It’s rare to visit any website today and not be met with an array of social widgets, whether it’s a  button linking to a Facebook or Twitter page or something which enables site visitors to comment, like, share and bookmark across a wide variety of social media platforms. Social widgets typically allow users to share directly from publishers. While this increases their distribution of content and helps generate web-traffic, the benefits are often one-sided.

When a user shares via a Facebook or Twitter widget, the publisher doesn’t gain any insight from the data it records. Equally when web tools like AddThis or ShareThis are installed, publishers miss out on new revenue streams. Both are benefits publishers may have not realised were available to them. Read more »

Everyday we’re experiencing the internet evolve into a social ecosystem, one in which people frenetically communicate, logging on every day to share content and have discussions with friends, families and colleagues.

Even Facebook has observed that the rate its users are sharing is increasing exponentially. Mark Zuckerberg recently explained that the average Facebook user is sharing twice as much today as they did a year ago, with four billion ‘things’ being shared every month. Read more »

The recent launch of Google+ has seen much comment on the latest social network as Google’s attempt to address the fragmentation of the web.

While Google has played down its challenge to Facebook and implications that this in itself is a social network in the conventional form, its new offering does reflect how the internet has become a social environment, and in my view, has a serious chance of succeeding. Read more »

The internet has changed. It’s no longer just used for search and gathering information. The massive rise of Facebook, other social networks, the influx of affordable handheld smart devices and a never-ending introduction to “social” applications, means that the internet has become a place for us to connect with friends and peers, sharing ideas and content.

Online advertisers are starting to appreciate the internet is completely different to its state five years ago. In fact, the hype and frenzy around Facebook has led many of us to conclude this is where online ad budgets should be allocated. However, in the rush to reach consumers through this social network, we’re actually overlooking something far more powerful – the potential to target the whole social web. Read more »