So…The Chinese famous internet censorship has not stopped a 10
percent increase in internet users in 2012, with a reported 51 million new
internet users, bringing the total number to 564 million.
With the social media
block still in force, so no Facebook, Google + and Twitter available, the whopping
564 million is still more than the entire population of Russia and the U.S. combined!
The increase is largely due to a surge in mobile web surfing. The number of
Chinese web surfers who access the internet from mobile phones, tablets and
other wireless devices, rose 18.1 percent in 2012 to 420 million.
So…The new Google cloud storage service (Drive) has taken its next step and released an option to host web content within your ‘Google Drive’ folder.
This new option is making web development easier for non web developers to host content on the World Wide Web, allowing also pre designed templates to be hosted and adjusted very easily.
The downside to this new option in Google Drive is that you are restricted to only the main supported extensions for web development such as HTML, Javascript and CSS.
The restrictions cover popular website extension such as PHP, so in other words limited with regards to open source backend development, database integration etc.
We are promised improvements so watch this (google) space! Matt
So… Now that the campaign is over and Barack is back in the white house for another four years who won the battle for social media supremacy during the 2012 election?
Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s Twitter handles were going crazy over the past year but who came out on top.
When television networks called the victory, Twitter went into manic overdrive, with election-related tweets rising to an average of 327,453 a minute.
"This happened because of you. Thank you," Obama tweeted to 22 million followers just minutes after the first US network called his victory, indicating the importance he attached to social networks in his 2012 campaign. This one tweet was his most re-tweeted ever - shared more than 320,000 times - according to Twitter's government and politics account @gov.
The President’s celebration photo from his official Facebook page has become the most liked Facebook photo ever with more than 2.1 million likes and counting.
The knock on effect was the Obama family photo was then shared on twitter and you guessed it became the most re-tweeted message of all time.
Still twitter and facebook were not the only social media outlets that tried to reach out to the thousands of undecided voters, celebrities and filmakers took to ‘You Tube’ and broadcasting. Avengers director and ‘Buffy’ writer Joss Whedon took a serious stance on backing Barack, only to make sure we all avoided the quote ‘the zombie Apocalypse’. Ok!
Chris Rock (remember him thought not) jumped onto the campaign wagon with a piece that was shown on an American talk show pushing for Barack’s support, the piece included the actors usual tongue in cheek approach.
So where did Mitt Romney go wrong with his social media reach? Firstly to engage people on social media, the content needs to be in peoples pockets all the time, it needs to be on everyone's finger tips and easy to follow. Press release after press release was how Romney’s media campaign went and this turned out to be less personable.
The results are below!!
So the winning formula for Barack on the social media front came down to two aspects for me firstly, Barrack was cool and wanted the public to run with him whilst the election was in motion, you felt like you were with him all the way and secondly, Barrack’s polices were correct this was what the American public wanted… Oh yes the politics I forgot about that I am sure he was the best candidate for these reasons mainly… right??!!
So...An interesting report on a new way of trimming the amount of code used to conduct Ad Hoc adword reports, using AWQL which is a Adwords query language (so not droping coding completely). The presentation explains the process and includes code examples (Be warned it is not the best presentation in the world and the sound is slightly bad) but what is interesting is the use of streamlining the way adword reports can be pulled and viewed in the future. This could lead to finally pulling away from the long code base scripting format that has dominated SEO on the web for years. Matt
So... I'm not sure 'Coke Zero' have nailed the best PR stunt of all time but still a good try. The stunt was filmed in what looks like Kings Cross train station in London. Take a look at the heyuguys original article below and make up your own minds. Matt
So... Word of mouth is the most important way for businesses to compete on Social Media platforms right? The two co-founders of Groupon have a different point of view. The key points made by the two at last week’s Chicago’s Idea Event are;
The value of social commerce is two-fold;
Social commerce helps businesses get online (social has a lower barrier to entry)
Social commerce helps your business grow (“disseminate”) faster (viral effect)
