RAAK

Nike is the first brand to have its Twitter campaign banned

In a significant ruling the UK Advertising Standards Authority found that the Tweets from the likes of Wayne Rooney were not "obviously identifiable" as ads. As far as we know the US has no similar limitations and stars being paid to Tweet is rife without their Tweets being marked as ads.

Likes are not what they used to be

Yesterday Facebook announced their brand new Like. It's not a new button, but an API 'action' that allows you to build your own button. This time, it works on mobile too. The main difference between your custom like, and the embeddable blue thumbs-up, is that users will have to give your custom like permission to publish to their timelines. This allows apps like Instagram to send your 'Hearts' as Likes to your Facebook feed. Facebook is also phasing out custom like action verbs (like 'Watching'). We are not sure why they're doing this – perhaps it added noise to the 'Like' signal. 'Watching' something does not mean you 'like' it after all …

The only way is up

Not too long ago every second post in the tech press was about how directionless Twitter was. It had no vision, no new features and most importantly, no revenue model. Not anymore: we recently reported that the company – unlike Facebook – makes more money from mobile ads than desktop ones. Last week we reported on a raft of new features. This week is no different with news that its ad platform is rolling out to 50 countries and revelations of ambitious plans in search.

Race to riches

Not so fast. Facebook wants to jump on the ebulient Twitter bandwagon, which they might just do, after releasing some eye-watering counter punches. If true. According to them their mobile ads are clicked 13 times more, and earn 11 times more money than desktop ones. Take that! In other news, Facebook has also launched the ability for users to be able to edit their comments. Is that a good thing?

Crossing the freaky line

Facebook this week purchased Face a company at the bleeding edge of facial recognition technology. Here at RAAK we are rather sanguine about all the numerous claims about the erosion of privacy. But facial recognition technology will be a step too far if it is not implemented with user control and protections.

No terminator – just tea

What if you could dispense drinks via Tweets? Yes you can. We just built – in conjunction with the smart guys at Cow Africa – a vending machines that does exactly that. And it got covered by the BBC and Forbes. A story to warm even Sarah Conner's heart.

Facebook Pages are becoming destinations?

Reports of Facebook Fans not returning to Pages are two for a penny. And here is a new one. Has the Facebook Timeline feature changed the nature of Pages, effectively turning them into destinations, much like blogs? Econsultancy argues convincingly that that is the case. We will certainly keep an eye open for more evidence of the same.

It's the medium – not the message

As if it has not enough ways to monetise its user base, Weibo in China is giving Twitter some more to ponder. Weibo just announced a raft of new features only available to paying customers. Other news from China is that a Havard study has analysed how the Great Firewall filters content. To everyone's surprise, it is in fact a lot more open than expected. In fact, it seems the Chinese have taken Mcluhan to heart. They don't filter for specific content as much as try to block collective action on any topic. You can criticise the government to your heart's content as long as people don't collectively organise. The interactive communication abilities that are inherent to the Internet is indeed the 'problem'.

Shame shame – hands off our vaginas

Talking of collective action. This week saw several examples of social media's ability to activate people. From protecting a young girl blogging on school meals, to vigilante generosity to an abused elderly bus monitor, to a silly-silly brand's propensity for calling vagina's anything but.

Creatives of the Week – Jeroen Van den Bos & Davy Landman

Nerd alert! Because this week's cool creative project involves both Lego and utter computer geekiness. There's a whole community of guys out there who haven't gotten rid of their inner child yet and use Lego to build all kinds of stuff, but these 2 guys have created a Lego Turing Machine. The Turing Machine is a theoretical model on which most computers are based, but Van den Bos & Landman decided to build a physical one – using Lego. As we said, nerd alert!