The NMS team has been on tour the past several weeks, visiting clients to brief them on spanking new social media developments – from the smallest emerging platforms to the elephants throwing their weight around. And while everyone is curious about what’s up with Google+, a multitude of movers and shakers warrant an update to our social media watch list.
Google’s long-rumored, awe-inspiring Facebook-killing social network behemoth was revealed on Tuesday: Google+. And it’s pretty OK. Good even. The suite of tools forms the building blocks by which Google hopes to stitch together a social graph to compete with Facebook’s. Google has managed expectations admirably, and Facebook still existed as of Friday afternoon. But Google+ is more than it seems. The foundation Google is laying has potential to merge the social and static web until they are practically synonymous.
My Dad (Doug David/”The Doug”) wanted me to work in a field that he didn’t know anything about. Now The Doug knows about stuff: he knows the news, knows the literature, knows the nature, knows the media, knows the finance... that kind of stuff. The Doug knew social media was being heralded as a game changer. He knew about the argument of its role in revolutions; knew it was controversial; and knew that a decent amount of people used it. All good stuff, but he wanted to know if it had the juice to be sustainable. When I took the job at NMS last year, he wanted to know: what kind of confidence did the market have in the social media industry?
My job here at NMS involves frequent travel and it’s a lifestyle I’ve come to embrace. Reflecting back on a busy quarter of numerous trips across the country, I have seen that the same forces changing the way we communicate are also changing the way we get from place to place. With a mobile web always at our fingertips, the world is adopting social media to discover, consume, and process information in new ways.
Whether sharing a bottle with friends or paired with a 10 course dinner, wine is often the drink of choice for social gatherings. So it comes as no surprise that the most social of drinks would eventually embrace the world of social media. Social networking sites, blogging and the rise of mobile apps are changing the way people buy their wine.
Multiple new group messaging apps, including Beluga, Kik, Fast Society, and most notably, GroupMe, all focus on doing one thing well: letting users communicate in real-time. Group messaging brings the walkie-talkie into the social age, providing an instrument for communicating with small groups of people using data, text messaging or conference calling. With smartphones now outnumbering ‘dumb’ phones, the time for group messaging has arrived.
Marketing to the Latino community has been one of the hottest topics among marketers and brands this year, especially after the 2010 Census reported that once all numbers are released, Hispanics will represent $1 trillion of the U.S. purchasing power. The Hispanic population has also been reported to be one of the most active in the social space, especially in mobile. All of this information has stirred up quite the frenzy with marketers and companies, and they are finally realizing that excluding one of the largest demographics in the U.S. may not be a wise decision, after all.
It’s May and spring is in full bloom. Your snow boots are boxed away, baseball is back, summer sequels are preparing to invade your local multiplex, and the executives at your favorite television network are about to cancel one of your favorite television shows. Fans of Brothers & Sisters, Human Target, V, Chicago Code, Lie to Me, and other low-rated shows on the cusp of cancellation fret about the future of these programs because they are nearly guaranteed to be shuffled out the door for the limitless potential of the new shows being presented at network upfronts two weeks from today. Many of these low rated shows have a passionate following, so why would networks cancel shows with a vocal fanbase? The answer is simple: low Nielsen ratings.