UPDATE: Yahoo has officially confirmed its acquisition of Tumblr. In a blog post, Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, reassured Tumblr users as she promised Yahoo would try “not to screw it up”.

She said that “Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going” and that Yahoo would operate “Tumblr independently”. Read More »

For an industry supposedly in demise, the music business is leading the way when it comes to generating social currency.  And, for the savviest of social marketers, generating sales as well.

Back in the good old days when I spent a fair chunk of a gap year behind the counter of Our Price, the mainstream music industry’s sales formula was a simple one:  the major labels gave radio stations (and record shops) pre-release singles they wanted played, essentially to advertise the forthcoming albums they were taken from  – which made them the money.  Read More »

Is Facebook preparing to match the $1bn it paid for Instagram by paying a similar figure for an Israeli mobile start-up called Waze?

If it is why would Facebook stump up so much cash for what is described as a “social” mapping app for smartphones?

The answer could be in Facebook’s future as a mobile advertising platform. Pundits believe Waze would give the social network more mobile users and thus grow its advertising revenue. Read More »

CBS Evening News anchor, Scott Pelley, has hit out at the media and its use of social media and said journalist are getting the big stories wrong over and over again.

Part of that problem, according to Pelley, lies at the door of social media, which he said wasn’t journalism but gossip. He said that in a world in which everyone is a publisher no one is an editor. Read More »

Over 60 million mobiles will be purchased in Indonesia in 2013, a staggering figure. With a 114% penetration rate of mobiles this market is driven by the replacement market and social media.

Read More »

Facebook has hired Nicola Mendelsohn as its Vice President, EMEA.

Great to see Facebook hire another woman in Mendelsohn to replace Joanna Shields who left in mid 2012to spearhead the government’s scheme to create a ‘Silicon Valley’ cluster of technology businesses in East London known as Tech City. Read More »

Facebook is booming and business has never been better for the social media giant. However, it’s proliferation in the last few years has resulted in some unintended and unwanted consequences.

The alarming numbers on Facebook are on the rise and further climbing. Be it a teen or an employee – effort is needed to ensure that the damaging impact of Facebook is contained and curbed – this is where tools such as the Facebook spy come in. Read More »

Facebook is launching video advertising in its newsfeed in July, in an effort to capture some of the growing online video and television ad markets that are worth billions of pounds globally.

Like online video ads on other sites the new Facebook newsfeed video ads will begin playing automatically, but without sound with the option of turning audio on left to the user. When audio is activated the ad will play from the beginning. Read More »

It’s no secret that the advertising industry has undergone some major developments in recent years. As the way consumers behave online and offline has changed, traditional advertising models have in turn had to evolve to ensure they stay relevant and keep the consumer at the centre of the conversation.

Traditionally, agency teams have worked in silos across their respective channels – the mobile team looked after mobile campaigns, the print team looked after print and so on.  While there were of course broader campaign themes, the channels were largely independent from each other. Read More »