• Your Google Plus FAQ
    By now, you've had a chance to try out Google Plus or read countless posts about it from the lucky thousands or millions or however many have access. If you're like me, you've jumped from one column saying how it's Google's best homegrown social service ever (compared to Orkut, Buzz, Wave, Knol, and Lively) to the next saying it follows in the footsteps of Google's other homegrown social services (see Orkut, Buzz, Wave, Knol, and Lively). You don't have time for any more of that. Let's cut to the chase with an FAQ, penned by someone who has no …
  • Did Google+ Just Exploit A Facebook Vulnerability?
    I remain unconvinced that Google needs to be a runaway success at something else, but in launching the Google+ project yesterday which exploits the biggest problem with Facebook, I'm rooting for it to finally get social networking right.
  • Beware Of Headlines About Facebook's Dominance Of Display Ads
    Maybe you saw the news: that, per eMarketer, Facebook is about to pass another milestone. The research firm said it will surpass Yahoo in display ads by the end of the year, with a 17.7% share of the overall market, a huge jump from the 12.2% share it had last year. On the one hand, this news is a long time coming. When you consider that Yahoo has been in a downward spiral at least since it was temporarily engaged to Steve Ballmer, it seems surprising that it's taken this long for Facebook to pass it by in this most …
  • 20 New Confessions Of A Foursquare Super Mayor
    Congrats, Foursquare, on reaching the 10 million user milestone. It's an impressive feat, as your momentum took off even as Facebook launched its rival check-in and deals programs. As for me, I still can't quit you. It was just a year ago when I listed 20 confessions of a Super Mayor after earning a virtual badge for being the most frequent visitor of 10 separate locations. Somehow, I still rank as a Super Mayor. On this occasion, with Foursquare's user count roughly six times what it was a year ago, here are 20 more confessions.
  • Don't Let the Facebook Numbers Get You Down -- Or, Why Advertisers Sometimes Get All Confused About 'The Internets'
    We started the week with the news that after months and months of ascendance, traffic to Facebook in May was actually down in the U.S., according to Inside Facebook, which said that active users dropped by six million. Meanwhile, there has recently been hand-wringing over Groupon's planned IPO. Forrester's Sucharita Mulpuru said in an open letter to the social commerce site's potential investors last week that " there is no rational math that could possibly get anyone to the valuation Groupon thinks it deserves."
  • 101 Types Of Mobile Social Alerts
    Ever since Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), the coverage I've read has been far more excited about the forthcoming alert upgrades in iOS, Apple's mobile operating system, than the iCloud launch or hundreds of other updates. As more prominent alerts lead to even faster adoption of various mobile services and technologies, mobile social media should be disproportionately affected. If you wonder why, remember that the Internet was always designed to be for communication above any other purpose. Mobile devices are similarly designed around communication first. We're social creatures, and we'll always pay the most attention to what other people are …
  • Will Twitter's Integration Into Apple's New iOS Change Its Nature?
    When it comes to Twitter, much has been said this week about Apple's integration of Twitter into the newest version of its iOS, coming this fall to an iPad, an iPhone, or an iPod Touch near you. Basically, this means it will be easier to share things via Twitter on Apple mobile devices than it ever has been before.
  • Don't Be A Weiner
    Congressman Anthony Weiner, representing New York's 9th district, has many accomplishments under his belt, from putting at-risk teens to work removing graffiti in a program he called "Weiner's Cleaners" to getting elected "Whip" of his Congressional class. Marketers will be wise to pay attention to something else that happened under his belt, as the representative publicly posted a photo of that region to his Twitter account when he meant to send it as a private direct message instead. Marketers, "Wienergate" can happen to you, but the power to prevent it is in your hands. Here are some helpful dos and …
  • How Will Facebook Change The Face Of My College Reunion?
    I've written in this space from time to time about how fascinating it's been to watch the steady creep of people from my high school and college years onto Facebook. As I've said before, when I first joined about five years ago, I felt like the only person of my age group who was a member of the service. I signed up because I was assigned a story on social networks; it was certainly the only way to report on them. I found that seeing the interface was helpful in understanding how things like news feeds actually operated, but it …
  • The 7 Social Stages of NFC
    If near field communication (NFC) wasn't already the most-buzzed-about technology of the year, the debut of Google Wallet made it more or less official. NFC is a way for devices (commonly mobile phones) with specially equipped electronic tags to communicate with payment terminals, kiosks, signage, or anything else with embedded readers; the device and the tag reader need to be within an inch or so of each other. NFC is commonly discussed in terms of payment services, but the implications are far bigger. As you grapple with what NFC means for social media, you'll likely experience seven stages:
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