A world record for Twitter, Samsung and Ellen, Mashable gets another investor, Yahoo ties things up, millions of Getty images available for free, messaging apps, personalities of the major social networks, Facebook's bid for wifi drones, when big data is bad, social media and litigation, the future of the news business, the mispronunciation heard round the world and more, it's This Week in Digital.
A roundup of relevant links affecting our industry.
If you have additional links, sources or ideas that might be helpful, I'd encourage you to add some via a comment below. And if you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links by subscribing to the This Week in Digital Magazine.
Industry
- The Oscars happened on Sunday evening, and host Ellen Degeneres broke the record for the most retweeted image of all time with this selfie. (Mashable)
If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014
- The interactive portion of the SXSW festival kicks off this weekend, but some are wondering if the event has outgrown its usefulness for launches or announcements. (Wall Street Journal)
- Mashable has raised a round of capital from Tribune Company as it continues to move away from tech/social and into mainstream news. Mashable content may find its way into Tribune print publications as a result. (re/code)
- Comcast purchased video ad server FreeWheel, to use the technology for its own video ad platform. (TechCrunch)
- Yahoo is removing Google and Facebook sign-in options from all of its products. (The Verge)
- Getty Images has decided to make 35 million of its images available to embed for free. Recognizing that it can't stop the behavior of individuals and search engines that pick up its licensed images and infringe on copyrights, the firm has gone the route of YouTube, Twitter and others, and is now making embed codes available to share the images for free. (British Journal of Photography)
The Platforms
- Om Malik reminds us that WhatsApp is different - particularly when you look at monthly active users per employee (scale) and growth of mobile data users (speed). (Om)
- Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp got the industry to sit up and pay attention to the messaging platform. Here's a rundown of messaging apps and their numbers. (Contently)
- Some findings from a report on Social Media Demographics reveal surprising identities of each major social network. (Business Insider)
- Facebook still skews young, but the older demographic is growing quickly, and higher-income households are also getting on board. In addition, a huge share of Facebook's audience is international.
- Instagram: Instagram's user base is heavily dominated by women, something that has more often been associated with Pinterest.
- Twitter has a surprisingly young user population for a large social network, and in terms of household income, Twitter is fairly equally represented across income brackets.
- LinkedIn is international and skews toward male users.
- Google+ is the most male-oriented of the major social networks.
- Pinterest is dominated by tablet users, and skews heavily toward women.
- Tumblr is strong with teens and young adults interested in self-expression, but it's not especially popular with those in higher income brackets.
- Marketers may show little interest in Google+, but they seem to show even less interest in Tumblr. (Business Insider)
- Countering this trend, Apple, long considered "anti-social," has debuted a Tumblr campaign to boost sales of its iPhone 5C. (DigiDay)
- Facebook will acquire Titan Aerospace for $60 million, in a bid to make internet access to more people around the world via the company's solar atmospheric satellite platforms. (TechCrunch)
- In an effort to align with different objectives of advertisers, Facebook is simplifying its ad campaign structure. (Inside Facebook)
- Twitter's user base is growing in the US, extending beyond a young base. By 2016 more than 25% of Internet users from 12 to 44 will be monthly Twitter users. (eMarketer)
Measurement / Metrics / Big Data
- The latest CMO survey from Duke's Fuqua School of Business indicates that most companies do not have the talent to leverage marketing analytics. (Convince and Convert)
- The greatest challenge of Big Data is the separation of signal from noise - not to mention that certain online populations may not reflect the wider world. In other words, what's trending on Twitter may not really be trending at all. (NY Times Media Report)
- Traders have an additional source of how the market is trending: Bloomberg has announced a sentiment analysis tool that alerts of a spike in activity and determines whether the news is good or bad. (GigaOm)
Legal / HR
- Confidentiality agreements need to be honored. That's what the teenager found out after her errant Facebook post disclosed that her father won an age discrimination suit and a court ruled that the $80,000 settlement would be tossed out. (Slate)
- Defamation via social media is real. In fact, a teacher is set to collect $AUS105,000 in damages because of defamatory posts a student wrote about her. (The Telegraph)
Content
- A handy ebook from Marketo takes a look at using visual content for storytelling. (Marketo)
- The annual INBOUND conference sponsored by HubSpot is always a source of amazing talks from marketers and storytellers. Here's a roundup of 15 lessons from 2013's INBOUND Bold Talks. (HubSpot)
Bookmark / Read / Watch Later
- Marc Andreessen on the future of the news business - a bullish piece on where the opportunities lie for an exciting and viable set of business models. (Andreessen Horowitz)
- PBS's Frontline takes a look at the culture of the digital/social world, where it meets brands and what the constant stream of content means in Generation Like. (PBS)
- A rather controversial piece, but one that is an essential read: The Social Media Industry Is Broken - and It's Our Fault. (Medium)
- Who do you really trust? An examination of the forces that compete to win your attention and loyalty. (Twist Image)
Commentary
The Internet can be an unforgiving placeOn Sunday evening during the televised 86th annual Academy Awards, there was a gaffe heard round the world. It was the sound of John Travolta not just mispronouncing the name of singer Idina Menzel, but completely butchering it as "Adele Dazeem."
No sooner had her song begun than the sharp sticks came out, pointing in Travolta's direction. Twitter exploded. Within an hour, BuzzFeed created one of its infamous lists in the form of If John Travolta Had to Pronounce Everyone's Name at the Oscars. And Slate even created the Adele Dazeem Name Generator.
John Travolta became a trending topic on Twitter and remained there throughout all of Monday and most of Tuesday as the Internet had its way with him. A quick Google search of his name together with "Oscars" or "Idina Menzel" produces well over 100 million results.
Just as flub by a celebrity has its consequences, so too does the risk exist for brands. Proper grammar and careful attention to spelling are a must, as mistakes will stand out more than the message that is being conveyed. While we can be assured that most of us won't have the massive audience that a televised awards show will have, everything we do or say communicates to our audiences in some way. Detractors - perhaps even fans - may line up with virtual pitchforks as they prepare to excoriate us for a human error.
They may not be quite so forgiving as Ms. Menzel:
THANK YOU, JORN TROMOLTO!
— Adela Dazeem (@AdelaDazeem) March 3, 2014
Until next time, I'm Stuart Morphay.
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