Facebook’s Comment Box Plugin goes Mobile
Facebook rolled out the mobile equivalent of its comments box plugin, which makes it easier for media sites to engage browsers across the web and for users to leave behind scathing epithets which are now connected to a face. The plugin will automatically appear on the mobile version of websites that have already implemented the Comment Box. For technical details on how to incorporate Comments Box on your site, visit here.

Watch the Throne: Twitter (and the Internet) Welcomes Blue Ivy
After months of speculation, figure watching, and uterus vigils, mogul couple Jay Z and Beyonce welcomed destined and slightly-pressured-to-be-gifted daughter Blue Ivy, alongside countless other well wishers on the Internet. Social analytics firm Simply Measured graciously provided Mashable a graph of “Beyonce’s Baby Hype,” confirming that around 11:15pm on Saturday, Jan 7^th, tweets per minute peaked at 2,379. That’s a lot of “watch the crown” jokes.

Tweet @MichelleObama
First Lady Michelle Obama has joined the many on Twitter in time to support the President’s campaign now that elections are drawing near. Like most accounts, hers will be run primarily by campaign staff, but all personal tweets will be signed with a “mo.’ At the time of copy, the First Lady’s account already had 250,509 followers, but this will soon change.

Google: We Never Indexed “@” to Begin With
Google and Twitter’s increasingly public spat about recent decisions and changes to  search results –  Google’s “Google Plus Your World” –  is just getting started. After Twitter’s Alex Macgillivray pointed out specific examples of Google’s  skewed search feature which highlighted the exclusion of Twitter related terms  -  more harmful than good –   Google has officially went on record to say that “@” was never indexed to begin with, and the engine would have never recognized a handle formatted in such a way to begin with. While Twitter’s concerns are certainly valid, the termination of its agreement with Google regarding appearing in real time results may have played a factor into this.

London Olympics Volunteers Prohibited from Social Media
Volunteers at the 2012 London Olympics will find themselves being asked to put down their phones now that the organizing committee has released its social media policy, effective for all 70,000 plus volunteers. While volunteers are allowed to retweet and relay official news, releases, and statements, they will be prohibited from posting VIP or backstage pictures, disclose any breaking news pertaining to athletes – or discuss athletes for that matter – or get involved in detailed discussions about the games. While it’s a lot of preemptive damage and image control, we can’t help but wonder what the penalties of slip-ups will be?

Marvel Times the Avengers movie with Facebook Game
In suspiciously convenient timing, Disney has revealed that the very first Disney branded Facebook game will be a combat RPG game titled Marvel: Avenger’s Alliance. Although no one has confirmed yet that the game release is intended to time with the Avenger’s movie, the tie in is certainly helpful as some of the superhero cast is part of the Avengers team. A release date has yet to be announced, but will launch in first quarter.

Facebook Begins News Feed Ads
We reported not too long ago that Facebook had plans for rolling out featured ads directly within user’s newsfeeds, saying that they were expected to start January. The difference is however, that instead of being called “Sponsored Stories” as many originally thought, newsfeed ads will be going by moniker “Featured” instead. Add this with Facebook’s new “Listen With” feature (which aims to ultimately bring you back to Facebook chat), and you’ve got yourself a feed full of potential annoyances.

MySpace Keeps On, Carries On
MySpace still lives. The now ancient social media platform has managed to weather many a storm, ignore the cruel japes of the Internet, and retain 12 minutes of user’s time and attention span. What’s truly mind boggling however, is how it’s still a bigger platform than Tumblr and Google + (could it be from user accounts that were never deleted?). Maybe the second life is due to Justin Timberlake’s attempts to revive MySpace’s relevancy with a TV service.  Cue the “I’m bringing MySpace back” parodies.

Did we miss anything? Let us know and join in on the buzz here! 

Twitter is a wordsmith’s best friend, so it’s no surprise that authors flock to the micro-social networking service to help launch their books. While most book launch campaigns on Twitter go under the radar, every once in awhile a hashtag will hit it big, or at least be so interesting that you can’t help give it some props. There are no hard or fast rules when it comes to successfully building awareness about a book through Twitter, but by looking at two recent examples, we can glean some insights on how to run a successful Twitter campaign.

ROUTE #1 – Connect with the people

Back in September, British author (and Twitter addict with over 1 million followers) Lord Alan Sugar took to Twitter to launch his new ebook The Way I See It, a non-fiction anthology of his rants and ravings about everything. Using the hashtag #thewayiseeit, he called upon his followers to use the hashtag to tweet their rants at him so he could use them to sign copies of his book. For a more in-depth look at the campaign that was considered “the first Twitter book signing” watch the brief video below.

So why did this work? For starters, the author already had a built in audience – which always helps – but what he asked Tweeps to do was already a natural extension of something that happens on Twitter – ranting. That’s it. All he wanted was for people to use the hashtag and to Tweet their rants in 140 characters or less.

The results? Within 24 hours there was a grand total of 350,000 tweets using that hashtag and over 2,500 mentioned Lord Sugar directly. For more, read this article. 

Route #2 – Be Creative

When in doubt, do something funny. Twitter is a place where witty people come together to show how funny they can be. Why? People love it. So it was no surprise that the Random House Twitter campaign for the release of their zombie apocalypse book Zone One by Colson Whitehead was a success.

Utilizing the hashtag #RHZombies, Random House and ALL of their imprints took to Twitter to broadcast the publisher-wide zombie attack.

In total, the hashtag #RHZombies was used 211 times and even noted for it’s cleverness in some major book blogs like GalleyCat and BookRiot.

So, my advice for your soon-to-be-published book? Get your publisher involved! The Twitter campaign for Zone One was led by publishers, who on average usually have more followers and Klout. Getting them to launch a hashtag campaign on your behalf is always a great starting point.

If you aren’t as lucky to have the backing of a big name publisher or are self-publishing,  go the Alan Sugar route and make your hashtag relevant to the world. Be creative but simple. Make sure your hashtag is short enough so people can incorporate it into their own tweets (space is prime real estate!) but creative so that it will incite others to participate in the conversation.

We’re incredibly saddened by Steve Job’s passing. We don’t want to think about what the Internet, Digital Age, and technology would be right now if not for his innovative genius. Instead, we’d like to take the time to remember Mr. Jobs for all the wonderful gifts he bestowed on us and the world through his brilliance and ingenuity.

IPOD PHOTO (2004)

“It was clunky, somewhat pointless, and expensive (+$400.)  But it was the first ‘big’ gift I gave my wife, she loved it, and now I’m married to her.  Thanks Apple!” – Patrick

MAVIS BEACON TEACHES TYPING (1987)

“You don’t get to a wicked fast transcription speed of 140 WPM by just lounging about punching the keyboard with two fingers when talking smack on the Internet. My proper form and uncanny knowledge of key placement is all thanks to a very special lady named Mavis Beacon, who taught me typing.” – Christina

APPLE IIe (1983)

“For me, it was the Apple IIe – while I cut my teeth as an 8 year-old writing BASIC code on my RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer (when I was a kid, you had to make your own games!), I would often go to my local public library and pay $5/hr to use their Apple IIe that allowed me to… save my code on floppy disks!” – Bob

IPOD TOUCH (2007)

“I was waiting for someone to come up with a touchscreen, wifi-enabled, large capacity, portable player that’s as sleek and cheep as my 64GB iTouch. It helped me in my apartment searches and was a gateway drug that led me into getting a smart phone. I’ve had it for almost two years now and it hasn’t failed me yet.” – Sloan

MACINTOSH GAMES

Prince of Persia (1989)

Oregon Trail Deluxe (1992)

Myst (1993)

“My lifelong love of video gaming began so tenderly when I got my first Macintosh. Thanks to CD ROM games and Steve, I was able to drink potions and fight with swords in Prince of Persia, die of dysentery along the Oregon Trail and cultivate a Nancy Drew-like obsession with another world in Myst.” - Margot

1st GENERATION iPod (2001)

“I bought a first generation iPod and used my newfound musical freedom to spend hours at the gym, losing over 100 pounds in the process.  That said, Steve Jobs also gave us Feist. So no one is perfect.” – Andrew

iTunes (2001)

“iTunes revolutionized not only the way people organize and buy their music but it revolutionized the industry model for digital downloads as the first legitimate recognized independent source for downloading music. The success of iTunes downloads continues to be a benchmark of the music industry and digital albums/downloads now have their own places on the Billboard Music charts.” – Erica

While our favorite gifts hold personal significance for us, they still don’t encompass Steve Jobs’ vision and what he came to embody – beyond Apple even. Warren, who heads our West Coast office, summed it best:

“I’d say the biggest gift from Steve isn’t so much a product but a philosophy on product design and development.  There are so many products out there that are weakened by making compromises, adding features and not focusing on what’s good for the consumer.  He proved that this customer-centric philosophy can be massively profitable.  Hopefully, something that other brands can slowly adopt so that technology makes our lives easier, not harder.” – Warren

How to Enable Facebook Timeline – Now

If you were like us, you also listened in on Facebook’s f8 conference yesterday. We’re intrigued by Facebook’s new Timeline feature , which masks its slight creepy omniscience about cataloging your every action in your Facebook lifespan with pretty aesthetics. While we could wait a few more days until Timeline goes public, we’d rather just access it right now, bugs and all. For those still unsure of what Facebook Timeline really is, never fear. Get brought up to speed with the video here.

Facebook Rolls Out “Gestures” (Or Is It “Verbs”?)

In addition to the hotly anticipated Timeline, Facebook also rolled out new “gestures” (though some are calling it “verbs”) that’ll allow users to verb any noun they please. Developers and partners will now be able to turn any verb into a button that users can utilize to better inform subscribers of actions, whether to announce they’ve just finished reading a book or watched a movie. No word yet on whether someone will develop the long awaited “dislike” button. While Timeline and Gestures are receiving the most press, they’re just a few of the changes coming to Facebook. To get the full summary on six major changes, visit here.

Google Launches Google Wallet

Google announced the official launch of “Google wallet,” which allows you to pay for real life products by simply tapping your NFC-enabled Android phone against a reader. However, in addition to only being available to Android users, there’s still another catch, as Google is exclusively releasing this to those in the Sprint Nexus S network, leaving other networks waiting. At the moment, you can only pay for the feature with either pre-paid Google cards or Citi Mastercards, but the company intends to provide support for Visa, Discover, and American Express.

Political Ads Hit Twitter

With an election right around the corner, we expect to be bombarded by campaign ads and endorsements throughout all sorts of mediums, including Twitter, which has started accepting political advertising. With candidates looking to increase online presence and utilize social media to further discourse, this is undoubtedly a smart move. For the most part, campaign tweets will function exactly like Promoted Products, save for the disclaimer icon that’ll reveal who paid for the endorsement. Mitt Romney’s committee has been the first to purchase one.

Rick Santorum Googles Himself, Is Not Amused

Speaking of politics, we like to search ourselves every now and then, but we’ve never seen a result that we didn’t like, unlike presidential hopeful Rick Santorum. In a rather bizarre mobius strip of Google and not knowing how the Internet works, the presidential hopeful contacted Google to complain about the search results for his name  – specifically, the first result which highlights the definition of his name as frothy byproduct from a certain orifice, linked to a website erected in 2003 by sex columnist and LGBT activist Dan Savage. Naturally, this will lead to people searching “Rick Santorum” to see what the fuss is about, driving his actual website and Wikipedia article even further below.

When Ghostwriters Go Rogue

We had a bit of a laugh at Social Marketing & Communications Strategist Mark Davidson, who forgot to change his Twitter password after firing one of his three ghostwriters. The spurned writer took to Davidson’s account with eight scathing messages about his employer’s lack of social media savvy. One in particular, “he can  barely type social media much less know what it is,” is stinging. Ouch!

Did we miss a bit of buzz? Let us know and join in on the conversation here!

Twitter Coordinates Cleanups with #riotcleanup

Like the riots seen in Egypt and Iran earlier this year, Twitter and social media has been seen as playing a major role in the London riots this week. Although some have blasted Twitter and Facebook for somehow causing the destruction, there’s been a positive use of the medium as well. The morning after of rioting, microbloggers and users tapped into Twitter and riotcleanup.org to coordinate mass cleanups. The result was a mass outpouring of support and community unity in an effort to reclaim neighborhoods.

Avoid the Noid with Nostalgia and a Facebook Campaign

Domino’s mascot Noid was briefly called back from retirement to man a Facebook campaign (we didn’t realize how much we missed those commercials until we found some on Youtube). The hot pizza hater has been the star of an 8-bit Facebook game that rewards high score users with a $10 Domino’s gift certificate (though our attempts were constantly rebuffed with an “out of order” sign). You can still catch him if you can – he’ll be around until August 15^th.

QR Codes Get Cheeky

Brand shilling and sponsorships with sports teams is hardly news – we’ve long become used to seeing the shilling commercials and the logos on stadium walls. But for a bare minimum sport like women’s beach volleyball, what’s an athlete to do? British beach volleyball players Shauna Mullin and Zara Dampney will be sporting QR codes on their bikini bottoms during Visa FIVB Beach Volleyball International. A different approach, but we’re wondering just how close one would have to get to capture a clear shot.

Random Buzzers Up For the Vote at Forrester Groundswell Awards!

We’re proud of our work with Random House on their young adult community Random Buzzers, so we’re pleased to announce that we’ve submitted Random Buzzers to win a Forrester Groundswell Award in the  Energizing Category! Give our entry a read and vote for us!

Fury and Confusion at Facebook get Dialed Up a Notch

Earlier today, Facebook users spawned a mass upheaval with alarming statuses alerting others that Facebook had synced phone numbers and contacts to publish for the public. Needless to say, this left a spew of vitriol accusing Facebook of another invasion of privacy. However, it appears that these warnings are unfounded and bogus. According to this announcement on All Facebook, the contacts one would see are pulled from Facebook’s Phonebook, which has already existed for quite some time.

Facebook has responded to the uproar with this public statement:

 “Rumors claiming that your phone contacts are visible to everyone on Facebook are false. Our Contacts list, formerly called Phonebook, has existed for a long time. The phone numbers listed there were either added by your friends themselves and made visible to you, or you have previously synced your phone contacts with Facebook. Just like on your phone, only you can see these numbers.”

If this still bothers you, you can delete your number from Facebook’s Phonebook or unsync your phone from your Facebook contacts.

LinkedIn Sincerely Imitates Facebook’s Most Unflattering Features

Unfortunately, this is not a hoax: LinkedIn has updated your account with all sorts of new default settings, including opting you in to use your image in their advertising. One small blog post shedding light on the situation was all it took for a social media storm to erupt, causing the company to address and re-consider their position. Kudos to the company for responding quickly – we wouldn’t expect anything less from a social media company. That said, blog posts and banner ads announcing changes to privacy policies are (clearly) not enough to get the word out, so perhaps it’s time for these platforms to stop offending users with the automatic opt-in. Why not use those banner ads and blog posts to announce the new opportunities they’d like the masses to check-out?

Facebook and Google Pelt Each Other with Angry Birds

While the “friendly” rivalry for web dominance between Facebook and Google has been anything but secretive, both companies have made some public moves. Google Plus put the heat on Facebook by tapping into one of its lucrative revenues – its games. Google recently added a “games” tab, rolling out 12 new games, including Zynga Poker, Bejeweled Blitz and the very popular Angry Birds. In addition to allying with Zynga (a major Facebook game developer), Plus offered to take a 5 percent cut of virtual goods transactions, while Facebook takes 30 percent. Facebook immediately revealed its own update after Google’s unveiling: a separate stream of gaming activity which includes a ticker, scores, and updates; the option to add FB games to ones’ homepage bookmark section; and the ability to expand games full screen. We’re pleased at the option of playing Angry Birds on Plus, but we really want to hear about the supposed sequel – Angry Pigs.

4Sq Wants You to Join (and Write)

In an effort to create more content, Foursquare has rolled out the option of creating your very own follow page to leave tips. While current users cannot convert their accounts into follow pages, new users – who don’t have to be brands – can do so. Ordinary joes must meet the minimum requirements which includes posting at least five tips and uploading a picture to their account; helping to compete against other location-content providers like Yelp. We hope someone takes the time to create a page dedicated to tips on free (and clean) restrooms across the city.

Did we miss a bit of buzz? Let us know and join in on the conversation here!

While Like might make sense as an action for objects and products, Like’s place in the lexicon of customer advocacy has remained a popular topic of discussion.  Brands have been rather perplexed as to what to call their legion of, dare we say followers.

We’ve seen brands change “Become A Fan” copy to “Like Us,” and some have taken the “Fan” copy down without a replacement.  Still others (ex 2) have kept Fan  for better or worse.

Facebook hasn’t made things any easier, populating their “Like Box” with the statement “Brand X has ### fans,” re-naming the Page wall filter from “Just Fans” to “Just Others,”  (Others?  Are we on Lost?), and providing this description in their Brand Permissions Guidelines:

“When inviting users to like your Page, say ‘like our Page’ or ‘become a fan by clicking Like on our Page.“

It seems this shift has struck a chord among consumers as well, as indicated by a recent Mashable poll which reported that ‘Become A Fan’ was more popular than ‘Like’ by nearly 2-1 among Mashable readers.

Some industry folks have summed up Like’s clumsiness in a recent tweets:

There are more serious implications under the surface of the language change, and ReadWriteWeb aptly covered  these concerns a couple months back so I won’t get into that here.

For now, you might want to consider referencing Like as it pertains to the direct action of clicking the button on the page, and perhaps try other verbs such as “Connect” for less direct calls to action (such as a link to visit the page).  Using Fan as a noun still works outside of Facebook and as a reference to users already connected to a page, but keep in mind that Facebook probably won’t be changing the Open Graph nomenclature any time soon so it’s going to be Like until it’s something else.  I didn’t think ‘Become A Fan’ was the most universally contextual phrase for pages in the first place, preferring “Connect” or “Join” or “Subscribe” as a more accurate descriptor of the result of the opt-in action and to avoid blanketing consumers as having the same brand sentiment.  But alas, if we’ve learned anything from Facebook it’s that they do what they “Like!”

Now go “elf” yourself…