Interesting research here from the research from the Pew Research Center points to how Twitter isn’t perceived by some teens as a social network in the same way as Facebook or LinkedIn.

The research found teens don’t always think of Twitter as a social networking site.

That raises the question as to what is Twitter? There has been a lot of discussion about this recently with a number of people increasingly describing Twitter as a news wire or as the sixth American news network. Read More »

There are three ways to look at Yahoo’s $1.1bn acquisition of photo-blogging service Tumblr.  You can view it as a considered strategic move to evolve Yahoo and give it a slice of social media.

That or it is an opportunitistic leap to rejuvenate Yahoo’s aging products and users.

Thirdly, it is possibly desperate. Mayer and Yahoo have just paid $1.1bn for a company with revenues last year of $13m.  Read More »

In the first post in our series on Social Brands & The Future Of Marketing, we noted that, “the most successful brands don’t just predict the future; they define the future on their own terms.”

We’re continuing that theme in today’s second post in the Social Brands series, exploring the importance of building social marketing activities around the people you care about, and not around specific technological features or platforms. Read More »

Take That, The Spice Girls, The Rolling Stones – yep, there’s no place quite like the Music industry for a good old fashioned comeback.  Did you know the phrase “Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back” was created for a Frank Sinatra comeback in the early 70s, even though he’d never been known as ‘Blue Eyes’ in his entire career?  Well done that PR man.  And if The Stone Roses was THE music comeback of 2012, what am I bid for Myspace repeating the trick in 2013? Read More »

Readwrite reports on another potentially damaging problem for Facebook concerning the billionaire investor Mark Cuban airing his dissatisfaction with the social network. It has echoes of the General Motors story earlier this year.  I’m sure you’ll remember when GM announced it was to cease advertising on the site, and concentrate on content, in a blow to Facebook as it headed for its IPO.

This time it is tech and media billionaire Mark Cuban, who also owns the NBA basketball team the Dallas Mavericks, who says that he is tiring of the way that Facebook does business and is considering taking his considerable business elsewhere.

His issues relate to changes that Facebook has made to its algorithm, known as Facebook Edgerank, that means that many brands have experienced a considerable drop off in the reach of their posts. Read More »

Another year, another ‘new Myspace’ (disclosure – my former employer), but since Specific Media and Justin Timberlake partnered in buying the property from News Corp for $100m in June last year there has been talk of a completely re-thought design built from the ground up, and that’s exactly what this video posted last night suggests. Read More »

Great round up here from Ignite Social Media taking a global look at social networking and charting the winners and losers in 2012..

While Facebook continues to dominate in much of the world that is not the whole story. Looking east for instance to the Ukraine and Russia there has been the rise of  Vkontakte and in China and Hong Kong we see Kaixin001 appealing to many men.

As newer networks like Pinterest have popped up we have something new again: social networks dominated by women. The infographic lists all of the social networks where women are dominate as well as those where men are the majority. Read More »

Following the appointment of Marissa Mayer to run the moribund Yahoo there has been lots of speculation about what she can achieve at a company that has failed to innovate in recent years, wasted opportunities, and watched like a bystander as the biggest trends in digital passed it by.

Mayer’s job is to turn Yahoo around, but can she do it? Can she be the chief executive to succeed after four  CEOs have been and gone in the last five years. Most recently with the best to forget episode of Scott Thompson’s short-lived stint as boss.

As this piece from the New Yorker points out turning around tech firms is a tough job. The list of failures is long. Silicon Graphics, Excite (and all those other dotcom search engines), Digg, Bebo and MySpace. Add RIM to that list and Nokia — like Yahoo another one time leader. Read More »

Have you heard some of those experts witter on about social media and been under the strongest of impressions that really they don’t know what they are talking about?

Head of brand Siobhan Sharpe, aka Jessica Hynes from the BBC’s Twenty Twelve comedy, who heads up the Olympic Account at PR company Perfect Curve gives a perfect illustration of that phenomenon here as she talks about the future of social media. Read More »

UPDATE: Facebook shares failed to bounce back last night and ended up down by almost 11% or $4 on their $38 IPO price.

The Rupert Murodch-owned New York Post gave its view of the Facebook IPO with this Monday front cover as it dubbed investors “ZUCKERS!”.  Read More »