Hello, and welcome to the newsletter.  One day early because I’m out tomorrow.  Very bad timing by me, because it seems that lots of Facebook announcements are happening today!

But anyway, this week we have:

Social media – Facebook bringing in lots of changes

Google wallet – launches in the US

Netflix – splitting the business

New things – Pepsi use a new photo-recognition technology

Creatives – Yaris simplifies your feed

Enjoy!

 
Social media

Facebook ‘planning new buttons’

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/19/facebooks-new-buttons/

“The cat is out of the bag that Facebook is going to launch something big at its developer conference f8 this week. We’ve heard about the social music services that could be debuting in a few days, but as the New York Times conveyed this past weekend, Facebook is planning for ways to surface personal content better. And we’ve heard from a source that Facebook will introduce new buttons on the wall that will begin introducing some granularity to the “Like” concept. We’re told these new buttons are “Read,” “Listened,” “Watched.” The network will also soon launch new social commerce buttons like “Want” following the introductions of the aforementioned buttons.”

Thanks to Tom Barker for the link!

Facebook re-design the feed

http://searchengineland.com/newspaper-inspired-facebook-layout-will-deliver-more-interesting-stories-a-real-time-ticker-93549

“In a move that shouldn’t surprise anyone, Facebook is re-organizing users’ homepages. The new look homepage will allow users to “see the things they’re most interested in.” The main elements that will power the new layout are, the revamped Friend Lists, the new Subscribe button, and a real-time ticker.

One notable change is that the verbiage “post” seems to be completely removed from the Facebook vocabulary. All mentions of content-formerly-known-as-posts are now labeled as “stories.”

The rationale behind the new layout ironically takes after newspapers, the very form of media that Facebook is slowly replacing. The release states that:

“When you pick up a newspaper after not reading it for a week, the front page quickly clues you into the most interesting stories. In the past, News Feed hasn’t worked like that. Updates slide down in chronological order so it’s tough to zero in on what matters most.

In order to achieve this, some posts will be labeled as a “Top Story” with a blue mark the left hand corner”

Images will also be much larger and easier to view from the homepage. For those avid Facebook users, new stories will show above the “Top Stories” section”

Plus - other Facebook changes to be announced today

http://mashable.com/2011/09/21/prepare-for-the-new-facebook/

Thanks to Jonas Thaysen for the link

5 of the top 10markets for time spent with social media are in Latam

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/9/comScore_Releases_Report_The_Rise_of_Social_Networking_in_Latin_America

“Key findings highlighted in the report include:

Latin Americans are strongly engaged with social networking. Half of the top 10 worldwide markets ranked by time spent on social networking sites are in Latin America, with Argentina leading the region at 10 hours per month in June 2011.

The Latin American social networking audience is nearly equal in its composition of males and females, but females account for a larger share of social networking time spent (53.6 percent) compared to males (46.4 percent). This trend was most significant in Brazil where females accounted for 58.7 percent of all social networking time spent.

People age 15-24 demonstrated the strongest engagement on social networks, accounting for nearly half (48.0 percent) of all time spent in the category. This trend was most significant in Venezuela where visitors age 15-24 accounted for 3 of every 5 social networking minutes (58.2 percent).

Facebook.com strongly led the social networking market in Latin America, reaching more than 91 million visitors. Windows Live Profile ranked #2 with more than 35.5 million visitors in the region. Orkut held the #3 spot with 34.4 million visitors, largely driven by the site’s popularity in Brazil, while Twitter.com ranked #4 with 24.3 million visitors.

Five of the top 10 markets ranked by Facebook.com reach are in Latin America. Facebook reached 90.9 percent of all online users in Chile, ranking as the most penetrated market in Latin America.

In Brazil, Orkut ranked as the most-visited social networking destination, reaching 35.7 million visitors, an increase of 20 percent from June 2010. Facebook.com, which is the second largest social networking site in Brazil, witnessed strong growth increasing 192 percent to 24.5 million visitors.”

Social forum Topix is taking rural America by storm

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/us/small-town-gossip-moves-to-the-web-anonymous-and-vicious.html?_r=3&ref=todayspaper

““Something about rural culture seems to make people want to have conversations in public,” said Mr. Sandvig, who has studied the use of social media sites in rural areas

Topix, a site lightly trafficked in cities, enjoys a dedicated and growing following across the Ozarks, Appalachia and much of the rural South, establishing an unexpected niche in communities of a few hundred or few thousand people — particularly in what Chris Tolles, Topix’s chief executive, calls “the feud states.” One of the most heavily trafficked forums, he noted, is Pikeville, Ky., once the staging ground for the Hatfield and McCoy rivalry

“We’re running the Gawker for every little town in America,” Mr. Tolles said.

Whereas online negativity seems to dissipate naturally in a large city, it often grates like steel wool in a small town where insults are not easily forgotten.”

Thanks to Emma Marlow for the link!

 

Google Wallet

Google wallet opens for business

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20108224-94/google-wallet-opens-for-business/

“Google Wallet, which will allow people to tap or swipe their phones to pay for things, officially launches today on its first smartphone, the Samsung Nexus S offered on Sprint Nextel.

While several other companies, including credit card giants Visa and American Express, as well as mobile wireless carriers, have also announced plans to launch their own digital wallets, Google is the first to take its digital wallet to market.

Citibank, MasterCard, and Sprint are the initial launch partners for the service. What this means for users is that, initially, virtually the only credit cards that will work with Google Wallet are Citibank MasterCards. Google is also offering a Google Prepaid MasterCard as well, a workaround for people who may not have a Citibank MasterCard. People who want to use this card can preload money from other credit cards onto the Google prepaid card. And then they can make purchases using the phone.”

There are already nearly 250,000 NFC-enabled tills in the US

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/16/google-trials-smartphone-electronic-wallet

“The US already has 230,000 readers at tills, and there will be tens of thousands more by Christmas. "We are excited about the amount of usage compared to our original expectations," says Bedier. The triallists use their mobile wallets daily or weekly, for smaller purchases: fast food, prescription drugs, clothes, cosmetics and small small electronic goods.

"No one is buying a refrigerator on it at the moment," he adds. "I use my wallet almost daily. A lot of it is fast food; my kids love seeing me use it."

The venture has forced Google into a different way of working. Traditionally the group employs very few customer-facing staff – communication is automated. But banking is too sensitive to leave to machines, and Google has opened a call centre for Wallet users.

If a phone is lost or stolen, the owner contacts the call centre and the wallet function is switched off immediately. The phones are also protected by PINs. To pay, users switch on their screens, tap the phones on a reader at the till, then type in their PIN.”

 Plus – an example of how NFC will make out lives easier

http://sachendra.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/near-field-communication-nfc-will-make-our-daily-lives-better/

 

Netflix

Netflix split their business

http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html

“[…] we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”.

We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, and now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. Another advantage of separate websites is simplicity for our members. Each website will be focused on just one thing (DVDs or streaming) and will be even easier to use. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated. So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa.”

Why this may be wrong – an email from ‘DVDs’

http://mashable.com/2011/09/20/letter-to-netflix/

“But here’s the thing we think you’ve missed. Streaming is young, a slip of a thing. It has grown fast, yes, but it has nowhere near our breadth. (In fact, without the Starz deal, which expires in February and also leaves you without streaming rights to Disney and Pixar films, streaming may look thinner than ever.) We’re a mature and experienced content system. We have everything, every scrap of human knowledge and entertainment that streaming hasn’t even begun to think of yet.

Why does that matter? Oh Reed, how soon you’ve forgotten to think like a customer. Why did people come to Netflix? It wasn’t simply for the streaming; they could have gone to Hulu for that. It was the same reason they walk into libraries and giant bookstores: because it’s comprehensive. Whatever they could think of watching, it would be there. Anything. Sometimes you could watch it immediately, which was great. Other times — most often, in fact, when people had gone searching for something particular — you’d have to wait a day or two for the red envelope to arrive. No matter. People can be patient when they know they’re going to get what they wished for. (And if movies have taught us anything, it’s to really go after whatever we wish for.)”

Oh – and they don’t own the Qwikster Twitter name

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/19/the-guy-behind-the-qwikster-twitter-account-realizes-what-he-has-wants-a-mountain-of-cash/

“Last night, Jason went to bed a normal man, with a normal Twitter account (albeit one with a weed-smoking Elmo as the avatar), and a few dozen followers.

This morning, Jason woke up to an inbox full of messages, thousands of new followers, and wants to sell his account for many thousands of dollars.

As we chronicled last night, Netflix made a rather fundamental mistake in launching their new spin-off brand, Qwikster: they didn’t make sure they had the name locked down on all of the big social networks before making the announcement. As Jason’s luck had it, he had long owned the @Qwikster handle. He’s willing to part with it — he just wants to make sure he’ll “be making bank” first.”

Thanks to Tom Barker for the link!

Long Reads & Presentations

Pew’s new presentation on the US social media landscape

http://www.slideshare.net/PewInternet/the-social-media-landscape-9363253

The Power of People, by Peter Kim

http://www.slideshare.net/dachisgroup/exacttarget-connections-2011-the-power-of-people

Time spent online in the UK visualised

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/james-murray/2011/09/if_uk_internet_usage_was_just.html

US media consumption visualised

http://jonathanmacdonald.com/?p=5641

Who measures what on the online world – a handy guide

http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/guide-measures-online-space/229858/

Thanks to Nandor Kovacs for the link!

The four technologies you need to be working with

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/09/the_four_technologies_you_need.html

The future of eCommerce

http://www.slideshare.net/gregfromparis/the-future-of-commerce-real-roi-inside

The future of re-targeting

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2106013/future-retargeting

Gamers solve a molecular puzzle that had baffled scientists

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/16/7802623-gamers-solve-molecular-puzzle-that-baffled-scientists

Shocking health and safety allegations at an Amazon warehouse in Pennsylvania

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917,0,7937001,full.story

 

The new, new thing

Pepsi uses photo recognition for new competition in the US

http://mashable.com/2011/09/19/pepsi-x-factor-packaging/

“Simon Cowell will return to reality television with the premiere of the highly anticipated music competition show The X Factor. Lead sponsor Pepsi is getting the word out with bold new packaging and a “Snap and Send” photo-scanning contest powered by mobile image recognition startup Pongr.

New Pepsi cans and bottles with The X Factor campaign are now appearing in stores. Three-hundred million cases of product will feature the new branding alongside an interactive call to action, one that favors mobile photo-sharing over QR code-scanning.

“By using our packaging as digital media and as a conduit in to the show, we are bringing the physical and digital worlds together for Pepsi consumers and The X Factor fans,” Shiv Singh, Pepsi’s global head of digital, says.”

 Teaching Kids News – a news site for kids

http://teachkidsnews.com/

 Things Apple is Worth More Than

http://thingsappleisworthmorethan.tumblr.com/

Creatives

More at my blog:

http://digital-examples.blogspot.com

Toyota Yaris – created by glue Isobar

https://www.allnewyaris.com/

Produces a daily summary of your best friends’ Facebook activity

Nokia’s location-based Gift Machine

http://vimeo.com/29294541

KLM do ‘live’ Twitter responses with real people

http://youtu.be/fibOIioZ6QE

T-Mobile’s new ‘Life’s For Sharing’ ad

http://youtu.be/c5-i5DqbmdI

Patagonia – take the pledge to sell your old Patagonia clothing on Ebay

http://campaigns.ebay.com/patagonia/join/

Rapha – If you’ve lost weight cycling, send your old top back to buy a new one half price

http://www.rapha.cc/jersey-downsize-offer

Samuel L Ipsum – generate sweary random text.  Warning – swearing…

http://slipsum.com/  

& Finally

 A Best Buy flyer from 1996

http://gregarious24.imgur.com/best_buy_flyer_september_1996

Have a look at the prices of computers and mobile phones

Fujitsu laptop – 810mb Hard Drive - $1,799.99

 

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