at Martha Stewart and publisher of Everyday Food and Whole Living, as its vice president of sales for the East Coast. What’s more, former CBS exec Sam Parker also recently came on as COO, while former Condé Nast exec Kourosh Karimkhany joined the leadership team as head of integration. All together, Say currently boasts some 400 employees around the world. Already building its portfolio of media properties, Say Media’s recent acquisitions include tech news publisher ReadWriteWeb and design “sourceboard” Remodelista. The company presently owns and operates six properties, and has 13 exclusive publisher partnerships, including deals with Fashionista, Gear Patrol and Food52. More broadly, the company claims a network of some 500 sites, with a combined global reach of 400 million Web users.
Verizon plans to release an Olympics TV app, dubbed the Verizon Olympics 2012 widget, built on the Ensequence platform to make the TV experience more social. The app automatically populates with content from the NBC Olympics and allows viewers to use their remotes to search for and read top news stories, events schedule, athlete bios, as well as play more than 50 video clips. Opening Olympics ceremonies are July 27. The Verizon Olympics 2012 app supports an auto-scrolling feed about London and keeps count on who and what country won different medals. The viewer can toggle between the application and the video on the full screen via the FiOS TV button on the remote control. The application is available in the Widget Storefront and will be triggered on NBC, NBC Sports, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and Telemundo starting Wednesday. This is the first implementation of this type of app on Ensequence's cloud storage architecture, but it isn't the first time the company's technology supported interactive enhancements for Olympic Games. The company worked with Olympics and DISH Networks in 2008, and DISH and Verizon using EBIF in 2010. At the Social TV Summit in Los Angeles, Marc Karzen, CEO and executive producer at Relish, said TV is not a screen -- it is an experience. The idea of creating consistent quality content that ties in with social interactions becomes very compelling, he added. There are television shows that will add social interactive features next season, Karzen said. Television, however, isn't the only visual media reaching to combine live and social experiences. YouTube video channels have begun to schedule programming. The YouTube community has been focused on view counts, which helps to attract sponsors and advertisers.
Discounters are upping their digital game this school year, with both Walmart and Target making it easier for shoppers to do more of the season’s heavy lifting online. Walmart says it has launched a microsite called classrooms.walmart.com, which compiles thousands of classroom supply lists, with schools in all 50 states participating. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer says it is the first major retailer to digitize supply lists, which allow shoppers to buy items either online or at their local store. (Local school supply lists will also be available in Walmart stores, it says.) And at Target, a site called Target.com/college and the Target mobile app will direct shoppers to a new feature called uStyler, which allows kids to mix and match dorm looks, and then share via social media. It has also introduced a sweepstakes called the Target Stuff Scholarship, where one lucky winner gets “a one-year supply of Ramen, a one-year supply of makeup and enough flip flops to outfit the entire dorm floor.” To enter, ramen-lovers complete a video interview and post it on their social media pages. A panel of judges will look at the five entries that generate the most votes, and select the final winner. Target also has list features, which can be printed at in-store kiosks, promotions, and coupons. And of course, the Minneapolis-based chain is continuing its after-hours bussing program, now in its 11th year, private shopping events for incoming freshman at 69 colleges and universities across the country. The chain is also offering an additional 5% off online orders using the REDCard, as well as free shipping. For stores, back-to-school kicks off the important fourth quarter, and is the second-most-important sales event of the year, after the winter holidays. But Walmart says that for parents, it may even be more symbolic, with 76% of the moms it surveyed regarding it as more of a fresh start than January 1. Nine out of 10 even make school-year resolutions, it reports, with 78% vowing they will be more organized this school year, 75% hoping to save more money, and 61% making healthy eating a higher priority.
Businesses that are building online reputations through Google+, Facebook and Twitter along with search tools are finding their hard-earned recommendations disappearing, impacting their reputation and rankings in search results. Since Google migrated Google Places to Google+ Local in May, taking Zagat along with it, adding reviews and recommendations behind the Local tab in social network, there have been problems. Some business owners complain that new reviews don't show up and others mysteriously disappear. Abel Carpet Tile and Wood had a decrease from 25 reviews to 18. Mike Fasano, company owner, began to ask clients to write reviews on Yelp instead -- but the only "problem is most people use Google to search and not Yelp." Aside from recommendations and ratings, reviews contribute to rankings of Web sites and pages in Google's organic search results. The glitch could have small businesses reducing the money they spend with Google on AdWords. Fasano said he cut his monthly spend on Google in half since the problems with recommendations and ratings began. Paul Farah owns a taxi cab company in Phoenix. Until Google integrated Places into Local, he had 25 reviews. Some 22 had five stars; two negative reviews; and one with a rating, but no comment. A few weeks ago, half of the reviews disappeared from Google sites, leaving Paul's Taxi with 13. Now he has three. "I suddenly went from a five-star rating down to a one star literally overnight," he said, explaining that business has declined by one-third this weekend compared with the last few weeks. Google tries to copy old reviews when businesses migrate from Google Places accounts to a Google+ pages, but Larry Kim, founder and CTO at WordStream, admits it appears the search engine isn't migrating certain reviews that look like spam. It is also possible the migration process from Google Places to Google+ business pages is buggy and broken, and legitimate reviews are getting lost in the process. "This is really unfortunate for local businesses, because building an online reputation can take a long time, and is a tremendously valuable asset to lose," Kim said. "There are a lot of Google business pages that have old reviews on them, which leads me to believe that this is some weird bug or spam filter." As an experiment to see if a review would post, Farah created a Yahoo email account and then went down the street to Kinko's and logged into one of their computers to review his own business. It never registered. One issue seems related to new Google+ accounts. The system will not allow people to open an account and then post a review. Google explains the issues around disappearing reviews, but the problem continues. Farah isn't the only small business that is struggling. Some small business owners like Drake Hatfield, who runs Hatfield Media, a video production company in Louisville, Kentucky, got so frustrated he made a new Google+ page and decided to start the review process from scratch. Graphic designer Nick Harris explains that reviews seem to appear and disappear without notice. "This is the third time I have had to ask customers to write reviews on my Google Places page," he explains."As a small business, this is killing me."
Brand-focused social graph analytics firm 33Across this morning announced a $13.1 million round of equity funding, which it plans to use to “significantly expand” its presence in the advertising and publishing industries. The funding comes six months after 33Across’ acquisition of so-called “interest graph” tracker Tynt, and its current client roster includes more than 600,000 publishers and more than 375 Fortune 1,000 marketers. The round was led by new investor Pelion Ventures, with continued support from existing investors Flybridge Capital, Greycroft Partners, First Round Capital, iNovia Capital, Panorama Capital, QED Investors, Metamorphic Ventures, and Great Oaks Ventures. To date, the company has raised more than $26 million in total. The company said the funds would help accelerate an already healthy rate of growth, noting that revenue grew 468% since it launched in 2008. “The term ‘social graph’ is more often associated with Facebook than any other technology company,” stated Chad Packard, General Partner of Pelion Ventures. “However, there is a wide-open race underway to determine who will most successfully leverage anonymous social data gleaned from billions of actions taking place across the ‘rest-of-Web’. Clearly, we and our investor partners have placed our bets on 33Across.”
Gearing up to grow its media holdings, social-media marketer and ad network Say Media has raised $27 million in funding. Led by new investor NEA, existing investors Shea Ventures and Correlation Ventures also participated in the round. Say Media CEO Matt Sanchez said Thursday that the investment was more than enough to scale its media network, and continue to build its leadership team. “We are well-positioned to lead the publishing industry into a digital world," he said. Just last week, the company said Kim Kelleher, currently publisher at Time, would be coming on board as the company’s new president in September. Say Media was formed in 2010 with ad network VideoEgg's acquisition of blogging services company Six Apart. For a time, the combined company sought to compete with largely lifestyle-based vertical ad networks, like Glam Media and Federated Media. More recently, however, Say has been focused on what it calls new publishing "experiences," like the one it created for Jane Pratt's women's lifestyle destination, XoJane.com, last year. In essence, the site attributed higher engagement levels to several Say Media innovations, including cross-promotion of relevant content, simpler user experiences and faster load times. In addition to Kelleher, Say recently added Christina Cranley, former SVP at Martha Stewart and publisher of Everyday Food and Whole Living, as its vice president of sales for the East Coast. What’s more, former CBS exec Sam Parker also recently came on as COO, while former Condé Nast exec Kourosh Karimkhany joined the leadership team as head of integration. All together, Say currently boasts some 400 employees around the world. Already building its portfolio of media properties, Say Media’s recent acquisitions include tech news publisher ReadWriteWeb and design “sourceboard” Remodelista. The company presently owns and operates six properties, and has 13 exclusive publisher partnerships, including deals with Fashionista, Gear Patrol and Food52. More broadly, the company claims a network of some 500 sites, with a combined global reach of 400 million Web users.
Verizon plans to release an Olympics TV app, dubbed the Verizon Olympics 2012 widget, built on the Ensequence platform to make the TV experience more social. The app automatically populates with content from the NBC Olympics and allows viewers to use their remotes to search for and read top news stories, events schedule, athlete bios, as well as play more than 50 video clips. Opening Olympics ceremonies are July 27. The Verizon Olympics 2012 app supports an auto-scrolling feed about London and keeps count on who and what country won different medals. The viewer can toggle between the application and the video on the full screen via the FiOS TV button on the remote control. The application is available in the Widget Storefront and will be triggered on NBC, NBC Sports, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and Telemundo starting Wednesday. This is the first implementation of this type of app on Ensequence's cloud storage architecture, but it isn't the first time the company's technology supported interactive enhancements for Olympic Games. The company worked with Olympics and DISH Networks in 2008, and DISH and Verizon using EBIF in 2010. At the Social TV Summit in Los Angeles, Marc Karzen, CEO and executive producer at Relish, said TV is not a screen -- it is an experience. The idea of creating consistent quality content that ties in with social interactions becomes very compelling, he added. There are television shows that will add social interactive features next season, Karzen said. Television, however, isn't the only visual media reaching to combine live and social experiences. YouTube video channels have begun to schedule programming. The YouTube community has been focused on view counts, which helps to attract sponsors and advertisers.
Now that Mitt Romney is the clear front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, we’re seeing both Romney and Obama’s campaigns ratchet up their advertising in an effort to reach male voters going into November. Historically, most of the political spend for a Presidential election would be for television ads, but with Facebook’s enormous reach, it now exceeds that of both broadcast and print media. This should come as no surprise. Nearly 2.65 million cable and satellite TV subscribers have canceled their service since 2008 and now rely solely on Web-based services, e.g., Boxee, Apple TV, Hulu. Which means the general public, and men in general, are spending less time in front of the television and more time multi-tasking on the Internet. According to the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, there are only 58 million basic cable customers in the U.S. as of December 2011. During that same time period, Facebook claimed nearly 155 million U.S. users, totaling 52% of the population. Of that, 13.7% are males ages 18-20 years old, 17.5% are 21-24, 13.2% are 25-29, 10.2% are 30-34, 15.3% are 35-44 and 10.4% are 45-54, according to Facebook’s data. Since Facebook’s reach far surpasses that of broadcast and print media, why are politicians still investing their campaign dollars so heavily across print and broadcast outlets? President Obama’s 2008 election campaign was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to leveraging social media, but it did underscore social media’s potential to drive donations, virally seed campaign messages, sway voters and foster a sense of community and momentum around a candidate. As we will soon learn, there are myriad opportunities for both the Romney and Obama campaigns to effectively utilize Facebook to reach male (and female) voters. The fact is, Facebook’s incredible targeting options (geo, demo, keyword, etc.), coupled with its massive worldwide usage volume make it one of the best venues for political campaign dollars. Facebook’s robust demographic and interest-targeting capabilities allow campaigns to diversify messages to specific voter segments. This allows them to deliver messages to a male sub-audience based on their interests and background, not just sending out blanket messages to a larger demographic or geographic segment. The ability to hyper-target men via Facebook is a far more cost-effective approach to political campaigns than other media. This is due to the fact that ad spend is not being wasted on audiences that are disinterested in the content and delivery of the information. Engaging male voters by appealing to their specific demographic, interests and issues is key, and Facebook makes that easier and more effective than ever. But, more importantly, Facebook’s hyper-targeting capabilities also make it more difficult for your opponent to track and monitor your campaign. For instance, if you’re targeting young male voters on Facebook between ages of 18-20 years old or fans of Ron Paul, your opponent or others in their camp most likely will not be able to see these ads unless they fall within those targeting parameters – and let’s be honest, what are the chances of that. With Facebook, not only are you spending ad dollars in the right places, but it is far more cost effective compared to broadcast and traditional media.
Los Angeles social media agency Maximize Social Media LLC this week named Julie Stern Wills as its senior vice president. She will lead the company’s online advertising management division with a focus on Facebook advertising. “I am honored to be selected as the senior vice president,” said Stern Wills in a statement. Chris McLaughlin, CEO of Maximize Social Media LLC said in the statement, “We’re excited to have Julie on our team. She has a passion for social media and we couldn’t be happier to have her work with us.”
As far as digital is concerned, this is Marissa Mayer’s week, but let the Social Media Insider get your mind off that. For a few minutes, let’s not worry about whether a pregnant Silicon Valley superhero can really run a struggling Internet concern, and worry just a little bit, about Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, not to mention thousands of down-in-the-dumps Facebook shareholders. Yes, let’s talk (again) about Facebook. A week from now, Facebook will announce its first earnings as a public company, and the Social Media Insider, along with all those bitter Facebook haters, will be out in force. Given the context of these post-IPO months, these earnings will read like the Rosetta Stone of social media, whether that’s fair or not, so get ready. With that in mind, what I’m going to talk about today is a pretty ballsy report that came out this week from social media specialist TBG Digital, a major source of stats concerning what’s really going on with Facebook advertising. It’s the timing that’s ballsy. TBG, which based its current report on client data covering 406 billion impressions for 276 clients over the last year, will either find its report dovetails beautifully with what Facebook reports, or it won’t. If it doesn’t, that will only deepen the mystery of what’s really going on underneath the covers at Facebook and leave TBG with egg on its face. Now that I’ve successfully buried the lede -- as they say in the journo biz -- the data finds TBG downright bullish about Facebook. Some highlights:
It’s weeks like these where a sort of TV socialism seems appealing. How great is the free market anyway? TLC is making a bet on a reality show with Pete Rose, a sign that series with cameras trailing outré characters aren’t going anywhere. Viewers all over the place can’t watch networks as programmers and distributors blame each other for blackouts. And, the rush of Olympic-oriented commercialism is starting to build towards unavoidability starting next week. It makes one pine for the BBC. Would the broadcaster air a reality series featuring an odd cricket star about to get married to a decades-younger girlfriend? Its various channels don’t go off the air when a company that earned $4.6 billion in profit (DirecTV) last year can’t agree with one that had $3.7 billion (Viacom). And, there are no ads and no insulting product placements. The cost: less than $20 a month. The citizens of the U.K. fund the BBC by paying that amount, which will remain the same through 2016. (To be fair, the 20% of Americans with broadcast-only service pay less, though watch ads.) BBC programming seems to offer something for everyone from the U.K. version of the “The Voice” to impressive documentaries, including co-productions with the Discovery Channel, to plenty of top-tier sports. There was some talk that the Olympics would move at least partly off the BBC starting in 2014. But Wednesday, it was announced the Beeb had landed TV, digital and radio rights to the Games through 2020. All of the events will be “free-to-air." So unlike in the U.S., a home without pay-TV service won’t have to worry about missing favorite events on NBCUniversal outlets such as USA, Bravo or CNBC. And, BBC viewers will be able to watch online without going through the effective NBCU paywall. To top it off, viewers won’t run the risk of sickness from watching the same ads – no matter how stirring – over and over from the likes of Citi, GM and P&G. Actually, they won’t have to watch any ads from anyone. Capitalism does have some downsides.
No wonder television networks are wringing their hands over their social TV strategies. With the news from Pew this week that nearly half of cell phone users are on their phones while viewing TV, it’s understandable that broadcasters would be in a pickle about how to leverage this new behavior. Digital research firm Futurescape released a new report this week underscoring the concern and quandaries that broadcasters face over social TV. Many broadcasters aren’t sure how to approach social media, such as whether to align with existing platforms like Facebook or Twitter or to invest in social TV startups. The upshot is that they are trying a range of social TV tactics, many of which include online video. Several broadcasters have made investments in social TV startups. They include BSkyB in Britain with a 10% stake in Social TV startup zeebox, and Fox Broadcasting with a stake in ACTV8, which has rolled out apps for Fox shows such as New Girl. Then there’s ConnectTV, which is backed by Cox Media, EW Scripps, Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television and Meredith Corp, FutureScape said. Other networks have introduced their own social TV platforms such as NBC’s Chatline for Dateline, an app that works on computers, phones and tablets and integrates Facebook, Twitter, GetGlue and the Dateline site. That’s similar to HBO Connect, the premium network’s second-screen experience for its shows. But then there’s still another strategy -- that of networks linking closely to existing social venues such as Twitter and Facebook, which seems to be sort of a “duh, of course you’d do that” approach. But where will this net out? My money is on watching what works with the upcoming Olympics next week. This is a groundbreaking Games, and NBC continues to lead in online video by making its programming available across many platforms. In turn, many of those platforms will include social media components, such as the Facebook Talk Meter designed to encourage TV viewers to talk up the Olympics on Facebook, and Facebook users to watch on TV. The network has also built social media components into many of its apps for live streaming of the events. If NBC is successful with social TV strategies for the Games, including for video, then its approach may rise to the top. Social TV strategies are vital for networks because of the consumer reliance on cell phones. The Pew study said 23% of cell phone users text friends who are watching the same show in a different location. That’s the behavior that networks are trying to tap into with their social RC strategies. If they don’t capture that 23%, they’re losing a potential revenue stream.