Wondering what to buy your friends for Xmas? Wonder no more. Simply zip over to this Etsy page and see what they recommend you buy for your friends, based on their Facebook profiles. Besides being way cool, why is this significant? This week a study showed that more than 50% of web surfers arrive at websites, signed in to Facebook, but very few use the wealth of information that comes with this kind of web visitor like Etsy does. In related news Spotify's paid customers base are up by 500,000 since September, partly due to closer Facebook integration.

Oink is pigging out on users

Three weeks ago, Kevin Rose, the father of Digg, launched an app that allows people to tag objects that they like by location. This works well for products in stores, and especially took off in a big way for dishes in restaurants. In the three weeks since, the Oink iPhone app has amassed more than 100,000 downloads, and more than 100,000 objects have been tagged! So many services and apps launch every week, but few make it. Might this one be one of the few successes, like Instagram?

Google+ is starting to add up?

Much has been said about Google+ lately, a lot of it quite negative, especially after they launched brand pages. Things are starting to take shape, however. Apparently 61% of the world's top brands already have Google+ pages. This week, Klout announced their Google+ support. So, does this mean all the negative criticism is unfounded? That still remains to be seen, but maybe the ReadWriteWeb is right when they claim that Google+ was never meant to be a Facebook competitor? They do however succeed in capturing the social graph data they need.

Facebook introducing ads to the News Ticker

Love it or hate it (which probably depends on whether you're a brand or an individual), Facebook has confirmed that they are planning to push ads in the News Ticker soon. Can they manage to do that in an unobtrusive way like Twitter has done with Promoted Tweets?

Crossing the freaky line – when sharing is too easy

Is Facebook's new frictionless sharing ruining sharing? As is often the case, Robert Scoble this week managed to articulate both the potential and problems with Facebook's new feature, which turns things like listening to a Spotify song into a feed of content into your friends' news feeds. Some already say this will impact what songs we listen to and the argument is made that curation is best done explicitly. This post is good food for thought for the weekend.

Earn your keep

We don't like to navel gaze but the identity crisis in marketing is now impossible to ignore. Now that content marketing is all the rage, apparently every agency needs an earned media director says Ad Age. At media agencies, EMDs help clients better understand which social platforms will produce the most sharing for which campaigns, and how to strategically use paid media to increase the reach of earned media campaigns. At creative agencies, EMDs help direct the full creative process from concept to execution, ensuring that campaigns incorporate the right social triggers and content to generate maximum earned media.

Putting the public relations back into PR?

Talking about identity crisis: in the US the PR industries main body is looking to solicit opinion on "a modern definition for a new era in public relations", and they aim to do this via crowdsourcing. Cynics say PR stands for Press Release but attempts at a new definition in 2003 and 2007 only managed to come up with "Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other." The New York Times points out the quest was precipitated by a series of mishaps by the industry and the rise of new terms, like earned media, word of mouth marketing, content marketing, social media marketing and more.

Creative of the Week – Fol Chen

If you're a band, why bring out a static album if you can release the source and get it remixed by your fans? Actually, why get it remixed, if you can build a machine that lets your fans manipulate your music in real time? That's exactly what Fol Chen, an art pop band from LA, did. Together with weird instrument designers Metronome, they developed a wooden, pyramid-style sound toy called Tetrafol, which lets fans mess with some Fol Chen pieces through motion and speed. Hand-made, open-source and limited edition. What more does one want for Christmas?

So why are we starting a social media training course? We’ve been asked about social media, a lot.

Meet The Media Guru | Cory Doctorow by *Meet the Media Guru*

We’ve developed social media strategies for the World Economic Forum. We’ve given talks and training at Ketchum PR, Kroll, the Salzburg Global Seminar and Open Road PR. And recently we’ve been asked to give meta training – training at a company that does training.

Not long ago we wrote a blog post about new roles in communications. Social media will not only change marketing practise, it will impact the very structure of your business and organisation.

We have something unique to offer, which is a little different from all the above said courses. And what is that?

Strategic

We have a deep understanding of the historical trajectory of media change. Or put another way: we’re in the midst of the democratisation of media. Who knows where it will end?

Only knowing one tool like Twitter won’t help you spot a new one like Foursquare. We’ll impart to you the principles that will help you navigate and anticipate what might happen next.

We’re into creative practise

Don’t confuse that with zany or brooding. We’ll help you think outside the box, but deliver practical solutions.
What is a good example of digital creativity? Matt Cutts of Google explains in this video how you can get your website seen and linked to by spending only $100. That’s geeky and useful creativity for you.

In short, we think our courses will enable anybody with a passion for communication and an open mind to explore social media for themselves in a focused way.

When creating our course we looked carefully at what is out there already.
As a result we ended up creating three courses:

1. One course is social media for PR people. Of the old media marketing configuration (PR, Advertising,…) we think public relations is best placed to do social media. In our experience many PR practitioners lack insights about why social media works and how to actually do it.
2. One is social media training for leaders, like CEOs and Entrepreneurs. This is a strategic course about how best to manage social media in a world where everybody is a media outlet.
3. And then we have a hands-on practical in-house social media course. Because ultimately Social Media is best done by organisations themselves.

We welcome any feedback on these courses and anticipate adapting them over time.