Unless you have been living under a rock for the past month you may have missed the world cup preparations. All over the TV here in the UK and throughout my holiday in Spain last week, the world cup made every channel, every other advert and dominated the news.

I thought it would be best to blend two of my personal loves together and tell you where you can keep up to date with the South Africa based world cup finals.

Watch the games online (UK based) -
BBC
ITV

Twitter -
The Daily Telegraph world cup
CNN world cup
Four Four Two
The FA
Official world cup twitter account
Tweet me football news
World cup top tweets
Henry Winter telegraph journalist

England games are -

Saturday 12 June,
Kick off 7.30pm
England v USA
Channel – ITV1 and ITV HD

Friday 18 June,
Kick off 7.30pm
England v Algeria
Channel – ITV1 and ITV HD

Wednesday 23 June,
Kick off 3pm
Slovenia v England
Channel – BBC One and BBC HD

I will have my rants throughout the world cup so if you follow me on Twitter I apologise already!

Come on In-ger-land!
Danny

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Thought I would run through the most news worthy social media stories and developments over the past couple of weeks.

Social media news catch up

Hootsuite update
Well if you have read my previous updates or follow me on Twitter you will know Hootsuite is my Twitter and social media management suite, well without boring you too much here are the features from the Hootsuite blog –

Message Assignment — Delegate Twitter and Facebook updates to team members via a pull-down menu
Message Annotations — Add notes to the assigned messages to provide context or instructions
Assignment Forwarding — Not the correct department? Re-assign a message to a colleague to ensure accurate reply
Assignment Tracking — Quick view of a message’s status, including which are resolved, handed-off, or outstanding
Shared Columns — Collaborate with team members by viewing the same set of columns and messages
Shared Drafts — Utilize pre-written responses and share with your team to ensure consistency and efficiency
Forward Updates by Email — Share messages outside of the team by forwarding to anyone by email
New Launch Button — All options, settings, and tools are available from a single starting place for your convenience

For me the best feature is actually the new launch button and team tasks.

Magazines targeting Facebook
Do you remember a few years ago you used to rely on newspapers and magazines for stories and exclusive news? It appears that magazines didn’t take into consideration that the internet, online magazines and blogs have taken and dragged the news market into the 21st century.
Would you read your favourite magazine on Facebook? Personally I think it is quite a good idea for both magazine and newspapers, not to forget Facebook would benefit from this. Static FBML has already proven to be a great addition and will allow many Facebook pages to offer a magazine look and feel.

Twitter bug
Twitter bugs often surface but none quite so interesting as one that surface last week. Basically many people suggested it allowed you to control who follows you, this might be a useful addition but obviously totally against the Twitter model of almost complete openness.

Twitter amends trending topic algorithm
If you use Twitter and look at the trending topics, you will often see teen popstar Justin Bieber constantly on worldwide trending topics. For me it’s not an issue but for many it has been, which has made Twitter amend their algo to stop constant trending topics.
Its an interesting move by Twitter as many popstars push their fans to make them trending topics. Sure Justin Bieber and manager Usher have no worries about this technology change.

Foursquare exceeds 40 million check in’s
Foursquare the one year old geo-location mobile based service has had 40 million check ins, this is only a month after reporting a million users are now using Foursquare. More recently they have experienced 500-600k checks ins per day.
Foursquare are currently in an interesting period of time, are they going to sell? Yahoo and Facebook have both suggested some interest in purchasing Foursquare.
While the likes of Bravo, VH1 and Starbucks have all used Foursquare features recently.

Not one of the 40 million Foursquare users yet?

LinkedIn turns 7
The professional social network LinkedIn recently turned 7. LinkedIn recently has integrated a number of more social elements to their site, including their own link shortener, integration to Twitter, adding applications to your profile and following companies. LinkedIn are definitely making the right noises and moves.

Danny Denhard

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Social media

Its been a huge discussion for over a year, but this video really explains what social media is and what impact it actually has….and why it is not just a fad

The main stats I took from this video –

Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30-years-old
1. 96% of them have joined a social network
2. Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
3. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
4. Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year
5. We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it.”
6. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest ahead of the United States and only behind China and India
7. 80% of companies use social media for recruitment; % of these using LinkedIn 95%
8. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
9. 50% of the mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
10. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
11. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
12. While you watch this 100+ hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube
13. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
14. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
15. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
16. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
17. Do you like what they are saying about your brand? You better.
18. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
19. 60 millions status updates happen on Facebook daily
20. We no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
21. We will non longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media
22. Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate
23. The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in 5 years

Some pretty interesting facts right!

Social media in my opinion has been a huge swing from email and the static web to people feeling confident to share their opinions, links to what interests them and helping your friends and strangers.

Would the general election be so popular without the work and time spent on Twitter, with Facebook and YouTube, in my honest opinion no!

We just need to look at Google and the changes they are rolling to see how important social media is and what benefit it has to searchers to see how social media will be around for many years to come.

Got any ideas on social media or disagree let me know.

Thanks, Danny

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On Twitter you can keep up to date with the following hashtags
#ge2010 and #UKvote

On Facebook –
Democracy UK

For the best mash up’s check out
Exit Polly
OR
The Guardian’s clever way of mash up tweets (to get involved you tweet #ukvote and your post code)

I also have you covered if you need a walk through if you do not know what to do aboutmyvote

Danny

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1. Facebook like button now replaces back links?
Something both Google and SEO’ers are slightly concerned about is the new Facebook like button. Facebook have made a very smart move in my opinion by creating a button which tells your friends what you like with one click, maybe something that were inspired by the Retweet back early 2009. Watch this space how it evolves and where the Like button crops up but for now its a watch this space

2. LinkedIn adds follows Companies
LinkedIn after their recent changes (here is my LinkedIn blog about last week), have become socially and company friendly with follow companies in LinkedIn. Not sure how good this will be but sure the huge companies will successfully have hundreds of followers. I like the update features they will introduce, it does make LinkedIn different to Facebook and Twitter in that respect.
Official blog post

3. Boobquake
Boobquake is a funny group started over at Facebook by Jen McCreight, it was a “scientific” experience to see if they could start an earthquake, check out the boobquake group or the results from the boobquake experiment

4. Twitter confirm another purchase
Is this the year Twitter make money and spend it on purchasing companies, well if the first Quarter of 2010 is anything to go by it is just that. Twitter after buying Cloudhopper Cloudhopper were the SMS provider for business. The purchase suggests Twitter plan to roll out tweets to mobile across the world. Interesting move, will we see tweets challenge texts?

5. See what your friends like
A neat little search service surfaced this week likebutton.me. This allows you to see what your Facebook friends like on popular sites and you can also search custom sites. Cool service, lets see how many appear in the next few weeks.

Uk readers have a good bank holiday, everyone else enjoy your weekend!

Don’t forget to like our Nitro Digital Facebook group

Danny

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Some of the big web hosts were there, Rackspace were pushing there new no more servers and had a huge stand as you walked in, Ukfast probably had the biggest stand and most appeal with a race car right in the middle of the expo floor, obviously a big win for the amount of men and suits who attended Earls Court 2 (yesterday)

As you can imagine there were numerous businesses there talking about social media and the impact it is having on businesses.
Many of the companies who presented actually in my humble opinion actually missed the point of social media, (this for me) is where the web is made fair more personal, where work is personalised via the internet and allows you to make personal and business connections and business to grow without having pointless meetings and sharing thoughts and opinions via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many more platforms.

Mobile was another popular sector, mobile is currently an interesting area for many people in the search, SEO and social industry.
Mobile phones have become a central hub for social interaction, especially since the birth of the iPhone, Apps were a big part of the offering. There were not any real ground breaking offerings but some slick looking apps and mobile sites offered.
It was more surprising that many companies over looked mobile search, I am sure next year it will be different.

There were also many SEO (search engine optimisation) companies there, coming from a SEO background it was interesting to experience the many different sales techniques used and the different “personal” approach many salesman adopted.
I have to admit, it wasn’t all bad, there were many refreshing companies there, some showing off new software, others talking about new techniques over old techniques and others (mainly software houses) pushing their premium SEO software.

Internet World was basically a networking event, some elements were good for beginners and a few people there were pushing their services on everyone and anyone walking passed (as you would expect). It’s free and if you have the time pop down.

The last day of opening is actually today (29th of April) you can register for a free pass here.

If you would like to keep up with the expo on Twitter the #tag is #iwexpo.

Danny

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1. Facebook like button
This was a small change from Wednesday, rather than becoming a fan, you know Like it.
There have been are a few groups started which have made me giggle this week -
If you need to think about these, you probably do not get the humour
It rough
It dirty
Nice and slow

2. LinkedIn new features
The professional social network has taken another step to becoming more social. I personally like LinkedIn, offers some cool features which others do not!
New features include
New URL shortner – lnkd.in
Facebook like attach a link and preview

3. Facebook f8 conference
The Facebook f8 conference, is the developers conference. Being the most popular social network and being the most popular site in America (soon to be the world) it is important for developers and the world to take note of any changes Facebook are suggesting or releasing.
Something that was addressed was social games and mobile games, it appears that mobile Facebook games are coming…interesting for Apple and the impact it could have on iPhone users.
A very brief reference was made to one of Facebook’s purchases, Friendfeed, unfortunately since the purchase nothing has happened with the one time favourite social platform. In short Facebook have suggested it will survive for now, but won’t have any resource.

Here is Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg taking questions on privacy concerns on new features from Facebook -

4. Ning going, going, gone?
Ning went from free social network provider to instantly charging their customers last week. It’s a shame there has been some good features from Ning, especially with some big sites social elements being powered by Ning. It would suggest to me they are on that slippery slop to the deadpool.

5. Social media and hash tag save travellers
It wouldn’t be right not to mention the Icelandic Volcano and the effects it had on almost every traveller across the world.
Twitter became some people’s life saver, hastags became very useful and I personally know someone who used the Twitter Hashtags to get home.
The best hashtags were -
#ashtag
#getmehome

Eurocontrol’s twitter account and Facebook page were crucial for many stranded people getting home and keeping updated. Who says there isn’t helpful people or companies around?

Danny Denhard

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Well I thought it was best to share the best guides available -
Official Twitter 101 guide
Newbies guide to Twitter
Mashable’s video guides to Twitter
The Times beginners guide to Twitter

Twitter hashtags you should know (My previous hastag post)

Mashable’s guide on how to amend your Twitter background

Here is a very cool Twitter guide for you to flick through

If you have any better user guides or would like to ask any questions, please do let me know

Danny Denhard

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This week has been a very bizarre week for social media, it has been a very clear week for what has been making the headlines and worth reporting about.

1. Twitter news
Twitter could fill the full five this week. Its been a week in which Twitter rolled out promoted tweets. In short they are tweets which are paid by partners. I did predict this around a month ago. 68% of users have suggested they are unhappy with the thought of promoted tweets.
The promoted tweets were rolled out Tuesday the 13th.

The second piece of news was the official launch of the Blackberry Twitter app I haven’t personally used it but many people have made the step from Ubertwitter but did quickly make the step back.
At the @chirp Twitter conference yesterday they did announce they were going to be releasing an official Google Android app.

The last piece of news was Twitter actually made a purchase, Tweetie. Tweetie is the very popular iPhone app and officially renamed last week.

2. Chirp conference aka Twitter developer conference

It is the first conference for Twitter developers, from what I saw over on Justin.tv the Twitter team took the lead from Steve Jobs and presented a very slick presentation.
The best bits from the conference from me has been -
Places of interest – yeah you guessed it Foursquare killer
Twitter archive to make available – basically you can search all the tweets ever published. Think of the best mash ups, they instantly got a lot better
@anywhere – officially announced with features for direct tweeting from external sites (I actually like this idea)
Twitter URL shortener – although not purchased yet this comes as not surprise. Bit.ly have done a good job so far but comes to be expected as stats and reporting is going to be essential.

3. Mexico to ban social networks?
Its been suggested across the net that Mexico are looking to ban social networks Facebook and Twitter in order to stop drug dealing and drugs deals being made by the drug cartels.
Personally speaking it doesn’t make much sense by blocking social networks, not like all of it isn’t recorded.

4. Facebook reject panic button
This story has been surfacing for a while now, it actually comes the UK police when a 17 year old Ashleigh Hall was killed by 33 year old Peter Chapman after he faked his details on the social network. 44 Police chiefs supported the idea but obviously huge development for Facebook and not a huge advert for the biggest social networking site.
Unfortunately I don’t think this would be possible and the amount of potential claims could be huge, although Facebook have said they are working towards a solution.

5. British government leaders debate #leadersdebate
Held last night, live from itv.com, ITV and ITV HD, it had 39 tweets per second throughout the 90 minute program. Everyone knows Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg came out on top of the first debate but just shows how important social media is playing in the race to become British Prime Minister.

If you are keen to keep up to date I have added a Twitter hashtag widget below.
Alternatively you check out the Facebook YouTube Democracy UK site for regular updates or keep up to date with the LinkedIn poll.

If you missed the finishing statements here is a nice little treat from friends at Channel 4.

Danny

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It’s been a very interesting couple of weeks in social media and search. Last week’s highlights and top 5 news items are -

1. Google Buzz privacy
Much has been made of the latest social network and the openess of Google Buzz. Google did rush Buzz out into the mass market and numerous holes were found on the day of release. When you log into Google mail or gmail and select Buzz you should have been prompted to accept your details. It will ask you to verify your details, please read the information (I know no one does but there are many interesting points, including what followers can see and your public information)

2. Facebook purchases Divvyshot
The biggest social network around Facebook has brought a cool picture sharing site Divvyshot. This is a wise purchase for Facebook as many people take advantage of the photo sharing section and its how many people keep updated with their “friends” developments

3. New Twitter Homepage

The new Twitter homepage includes top tweets and trending topics

Twitter has updated their homepage (hoorah I hear you say) I must admit, I personally use management suites like Hootsuite or Ubertwitter on my Blackberry but it is a real nice change. It will be interesting to see what else they actively enhance over the next few months.

4. Yahoo mail allows social status updates
Yahoo the second search engine have updated their very popular webmail service Yahoo mail to allow social status updates. Previously allowing updates to Twitter, now allows Facebook status updates. Its a good step for Yahoo although not sure how many people will actually use Yahoo to do so.

5. Popular tweets now showing in a stream near you
In a new twist (maybe a “feature” coming to you soon) Twitter will include popular tweets in your stream.
Personally as long as they are not days or worse months old I don’t see the issue, as many power twitter users schedule their posts. The only people with an issue with this will be the ones who have replaced their RSS reader with Twitter or if Twitter actually offer this as an advertising solution. It’s not exactly embracing their real time ethos but works ok for me. Keep an eye out for this.

Danny Denhard

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