Pinterest literally exploded onto the scene this year, with interest from all quarters of the net with users, brands and marketers recognizing the visual pinboards potential for discovery.  It was inevitable that a dashboard to take pinning to the next level would be on its way once media attention caught hold.

In late March, an analytics and campaign tool called Pinerly launched in closed private beta, inviting one or two individuals at a time.  The founders talk about having learnt their lesson on an earlier venture when they opened up beta to a mass audience before the site was ready.  This time around, they are determined to go slowly, iron out bugs, listen to feedback and implement new features before swinging the doors wide open. Read More »

The word ‘curator’ derives from the Latin curare meaning ‘take care’, and is commonly used in the context of cultural institutions; galleries, museums etc.

Over the course of the last year or so the term was increasingly used in conjunction with digital marketing, particularly social media-based campaigns. For fast-paced, content-driven comms planning, agencies would talk of acting as the ‘curator’ for the brand. In other words, deciding what content, stories, reactions, conversations and touchpoints to release at precisely the right time.

Now I think it can apply to the very nature of one’s digital identity itself.

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The accounts of 55,000 Twitter users have been hacked and the usernames and passwords copied into Pastebin. The hack is the largest in the service’s history, and required five pages on Pastebin to leak all the data. Twitter have said only that they are looking actively at the situation.

The ease with which the service could be penetrated could make users, and potential users, more cautious of using it, although I believe the idea was to highlight security flaws as opposed to anything more malicious. As AirDemon point out, this could have easily been avoided, by guiding people to use more secure passwords when they signup as is common practice on many websites, and encouraging regularly password changing. Twitter has always emphasised how easy it is to sign up and start posting, but this has left its users’ data vulnerable.
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It was only a few months ago that frictionless sharing was being talked about as the future of social media. It followed Facebook’s launch in September of what it called a “new breed of apps” that displayed video, music and news alongside its new timeline profile feature.

While initial results from the likes of The Guardian, The Independent and The Washington Post were very positive, with millions signing up for these Facebook social apps, that trend has now gone into steep reverse indicating the problem of over-sharing. Read More »

A new social media service launches today called Scrambls which allows users to encrypt posts to Facebook, Twitter and any other websites essentially creating secure personal sharing across social networks.

It taps into the concern that many have about privacy particularly when it comes to Facebook. It will be interesting to see if this gains any traction and whether social network users do start hiding their posts from the wider world. Read More »

A novel idea from Tribal DDB. It has launched its new Israeli office completely on Instagram.

The “Officegram” website is available only to those who download the  Instagram app and locate TribalDDB_Israel. Read More »

We hear all the time how social media is now key to helping those looking for work find their next role. Only last week I wrote about how a man in Canada lost out on a job, because he had a low Klout score and how people are starting to turn their CVs into infographics.

Today a 25-year old called  Rory Mason is launching an effort to find a job working in the PR industry in Leeds having set himself the challenge of gaining 1,000 followers on Twitter and Facebook to convince agencies in Leeds that he is worth hiring. Read More »

Listening to CEO and co-founder Ben Silbermann describe how he abandoned plans to become a medical practitioner to found Pinterest, it is easy to forget that every novel, differentiated idea that takes the limelight also comes with a risk—overhype.

Daniel Ek, the Swedish founder of the digital music download service Spotify, has joined the Beckhams in the Music Top 10 on the Sunday Times Rich list.

He has racked up a £190m fortune with Spotify, which with the launch of its Play Button is fast becoming the world’s defacto online music streaming service. Read More »