We Are Social's Monday Mashup #82
It’s been a busy week in the world of social media, as we opened our fifth office (o hai Germany) as well as the more usual news…
The UK is addicted to smartphones
The latest Ofcom report focusing on smartphone data confirmed what we already knew: the smartphone is now firmly a part of our daily life. The full report shows that over a quarter (27%) of adults and almost half of teenagers (47%) now own a smartphone.
Most (59%) have acquired their smartphone over the past year, but what’s most interesting is that 62% of teenagers have used theirs for social networking – indicating the future of social media.
Facebook exploring making significant changes
Facebook is planning a revamp for the News Feed which may include an “unfiltered” version that includes everything your friends and advertisers say and do. Facebook is also considering augmenting its “Like” button to include other gestures such as allowing folks to identify products they want to buy, or places they want to go to, which would accrue data that would be useful for advertisers.
Facebook has also added a new “Merge” option the the Resources tab of the Page editor. It allows Page administrators to apply to roll extra duplicate Pages they admin into one, adding the fans and check-ins of the duplicate Pages to the primary Page.
Google+ user numbers
To invite friends to Google+ has become easier, thanks to an update that gives users the option to share Google+ invites simply by sharing a link. Up to 150 of your friends can instantly sign up for Google+ by sharing the link. This will most likely provide yet another boost to Google+’s growth.
comScore released findings last week on Google+’s incredible growth. Google+ has outpaced MySpace, Twitter and Facebook by becoming the fastest growing social network in history, which makes the research particularly interesting.
The findings are based on the three weeks post-launch and shows that America is Google+’s largest audience – currently accounting for 27% of total worldwide audience; India is in second position with 2.8 million visitors, followed by the UK with 867,000 visitors.
An interview with Dennis Crowley
Foursquare now employs 75 people in two offices and lists over 500,000 merchants and 2,500 brands. The service has been used by over 10 million people to “check in” and mark their presences on venues across the globe – and this is all testament to Dennis Crowley’s original idea. AdAge have an interesting interview with him which showed why the company is so well thought of in spite of low revenues: he is great at “telling the story”.
LinkedIn’s Q2 figures
LinkedIn reported net profits of $4.5m (£2.8m) for the second quarter of 2011, up 4.6% year-on-year. Nearly half of the company’s $121 million revenues came from LinkedIn’s Hiring Solutions division, which sells recruiting tools, which stands for an 170% increase year-on-year.
It was LinkedIn’s first earnings call since its IPO and it was interesting to see how it used social media outlets for investor relations: they posted earnings slides on a SlideShare Pro Channel to make it easier for bloggers and others to embed and share, as well partnering with StockTwits for live-tweeting of the company’s earnings.
eBay introduce section for the most retweeted and liked products
Last week eBay announced their new “Top Shared section” which offers a list of the auctions that have been shared the most via Facebook, Twitter and email to give you a snapshot of the ‘most interesting’ auctions on the site. It’s possible to filter for either that day’s most popular auctions, or the most popular auctions for the whole month.
Mastercard’s Facebook Places campaign
Mastercard have launched a nifty campaign with Facebook Places: check into one of the old seats from Yankee Stadium they’ve spread around New York and you can win free tickets to a match at Yankee Stadium.
Blink182 rewards copyright violation
A nifty use of Youtube from Blink182: “to launch their new single after 8 years, Blink 182 decided to reward the fans who “stole” their music to create videos then uploaded on Youtube. Applying a sort of law of retaliation (an eye for an eye), they searched Youtube for all the fans’ videos that were using their music without permission, and they created the video clip for their new single made out of clips from all those videos”.
Only 8% of Newt Gingrich’s Twitter followers are human
After Barack Obama’s successful use of Twitter in the 2008 election, his potential competitors are keen to use it effectively – and be seen to do so. So much so, in the case of Newt Gingrich, that almost all of his followers are non-human. Fail.
How BBM fuelled the London riots
The social media reaction to the riots in London has been interesting – particularly how rumours spread, and how people got together. Techcrunch carried a really interesting piece about how the police struggled, because much of the communication took place via BlackBerry Messenger, a private method of communication which they couldn’t monitor. The lack of Twitter usage is indicative of how although the student riots last year were carried out by a similar age-group, it was a very different demographic of the population which was involved.
Nonetheless, despite the largely passive role Twitter has played in proceedings, according to the Metropolitan Police, Twitter users could face arrest for inciting looting.