This connection will put two extremely powerful technologies together: the social networking maelstrom of Facebook and the participatory culture insights of SCVNGR. Google’s offering connects location based social gaming in a way that generates a sort of casual ARG (Alternate Reality Game) for users. Enabling them to earn points, generate reputation, and involve friends, and discover new things all from their mobile phones. The particularly stunning element of SCVNGR, which will probably cause it to catch fire when it reaches enough people, is their concept of challenge stories. People who have connected through Facebook Places with this app will find themselves working against and with one another to achieve particular goals, driven i

How much media content should I produce? As a professional journalist this has been a question that I've struggled with over the past five years since leaving the Financial Times. I can produce a lot of media content, and hopefully, it is all quality media content. But my concern is that if I produce too much, it will cause my readers and subscribers to switch off because there is too much from one source. I know that if some of my sources are too noisy on Twitter, Facebook, even on their blog or web site, I will switch them off because it is too much -- even if all their content is good. I don't want my readers doing the same to me. This question of how much media is too much media is not just my concern, it should be a concern for ot

For a while now, eyes have been on Twitter, wondering exactly how the service will monetize itself.  This has been amplified by recent changes Twitter is making with its features and staff. Especially looking at how microblogging doesn’t lend itself to easy advertising (no way to attach pictures or traditional advertisements to 140 characters at a time.) The first offering would be “Promoted Tweets”. Paul Verna at Emarketer discusses its early turnout, Early participants included Virgin America, NBC Universal’s Bravo and Red Bull. Virgin America used Promoted Tweets to announce an expansion into Toronto and a 50%-off promotion for the first 500 travelers who flew from two California airports into the Canadian city. Adweek repor

Today,   is launching a location-based publishing platform to go along with its hyper-local business directory.  This move is designed to put MerchantCircle on the map with competitors like AOL’s local content network Patch, Facebook Places, and FourSquare. With this system, local merchants both make money off their expertise and also guide further customers to their stores via participation in the app. This is all part of a growing trend of hyper-local mobile applications and social networking. Earlier this week, a story ran about the release of a hyper-local travel content network released by Nileguide. A content system dubbed “Ask Locals”, which adds the participation of locals to their tourism and exploration guide.

Does online buzz for a TV show equate to better ratings for that show? Not always, but it often translates into more engagement with the show and with the commercials in it - and engagement is a key metric for advertisers. Social media monitoring company Networked Insights has found that media agencies are improving efficiency in their TV buys by 5% to 12% when they consider the social media ripple effect surrounding a TV show. This type of measurement will likely herald new ways of buying ads in TV shows by leveraging online buzz.

SiliconANGLE was the first to have the detailed accurate analysis on the Oracle Google Java lawsuit that was filed today by Oracle.  I think that Oracle has a case in that Google clearly knew it was infringing on the key piece of technology called Dalvik.  Dalvik is a Google developed virtual machine that allowed the company to skirt Sun’s original licensing terms when Android was released. SiliconANGLE contribtutor and industry analyst from Wikibon Dave Vellante wrote: In a terse press release yesterday released by Oracle, the company announced it is suing Google over patent infringement related to Google’s Android operating system. The release simply cited a statement from spokesperson Karen Tillman as follows: "In developing

Ran across this video on the Microsoft Advertising Blog where Kate Box the head of Social Media at Microsoft Advertising UK explains her role at Microsoft and why advertisers need to be engaged in social media as well as some possible future trends. Thanks to Charlie Anzman for sharing the original link. [Editor’s Note: Microsoft Marketing talks about social media is a post from: winextra. –mrh]

Wildfire, a British PR firm, examined the social media activities of 50 of the fastest growing UK tech brands and found very little that was "social." More than 90% were on two or more social networks but only a minority engaged online: they ignored replying to comments or engaging in two-way communications. They used social media networks as a broadcast channel. (Download here with registration.) ...60% of companies with a Facebook page used it purely as a distribution channel, 57% of companies with a Twitter account used it solely for one-way marketing activity and only 25% of blogs received comments on a regular basis. 66% of Facebook pages in our study received comments from users, with each comment presenting an oppo

On the Harvard Business Review, Matt Dixon and Lara Ponomareff wrote a piece that caught my eye, Why Your Customers Don’t Want to Talk to You. Consumers increasingly prefer self-service, and the authors speculate: Maybe customers are shifting toward self service because they don’t want a relationship with companies. While this secular trend could be explained away as just a change in consumers’ channel preferences, skeptics might argue that customers never wanted the kind of relationship that companies have always hoped for, and that self service now allows customers the “out” they’ve been looking for all along. For managers hell-bent on deepening relationships with their customers, that’s a sobering thought. That las

I saw some great discussion on Facebook answers by Mark Zuckerberg and Shervin Pishevar (two respected gurus). I had to weight in since this is an area that I've been research and developing products for close to a decade. It's a great discussion that can provide a roadmap to the future. The world is changing and it's very disruptive across both technical platforms and business models. The discussion is What is Social Networking (implicitly the discussion in about the future). Here is great commentary by Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, Shervin Pishevar, founder of Social Gaming Network, and me John Furrier, founder of SiliconANGLE.com. What is Social Networking? Mark Zuckerberg founder of Facebook weights in: I think tha