How People Are Signing In Across the Web [STATS]

Identity management provider Janrain has just released its latest usage study detailing what social networks and services people use to sign in and share activities across the web.

As in its last report back in April, Google and Facebookcontinue to dominate websites that offer third-party login options. Across the 250,000 sites that use Janrain Engage,Google represents the preferred sign-in option for 38% of users.

Facebook is in second place, with 24% of sign-ins and Yahoo is in third place with 14%. Twitter, which is a popular option in certain segments, only accounts for 5% of generalized sign-in data.

Google is the dominant catch-all login in the aggregate, but other services, particularly Facebook, really take the lead when websites are segmented by type.

For example, for news media sites, Yahoo represents approximately 34% of all logins. For magazine publishers, Facebook is the clear choice amongst website visitors. Fifty-seven percent of logins are from Facebook, nearly triple its nearest competitor, Google, at 20%.

Likewise, with music sites, Facebook leads with 55% of logins and second place Twitter is at 18%. Retailbrand logins are also largely dominated by Facebook.

It makes sense that Facebook has such a strong presence in magazines, retail brands and in music. This can likely be tied with the brand and publishers’ usage of Facebook pages.

---

Facebook and Twitter Dominate Sharing

---

More and more publishers are integrating sharing options like Facebook Like buttons or the new Twitter Tweet buttons into their sites. Many publishers are seeing increases in traffic as a direct result of these sharing tools.

According to Janrain’s data, Facebook is the preferred sharing network for 53% of users. Twitter is close behind with 37%. Keep in mind, Janrain’s platform allows users to cross-share to multiple networks at once, which indicates that there may be some overlap.

Still, this is an important distinction from the single sign-in data. To us, this represents that while Google may be used as a frequent sign-in option — perhaps because of how closely the service is tied to an e-mail address — when it comes to engaging and identifying with information online, Facebook and Twitter are where users value their time.

by Christina Warren Mashable August 16, 2010

How People Are Signing In Across the Web [STATS]

Retailers use Web tools aimed at younger shoppers

Shoppers and retailers are turning to cellphones, "haul videos," virtual dressing rooms and social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to make the most out of this year's back-to-school shopping season.

With billions of dollars at stake, retailers are going after back-to-school shoppers where they are spending an increasing amount of time - on their cellphones and on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter social-network sites.

They are launching applications, or "apps," for smartphones, running promotions and contests on Facebook, setting up sites where customers can show off their purchases online or superimpose their clothes on a customer sitting before a webcam.

Shoppers are relishing the novel ways to shop and the instant tips they get about special promotions and deals.

"It's the best way to reach teens," Staples Inc. spokeswoman Karen Pevenstein said of the new kit of marketing tools being embraced by retailers.

Young shoppers are expected to spend more than $200 billion of their own and their parents' money this year, making them one of retailers' most sought-after demographic groups.

Much of that will be spent from July to September on back-to-school supplies and clothes.

Katie Suarez of Phoenix consulted Forever 21's Facebook page before recently heading out to the retailer's Scottsdale store for some back-to-school shopping. The savvy consumer also looked at pages for independent stores she likes such as Rowdy Boutique in Phoenix.

"I go where the best deals are," she said.

Forever 21 is currently running a Hot Summer Sale with some "must-have" items as low as 79 cents.

Altogether, consumers are expected to spend $55 billion on back-to-school clothes, supplies and related items. That compares with $47.5 billion last year.

Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bank's annual Backpack Index estimates it could cost up to $474 to outfit a student for elementary school this year, $545 for middle school and $1,000 for high school.

Facebook and 'haul videos'

For most of the year, office-supply retailer Staples caters to small businesses. But in July and August, it turns its attention to parents and students.

"Back-to-school has become a really big event for us," Pevenstein said.

Staples brings in more than 1,000 specialty items for back-to-school and this year is turning to Facebook and Twitter to help market locker lights, Glam Rocks pens, binders and computers.

Customers also can access Staples' fliers, coupons and special promotions via their cellphones. The company just launched an app for iPhones that allows users to locate stores and receive offers through their phones.

Once-staid J.C. Penney Co. also has embraced new media.

J.C. Penney spokeswoman Kate Coultas said the company is focusing much of its back-to-school marketing this year on social-media sites, iPhone apps and other emerging marketing tools.

"We're using more non-traditional components to engage the teen customer, and we see that continuing," Coultas said.

This year, J.C. Penney has tapped into the teen trend of making "haul videos" to show off purchases after forays to the mall. There are more than 150,000 such videos on YouTube, and some are racking up millions of views by consumers.

J.C. Penney and other retailers such as American Eagle and Forever 21 have recruited some of the better-known shoppers to make haul video using their clothes. J.C. Penney recently flew five established "haulers" to its Dallas store, gave them $500 gift cards, and asked them to make videos of what they bought. The videos are posted on the company's Facebook page with links to the various products.

"It's teenage girls speaking to other teenage girls," Coultas said.

J.C. Penney also has partnered with Seventeen magazine to create a virtual dressing room for back-to-school, where teens can superimpose the company's clothes on an image taken by a webcam.

The company also is coming out with an iAd for iPhones. The advertisements appear on iPhone apps that appeal to teens and provide a link to J.C. Penney's haul video virtual dressing rooms and online retail site.

"We're providing tools that let consumers decide how they want to react to the brand," Coultas said.

Consumers' strategy

Phoenix shopper Yvonne Cordiero uses her cellphone to locate stores and find about specials and promotions.

"If I'm at home, I use my laptop," she said. "But if I'm out, I can get most of the information I need with my phone."

A recent study by accounting firm Deloitte found that three in 10 consumers plan to use their cellphones and social-networking sites to help with back-to-school shopping this year. Most will use the tools to access deals, compare prices and get the most for their money.

That offers a business opportunity for stores.

"Retailers' ability to influence purchase decisions beyond in-store interactions is growing significantly," said Alison Paul, head of the U.S. retail sector for Deloitte.

FastMall 3.0, a free iPhone app with floor plans of the seven largest malls in metro Phoenix, provides step-by-step directions to specific stores, restaurants, restrooms and other mall services. A new version coming out in September will notify stores when shoppers arrive at the mall so that they can send them last-minute offers and coupons.

Paul noted that companies that can directly engage consumers through mobile apps, text alerts and video content may "win an increased share of shoppers' back-to-school budgets this year."

Of the $55 billion in back-to-school spending, an estimated $34 billion will be spent by college students and their parents.

To reach that market, retailer Target Corp. has added a "College" tab to its Facebook page with coupons, supplies checklists and shareable cellphone apps to help students determine how to furnish their dorm rooms or apartments and manage shared bills and chores with roommates.

"Students continue to be on the leading edge of social-media usage, and we will reach them in their world," said Target spokeswoman Jenine Anderson.

by Max Jarman The Arizona Republic Aug. 14, 2010 09:51 PM


Retailers use Web tools aimed at younger shoppers

Blogging for bankers - Fortune Brainstorm Tech

To take on their toughest critics, big banks are playing as visitors on social media's turf. Can they keep up, much less win?

By Nin-Hai Tseng, Fortune Magazine March 24, 2010 12:45 PM

Five days a week, and sometimes weekends, Larry Rubinoff pounds away on his laptop with a mission: Expose what he believes to be the truth about the big banks’ roles in the global financial meltdown.

For this semi-retired mortgage professional turned blogger, running Goldmansachs666.com isn’t just a hobby, it’s a full-time job. “To demonstrate how destructive [Goldman Sachs is] to our lives and the hopes and dreams of our children,” is part of the motto/disclaimer splashed across the front of the site. “What’s going on is wrong and we need to correct what’s wrong and get to the truth,” said Rubinoff by telephone from his Florida home.

The global financial crisis has spawned dozens of Rubinoffs who have unleashed their frustrations onto the Web. To name a few, there’s Banks are Evil and Bloggers Against Chase Bank. And Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington urged Americans to boldly move their money away from big banks and into community institutions in her Move Your Money campaign (which has drawn 34,842 Facebook fans as of Friday morning). Then there is ZeroHedge, the big daddy of anti-banker sentiment, which often reports information from dissident bankers working inside the system itself.

These bloggers might sound like just another batch of disgruntled Wall Street critics. But corporations are paying attention to them. They’re watching their YouTube videos, reading their posts and tracking their Tweets, because they can’t afford not to. It’s not just the content of their messages that matter but their presence on the Internet. By talking about banks negatively online, the bloggers essentially become the online presence of those banks. And that’s something no industry, let alone one that depends on the trust of its customers, can long abide.

The question is, can the financial industry tweet or blog its way out of a bad rep?

Damage Control 2.0

Last month, Citigroup (C) launched “New Citi,” a blog where CEO Vikram Pandit and other high-level executives try and rebuild trust with a recession-worn public. Citi was one of the largest recipients of government support during the wake of the financial crisis, receiving more than $45 billion.

The blog encourages visitors to post comments about reform, recovery, and responsible finance. A quick review of the comments seems largely positive, with a few negative remarks. “When you look at Citi and what we’ve been through in the last two years it’s clear that we made some mistakes,” Pandit says in a video posted on Feb. 1, highlighting how Citi has worked towards more responsible financial practices with a new management team, a revised governance structure, and other similar measures.

“Just talking about change is not enough,” said Aneysha Pearce, associate partner at Prophet, a strategic brand and marketing consultancy headquartered in San Francisco. “Consumers have to feel it and see it.”

In other words, action counts. Pearce led a 2009 survey of U.S. consumers that ranked the reputation of the financial services industry dead last — lower than the insurance, health care, and oil and gas industries. Which is not surprising, given the extra scrutiny bankers and financiers faced following the mortgage crisis and massive industry bailouts, she said.

While blogging or tweeting alone might not change a company's reputation, “social media has the potential to force conversations that will ultimately be in the public record and that can enforce accountability,” said Giovanni Rodriguez, co-founder of the Conversation Group, a social engagement consultancy.

Tweeting for happier customers

Increasingly, banks and financiers have turned to social media to communicate with investors and customers. In response, the National Futures Association drafted rules to cover the way its 4,000-plus member firms market and promote via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the plethora of other social media tools — marking the first time the association explicitly addressed the topic. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has also developed usage guidelines (download podcast) for blogs and social networking sites.

David Spark, founder of Spark Media Solutions, a San Francisco-based new media consultancy, said Citi’s blog can only help. “Your best customers can often first be complainers,” Spark said. “If someone makes the effort to go to your site and complain then they care. It’s not like they’re saying, ‘I hate Citi.’ It’s more like ‘Hey, I care about my money.’”

But online public engagement can be a dizzying, if worthwhile enterprise. At many corporations, especially in heavily regulated industries like banking, every Facebook posting, every blog reply, every video, and every tweet typically must go through some kind of internal review before going public. Still, saying something is preferable to saying nothing, especially when everyone else is talking about you.

Rodriguez points to the Wells Fargo-Wachovia blog as one example of outreach done well. Hosted by real employees, the site addresses customer questions and concerns, mostly about changes happening with the merger of the two banks. At a time when critics of the financial services industry are calling for more transparency, the blog puts a human face — literally showing pictures of the bloggers — on the huge institution. “It invites the public to talk with them about the integration of the two companies, a mission-critical project for the bank after the financial meltdown,” Rodriguez said.

Goldman Sachs (GS), perhaps because it usually deals with the ultra-wealthy or other institutions, has been less savvy with social media. At the moment, the bank has no plans to launch a blog or create a Twitter account, a spokeswoman said. Instead, the firm responds to issues raised in the media with statements available in its On the Issues site.

When Goldmansachs666.com first launched February 2009, the firm responded with a trademark infringement lawsuit. The case was resolved and the blog now has a disclaimer. Rubinoff says managing the blog has been worth all the energy. He notes one of its latest successes for the site, which mixes mainstream media reportage with global conspiracy theories from the fringes of the financial world: It ranked No. 6 in Wall Street Journal columnist David Weidner’s top Ten Wall Street Blogs You Need to Bookmark Now.

Blogging for bankers - Fortune Brainstorm Tech

MySpace getting makeover to compete with rivals

MySpace getting makeover to compete with rivals

by Jon Swartz USA Today Mar. 13, 2010 12:00 AM

BEVERLY HILLS - Facebook thumped it, and Twitter threatens it as a source for entertainment news and real-time searches.

But MySpace, nestled in the entertainment capital of the world, thinks it can survive - even thrive - as a repository for all things music, "Avatar" and "Twilight" for the under-35 crowd.

"It would be silly to count us out," says Jason Hirschhorn, who, with Mike Jones, runs the company as co-president. They replaced Owen Van Natta, who was jettisoned as CEO last month after less than 10 months on the job.

"There is a pulse of pop culture on MySpace," says Hirschhorn, a former MTV exec.

They have their work cut out for them. MySpace, a unit of News Corp., has stumbled through two CEO resignations in the past year, while Facebook and Twitter surged. Nonetheless, MySpace remains one of the Internet's most enduring brands. It is profitable, and it is expected to haul in more than $350 million in revenue this year - mostly from ads.

Hirschhorn acknowledges that every major brand goes through plateaus but says the strong ones overcome them. He and Jones concede that MySpace's online traffic had flattened last spring, user engagement was down, and its products lacked focus and vision. But with an ambitious rebranding now under way, they foresee a renewal in its fortunes.

MySpace is moving back to its original DNA: appealing to self-expressive, creative under-35-year-olds who are into games, music and movies. More than half of MySpace's estimated 100 million users are 25 and younger, according to market researcher comScore.

MySpace intends to appeal to that demographic with a mantra of "Discover and be discovered."

The rebranding is illustrated in design mockups splashed across the walls of a user-experience lab: Simple, clean pages with vibrant looks designed to draw artists, hard-core social-media users, brand managers and others. There is even talk of a new company logo.

MySpace has reinvented itself in several ways:

• New user home pages, released last month, are heavy on live personal content but without the clutter once associated with the original MySpace design.

• Forthcoming profiles for celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Angelina Jolie are easier to navigate and offer encyclopedic data on their subjects.

• Social-gaming firm Playdom is helping MySpace reinvigorate its gaming channel. This month, it launches Wild Ones, a shoot-'em-up already available on Facebook, on MySpace. More games, including ones exclusive to MySpace, are on the way.

• Through its constant tweets on Twitter, MySpace has developed into a heavy-duty entertainment-news service for music, celebrities and youth-oriented movies. Twitter and MySpace have also synched services, so updates on one service are automatically duplicated on the other.

MySpace is not only reinventing itself but recasting the competitive climate. "When we think about Twitter and Facebook, we don't think about competition as much as we think about partnership, distribution and synchronization," Hirschhorn said.

Yet can MySpace - once the undisputed king of social networking - remain relevant as a scaled-down Web protal for music and entertainment news? Industry analysts, including Debra Aho Williamson, aren't so sure. They say MySpace faces an obstacle course of competitors.

"For months we've heard about the company's plan to refocus on its historic roots in music and entertainment," said Williamson of market researcher eMarketer. "But the turnaround has been painfully slow, and this shakeup will only reinforce the perception that MySpace can't be fixed."

Facebook's dominance notwithstanding, MySpace and others can thrive in fragmented spaces, such as music and entertainment news, says Eric Mandl, head of large-cap tech banking at UBS.

MySpace remains a force in music. More than 13 million bands find it a vibrant tool to communicate with fans.

Integrate Twitter, Facebook with Your Google Buzz, Gmail Page | THE CHRIS VOSS SHOW

Integrate Twitter, Facebook with Your Google Buzz, Gmail Page | THE CHRIS VOSS SHOW







GMAIL USERS: We hope you’ll join the discussion over on Mashable’s Google Buzz account.

With more than 9 million posts and comments in two days, Google Buzz (Google Buzz) has stormed the web like a swarm of locusts. An array of strong features, integration with Gmail (Gmail), and lots of press have turned Buzz into an overnight phenomenon.

If you’re like a lot of us, you’ve suddenly found yourself using your Gmail even more than you already were. Spending so much time in Gmail and Buzz, though, inevitably takes away from your Facebook (Facebook) and Twitter (Twitter), and who wants to sacrifice their tweeting and Facebooking?

Luckily if you’re a Gmail user, you don’t have to sacrifice either, even while you’re browsing your e-mail or your buzz.
Gadget Integration Is Your Friend

Yesterday we caught a Buzz post by Ari Milner where he described how he turned his Gmail into his personal “social command center.” How did he do it? In his words:

“The key was using Gmail Labs feature at the bottom of the list called ‘Add any gadget by URL’. This allowed me to add these 3 features to my Gmail sidebar.”

By utilizing third-party gadgets, he transformed his Gmail into a place where he could access his Twitter, Buzz and Facebook straight from his Gmail. Here’s how:
Step By Step: Integrating Your Social Media into Buzz


1. Activate “Add any gadget by URL” in Gmail Labs — you’ll find it near the bottom of the list.

2. Now go to Settings –> Gadgets. Here you’ll find a place to add Gadget URLs.

3. Add the TwitterGadget App. Any iGoogle gadget will do actually, but the best one in our opinion is TwitterGadget, a fully-functional Twitter service for iGoogle and Gmail. This lets tweet from the sidebar or open up your Twitter with all of your tabs intact. It even supports multiple accounts.

To add it, copy and paste this URL into Gmail’s Gadget settings: “https://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml”



4. Add the Facebook Gadget. In the same way you added TwitterGadget, you can add Facebook to your Gmail. While Google has an official Facebook gadget, it doesn’t play nicely with Gmail, so we suggest using the app Ari Milner users: Facebook Gadget by iBruno. It will expand into the rest of your Gmail for easy Facebook management.

To add it, copy and paste this URL into Gmail’s Gadget settings: “http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/facebook.xml”



5. That’s it! Google Buzz, Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail are now all wrapped up into one. Pretty nifty, no? Let us know about your experience in the comments.

The Birth of the Virtual Assistant

The Birth of the Virtual Assistant

January 31, 2010 Dag Kittlaus 25

Dag Kittlaus is the Co-Founder and CEO of Siri. He is a serial innovator and consumer wireless Internet veteran of 10 years in both Scandinavia and the US. Siri is Dag’s third consecutive mobile product.

In the near future, anyone who lives a connected lifestyle will be able to delegate their everyday tasks to intelligent virtual assistants that will coordinate, execute and simplify users’ lives.

We will look back on these days and ask ourselves how we ever got by without our trusted assistants, the same way my kids ask in amazement about how we ever got things done before laptops and the Internet.

---

What Constitutes a Virtual Assistant?

---

For a long time, Hollywood has been portraying machines that humans can converse with, delegate tasks to, and command. Remember the HAL 9000, KITT the car, COMPUTER from Star Trek, or even the brilliantly conceived and visualized Apple “Knowledge Navigator” from over 20 years ago?

They have symbolized our desire for trusted machine assistants that can help make our lives easier. They have persisted in the creative works of science fiction writers for decades. But have you ever asked yourself why that is? Looking beyond the theatrical and dramatic value of these ideas, the reality is simple — we have always desired more help, less hassle, and higher productivity in our lives.

What about search engines? Aren’t they the modern day version of this? No, at least not the search engines of today.

Search is a fantastic tool to help you find information on the Internet, but try to ask a search engine to actually do something for you. Try typing “get me a seat on the next flight from Chicago to Seattle” and see what happens. Or ask your favorite search engine to book you a table for three at Gibson’s steakhouse in Chicago for the day after tomorrow. Today’s paradigm of 10 blue links doesn’t cut it, and we need a new tool to help.

We need software that is specifically designed to help you get things done — a “Do Engine” rather than a search engine: A virtual assistant.

---

Intelligent Cohesion of the Tools We Already Use

---

Here is the good news: The elements, technology and ecosystem needed to build machines and software that can automate many of the mundane tasks of our lives are here already.

We just need to add a little intelligence. It will take some time, maybe 3-5 years, for the concept to mature. But when it does, it will emerge as the most frequently used and trusted online tool. It will make the most common actions on the web as simple as having a conversation. It will integrate into your life, get to know you, and be proactive.

In some sense your smartphone is starting to work like this already. There are already tens of thousands of services, apps, and sites that help you find and do things on the web and in the world. The problem is that they are all islands unto themselves, typically focused on a limited domain, and don’t often work together. They rarely share data or context with each other, have different user interfaces, and require users to spend a good amount of time to discover them, sign up, and get started. In terms of unified personal services, it’s not ideal.

Virtual assistants will help unify these and get them work together at your command. It would be nice to simply pull out your phone one day and tell it to move your 3 p.m. meeting to 5 p.m. and alert everyone invited of the change. That day is coming sooner than you think.

---

A New Chapter for the Web

---

There is a direct relationship between simplicity and user engagement on the web. Less clicks means more users — period. When combined with tools like smartphones, virtual assistants will migrate user interactions towards a far more frictionless e-commerce, consumption and collaboration model.

You will soon pick up your phone and start asking your assistant things like “take me to live CNN news,” “send my dad the latest John Grisham book,” or “tell Adam I am running 20 minutes late,” and you will then watch it all happen. This evolution towards simplicity of interaction will reduce the barrier to almost everything you use your mobile device to do.

Furthermore, the device is always with you. The combination of simplicity, impulse opportunity, context, and preference will create the most explosive market opportunity in ages.

This will be a market in which every player along the line wins. Users will be able to click less, enjoy simpler interactions and receive much-needed help getting things done and managing their day. Participating service providers get simpler discovery, more transactions, and higher consumption rates. This then drives more data dollars to networks, fueling infrastructure expansion.

As proof, witness what a cool device called the iPhone() has managed to accomplish through a snappy and simple interface with shiny buttons and creative apps. That one device and the competitive response we are now seeing has created a complete transformation in computing.

---

The Anatomy of the Virtual Assistant

---

The OS of virtual assistants will be the Internet itself, as Kevin Kelly postulated years ago. The brains will be AIs that are developed by software companies for both general purpose and targeted domains. The arms and legs will be web APIs (many of your favorite brands and services), and the connective tissue will be authentication protocols like OAuth and Open Social, and trust circles like those of Facebook().

The rapid maturation of technologies that enable free-form interaction such as natural language processing and speech recognition have vastly improved, to the point of gaining real adoption in many applications today (e.g. Google Speech, Nuance Dragon Dictation, Ford Sync for cars). Virtual assistants will leverage these inputs and begin to integrate them with conversations for a simpler, more natural way to get things done. This concept was best described by the late pioneer from MIT, Michael Dertouzos, who called it “human-centric computing.”

Over the long term, this paradigm will expand to many (or most) of the online services and tools we use to manage our lives like booking, buying, reserving, reminding, and scheduling. As we build trust in our digital “partner” we will put more and more onto its to-do list.

---

Trust is Key

---

The vague promises of contextual awareness, personalization, and other generalizations have rarely materialized in real products on the web. We are wary of what personal information we share online, in search engines, and the the never-ending fear of credit card fraud still looms. But this game is changing with the open web.

Mark Zuckerberg is indeed correct that privacy is dead on the Internet among the digital generation. Hundreds of millions of people spend a great deal of time telling the world all about their personal interests and information that forms their “digital face” on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn(), Twitter() and others. This will only expand as the demonstrable benefits of this effort become more apparent.

The paradigm shift we will see with virtual assistants is that providing them with access to your preferences, tastes, accounts and more will be the cornerstone of the simplicity they will enable (within a very secure environment, of course). In other words, where we once feared how long search engines kept our personal information, we will now go out of our way to expend time and effort to specifically provide our trusted assistant detailed information about ourselves.

This will be done both manually and via syncing with existing sources of our personal data such as Facebook profiles, iTunes() music lists, and contacts. The point is that you will make your virtual assistant definitively yours.

---

2010 and Beyond

---

The experience will be like hiring a new assistant that doesn’t yet know you, but eventually becomes so familiar that you can’t live without him or her. Keep your eyes on this space, try out these products as they emerge, and prepare to make your life a bit simpler over the next few years.

As John Battelle has said: “The future of search is a conversation with someone you trust.” 2010 will be the year in which we start to see real progress towards this vision, on many fronts.

Posted using ShareThis

Grammys: Imogen Heap Accepts Award Wearing “Twitter Dress”

Grammys: Imogen Heap Accepts Award Wearing “Twitter Dress”

The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards will air its televised portion tonight at 5 p.m. PST/8 p.m. EST, but the non-televised portion of the awards are already streaming live on the web. One of the early social media hat tips in evidence comes from artist Imogen Heap, who accepted an award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical wearing a specially crafted “Twitter Dress.”

The dress, which has its own Twitter feed, displays Twitter () pics sent by fans in real-time using the hashtag #twitdress. The artist uploaded a pic of the “dress in progress” to her yfrog account last night (pictured below), with Twitpic () being used to handle the extensive stream of fan-submitted pics. She tweeted to earlier this morning that the dress was envisioned as a way to let fans “accompany me on the red carpet.”

The Twitdress idea is nothing if not a creative way to incorporate social media into the Grammys experience and — literally — bring the fans with an artist onto the stage. And besides — why let Lady Gaga have all the fun with the crazy outfits? Then again, if anyone is prepared to top the Twitter dress for craziest Grammy attire, it could be the Gaga — we’ll be watching to see if she whips out some Facebook () shoes, or maybe a Youtube () hat. Stay tuned!

Posted using ShareThis

Social networking sites look to build profit

Social networking sites look to build profit




by Matt Moore Associated Press - Jan. 28, 2010 12:00 AM

DAVOS, Switzerland - The leaders of Facebook and other social-media sites have long seen some grim writing on their wall. While spectacular popularity has turned them into household names, they haven't found a way to transform all those friends, fans and followers into profits.

On Wednesday, in a rare encounter of rivals, the chiefs of Twitter

, MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn met with industry experts at the World Economic Forum to strategize.

The common theme: developing social networks so they get beyond socializing to drive humanitarian causes or help businesses better communicate with customers to increase sales.

While participants touted social media's ability to reach out, form relationships and keep people and businesses linked together, they offered scant insight into how the companies can make money, cashing in on their enormous fan base.

"What's important for them is to become indispensable to consumers," said Augie Ray, a senior analyst for social computing with Forrester Research Inc.

"For Facebook, one of the interesting things is the value of advertising that is super relevant and also increasingly involves the preferences and actions of your friends," he said.

Facebook, which draws revenue from advertising posted down the right side of its site, has generated buzz about a possible initial public offering this year. The site created a dual-class stock structure in November, a move that is typically a precursor to going public.

If it does go public, Twitter and LinkedIn may be tempted to follow, he said.

Evan Williams, chief executive and co-founder of Twitter, the wildly popular micro-blogging tool, said more and more small businesses were listening to their customers via the site, capitalizing on the way individuals build relationships across social-media platforms.

"This is the heart of what a lot of social networks are about, they're about communicating ... but they're also about relationships of all types," he said.

"Some of the stuff we're excited about with Twitter is an individual will follow a local business, a coffee shop, and get their special of the day."

Experts see huge business opportunities remaining in social-media sites. More and more, though, sites are migrating to a business-oriented landscape with posts from friends seeking work, restaurant recommendations or the best places to buy cars or computers.

That, in turn, means that "social media is becoming the operating system of a business," said Don Tapscott, chairman of nGenera Insight, an information technology think tank.