RAAK

Rocket fuel

Twitter busted through the 500 million registered account mark on Wednesday, just as we predicted. We built a neat dynamic graph where you can go and see whether you were an early adopter, or a hapless laggard.

Fcommerce is F*****

We've always been a bit sceptical about using Facebook pages to deal with complex interactive tasks, like shopping. Especially since one could use the Facebook API to build interesting applications, using all of Facebook's power, on your own terms, with a bespoke and fit for purpose user experience. So news that many brands are shuttering their Fcommerce sites comes as no surprise.

Social commerce is not dead

A new service not unlike Pinterest, Fancy, is turning Ecommerce on its head. Says CEO Joe Einhorn: "The way that commerce works up until today is that buyers buy products and tell customers what we’re allowed to buy, how much it costs and how to buy it. Merchants and brands will be able to come into any post and bid to sell against the demand right there." And interestingly, unlike Pinterest its majority is male.

Pinterest is a window into the soul

In the WSJ Katherine Rossman explains the not so obvious charms of Pinterest. "It hadn't occurred to me that such an online service also would be a window into me for my husband who sees me every day." Could it be a window into The US's Army’s world? Well, it has launched a Pinterest page specifically to attract women (Econsultancy). But the most interesting Pinterest story this week is by Social Media Examiner and how the site can be used for market research.

Still unclear about what Pinterest is about? As the Havard Business Review argues – the only real way to assess something in the digital world is to use it. And this means spending enough time dorking around to get the hang of it.

Poor bloggers and attention seeking brands

"Why don't you just go get married already?!" asks SEOMoz arguing convincingly (not to mention in depth) why Link buying and other SEO techniques would not be as cost effective as buying succesful blogs.

The west is getting smart fast

In the USA, two thirds of 24 – 35 year olds now own smart phones, while in the UK and Spain more than 50% of the total mobile using population also does.

Google+ brand pages out growing Twitter's new brand pages

A Social Bakers report that the top Google+ pages are outperforming that on Twitter. Burberry added 65,000 on Twitter for example, while on Google + it added 280,000 in the same peroid.

Even better than the real thing

A recent study claimed that the picture we present of ourselves on Facebook is – contrary to popular perception – actually a rather accurate picture of who we are. Now a RWW article says this is not so. We are even more of who we are on social media. Social networkers show "unusual acts of kindness and generosity," which is known as "benign disinhibition."

Long read – but a goodie

Two weeks ago we debated Evgeny Morozov's eulogy to the “cyberflâneur” – who in web 1.0 surfed, or strolled, anonymously the pristine frontier of cyberspace. In Arcades, Mall Rats, and Tumblr Thugs, Jesse Darling goes for the jugular: "…the flâneur remains ever a bourgeois male figure…" and "Morozov even waxes lyrical about the golden days of the dial-up connection, as though remembering the swathe of the plough in the field. Where this all once was grass, he laments, the information superhighway now runs through the middle; pity the snotty Tumblr thug who will never know the wholesome pleasure of strolling endless dreaming fields of Euclidean space with his own handmade code as map and compass." Ouch!

Creative of the week – Emilio Gomariz

Sure, most creatives have a Mac and use all kinds of software to help them make amazing things. But Emilio Gomariz uses the operating system itself as his toolbox. Gomariz is a digital artist who creates interesting animations by manipulating the actual OS X interface. He doesn't use code, which means his pieces take quite an effort: his piece 'Folder Type' for instance included more than 22,000 items. More info in Creative Review.