The article explains how digital media executives perceive the evolution:

“I’ve told my bosses, this is beachfront real estate. Buy in now,” Lisa Hsia, executive vice president of digital media at NBC Universal’s Bravo channel.

There is still a lot of room for debate in relation to the deployment.

According to the article:

“The question that hasn’t yet been answered is whether television viewing will consist of a single app that mimics the pay TV bundle or a series of different apps that together form a content experience,” said Jon Miller, the chief digital officer at News Corporation, which owns Fox Broadcasting and cable channels like Fox News and FX.

The TV apps currently available are limited to Internet connected devices and don’t affect the TV viewing from cable and satellite companies, but this new proposed technology threatens to change things on an economic scale. When the bottom line is at stake it gets companies scrambling like nothing else. Will networks, cable and satellite providers meet consumer demand and make a custom solution affordable as well as relevant? We at SSN Blogwill be watching and commenting as the evolution continues.

Sandy McIntosh, May 15, 2012

Also discussed in the article are the pros and cons regarding the latest in TV viewing such as Smart TV, Social TV and Second Screen capabilities.

The editor, Jeremy Toeman, founder of Dijit Media, made this comment:

“My newest golden rule of creating TV technology and experiences is this: If the product doesn’t take “escape” into account in a major way, it is utterly doomed to fail.”

This summation of the “typical” North American household watching TV for 4+ hours is probably right on the mark. Unfortunately, while moving forward with technology in the home entertainment industry, families and people in general are sometimes less likely to depend on their own innate skills. Also, escaping into someone else’s existence, as this story suggests, puts a limit on creative and social talents.

Sandy McIntosh, April 17, 2012

Not only is TwitchTV expanding their availability in mobile devices they seem to have gaming plans too.  They have grown their network of game development partners from 500 to 1500. Some of the “social” interactions include live video game battles and commentary from popular games like Halo: Reach.

The article provides some insight into the growth:

Emmett Shear, CEO of TwitchTV, tell us that having a bigger mobile presence is a huge deal for platform since “the single most requested feature by our community since we launched has been the ability to watch and chat from phones and tablets.” He added that TwitchTV’s userbase is fairly split between Android and iOS.

Ask and you shall receive is the message here. It is nice to read product success stories and that is just what this information represents. When developers listen to the end users and incorporate their demands, growth and success will follow.

Sandy McIntosh, April 11, 2012

The tricky part about promoting business through social media is avoiding dry content, but still sending a message. A recent Advertising Age article, “Don’t Confuse Social Networking with Social Media” detailed how many large corporations, like Coca-Cola, have failed to fully embrace social media by directly interacting with customers. The highlight of the article showcased how CNN’s crowdsourcing iReport site, which allows readers to write and film their own news segments, helped the news site explode with popularity.

The article recommends businesses put their social media friends to work through Crowdsourcing. AdAge claims letting others, like amateur reporters, do the heavy lifting also adds a sheen of street credibility. The problem is, how will this reflect on your business?

It will reflect poorly, according to a few sources. Forbes Magazine, in its article “The Myth of Crowdsourcing” points to Netflix’s recent million-dollar crowdsourcing experiment to invent an improved algorithm through user teamwork as an example of this skewed viewpoint. “The notion of crowds creating solutions appeals to our desire to believe that working together we can do anything, but in terms of innovation it is just ridiculous.” It goes on to state, “the crowd solves nothing, creates nothing.”

Another other ugly side of crowdsourcing by amateurs is that the results look, well, amateur. Wired’s coverage of this online phenomenon, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing,” points out how amateur stock photo sites are putting a seasoned, professional photographer out of business by charging pennies on the dollar for sub-par images. This mirrors the complaints of Wikepedia’s sometimes questionable accuracy, not to mention countless other interactive ventures.

The SSN Take: Crowdsourcing might sound like a great way to draw in new customers, but you must consider whether you are comfortable with less-than-professional results.

Patrick Roland, April 28, 2010

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In the article, “The Four Pillars of Building Instant Trust Online.”  ClickZ’s author speaks to this need of trust we human beings crave and how marketers can build trust online.

The four pillars he speaks to in the article title include Appearance, Transactional Assurances, Experts and Media, and Consensus of Peers. When you look closer at these pillars you find some tangent, applicable approaches to achieving instant online trust in your client relationships.

As our grandmother and career advisor have always reminded us – first impressions do matter. Books are judged by their cover just as we are by our outward appearance in a job interview. So why wouldn’t Web sites be judged with the same initial scrutiny? Research has indicated that people form an initial impression of your Web site within 50 milliseconds. This is 1/20^th of a second. In other words, we subliminally decide whether a more considered review of the page is warranted. In the immortalized words of Joey Russo from the 80’s sitcom, Blossom – “Whoa”. We can pause here for a deep breath if you like.

Don’t get discouraged. There are things you can address to dress up your appearance to make the most out of that 1/20^th of a second. The visual design should always be professional in design. Fonts, colors, and graphical elements must combine into a unified look. Neatness is critical. Remember white space can be your friend. And as always, less is more.

As far as transactional assurances, consumers need to know that their email address isn’t being sold off, they aren’t part of a spam scam, and that ultimately, their personal information is secure. Reassure them every step of the way.

Experts and media can build legitimacy. Your audience may not have heard of you before, but they are impressed by awards and recommendations from well known organizations and established brands. Be sure to place these above the “fold” to ensure they are noticed.

Consumers for the most part like being part of the “in” crowd and knowing that 200,000 other thirty-somethings have purchased this product can be what seals the deal for them. Check out the complete article for more tips on how to build trust in your online marketing relationships.

Melody K. Smith, April 26, 2010

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“Social networking utilised by academic to improve student satisfaction” discusses the positive response his students have given to the system, powered by the social aggregator site FriendFeed. Because FriendFeed allows a personalized homepage, it can act as a virtual portfolio, “storing all of their posts, forming reflection on what they are doing and explanations of what they do not understand.” Cann adds that it differs from the interaction that the students have on Facebook – the students are extremely social but “very professional.”

Even microblogging social sites have their place in academia. Chris Kobayashi, an English teacher at the University of Northern Colorado, decided to fully integrate Twitter into this curriculum by having his students tweet their progress on an upcoming research paper. “Social media sites like Twitter are finding new fans in academia” describes an entire class run through Twitter, with Kobayashi having students respond his Twitter questions via the site. When his e-mail account crashed one day, he used Twitter to communicate with the students.

Much like Facebook and Twitter’s use in the marketing world, the social media platform allows for a dialogue between a source of information (in this case, a teacher or lesson plan) and a group of users (students). This open discussion can now be fostered outside of the classroom in a medium that many college students are already quite familiar with.

Dr. Cann, using the ‘feed forward’ model, is making academics more accessible and allowing students to give easy and direct feedback through social networks. Kobayashi, too is harnessing the power of real-time interaction. Will we see a revolution in how changes, both academic and administrative, come about? Through social media it is quite possible.

The SSN Take: Integrating a social platform can go beyond the marketing and business realm.

Samuel Hartman, April 23, 2010

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In his article, “Does Money Belong in Social Media?”, the self-titled author of Augie Ray’s Blog For Interactive Marketing Professionals takes issue with Domino’s recent consumer marketing campaign on the basis of what appears to be unspoken rules of conduct. Because they are offering consumers monetary rewards for hits on a promotional badge they can place on their website or blog, he feels the social word of mouth has been tarnished. We’re not talking about a lot of money here folks. The reward is 0.5% the value of a placed order stemming from their page. This equals a dime for every $20.00 order. Just a dime.

Any consumer that uses the widget will be able to promote products or services within a framework of designated brand guidelines. Consumers who participate in Domino’s new campaign will be able to track the sales generated through their web page on a dashboard.

Marketing Week recently spoke to Dan Clays, managing director of BLM Quantum, the creator of the dashboard program. He believes

“Brands benefit by aligning with sites run by fans who are more likely to drive a sale, while site owners can generate revenues from their Facebook page or blog.”

By adding more content for social search engines to peruse, this also allows for additional research data to be gathered. This online marketing campaign will be supported by an online media campaign later this spring.

The SSN Take: Key-word promotional blogging has become more and more popular in the past few years with the explosion of bloggers out there looking to make a few dollars while journaling. This seems to be a natural progression of the social media marketing movement.

Melody K. Smith, April 20, 2010

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This nine-season-old TV favorite may not be biblical in nature, but it is the closest to Moses coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. It showed the way… in this case, to social media activism. “Dial 1-888- IDOL-008 to vote for Adam Lambert.” And millions did, time and time again, for Adam or their favorite.

As a people, we never did that before. Never had the means or the opportunity to be so easily heard. We had the right generation at the right time for the right reason, being counted by this new (at that time) form of expression.

A few years later, there was another kind of call… this time, the 2004 Christmastime tsunami in Indonesia, and we learned we could help in the same manner. But it was this year’s Haitian earthquake that really made the point.

Get this: When the Red Cross asked people to text “Haiti” to the number 90999, millions did within days and still do, for Haiti and then Chile a few months later. The call triggered an automatic $10 donation added to the phone bill, resulting in more than $32 million actually collected to date. And as an added bonus, the money got into use almost immediately with no check to write or pledges to cover. (Does any young person write checks anymore? Do you?)

We have learned the technique, and in a very short period of time, learned something even more important: Benevolence! More people–and notably more of our young–were moved by the tragedies, and their friends, busy texting back and forth, Facebooking and twittering about the suffering are doing what now comes naturally: letting their fingers do the talking.

Social networking taught a whole new generation something their parents, television, direct mail, newspaper headlines and emotional pleas could never do. It got them immediately and personally involved, just like that.

Social networking tools and the habits engrained in using them, have changed charitable fund raising dramatically. And that’s a positive thing. Said USA Today, “good causes are finding younger, first-time donors who are more likely to give via messaging or Facebook than by writing a check after opening a traditional solicitation delivered to a mailbox outside their door.” Well, duh. What’s a mailbox?

While donations from social media is still a lesser percentage of the overall, a survey of nonprofit organizations show online donations growing 28% in the last few years. In 2008, 10 groups have raised $25 million or more, thanks to Twitter, Facebook, texting and the like.

The future of charitable giving, say those whose success depends on it, is in social media. There is no world this growing and ever evolving trend will not touch… in one way or another.

Jerry Constantino, April 16, 2010

Jerry Constantino was President and Publisher of PJS Publications, a group of 20 special interest magazines owned by VS&A Venture Capital and later, Primedia. He now writes fiction and blogs irrelevantly at itsnutsoutthere.blogspot.com.

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“Deloitte is taking a multifaceted digital approach to recruiting by using a blend of social networking resources and multimedia elements. A versatile introduction to their company is available at the click of a button,” reports the T+D Blog in “Deloitte: The Future of Recruiting is Social Media.” Deloitte’s program integrates several interactive media outlets, including a micro-site, a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn group and a YouTube channel.

The micro-site provides an in-depth look into the lives of the firm’s Gen Y workers through a series of profiles and short films. The Twitter feed, “Life at Deloitte,”features daily tweets designed to provide insight into the company’s different practice areas and the latest hot topics from a variety of business leaders. The “Your Future at Deloitte (U.S.)” Facebook page also has interactive message boards where potential job candidates can join the discussion. A campus-focused LinkedIn group helps connect college students with employees and recruiters.

Deloitte’s YouTube channel, “Your Future at Deloitte,” features video testimonies from employees about why they chose the company and what the work means to them.

Deloitte, which has about 169,000 employees worldwide, estimates it will hire about 4,800 full- and part-time employees during 2010.

Sodexo USA, the global food and facilities management services provider which was recently awarded ERE’s 2010 excellence in recruiting award, also makes use of a full social media arsenal. “Sodexo’s social media initiative is on the leading edge of best practices,” writes John Sullivan in “Best Practices in Recruiting” on ERE.net. “Its web presence effectively communicates Sodexo’s company culture, and opportunities across a Careers blog, Facebook page, LinkedIn group, YouTube channel, Twitter and Flickr.” The Society for New Communications Research has recognized Sodexo for its pioneering work in microblogging.

Employing a more one-dimensional social media recruiting campaign, Sears Holding Corp., recently posted 7,000 positions with TweetMyJOBS, a Twitter-based job board service. Writing for ReadWriteWeb , Sarah Perez says TweetMyJOBS president and founder Gary Zukowski claims the partnership makes Sears, which also includes the Kmart chain, one of the largest brands to embrace mobile recruiting. The service lets job seekers receive instant notification on their cell phones via Twitter when new jobs are posted online.

The partnership has a large potential to grow as Sears posted more than 500,000 job openings last year via traditional recruiting channels.

Another social media recruiting partnership features CareerBuilder.com and Facebook.

In “It’s time to update your Facebook status—recruitment strategies move toward social media in 2010” on examiner.com, Megan Munch notes that job postings from CareerBuilder now also post directly to Facebook. “The best matched candidates will be able to see the company’s job advertisement on the side of their Facebook page.”

Careerbuilder and Facebook also cooperate in helping the more than 700,000 local companies that have Facebook pages improve their image. CareerBuilder consultants work with clients, checking their Facebook pages weekly—blogging, posting updates, new hires and accomplishments—as well as monitoring site activity.

Munch offers one bit of advice to potential job seekers using social media, especially those fresh out of college. “I would advise taking down [photo] albums titled ‘The Hangover Album.’ Inappropriate behavior can and will affect job and internship opportunities.”

John Sniffen, April 14, 2010

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