India Blames Pakistan for Social Media Mischief by Erik Sass

Social media is now intertwined with geopolitics, and not always in a good way, as illustrated by rising tensions in south Asia, where India is accusing Pakistan of contributing to rumor-mongering which provoked a mass exodus in India last week. As noted in a post last week, the situation in India traces back to ethnic and religious conflict in the country's northeast, where some 80 Muslims, many of them settlers from across the border in Bangladesh, have been killed by locals in the northeastern state of Assam. As a result, northeastern Indians living in other parts of India feared that ...Read the whole story

  • automotive Nissan's Pathfinder: Something To Laugh About by Karl Greenberg

    The 12-hour "Improv-tastic Road Trip," starting at 8 a.m. on Aug. 20, involves the performers taking online suggestions, then immediately writing and performing personalized videos as fast as they can turn them around and post them online. ...Read the whole story

  • cause-related The IRC Goes Social With Hyper Island And Gyro by Karl Greenberg

    The program brings 450 students to a training facility, Hyper Island, to receive a four-day assignment: come up with a campaign that will raise awareness, support and donations for the IRC's work stopping domestic violence in developing countries. ...Read the whole story

Using The Interest Graph To Target Social Ads To Gen Y by Jon Elvekrog

Demographic profiles have long been used by marketers to segment their audience and enable them to target offers to people who are more likely to be receptive than the general population. For example, a marketer for Forever 21 might target the single, female, middle-class, age 18 to 24, college-educated demographic. ...More

  • What If We Got This Whole Facebook Thing Wrong? by Catharine P. Taylor

    There are times when I'm sure we've gotten this Facebook thing -- and maybe this social media thing -- all wrong. When it comes to the Facebook IPO, yesterday was a day like any other day. Well, perhaps it was even more of a day like any other, because there was a clear, mathematical reason the stock dropped: the first lockup expired. This, of course, means that the Interwebs are full of almost gleeful headlines about Facebook's crash-and-burn: ...More

  • insight Pinning Down The Future Of Pinterest by Drew Neisser

    Since speculating on the future of Pinterest has become a sport in and of itself, this seems like the appropriate moment to get my 5 best guesses together for the upcoming Social Media Insider Summit, where "what's next for Pinterest" will be a subject of great debate. ...More