Want to learn more about some of the Facebook Page promotion opportunities that are out there? In this interview between MediaBistro’s Matt Van Hoven and Vitrue’s CEO Reggie Bradford, we learn more about Vitrue’s offering including Wall Apps, a feature we wrote about earlier this week. Unfortunately this is not part of our normal podcast series so for those of you viewing this in the feeds, you may need to visit the page to view it.
Read the rest of this entry »

I recently had the chance to have a few words with Sean Rad from ad.ly, an advertising service for Twitter. Ad.ly describes itself as “an in-stream advertising platform that matches top-tier Twitter publishers with top-tier brands”. In short, ad.ly connects big brands with the biggest Twitter accounts on the web, and allows brands to propose advertising to the top publishers. Some of their publishers are TechCrunch, Kim Kardashian, Newsweek and Gossip girl, and some of the brands are NBC, Sony, Microsoft and Universal.  Reports have indicated that Kim Kardashian earns up to $10,000 USD per tweet.
Read the rest of this entry »

Ayogo Games are an independent social games shop from Vancouver, Canada.  They’ve worked on some high profile titles like Mob Wars, and have some interesting insights into the social games community.  I sat down with CEO Michael Fergusson to discuss the social games environment, monetization and the Vancouver social gaming scene.
Read the rest of this entry »

The browser gaming world has slowly been adopting Unity3D as its tool standard for 3D gaming, and dimeRocker is taking that one step further by connecting these 3D games with Social Networks like Facebook and OpenSocial.  Used in games by companies like EA and The Cartoon Network, the technology has begun to gain prominence as a true alternative to standard full-install disc based 3D gaming. 
Read the rest of this entry »

As a journalist, former programmer and senior editor at Fast Company, Lynne D. Johnson is a social media maven. She was also a general manager for Vibe and Spin magazines with an award-winning blog. She’s been fusing technology, community and journalism since back in the days of online bulletin boards. It’s no surprise that the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) recently snagged her as their first senior vice president of social media to help guide the industry into the new age of community tools. I recently sat down with Johnson to get her take on how brands should be listening while navigating the social web.
Read the rest of this entry »

Why do I feel like people in government and social media don’t really click? It’s like watching my parents try to leave AOL and chat with me on Skype. They might be able to download the program, but getting it to work is another story. Some government officials, though, are trying to change this image and have outsourced some hip twenty-something social media experts to tweet, Facebook, and connect with the community. They’re trying to promote policies through their status messages all day long.

Ben Yee is one of these political techsters. Yee worked on the Obama campaign as the new media director for New York and is in charge of social media strategy for the Senate, a new initiative that’s only about 60 days old. Sounds like a sweet gig, huh? But what exactly does that mean? I met with him recently and got him to describe his day on the Web.
Read the rest of this entry »

Word-of-mouth marketing company BzzAgent is launching a new product today, seeking to create a better way for brands to engage consumers. Called BzzScapes, the new tool acts as a social media tool as well as an extension o the company’s client services.

So what is a BzzScape? It’s a web-based, social destination where people can create a page for any given brand, and add information about that brand as they see fit. A mix between a product review site and Facebook public profiles, BzzScapes aim to provide an open forum for consumers and brands. While anyone can create a brand page on BzzScapes, brands also have the ability to have one created, or to claim one that has been created for their brand. BzzAgent will offer a series of BzzScapes-specific tools for brands to use for things like market ressearch and managing their brand online.

Below is an interview with BzzAgent Founder and CEO Dave Balter, who speaks on the objectives for BzzScapes, as well as how it fits into the social media conversation.
Read the rest of this entry »

Social media marketing. It’s a growing industry and one that we’re we’re still struggling to figure out, in terms of implementation, usability and overall effectiveness. Selling brands online can be a tricky task, but done right it can be quite successful.

So in terms of being smart about social media marketing, a brand needs to be smart and ready to be held accountable for not only its product but its interaction within the social media realm. Mr. Youth is a marketing agency that takes these things into consideration, and creates a marketing process around brands with some of these goals in mind. Below is an interview with Brandon Evans, a managing partner over at Mr. Youth.
Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter seems like the perfect tool to combine with mapping and GPS locations, and the killer combo is something many developers have created applications around. So what makes tmeet, the latest to combine Twitter with mapping, different from the rest?

Tmeet’s approach to tweeting about your location. With a mobile and a web component, tmeet is hoping to bring more context to your real time location and activity, making the question “What are you doing?” more relevant to both individuals and businesses. Tmeet is hoping to really build on the business potential of its application, adding real value to industries such as real estate and other retailers. Below is an excerpt of an interview I had with tmeet co-founder Sudha Jamthe.
Read the rest of this entry »

SocialYell is a recently launched site designed to provide online promotional tools for organizations and non-profits. From profiles to forums, SocialYell helps individuals find organizations they’re looking for while providing a media distribution tool for the organizations themselves. A large part of what SocialYell is aiming to do is extend discussion platforms for people to converse about a particular organization, whether it’s to determine a plan of action for an event or to merely raise awareness.

While the SocialYell site is new, the concept behind it has been around for some time. I did an interview with SocialYell founder David Rostan to learn a bit more about the site and to hear about the ways in which SocialYell is looking to stand apart from the crowd.
Read the rest of this entry »