Monday’s launch of Facebook Messages, introduces the world to “a modern messaging system,” that promises to transcend SMS, email and other messaging services to make communicating easier. Nearly 350 million people currently use messaging on Facebook (about Four billion messages a day). The idea behind Facebook Messages was to retain that simplicity. “We tried to make it simple so people don’t have to think about this stuff,” said Mark Zuckerberg.
But there is stuff that I can’t help but think about, like there’s really no way to fully erase messages. You can archive messaging threads, which merely hides them and you can technically delete entire threads. But the deleted messaging string is then deleted in the other person’s account as well. This makes me think about that odd message that reminds me that the other person will “miss” the message I am deleting. And of course I then have to think about the question, “Is anything ever really deleted?”
Then that makes me think about that fact that all my messages will be organized around people and there are no subject lines. This feature will mean that all my conversations with any one friend will be lumped into one mega thread of IM, Text, email poo.
And what about communicating with non-Facebook pals? (If there are any still out there?) Does this mean they will get one of those recruitment notices requiring them to sign-up in order to get my thoughtful message?
Then I think about the war that is being waged to control my information and the projects butch development name (Titan) and all the hype positioning Messages as the Gmail killer.
Then I think about how hard it is not to look at Messages as anything other than another way to coerce people into joining Facebook.
If you have a big head about the number of followers you have on Twitter then you’ll love Don’t Tell Ashton. Simply reply @donttellashton and your profile photo will be added to a collage that sizes the avatar’s by the number people following you. As Twitter’s top super user, Ashton’s image would of course fill the screen.
Don’t Tell Ashton is the product of the Interactive Communication class at Berghs School of Communication in Stokholm Sweden. Berghs offers a one-year program that combines both creative and strategic disciplines to help students develop innovative thinking for brands and organizations.
The stated mission of the project is to “explore the possibilities of social currency” and to showcase the brands and people that make a difference just by being social online. Oh…and to leverage the power of celebrity and Twitter’s 80,500,000 estimated unique monthly visitors to promote the Berghs School. Student’s and faculty at Berghs definitely have big heads…filled with ideas. I know they’ve just given me a few.
For the first time in 23 years Pepsi will not place ads in the Super Bowl telecast. Instead it will make a $20 million dollar social media investment to activate the Pepsi Refresh Project.
Firmly positioned at the crossroads of social media and social consciousness, the Pepsi Refresh project will “give away millions of dollars to fund ideas that will refresh the world.” This high concept, high touch campaign seeks to engage consumers, businesses and nonprofits at the local community level to use their social media chops to compete for millions of dollars in grants to fund cause related good ideas.
Refresheverything.com, launched January 13, 2010, invites participants to submit and price their ideas, provides a project page to support their ideas with multimedia and promotional tools to solicit votes through Facebook. Votes are tallied and winners are selected monthly. Good ideas are eternal and unselected ideas can be resubmitted each month.
The move demonstrates the continuing trend away from buying audience impressions to growing audiences by providing meaningful engagement and value over time.
Given the current state of the economy and this week’s catastrophic earthquake in Haiti, the program’s philanthropic high road makes Super Bowl advertising seem quite superficial. The campaign charts new territory as it redefines the ground rules of cause-based marketing. It seems like the ultimate win-win for the brand, it’s fans and their communities.
Social media continues to illuminate social issues as citizens in increasing numbers are using security cams and YouTube to mobilize the public to help solve crimes.Atlanta couple Dan and Alyssa Kopp have been the victims of 2 break-in’s over the past 10 months. In both instances they have used YouTube to post video captured by the security cam system in their home.
After an initial break-in in October of 2008 the couple used YouTube to post video of the perpetrators stealing a flat screen TV from their home. The video helped mobilize the neighborhood and the authorities. DeKalb County police received and anonymous tip that led them to a home containing a stash of stolen property. Some of the items tracing back to the Kopp’s break-in on Broyles Street in Grant Park. Six arrests were made in the case.
The Kopps are hoping for similar results in their most recent post. In this video 4 youths can be seen terroizing the couple’s dog with a bar stool and stealing a laptop. Their caption on the post boasts. “The last guys got caught bc of youtube, let’s do it again.”
Ashton Kutcher and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have a lot more in common than a shared hatred of CNN. Their antics have helped demonstrate the growing influence of Twitter as a communication medium.
This week thousands of Iranian techies used Twitter to provide on-the-spot reporting as they took to the streets to protest Friday’s “punked” reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Due to state restrictions placed on conventional news sources like CNN, Twitter prevailed, providing both a vent for the frustrated population and one of the only windows into the chaotic situation.
Similarly, Kutcher’s public challenge and triumph over CNN in the race to 1 million followers demonstrated the power a single person can have in today’s networked society. Especially if their wife is Demi Moore and they are willing to share photos of her butt.
It’s also interesting to note that Ahmadinejad has promised to “ding dong ditch” the house of his opposing candidate, reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi when he is finally declared the winner of the election.
What are you doing ? The growing popularity of Twitter has three companies stepping up to address some of the short comings of Twitter Search.
Twitter Search does a good job of providing you with a snapshot of the Twittersphere at any moment, but it works best on smaller result sets. When used to monitor a popular topic, the time-based nature of the platform can make it cumbersome to find useful information. What about relevance? If only the sort order had some form of ranking?
Here are 3 contenders that hoping to ruffle some feathers.
Twazzup, scheduled to launch today, is the latest contender. It addresses the relevancy issue by surrounding the standard time-based stream with related sidebar content such as Popular Tweets, Related photos and most popular links.
Twitalyzer Search adds two relevancy ranking numbers to each tweet in the results list: Influence and the number of followers the author has. So in essence Twitalyzer lets you find tweets from the people who matter most…or at least who have the most followers.
Tweetfind is pink—Pepto pink. Taking more of Google page ranking approach. It throws in a ranking algorithm that factors a list of attributes that included the number of followers, the number following, tweets and the number of retweets on an entry in the ranking.
But given the limitations of the 140 character Twitter format, one has to ask, do we really need another Twitter search engine? That depends on how much importance we place on what others are doing and thinking…right now.
Does the world really need another Twitter visualizer? Pepsi thinks so as they heat up both the cola war and the Tweetsphere with their latest Twitter visualizer, Pepsicozeitgeist.com. What’s different about this particular application is that its focused on a specific culturally significant event. As part of their SXSW Sponsorship, Pepsizeitgeist provides a view into the activity in and around the South by Southwest Conference in Austin.
South by Southwest has evolved from a hot little music conference into a cultural hotbed that now focuses on showcasing emerging music, film and interactive talent and trends. So this lens into the universe of the conference becomes “McLuhan-esque” exprience proving once again that the medium is the message…or at least a big part of it.
Behind the stream the pepsico.com/sxsw site defines the program as part of a social experiment that is seeking to bring “the best of the conference right to your computer.” This site also provides access to key marketing staff blogs providing a more corporate view on the future of branded entertainment as well as an introduction to CONN3CT, Pepsico’s fledgling 4500 member millennial employee business network and trend lens.
The visualizations of the 6 color coded topics traveling, attending, drinking, connecting and partying with its supporting“what’s popular”, “swarm” map, “party watch” and “overheard” seems like a more superficial revisiting of wefeelfine.org. But this certainly shows the Pepsi understands their audience and the cross roads of interactive media, lifestyle and culture.
