One of the UK’s top independent blogging networks has hit out at the Huffington Post’s entry into the UK market and told bloggers not to blog for free for the AOL site which it argues does not value its bloggers despite being valued at more than £315m after its sale.

The call was made by MessageSpace which sells advertising on behalf of some of the UK’s leading political and news blogs including Guido Fawkes, LibDem Blogs, Liberal Vision, Harry’s Place, Political Scrapbook, Total Politics  and UK Polling Report. Read More »

From the early days of social media, the medium has been evolving with how it is used for gathering groups of people together. Mobs may have ignited by word-of-mouth and phone calls in the past, but over the last decade, we’ve seen the medium become the infrastructure of how mass spontaneous events are organized.

When Facebook started out, its groups and pages invited people to promote events to members, and invite friends to attend. At first it was just friend’s parties with BBQs and birthday parties, and many band’s gigs. People were starting to use Facebook more than existing options like Evite. Read More »

I’ve been saying this for a while, to anybody who will listen. I have a major issue with Groupon. Or should I say, with the furore around Groupon and the ludicrous valuation placed on it by both Google, and their predicted IPO.   Read More »

The updated Linked in iPhone app

For obvious reasons Google has long-trumpeted the notion that brands should create a mobile optimised site first before developing a costly iPhone app.

While Google now offers a free way of doing so with its recently launched Mobilize tool, brands are looking to create more sophisticated mobile sites as they start to realise that the only way isn’t necessarily Apple. Read More »

CityJet: droll response

All respect for whoever runs job CityJet’s Twitter feed, and their rather elegant response to the news that French actor Gerard Depardieu has trouble holding things in.

Depardieu was on one of CityJet’s flights earlier this week when, according to another passenger, he announced to everyone in hearing distance that ‘I need a piss’.

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This won’t come as a surprise to some, but a good blogging community can dramatically help boost traffic as a piece on Nieman Journalism Lab about the Los Angeles Times website highlights.

In the last few months the latimes.com has seen record traffic numbers and it is putting that down to its growth in use of breaking news blogs. Read More »

When it comes to using social media as a business tool, it’s important to make a clear distinction between business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B), since this distinction will be vital for seeing the wood from the trees.

Facebook, in the context of its new “Facebook for Business” launch, is a B2C social engagement tool, as it aims to provide businesses with an easy way to connect with their consumers directly. LinkedIn, by comparison, is clearly a B2B tool, as it uses online social interaction to help businesspeople connect with other businesspeople. Read More »

Is there maybe a little fatigue creeping into your social interactivity?  You’re not alone according to new research from Gartner, which has found that some web users are losing interest in social networking sites.

A study of 6,295 people aged between 13 and 74 by the analyst house found signs of maturity in the social media market, with some users beginning to experience ‘social media fatigue’ as they start to visit their favourite social networking sites less frequently. Read More »

AllThingsD is reporting that things are not going well for HP’s iPad rival the TouchPad. Reviews and sales have not been good leading to heavy discounting with prices slashed by $100 within months of release?.

The $100 discount later became a permanent price cut, but sales have not been boosted. Now to add insult to injury HP might be losing valuable retail space as retail giant Best Buy has reportedly asked HP to take back 200,000 TouchPad’s after only selling 25,000 out of a delivery of 270,000. Read More »

A great infographic from elisaDBI offering a guide to tracking social media as part of your online marketing mix.

The ROI is always a hot topic and one of the key questions marketers are are asking before giving the go ahead for campaigns. Some of the topline numbers are surprising. For instacne 50% of companies are unsure of the value of being on LinkedIn and 53% are unsure of the Twitter’s ROI. This gives a step by step guide beginning with defining the key performance indicators (KPIs should be measureable) through to checking your strategy. Read More »