Social Soup: The essential stories you might have missed this week

Image courtesy of Amazon, should you wish to purchase this fine tome

Yes Minister

Some slightly alarming news out of Parliament this week, with suggestions that search engines and social media portals should censor the internet in case any sites offend anyone, break the law or break any superinjunctions.

That sound you hear is jaws dropping across the country.

This was from a report by the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions, issued on Tuesday, which even urged the consideration of legislation to force Google and others to develop technology to block offending information. Google’s reaction the next day is outlined here.

The general consensus is that this is idiotic and impossible to police, as Google says. But we’re in an era where these sorts of communications have yet to be defined. The government sees views published online and in social media as falling under the ‘publishing’ definition; subject to the laws of libel and defamation where the publisher is liable. But Google sees online content as more like “phone calls”. For a government getting flack from all sides, these definitions are important – although they seem to be of course forgetting that Google isn’t actually the publisher of said pages – merely the indexer, which complicates the matter further.

Either way, it’s very important reading which has had me looking up the laws that came into place during the pamphleteering boom of the 17^th century.

Are we in trouble if the government doesn’t understand how the interpipes work?

Contributed by PR and Marketing Manager Claire @claire_foss

It wasn’t me

Some of you might have experienced a moment of sadness (or embarrassment) when you discovered a friend/colleague or loyal follower had unfollowed you on Twitter. I have been fortunate enough to experience this first hand, as I struggled to send a former Yomego employee a private message. I won’t name and shame them… (hi @richrust!). 

Months later, after heavy discussion on Twitter, the company has officially announced the existence of an ‘unfollow bug’, causing users to randomly unfollow people without realising. While it caused a few blushes and much denial in the office, this could create a far greater problem for brands, should a follower look to get in touch over a problem.

Twitter has admitted it is working on the problem, but how will we know if it is ever fixed?

Contributed by Insight Executive Mark @MisterMumble

Snap Happy

Image-driven sharing platform Tumblr continues to grow at aphenomenal pace, with Monday seeing to its 20 billionth post, a figure which has doubled in the past six months. There are now almost 50 million hosted blogs, and as of January the platform served  120 million people and reached more than 15 billion page views a month. Dealing in billions of anything is pretty mind-boggling.

With Facebook changing its design to become more image-led, Pinterest becoming the fastest ever social network to reach the 10 million unique monthly user mark, and Instagram still exhibiting phenomenal growth, social media users are clearly expressing an appetite to engage with each other through images and rich media rather than text.  Expect to see this trend continue. 

Contributed by Insight Executive John-Paul @johnpaulfox

Pressing Play

Eagle-eyed Googlers may have noticed a new addition to the standard navigation bar this week. Nestled in-between standard Google fayre such as ‘Maps’ and ‘YouTube’ is a shiny, new ‘Play’ button that re-directs users to Google’s recently overhauled ‘media consumption’ portal for music, apps and books.

Doesn’t sound like much on the surface; however the move highlights Googles desire to steadily amalgamate all of their services into a single, one-stop portal with the ability to take on the Facebooks and iTunes of the world.

Will it work? It’s tough to say. When you download iTunes you do so because you want to be part of its service – you want to buy into the experience and all the media and device syncing fun that comes with it. Likewise, when you go on Google you’re probably there for a reason – to search. However, leveraging their 86% market share in the search industry to ‘force’ their product portfolio on users is not a sure-fire way to increase adoption (see also: Google+). Ultimately Google needs to focus more on increasing the attractiveness of its platforms rather than just their visibility. If only it were as simple as “build it and they will come”...

Contributed by Account Manager Sam @cooltweetbro

Domino’s grabs a slice of the mobile market

No stranger to bold moves in social, Domino’s reported chunky sales figures this week which it’s attributing to a series of digital marketing initiatives. £1m in sales came exclusively from the company’s friendly smartphone app, which lets you track the progress of your order from construction, being spat on through to delivery. This is further proof, if you need it, that investing in a mobile strategy could be a great move for marketers looking to reach customers on a platform they’re comfortable with.

Contributed by Community Manager Annie @anniefiddle

Friends Reunited relaunches: yeah but is your mum on Pinterest?

Friends Reunited relaunched today, to a fair bit of derision from the trendy young people that lead opinion on matters related to social media. “We don’t need Friends Reunited,” they scoff, “why – we have Facebook and Tumblr and Pinterest to occupy those idle moments when we’re supposed to be working. It’s a dead old horse.”

But trendy opinion formers aren’t everyone. These commentators also have parents and grandparents, who have possibly unintentionally embarrassed them on Facebook already.

My mum and dad are just getting to grips with Facebook. And though they use it, I know they feel that it’s not for them but because they want to join in and share, there is just no alternative. They signed up primarily to post photos of their grandchildren and I suspect, to stalk me a little now I live several hundred miles from them.

They use Facebook in a very basic way – to keep in touch with family and friends, reminisce and share the odd photo. They don’t post status updates, play games or ‘like’ brands. They would, I suspect, enjoy Friends Reunited’s new function that allows you to look up and collect old newspaper articles (something my computer-mad Granddad would have loved).

This isn’t to say everyone over 50 uses social media in this way or that they don’t love Facebook or shouldn’t be there (for the purposes of this blog, I’m considering people over 50), but stats suggest that there’s a huge untapped population of over 50s that are not on Facebook or don’t enjoy interacting there. Fanalyser shows that just eight per cent of Facebook's users are in this age group, and these graphs, though older and from the US, show that interaction on Facebook also correspondingly drop with age.

As far as content curation goes, these age groups sure as hell aren’t on Pinterest or Tumblr. These stats back this up – just 5.6 per cent of Tumblr users are aged over 55, with just eight per cent of Pinterest users in the same age bracket.

This lovely table from Wolfram Alpha shows the demographic breakdown of the UK – a rough guess has 22 million people, or just over a third of the UK populated aged over 50. And yet they make up less than 10 per cent of Facebook users, and a much lower percentage of the userbase of other ‘shared and curated media’ sites. In short, there’s a big hole in social media where a third of the population should be. Currently many are on Facebook, but not interacting there or using it to its full potential for whatever reason.

I can't say whether or not Friends Reunited will be the place to crack this issue and reach this group - whether it will have the pull and the credibility. But someone should - the gap in the market is in fact a gaping cavern.

So Friends Reunited. You wouldn’t be my first port of call for a social network, but you might perfect for my parents. And who knows – this could even solve the problem of those embarrassing comments on the latest batch of tagged photos.

by Claire, PR and marketing manager at Yomego @claire_foss
@yomegosocial

Social Soup: Reaching new heights

It was a time of celebration at the Twitter and Rovio offices this week, with birthday bashes and new releases. But this week’s news also took on a more sinister turn, with stories unfolding about employers asking potential employees for their Facebook passwords. The controversial proposition has attracted media coverage from across the web, with Facebook making an official response on the matter. For all this and more, tuck in below to your weekly portion of Yomego’s finest soup, made with the freshest ingredients. Perfect to wind down for the weekend. 

Happy Birthday Twitter!

Wednesday marked the 6th anniversary of the launch of the world’s most popular micro blogging service, Twitter. To celebrate, Twitter presented us with a number of impressive stats to show us just how much the platform has grown in its short life. Twitter now has over 500 million users, 140m of which are active, with users posting approximately 340m tweets a day. The way in which users are accessing the service is also testament to the growing trends in mobile, with over 55m people logging on with their phone or tablet every month. In a move that correlates with this, Twitter also rolled out promoted tweets on mobile devices this week, meaning that users will now see ads from brands that Twitter feels you ‘might have an interest in’ but that you don’t explicitly follow. Will this move lead to users’ timelines being saturated by advertisements?

They’ve got your back

Often vilified for their perceived disregard for users’ privacy, Facebook made an interesting announcement today that outlined their stance on employers accessing employee information. Erin Egan, Chief Privacy Offer for the company, pointed out that the new fad of prospective employers vetting their candidates by asking for account passwords not only violated Facebook policy, but also data protection policy. In fact, Facebook are so opposed to the notion that they have threatened to initiate legal action against any applications or accounts that abuse their Facebook privileges. It’s a move generating high levels of conversation, and rightfully so.

Is F-commerce failing?

That has been the general consensus over the last few months, with a number of large retailers pulling the plug on their F-commerce stores and reports pointing towards the difficulties in the F-commerce business model. However, if we look beyond the large retailers and focus on SMEs, the picture is slightly different, with a recent report from Ecwid highlighting that, of the 140K SMEs surveyed, 15% of their profits came from trading on Facebook. Overall F-commerce generated revenue increased 40% in 2011. Why is the platform proving successful for SMEs but not for large retailers? We feel there are a number of reasons, the key one being, that F-commerce is about being social, and many large retailers failed to understand this principle and simply presented users with a Facebook-scaled version of its website. Whilst it may not have proven to be the cash cow that large retailers expected, if retailers take a more social approach to commerce on Facebook, the platform can prove to be extremely successful in increasing the bottom line.

Volga Verdi Dahling?

A California-based fashion brand, Volga Verdi, has introduced an interesting special offer for fans of its clothing. In a Klout style move, customers are being offered a discount of up to 50%. It all depends on how many friends/followers you have. The offer covers a range of social sites, with a $15 discount for users with more than 1000 Facebook friends, 200+ followers or1000+ Google+ followers. A focus appears to fall on Tumblr, where influential users with more than 1000 followers can receive a discount of $20. The catch, of course, is that users have to send out a corporate message and follow the brand, but it’s not a bad exchange for some money off.

And finally...

Walmart on the moon

As one of the top social games of the past few years, Angry Birds shows no sign of losing momentum. It’s latest launch, ‘Angry Birds Space’, looks to continue this stellar run, most notably through a partnership with Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer. The franchise, which has unveiled plans on opening theme parks around the world, has ensured it keeps social alive through game clues hidden within the merchandise. With more than 700m downloads, the partnership has the potential to drive users in to Walmart, while the retailer can push the merchandise and app to its 13m Facebook fans. Adding value to social games through merchandise is a great move from Rovio, particularly with such an addictive game like Angry Birds.

Mark Stuart, Insight Executive, Yomego (www.yomego.com)  

#YomegoSocial @YomegoSocial @MisterMumble

Social Soup: BBC content, Google semantics and DJing for your mates

It’s been a rollercoaster of a week with buy-outs, sell-outs and re-vamps all over the place. Here's Yomego's take on all the news you need from this week, and everything you're going to need for next week - featuring the potential UK launch of Turntable.fm, the BBC's project Barcelona and the biggest changes to Google's search results yet.

(Image from here)

A hit in the making?

Remember Turntable FM, the music service that lets your hipster friends host music streaming chat rooms featuring their fave playlists? It’s been US-only forever due to licensing restrictions, but at SXSW, founders Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein announced having successfully secured deals with all four of the major labels, making the UK service good to go. We’re big fans of Spotify’s comprehensive streaming service and Last FM’s intelligent music discovery system. If Turntable FM can combine the best elements of both, its product might just be worth the wait.
Contibuted by music guru Annie @anniefiddle

 

Goodnight Gowalla

Three years since its launch at SXSW festival, location based check-in service Gowalla officially closed its doors. Despite many attempts to refocus to compete with major rival Foursquare, the service failed to gain the global market share achieved by its main competitor. Speculation about the service closing began Facebook acquired the company three months ago, so the news is sadly no huge surprise. However, with the new injection of talent into Facebook, we can expect them to steam ahead in developing their location services. We'll be watching Foursquare closely.
Contributed by insight executive John-Paul @johnpaulfox 

Searching for an answer

If there's one constant online, is that Google is always changing.  This week, the company announced what is possibly their biggest overhaul of the service yet. Taking a (massive) leaf out of Wolfram Alphas book, Google has started to implement ‘computational’ and semantic results. What this means, in essence, is that where there is a definitively 'correct' answer, Google will provide it, rather than offering a group of web pages that may or may not be correct.

So searching for a country will likely now list all of the countries’ vital stats at the top of the results page, rather than the Wikipedia entry, say. Not only does this save time, it also keeps customers inside Google, rather than sending them elsewhere. Changes to Google’s core search algorithms are always controversial and this could really set the cat among the pigeons.
Contributed by account manager Sam @cooltweetbro

Buy Buy Posterous

Earlier this week Twitter acquired micro-blogging platform Posterous for an undisclosed sum. Both companies have said Posterous spaces will continue to  run without disruption for the time being. While most people are assuming that the purchase is a simple acquisition for talent (see Gowalla above), Yomego hopes that Twitter has something more creatively interesting in mind for the platform - see MD Steve's thoughts on the matter on eConsultancy here.
Contributed by insight executive John-Paul @johnpaulfox

And finally...
 

Project Barcelona

Word has emerged from the BBC that the corporation is planning to make large chunks of content – including archive material – available to download for a small fee. The project, codenamed ‘Barcelona’ is described as a sort of cross between iPlayer and iTunes.

It’s an obviously intelligent move for the BBC, and we would imagine it makes use of Auntie’s already extensive online archive service, BBC Redux, used and loved by BBC staff.

Redux contains pretty much all the BBC's digital footage – anything that’s been recently broadcast or digitised from the archives.

Some people have complained about the costs in the Barcelona model; suggesting that anything online has already been paid for by the licence fee. But as long as it’s well-priced, Yomego expects it to meet little resistance. Most people know that while programme making costs are covered by the BBC, it’s hard to argue that the cost of digitising classic Dr Who episodes from the 1970s could have ever been forseen in the licence fee. It’s also one way to tackle the problem of BBC fans who watch content solely online with no licence fee paid – something applicable to a rising number of younger viewers.

Making content available to the public on a wider and permanent basis should also do wonders for content sharing, creation, mash ups etc. Nice one, BBC.
Contributed by PR and marketing manager Claire @claire_foss

This week our Brand Barometer piece focuses on Lynx, a brand which brought 'chaos' to the streets as it launched its first female product. Find out how it scores over on Marketing Magazine.

Starbucks: free lattes and social media

As most of you surely know by now, yesterday Starbucks decided to give away a free new recipe latte to anyone that wanted one, as long as they gave their name when they ordered. This was to promote the fact that the drink now contains an extra shot, and that now, Starbucks will automatically take your name when you order a drink (as it has done for a whilein the US).

Obviously, freebies of this sort generate a lot of conversation on social channels. So as just last week, Yomego’s regular ‘Social BrandTracker’ in Marketing magazine featured Starbucks, we decided to update that and look at how today’s promotion played out in the world of social media.

Of course, we had to sample the product ourselves too. 

Free really is the best price.

Stats first. At 12pm yesterday, Starbucks conversation on social had spiked significantly, with a 55% increase on daily conversation,compared to the past week. This increased Starbucks’ SMR reach score by 2.54 points – up to 89.6 out of 100 – a good level of growth for a brand with an already high reach.

However, satisfaction reduced slightly (from 77.5 to 67.4)due to a high number of neutral discussions around simply picking up the freecoffee.

The positives

So what were people talking about? Well, around half of all positive were simple thank you posts, both on Starbucks’ brand Facebook/Twitter pages and as statuses/tweets. There have also been a large number of customers posting comments about how much they love Starbucks and happy customers are recommending the offer to friends.

People have also been largely positive about the extra espresso shot in the free latte – the increased awareness of which was whole point of the sampling/giveaway exercise, after all. The time of the promotion(before 12) was also well-received, with many saying that the free Starbucks had kickstarted their morning.

And finally, though there have been cynics, the writing of customer’s names on the cups has gained many positive responses from customers,with many uploading photos of their personalised cups and being pleased that baristas have asked their names

The less positive

Of course, there have been inevitable negative mentions –the most common being about the length of queues in branches. There has also been a suspicion among some customers, with many asking why the brand would run such a giveaway and looking for the ‘catch’. We also saw many people wrongly assuming that the coffee was only free with a copy of the Metro, which yesterday came with a large advert for the promotion on the back cover.

Looking at the Starbucks UK Twitter feed, we can see many customers have complained that their local branch has claimed it is not participating in the promotion, leaving them without their free lattes. However, Starbucks has responded well to this on Twitter, apologising to the customers and asking which branches have been claiming to not participate.

On a similar note, many people living in remote areas have been posting about feeling disadvantaged by the fact that they don’t live anywhere near a Starbucks and feeling like they were missing out even though they are loyal Starbucks fans. Short of a large rural investment programme or a delivery service, I don’t think Starbucks can do much about this.

Lastly, in contrast to the positive response to the new latte recipe, some customers have complained that the free lattes aren’t up to scratch due to the large number being made, or complaining that they don’t like coffee/lattes and feeling there should be more than one drink on offer.

How did it affect other companies?

Alongside the Metro, other brands were also mentioned. Alarge number of people tweeted/posted about Starbucks in relation to its largest competitor Costa. These responses include customers who normally use Costa but have been converted to Starbucks, customers who think that the new latte tastes better than Costa’s equivalent, or customers that would like Costa to run a similar promotion. Many coffee-drinkers have also posted similar messages about Starbucks in relation to Metro and Cafe Nero, although some customers have claimed that these brands are still in their eyes better than Starbucks in terms of price and taste.

Some customers also talked about local coffee shops in relation to Starbucks, asking their friends to go to local shops instead of Starbucks or accusing Starbucks of ‘trampling’ these local businesses by giving out free coffee. And finally, some Jimmy Carr fans have also picked up on the tweets he posted on Tuesday and yesterday morning about the promotion (@jimmycarr,) and posted photos of  the comedian working as a barista as part of thecampaign in a London Starbucks branch on the morning of the giveaway.

In conclusion…

Discussions on social media have obviously benefitted this sampling campaign hugely – and anecdotally at least, Starbuck’s use of traditional media caught those that might have missed the buzz generated on social channels over the past few days – and in the case of the Metro ad,driven more social buzz.

Certainly, conversations I had in my local branch this morning showed many caffeine seekers were there because they saw the TV ad last night or read the Metro this morning. And good old fashioned offline buzz worked too – on my way out (having waited a mere five minutes for my coffee, despite the queue) I was quizzed by people curious about the queue snaking out of the door onto Glasgow’s Buchanan Street.

Claire Foss, PR & Marketing Manager, Yomego (www.yomego.com)
#YomegoSocial @YomegoSocial @Claire_Foss

Timeline for Brands: Five things you need to know

One of the biggest social stories so far this year is Facebook’s introduction of Timeline for brands. Mirroring the changes made to individual profiles, in September 2011, it was inevitable that an update for brand pages was on its way.

The biggest overall change is that Timeline allows you to tell a fuller and more engaging story about your brand. Photos are prioritised, landing pages and apps have been demoted, and ‘milestones’ means that you can complete the full history of your brand, allowing fans to travel back in time and learn more about the brands they love, all with a sense of Facebook’s spirit of openness.

Timelines can be seen by anyone without having to be ‘liked’ (as can some basic stats about pages and interaction) and brands can also hide fan posts until approval (helpful for crisis management). And, for the first time, consumers can contact a brand directly – focusing on Facebook’s role as a customer service channel.

1. The Cover Photo

The most notable new feature of brand pages is the cover photo. This is the large rectangular picture at the top of the page – with your profile picture now a smaller box offset inside this. Facebook states that the cover photo must not contain any pricing, contact information, calls to action, or prompts to ‘like’ or ‘share’ content from a page. Instead, brands must rely on strong imagery to represent the brand, with great examples appearing from Sharpie, Red Bull and Burberry.

2. Interactions and Apps

It’s bye bye to the tabs and landing pages brands spent so long planning. These are now buried away in a new section detailing interactions and apps, under the cover photo, to the right of the Timeline. ‘Apps’ in this sense include things like photos, and four priority apps will initially appear on the Timeline, one of which must be photos. An additional eight apps can appear in the expanded view, although brands will be able to create multiple app tabs, yet no more than twelve will appear live on a brands timeline at one time.

 

3. Milestones

This is part of Facebook’s move to ‘storify’ engagement and make everything more open. Brands can share milestones (known as Life Events on public profiles) with fans and can backdate events as far back as 1000. An early innovator of this feature is Manchester United, which highlights its achievements throughout the years, including a content-heavy 1999 when they won the treble.

 

4. Featured Content

While in the past all content had similar weighting, Timeline allows brands to pin or highlight a post. Highlighting a post, adjusts the width of content or an image and Pinning puts an important post to the top of the Timeline. The pinned post will remain at the top of the Timeline for a set period, identifying it as a key post.

5. Engagement never stops

Users are still able to like, comment and share a post; however, they can also now choose to contact a company directly. The message feature allows fans to private-message a brand, something which could obviously reduce the amount of negative conversation visible on a Timeline. However, for brands wary of this feature, page admins can turn it if needed.

Timeline for brands will be compulsory from 30th March and we've already seen some brands' making great use of the new features. More information can be found on Facebook. If you've seen any Timelines you love, let us know below.

Mark Stuart, Insight Executive, Yomego (www.yomego.com)  

#YomegoSocial @YomegoSocial @MisterMumble

Social Soup #15: Coming to a Screen Near You

It’s been a busy week in social, with the TSA coming under scrutiny for its contentious reaction to a negative video, Channel 4 becoming part of the ‘social TV’ revolution and Facebook rolling out even more new features. Tuck in!

4Seven

Channel 4 this week announced its plans to launch its first new channel since 2005; 4seven. The new catch-up channel will broadcast the most popular programs from the last seven days based on social media buzz and direct requests. 4seven will be rolled out across all major TV platforms later this year, and will act as an alternative to watching online. Social buzz shaping television content is already a major trend in the US, with the likes of ESPN’s ‘Pardon the Interruption’ and ‘Sports Center’ basing discussion purely on themes from Twitter. With ‘social TV’ and ‘second screen experiences’ set to be key trends in 2012, expect to see more innovation by entertainment brands throughout the year.

Twoupons

If you have an American Express card and don’t mind hitting your Twitter followers with some branded hashtags, you could be in for some savings. In an innovative scheme from American Express, card owners can redeem discount codes simply by sending out tweets. Amex owners who sign up for the service can get discounts at major retailers like Best Buy, Dell and McDonalds. The level of integration within Twitter sounds impressive, with new offers appearing as favourite tweets from the @Americanexpress account. With mobile payments gaining momentum, this is a great way for AmEx to demonstrate that it’s still current.

A bite of the Apple

It would be no exaggeration to say that the launch of Apples new iPad was one of the big stories of the week; however it’s not that shiny new display that’s got us excited over here, but rather the now discounted iPad 2 you can get alongside it. By the end of 2011, the iPad alone accounted for 16% of all mobile internet traffic and 30% of social media traffic. With the new cheaper entry point of £329, it’s obvious that their move will put them directly in competition with the cheaper Android tablets biting at Apples slice of the pie.

Social déjà vu

You may have noticed a shiny little pop-up on your Facebook homepage this morning warmly introducing you to the networks newest addition; ‘Interests’. The feature borrows heavily from existing social networking sites such as Pinterest and Twitter, however the end goal for Facebook is to allow users to create their ‘own personalised newspaper’, with everything they like in a single destination. Users can create lists or select them based on those curated by public figures and celebrities. The move highlights Facebook’s ever changing evolution from a network-centric platform to something altogether more extrospective. Could this feature offer a completely new way for brands to advertise on the platform?

And finally...

Fear of Flying?

Four days ago, engineer and blogger Jonathan Corbett posted a video on YouTube highlighting a major flaw with the TSA’s controversial nude body scanners. The video, which has already clocked up over 1.1m views, shows Corbett manipulating the scanners and successfully smuggling a small metal case through on two separate occasions. What is more worrying however is the irreverent response posted by ‘Blogger Bob Burns’ on the TSA’s official blog. In our opinion, this is exactly how not to respond to a potentially damaging situation on social, particularly from an organisation with such a high level of responsibility for public safety. Failing to show respect to the blogger by referencing him as ‘some guy’ and not addressing people’s legitimate concerns completely undermined the message portrayed by Corbett which highlights a serious public safety issue. While an informal, irreverent approach can often work well in social, this is an example of why you should always think before you post.

John Paul Fox, Insight Executive, Yomego (www.yomego.com)  

#YomegoSocial @YomegoSocial @johnpaulfox

Social Soup #14: Times are changing

Facebook’s introduction of Timeline for brands got tongues wagging this week, in what was otherwise a relatively quiet week in social. Our weekly dose of soup highlights some great uses of the new layout, along with a video breakdown of the changes.

Changed times for brands

Following the new Timeline feature for individual user profiles, Facebook has officially rolled-out Timeline for brand pages. The change will affect all aspects of a brand’s marketing effort on the social networking site and will become compulsory on 30th March. Out goes the landing tab, in comes the cover photo. This is the first point of contact for fans, although it comes with a host of new restrictions, such as the requirement to remove calls to ‘like’ the page.

Early innovators include Burberry, Coca-Cola, and Manchester United amongst others. Although the change has brought mixed reactions, some of the early Timelines have shown the potential of the new format, most notably for brands with a rich history. Manchester United, for example, uses the timeline to outline its league and cup wins, alongside notable events and updates. Burberry utilises the ‘highlight’ feature to showcase new looks and images from the Burberry brand. One point worth noting, is that fans now have the ability to message a brand, bringing new expectations around customer service on the platform. What do you think of the changes? We have mixed views but our new Timeline profile is live on Facebook now.

We’ve included a video at the end of our roundup highlighting some of the changes that brand pages have undergone.

Opening the windows

Social has always been about breaking down the barriers that limit interaction between people. As such, smartphones have become almost symbolic in their attempts to make it accessible for users to do just that. However one area where there has been limited attempts to unify the two is on the humble desktop operating system. This week Microsoft unveiled the ‘consumer preview’ for their newest OS, Windows 8. The OS is the company’s attempt to create a true convergence between desktop and tablet with a complete overhaul of the UI to bake social right into the foundations. So far Windows 8 has been downloaded a whopping 1m times in 24 hours, with tech enthusiasts reporting mixed reviews at the relatively half-baked approach. Have you downloaded Windows 8? If so, what do you think?

Adding to the Tweets

Talking about mobile, Twitter announced plans to roll out its ad products to its mobile apps this week. The feature, which has been active on the site since July 2011, will bring promoted trends and promoted tweets to users on the go. The ads will replicate the web versions, alongside appearing in the results. Having failed to capitalise on its huge growth, the move is an attempt to ramp up the commercialisation of the site, although Groupola research found that 68% of users polled were “upset about the idea of branded tweets entering their personal feeds”. With half of its users accessing the site through mobile, it only makes sense that this is an avenue Twitter explores.

And finally...

Who ate all the Pi?

With all eyes on the Windows 8 and iPad 3 rumours, this week also saw the launch of the Raspberry Pi, a tiny, not-so-shiny Linux machine with a pocket-money friendly £25 price tag. Eben Upton, the founder of the charity behind the device, spotted a need to inspire young programmers, who he felt lack a modern equivalent to the Sinclair Spectrum or BBC Micro on which many of the last generation cut their teeth. Demand for this small and understated piece of kit crashed the website, with the first units selling out within minutes. With a price tag as slender as its form, this could be an accessible and invaluable tool for the next generation of computer engineers.

This week our Brand Barometer piece focusses on Ultimo, a brand with its knickers in a twist on social. Find out how it scores over on Marketing Magazine.

Mark Stuart, Insight Executive, Yomego (www.yomego.com)  

#YomegoSocial @YomegoSocial @MisterMumble