We Are Social's Tuesday Tweakup #7

adam.bernstein

Twitter users may face court
Twitter’s European boss Tony Wang has warned that users of the micro-blogging service may face court if they break local laws while using the site. He said that where it was ‘legally required’, Twitter would hand over users details to the authorities. He also said that Twitter would have little sympathy for those who ended up in court, and wouldn’t be defending them. Thanks, Twitter.

Blogs continue to grow in popularity
Although social networks like Twitter and Facebook now dominate blogs in terms of internet penetration, it’s interesting to see how blogs continue to grow in popularity: a survey from eMarketer found that blogs will reach 122.6 million Americans this year, representing 53.5% of the internet population, with growth projected to continue year-on-year.

YouTube celebrates sixth birthday, reveals impressive stats
YouTube turned six last week and celebrated with some impressive statistics – the site now sees 48 hours of footage uploaded every minute (a 37% increase over the last six months) and, last weekend, YouTube surpassed 3 billion views a day, a staggering number and a 50% increase over the last year. Well done.

Brands ‘liked’ by 50 million users per day
While delivering a lecture at the LSE, Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg produced an interesting statistic – that over 50 million Facebook users like a brand page each day. This contrasts with just 15 million who add a new friend on any given day, and is testament to just how popular – and important – Facebook Pages are for brands.

Facebook developing more ways to share media
As part of its ambition to become a hub for many different activities on the internet, Facebook is developing features so that users can share their favourite music, television programmes and other media. They’re said to be in talks with, among others, Spotify.

Facebook refused to comment on the rumours, but Mark Zuckerberg hinted at something similar when speaking last week in France:

Listening to music is something that people do with their friends. Music, TV, news, books — those types of things I think people just naturally do with their friends. I hope we can play a part in enabling those new companies to get built, and companies that are out there producing this great content to become more social.

Facebook tells pharma companies they must allow comments
Facebook has told pharmaceutical companies that they must allow comments on their Facebook Pages. Undoubtedly, this is a positive step…

Facebook adds RSS Feeds to Pages
Facebook have added an option to ‘subscribe via RSS’ to Pages, for those who want to be updated without constantly checking through Facebook itself.

Twitter to launch its own photosharing service?
After last week’s confirmation of their acquisition of Tweetdeck, Twitter is rumoured to be about to launch its own photosharing service – which will doubtless come as a body blow to Yfrog, TwitPic et al. Considering photos were at the heart of Facebook’s success, we shouldn’t be surprised by this move.

Google Places can now import Foursquare check-ins
In a nifty move, Google Places has made itself more social by allowing users to import their Foursquare check-ins and then rate and review the venues. Nice.

Urban Outfitters social media nightmare
Fashion chain Urban Outfitters was absolutely pilloried on Twitter last week for ripping off a line of an independent designer.


The two charts above, show just how much the story spread, with people using words like ‘stealing’ and ‘boycott’ in relation to Urban Outfitters.

The independent designer – Stevie K of tru.che – has Amber Karnes to thank, after her tweet(s) kick-started the whole conversation. It’s interesting to see how a trending topic can stem from a not especially influential user tweeting about something; Karnes had less than 1000 followers when the story broke.

How did European Airlines react to the ash-cloud on social media?
With the second ash cloud in as many years, one would hope that the European Airlines would have drawn up a strategy to deal with such an eventuality. Clearly, some had – KLM provided an impressive customer service response rate on their Facebook Page; but there were also those who hadn’t learnt, with British Airways disabling user posts on their Facebook page. Grounded.

Heineken’s real-time maps
To promote their sponsorship of the Champions League Final, Heineken ran a series of digital outdoor ads with a map showing how people were tweeting about the match. The map featured expanding and shrinking Heineken beer bottles to visually represent the number of people around the world tweeting about the match and was on show in a variety of outdoor locations.

Toyota launches private social network for Toyota owners
Toyota has created Toyota Friend, a private social network that will allow customers the chance to, among other things, connect with their dealerships, cars, and Toyota itself – for example, if your car battery needs recharging, Toyota Friend would send you an alert. Reports are as yet unconfirmed that non-Toyota owners can still get a Previa of the site.

Sony Ericsson’s Champions League Final badges
Saturday’s Champions League Final allowed Ryan Giggs to be anonymous – and it was the day where Sony Ericsson ran a couple of nice campaigns using FourSquare. First, they created a badge for anyone who checked in at Wembley, with the added incentive that one person would win a pair of tickets to the Super Cup. Second, they staged the Great Sony Ericsson Shirt Off around London, with the chance to win tickets, shirts and handsets. Good stuff.

adidas Originals Facebook Page hits 10 million fans
adidas Originals reached 10 million fans last week – and had an, ahem, original way of thanking the 10 million.