Saturday, July 11, 2009

SocialTimes.com

SocialTimes.com

Top 10 Ways to Leverage Live Streaming on the Social Web

Posted: 10 Jul 2009 07:51 AM PDT

When it comes to live streaming on the web, the trend has seen its ups and downs. But with big brands and small brands alike turning to social web to grow their audience for live streaming video, the trend is picking up steam once again. Mainly because social networking platforms have offered better ways in which to involve viewers, live streaming video on the social web is more beneficial for all parties involved. The end result will be an interesting marketplace that will arise from the new sharing and viewing capabilities. Here are some ways in which live streaming on the social web can currently be leveraged, broken down into two categories; Sharing and Engaging.

Sharing

1. Self-Promotion

self promotion.

This is something that can be acheived on the social web already, so adding live video streaming to the mix means that your ability to promote yourself is increased. Remaining consistent with your live streaming will give viewers a set time at which to expect your live streaming content, and this can turn to a successful way to build your brand. When it comes to the social web, the viewers now have the ability to leave comments, chat, easily share your live stream with friends and spread this participatory content even further within their social web.

2. Pay-Per-View

Once you’ve begun to build your brand you can even start charging for your content. While this has been an option for some time, there is a growing number of options for enabling viewers to pay directly from the social networks with which you may be able to integrate your live streaming content. As an application, for instance, there are payment platforms that enable you to receive monetary earnings from your live streaming content.

3. Events

If you saw the memorial service for Michael Jackson earlier this week, there were several options for viewing the event. From broadcast television to replays on cable to live streaming on the web. In fact we saw an unprecedented dedication to live streaming for this particular event. Facebook partnered with CNN for live streaming, and MySpace offered live streaming options in addition to the free streaming music and videos in order to commemorate Michael Jackson. The ability for users to readily share events such as this through social networks the sites are becoming destinations for live streaming events, and this is an affect that you can take advantage of to pursur your own end goals.

4. Marketplace

In addition to charge for your content, the ability to spread your live streaming video through the social web means that you can create a marketplace of sorts in regards to your work. As your work is your product, you can leverage multiple social sites across the web, and shift this into your own marketplace. Whether you’re using your video content to push your brand and redirect traffic to another webpage where you sell your product, or create additional video content that encourages other users to spread this subsequent content across the web, you’re both leveraging the social web to spread your brand while building your brand and validity at the same time. Finding ways in which to reward the users that help you spread your brand will also add to your ability to create a marketplace around this content.

5. Grow Your Audience

The social web is at the heart of viral content, meaning that it’s always been a way in which to grow your audience. But the ease with which content can be shared across the social web in this day and age means that you can more readily grow your audience when it comes to live streaming. The fact that large brands are turning to the social web for live streaming means that you can jump on the bandwagon and push your content through the social web in the same manner. Find ways in which to incentivize your viewers to share your video content and make it easier in which to do so. Use social sites that have sharing options that make it simple for viewers to share your content far and wide, even posting your content or links to your content on as many other social sites as possible.

Engaging

The social web isn’t just about sharing content to other users. It’s also about engaging users as viewers. With various application options and integrated options across multiple social sites, it’s easier than ever to engage viewers for a variety of purposes. A few are listed below.

6. Feedback & Research

One reason for the success of services like Meebo and partnerships like Facebook and CNN is the ability to obtain immediate feedback from viewers on live streaming content. If chat and commenting is enabled in association with the live streaming content, then you’ll be able to allow users to speak on the content in a public manner. Use this data for improvement purposes of your product or brand, or even for your next live streaming event.

7. Tapping Into the Social Graph

Facebook may be the best example of how a social network can be leveraged for tapping into the social graph when it comes to live streaming on the social web. Between Twitter integration, Facebook news feeds and other content sharing options within the social network, one’s social graph can add a level of validity to your content as it’s dispersed throughout one’s social graph. This leads to our next bullet point…

8. Recommendations

With something as tight knit as one’s social graph, the mere act of viewing live streaming content and showing this on one’s news feed is a recommendation in and of itself. It’s this passive way in which content is shared that you can rely on for effective leveraging of the social web. Recommendations, passive or otherwise, ultimately help you build your brand.

9. Engagement

Further engaging users with live streaming content is a very easy way to take advantage of the social web. The easier this is for users, the more likely they will be to view your content and spread it across the social web. As your ability to tap into various social networks and sites becomes easier through platforms and various applications, it’s increasingly easier to engage viewers in this manner.

10. Re-purposing Content

As there are more cross-network integration options, it’s easy for a comment to turn into a Twitter update, which can be redistributed across your personal blog, FriendFeed and your Facebook status. Your live streaming video has now been repurposed and spread quite far across the social web. This is good for you because you’re still able to build your brand in this way, even if you’re not directly attracting more viewers in the immediate sense. Encouraging ongoing discussions and conversations around your live streaming content can be a rather effective way of leveraging the social web for the purpose of building your brand.
Posted by Unite To Solve @ United Techno at 5:40 AM 0 comments

Thursday, July 09, 2009

SocialTimes.com

SocialTimes.com

Shareholic Launches Buzz Monitor with OneRiot, Twitter Realtime Search

Posted: 08 Jul 2009 11:14 AM PDT

As I expected, yet another company has teamed up with OneRiot for added realtime search capabilities. Shareaholic, a browser-based content sharing tool, has released a new update called the Shareaholic Buzz Monitor, marking its entry into the realtime realm.

The idea behind the new Buzz Monitor is to offer easier and more readily accessible trending news, from across the web. It’s just another way to offer the instant gratification consumers seemingly crave from web content these days. And this not only encompasses the web content itself, but the ethos surrounding it. What are people saying, and where are they saying it? This all comes together to form a new and momentary glance at what is going on at any given moment.

In order to achieve this, Shareaholic is relying on the infrastructure of its own data-set along with the realtime search capabilities of OneRiot and Twitter. Microblogging platform Twitter has its own influence over the realtime trend, as it is a major catalyst in the growing desire for seeing what people are saying about any given topic at any given time.

Its public nature and bite-sized quips make Twitter content accessible and ideal for instant reactions to given situations. And as OneRiot has expanded the concept of realtime search to include a broader view of the web, it’s become an easily implemented way in which other services can extend realtime search to their users.

Coming from the browser extension perspective, Shareaholic is taking an interesting approach for its merge into realtime search. Combining its existing features with realtime search for buzz tracking broadens the ability for Shareaholic to provide value on multiple levels. From bookmarking, content-sharing and merely tracking news for discovery puroses, Shareaholic is kicking things up a notch, further encouraging users to share interesting content amongst friends and social media sites.

Other updates for Shareaholic include the added support for Su.pr, StumbleUpon’s new URL shortening service, Mozillaca, Hub.tm, Followup.cc, and TBUZZ, a Twitter link-submission tool. There’s also updated support for BzzAgent and Techmeme tip submit code, as well as Songbird 1.2.
Posted by Unite To Solve @ United Techno at 5:26 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

SocialTimes.com

SocialTimes.com

Buddy Media Launches More Facebook Apps, Taking Advice from Gary Vaynerchuck

Posted: 07 Jul 2009 01:06 PM PDT

Buddy Media has been busy lately, pushing some of its newer products onto big brands seeking better engagement with consumers via social media applications. The company that brought us app-vertisements and helped solidify their existence as viable alternatives to display ads has launched four new Facebook pages this week for Parents magazine, the National Jean Company, the Shoebox (which is a sister company to the National Jean Company)and Better Homes and Gardens.

Here’s a quick rundown of a couple of the new applications, outlining how they work within the Facebook community.

Parents Magazine is looking to grow its web presence even further by leveraging a social community and encouraging content-sharing amongst friends. So its application on Facebook pushes the latest content from its standalone site along with a specialized newsfeed highlighting recent blog posts from the magazine and user-generated content uploaded to www.parents.com. There’s also a poll for new parents that offer answers to common parenting questions, and interactive contests, which not only incur activity within the Facebook app but also redirects traffic back to Parents Magazine websites.

National Jean Company has actually turned to virtual gifting as a way to encourage users to spread the word regarding their application and its related content. The resulting news feed means that users are able to promote their own activity within the app as well as receiving fashion updates from the National Jean Company website. With Twitter integration, users are able to extend the community offerings beyond just the Facebook application as well. Lastly, users can earn coupons by referring friends back to the National Jean Company’s website.

This referral system is widely used with Buddy Media-powered applications. It’s still a useful method for leveraging the direct manner in which users communicate on Facebook, and the incentives make it worth the users’ while. Maintaining a balance between these incentives for advertising purposes and becoming a burden to users is a long-standing issue that both app developers and Facebook have been dealing with since the Facebook platform launched.

But as a marketing tool Buddy Media has a unique set of incentive-based behavior prods, which ultimately benefit the brands working with Buddy Media itself. In the end, Buddy Media is still seeking a way in which to better engage users for the purpose of generating brand recognition in a way that enables end users to yield all the power and influence.

It’s a trusting method for brand-building, and it’s still experimental. That’s part of the reason why Buddy Media has brought “marketing maverick” Gary Vaynerchuck of Wine Library TV to its board of advisors. As a success story for the power of social media marketing and the employment of new concepts surrounding such marketing, Vaynerchuck’s tactics will certainly influence the way in which Buddy Media will utilize applications for advertising purposes moving forward.


Posted by Unite To Solve @ United Techno at 5:43 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

SocialTimes.com

SocialTimes.com

Michael Jackson Live on MySpace: Memorial, Music and Videos

Posted: 06 Jul 2009 03:45 PM PDT

In addition to the broadcast networks and the movie cinemas that will be showing the Michael Jackson memorial service tomorrow, MySpace will be live streaming the event as well. This is fitting, as social media has all but helped to immortalize the King of Pop, from Facebook to MySpace to Twitter. Especially fitting as MySpace is still a social network with a heavy emphasis on the music industry.

At 10 a.m. Pacific Time, MySpace can view Michael Jackson’s memorial service, which will be live streamed here from the Staples Center, courtesy of AEG. As MySpace is still a social network, users will be able to share the streaming event with friends and fans via comments and status updates. Also, MySpace Music is further commemorating Michael Jackson by providing 31 of the musician’s albums and 20 of his music videos for full free streaming domestically. Check out Michael Jackson’s official profile to access the free streaming content.

From the first news of Michael Jackson’s cardiac arrest breaking online, the talk has yet to die down across all major forms of media communication. The news, mainstream and otherwise, hasn’t let up the mourning and the speculation around Michael Jackson’s death. And the same goes for his memorial service tomorrow.

In terms of the sharing capabilities and the social aspects surrounding the live streaming of Michael Jackson’s memorial service tomorrow, it appears to be organized in a very similar manner to what we’ve seen on Facebook. Especially in conjunction with major news network CNN, Facebook has become a standard of sorts for major event coverage, combining mainstream news with the user-generated content submitted by individual users. While MySpace is unikely to display user comments outside of the social network’s live coverage, the provision of this streaming service is indicative of the power and influence of social media. Earlier today we reported that Michael Jackson has officially become the most popular person on Facebook, demonstrating the ability for the web to become a virtual “gathering place.”

Admittedly, tomorrow’s memorial service on MySpace will be competing with the rapid growth Michael Jackson’s page on Facebook has seen. With the free streaming content MySpace will be offering on Michael Jackson’s official profile, there will be several gathering places honoring Michael Jackson across the web.
Posted by Unite To Solve @ United Techno at 5:01 AM 0 comments

Thursday, July 02, 2009

SocialTimes.com

SocialTimes.com

Bigpoint Launches Seafight on hi5 Game Channel

Posted: 01 Jul 2009 07:30 AM PDT

Online game portal Bigpoint is launching a game called Seafight on hi5’s recently revealed Games Channel, making it immediately available in 20 languages. Play the game on hi5 here.

The realtime fantasy adventure game is among Bigpoint’s most popular. The Flash game will be made accessible for all hi5 users without having to install a seperate application. So far the supported launguages are English, German, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Potuguese, Romanian, Russina, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

Seafight is the lastest in a growing string of games included on hi5 and integrated with the social network’s own virtual currency. Having yet another popular game with which to apply the hi5 Coins is a revenue-generating strategy that both hi5 and Bigpoint can take advantage of. It’s a necessary shift in payment options, considering the platform approach hi5 is taking to its own growing virtual economy.

And it makes things a great deal easier for end users, especially if they’re given a certain amount of money from their parents with which to spend in a given environment. The conversion to virtual currency means that parents and users have more control over how their money is being spent. It’s something I’d love to see expanded even beyond social networking sites, including other game portals. As larger corporations such as Google and Yahoo begin to invest research and development into virtual economies, I anticipate a similar method will be applied to portals such as Yahoo Games.

Nevertheless, hi5 has been quite aggressive in its effort to establish its own game channel and virtual economy for the purpose of retaining users, their time spent within the hi5 environment, and the monetary exchange that takes place within hi5. While Facebook and MySpace have been discussing virtual economies for years, and are slowly finding the best ways in which to implement such marketplaces into their own social networks, hi5 has taken a rather decided course and it’s one that is heavily tied in with the social gaming industry.

Since launching its virtual currency and building out its game channel, hi5 has gained several partners for its larger initiative. An important aspect of this push is in regards to alternative revenue streams, as well as the creation of more engaging environments for online users. The rsult is a better mechanism for marketers and advertisers, as well as more direct sales to users, as they can purchase virtual products through their social network.
Posted by Unite To Solve @ United Techno at 5:09 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

SocialTimes.com

SocialTimes.com

Meebo Ramps Up Ads with New Partner Network

Posted: 30 Jun 2009 08:07 PM PDT

Meebo, the chat widget tool, had already launched its own ad network some time ago. Now the company is launching ads on its own partner network, with Toyota being the first marketer to advertise. With 85 publishers signed up for its partner network, Meebo is enabling brands to run ads on a larger scale directly through Meebo’s company, with the same results they’ve grown accustomed to on Meebo.com.

What’s this really mean? In Meebo’s long-standing effort to expand its own network, web presence and visibility, the integrated communication tool has launched several tools and gained several partners, many of which have teamed up with the company for marketing purposes. This is in part due to the fact that Meebo’s integrated communication tools enable brands to connect directly with consumers through multimedia brand messages, chat, and advertisements. On the consumer end, these communication tools provide great channels for product and brand discussion as well as valuable feedback that marketers can use in their larger data pools.

This also appears to be another step towards Meebo’s larger goals of becoming a mainstay and standard in the way of web communication, especially when it comes to enterprise and advertising purposes for social media integration. In the past few weeks Meebo launched an upgraded browser toolbar that lends itself to an interesting manner by which Meebo can better facilitate web content for users. This is something brands will eventually be able to take more advantage of. It’s also a method that many advertisers are leaning towards, as display ads and basic widgets are less and less effective and integrated applications that leave a great deal of the interaction to end users is more conducive for leveraging the social web.

Stepping up its advertising game also means that Meebo needs to increase the tools and feature set it makes available to clients and marketers by way of analytics and tools. To this end, Meebo is also offering a guarantee for marketers that users will engage an ad inside the Meebo experience spending a minimum of 30 seconds with the creative, or Meebo will make up the time spent with complimentary media.

So a bigger, badder advertising platform, an improved feature set, a wide array of publisher partners and a “money back” guarantee means that Meebo is pretty confident about the success rates of its new partner network. Launching today, time will tell how well Meebo can hold up to these claims. With long-term goals of providing real-time communication for all web users for any reason possible, advertising and its partner network is only one aspect of Meebo’s company and overall strategy. But as the years pass, its ad network becomes increasingly important to Meebo’s business model, an providing integrated ways in which marketers can push their campaigns means that Meebo is at least looking to stay ahead of the curve.

Invites for TwiFeedback, in 140 Characters or Less.

Posted: 30 Jun 2009 01:02 PM PDT

Twitter can be a great way to gain feedback from customers, clients and consumers of your product or service, as many brands like Comcast are well aware. But if you’re looking fr a more direct and dedicated way to leverage the Twitter community for brand feedback purposes, a new tool called TwitFeedback is looking to make it drop-dead simple for you to do so.

Managed through a widget, visitors to your website can say in 140 characters what they think of your product or service. If the concept of garnering feedback directly from your site sounds familiar because of a certain side tab that became popular, you’ll be happy to know that TwiFeedback uses a similar tab that appears on your website. Non intrusive but inviting nonetheless, clicking on this tab will open up the TwiFeedback widget.

The widget invites users to leave their feedback via a tweet, which comes pre-populated with your corresponding Twitter username and a respective hashtag at the start of the tweet. Once a site visitor types in their tweet, they’ll be redirected to their Twitter homepage where they can hit send. Now they’ve created a tweet and you have more brand-related fodder to go along with your Twitter community. In terms of this Twitter community, the related tweets that others have left in regards to your brand will display on the widget as well.

Too add to the feedback capabilities of content coming through your TwiFeedback widget, there’s a voting capability for site visitors to vote up or down on tweets that others have left. This gives you feedback about your feedback. Useful for things like feature requests and related content. This is also a good feature to have as it realy looks to the community for a broader way of offering up feedback, and encourages those that do not want to tweet about your product to still contribute their thoughts on your brand in a comprehensive manner.

What appears to be missing is a moderation tool for selecting which community tweets show up on the widget. Some brands may be uncomfortable with an unfiltered stream of feedback that’s directly accessible from their own website. But a brand that’s good at managing itself will likely be able to handle negative tweets anyway.

Currently in private beta, TwiFeedback has given us 500 invites to test out the service. If you’d like to give it a try, use the invite code BETAONE for your test account.
Posted by Unite To Solve @ United Techno at 5:39 AM 0 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)