I’d like to say the night started off with a bang! Fortunately it was just another night with The Bristol Creative Directors Network. A round table with 10 Bristol creatives enjoying a fabulous meal at Goldbrick House in the company of Chris Arnold.

For those not so familiar with Chris, he was Integrated Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi before setting up FEEL, which merged with Ron Leagas’ agency to form BLAC. In 2009 Chris started the world’s first independent creative department, a social enterprise and talent incubator all in one – Creative Orchestra. Chris is author of the newly published book, Ethical Marketing – http://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Marketing-Consumer-Chris-Arnold/dp/0470743026

Chris gave us real insight regarding his not for profit agency model and how a democratic voting system gives staff a sense of ownership. From choosing the type of business to go for, all the way through to which creative routes to present.

Interestingly, the business model includes exchanging fee for a percentage of the revenue. There was a lot of discussion around this model, with Matt Golding from Rubberductions introducing a concept of fees based on a promise of specific results. In the event the campaign doesn’t achieve at least these, they offer a refund – now that’s putting your money where your mouth is! (I’m seeing Matt later this week and hope to find out more, watch this space).

I think we all found the new model agency insight a real breath of fresh air and Chris’s views on ethical marketing, and in particular Co-Op V’s Tesco a real eye opener.

Much of the evening was also spent talking about how our industry still has a need for ‘big ideas’ but that much of what we do digitally is finding innovative solutions to business problems. This posed the question for some, where does that leave the ‘Craft model’ of the more traditional agencies?

Before he left, Chris introduced his furry backed business card. Everyone oooh’d and ahhh’d – it would seem that in this digital/screen based world of ours, there’s a sense of a certain loss of traditional things even among the most technologically-biased of us!

Many thanks to Chris Arnold, whose easy company and no holes barred industry insight made the evening slip by far too quickly and to David Sloly, (CD at MZL.com), for encouraging Chris to make the trip down the M4!

jon@3sixty.co.uk

It used to be that we got validation when other people commented on our blog posts. Now that warm feeling happens when people repeat one of our tweets. As Twitter replaces RSS, the RT replaces comments.

Ok, I promised not to write about Twitter anymore, but this is more about the twitterverse.

Dan Zarrella wrote a great report on The Science of Retweets, which naturally got massively retweeted. But it is the emotion of the RT that created it in the first place. Because it wasn’t a function that came with the app, but an invention by the users. A retweet is a compliment. A vote of solidarity. An event promotion. A shout out to someone you know. A way to get the attention of someone you want to know.

Now that Twitter has finally added a built-in retweet button, I hope it doesn’t change the nature of the gesture. A retweet is that slap on the back everyone needs. Please RT if you agree.

You should follow me on Twitter so we can retweet each other.

Welcome to eModeration’s twice-weekly round-up of all that is intriguing, alarming or odd in the world of social media, compiled by Kate Williams (@emodkate).

This week: News Corp and Google; Twitter’s wailing grumps; Britney’s encounter with the Dark Side; and why Stephen Fry is like a giant St Bernard.

Check back soon!

THE HEADLINES …

Rupert Murdoch plans to hide his content away so Google can’t see it. He told Sky News that he’ll prevent the search giant from indexing News Corp sites, to ensure that users pay up to view his news.

Many commentators pointed out inconsistencies in Murdoch’s interview, not least the vexed question of how readers would find the content if not through search engines – at least 25% of traffic comes via Google alone. All in all, the news was taken as the paid-content equivalent of Custer’s Last Stand.

But hold on, paid-content naysayers – is that the cavalry I hear? A new poll finds that ¾ of us would consider paying a 10p micropayment per article – with Jeremy Clarkson, Charlie Brooker and the redoubtable Richard Littlejohn being most likely to tempt us to splash the cash. So perhaps there’s life in the old paywall yet.

COI boss Mark Lund says that digital is the key to solving Britain’s social ills, by increasing trust and brokering a new relationship between citizen and government. “Digital is at the heart of behaviour change and to make the revolution we need.”

The social gaming ads controversy continued, with Facebook banning Zynga’s FishVille before it had barely had a chance to wiggle a gill, blaming ‘deceptive ads’ for the red card. Now Zynga has decided to nix all cost-per-action ads till further notice.

Parents are obsessed about the perils which face children outside the home – but are far less clued up when it comes to the dangers of the internet, according to Prof Tanya Byron, who investigated the possible dangers posed to children by videogames and websites for the government. “An integral part of development is risk taking. Children are taking risks online because we live in a risk-averse culture.”

Toyota is in a little hot water – having purloined some UGC photos for a crowd-sourced ad campaign, without asking the photographer his work first. The image, along with some others which the car company aggregated from Flickr, has now been removed – Digital Marketing offer advice for brands eager to avoid a crowd-sourcing headache here.

THE LOWDOWN …

A Stephen Fry recommendation is the digital equivalent of an enormous St Bernard jumping up to lick your face. Flattering, but leaves you floundering on the floor, scrabbling for your glasses and a tissue. Fry, who also revealed that he now considers himself to be a ‘content provider’, says that he has to warn websites that he’s going to recommend them, or they crash within seconds.

From the sublime (Mr Fry), to the ridiculous. Poor Britney Spears has had her Twitter updates hacked, and, for a while there, was posting as a Lucifer-lovin’ Satanist who longs for the new world order. Which isn’t true, of course – unless pop music really is the work of the devil, as my old headmistress was fond of saying.

The Telegraph raised an eyebrow at the £3175 per year which the taxpayer coughs up for Lord Mandelson’s three Twitter accounts. Between them, @bisgovuk, @digitalbritain, and @BIS_Science have 9,894 followers. About 30p a follower on my calculations – cheap at half the price.

Hurrah – a story which contains Facebook, the Law, and a Young Person – and yet doesn’t end in a jail term. A judge has accepted that the Facebook update which 19-year-old Rodney Bradford posted at 11:49a.m. on October 17 gave him an alibi for the mugging charge he faced.

The first of the Twitcoms? The Twitter account of Justin Halpern, who passes on the world-weary, no-bull pronouncements of his 73-year-old dad (Example: “You look just like Stephen Hawking…Relax, I meant like a non-paralyzed version of him.”) has been snapped up by CBS, who will turn it into a comedy series [Advisory: red-blooded language].

IN OTHER NEWS …

Bing UK is not yet up to scratch, according to sources close to Microsoft. The site has been in beta for four months, but isn’t yet fully relevant to us Brits, who are quickly turning back to Google. Microsoft is now hiring natives to create UK-centric search categories.

But it’s not all bad news for Microsoft – seems Microsoft sites harness 15 percent of worldwide online time – swiftly followed by Google and Yahoo, with Facebook bringing up the rear.

Enterprises are grasping Twitter to their bosom – business use is up a tweet-tastic 250%, from just six months ago. Facebook is also benefitting, with workplace use ballooning by 192%, despite the 20% of companies who block social sites.

The IAB has said that online media companies need to significantly raise their game if they want brands to really get behind internet advertising – at the moment, ad formats and creative simply aren’t making the grade, according to AdAge.

Hmm. We seem to be rather conflicted at the moment when it comes to research. Lightspeed says that ‘only’ 33% of consumers trust social nets to help them make purchasing decisions, compared with 68% who trust search, product reviews and comparison sites.

While Performics is pleased to find that (a separately-surveyed) third of us think social media is a good place to find out more about brands – and touts the fact that 25% have clicked directly to an online retailer or e-commerce merchant as evidence that, contrary to conventional wisdom, hard marketing may not be a social media no-no.

LinkedIn and Twitter have partnered up – their users can now publish Tweets on LinkedIn, and vice versa. In a simile which really only works if you are a fan of high-calorie nut-based confectionary, Biz Stone said the deal was “like bringing peanut butter and chocolate together to make the perfect combination.”

ON FACEBOOK …

A quiet few days at Facebook Towers – though brands will be quietly pleased about the launch of ‘Friends of Connections’, which will allow them to personalize ads to target the friends of their fans.

The ‘Book also launched a new set of guidelines for brand promotions, which contained a few significant changes concerning where promotions and competitions can live. Brands pondering their next Facebook foray could consult Fresh Influence’s ‘Five Things You Should Know‘ – a handy breakdown for brands to flick through.

ON TWITTER …

Facebook must have been sniggering into their hands this week, as Twitter faced the same wails of disgruntlement that have been plaguing Facebook recently. The complaints concern the rollout of Twitter’s new Retweet feature, which makes it impossible for Retweeters to edit or add comments. Hubspot’s Dan Zarella warned that these will “completely eviscerate most of the value out of Retweets” – but Ev Williams insisted that the feature was here to stay, and was deliberately designed to be super-simple so that tweets can be clearly attributed and traced.

The horizontality of Twitter’s stats is causing some comment in the Socialsphere, with mashable’s Stan Schroeder pointing out the oddness of Twitter’s grinding halt, given its till-now explosive growth, and the media’s current obsession with its cultural importance. But, he expands, none of this will matter in the long run – Twitter is becoming ‘part of the net’s infrastructure. It doesn’t have to be popular, it merely needs to be there.’

ON GOOGLE …

Google’s world domination plans are going swimmingly – it now intends to pimp the web, having been working quietly on a replacement for the HTTP protocol, which will make the internet infinitely faster.

Time for some Caffeine then. Google announced the launch of their latest incarnation, telling the waiting world portentously that “we believe Caffeine is ready for a wider audience. Soon, we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data centre’. Rather brings to mind Donald Pleasance, stroking a white Persian and pressing big buttons, no?

The search giant also launched a big upgrade to Latitude, adding location history and location-based alerts. The latter will let you know, via email or sms, when you’re near friends and connections. And took another step towards social with the introduction of a Twitteresque ‘Following’ feature to Google Wave. The follows can be temporarily removed from your inbox at the click of a button, to avoid social exhaustion.

BRANDS GET SOCIAL …

Alfa Romeo is using Twitter to promote its MiTo model to a youthful, more urban audience. Users are challenged to spot one of 1300 MiTo-shaped stencils around major UK cities, and post a photo of it with the hashtag #MiToStencil when they do.



Burberry has used Facebook to launch a new site – called Artofthetrench.com – which encourages fans to submit images and comments on the brand’s iconic outerwear.

Tesco is bringing x-factor-style thrills to the nation with the launch of ‘performance pods’ outside some stores, where users can record an audition video to be entered into a competition run by talent search site 1Click2Frame.

Nikon is leveraging Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter presence to launch its Nikon Film Festival, a UGC contest which offers $100,000 for the best video. The festival, whose theme is ‘a day through your lens’, kicks off with Ashton’s own entry, in which he records a day he spent in Africa with wife Demi.

ASOS has relaunched its fashion-forward community, having consulted members on how to improve its features. Users will now get RSS feeds, emails to notify them when fellow members reply to their posts, and a spanky new look.

Disney follows other Hollywood studios in using Facebook and Twitter to drip-feed advance promotion for upcoming films, this week releasing two new posters for Tim Burton’s March-slated 3-D extravaganza Alice In Wonderland’.


UNDER THE GAVEL …

The government has had to climb down from its April announcement of a new law to prevent more than 30,000 registered sex offenders from accessing social sites like Facebook, after it was ruled likely to restrict the right to privacy. The Home Office is seeking leave to appeal the Court of Appeal ruling.

Privacy campaigners are still determined to pursue Blockbuster for its participation in Facebook’s Beacon programme – they’re urging the court to reject an argument from the video chain that its ToS requires mandatory arbitration in any class action.

SOCIAL STATS …

Almost 65% of consumers surveyed by Razorfish made first bought a brand because of a digital experience – via website, microsite, mobile coupon or email.

And there’ll be tumbleweed blowin’ down Oxford Street this December, if these figures are anything to go by: a new study finds that 93% of us plan to buy our gifts online this year, with a quarter buying more online than last year. What’s more, 17% of us are looking to social sites like Facebook for gift-buying, with 60% of that number looking for offers and discounts, and another 52% checking the wish-lists of friends and family.

A full 23% of the women surveyed by Q Interactive and Social Media World Forum visit social games like Farmville and Causes several times a day – and more than half have used virtual currency. Plus, they’re not averse to watching ads to get it – many more details here on MediaPost.

Looks like the younger women are, the more brand-social they are. Gen Y women make double the mentions of brands and products of their Gen X compadres, and are significantly more influenced by blogs, according to a study by PopSugar and Radar Research.

ON MOBILE …

Last week Verizon sold an astonishing 100,000 Droids in a week. This week, Apple effortlessly trumps them with a jaw-dropping 30,000 iPhones sold by Orange in 1 day. Remember folks, that’s 30,000 of a smartphone which has already been freely available for a full 2 years.

News which neatly supports Nielsen’s prediction that the majority of mobiles will be smartphones by 2011 – just a couple of years away.

VIRTUAL AND GAMES …

Massive and comScore have worked out a way to get detailed insight into how in-game ads work for gamers, building a picture of engagement for the first time.

Games developer Playfish has been caught by Electronic Arts, for a reported $400m. The purchase means that EA is now Facebook-forward, as well as leading the way in console, PC and mobile gaming.

Microsoft is pulling the plug on up to 1 million Xbox Live players who have illicitly modified their consoles to play pirated or other-region games.Twitter and Facebook Come to Xbox Live November 17 SAVE The rest of the ToS-obeying Xbox Live community will be enjoying a Twitter and Facebook dashboard from November 17th.

Habbo-creator Sulake have announced the launch of Bobba Bar, a series of virtual social venues for mobile users. Over-17s can make friends with and date other guests via an avatar which can be customized to a total of 1 billion combinations.

THINKING …

If you’ve got any downtime over the next days, the following might get your brain-cells whizzing:

iMedia Connection looks further into ad networks and online reputation-protection for brands – and finds it not as straightforward as you’d think.

In case the worst-case scenario should arise, here are some steps to take in order to make your company’s crisis-plan ‘social-media compliant’.

Finally, if you are suffering from social media shellshock, you will appreciate this guide to reducing the noise, whilst remaining connected.

That’s all folks!

Just a few days ago we were having a discussion in the office about Bing and its seemingly terminal beta status… Following a bit of a debate regarding the rationale for leaving something in beta in one market whilst you launch in another (in summary: it enables a test-and-rollout approach for both the technology and the marketing and also enables two rounds of PR, one for the beta and one for full launch) we decided that it couldn’t be long until Bing got a full roll-out. In fact the only reason we figured it hadn’t already happened, given that the functionality now appears to almost exactly mirror the US ‘full Bing experience’, was due to Microsoft not wanting to detract from the recent Windows 7 launch.

Well now we’re left wishing we’d all started a lottery syndicate, or at least that I had posted our prediction here first, because Bing just went and launched properly in the UK.

As I approached the usual slot I set aside for writing this blog it seemed like the most important thing for me to comment on this week but now I’m actually putting hands to keyboard I’m questioning the importance of the move. After all the product is no different today than it was yesterday and ’beta’ as a notion seems increasingly irrelevant – Google leave products in beta for years, as evidenced by the ‘feature’ that re-introduces the Beta badge in Gmail just in case you got somewhat attached to its presence during the five years that service remained in beta.

What I thought would be more interesting then would be if I revisited my original thoughts on the subject – back when Bing launched I went through five reasons why Bing still has a long way to go. So, how far have they gone?

1. It was ugly. It still is ugly. Sorry, I still can’t stomach that logo and still think the start images should be full screen.

2. The launch timing was all fumbled. The first few months of less-than-full functionality mean that many people will have tried a less-than-perfect product. It’s not ideal. Now the product is the full version it is important it gets a real marketing push.

3. Google were already catching up. I argued that Google were rapidly catching up with the areas where Bing was supposedly pushing the envelope. Google Options does, to a certain extent, add extra functionality but I’m not sure how many searchers even know of its existence and Squared is very interesting but relatively unknown (and still… you guessed it, in beta).

4. Bing isn’t social. Bing still fails to utilize passport data in any way that benefits users although, to be fair, no-one else seems to be doing much in this area either.

5. They just don’t get the audience. Interestingly all the signs point towards the fact that Bing is no longer targeting the ‘power searcher’. Integration with Ciao and Bing Cashback don’t exactly scream ’savvy searcher’ but at least Bing seem to be going after a more realistic audience now. Perhaps the audience talk was never any more than PR spin.

The latest (and much more significant) news is that Bing (along with Google) will use Twitter to introduce real-time search to their results and that they will be partnering with the computational engine Wolfram Alpha to provide answers to actual questions. More than anything this at least proves Microsoft’s commitment to continuing to push Bing forward – important because almost every other search engine launch feels remarkably static in comparison to Google.  It will be interesting to see if Google are working on something of their own to compete with Wolfram…

So, there I was chatting away to a nice lady (Orla) next to the toilets of the the Lewis Media Centre (there is a relevance)  explaining (rather loudly) why I was so excited to hear Shel Israel talk when – *TAP* (on the shoulder) – and there was the great man himself introducing himself to me.

Well – introduce himself wasn’t exactly what he did (as he kinda expected me to recognise him – which I didn’t immediately) – it was more like “Oh my Gawd [he's got a great Noo Yawk drawl] I’m pleased I’ve got at least ONE fan!”.

So that was it.  My introduction to the great Mr. Israel.  Blogger.  Marketer.  Writer.  And Twitterer extraordinaire.  The introduction, though, was pretty short lived – and was swiftly followed by a “Do you know where the men’s is?”

Shel is one of those guys who you wish was your uncle.  And if he was your uncle then he’d be your favourite uncle – the one that isn’t overly enthusiastic about you (as he’s got better things to be interested in), however he’s the one that is unashamedly wise (but quite often openly wrong in a humanising way) and says off the cuff remarks that make SO MUCH SENSE.

And the things that made SO MUCH SENSE in his talk were:

- “I’m a story-teller”: I’ve heard this from other people too, but being a story-teller is what every marketer (self-marketer) and brand should be like.  We all need to tell stories better.  As stories engage and entertain.  They give.

- “Buzz is what you hear before you get stung”: am not 100% sure what this means – though it sounds kinda profound.  I guess it’s to do with hype and reality.  Reality bites once the hype dust has settled.

- “Every business should have a 17 year old on their board”: I like this. Getting different perspectives in business is essential.  Bring on the teenager non-execs . . . (this actually came from Peter Whitehead from the FT)

It seems that remembrance day has a particular poignancy this year.

Nothing has really happened online (that has grabbed my attention). If you search for ‘Poppy Campaign’ you’ll find the Canadian Legion website as the top result. But I’m not sure that veterans will be particularly concerned about their Google rankings.

I had a good look round the Royal British Legion website today and it’s got some nice features like planting a virtual poppy and a google map of where the remembrance day events are being held across the UK. There’s also a nice feature for ‘Lost Trails’ where if you’re looking for someone from the armed forces you can post a message and hope that someone reverts to you. This is relatively important for tracing military ancestors because it was only in the 20th century that non commissioned ranks had the same level of details about their death recorded. I found this out when tracing one of my ancestors who died in Afghanistan back in the 1880′s, the officers had their names detailed but not, unfortunately the lowly grunts. The search could be made a lot better by adding filters such as the regiment, conflict, country, rank etc – this would allow for improved cross referencing between posts. Additionally, if you could ‘save’ posts to a personal folder for subsequent research that would be helpful.

What surprised me about the Royal British Legion’s website was the lack of emotional impact, it seems very objective and removed from the soldiers stories and their loved ones loss. Perhaps this is a deliberate act to stand apart from the emotive arguments and present a solemn face of remembrance but I think it is a mistake. In my opinion they should communicate the loss and the remembrance ‘lest we forget’.

I grew up in a City called Chichester on the south coast. My family moved to a Georgian house in the centre that had just been re-developed by builders in the early 80′s. An old lady had lived in the house for many many years and after she died it eventually passed to the developers after being left empty for several years. In one room of the house was a billiard table and it was told to me that the lady’s two sons had played a game of billiards there on the eve of their being sent to the front in June 1916. They told each other that they would complete the game when they both returned from the war. Sadly, the battle of the Somme started in July and neither returned alive. The mother was left without her children and the billiard table was left untouched, with the balls lying as they were, until the developers arrived nearly sixty years later. Every day during those intervening years she must have looked at that table and remembered her sons.

Remembrance day is for that mother and the countless others who lost so much.

This year’s She Says Golden Stiletto Awards (the second year
for the awards honouring women in digital advertising) brought together top
talent in London’s digital advertising industry to celebrate female achievements in creativity,
and showed that there is growing appeal for the organization, and its mission
to showcase female talent in the digital sector.

She Says Golden Stiletto Awards is the only award ceremony
of its kind that is for women, and judged by women working in the advertising
industry, with judges for this year’s nearly 30 entries including:

Johannah Bailey, Programme Director Global Communications -
Unilever

Liz Sivell, Creative Director at R/GA

Ida GronBlom, Senior Creative – Wieden + Kennedy

Toni Smith, Managing Director – The Viral Factory

Elspeth Lynn, Executive Creative Director – Profero

Charlotte Mcelany, Senior Writer – Creative Review

At the awards ceremony, held October 29 at the Getty Gallery who are sponsors of the awards, finalists showed a
selection of digital advertising projects that demonstrated how the online
medium can offer multiple layers of engagement for all types of demographic
audiences. Women-led digital projects included an augmented reality campaign
for BMW, an online/offline campaign that got 100 participants dancing for 24
hours in a “music phone dance-off” to promote the Samsung Beat DJ music phone, and a charity
campaign for British Red Cross to change your online status, that had zero
budget and seven days to plan.

The awards event itself attracted women from all aspects of
the digital industry, including animator Sarra Hornby who spends
hours working with paper and cotton thread to create animated shorts for
commercial use. Although her work was not in the finals, she said that the She
Says gathering offered her a powerful networking community to increase her
professional career.

It seems cities beyond London are hungry for the same level of woman-to-woman
professional interaction, as branches of She Says are now springing up in New
York, San Francisco, LA, Vienna Paris, Sydney and Brighton, and more than 1,500
women are members. SheSays was launched in March 2007 by two female Creative
Directors (Laura Jordan Bambach from Glue and Alessandra Lariu from Agency
Republic at the time) who noticed that there weren’t many women in top
positions in digital agencies.  She Says
offers women in the creative and digital industries free networking and mentoring
opportunities at monthly events held across the world with the aim getting more
women into the industry and to the top of it.

This year’s Golden Stiletto Award winners include:

First place: Modern Foreign Languages

Second place: BMW Z4 airbrush 

Third place: The Last Call

Commended: Look beyond the label

 See photos from the award ceremony here. 

Glad to see women winning,

-Lisa

Welcome to eModeration’s twice-weekly round-up of all that is intriguing, alarming or odd in the world of social media, compiled by Kate Williams (@emodkate). Check back soon!

THE HEADLINES …

Good news! It turns out that using the Internet may not, after all, lead to alienation/sharp reduction in moral fibre/early grave (delete as applicable). A new study reveals that social media use is associated with real-life social benefits – for example, they find that blog-writers are more likely to confide in someone from a different race; photo-sharers more likely to discuss serious issues with someone of another political party; and – my very favourite – internet users in general are more likely than non-users to visit a café.

Once upon a time, when MySpace was the blushing belle of the ball and had princely suitors competing for its hand, it inked a $900 3-year deal with Google which allowed the search giant to become its sole search provider. But now the magic spell is broken: $100 million of that will not be going to MySpace after all, having been partly dependent on traffic levels.

What’s more, Rupert Murdoch’s plan to rebuild his business model by secreting news content behind a pay-wall won’t be coming-off as soon as he’d hoped. And plans to combine with other publishers would quite possibly breach competition regulations, according to the Guardian. Bad news indeed, as print earnings crash from $134 million to $25 million.

Google is attempting to allay users’ privacy worries with Dashboard, which provides a single-page view of all the different pieces of information which Google holds on them. Hmm, not sure myself. A smidgeon too close to that movie moment where we find that Nice-Neighbour-Guy‘s bedroom wall is covered in long-lens photos of the girl-next-door, and he’s got an axe in his wardrobe.

THE LOWDOWN …

Three cheers for Walmart, for putting comments and reviews at the heart of their strategy. And a manly pat on the back for not realizing that their new range of coffins and urns would prove irresistible to a stream of clever-clogs commenters: “I picked one up to bury my cat in. Other than having room for about 100 cats, it worked well.”

Hyundai score a social media gold star for cheering up the crestfallen victim of possibly the worst piece of parking that any of us will ever see. CCTV footage of the squishing of Todd Jamison’s 2004 Hyundai Elantra went viral – you can watch it, and the cockle-warming video of his surprise gift from Hyundai, on Mashable.

The guy who invented the first mobile phone – which on the evidence of other tech firsts probably required a winch-and-pulley system to transport – is 80. And he isn’t all that impressed with how the mobile story unfolded, telling a privacy conference this week that “whenever you create a universal device that does all things for all people, it does not do anything well.”

IN OTHER NEWS …

Online advertising revenue was the only cheerful note in ITV’s limp financial report this week. It leapt 8% to £27m for the nine months to 30 September, despite an overall group revenue plunge of 11% to £1.3bn.

A new social net, neatly-named Honk, uses existing social networks to gather opinions from friends and family about the cars each has owned – helping drivers decide their next ride.

US e-commerce has drooped again. According to Comscore, Q3 spending was down 2% year on year to $29.6bn – which means that for the first time, year-on-year revenue has declined two quarters in a row.

Online retailers aren’t taking the news lying down, however: many are planning to increase their social media presence in the run-up to the holiday season. 60.3% have upgraded their Facebook pages, and a similar number have tweaked their Twitter pages – while 40% have improved customer ratings and reviews.

ON FACEBOOK …

As all eyes turned to Facebook in the evolving controversy surrounding scam offers in social games and apps, they announced on their blog that they were taking firm action to prevent advertisers and users from being suckered. According to Nick Gianos, of Facebook’s platform team, “this battle is not new – and it’s far from over.”

Twitter may be the dashing young pretender, but The ‘Book is still king of the social castle as far as consumer brands are concerned. According to Business.com’s new study, 83% of them have a presence on Facebook – but only 45% interact on Twitter.

And, when you look at those Social Scales, it’s hardly surprising. Facebook is putting on half a million users every day; the beefy giant now weighs in at a belt-busting 325 million users.

ON TWITTER …

Which is not to say that Facebook shouldn’t keep a wary eye on Twitter’s stats. While its own users are creaking up in age, from 26 to a dessicated 33, it looks as though Twitter’s users are finally getting younger. They average out at a comparatively youthful 31, with the 18-24 age group accounting for 37% of users, compared with 19% in December ’08.

Twitter is testing its new Retweet feature this week, hoping to enable information to spread even more quickly across the site. According to VentureBeat’s mockups, there’s a retweet button, and a tool for tracking a link or idea back to its source.

And while Twitter’s in the mood for a spring clean, they’re running the Hoover round trending topics. As the site’s ballooned, trending topics has become more and more unwieldy – but now Twitter promises we’ll begin to see more relevant results appearing.

And if you’re still Lost with Lists, @mashable is your friend. They’ve started some jolly useful ones, including one for social media (there’s a link to make suggestions of anyone they might have – ahem – missed…)

BRANDS GET SOCIAL …

Car brand Infiniti has flipped its usual strategy and is breaking its new TV ads on Facebook and other social media sites, following its home page takeover last week on AOL, Yahoo and auto sites like Cars.com.

20th Century Fox are promoting Night at the Museum 2 with an augmented reality insert in the Times’ T2 section. Users are directed to a dedicated site, and when the insert is held up to a webcam, characters will appear to jump out of the screen.

Nestle’s Skinny Cow has shifted the hub of its marketing to its Facebook fanpage, launching a £2.5 million campaign to encourage women to share their cheekiest and sneakiest ways to say ‘Oh yes I can’ to life’s little indulgences.

Teen virtual world Habbo Hotel is supporting the release of vampire flick ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’ with alluring offers including film-related virtual goods, and the tantalising prospect of unscheduled chats with the film’s stars.

NBC Universal is adding social media features to its main Olympics website, NBCOlympics.com website in the runup to the 2010 Winter Olympics, incorporating Facebook Connect, which will let users to chat with their Facebook friends as they watch events.

Godiva chocolates are launching a virtual goods campaign to support their new range of desserts. Animated cakes and chocs open to reveal flash-based chocolatey-rich media , then offer the option of becoming a Fan, visiting the brand’s website, or forwarding the treat to a friend.

Chick-fil-A’s Cows, who encourage us to eat more chicken (thus less beef) have been herding in traffic to its microsite, doubling visits in a week without promotion. And its Facebook page has just hit 1m fans – up from 20,000 fourteen months ago, when it was still run by a volunteer enthusiast.

ABC.com is using the premiere of the sci-fi remake V to launch ABC Social: Episode Commentary, which will allow Web viewers to comment live to their Facebook friends.

SOCIAL STATS …

Twenty-something mothers are now the most social and device-dependent demographic, beating college students for the first time evah. Mr Youth’s new survey says Millennial Moms (b.1977-1996) are digital trendsetters (as well as being Mistresses of the Overshare …)

Twitter users are enthusiastic followers-up of brand mentions. Nearly half of them use search engines to look up products they’ve heard about on the network, compared to 34% of other social network users, according to Performics’ new study.

VIRTUAL AND GAMES …

In a marked failure of imagination – or a sensible ‘stick with what works’ business plan, we can’t quite decide – Zynga have launched their follow-up to Farmville. It’s about fish, and it’s called Fishville.

THINKING …

If you’re interested in reaching teens, this is worth a once-over: MediaPost says there are three rules: think global, act local, go social.

And iMedia offers CMOs useful advice here about the tricky matter of brand protection in an online world.

So it may only seem like five minutes ago but all the way back in July I commented on Amazon’s policy of rejecting affiliate commissions for sales generated through social media, specifically Twitter, in part due to a clause that requires sales to be generated from the domain listed in the Associate account the affiliate holds with Amazon.

Well this week Amazon appears to have, if not made a u-turn, then at least gone back on that position somewhat. Based on what I have seen they have not publicly acknowledged any change of policy but earlier this week they communicated a new feature that enables their affiliates to click a button from within Amazon to create a tweet promoting the page they were on at the time.  Interestingly, despite evidence to suggest Amazon would use their own short-url service, these affiliate links use the popular Bit.ly service instead.

It seems a sensible move. We all know that online communication is increasingly moving away from a one-way broadcast model and therefore the volumes to be got through links placed on specific affiliate sites may well be on the decrease. What’s more, Twitter’s popularity seems to be in no way declining with news stories today suggesting that Twitter is achieving growth through increasing adoption from a youth audience. It is worth noting this contradicts some of the expert research Morgan Stanley released earlier this year that suggested Twitter didn’t appeal to teens (excuse me whilst I remove my tongue from my cheek).

It will be interesting to see where this goes next. Given Amazon’s policy on Affiliates only promoting their products on their own site it is not currently clear whether the links generated through this new method would still work if posted elsewhere (Facebook for example) but the evidence suggest they will, and that Amazon are no longer actively enforcing this policy. There is also still a lot of concern regarding the use of monetized links on Twitter (and social media generally) and what’s more, given the current FTC review going on in the US, the use of such links without clear labelling could soon be illegal.

What do people think? Is it smart of Amazon to get in there and allow users to make money out of their social network now (before someone else gets in there) or is Twitter somewhere that should really stay ‘ad’ free?

I’ll be speaking at Heroes of the Mobile Screen on Dec 7th at the BFI SouthBank which is taking an in-depth look at what’s really going on in the world of mobile.

Its going to be a fantastic event with speakers and panelists from across the globe including Doug Richard, serial entrepreneur, from the TV series Dragon’s Den.  Uniquely the event also has
secondary school pupils, college students and other members of the same
generation, to tell the industry what they want from their mobile, what
they expect from their network operators and what’s most important to
them in terms of their mobile life.

The event is run by the same team (which includes the inspiring and charming Helen Keegan) that
brings you Mobile Monday London, Swedish Beers, Future of Mobile, Over
The Air, Mobile 2.0 and Tech Media Invest.  

Tickets are available online now for £99 (ex VAT and booking fee).

You can register your interest in Heroes of the Mobile Screen by:
Checking out the website: http://mobileheroes.net/
Becoming a fan on Facebook
Following on Twitter: @hotms

I would love to see you there.