European Politics 2.0: Romanian PM hits Twitter, Facebook

October 30, 2008 by 4 Comments

This is a guest post courtesy of maxyRO

Romania

In America, we’re in the midst of the elections.  It’s a time where the political landscape is changing and everyone is trying to grab a slice of the pie. We, as social media users, have paid a good share of attention to the US elections, sometimes unwillingly.

It goes without saying that social media is a big part of the online campaigns that are helping candidates reach out to its younger audience. But it’s not just the US candidates that have taken up social media and started using it as a political tool.

Countries overseas are also getting into the social media landscape.  Romania has the first Prime Minister in the European Union to get both a twitter and a facebook account along with the launch of his new website. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Internet, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,

BlogRush: RIP

October 29, 2008 by 1 Comment

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Here is an email that I (and a lot of other people) received from BlogRush John Reese:

After careful consideration, we have decided to shutdown the BlogRush service.  If you have the widget code on your blog you will need to remove it.

When BlogRush launched in late-2007 it spread like wildfire all over the Web.  Thousands of bloggers were talking about it and the service exploded to become one of the fastest growing free services in the history of the Web.  During the first year of the service it successfully served 3.4 Billion blog post headlines and the BlogRush widget could be found on blogs all over the world; even up until the moment we closed down the service.

BlogRush didn’t grow without its fair share of problems — from security issues to abusive users trying to ‘game’ the system to much lower click-rates than expected.  We also had some problems with trying to fairly control the quality of the network, and in the process made many mistakes in deciding what blogs should stay or go.  All of these issues, ultimately, limited the service’s full potential.

Our team worked very hard to try and build a service that would truly help bloggers of all sizes get free traffic to their blogs.  This was our primary focus.  Not once did we ever try to monetize the service with ads or anything else.  BlogRush never made a single penny in revenue.  We wanted to be able to help our users FIRST and then worry about monetizing the service later.  Unfortunately, the service didn’t work out like we had hoped.  (It happens.)

I want to say “Thank You” to all of the great bloggers that at least gave BlogRush a test to see if it would work for them.  We sincerely appreciate you giving the service a try.

We have received several offers & inquiries about acquiring BlogRush, but we are choosing not to go that route.  While many might think this is crazy, we truly feel it’s the ‘right’ thing to do for our users.  Believe it or not, it’s not always about the money.  In fact, BlogRush will have lost a small fortune when it’s all said and done, and it was by choice.  There were many things we could have done to monetize the service but we wanted to make sure it was going to benefit our users first.

Last but not least I want to say that I hope the failure of this service doesn’t in any way discourage other entrepreneurs from coming up with crazy ideas at 4AM (like I did with this one) and from “going for it” to just try and see if something will work.  Without trying there can be no success.  And as we all know, ideas are worthless without action.  The Web wouldn’t be what it is today without entrepreneurs trying all sorts of crazy ideas.

On behalf of the entire BlogRush team, we wish the best of luck to everyone with their own blogs, ideas, and crazy ventures.

Sincerely,

John Reese
http://twitter.com/johnreese

RIP [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Internet, StartUps Tagged With:

With Great Social Media Power Comes Great Responsibility

October 23, 2008 by 10 Comments

Give(This story has been updated with a newer idea here: A Plan for Social Media Sites (and users) to Give Back)

Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Slashdot, Newsvine, NowPublic, Yahoo! Buzz.  Between these seven sites, traffic to a particular website can easily exceed 100,000, potentially much higher.

With so much power to drive people to various websites across the Internet, why are none of them greatly involved with charity?  I’m not talking about donating – I’m sure that the companies or their executives donate.  I’m talking about making a difference.  I’m talking about using their power to drive traffic and applying it to charity websites.

The reason that they don’t is that they (other than Slashdot) are strictly driven by the actions, likes, and intentions of the users.  You could argue that there is a human hand or two manipulating the system from time to time, but that’s an entirely different post. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Newsvine, Now Public, Reddit, Slashdot, Social Internet, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, StumbleUpon, Yahoo! Buzz Tagged With: ,

Tip’d: A Social Media Site on the Rise

October 22, 2008 by 4 Comments

Tip'dWith so many open source variations of social media sites, there are new ones launched every day.  Most cater to a very small niche and rarely make it to 100 registered users.

Tip’d is the exception.  After its official launch last week, it has already made some amazing strides as of October 20, 2008:

  • 750+ registered users
  • 1000+ articles submitted
  • Approaching 10,000 Tips received
  • 600+ comments made

The real splash, though, is in the quality of users.  Social media powerhouses like zaibatsu, tamar, jaybol, Emit, nowsourcing, weblaunches, webaddict, 1only, coloneltribune, ritubpant, TunisianGuy, and  adrian67 have been active on the site.  Many of them came because of the endorsement of another social media powerhouse, msaleem. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Niche Social Networks, Social Media Tagged With: ,

Does Digg have an Autobury? Show Me the Proof!

October 21, 2008 by 9 Comments

BuriedA year ago, our sister website Social News Watch launched.  It was brought into this virtual world with the love and care associated with passion.  Its topic: social media.  Its authors: social media users.  Its goal: talk about social media.

The initial success was amazing.  The 14th story posted to it hit the front page of Digg.  Shortly after that, another hit.  And another.  In a 4 week period during November and December 2007 it hit the front page of Digg 8 times.

Since then, it has never hit. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg Tagged With: ,

Social Media Sites, The Master List

October 18, 2008 by 2 Comments

Social Media Sites

Over at Social News Watch, we’re trying to compile a complete list of social media sites.  There are so many out there — tons of brand new ones and a ton of old ones that might have been forgotten.

Whether for marketing or simple enjoyment, it’s good to have a complete list.  While submitting to thousands of sites might prove to be counter-productive, we plan on breaking down the list into several different versions so that everyone has a chance to find the ones they really like and want to use. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg, Mixx, Niche Social Networks, Reddit, Social Freshness, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, StumbleUpon Tagged With: , ,

Call to Compile a List of Social Media Sites

October 18, 2008 by 14 Comments

Hello friends!  I want to compile a list of social media websites.  All of them.

Social Media Master List

We all know the basics – Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Propeller, etc. – but what about the others?  There are probably three hundred trillion of them, give or take, and I would like to compile a complete list.  If you know of any, please post them here in the comments.

Thanks!

Filed Under: Social Internet, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: ,

Social Media Marketing: Different Styles, Different Goals

October 17, 2008 by 4 Comments

Social Media MarketingRegardless of where a business stands, chances are that if the Internet has anything to do with its success, there is a place for social media marketing in the business plan.  New companies, old companies, big companies, small companies — they could all use social media marketing to some extent.  Whether they sell online or even if they don’t sell anything at all, Web 2.0 is a place that can help to make or break a company.

The real questions is this: “What is social media marketing and why do I need it?”

There are several different manifestations that can be considered social media marketing.  Knowing which one is good for your company makes all the difference in the world in determining how to integrate it into a business plan. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Delicious, Digg, Featured, Social Media, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: ,

Finding the Value in Mixx

October 16, 2008 by 1 Comment

With the recent happenings at Digg and the apparent rise of Mixx, it would seem that the balance of power in social media is shifting.  The question is: why do Mixx front page stories still not drive any traffic?

Mixx Votes

With huge gains in all of the traffic reports, it would seem that Mixx would be at the very least close to Reddit’s ability to drive thousands of visitors to a website from the front page.  As recently as last week, we tested a story that hit the front page of Mixx to see if it was finally there in the way that it sends traffic.

It’s not. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

Automotive Marketing 2.0: The Next Generation

October 15, 2008 by 3 Comments

Automotive Internet MarketingThe automotive industry has always been notorious for being a year or two behind the rest of the world when it comes to the internet.  When other industries such as real estate and e-commerce were starting to get onto the Internet, car dealerships held out as long as they could.

When websites started getting more intricate and interactive, car dealers started throwing up online billboards.  Search Engine Optimization started becoming a necessity around 2004 around the time that equipment leasing hit it big on the Internet.  In the car business, it really became popular this year.

Web 2.0 has been a part of most industries for a couple of years now.  Web 3.0 is just around the corner.  Yet, the automotive industry still hasn’t quite embraced the social aspects of the Internet…

…until now. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Niche Social Networks, Social Freshness, Social Media, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , ,
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