Facebook Timline, ESPN Developer Center, Wallit and Yahoo layoffs are included in today’s short list of some recent newsworthy tidbits of information.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook’s U.S. user growth is slowing down, which is to be expected when you hit over 130 million U.S. users; however, Twitter growth is rising with a 31.9% growth in U.S. users in 2011, making the total U.S. users on Twitter about 24 million.
A new social network for professionals has popped up in the U.K. and is making its way over to the U.S. GetLunched.com allows professionals to invite other professionals to lunch as a means of connecting. A user can go onto the site, find a lunch deal, offer a lunch deal or propose a 50/50 lunch to a new connection, taking the elevator pitch to the next level.
The award goes to…Octavia Spencer winning Best Supporting Actress for the most social media buzz during the Academy Awards. Social data was compiled by Trendrr that includes mentions on Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue, Miso, and Viggle. Ms. Spencer received 31,216 mentions per minute while the Opening Montage, the Cirque du Soleil Performance, Meryl Streep winning Best Actress, and The Artist winning Best Picture were not far behind. The majority of the conversation occurred in New York City, followed by Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Facebook Timeline for brands was announced last week and the change will occur all-around by March 30th. Brands have the ability to make the change before the 30th as well. Even though this change is occurring, we cannot ignore that the News Feed is still king when it comes to broadcasting content.
TECH & GADGETS
Ready to purchase the iPad 3? Well, if you can hold off a bit, wait for the upcoming iPad HD, rumored to be in development and will support 4G.
Samsung has recently launched a tiny smartphone. At 2.8 inches, the Galaxy Pocket is an Android smartphone that is scheduled to be marketed in the U.K. later this year.
Wallit, a new SoMoLo (Social, Local, Mobile) app using Augmented Reality, allows users to check in and leave messages for others. Virtual walls are set up in various places for people to leave messages for others in the form of texts, photos, videos and more. Over 700 “walls” have already been set up in various cities including London, Istanbul, Tokyo, Paris, Milan, Rome, San Francisco, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Miami.
INDUSTRY NEWS
Education
Edmodo is a K-12 social tool that transforms the way teachers and students connect, engage and learn both inside and outside the classroom. They announced on Thursday that they are expanding their Facebook-like platform to include third-party apps.
Retail
Square, a mobile payment company has introduced an iPad app that will turn an iPad into a cash register to process payments at retail locations.
Sports
ESPN launched ESPN Developer Center on Monday that will allow developers to use APIs providing a plethora of information around the sports universe. Foursquare, Pulse and Flipboard are already using ESPN APIs.
Non-Profit
Floating Doctors, a non-profit mobile medical program serving along the coasts of the Eastern Caribbean and Central America, uses social media (mostly Twitter and to a lesser extent Facebook) as a necessary tool to spread awareness of the project and keep it running.
Non-profits are using Pinterest as an extension of their organizations, utilizing photography, infographics and other visuals to show supporters more about their missions. A few to look at are charity: water, The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Amnesty International USA, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
ADVERTISING
There are so many new ad formats out there now and ad spending is not consistent with the amount of time users spend on these channels, particularly online and on mobile. Interestingly enough, print and TV are still drawing the largest ad budgets as consumers spend less time using these mediums.
There is still much controversy over the statements made toward third-year Georgetown law student, Susan Fluke, by Rush Limbaugh. So far, over 12 advertisers have pulled their ads from his program including AOL, ProFlowers, Sleep Train and Quicken Loans.
BUSINESS
With the introduction of a new CEO, Scott Thompson, to Yahoo, they are planning significant layoffs to, reportedly, thousands of people as a means of restructuring the company.
MARKETING
Zuberence recently conducted a study revealing that U.S. Internet users are making more recommendations than ever before, across a variety of industries, averaging about 9 recommendations a year. Not surprisingly, the technology industry sees the highest number of recommendations, but somewhat surprisingly, fashion and apparel is toward the bottom of the list.
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