Socialcam is a free iOS app that allows users to take video, put filters on it, and store the result in the cloud. As the name suggests, there is a significant social element to the service. Users can browse, watch and share their friends’ videos, as well as connect the app with various other social networks like Twiter, Facebook and Posterous, and tag friends in videos. The cloud storage is a brilliant idea, as it stops large videos eating up phone memory, that can be used for more important things like Draw Something and Angry Birds. Read More »

Facebook’s Timeline feature has the potential to be as dramatic a change to the network as when the company controversially launched the now irreplaceable news feed. Unsurprisingly, brands are determined to cash in. There is quite a variety of companies using these apps too, it’s not just social networks and newspapers. Brands as diverse as Vevo, Foursquare, Nike, The Onion, and Pinterest have all launched new Timeline apps at South by South West in Austin, Texas.

Techcrunch point out that the data from the apps is of huge value to advertisers, and therefore Facebook. The data is structured, so instead of knowing the things that people merely ‘Like’, which is not always an accurate reflection of preferences or actions, these apps store what you have actually watched, done, or eaten.
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Ever wondered where Foursquare was launched, where Twitter hit the big time or where you can hear keynotes from the likes of Jimmy Wales, Guy Kawasaki, Craig Newmark, Evan Williams or even Mr Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, himself – well Austin, Texas is where it is at in March as SXSW comes to town.

And next week we will throwing ourselves into the madness of SXSW Interactive as part of the UKTI Trade Mission along with 39 other companies from the UK and over 25,000 others from round the Globe. We will endeavour to bring you daily updates as to themes, new ideas and creative technologies on show along with the weird and wonderful from Austin. Read More »

Nicholas Cage would have trouble driving this lot away. Every minute in social media there are millions of interactions taking place –  they happen on Pinterest, Foursquare, Flickr, Tagged, LinkedIn,StumbleUpon, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as detailed by this nice infographic here detailing what can happen in a mere 60 seconds in social media.

How many Tweets do you reckon? Enough that if you read them all it would take days to get through them all.  And forget about Facebook with 700,000 messages you could be there for weeks. Read More »

Our fascination with the differences between men and women has spawned countless tv shows, hit songs, and bestselling books. And now we’re starting to understand how gender also influences social media use.

I began thinking about this while reading Porter Novelli’s EuroPNstyles research conducted among  consumers in the UK and other European countries. Drilling down into the facts and stats around social media, several clear trends emerged showing that the same preferences and behaviours are being played out in the digital space just as they are offline. Read More »

One of social media’s greatest benefits to brands is the ability to scale up customer engagement for value creation. The most intimate and valuable type of interaction was until recently facilitated mostly by one on one engagements that demanded extensive human resources and expenditures. Now, powered by digital platforms, engagement reaches scale. Engagement via social media has more to offer than recruiting customers and driving sales.

It can help extend the customer life-time by creating loyalty, as well as optimise it by turning customers into advocates and enjoy additional leads and sales. And –finally, but potentially most importantly, engagement through social media can generate insights from customers, which can lead to better products and services. Read More »

We’ve already heard lots about Barack Obama’s use of social media: how the Obama team shook up its social media strategy in run up to 2012, launched the presidential re-election bid on YouTube and how Obama gave a crowdsourced YouTube interview.

The Obama team is continuing to push its social media wider and The White House is now on Foursquare. I’m guessing he’ll be the mayor of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in no time. Read More »

Foursquare: more developments

Foursquare is the latest social network to look towards businesses to monetize its website, with a report in the New York Post saying it is planning to start charging registered merchants.

The newspaper interviewed Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai, who said: “[The check-in] comes back to me in forms of recommendations. It goes back to [users] in interesting ways.”

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Foursquare: 500,000-plus businesses on board

As we know, geo-location social network Foursquare is operating in an increasingly tough market, with competition on two fronts: rival check-in sites like Facebook Places, and the increasingly popular coupon companies like Groupon.

Nonetheless, a fortnight after it revealed it had 10 million members, it has said that it has more than 500,000 merchants signed up – the companies that do special offers for people checking in or for people with ‘Mayor’ status (meaning they’ve checked in the most) and so on.

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Location-based check-in service Foursquare has put together this infographic to celebrate the fact that it now has more than 10 million members world wide.

The interactive infographic and map shows a series of dots that slowly spread around the globe with each one representing a user and the growth of the two year old company. It also shows the top brands in terms of check-ins. Read More »