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Industry News
T-Mobile ‘Welcome Home’ Advert Promoted via Social Media
Oct 30th
This touching, amusing, feel-good advert was posted on YouTube a few days ago and has spread like wildfire through social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. A great example of social media marketing done well, it joins the ranks of the Liverpool Street ‘flashmob‘ and the ‘sing-along‘ in Trafalgar Square which featured celebrities like Pink and Vernon Kay. Clever and original marketing is looked upon favourably by online users and will stick in the minds of consumers, raising brand awareness.
Have you noticed any particularly memorable and innovative methods of marketing online recently? Tell us about them in the comments section below.
Foursquare Introduces Super Duper Swarm and Epic Swarm Badges
Oct 30th
Social Media Location Service FourSquare have rolled out ‘Super Duper Swarm’ and ‘Epic Swarm’ badges for people who convene in the same location in massive quantities.
Previously the biggest quantity badge was ‘Super Swarm’ for groups of 250 in the same place. In major cities like London this has occurred many times prompting the new and improved milestones.
“When we made the original Swarm badge we thought, ‘What are the odds of ever getting 50 Foursquare users together?’ And then we did the same with Super Swarm for SXSW. ‘Will anyone ever even unlock these?’” explains Foursquare co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley. “And now they are unlocked on a regular basis — baseball games, concerts etc. So we needed bigger.”
When asked Swarm badge would exceed the 1000 mark, Foursquare had no answer…
“In our internal badge meetings, we’re thinking, ‘What’s after this?’ We have no idea,” says Crowley.
Although these badges are pure fun it does go to show the growth of the FourSquare buzz and the use of smartphones to interact with others via social media channels.
Do you use FourSquare and what name would you call the next milestone?
A Tale of Friendship: Facebook Unveils ‘Friendship Pages’
Oct 29th
Popular social network Facebook has recently announced a new feature called ‘Friendship Pages’. The new pages will allow you to view a well presented overview of the interactions between you and a friend. Blogs have lauded the ‘human’ aspect of friendship pages which summarise wall posts, photos, events, mutual friendships, comments and ‘likes’ shared between two users. The potential for the highlighting of old and fond memories is huge and will help to cement the websites position as a ‘go-to’ social hub for not only current and future events and social interactions, but also for the snapshots it can provide of the past.
Some have criticised the ever more ‘intrusive’ nature of Facebook and the increasing complexity of its navigation. Will Friendship Pages exacerbate this problem? Or are they a great opportunity to increase the value and usefulness of social media? Tell us what you think in the comments section.
Firefox 4 Delayed Until Early 2011
Oct 29th
The next major launch of the search engine browser FIREFOX, due to be released at the end of 2010 has been delayed to early 2011.
The change was announced by director Mike Beltzner “Completing this work (on Firefox 4) is taking longer than initial estimates indicated as we track down regressions and sources of instability. As part of our commitment to beta users, we will not ship software before it is ready,”. The software firm added that the new version will only be released when it is ready.
Are you a Firefox user, let us know?
Social network Myspace to debut redesign
Oct 28th
The dwindling social network Myspace has revealed a massive redesign as part of it’s efforts to survive through rebranding. A few weeks after revealing it’s controversial new logo, Myspace has posted a video reel giving the first glimpses at its significant shift in functionality and focus.
The video reveals a strong change in focus to content sharing and discovery, with clear links to other social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It is a clear cut and intriguing move for the social network which has seen massive drops in traffic since the rise of Facebook and its buyout by News Corp.
Google has 6.4% of Internet Traffic
Oct 28th
According to online security company Arbor Networks, Google now accounts for (on average) 6.4% of all internet traffic. Since January alone it has increased by 1% which is a new record for Google.
Google’s share may be even bigger, possibly up to 8% to 12%, if you account for traffic offloaded by Google Global Cache deployments, Arbor Networks’ Craig Labovitz claims.
So far, Google’s revenue seems to be keeping up with its traffic; we wonder which one will grow faster?
Paypal Debuts Mobile Express Checkout to improve Ecommerce Web Design
Oct 28th
Mobile payment processes have long been the bane of would-be mobile commerce titans. The balance between security and ease of use has been difficult to achieve, but Paypal’s beta partners for Mobile Checkout Express have seen great results from using the product so far.
Starbucks, one initial partner for Mobile Checkout Express, will use Paypal’s newest mobile payment product to let customers quickly reload their Starbucks Cards from within the company’s iPhone app.Mobile Checkout Express will allow users to opt into the service and stay logged in between various mobile apps.
Paypal says the new product is also easy to use for existing merchants who already use Paypal Express Checkout on their web-based stores.
Many of Paypal’s beta-tester merchants for Mobile Express Checkout have reported double-digit sales growth on their mobile ecommerce web design platforms since adding the feature. Paypal plans to give Mobile Checkout Express merchants the ability to accept credit card payments in addition to PayPal (through a VeriFone partnership) in early 2011.
In other mobile news, Paypal is introducing new location-based features More >
Firesheep Hijacks Facebook, Twitter Cookies
Oct 27th
Did you think you were safe when logging into your social media accounts? Think again.
A free Firefox extension called Firesheep was released this week that exploits a hack known as sidejacking to help users gain access to the social media accounts of other people on the same network. The creator, Eric Butler, developed this extension “to demonstrate just how serious this problem is.” The exploit, which hijacks the unencrypted cookie files sent between the user and the website, can be utilised on a large number of popular websites including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr.
Most websites encrypt the username and password you use to log in when they are transmitted to the server. However, they often fail to encrypt other data including the aforementioned cookies, which, if obtained by a hacker, can be used to ‘spoof’ a log in session and access your account fraudulently.
We believe that this software has been written to raise awareness of the problem and compel the faulty sites to fix the issue as possible. However, many have noted that fully encrypted all communication between the user and the server can increase the required bandwidth by up to 20 times, making full encryption very costly.
Are you More >
Google Extend Autocomplete Globally.
Oct 26th
It’s been more than a year since Google launched localized versions of Google Autocomplete (formerly Google Suggest) that offer relevant search predictions tailored for different regions. More recently, they took these tailored predictions to a new level in the U.S. by targeting to specific metro areas like San Francisco and Chicago. This week, they have extended these hyper-local predictions around the globe to every country that has Autocomplete. This means that the list of predictions beneath the search box will seem more locally relevant than ever updating the searches with the areas you are searching within.
For example, when you’re in Barcelona, Spain and you start typing [rest] there’s a good chance you’re actually looking for restaurants in Barcelona:
However, if you’re in Madrid, you’ll probably want to check the restaurants there: