You are here: Home / Archives for Internet

Facebook Adds Wishlist “I Want” Feature

October 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Building on their attempts to get into commerce, Facebook is testing a feature that lets users create “wishlists” by clicking an “I Want” button. The test includes seven retailers: Pottery Barn, Victoria’s Secret, Neiman Marcus, Michael Kors, Smith Optics, Wayfair and Fab.com. The feature, which Facebook dubbed Collections, could help Facebook play a bigger role in the online commerce market by encouraging users to buy flagged products for their friends directly from online stores.

A Facebook spokeswoman said the company does not receive a fee when someone purchases a wishlist item on Facebook from a retailer’s site.

The Collections feature will gradually be offered to 100% of its U.S. users and will be slowly rolled out in the UK next year. Unlike Facebook’s existing “like” button, the feature that Facebook is testing will showcase the “liked” item within a user’s Timeline profile page.

To-date, Facebook has not had much success in the commerce arena. The social network’s attempt at direct-purchases through the site failed miserably with GameStop, Gap, JC Penney and Nordstrom’s storefronts being shut down almost as quickly as they launched.

I think this could find some success, particularly when built into Facebook-organized events like baby showers and engagements/weddings, where gift registry is common. But, if the wish list isn’t tied to a specific event, I’m not sure how effective it will be in general. After all, how often do people buy gifts for each other “just because”?

I’ll keep an eye out on this for you. In the meantime, let me know what you think – would you share your wish lists on Facebook?

Filed Under: Consumer Habits, Consumer Products, Digital Media, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Romney’s #AreYouBetterOff Hashtag Backfires

September 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

There is always a big risk when you hang your promotional hat on a paid-for hashtag.

McDonald’s learned that lesson earlier this year when they asked Tweeps to share their stories to #McDStories. Negative tweets about the fast food chain took over the interwebs ranging from comments about being high while eating McDonald’s to throwing up the food, prompting the New York Observer to remark that “some stories are better left untold.”

Wendy’s fell into the same trap last year, paying for the exclusive use of #HeresTheBeef. I will just let you imagine what Tweets that hashtag prompted.

Well, it seems The Campaign to elect Governor Romney didn’t get the memo. After paying $120,000 PER DAY for the use of #AreYouBetterOff, the GOP was clearly expecting a resounding “no” from Twitterers to support their campaign message that President Obama has not improved the economy.

Instead, #areyoubetteroff was combined with the word “yes” more than 1,800 times in its first 24 hours, while it was only paired with “no” around 600 times during the same time period.

And, since then, the yes/no ratio has been an embarrassing 5 to 1.

To make matters worse for the Romney campaign, their original hashtag has already spawned rebuttal hashtags like #iambetteroff and#betteroff which, as you can imagine, are full of examples of how Americans say they are better off and how they imagine they’d be worse off under a Romney/Ryan presidency.

It’s important to remember social media is not a controlled environment. It’s the wild west and open-ended questions can really bring trouble. It’s best to think like a trial attorney when creating your hashtag strategy and never ask a question unless you absolutely know what everyone’s answer will actually be.

Filed Under: Digital Media, Marketing, PR Blunders, Public Relations, Social Media, Youth Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Athlete Expelled From Games For Racist Tweet

July 26, 2012 By 1 Comment

Voula Papachristou has been expelled from the Greek Olympic Team for a racist twitter comment, according to the Associated Press.

The website Keep Talking Greece translated the offensive tweet by Papachristou (@papaxristoutj):

“With so many Africans in Greece… At least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat home made food!!!”

Papachristou tweeted an apology in English on Wednesday:

The Greek Olympic Committee released a statement, confirming the expulsion of the track and field athlete who had been set to compete in the triple jump. Per the BBC, the committee stated that Papachristou has been “placed outside the Olympic team for statements contrary to the values and ideas of the Olympic movement.”

Filed Under: Digital Media, PR Blunders, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Boutique Mistakenly Uses Aurora Shooting For Promo on Twitter

July 21, 2012 By 1 Comment

Here is a perfect example of why you absolutely must do some basic due diligence before inserting your brand into an existing news cycle.

By now, we’ve all heard about the horrible tragedy in Aurora, Colorado - where a lone gunman claimed 12 lives and injured 59 more people, including a 4 month old baby. Well, apparently, everyone heard about it except the PR representatives for an online store called CelebBoutique.

Earlier today the clothing store’s PR rep saw that “Aurora” was trending on Twitter. Instead of conducting a simple Twitter or Google search to find out why that word was trending before inserting their brand into whatever the story might be, the PR rep blundered blindly right into a well-deserved firestorm.

Because of the way the Tweet was written with phrases like “clearly about” and the “wink-smile,” many people (528 at the time of the screen grab) assumed Celeb Boutique knew what the topic was about. They angrily reTweeted and bashed the brand for a total lack of humanity and an attempt to turn the massacre of innocent people, including children, into a marketing ploy for a dress.

Now, I think we can all assume that wasn’t the case and there is no way this was deliberate. Stupid, yes. Incredibly, mind-bogglingly stupid. But, certainly not deliberate.

The boutique took down their Twitter handle shortly after receiving angry responses. And, since then, the company issued this statement:

Now, we all make mistakes, I know I do. But, this is such a powerful reminder that a small amount of research can go along way.

Before you issue that Top Ten List that ties your brand to some super cool tips, do a quick Google search to see if your competition got there first.

Before you pitch a reporter on the terrific angle that will connect your brand to a super hot topic, take a look to see if the reporter has already covered that story.

Before you spend thousands of dollars commissioning a study that shows consumers want what you’ve got, take a look around the interwebs to see if that study already exists.

And, before you hijack a trending topic on Twitter – in the name of all things good and right with the world – take two seconds to see why the topic is trending in the first place.

Filed Under: Digital Media, Marketing, PR Blunders, Public Relations, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Bad News for Digg – Valuation drops from $160m to $500k

July 14, 2012 By 1 Comment

It’s a sad day for Digg, the once super cool social bookmark site has dropped from a valuation of more than $160 million to the bargain basement price of $500,000. The buyer is New York technology development firm Betaworks, which is attempting to revive the news-sharing site that was outmaneuvered by Facebook and Twitter.

I’m not entirely surprised by this drop in value for the site. Back in 2006, Digg was the place to get news before anyone else; it was the first site I looked at in the mornings to see what happened while I was sleeping. And, I wasn’t the only one. Enough of us went there daily to help land Digg founder Kevin Rose  on the cover of BusinessWeek in 2006 with a $60 million valuation.

But, now I hardly ever go to the site anymore and yesterday, Digg confirmed it sold its brand, website and technology to Betaworks. The price is a pittance for a company that once raised $45 million from prominent investors including Facebook investor Greylock Partners, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen in just one week.
According to insiders, Digg received higher offers from bidders that included technology and publishing companies and start-ups but ultimately decided Betaworks had the best plan for reviving its brand.

Founded in 2004, Digg was once one of the most promising start-ups in Silicon Valley. Digg users would post links on the site’s home page, then others would vote on their choices, determining the prominence of the stories they posted.

“They were one of the first social media sites,” says Kristina Lerman, an assistant research professor at the University of Southern California who has studied Digg and other social-news sharing sites. “They introduced social components like having friends and followers.”

The site quickly rose to prominence, in part due to founder Kevin Rose, a former cable television talk show host, whose charm helped sell the concept to Internet tastemakers. In the fall of 2008, Digg raised nearly $29 million in venture capital from Greylock Partners, Highland Capital Partners and other financiers in an investment valuing the company at around $164 million, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

Over the years, the company was rumored to be in negotiations to sell itself several times, including to Google in 2008 for a reported $200 million. The deal was never completed.

But the audience started to drift away in early 2010 when services such as Facebook and Twitter exploded in popularity, as users preferred getting article recommendations from their friends or people they followed. I know I stopped going to the site for news around 2009, pretty much the same time Twitter established itself as the source for instant news having given us the very first reports of Captain Sully’s brave water landing and Michael Jackson’s death.

A series of redesigns not well-received by users also hurt the company. A site relaunch in the summer of 2010 triggered a backlash, with most users saying they preferred the old Digg. By the end of 2010, Digg’s audience had fallen by more than half, according to ComScore.

Newer social-news website Reddit. also stole some of Digg’s thunder. Last December, Reddit drew more visitors than Digg for the first time, according to comScore, and since then it has maintained that lead.

In March of last year, Rose resigned from the company. He is now a venture capitalist with Google Ventures.

Betaworks intends to fold Digg into News.me Inc., a digital media start-up that Betaworks launched in April 2011. News.me sends users links to news articles that their connections on Twitter and Facebook are reading and talking about. News.me, which uses an iPad and iPhone app and daily email newsletter, has about 10 employees.

None of Digg’s remaining employees will join Betaworks as part of the acquisition. Chief Executive Matt Williams will join venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Betaworks CEO John Borthwick will become Digg’s new chief.

Sad day for a once super cool site. But, it will be interesting to see what Betaworks has in mind for Digg. I will keep y’all posted.

Filed Under: Digital Media, Journalism, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,
« Older Posts
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 14,700 other followers

%d bloggers like this: