Fortune 500 companies aggresively adopting social media

I found this article below on DMNews.com, I thought it was pretty interesting that these large companies are using social media as a part of their marketing. These companies on the fortune 500 are a lot of time considered "old school" and a lot of times don't adapt to the new phases of technology so its pretty cool to see that they are using social media tactics. About 300 of the top 500 companies said that social media is an important part of the their company, which seems like a pretty large number considering how fairly new web 2.0 is.

http://www.dmnews.com/Companies-are-adopting-social-media-study-finds/article/94232/
Companies are adopting social media, study finds
Giselle Abramovich
January 24, 2007

A University of Massachusetts Dartmouth survey found that the fastest growing Inc. 500 companies adopt blogging, podcasting and other social media as business tools and a majority of companies consider social media to play significant strategic role.
The study was conducted by Inc. magazine's Inc. 500 and the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. It shows that big companies are comprehensively involved in social media.
Two out of three of the Inc. 500 companies cited social media as playing a "very important" or "somewhat important" role in their business and marketing strategies. Twenty-six percent reported it is "very important," while 40 percent ranked it "somewhat important."
Forty-two percent of respondents claim to be "very familiar" with social networking. Thirty-eight percent are "very familiar" with message and bulletin boards, 36 percent with blogging, 31 percent with online video, 30 percent with podcasting and 16 percent with wikis.
Thirty-three percent of the companies use message/bulletin boards. Social networking was a resource for only 27 percent.
Nearly one quarter, or 121, of the Inc. 500 companies participated in the study, making the data statistically valid with a margin of error at +/-3 percent. Respondents were diverse in size, industry and location. They included four of the top 10, seven of the top 25 and 22 of the top 100 companies on the list.

Myspace implements social media networking safety plan

Myspace has agreed to begin taking steps in order to stop harmful materials and other negative aspects of social media. Not only are they taking steps creating technology that will help ensure the safety of users and make it difficult for them to lie about their age, they are also educating people about the risks and preventative measures to take.

This is interesting because the issue of how to regulate the internet has been one of great discussion. It is a fine line to walk because regulating and ensuring safety can to some appear to be a restriction on an individuals rights.

The link to the article is below, hope you take a look because it will be interesting to see how this goes.

http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9849909-36.html

Most of you probably received an email titled "URI Entrepreneurs Bring American Idol Concept to Facebook." Before opening the post i didn't think that the concept was actually added to Facebook. This is a great achievement for the Entrepreneurship Club. For those of you that have not read the email the concept is added in a form of an application named "Online Idol." Currently users can download the application at http://apps.facebook.com/onlineidol/preview.php. Within 3-4 weeks users will be able to upload videos of their singing performance. They can then send them to their friends, who can vote and share them with additional friends. The top ranked videos from around the country will then compete in a weekly competition and the winner will become the first Online Idol.

PostSecret

I've already shared this site with some of you in class, but for those of you who haven't experiences PostSecret then I suggest you check it out. It was created by Frank Warren on January 1,2005. The concept of the site was that people decorate a postcard and portray a secret that they had never previously revealed. There are no restrictions on the content, simply it must be completely truthful and must never been spoken before. Secrets range from sexual acts to crime to confessions of hopes, dreams, desires, and embarrassing habits. Every Sunday, the site is updated and 20 deserving secrets are selected and posted. I definitely think everyone should check it out and maybe even send in a secret of your own!

It could happen to you

Hey guys. I was browsing the web and came across this article. It's about this seventeen year old high school drop out who created her own website, Whateverlife.com, and is now a millionaire. It was originally posted back in September 2007, but I still thought it was a cool article.

A 17-year-old high school dropout. Made more than $1 million. Earns as much as $70K a month. Owns a website that attracts more than 7 million monthly visitors and 60 million page views.
Her first Adsense paycheck was $2,790 and she has already rejected a $1.5 million buyout offer. I’m referring to Ashley Qualls, the founder of Whateverlife.com, a free MySpace layouts website.
Fastcompany recently published a fascinating feature article on Ashley, a teenage entrepreneur from Detroit who has made a substantial amount of money online by targeting a niche market (girls on Myspace/social networks) and fulfilling their needs.
Ashley is evidence of the meritocracy on the Internet that allows even companies run by neophyte entrepreneurs to compete, regardless of funding, location, size, or experience–and she’s a reminder that ingenuity is ageless.

She has taken in more than $1 million, thanks to a now-familiar Web-friendly business model. Her MySpace page layouts are available for the bargain price of…nothing. They’re free for the taking. Her only significant source of revenue so far is advertising.
Like other high traffic websites, Whateverlife.com runs CPM ads by Casale Media and Value Click, alongside Google Adsense and Nabbr, a revenue sharing video widget. The integration for each ad type is relatively well done and not too intrusive. The main problem is that Ashley doesn’t seem to be selling ads directly, which is a huge loss considering the amount of traffic she gets.
Currently, a site like Techcrunch makes $10K per 125 x 125 ad block and that’s with 4.0 million page views per month. Whateverlife gets 15 times more page views ...
According to the article, Whateverlife.com has a larger audience than the combined circulation of magazines like Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and CosmoGirl!. This is something remarkable.

Social Media Project

Hey everyone!
For my social media project I decided to make a slide show recapping some of the amazing moments that made up my senior year. I wanted to make something not only to remind me of how awesome this year has been but also something to share with my group of friends. Check it out here.
See you all at graduation =)

Social Media Project

People You May Know

So I realize this may be a little late but for any of you who may still be continuously checking the class blog I just noticed something new with facebook that perhaps some of you have too. They have added once again, a new feature to the facebook homepage that allows you to see "People You May Know. This new box picks up various people that may be connected to you through mutual friends and have the same networks or hometowns featured in their profiles. It also provides the users name and picture for you to decide on whether or not you really do know them and perhaps would like to add them to your friend list. I recently found an old friend I never knew had facebook based on this new feature and I so I personally found this feature very useful and interesting. So for all of you havn't been on facebook recently, you should check it out and you never know who have been missing out on being facebook friends with.

Semester is Over

Well the class has come to an end. Thanks to all those who have already filled out the class evaluation survey - your comments (negative or positive) are very helpful and will help me improve the class next time around. If you haven't filled out the survey yet you can do so here.

Grades for the social media project and viral marketing video are up in WebCT; proposal grades and final grades will be filtering in as I get the final proposals.

I wanted to congratulate all of you on sticking with the class and putting effort in your work. You all went the extra mile and ventured into the known with great success and creativity. Great work!!!!

See you at graduation.

Job Search Social Networking Site

There is a new site called Jobertalk.com it is a HR social networking board. It allows people to network, promote their business and also allows you to team up with others in the industry to swap ideas and give/ recieve advice. It has constant 24/7 pod-casts that are related to everything in the HR and employment fields. It is also connected to LinkedIn and Facebook and also allows users to create their own blogs on the site. To read more about Jobertalk.com click here.

MySpace Karaoke

I just read this article about the new feature added by MySpace. I found it very interesting, and I think it's a really good idea. I don't think I'll use it because I would feel bad for the potential listeners, but I'm sure a lot of people will at least try it out. I've listened to some of the songs that people have sang, and some are very impressive. You should check it out - MySpace Karaoke.
Happy karaoking!