Pylon Sounds

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Virtual gifts are big business. Even in its earlier days, many people on Facebook were paying money to give their friends virtual flowers, and Farmville makes a great success out of selling trees and sheep to people to gift to others as part of the game. What we have learned is that people are willing to pay money for virtual objects, and even more so when they are gifts to other people. Seeing this trend, many people are tying to explore ways to integrate virtual gifts into their social media strategy as a way to make money. Few are doing this successfully but as with many examples of successful social media there is much we can learn by looking at how it is being used in the not-for-profit sector.

Imagine that rather than spending £2 to buy your friend a bunch of virtual flowers, you could spend £2 on a virtual badge for your charity of choice. It would post that charity’s branding and logo on your friend’s Facebook page (and thus in the newsfeeds of all their friends) and the £2 would actually be a donation to that charity. This is the simple, but effective, idea that is JustGiving gifts. This app lets you show your support for a particular charity by buying a virtual badge for a friend. So, for example, if you wanted to show your support for Breast Cancer Care you can send your friend (or indeed yourself) a branded badge and a message about the charity and the work that they do. And when you buy the badge you pay a £2 donation through JustGiving for the virtual gift and are given the option if you choose at that point to set up more regular giving to this charity.

Its a simple idea but a really effective one that builds on the behaviour we are seeing in Facebook and in social media more broadly:

1. Users like badges as ways of showing their allegiances – in recent user testing work we did at FreshNetworks we explored why people ‘Like’ things on Facebook. One reason that was popular with many is that it was a way to get a badge on their profile showing their interests and what support. If you are a fan of Arsenal Football Club, for example, one reason to ‘Like’ them on Facebook is that it will put an Arsenal badge on your Facebook profile showing your allegiance to this cause. The virtual badges given by the JustGiving gifts app do just this – they are a way of friends showcasing what they care about and displaying their allegiances on their profile
2. Badges offer a way of highlighting particular updates - in the same testing we found that users like adding things to updates and messages on Facebook as a way of making theirs stand out or to add extra value to it. On a birthday, for example, they might add in links or photos in their ‘Happy Birthday’ Facebook wall posting. This is a great opportunity for this charity gifting as adding in a virtual gift adds the extra value to such birthday or other updates that users are looking for.
3. This virtual badges capitalise upon the connections in Facebook – these virtual gifts are a great example of using the connections between people in Social Networks – when I send my friend a Breast Cancer Care badge it will not only tell her all about the work that they do, but also my friends and her friends. It is a good way of sharing and spreading the message about the charity and makes good use of the social network features of Facebook.

Perhaps what I love most about the JustGiving gifts app is that it is a simple solution that really works with the trends we are seeing in how people are using social networks and virtual gifts. They have not just seen that people are spending money on these kind of gifts but really explored why and how. It’s only by exploring and really understanding how users are interacting in social media that you can start to develop a social media strategy that will really bring you value.

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Social is beating search in the battle for our web time, with new comScore research showing Facebook topping Google in terms of time spent on the site. This isn’t too surprising, as people tend to linger on their Facebook profiles and only briefly use Google to go elsewhere. Nevertheless, this is yet another signal of the shift of web dominance.

The research says that, for August, Facebook took the top spot in terms of time spent with 41.1 billion minutes ahead of Google’s 39.8 billion. To be fair, Google and Yahoo are still neck-and-neck for the number one spot in unique visitors, while Facebook is trailing in fourth place. The difference between the data isn’t shocking, as Read Write Web points out:

Google strives to direct users somewhere else in milliseconds. Facebook and Yahoo would love for you to linger for hours, reading the news, liking things and generating ad impressions.

But the news can’t be sidelined entirely, even if it’s just a symbol of the rising social structure of the Internet. Back in March, a Hitwise report showed that Facebook beat out Google in the US for the number of weekly visits to the site.

What does this mean for advertisers? One can’t rule out Google’s ability to target an audience just yet, but social advertising is proving to be highly effective. Nielsen numbers show that people are 68% more likely to remember an advertisement when it has been associated with one of their Facebook friends.

All of these numbers are a convenient positive boost to Facebook’s PR as it continues to convince advertisers of social ad possibilities. In fact, Facebook announced today that it will provide advertisers with a “social context” measurement so they can see the effectiveness of Facebook’s “friend-recommended” advertising strategy.

Meanwhile, chatter of Facebook’s IPO is getting more and more speculative…

Tipp-Ex has become the darling of the tech press after launching a viral interactive video that’s racked up millions of YouTube views since its launch two weeks ago. Not bad for a decidedly low-tech brand. But how does it stand up to some of the most successful virals we’ve seen lately. Can it outdo the Roger Federer Gillette video from earlier this summer, for example? The results may surprise you.

The video, which allows viewers to change the hunter-vs-bear story by “Tipp-Exing” its headline, has racked up 4.7 million views – 4 million of those in the last week. Its YouTube channel has 13,600 subscribers, and the company has set up a Facebook page called “Hunter VS Bear“, which now has 222 fans showing their support in a variety of European languages (as seen in the screenshot below).

For comparison, we put it up against Gillette’s viral video of Roger Federer’s trick shot. It now has 6.6 million views, but only one week after its release it was at 4.5 million views, neck and neck with Tipp-Ex today. Moreover, the Gillette video utilized the fame of a international tennis star, while Tipp-Ex has gained similar numbers by putting the fate of a no-name hunter into the hands of the viewers.

Once again, YouTube shows you don’t need to be a celebrity product endorser to get big results.

Image by IronRodArt – Royce Bair – BUSY via Flickr

One of my favourite podcasts is Listen to Lucy from the FT’s Lucy Kellaway and this week she has a great piece addressing how brands are responding on Twitter. Specifically how Starbucks responds to some Tweets about the brand. The piece is, like all her podcasts, humourous but with a serious message. And in this case I think its a message many brand would benefit from taking on board – how to respond to people on Twitter, or indeed how not to.

The case she discusses is of UK satirist, Armando Iannucci and a Tweet he made about Starbucks and the hygiene of their stores. She remarks on how the Starbucks UK MD is responding to this and similar Tweets about the brand and the regularity at which he is doing this.

Whilst I think that there is a real benefit of engaging with customers online in this way and it is important for brands to put in place a clear and thorough process for reacting and responding to mentions of their brand online. But, as we spend much of our time telling clients, the key is not to feel that every mention needs to be responded to. In fact in most cases mentions of your brand online do not merit a response.

Kellaway makes this point succinctly. The Starbuck UK MD, she says, should have other things to worry about than one message about the hygiene of his stores. Indeed, as she says, he should probably be more worried about the fact that he only finds out about this from a Tweet and not from his own staff.

There is a real danger with social media. Because it is easy to find mentions of your brand online there is a temptation to think that you need to respond to them. Kellaway’s point, and one that brands should take into account when planning their social media strategies, is that overall business strategy should not be driven by what is said on Twitter. In fact you should not build a process of reacting and responding that treat messages in social media in a different way from through other mediums.

The best approaches to customer service are not to have a special social media route to get your problems dealt with, but to feed social media into your existing channels. If you have a customer care team, it is they who should deal with mentions in social media (where they need to be dealt with). Social media mentions should not be elevated to a special level that received particular attention over and above how you deal with your other customers and their issues, comments and suggestions. You should integrate social media into your business not treat it as a special case.

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Yes, Google Instant is a time-saver. But does this new innovation in search (the first we’ve had in ages) really lead to smarter search results as Google claims, or does it tell us what we already know, just more quickly? We took it through its paces in multiple locations. Here’s what we found.

Firstly, the obvious. We can confirm from our trials (with me in Rome and Andrew in Cardiff plugging in the letters of the alphabet) that Google Instant is very provincial. The more provincial the results depends on your location. That’s to be expected. It would pretty fishy if the search results resembled merely the same bland listing of Fortune 100 brands. While the regional differences in the search results seem to be a bit more subtle in the United States, as Advertising Age revealed yesterday, where you get big differences is when you look across countries, as we did here.

Here’s the Google Instant results from the bel paese. Contrast it with Cardiff (just below).

A = Alice (The Telecom Italia broadband service)
B = BNL (what, no Berlusconi?) This is a big bank, Banco Nazionale del Lavoro
C = Corriere (as in the newspaper, Corriere della Sera)
D = dizionario
E = eBay
F = Facebook
G = Giochi (games… No Google here?)
H = Hotmail
I = Inps (the equivalent of the Department of Labo(u)r)
J = Juventus (‘nuff said)
K = Kijiji (an eBay subsidiary)
L = Libero (another newspaper)
M = Meteo (the weather)
N = Nokia
O = Oroscopo
P = Pagine Bianche (what, not the yellow pages? Where’s the Pope?)
Q = Quattroroute (literally, “four wheels”… equivalent of the Kelley Blue Book)
R = Rai (the state broadcaster)
S = Subito (“quick”, and the name of a classified sales service)
T = Trenitalia
U = Unicredit (another bank, just the second on this list)
V = Virgilio
X = X Factor (yep, the UK talent show, now airing here on Rai)
Y = YouTube
Z = Zara

The Welsh version now:

A = Argos (catalogue store)
B = BBC
C = Currys (electrical retailer)
D = Debenhams (beating out the Daily Mail)
E = eBay
F = Facebook
G = Google Maps
H = Hotmail
I = Ikea
J = John Lewis
K = KLM
L = Lotto
M = MSN
N = Next
O = 02
P = PayPal
Q = Quidco (cashback voucher shopping)
R = RightMove (property website)
S = Sky
T= Tesco
U = utube (Do we really need the phonetic spelling? Number 2 here is UCAS, the UK university admission system)
V = Vodafone
W = Weather
X  = Xe (currency exchange)
Y = YouTube
Z = Zara

In Italy, the 19 of the 26 searches (73%) are for local brands and indigenous search terms. What strikes me is that there are no references to those quintessential Italian things–you know, wine, cuisine, sunny vacations, the Catholic Church (i.e., Pagine Bianche is more popular than the Pope). And just one football club makes the list. There’s no Inter or Roma or Milan.

Now to Cardiff. Here, the results are not quite so local in flavor, erm, flavour. We get 11 non-UK brands (I’m counting Vodafone as a local brand here, btw), or 57% of the time the local player comes up first.

I think that’s a healthier mix. We aren’t always Googling for the most familiar service, product or brand, after all. The net has given us the power to search beyond our borders. Let’s hope that over time the Google Instant suggestion engine doesn’t alter the searching habits of the masses to an unvaried, homogenized approach.

Lastly, we see, there are certain brands that are emerging as first choice for online consumers no matter where you sit down to Google. Some are obvious, including Facebook, YouTube and eBay. Others surprise me like Hotmail. Zara, I suspect, benefits from the dearth of well known “Z” brands. I reckon that had some version of this been around a generation ago we might have seen brands like Coca-Cola, Microsoft and Marlboro beating out the likes of “Meteo” and Currys. I wonder if the folks at Interbrand are testing this out this morning. Lastly, huge omissions: not a single Apple brand, and where’s Twitter?

Additional reporting by Andrew Weltch in Cardiff.

Social media users are getting older. According to the latest research by Flowtown, the average social media participant is 37-years-old, and the fastest growing demographic is 50-plus. But don’t worry about mom third-wheeling your Facebook page. She is feeling right at home with her favorite social brands.

Facebook isn’t just a bunch of college kids any more. The majority (61%) of Facebook users are over 35, and about 40% of those aged 30 to 50 access a social network every day. This is still low compared to the youngest demographic, who now use social networks as much as traditional email.

But moms aren’t using Facebook just to keep an eye on their bundles of joy. They are hanging out and “Liking” pages such as the AARP Facebook page, a thriving community of active sharers.

It could be just what couch potatoes everywhere have been waiting for – YouTube (as well as much of the rest of the Web) is coming to your TV this autumn, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced yesterday. Before you ready your Microsoft WebTV cracks, consider this: Americans alone view over 13 billion videos a month on YouTube. That’s a lot of eyeballs.

The idea is all part of Google’s attempt to extend its lead in the online video wars through the introduction of Google TV. Google has opened up its TV service to Android OS developers, who are creating applications that allow cloud-based experiences including gaming and social sharing. According to Google’s philosophy, Google TV “becomes more than a TV – it can be a photo slideshow viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more.” The idea is to launch Google TV in the U.S. this autumn; no details on the dates of a roll-out for the rest of us.

Google has also been working deals with Sony and Samsung to make Google TV a built-in function of new sets, and it just announced that the service would go online this autumn in the US, only one week after Apple announced its newly-priced TV device at $99.

Not surprisingly, Apple’s initial reaction to Google’s approach has been to sling mud. Apple’s idea for its TV service is somewhat different. The primary function of Apple TV is to bring viewers, in the words of Steve Jobs, “Hollywood movies and TV shows.” Jobs’ view of Google TV? Viewers “don’t want an amateur hour.” In essence, Apple is aiming to provide high quality professional content, and accessing YouTube videos comes secondary. In fact, the Apple TV doesn’t allow for access to Facebook, Vimeo or Blip.tv videos, with their primarily-amateur content. Not very social. At least not for now.

Google TV, meanwhile, is putting more third-party and amateur innovation into the hands of TV viewers, and it is bringing what the majority of Internet users already watch to the living room. And why not? According to the latest viewing numbers from comScore, YouTube on the TV could be a real entertainment force, particularly among teens and twenty-somethings who’ve long ridden off TV as simply un-cool.

Google’s liberal attitude towards its service will bring new privacy and copyright concerns, no doubt. The former, Google seems to have covered. CEO Schmidt already said last week that Google would be simplifying the Google privacy policy to apply to all levels of content on its platforms. As for the latter, well, that may already be sorting itself out as content producers start to see some revenues from those YouTube eyeballs.

The Coca-Cola Happiness Machines are multiplying, even in a place where there’s little mirth today: London. That’s right, Coke has taken its viral YouTube video sensation to the other side of the pond, setting up its wondrous vending machine to a university campus in London with some predictably sweet results.

The first Coke Happiness Machine, as you may recall, was set up in the cafeteria of a US college campus earlier this year, and its corresponding video racked up over 2.6 million views on YouTube. The video, which shows a generous soda machine giving free Cokes (and munchies) to students, was seen as an attempt to trump Pepsi’s eco-friendly Dream Machine online.

The new one in London is a virtual copy. The machine generates smiles and approving laughter as it hands out (literally) free drinks, cake, even a Twister game. Check out the video here:

The battle between Coke and Pepsi to out-do-good the other is picking up momentum now here in Europe. Pepsi, for example, has recently exported The Refresh Project to Italy, asking young Italians to get involved in the virtuous crowdsourcing campaign to inspire others to build community spirit and affect change in their villages, cities and towns. Che gusto!

Nike released a new iPhone app yesterday that acts as a personal coach for runners. Replete with a GPS map, pace speedometer and inspirational Lance Armstrong audio quotes, the Nike+ GPS will allow runners to connect and compete with friends for better runs in a network called “Challenge Me”. But is Nike’s entry into this marketplace too late?

Nike’s is the fourth major running-app on the market, so the idea is far from new. Both Adidas and New Balance released versions to run-trainers in the past year, and the longest-established run-app, RunKeeper, has been one of the most popular apps since it was released in 2008. RunKeeper is so confident in its app that a blog post yesterday said:

Bravo, it is about time Nike!  Except for one problem.  All of you big guys jumping in with major marketing budgets, you are doing this as a brand play.  We are not.  You are doing this to try to ultimately sell more people your footwear/apparel.  We are not.  You are big and slow moving.  We are not.

The blog post also said that there would be new features and updates to the app coming in this year and that “The game is just beginning!”

Where the Nike app stands out is its “Challenge Me” function, which puts workout training statistics into a more easily accessible format. RunKeeper has a comparable database of past work out statistics, but it isn’t as competitive as Nike’s. What RunKeeper does have, however, is a track record of success with its users and a strong presence with a loyal community on Facebook and Twitter. This could make any future social competition functions easier to fire-up.

With the London Underground hit by a strike today, BBC London has launched a crowdsourcing experiment to keep travelers informed of the latest travel news.

The Tubestrike Crowdmap is updated with information provided by travelers through emails, Twitter or a form on the website. as well as from official sources. Effectively, it paints an ever-developing picture of the travel scene in the capital – not just which Tube lines are closed, but also where the roads are busy or the buses are over-crowded (and that’s a lot of places).

It was set up by Claire Wardle, a former academic, who based the experiment on TBD’s similar map in Washington DC, and saw it as an ideal way to visualize information about the strike.

A success? It’s too soon to say – a check on the Twitter hashtag #TubeStrike this morning showed a high Tweet count, but many are general grumbles or observations, which won’t do much to inform other travelers.

At the very least it’s an interesting experiment, and it certainly seems to have potential. Wardle’s hope is that the map grows to encompass photos, audio clips and commuter experiences. We have to agree with her – even if you don’t live in London, it’s worth checking out this crowdmap just to see what a great resource this can be.

Image by jamesmellor via Flickr

If you’re based in London you probably know the disruption and frustration caused when there is a strike on the Tube – especially more so as the strikes are often timed to cause maximum impact on journeys to and from work. If you are based out of London you probably care less. But for all people the current strike that started today is a good example of how broadcasters are using social media both as an information source but also as a broadcast medium.

BBC London News (@BBCLondonNews) has been using Twitter for some time as a source information, comment and research for pieces. Most notably through certain reporters such as Matt Cooke (@MattCooke_UK) who have built a presence on Twitter. This is a common use of social media among news organisations, and we wrote last year about the benefits (and challenges) of user-generated news. But with this Tube Strike, BBC London News are doing some things different and truly experimenting with social media.

The are of course doing the basics – they are using and promoting the #TubeStrike hashtag, and reporters such as Cooke are sharing information, photos and retweeting other comments about the strike. They are sourcing photos through social media and sourcing stories and information about the strikes and the impact on commuters the same way.

Perhaps more exciting, however, is how they are then presenting this information back to people and how they are using social media to broadcast information and news about the strike.

The BBC is experimenting with social media to map and report on the tube strike and the impact it is having: the London Tube Strike Map. As with other such maps, they are plotting information shared on Twitter using the #TubeStrike hashtag, and they are also including audioboos with the same tag. But where they are leveraging the reach and power of the BBC is to combine these social media sources with more traditional sources – you can submit information by text, email and by filling in a form on the site too.

This is a simple tool but can be an effective one and its use will become more obvious as we enter the second day of the strikes and more content is added. What BBC London is doing is experimenting with different ways of both sourcing and then presenting information and news. It is using social media in the way that many of its viewers are doing and providing them a real service. We already know that many people will be using Twitter as a search engine to find out information about how their journey to work is being affected by the strike. BBC London is bringing this information together in one place and, perhaps critically, combining it with information it sources from other places.

Organisations like the BBC should be experimenting with social media where there is a clear benefit for their audience of doing this. If it works and attracts a sizeable and relevant audience then they can develop these tools and experiments to enhance the news and travel coverage they currently provide. With the London Tube Strike Map they are moving beyond sourcing information and research through social media, to using it as an integral part of their reporting and information provision. If the experiment works it could provide a model for how news organisations can provide such information in the future.

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We now know a bit more what it costs to fight a full-blown online reputation crisis, courtesy of the latest leak around BP. Advertising Age today reports that BP cranked up its online ad spend with Google at the height of the crisis in June as it scrambled to get its spin on the story out there above its critics and to preserve what was left of its tattered reputation.

In the months following the spill, BP increased more than six-fold its Google search ad spending to $3.6 million in the month of June alone, says a report by Ad Age, an investment it made to clean up its image as online protests and boycotts swirled. The Big Oil titan had been spending a puny $57,000 a month prior to the Deepwater Horizon Spill in April. The last-minute budgeting has us wondering: was this just an excuse to throw tons of cash at a big PR problem or is BP truly planning to engage regularly now with the swelling online community of activists and Gulf area citizens?

To be sure, BP is on pace to nearly double its spending on all forms of advertisement this year after spending $94 million in 2009, according to a report late last month in The Wall Street Journal. Part of this outlay included a strategy to boost its search engine presence as more and more people Google for the latest oil spill news. BP spokesman Scott Dean told the Wall Street Journal the Oil Giant’s aim has been “to create informational advertising to assure people that we will meet our commitments and tell them how they can get help—especially claims. It is an important tool to help us be transparent about what we are doing.”

Based on the figures we now know, it will cost a big brand a considerable investment (particularly for those as unprepared as BP) to improve its online reputation amid such a major scandal. BP’s June spend puts them just behind Google advertising heavyweights AT&T Mobility, Amazon and eBay. And, it was forced to beef up its social media outreach channels to defend its rep. Prior to the spill, it did almost nothing with its corporate Twitter and Facebook channels. Those channels now appear to be rigorously staffed. Regardless, the fake BP Twitter page and the Boycott BP Facebook page still crush the official ones in terms of followers.

All told, it’s proving to be one costly crisis for BP.

We always like those stories where a small, regional brand makes a big global impression thanks to its smart use of social media. Here’s one which had us raising a glass.

Penderyn, a small whiskey producer in Wales, is trying to compete in a market dominated by major  Scotch, Irish and US brands. It produces in a year roughly the same as the big distillers distribute each day.

To raise global awareness, Penderyn hired PR consultants Brazil with a modest £3,000 budget. The plan? They sent samples and information to whiskey bloggers, and invited them to the distillery in Wales. Online interaction grew, mentions on Twitter soared, and most importantly sales jumped by 34%.

During the campaign, its Facebook fan count grew to 1,600 and has since topped 2,800. And Penderyn, lacking the resource for large-scale conventional market research, used the growing interaction to gather the views of customers and whiskey fans.

The research showed people like the company’s distinctive bottles (which deliberately avoid stereotypical Welsh images such as dragons or daffodils). They also like the company’s use of the Scotch-style “whisky” spelling, rather than the Irish or American “whiskey.” Furthermore, managing director Stephen Davies told New Media Age: “Most importantly, we’ve researched drinking habits and are pleased to find people aren’t just collecting our bottles, they are actually drinking them.”

Image by Hilarywho via Flickr

As a social media agency, FreshNetworks aims to bring you the best posts in social media, online communities, marketing and customer engagement online. In case you missed them, find below our top five posts in August.

When you pay at Abercrombie & Fitch in London, you are asked the same question: “Have you checked us out on Facebook?”. Rather than being just a phatic expression, this is a sign that Abercrombie & Fitch is taking its social media strategy seriously. And a great example of just how to embed social media across your customer touchpoints and with all your staff.

If you want to grow and engage more customers in social media the best way is to embed it into your existing processes. You currently have many customer touchpoints so make the most of them. And let social media complement what you already do rather than sitting on its own.

Cadbury Spots v Stripes campaign is a great case study of how to use social media and shows just why social media doesn’t just take place online. The campaign integrates online and offline touchpoints, and rewards people for things they do in social media and offline. What is interesting to see is that Cadbury has recognised that offline is converging with online – something that all digital marketers need to be aware of.

Facebook Places launched in the US in August. It allows users to share their location with their friends, find out who is near them and to discover new places nearby. This add another geolocation tool into the market alongside the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla and the reach of Facebook will put geolocation tools in the hands of lots of people.

In this post we suggest five ways that marketers can use Facebook Places – from discounts to data.

Every wondered why people follow brands on Twitter? We’ve already written about why people follow the UK’s top brand on Twitter, and a recent report from ExactTarget builds on this analysis  further by revealing why people follow companies on the popular microblogging site.

In this post we look at the top five reasons for following a brand on Twitter, from displaying loyalty to getting discounts.

Social media is changing the way we travel. The way we plan, the way we book, the way we act when we are travelling and the way we report on it (in real-time and after the event). We are using review sites to book hotels and events. We are using Twitter and Flickr to find out what people really think of places we are going to or things we are going to do. We are using these same tools to report, often in real time, on what we are experiencing.

In this environment those in the travel industry need to take social media seriously, and find ways to make it work hard for them and their brand.

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Last week a few members of the FreshNetworks development team went over to Copenhagen to find out about the latest developments in the Drupal world at DrupalCon 2010.

Drupal is the open source content management system that we use here at FreshNetworks to develop our online community sites.

Drupal has various advantages over other content management systems (as described in our post on why Drupal is a great social media platform (in layman’s terms)) and has grown rapidly in use over the last seven years or so.

Paul Oram and James Andres, both experienced “Drupalistas” and  members of our tech team,  attended the conference this year to speak  find out more about the latest Drupal developments.

In the video below Paul explains these developments and what we can expect from Drupal in the next release and what developments it is taking over the next few years.

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Twitter has released the details of its users’ connection habits, and it turns out mobile Twitter is the new driver of user growth. Mobile access of Twitter increased by 60% since April, and the general user base has increased 40% in the same period to 145 million members. Who’s tweeting from their mobiles? Business executives on their Blackberries and tech geeks on their iPhones. Quick question though: Is Android missing the party? Here’s the breakdown of how people are accessing Twitter.

YouTube may finally have found a way to make a profit. No, this isn’t a scheme to make us pay for cute kitten videos. The secret formula to a profitable YouTube may lie in a subtle advertising deal between the video host and big-name studio producers – over ‘pirate’ clips.

When an unauthorized video that violates a copyright agreement is uploaded to YouTube, the studio lawyers get an itch. But Chris Maxcy, YouTube’s director of content partnerships, told The New York Times yesterday that it’s now the marketing department, not the legal department, which pulls the strings:

It was 90 percent lawyers in a meeting and the marketing people faded into the background. Now the partners we are working with get checks that get bigger every month. And now when you walk into a meeting there’s almost no lawyers, or there’s a couple of lawyers but they are deal lawyers there to help you get your contract done.

So what’s the contract? Instead of automatically removing unauthorized videos, YouTube is placing advertisements in them and is splitting the revenues with the video’s parent studio.  Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the strategy for YouTube profitability was to “amass an audience first, then figure out the tools that will create the revenue, then you go to the content partners and say, ‘Hey, look guys.’” And the studios’ point-of-view? If you can’t beat them, join them, and make some cash in the process.

Despite being rather secretive about its earnings, YouTube has said that it has doubled its revenue each year for the past three years. Analysts predict that it will bring in $450 million this year, which is enough to turn a profit.

Google has experimented in the past to find a profit plan for its video host subsidiary. Earlier this year, it cut a deal with Bollywood to launch a pay-per-view service for the film Striker, and it tried to make a profit by gaining sponsorships to feature Indian Premier League cricket matches. But this subtler advertising route could prove the winner.

In what is being hailed a victory for the world’s rainforests, Burger King has dropped Indonesian palm oil producer Sinar Mas from its list of suppliers, the third major brand to cave to a Greenpeace pressure campaign that’s been stalking the corporate pages of Facebook over the past six months.

Greenpeace has used to great effect social media channels to confront companies one-on-one about their business ties with suppliers it calls rainforest wreckers. Its most recent scalp is the King. In late July, Greenpeace unleashed its latest broadside against Sinar Mas accusing the pulp-paper-and-palm-oil conglomerate of “continu[ing] to clear rainforest containing priceless biodiversity.” It didn’t stop there. In a recurring tactic, Greenpeace went after one of Sinar Mas’ most visible customers, Burger King.

As it did with Nestlé, Greenpeace encouraged its army of nearly 600,000 Facebook activists to badger the Burger King Facebook custodians with demands to withdraw all ties with Sinar Mas. No more than a month later and Burger King, which is caught in a tense M&A battle at the moment, delivered this white flag:

And how has the Facebook public reacted to the news of Sinar Mas’ boot? Sheer joy for the orangutans and a huge boost in respect and loyalty from Burger King’s hungry customers. Greenpeace has even heaped it on, encouraging its members to go to the Burger King page and thank the company for its actions:

Perhaps it was the heat of a takeover battle that convinced Burger King to distance itself from any further bad publicity. Whatever the reason, it was a wise move. Earlier this year, Nestlé suffered a major PR crisis online for its dealing with Sinar Mas palm oil in its Kit-Kat bars, and its online presence has still to make a full recovery.

The wait is over, Top Gear fans. The long-running speculation about The Stig’s true identity is now revealed. Regardless of who he actually is (cough… Ben Collins), the build-up of speculation and subsequent controversy has sent viral discussions throughout the social media landscape.

The truth was finally revealed, thanks to a bunch of corporate attorneys. The BBC sued book publisher HarperCollins for disclosing the current Stig’s identity in a book about race-car driver Ben Collins. The last time the identity of The Stig was uncovered in 2003, his player, Perry McCarthy, left the show immediately. Yep, Top Gear fans, the Beeb will likely be auditioning for a new Stig. Interested?

BBC’s interest in keeping The Stig’s identity a secret is obvious. It has helped build a cult following behind Top Gear, which was once just a show featuring middle-aged men talking about cars.  Top Gear now has 4.4 million fans on Facebook, 69,500 Twitter followers and 346,000 YouTube channel subscribers. The Stig, as a stand-alone entity, has amassed 2.5 million fans on Facebook, making him a defining player in Top Gear’s online persona. In fact, the Top Gear website has even released an iPhone app called “Who is the Stig?” that is intended to kindle the speculating fire.

Who will be the next Stig to take the baton? This is just one of the many topics being discussed on the hundreds of discussion threads on The Stig’s Facebook page, and it has resulted in some characteristic British humor, erm, humour. Take, for example:

Regardless of who becomes the next Stig, we can be sure social media will play a key role in keeping the hidden identity a source for yet more chatter.

Image by lorenzo cuppini verducci via Flickr

I wrote previously about how social media is changing travel, comparing a journey I have just taken traveling across the Balkans and Greece with a trip I took 15 years ago across Western Europe. The rise of social media has changed the way we travel. It has given us new opportunities to help plan our travel, and to help us whilst we are en route. It helps us choose hotels and restaurant, to see what others have experienced and to keep in touch and give real time reviews whilst we are travelling. And many travel and leisure companies are planning their social media strategy to help them capitalise on this change in consumer behaviour.

Having just returned from the trip, I can report that social media has helped to change how we travel whilst we are on holiday as well as in the planning phase. The use of reviews and forums to help choose locations is common to many of us. Using social media in real time as a travel assistant is less so.

We are very used to social media as a tool to help choose and plan travel. To help learn what others thought of particular hotels, restaurants or venues. And to learn about what there is to do and see in different destinations. But social media as a real-time travel resource is developing. Whilst away in Greece, I saw how this could work best. Using Twitter, I posted a picture on Twitter of where I was and what I was doing. A few minutes later I had a response recommending a place to eat – a place that was not touristy but full only of Greeks, and that I wouldn’t have found at all without this piece of advice.

Of course, it helped that my friend, @AJBradburn, works in the travel industry and has lived across Greece. But it did mean that I had perhaps the best meal of my trip thanks to advice I got in real time on Twitter. An experience I would not have had without social media.

Perhaps the most useful social media tool when I was Foursquare. And in an unexpected way.

I have often thought that the greatest value you can get from Foursquare is not in gaining Mayorships or points, but in leaving reviews and information around a town for others to pick up. Then, when I’m in a new town looking for a place to eat or drink, I could just switch on Foursquare and find somewhere to go based on the tips (or reviews) left by others).

When I was travelling I did this for the first time, with much success. Travelling in relatively less well-travelled places (including Bosnia and Serbia), I was surprised to find quite so much activity on Foursquare. But using it I was able to find bars and restaurants, read reviews and even find other information, including the passwords for various cafe wifi access, based on the tips left by other users. This was incredibly useful, and after benefiting from these tips I was even prompted to leave my own. Including for the bar that was recommended for me in Athens.

There is a real opportunity for Foursquare to become a valuable resource for travellers and for others looking for reviews of venues near where they are. This would be particularly useful for those visiting new places or new areas of town. When you want to find places near where you are and read reviews of them.

Of course this is not necessarily what Foursquare was designed to do and there are some changes that would help to make it more useful as a review site like this. Notably it would be good to improve the ability to search for venues. It would be great if I could search for venues before I visit a town and then favourite ones I want to try out. Then, when I’m on location, I could look at my favourites on a map and visit them.

Also, as Foursquare grows it will become important that I can filter tips. In a city such as Sarajevo there are not that many bars recommended on Foursquare. In London there will be hundreds (if not thousands). I will only be interested in certain reviews and those from certain reviewers – usually people that I consider to be ‘people like me’. An ability for Foursquare to learn what I like and what I do and then tailor recommendations based on this will add significant value to the service.

Of course, the first stage will be to encourage more people to leave tips. Foursquare is not about becoming Mayor of a local venue. It is about you sharing the best of what is in your town with others. And it is about you being able to tap into local knowledge when you are on location. Or it will be if it becomes and more user-friendly resource for this type of knowledge exchange.

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