Contagious ideas by PSST : spreading 2.0 social innovation. Edited by jérémy dumont, strategic planner in FRANCE

DeadSocial Lets Your Zombified Social Networking Accounts Soldier On After You Die

 

Let’s say you like social networking a lot. Like, a lot. You wouldn’t want anything to impede your ability to post Photo Booth pictures to your timeline or tweet out pictures of your breakfast, right? Thanks to DeadSocial, not even death will stand in your way. The new startup will allow users to connect their Google+, Twitter, and Facebook accounts to a calender where they can schedule updates that will issue from beyond the grave, because who doesn’t want their zombified social media accounts going around posting stuff on their own, right?

 

The concept is simple. Once DeadSocial launches, users will be able set up their calendar and then appoint an administrator. Once the user croaks, the administrator will be able to hop onto DeadSocial, tick a little box that says something like “he’s dead, Jim.” and the social networking accounts will be off and running. This isn’t exactly a new idea, but DeadSocial seems particularly interested in focusing on social networks instead of emails or something. Also, DeadSocial requires active affirmation of death, while many other services rely on some sort of (literal) dead man’s switch, and assume you’re dead if you stop checking in to say you’re alive.

While it could be neat to be able to send birthday messages, or other little notes to your loved ones after your death, it’s also a little creepy. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that, though things may change, your messages can’t. It could be a little awkward if Steve and Mary get that “Happy 20th Anniversary!” post on their Facebook walls four years after their scandalous public divorce when the wounds are just finally starting to heal.

That said, if this sounds like a good idea to you, you can go register your username right now. If I were you, though, I’d stick to simple, vague updates that can’t be misconstrued. Or humor. You know, like arranging for constant fake Foursquare updates from your coffin, or repeated tweets about brains. Unless you want to make people’s lives awkward and complicated — in a public forum, no less — after your death. If so, this could be just what you’ve been waiting for.

(via The Next Web)

Just how big are porn sites? Xvideos, the largest porn site on the web with 4.4 billion page views per month, is three times the size of CNN or ESPN, and twice the size of Reddit.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/123929-just-how-big-are-porn-sites

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of a fast internet connection must be in want of some porn.

While it’s difficult domain to penetrate — hard numbers are few and far between — we know for a fact that porn sites are some of the most trafficked parts of the internet. According to Google’s DoubleClick Ad Planner, which tracks users across the web with a cookie, dozens of adult destinations populate the top 500 websites. Xvideos, the largest porn site on the web with 4.4 billion page views per month, is three times the size of CNN or ESPN, and twice the size of Reddit. LiveJasmin isn’t much smaller. YouPorn, Tube8, and Pornhub — they’re all vast, vast sites that dwarf almost everything except the Googles and Facebooks of the internet.

While page views are a fine starting point, they only tell you that X porn site is more popular than Y non-porn site. Four billion page views sure sounds like a lot, but it’s only when you factor in what those porn surfers are actually doing that the size and scale of adult websites truly comes into focus.

We’ll start by laying the ground work, and then on the second page we have some real world figures from YouPorn, the second largest porn site on the web. If you like, take a moment to try and estimate the amount of traffic that YouPorn handles every second. Let us know in the comments if your guess is anywhere near.

Scale

The main difference between porn and non-porn sites is the average duration of a visit: For a news site like Engadget or ExtremeTech, an average visit is usually between three and six minutes; enough time to read one or two stories. The average time spent on a porn site, however, is between 15 and 20 minutes.

Then you need to factor in that most websites are predominantly text and images, while the largest porn sites push streaming video. When you load the ExtremeTech home page, you’re talking about a couple of megabytes, and then maybe 500 kilobytes if you load an article. When you stream porn, assuming a low resolution of 480×200, you’re looking at around 100 kilobytes per second — which, over 15 minutes, is around 90 megabytes.

Then you need to multiply 90 megabytes by the number of monthly visits — which is around 350 million for Xvideos. This comes to around 29 petabytes of data transferred every month, or 50 gigabytes per second. To put this into comparison, your home internet connection is probably capable of transferring a couple of megabytes per second, which is about 25,000 times smaller.

In short, porn sites cope with astronomical amounts of data. The only sites that really come close in term of raw bandwidth are YouTube or Hulu, but even then YouPorn is something like six times larger than Hulu.

Infrastructure

Serving up videos requires a lot more resources than plain text and images, in terms of storage, CPU cycles, internal I/O, and bandwidth.

While it obviously varies from site to site, most adult sites will probably store in the region of 50 to 200 terabytes of porn. This is quite a lot for a website (only something like Google, Facebook, Blogger, or YouTube would store more data), but in a world where 2TB drives are cheap and plentiful, this isn’t ultimately a very large amount. Last year we wrote about a Backblaze storage pod that can store 135TB in a 4U case, for just $7,400.

CPU cycles and I/O will be a function of the bitrate of the streaming video and the number of page views. First the porn site has to serve up a dynamic, searchable database of thousands of videos, and then, when someone clicks on a video, that file needs to be read from a hard disk and streamed over the internet. If you’ve ever transferred a lot of big files over a local network (i.e. stressed both your hard drive and Ethernet port) you will know how taxing this is.

Actual hardware requirements are almost impossible to derive (they’re not publicized), but in the case of a large porn site we’re probably talking about racks of quad-CPU servers, gigabit switches, and load balancers. Software-wise, most large porn sites will use a very-high-throughput database such as Redis to store and serve videos, and a light-weight HTTP server like Nginx to serve up the web pages.

Finally, bandwidth. Referring back to our Xvideos example (based on an Ad Planner estimate), a large porn site will have to have enough connectivity to serve up 50 gigabytes per second, or 400Gbps. Bear in mind this is an average data rate, too: At peak time, Xvideos might burst to 1,000Gbps (1Tbps) or more. To put this into perspective, there’s only about 15Tbps of connectivity between London and New York.

There are only so many ways of coping with this much traffic: You set up your own data center, rent a few racks in a very large data center, or use a cloud provider like Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure.

Next page: Real-world numbers from YouPorn

Megaupload Founder Kim Dotcom: “We’re Going To Win”

 

After several failed attempts, last week Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was finally granted bail and freed from prison. After initially spending time with his wife and children, Kim agreed to share his thoughts with TorrentFreak. For a man whose just had everything he owns taken away from him, he is effortlessly composed and quietly confident.

The Internet. We take this astonishing network for granted as we send our daily emails and catch up on the daily news.

Many of us can’t handle being offline for more than a few minutes. An ISP outage or cellphone breakdown often signals furious nail biting and a unique technological form of isolation anxiety.

For Kim Dotcom, the founder of the now-defunct Megaupload file-hosting service and a man whose fame and fortune was largely made online, communicating via purely AFK methods is now a fact of daily life.

After being denied bail on several occasions, at the North Shore District Court on February 22nd Judge Nevin Dawson finally agreed to Kim’s release. Although he is allowed to have a computer, the strict terms of Kim’s bail dictate a total ban on Internet access.

A few hours ago, armed with a good old-fashioned telephone, TorrentFreak spoke with Kim at his New Zealand home. So how is he bearing up after the ordeals of the past few weeks?

“I’m fine thanks,” he reassured us in a cheerful tone. “I’m only just catching up.”

During the days since his release Kim says he’s enjoyed spending time with his wife Mona and their children – a quiet family time in stark contrast to the events of January 19th.

“You should have been here, it was amazing, it was like a war zone. Armed police everywhere….two helicopters,” Kim recalled. “The New Zealand authorities certainly put on a show for the FBI.”

But if the dramatic events of that morning – elite anti-terrorist police running around with assault rifles and shouting about bombs – are bothering Kim inside, he certainly isn’t letting it show.

Mirroring the tone of the discussions TorrentFreak had with the larger-than-life entrepreneur last year, the Mega founder was as calm and considered as ever. For a man who has not only lost everything (not least all of his companies and tens of millions of dollars) but also faces extradition to the United States, he’s amazingly positive that the battles ahead are winnable.

Those battles, however, will initially have to be fought in New Zealand courtrooms and if the extradition is successful, back in the United States too. Kim is naturally cautious about us revealing too much about Megaupload’s strategy and how the company’s owners intends to counter the claims being made against them, but it’s safe to say that it’s underpinned by a firm belief that on the best legal advice, the business operated legally.

This confidence, Kim says, is shared by his co-defendants – Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato.

“We’re going for this and we’re confident we’re going to win. It [the heavy handedness] went way too far, it was out of all proportion,” Kim told TorrentFreak. “We feel that the action taken against us was political.”

http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-founder-kim-dotcom-were-going-to-win-120227/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

We have collected over a thousand examples of Collaborative Consumption from all corners of the world. Below is just a handful of the hottest ideas from around the globe.

Snapshot of Examples

We have collected over a thousand examples of Collaborative Consumption from all corners of the world. Below is just a handful of the hottest ideas from around the globe.

If you spot or know of any great examples in your area, please add them to our CC Antenna. Feel free to tell us more about them at contact@collaborativeconsumption.com

Product Service Systems

Pay for the benefit of using a product without needing to own the product outright. Disrupting traditional industries based on models of individual private ownership.

Car sharing
Zipcar, Streetcar, GoGet, WhizzCar, Autoshare, Stattauto, Autolibre, Denzeldrive, Cambiocar, Zazcar

Car sharing (from big automobile brands)
BMW DriveNow, Volkswagen Quicar, Peugeot Mu, Daimler Car2Go

Peer-to-Peer Car Sharing
Whipcar, RelayRides, Drivemycar Rentals, Getaround, Tamyca, Buzzcar, Nachbarschaftsauto

Bike sharing
Velib, Bixi, Barclays Cycle Hire, B-Cycle, Ecobici, Call-A-Bike, CyclOcity, Niceride, HZ Bike, Social Bicycles

Ride sharing
Zimride, Nuride, Liftshare, Jayride, goCarShare, GoLoco, Carpooling, Caronetas, DuckSeat, RewardRide, Avego, Zebigo, Tickengo

Solar Power
Solar City, Solar Century, PretaSol, One Block Off The Grid, CitizenRe

Toy Rental
Dim Dom, BabyPlays, Rent-a-toy, ToyLib, Speelotheken, Brinquedoteca, Smarty Rents, Toygaroo

Textbook Rental
Chegg, CampusBookRentals, Zookal, BookRenter

Art Rental
Art.sy, Artsicle, TurningArt

Fashion Rental
Bag Borrow & Steal, Fashionhire, From Bags To Riches, i-Ella, Dress Vault, Love Me and Leave Me, Renttherunway

Movies
Netflix, Quickflix, LoveFilm

General Online Rental
Rentcycle, AnyHire

Peer Rental
Zilok, Rentoid, Ecomodo, HireThings, Thingloop, Rentalic, RentStuff, Bid & Borrow

Neighborhood Rental
Sharesomesugar, Neighborrow, Neighborgoods, The Sharehood, Frents, Friends With Things, Hey Neighbor!

Redistribution Markets

Redistribute used or pre-owned goods from where they are not needed to somewhere or someone where they are.

Big marketplaces
craigslist, eBay, Flippid, Gumtree

Free/Gift Exchanges
Freecycle, GiftFlow, Givmo, Ziilch, Exchango, Freally, Yoogot, ThingLoop

Used Electronics
Gazelle, eBay Instant Sale, Apple Recycling Program

Swap sites for books
BookHopper, Thebookswap, Paperbackswap, Bookmooch, eBook Fling

Swap sites for baby goods and toys
Toyswap, thredUp, Swapitbaby, Swapkidsclothes, MumSwap, Tauschteddy

Clothing swaps
Swapstyle, Clothing Exchange, 99 Dresses, Big Wardrobe, i-Ella, Mano Drabuziai

Swap sites for media (Dvd’s, books, games)
Swap, SwapSimple, Dig N’Swap, Netcycler, GaBoom

Neighborhood Marketplaces
Egg Cartel, Zaarly, Garage Sale Trail, Hey, Neighbor!

Collaborative Lifestyles

It’s not just physical goods that can be shared, swapped, and bartered. People with similar interests are banding together to share and exchange less tangible assets such as time, space, skills, and money.

Coworking Spaces
Citizen Space, Hub Culture, The Hub, Vibewire Enterprise Hub, TechHub, NewWorkCity, StudioMates, Bees Office, CoLoft, La Ruche

Coworking Space Finders
Loosecubes, DesksNearMe, DeskWanted, CoLoco, OpenDesks, DeskSurfing

Social Lending
Zopa, Prosper, The Lending Club, Boober, Maneo, Qifang

Social currencies
Ven, Quid, TimeBanks, LETSystems, SPICE Timebank

Peer-to-Peer Travel
CouchSurfing, Airbnb, Roomorama, Crashpadder, One Fine Stay, Bed And Fed, 9flats, iStopover

Taxi Sharing
Taxi2, TaxiDeck, TaxiStop, FellowCab, Weeels

Bartering
Barterquest, OurGoods, ITEX, Bartercard, Tourboarding

CrowdFunding
IndieGoGo, Kickstarter, StartSomeGood, Pozible, Crowdcube, Movere.me, Catarse, Profounder

Gardens
UrbanGardenShare, Landshare, SharedEarth, YardShare

Skill sharing
Brooklyn Skill Share, TeachStreet, TradeSchool, Skillshare, Skilio, WeTeachMe

Shared Studios/Workshops
3rd Space Studios, TechShop

Parking spots
ParkAtMyHouse, ParkCirca, Park On My Drive

Neighborhood Support
WeCommune, Share Some Sugar, Bright Neighbor, Hey Neighbor!, Streetbank, OhSoWe, ToolzDo

Errand & Task Networks
TaskRabbit, Zaarly, YourJobDone, AirRun, MyTaskAngel, Gigwalk

Unique Experience Marketplaces
Vayable, Gidsy, Sidetour

Social Food Networks
Gobble, Grub.ly, GrubWithUs, EatWithMe, Wok ‘n’ Wine, HouseFed

Storage Networks
StorPod, ShareMyStorage, SpaceOut

If you have spotted an idea connected to Collaborative Consumption, please share it with us.

Top 3 Metrics to Measure Customer Engagement

By Guy Nirpaz 

Businesses these days are making significant efforts to delight their customers, and for good reasons. One of the key areas where businesses focus their efforts is in creating online self-serve applications with a great user experience in order to help customers get what they need and when they need it.

But how do businesses know if they are successful? Below are 3 key metrics you need to measure customer engagement.

1. Activity Time

When an online service creates value, people use it and use it often. Usage is measured by the number of times a customer visits your service (sometimes termed sessions) and the elapsed time they spend in using it.

We call this Activity Time – the total time a user spends online, interacting with the offered service. Note that Activity Time measures the actual time a user spends interacting with the service, and factors out time in which the user is idle (even if logged-in). This is critical given modern usage behaviors where users typically have many web-applications and sites open on different browser tabs.

2. Visit Frequency

How often a user returns to your service is a key reflection of the value they get from it. This is often called Visit Frequency.

Visit frequency yields many potential patterns in customer behavior, as shown in the table below. The main goal is to identify the pattern that is most relevant for your service and monitor users against that pattern. If you expect a delighted user of your service to visit every day, measure against that, if you offer a seasonal service and expect them to only return on holidays, look for that pattern and so forth.

3. Core User Actions

Another indication of value customers gain is their use of Core User Actions, as defined for your service. If a user is consistently performing core actions, it is a good indication of adoption. When user’s explore new features and start to use them, the service is growing on them, and they are happy to use it more.

Conversely, if a user is not performing Core User Actions, while still spending time on the service, it may be because he is unable to get to it (indicating a usability problem) or that you don’t understand the value they are getting. Regardless, it requires further investigation to make sure the user and your offering are on track.

Core User Actions are naturally service specific, the following table gives examples of certain types of web applications and online services.

Creating an Engagement Score

A combination of these core metrics: Activity Time, Visit Frequency and Core User Actions uncovers the level of user engagement for any web-application or service. To get to the combination that is right for your particular service requires some thinking and modeling of the expected user behavior.

It may not be simple to do, but it’s essential if you want to continuously delight users and in turn increase their life time value. If you want the best tools in the industry for this job, we recommend you learn about Totango and signup to get started with these concepts today!

 

Learn which metrics other Sales Executives use?
Download SaaS Business Survey Results

 

Causes.com and AT&T Launch New Social Engagement Platform to Encourage Activism

 Just in time for the holiday season, Causes.com and AT&T* unveiled a first-of-its-kind community to encourage activism: Connect For Good. Through this platform, millions of people will be able to directly and positively impact some of the most relevant issues we face today: the dangers of texting and driving, the importance of recycling cell phones and the crisis of declining high school graduation rates.

Causes is the world’s largest online platform for activism and philanthropy, empowering individuals to create grassroots communities called “causes” to take action on behalf of a specific issue or non-profit organization. The platform uses Facebook’s social mobility to maximize the impact of collective action. Since 2007, Causes has brought together:

• 170 million Causes members
• $40 million raised for 27,000 nonprofits
• 500,000 member-created causes

Starting today, members of the Causes.com community can use the Connect For Good platform to trigger contributions by AT&T to non-profit organizations including the National Organizations for Youth Safety (NOYS) and The Nature Conservancy. These organizations collectively will receive up to $200,000, thanks to the actions taken by the Causes Connect For Good community. For example, Causes.com members can generate two dollars for NOYS by taking a pledge not to text while driving and then can generate an additional two dollars for NOYS by sharing the pledge with their own network of friends on Facebook.

“The Causes Connect For Good platform enables consumers to take actions around important issues, giving them opportunities to support non-profit organizations like the National Organizations for Youth Safety and The Nature Conservancy,” said Beth Shiroishi, vice president, Sustainability & Philanthropy at AT&T. “Our hope is that this initiative will connect like-minded individuals, empowering them to share their passion for social good with their friends and family – and ultimately making measureable and positive impact in our communities.”

“Causes.com has over 170 million users who want to take collective action to change the world. Through the Connect For Good site, AT&T is enabling them to do just that,” said James Windon, vice president, Business Development at Causes. “The Causes platform will provide AT&T with the tools to directly engage with millions of stakeholders with meaningful opportunities to take action and make a difference.”  

AT&T is committed to integrating sustainable business practices across its business and was recently added to Corporate Responsibility Magazine’s 12^th Annual 100 Best Corporate Citizens List. AT&T was also included in the 2011 Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index (DJSI). Visit www.att.com/csr to learn more about sustainability at AT&T. Also visit www.att.com/csr to download the 2010 AT&T Sustainability Report.

For more information about Connect For Good or to generate money for NOYS, please visit www.causes.com/att

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

Video

Look at your last text message. Would it be worth dying over? Take the pledge to not text while driving and AT&T will donate $2 (up to $60,000) to the National Organizations for Youth Safety, to continue their effective community-based programs to teach teens to be safer drivers.

About Philanthropy at AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is committed to advancing education, strengthening communities and improving lives. Through its philanthropic initiatives, AT&T has a long history of supporting projects that create learning opportunities; promote academic and economic achievement; and address community needs. In 2010, more than $148.2 million was contributed through corporate-, employee- and AT&T Foundation-giving programs.

About AT&T

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile broadband and emerging 4G capabilities, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries.  It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse^® and AT&T ¦DIRECTV brands. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive are known for their leadership in local search and advertising. 

Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com.  This AT&T news release and other announcements are available at http://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT.

About Causes.com

Causes.com was started in 2007 by Napster creator and Facebook co-founder Sean Parker and early advisor Joe Green to give activists tools to make change. Causes currently has more than 170 million users who have created over 500,000 causes and raised $40 million for charity. The platform utilizes Facebook’s social mobility to maximize the impact of collective action. Users can create or join a cause to support an issue or nonprofit they care about and mobilize their networks to donate, recruit and share to support the cause.

© 2011 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. Mobile broadband not available in all areas. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN TOOLKIT

A free innovation guide for social enterprises and NGOs worldwide

For years, businesses have used human-centered design to develop innovative solutions. Why not apply the same approach to overcome challenges in the nonprofit world?

This project, funded by International Development Enterprise (IDE) as part of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, sought to provide NGOs and social enterprises with the tools to do just that. IDEO, in collaboration with nonprofit groups ICRW and Heifer International, developed the HCD Toolkit to help international staff and volunteers understand a community’s needs in new ways, find innovative solutions to meet those needs, and deliver solutions with financial sustainability in mind.

The HCD Toolkit was designed specifically for NGOs and social enterprises that work with impoverished communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The free kit, available for download here, walks users through the human-centered design process and supports them in activities such as building listening skills, running workshops, and implementing ideas. The process has led to innovations such as the HeartStart defibrillator, CleanWell natural antibacterial products, and the Blood Donor System for the Red Cross—all of which have enhanced the lives of millions of people.

The HCD toolkit has been used by organizations throughout the developing world, including Acumen Fund, AyurVAID, Heifer International, ICRW, IDE, Micro Drip, and VisionSpring.

“Many thanks to IDEO for their Human-Centered Design Toolkit, which served as a guide for our work.”—Joel Montgomery, 2009 Acumen Fund fellow working on the Micro Drip irrigation system in Pakistan

“An impressive study intended to create a common language around designing for social impact. Most impressive, though, is that the entire body of work is available to all via free downloads.” —John Barratt, IDSA President and Teague CEO

“The HCD Toolkit is probably the most insightful document I have come across within the HCD/interaction design industry.”—Majid Mirza, Micro Drip, Pakistan

Project date: 2009

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An open-source toolkit to inspire new solutions in the developing world.

 

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f-commerce beyond the f-store: 20 notable examples

 http://socialcommercetoday.com/f-commerce-beyond-the-f-store-20-notable-examples/

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Paul Marsden
Posted in Case Examples, F-Commerce

When people talk about f-commerce – Facebook-enhanced retail – what typically comes to mind is the f-store, the Facebook store.  If might be a faux-store – a ‘fake’ store(front) that doesn’t actually support transactions, but simply drives traffic to a web-store.  Or it might be a fan-store, selling a limited number of fan-first/fan-exclusive products with a view of turning fans into advocates.  Or it might be a full store, selling a full range of products, essentially replicating a web-store within Facebook.  But it’s likely to be a store.

But f-commerce is bigger than f-stores – with the launch in 2010 of the Facebook Open Graph Protocol, along with social plugins – brands and retailers have been able to offer Facebook-enhanced retail on websites and in-store, creating a triumvirate of f-commerce opportunities

• f-commerce on Facebook
• f-commerce on-site
• f-commerce in-store

Yesterday, we recapped notable examples of f-commerce on Facebook, i.e. f-stores.  Today, here’s a roundup of f-commerce beyond the f-store – onsite f-commerce, and in-store f-commerce

On-site f-commerce

1. Amazon

• What’s notable about it: when the largest e-tailer on the planet integrates Facebook…

2. Levis Friends Store

• What’s notable about it: one of the first retailers to integrate Facebook into their web-store to offer instant personalisation

3. TripAdvisor

• What’s notable about it: Leading review and travel booking site integrates with Facebook to offer instant personalisation and allow users to connect with Facebook contacts on-site

4. Groupon

• What’s notable about it: The fastest growing e-commerce business on the web integrates with Facebook and uses social sign-on (one less login to remember) – and then encourages members to share deals via Facebook

5. Eventbrite

• What’s notable about it: Event-ticketing site integrates with Facebook to offer instant personalisation, and promote sharing via Facebook.  Calculated the value of a Facebook share to be $2.52 in new ticket sales

6. Blippy

• What’s notable about it; a ‘shop-and-tell’ service integrated with Facebook and linked to your credit card or retailer accounts - buy a product, review it and post to your Facebook wall

7. PayWithAPost/PayWithATweet

• What’s notable about it: Innovative tryvertising service that uses a Facebook wall post (status update) or a tweet as social currency – post or tweet to get digital downloads for free

8. Flaunt-it

• What’s notable about it: Another third-party ‘shop-and-tell’ Facebook social plugin to add to web-store checkout – encourages people to share their purchases on Facebook

9. TipFromMe

• What’s notable about it: Yet another third-party ‘shop-and-tell’ Facebook social plugin to add to web-store checkout – that rewards people to share their purchases on Facebook

10. Finz.it

• What’s notable about it: One more third-party ‘shop-and-tell’ Facebook social plugin that rewards people to share their purchases on Facebook

11. LetMeIntroduce

• What’s notable about it: Just to illustrate that the shop-and-tell space is really heating up – one more third-party ‘shop-and-tell’ Facebook social plugin

In-store f-commerce

12. DieselCam

• What’s notable about it: Facebook-connected fitting rooms in Diesel stores, Spain

13. Macy’s Magic Fitting Room

• What’s notable about it: Facebook-connected fitting rooms with virtual try-outs

14. Swivel (Facecake)/Social Shopper (Zugara)

• What’s notable about it: More Facebook-connected Augmented Reality Fitting rooms – ‘visualise and validate’ the shape of things to come?

15. Coca-Cola Village

• What’s notable about it: Real life like button at the Coca-cola village, swipe your entry band to send a ‘like’ to Facebook

16. Swipely

• What’s notable about it; ‘shop-and-tell’ service integrated with Facebook and linked to your credit card - buy a product, notify Facebook friends and get cash-back/rewards

 

17. Facebook Deals

• What’s notable about it: Transforms Facebook into a free check-in deals platform for retailers – reward customers for visiting your store with 4 types of deal:
  • individual deals for a discount, free merchandise or other reward;
  • friend deals where you and your friends claim an offer together;
  • loyalty deals for being a frequent visitor to a place;
  • charity deals where businesses pledge to donate to a cause when you check in.

18. Mazda Facebook Deals

• What’s notable about it: For the launch of Facebook Deals in the UK, check-in with Facebook to a Mazda dealer on your handset and get 20% of a Mazda roadster

19. Gap Facebook Deals

• What’s notable about it: For the launch of Facebook Deals in the US, check-in with Facebook to a Gap Store – first 10,000 received a free pairs of jeans, all others received 40% of all regular priced merchandise

20. Facebook “Buy With Friends”

• What’s notable about it: We don’t know yet – as it’s not launched, but likely to be a Facebook Credits powered group-couponing service similar to Groupon – buy a voucher with Facebook credits, spend in-store.  Already live for virtual product purchases

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Related Posts

• f-commerce store roundup: 32 notable big brand facebook stores [screenshots]
• Do You Swivel? Facebook Social Shopping + Augmented Reality [Video]
• Social Commerce Clinic: 25 Practical Recommendations from Paul Chaney
• Social Commerce that Sucks: 4 Pitfalls to Avoid and a Golden Rule [Screenshots]
• Speed Summary | The Social Commerce Strategy Playbook (Digitas/Publicis)

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Tagged Amazon, Blippy, Coca Cola, Diesel, Eventbrite, FinzIt, FlauntIt, Gap, LetMeIntroduce, Levi's, Macy's, Mazda, PaywithaTweet

Leveraging Your Social Media Assets Inside the Company

 

Many businesses today are learning the incredible value of interactive social media tools when it comes to interacting with customers and prospects. But how deeply have these lessons penetrated? Are they being applied within the enterprise as well as externally?

These are among the questions that Social Media Today, with the help of a few experienced professionals, ventured to answer in this webcast, examining the state of internal social media adoption in the large enterprise today. We explore some of the best opportunities that many companies may be missing, and discuss how companies can use social media to improve and accelerate product development, generate new leads, and increase their voices online.

Listen to the audio:

    or download here (right-click, save as)

Listen to us discuss the issues surrounding social media's role in the modern enterprise, including:

• Identifing and recruiting your internal thought leaders
• Training, energizing and incenting your experts
• Growing your thought leaders' networks
• Turning your content into lead generation
• Creating conversation inside your dot.com vs. joining a larger “eco-system”
• Audience questions, submitted live during the event

Featuring:

Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, with clients including Intel, Sears, PepsiCo, Aetna, and many more. Prior to forming the company in 1996, Shel was senior communications consultant for Alexander & Alexander Consulting Group. Shel has more than 30 years of organizational communications experience, and is particularly passionate about strategic employee communications and crisis communications. Shel is a regular speaker on the application of online technology to strategic organizational communication. He speaks regularly at IABC and Ragan Communication conferences, and is a five-time winner of IABC's Gold Quill award, as well as an IABC Fellow in 2005. Shel's most recent book is "Tactical Transparency," co-written with John C. Havens.

Rick Short is the Director of Marketing Communications at the Indium Corporation, and author of the award-winning Rick Short's B2B Marcom Blog. His blog has been included in THE 2009 BIG LIST OF B2B BLOGS, several textbooks and articles, and Frost & Sullivan Sales & Marketing eBulletin's Recommended Blogs.Rick earned the Business Marketing Association's prestigious Pro-Comm Award as well as the Association of Marketing Professionals' Gold MarCom Award for creating his industry's first online video advertisements. Rick has spoken for the American Marketing Association, Frost & Sullivan, the Business Marketing Association, and at the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, and more.

Robin Fray Carey, moderating for this event, is Co-Founder and CEO of Social Media Today, LLC, founded in 2007. She is a blogger covering social media and other business topics, the author of case studies on SAP's and IBM's use of social media, a frequent speaker and moderator on social media and new marketing, and a member of the Board of Advisors Society of New Communications Research. She has advised numerous companies and non-profits on social media and is the incoming Board Chair of the Women's Refugee Commission, based in New York City.

 

source = http://socialmediatoday.com/webcasts/203114

Case Study: Data.gov.uk

source = http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/

Yesterday I went to a Social Media Week event hosted by the Central Office of Information (COI) that focused on data.gov.uk.

Data.gov.uk is a programme that was initiated under Gordon Brown’s tenure of Labour leadership and now continues on in a slightly slimmed down version under the coalition government.

The basic idea is that different parts of government, at local and national level, share relevant data they produce with the public. It’s a great idea because it encourages departments to be open and honest, providing the British people with access to the data that they essentially “own”.

Learnings so far:

• They’ve realised that it’s not an IT project, but a data project. It sounds obvious, but all the early problems were IT related; they soon realised they needed to focus on the data itself.
• They established public data principles, helping them publish the data in ways people can use it, like using infographics and standard data formats which can be manipulated in Excel. (Click on the infographic above or here to see it enlarged).
• They learned they need basic data standards across government organisations.
• They learned that with programmes like this, it’s best to get something out, event if it’s a rough version of what it will eventually become, and then improve it as time goes by. This helps get people engaged in the project early on.

How is the project using social media?

• They currently have several blogs, with sharing functionality and comments etc.
• There is a wiki for data.gov.uk where people can contribute and learn about the programme.
• There is an active community engaged around the programme, many of whom are developers and data analysts .
• They have realised there are distinct audiences they need to communicate with through social media and that there are different best practices for each. For example, they know that all the developers are on twitter and communicate in forums.

For those interested in social, especially it’s applications around government, probably the most exciting news is that the Data.gov.uk programme has been something of a pioneer in government for trialling the ways social might impact government activity.

It’s become a good hub for testing ideas and working out best practise, and is leading the way in taking social into other parts of government.