RAAK

Web vs Apps on smartphones

News that Google will hate. On smartphones people use apps almost 6 times as much as they use the browser. This is important since smartphones are fast becoming the dominant way people access digital content.

No wonder Google and Facebook are pushing hard for web technologies to become more app-like.

 

Journalists told: tweet or die

At BBC Social Media Summit the managing editor of the Washington Post, Raju Narisetti, said that "it is unlikely a news job candidate will get hired if they don't even know how to use social".

And the New York Times will replace their automatic Twitter feed by a human. Poynter has a good analysis why this is a good idea.
 

Finance industry embraces social tools

It's not only journalists who are piling into social media. Morgan Stanley has announced (FT registration) that thousands of its brokers will commence using Twitter and LinkedIn after software has become available that allows them to still comply with the tight financial regulatory environment.
 

Diesel, I Like 

Finally someone's done it. Diesel is running a trial campaign in their Madrid stores that lets people add Facebook Likes to the clothes on display. You scan a QR code, tap Like and boom, another piece of content potentially gets into your friends' Newsfeed.

Still, there's room to make the tech even more social. Why stop at "Tell your friends"; when you can "Ask your friends for advice"?

 

Integrating Facebook on your own site works

While Facebook Pages have their value, people often underestimate the value of integrating social plug-ins into your own web presence. Facebook has now released some stats that show that using these social plug-ins (like the Like button) increase traffic. A few ones to note:

• The average media site integrated with Facebook has seen a 300% increase in referral traffic.
• Levi’s saw a 40 times increase in referral traffic from Facebook after implementing the Like button.
• When a Ticketmaster user posts a specific event they are attending, or may want to attend, to Facebook, it generates $5.30 of direct ticket sales  
   

Groupon not wasting time in the location game

Facebook Deals better gets a move on. This week Groupon looks to close 2 deals with location-based services. First they announced a partnership with US-only app Loopt that will send users push notifications of nearby Groupon Now deals.

And now there are rumours that the deals service is in similar talks with Foursquare. A bold move from Groupon. And much needed, as the redemption rate of their email lists is apparently surprisingly low.
 

Google Wallet

Last week we spoke about the amazing possibilities of Near Field Communication. As a testimony to the hotness of the topic, Google launched their NFC payment service, Google Wallet, yesterday.

Prove that this is an important development: Google has already been sued by eBay and Paypal for a slice of the NFC pie.

In related news: Jack Dorsey's Square – which lets you accept credit cards through your mobile phone – for the first time processed more than $3 million in one day last Friday.  

 

Spotify + Facebook = end of iTunes?

This week, Forbes reported of an impending partnership between Facebook and Spotify. Not only will it bring Spotify's music to Facebook users, but it will also let friends listen to music simultaneously.

Apart from some combined Apple-bashing, what does Facebook stand to gain? A very interesting social graph they do not own at the moment: people's music interests. We can literally see Mark Zuckerberg drooling for this data. Whether this is going to be part of the deal (if there ís a deal at all), will be determined by Spotify's bloodlust versus their protectiveness over their data. 
 

Superinjunctions & the fight for control over the open net

A number of celebrities in the UK have sought to keep news about their private lives out of the media through so-called superinjunctions. That is, injunctions that not only protect the applicants secrecy, but also prohibit anybody from mentioning their existence. Social media fundis are well versed in the so-called Streisand effect. When information is kept secret, social media, or rather people using it, tend to do quite the opposite and try and reveal it.

And that is more or less what happened when footballer Ryan Giggs tried a super-injunction. This is particularly contentious, because this is really salacious gossip and not clearly in the public interest. But the English Courts are fighting back. The Chief Justice said the net is out of control and Twitter has announced that it would reveal details of users if they have indeed broken a law.
 

Creative of the Week – Sergio Albiac

Painting, that's what Sergio Albiac does. Sometimes with paint. Sometimes with code. The latter he calls Generative Video and this week we stumbled upon this intriging work called 'Content is Queen'. Just watch and be mesmerized.

 

Tech Insight of the week – Twitter is ten times the size of your mobile operator

How big is Twitter really? How does it compare to, say, SMS? We made a comparison, and we were quite surprised. In fact, we were very surprised.