Advertising | Soshable | Social Media Blog

Front Page Addiction: Destroying Families, Ruining Lives

August 31, 2008 By JD Rucker 19 Comments

*** As my first real parody piece, I am moving this up in the blog to see if it gets more comment luv. ***

A little-known but dangerous epidemic is spreading across members of social media websites like Digg, Reddit, Propeller, Newsvine, and Mixx. Like a secret scourge, SM-FPA (social media front page addiction) isn’t making national headines yet, but the effects have been felt in thousands of households across the world.

“Ever since my wife’s submission hit the front page of Reddit last month, we only see her on the way to the bathroom,” said Jake Dixon. His wife Amber, better known as “diggwho”, made the front page of Reddit with a story titled Bush makes more people mad by saying something stupid. Since then, Amber has been submitting 15-25 stories per day and has a submission hit the front page 3-5 times per week. She declined to be interviewed.

Research scientists at the Social Media Institute of Technology (SMIT) in Kolkata, India, say that Mr. Dixon and his family are not alone. They have documented 342 confirmed cases of SM-FPA in 2007 and estimate the actual number in the thousands. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Internet, Social Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: advertising, business, Digg, internet, marketing, Mixx, Propeller, Reddit, smm, social bookmarks, Social Media, Social Networks, Social News Sites, socialbookmarking, socialmedia, socialnetworking, socialnews, stumble, StumbleUpon

Stop Clicking Banners and Maybe They’ll Go Away

February 18, 2008 By JD Rucker 36 Comments

Is it you? Are you the one who clicks on the banner ads on social media and social networking sites like Digg, MySpace, Reddit, Facebook, Propeller, and everywhere else (except Mixx, where I haven’t really seen them yet)? I’ve been looking for whoever it is that still thinks they’re the 9,999th visitor or that they really just won a free Xbox 360. When I find this person, I have one word.

Stop.

It’s 2008. Banner advertisements, as wonderful and beautiful as they were before the turn of the millenium, are now worthless. Or are they? They still seem to be on just about every website (this one included, though I don’t know why I bother since nobody clicks on them). I would think that most people, especially the astute, tech-saavy readers of social media and users of social networks, are immune to them and barely register that they’re even there. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg, Facebook, MySpace, Reddit, Social Media, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: advertising, banners, Digg, Facebook, marketing, MySpace, Reddit, Social Media, Social Networks

Facebook User-Data Gathering Goes Viral

January 26, 2008 By JD Rucker 17 Comments

When a company has news that they want buried, they issue their information on a Friday night and hope nobody in the media notices on Monday morning. Marred in controversy over their Beacon advertising platform, Facebook hoped that their latest attempt to gather more user-data would go unnoticed.

For the most part, it’s worked so far. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Facebook, Social Networks Tagged With: advertising, Facebook, privacy, social networking, Social Networks, user data, web apps

What can fix (I mean save) MySpace?

November 19, 2007 By JD Rucker 11 Comments

Rumors are flying.

“MySpace is getting a complete redesign.”

“MySpace is getting bought out.”

“MySpace is losing money.”

When rumors like these start flying, it’s normally a bad sign, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. The Social Network’s meteoric rise and subsequent decline in users to Facebook has created these rumors, but there are still strengths that can be exploited. If they are going to make it, they will need to make some changes, but more importantly, they will need to rethink their focus and reimpose their will through marketing-guided changes.

Instead of making it the easiest platform to spam and game, they need to appeal to their current best demographic, teens, pre- and post-, and create ways for them to stay with MySpace instead of defecting as they get older to Facebook or someone else. More importantly, they MUST expand to the business sector. Sounds ridiculous, I know, when you consider the current state of the company and the growing disdain towards its inner-workings. Stay with me while [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Internet, Social Marketing, Social Videos-Images-Music Tagged With: advertising, Facebook, flickr, marketing, mashable, MySpace, Social Networking Sites, YouTube

Facebook’s Answer to Adwords Goes After Fans (msnbc)

November 12, 2007 By JD Rucker Leave a Comment

Social ads. It will get a lot of flack from users, possibly forcing some of them to leave. There will be public outcry, conspiracy theories about data mining and privacy abuse, and thousands of the millions of users flocking towards an alternative, either back to the MySpace account that they left last year or onto the next hotness in social networking, whatever that will be.

In the end, three things will happen.