The search engine for the future is Facebook. Or let’s say social media. Sanjay Metha discusses “What is a search engine? and comes to an easy result: From a users perspective it is a platform where I can quickly get relevant results for whatever I am looking for. And his result is that social media owns the future as our friends offer more relevanceto our questions…

A luxury hotel in Mykonos has used social media for a campaign which was designed to work according to the organization’s objectives. Dimitris Zotos shares with us the actions and the goals of a real life example that can help us understand how social media can be used in order to promote a brand.

CWS knows how to kill a perfect night for chic and glamour girls. They say no to drugs! Funny commercial…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn seem to be not enough social networks for the world. The Wall Street Journal is even asking already who has time for another one… I would assume nobody but still there are more and more coming up. See the latest 3 social network innovations from some students, Apple and AEG…

Now, on 15th of September we are awaiting the launch of Dispora, a community managed social network, which will start with the vision “The privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network”. The project is financed by Kickstarter.com and is looking at an investment fund of 182.000 USD. The four students driving the project will compete against Facebook’s efforts to monetize on Social Graph data knowledge – and Mark Zuckerberg is said to have invested in the project as well.

The second new “social network” is basically an extension of Apple’s iTunes 10 platform – called Ping. Richard MacManus explaines the social network and all the feature here. The main basic features are the opportunity to comment and rate on music, use the ‘like’ button we know from Facebook and it offers the same asymmetry that Twitter has, in that you can ‘follow’ people and music stars that don’t necessarily have to follow you back. The monetization strategy behind it is clear but still quite aggressive to me. Sharing Richard’s view that I absolutely agree with from a user’s point of view…

“The fact that you need to be inside the iTunes Store to create new content or like something, seems a rather cynical move to encourage people to buy more music. Why not let users search inside Ping for a song or album? Or, even better, let them right-click and comment, like or rate music from within the iTunes player?”

The third new social network I found was created by HUGE, digital agency in the US and part of the Interpublic network. The company just launched a new social platform, called Perfunkt for Electrolux, via their AEG brand. Perfunktis looking for perfect functionality, ideas and techniques. It is said to represent the biggest bet on branded content and social media by a major appliance brand to date. The platform is already generating new heights of engagement with consumers around branded content through stunning videos and one-on-one interactions with users.

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

According to the latest Pew Internet & American Life report the demographics of older internet users turning to social media is on massive growth. The study results show that 47% (April 2009: 23%) of internet users age 50-64 and 26% (April 2009: 13%) 65 and older use social networking. And the main reasons for the heavy digital use is: Getting the latest news. 76% ages 50-64 turn digital for news. 42% went online to get news the day before – 20% got them of social networks.

Some companies still don’t know why to start blogging. Here are 34 reasons by Valeria Maltoni why businesses should evaluate the power of blogging for their purpose.

This social experiment to support the efforts of the POWA (People Opposing Women Abuse) was done by using hidden cameras in a townhouse complex in Johannesburg. It show that people turn away when it is necessary to face reality but complain when somebody plays the drums. It’s a wake-up call for everybody…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

This video is showing when social media shoots out of the roof… but still fun.

THE TOXIC AVENGER – "N'IMPORTE COMMENT" – OFFICIAL VIDEO
Hochgeladen von The-Toxic-Avenger. – Musikvideos, Sänger Interviews, Konzerte und mehr.

Share your thoughts…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

Let’s celebrate…! This is News Update number 250! The plan was to write it every working-day. To be honest… A day has only 24-hours (it’s shame it hasn’t 36…!). Sometimes I do need some sleep. And I have the plan to write one post a day as it is a weblog and not a publishers magazine… ;-)!

We will be celebrating this special edition focussing solely on the future of social networks… AND…
I will be drawing an excellent bottle of Italian wine and 3 specially designed The Strategy Web aluminium keyring bottle openers for everybody answering one of the following question!

Location Based Services Social Networks
Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite were the first mobile location-based service social networks. Now, Facebook starts with their Places.
The question is… Who will survive and why…?

Business Networks
LinkedIn, Bebo, XING, Facebook, hi5, orkut.
The question is… Are “private social networks” winning against real business networks…?

Private Social Networks
Facebook, MySpace, friendster, Perfspot, Zorpia, Netlog
The question is… Will private and business networks merge in the future…?

Outstanding Countires – Social Networks
Tuenti (Spain), Bebo (India, Portugal, Brasil), Lokalisten and VZ Networks (Germany), Nasza-klasa (Poland), Vkontakte (Russia)
The question is… Will these networks survive against the global networks in the long-run…?

Looking forward to your feedback and Good luck for the draw on September 01st, 2010!

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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All marketers want to know what the best social media campaigns were. Forbes has created a picture list which I would partly agree with… Asking myself why there is no B2B campaign in there. Any answers… and which campaigns would you have chosen?

Yesterday, I was asked the question, if Social Media is there is a life after Social Media. I answered: “Well there was a life after Second Life!”. Second Life is still here, only that the hype and popularity has decreased. Social Media will become part of our lives without us even thinking about the term in the future and is definitely here to stay. Eric Sass wrote about some historical development comparison on telephone lines and telephones compare with the social media revolution, including US and Canadian studies that undermine the statement…

What is the secret of a viral? “Hot Babe + Skimpy Clothing + Doing Something Really Stupid = Viral Video” writes Dan Neely in his . Dave Powers shares a different view and also keeps business expectations realistic for “The future of social media”…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

The latest Nielsen study makes us believe that email is loosing momentum to social media and games and comes in third place in web usage of the Americans. Not really correct, when you think of email communication being some integral part of games and social networks…

Ever wondered how long a b2b sales cycle from lead generation to sales conversion can be? Marketing Sherpa got the answer by asking over 1.000 B2B marketers… Yes, it takes LONG!

While the experts are still talking about the Old Spice interaction, this Australian campaign for the Cadbury Picnic chocolate bar sounds quite intersting. The audience had to eat a Picnic in a .30 sec commercial break, using mobile phones, webcams and handycams to create their own TV ads and setting it up here. In an Australian first, every single ad that went to air on television (200+) was unique. Naomi made me laugh…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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Studies can open up new knowledge in the way countries see the internet. So, one says Britains trust in the internet more than in friends. The openness they divulge information to social media space is interesting…

Full name: 92 per cent
Hometown: 62 per cent
Date of Birth: 59 per cent
Relationship status: 49 per cent
Secondary school: 40 per cent
Marital status: 33 per cent
University/College: 30 per cent
Partners name: 28 per cent
Employer: 20 per cent
Job title: 18 per cent
Parental status: 17 per cent
Primary school: 16 per cent
Children’s names: 9 per cent
Full address: 5 per cent

Whilst another study shows how promising the future of ecommerce looks like in China.

“99% of university students and professionals ages 22 to 35—the key consumers of the future—are online an average of four hours a day. And they are already comfortable buying goods and services online. (…) Some 39% of university students and 49% of young professionals shop online, spending an average of $294 each in 2008. The majority go to the Internet first to get product information and compare prices.”

And sometimes, you just need somebody who is taking a close look at the social media world… i.e. in Japan.

The next big brother vision is created in real life: on the social web. If you read this investigation, then you might stop using social networks… or you might understand how and in which way companies work with your secrets. This post makes clear how important it is for companies to be transparant in the way they are working.

Kids are the future. Essential that we all help them - no matter where they are living. Shivers going down my neck on that Altius Foundation campaign. Great idea, great concept and fantastic delivery…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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The question for marketers working with the social influencers is often how can we integrate those opinion leaders into our marketing strategy. Just found a post with 3 tips that give some guideline on how to interact with influencers to increase your marketing output.

Social Media, well… let’s says strong relationships, will make our life last longer – the same way as if we stop smoking. This is the suggestion a long-time study by the Utah’s Brigham-Young University provides. I am glad I stopped smoking and instead using my time getting engaged in the social web discussion four years ago…

“Our social relationships are important not only to our quality of life, but also our longevity. Throughout human history, we have relied on others for survival such as protection and food, and despite modern advancements that may [help with] certain aspects of survival so that we can live more independently, it appears that our relationships nonetheless still impact odds of survival,” says Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad

“Our social relationships are important not only to our quality of life, but also our longevity. Throughout human history, we have relied on others for survival such as protection and food, and despite modern advancements that may [help with] certain aspects of survival so that we can live more independently, it appears that our relationships nonetheless still impact odds of survival,” Holt-Lunstad

Stats on web usage are always helpful for presentations and argumentation around getting engaged in the social web with a business. This little tool taking data from the Web Index might be of some help…

As we can read from the stats social media usage is growing in every country. England seems to be leading the crowd. This video by SimplyZetsy provides great stats on the UK grwoth…

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Have you ever though on the impact of your logo and your web design? Why do they matter? If you haven’t, read Jennifer Schiff’s post on this topic and profit from great storytelling – and it is also a nice piece of content for enterprise brand managers.

PS: The story of the logo creation for The Strategy Web can be found here.

Every brand manager wants to know what is the ultimate Facebook fan page success code. The answer is, there is no blue print for it. It is driven by humanity and the humanization of brands. Now, Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang published 8 success factors that make your Facebook strategy more powerful. Interested on your views…

Though the football world cup is over, the spirit of the game is still alive. Managers took their learnings with them. And those football freaks that have to wait for the next season to be kicked off, they can enjoy this great commercial…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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Every social media expert out there loves talking about The Cluetrain Manifesto and it’s impact on the future of our marketplaces. Now that the Cluetrain is more than 10 years old, I am trying to follow it’s creators in order to see how their views have changed. One of the founders Doc Searls -after Christopher Locke and david Weinberger some weeks ago- was writing last week about the main drivers of the open marketplace transaction, conversation and relationship. “Marketing is now all gaga over “social media” as well, in part because many believe that Cluetrain was all about “social” markets”, he says, and I have to admit sometimes I do see it that way, too. Having agreed with him, I do have to add: Technology changes quickly but it is difficult to change a market situation – no matter if social or open. Why? In the first place, it is driven by human beings. And it takes them a long time to adapt new culture. Haven’t we seen this 10-15 years ago when all this internet hype started? In some way, we seem to be on this learning curve again. Don’t you agree?

There are many valuable Twitter tool lists. Vadim Lavrusik created one of the (in my eyes) best Twitter tools top 20 lists that will help you improve your Twitter experience.

Adbands has become a classic event in the last years. And the commercial which was produced for the event tells us why. No more to say…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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TGIF! And to celebrate this week, I keep this end of the update very short. A company called Kam Lock, a chinese restaurant, understands how to put the whole social web euphoria upside down. Enjoy your weekends!

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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Have you ever heard of the X-treme shopper? Well, the amopunt of people that fit in this personalized power shoppers category increases. A new study by GFK research shows that already 31% of Americans find themselves in this category. They use all emerging technologies and information resources available in order to take control of their shopping and purchase experience.

“By mixing and matching information and shopping resources to meet their specific needs, consumers are now continuously creating unique pathways to purchase. This presents an unprecedented challenge for marketers who must take special care to ensure their various touchpoints work together seamlessly to help guide XTreme shoppers on their quest for the best values.”

Mike Kassab, senior vice president of Innovation and director of the Future Buy study, GFK

Did you know that the world population according to the United Nations is 6.8 billion people? And how many have a mobile phone? A new study by Ericsson says 5 billion…!

And what would people do if Facebook was closed tomorrow? A recent study by Andreas Weigend, former chief scientist of Amazon at Stanford, suggests that 40% of respondents would backup photos and 38.7% said they would backup contacts.

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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The FIFA WorldCup is over. The matches are played. Spain is the new World Champion. The team really has deserved to get the Copa del Mundo (…not only because they won against Germany.. ;-)… ). Now that the tournament is over I thought about it and asked myself, what were my management take-aways from the last five weeks…for me.

1. The team is the star. Worldcup 2010 was like Enterprise 2.0: Teams with top stars fail (Rooney, Ronaldo, Ribery, Kaka, etc…), real teamwork wins.

2. A scarf seems to be a team managers fashion guarantee for success. Though, managers who wear a scarf built world-class teams, it’s no guarantee to make a world-class team win the cup (Jogi Löw, Bert van Marwijk, etc.).

3. Managers need to have the courage to change long-serving systems in favor of integrating young players techniques, visions and ideas (Mexico, Germany, Uruguay, etc.). Nevertheless, the accompany of “old stars” as motivators is a great back-up…

4. Management stand-still is a killer. The market-competition for the “on-paper” leading countries is increasing. Globalization, new training opportunities and new markets offer countries great opportunities to become a challenging competitor for the old market champions (England, France, Italy, Brasil).

5. It’s all about communication, authority needs to be defined anew. There is no right or wrong in leading until the communication is not aligned with the culture and mentality of the players (France, France, France,…).

What are your key-findings, take-aways from a management perspective. Share them with us… And by the way: If it is serious fun you would like to share, just go ahead…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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We all know that men and women are different – also in their social web usage. But did you know that men are shopping more online than women in Korea (would love to see European results…), while women check their Facebook status first in the morning? Read more in the studies by Rankey and Oxygen and Lightspeed Research.

Some more (bizarr?) findings of the Oxygen and Lightspeed Research study on women aged 18-34…
- 79% are fine with kissing in photos
- 50% are fine with being Facebook friends with complete strangers
- 42% think it’s okay to post photos of themselves intoxicated
- 21%check Facebook in the middle of the night

Starting to set up your social media presence is a difficult thing. Having the sustainable efficiency in the back of your mind and the right strategy in place is the second, and probably the more important one. Shannon Paul gives some excellent advice on how to develop a roadmap for your social strategy…

What do you prefer .NET and JAVA? This short film tells a funny story about a family that gets into a family chaos on the boy’s question: “Why do we always use .NET?”. Watch it and then decide anew…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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Many people are producing and publishing advice for social media in businesses these days. It becomes more and more difficult to find the best content resources. Some of my business contacts asked me to set up a list with my favorite Twitter accounts. Here it is: The Twitter Digest.

We all would love to know how the future digital world looks like in 2020. On a future world conference in Boston technologist Michael Rogers shared his view on how kids will take awareness of the offline world compared to online which is definitely a remark that needs to be discussed…

“To kids born in 2019, we’ll have to tell them what offline is,” said Rogers. “Online will be the normal course of things.”

As a client service director Matt Rhodes from FreshNetworks gets to know the issues that arise when companies are trying to develop a social media strategy for European markets. In this video he shares his thoughts on different countries in Europe and good social media tactics.

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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Mit einem neuen Service Angebot adressiert Youtube die Lean Back Gesellschaft. Und das mit einer cleveren Idee: Man verbindet den personalisierten Youtube Account und macht ihn zur Broadcasting Show. Das Angebot mit dem Titel Lean Back ging jetzt live und macht sich auf eine neue (oder alte?) Perspektive des Internet TV-Watching werden.

Für die Navigation ist keine Eingabe von URLs und nicht einmal eine Maus notwendig – Enter Taste und Mousetasten genügen. Es ist irgendwie revolutionär und dann doch die altbekannte Back-to-the-Roots TV-Nutzung – nur eben in der digitalen Welt und mit Personalisierung. Keine Kommentare, keine Kommunikation und keine Ratings. Ein Rückschritt für die Social Web-Gesellschaft oder die Option sich wie gewohnt einfach nur berieseln lassen?

Der Senior Product Manager Kuan Yong von YouTube beschreibt die Technik wie folgt…

“This feed is based on your YouTube settings and preferences, including content from your subscriptions and videos your friends are sharing on Facebook (assuming you’ve connected your YouTube account to your Facebook account).”

Die Verknüpfung mit Facebook und den Informationen aus den Youtube Info Inhalten funktioniert noch unzulänglich im Bezug auf meine Vorlieben, Wünsche und meinen Geschmack zumindest. Es beruhigt ein wenig zu sehen, daß Google und seine Abgesandten noch nicht in mein Hirn sehen oder aus meinen Neuronen lesen kann. Bleibt dennoch interessant zu beobachten, wie man versuchen wird, andere Social Networks zu integrieren. Denn die Chance der Cross-Synergien wird Youtube sicherlich nicht auslassen…

PS: Irgendwie frage ich mich ob das Konzept nicht gegen den Claim des Brands “Broadcast yourself” geht. Wie seht Ihr das?

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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What is the effect of web 2.0 technology on business results? It seems to be proven that it increases business results. This is the main insight that the latest survey by McKinsey offers, derived from asking more than 3.000 business executives. 31% of the respondents whose companies use six or more Web 2.0 technologies increased market share above their nearest competitor compared to 20% of respondents using just one or two technologies. 60% indicated that Web 2.0 had some impact on bottom-line profitability. From a technology usage perspective these decision makers favor Social Networking (63%), Blogs (48%), Video sharing (42%), Wikis (35%), and Podcasts (32%). See more results in this post by Michael Hamlin.

BUT… New findings of studies show the importance of freshing up relationships and networks by meeting offline – and not only staying in touch (via email and social networking) with friends and business contacts in the social digital space. While we may be gaining time with social web technologies, we cannot rely on their connecting power. The quality of relationships may suffer from too less offline networking, says the TIMES Magazine.

Nevertheless, when looking back at our social web activities in 2020, 85% of Americans will say that web socializing -the way we know it today- has impoved their lives. This is the result of a Pew Internet study.

Could be interesting to see how the rest of the world would evaluate web socializing in the future. Don’t you think?

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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Looking at pictures is one of the most important first steps when people evaluate relationships, if it be in social networks or real life. OkCupid, a popular American dating site, now released some interesting findings to which kind of pictures people respond most.

“Women responded more often to pictures in which the man is looking off camera, not into it. Men were more likely to respond to pictures in which the woman is at home (and looking a little come-hither), rather than out with friends or on a trip. But for both sexes, pictures in which the subjects are smiling uniformly trounced the stone-faced ones.”

Companies often ask me if you need outbound to generate inbound engagement. Yes! IMHO… A nice campaign was live on Mashable (where else… ;-) )… A traditional banner campaign with an intelligent creative, pushing Twitter and Facebook acccount plus their website.

“La-Ola” is just a thing for the stadium? NO! Coca-Cola created some great example of a new 3D animated world through a new process of printing. Watch this…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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Some days ago, I wrote on Facebook “Driving on motorways is sooooooo boring…”. A friend of mine replied: “You do not du post this on Facebook while driving, right?”. Sure I did not! BUT: Texting is becoming mainstream it seems. The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project research suggests that 49% of adults said they have been passengers in a car when the driver was sending or reading text messages on their cell phone. Even more 47% of all texting adults say they have sent or read a text message while driving. I think this is a dangerous and scary development.

Most mobile usage taking place at home? Does the mobile device become the computer for fast information check-ups? A new study by media agency Initiative found out that 60% of mobile web usage is taking place at home. Some findings…:
- 30% of smartphone users start their day with the mobile Internet and 45% end their day with it.
- Peak time is the relaxing hours at home in the evening (64%)
- 50% of smartphone users browse the mobile Web while consuming other media or traveling.
- 39% co-use their PC-based and mobile Internet, 34% while reading newspapers and magazines.

Today there is no commercial but a really worth watching social media strategy approach by webbizideas…

©2010 The Strategy Web. All Rights Reserved.

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