What We're Reading | Election, Olympics and Social Media
Brooke: What is The $2 Billion Business That Facebook Wants To Dominate Next? – FBX, the Facebook Ad Exchange, which will allow marketers to bid in real-time for ad impressions on Facebook. If you use Facebook, it will drop a tracking “cookie” on your device. That cookie will give advertisers a specific anonymous ID, very similar to Google’s AdSense program. eMarketer estimates this market to be approximately $2 billion in the U.S. alone!
Susan: Undeniably, the most compelling feature of Google+ is the Hangout feature. On August 1, Google+ announced that it is teaming up with the NFL to bring its Hangout video chats to the league’s fantasy football platform. Since the standard league has 12 players, Google is upping the number of NFL.com Hangout participants from 10 to 12. This is the first time Google+ has integrated Hangouts directly onto a partner’s website. For those of you that are addicted to mobile devices, fantasy Hangouts will also be available via the Google+ app for Android and iOS phones and tablets. Can’t wait to see how else Hangouts will be used in the near future.
Andy: Sometimes I wonder why people share the amount of information they share on social networks (I am definitely included in that number). Like, people probably don’t care to see the BFF love notes my former coworker and close friend Noelle Cantarano and I exchange, yet we both tweet about them. Constantly. I tell you all of this (which is in and of itself an example of what I am about to show you) so that I can share with you the psychology behind social networking. According to PsychologyDegree.net’s infographic, we’re obsessed with talking about ourselves on social networks. So much so that 80% of social media posts are about the poster (that’s a lot of self-indulgence). And, nine out of 10 Americans actually think people share too much on social media. It’s interesting, when you step back and think about it, maybe we could all stand to stop talking about ourselves every now and then.
Amanda: Many Twitter users see the social media platform as a means of informing and engaging users, but what about as a tool to gauge opinions on the upcoming election? On Wednesday, August 1, Twitter announced it will be publishing a daily Twitter Political Index, a measurement of attitudes surrounding the 2012 presidential election. Take a look at how they plan on measuring Twitter users’ sentiment toward both candidates and what others had to say about the accuracy of this calculation.
Ashley: I have been intently following the innovative ways the Olympics are leveraging social media at the London 2012 games. From the athlete hubs aggregating hundreds of Facebook and Twitter profiles to the live TV promos airing with specific hashtags to use, the International Olympic Committee really brought their social A-game! One of my recent favorites is a light-hearted insight of life as an Olympic Competitor with streams like @L2012PoolCam, @L2012TableCam and @L2012bballCam!
Sadie: And the joke begins…Once there was a Homonym, a Semicolon and a Run-On Sentence sitting at a bar. The homonym looked at the bartender and ordered an ail. The semicolon had a separate idea; and the run-on sentence couldn’t decide one way or another. Actually, I made this up and there really isn’t a joke about a semicolon. Today, like many other days, I found myself researching a particular grammar rule online. And so I’d thought I’d share one of my favorite resources with you – Grammar Girl.