We’re All Becoming Social Butterflies

Social network and blogging sites pass email to become the 4th most popular online activity with a global active reach of 66.8% as of December 2008. That’s a 5.4% year-over-year increase and the largest percentage increase of  all online sectors. Search still held the top spot with a global active reach of 85.9%.

Growth of Social Networks is a Global Phenomenon

The online reach of social networks is growing globally and shows little sign of slowing down. Member community sites now have  a 67% global reach, up 5.4% over the previous year. Germany has seen the largest YOY growth seeing a 12.5% increase in the reach of member community sites. Local players like Wer-kennt-wen and StudiVZ recently taken over  by traditional media companies have accelerated the growth of these social networks. Facebook tripled its audience to over 2.4 million Unique Visitors since launching a German language interface in March 2008. However, it is only the sixth most popular social network in Germany.

Social Networks Still a Matter of Local Taste

Facebook has seen the largest growth of all social network sites with its active reach soaring to 29.9%. Put another way, Facebook is visited by  three in every ten people online across the world. While it continues to show strong growth and dominate headlines, smaller, more local players show the diversity of social networks.
In countries where Facebook isn’t the most popular social network sites there are many locally grown sites to fill the void. China, Germany, and Japan are all dominated by local players where Facebook doesn’t even register in the top three.

Social Networking – The Ultimate Time Waster

More people are spending their time on the internet every day and member community sites are where their choosing to spend most of that time. Just how much time? 63% more time over last year or 45 billion minutes! On Facebook, the increase was a massive 566%, from 3.1 billion minutes to 20.5 billion. Taking Nielsen Online’s Global Index number of 108.3 million people that visited the site in December 2008, that works out to an average of 3 hours and 10 minutes per user.

‘Member Community Share of Time’ has doubled in most of the countries monitored by the study. Member Community sites now account for 1 of every  11 minutes spent online globally, up from 1 in 15 minutes in 2007. Incredibly, 1 in every 4  minutes is spent on a Member Community site in Brazil. While the share of time in the UK is 1 in every 6 minutes (up from 1 in 13 in 2007), and Italy 1 in 7 minutes (up from 1 in 14 in 2007).

Jason Kint, SVP and GM of CBSSports credits the success to, “the extremely strong growth we’ve seen from NCAA March Madness on Demand from day one of the tournament reinforces the fact that this event is the largest and most popular live sports event on the Internet. Our success is being driven through a massive cross-platform marketing campaign.” Those efforts translated into online advertising sales of $30 million, a 30% increase over last year.

Don’t Miss The Action on MMOD

This year, iPhone users can watch all the action with the new CBS Sports NCAA MMOD iPhone application for $4.99 from iTunes. Here are five other March Madness iPhone apps to keep you updated.

CBSSports has given website publishers several options to link directly to NCAA March Madness on Demand by allowing them to embed widgets or applications into their website, blog, or social networking profile page. The MMOD video player is also integrated with Facebook so you can update your status and trash talk rivals while you’re watching games.

Now you and your friends can stay up-to-date on all the latest news, scores, video highlights, and community commentary on the go. Official numbers haven’t been released for MMOD iPhone app downloads but it did hit number four on the top paid apps list just days after it was released.

Nearly 4,000 cities in 88 Countries participated in Earth Hour showing their support for mother nature by turning off the lights. The aim of the event was not just to create a symbolic act of a drop in electricity usage for 60 minutes but to create a global movement of a billion people. Although difficult to measure the total number of participants we can see the global effects of the event by looking at the local level. In Toronto, electricity usage dropped 15% during the event. In absolute numbers that’s a 450 MW drop in power or the equivalent of 750,000 60 watt light bulbs. There was more corporate involvement this year which helped eclipse last year’s 262 MW drop. The event was even live-blogged from inside the Toronto Hydro Control Room.

WWF-US President and CEO Carter Roberts, optimistic about the global impact of Earth Hour said,
“The true power of Earth Hour can be seen in the tremendous opportunity for individuals, communities, businesses, and governments around the world to unite for a common purpose, against a common threat which affects us all.” He continued by saying, “as the world witnessed Saturday night, the simple action of turning off lights can inspire people around the world to take action, and to make a serious long-term commitment to living more sustainable lives. On behalf of WWF, I want to thank all participants for making Earth Hour a truly memorable hour for the entire planet.”

We Canadians can be proud of our participation in this year’s Earth Hour and can share the moments of the event with each other.

Download Creative Insights on Rich Media.

While the type of ad format and ad creative will depend on the goals of your specific campaign measuring your campaign performance against industry benchmarks will give you a sense of the effectiveness of your campaign and if adjustments need to be made. Click-through rates (CTR) varied by industry, ranging from 0.06% for the Financial Services industry up to 0.17% for the Media/Entertainment industry.

DoubleClick’s research indicates a strong positive correlation between the ad creative size and click-through rate.

Although a larger creative size will tend to produce higher CTRs, ad placement is also a factor in determining campaign performance. Consider the lower rates a Leaderboard (728×90) receives compared to a large rectangle (336×280). This is likely the result of banner blindness with users automatically skipping these ads because of their routine positioning and the higher number of impressions they receive, making them less effective. Whereas the placement of a large rectangle is usually found within the content (In-Page) giving the user more opportunity to click on the ad. It’s also a top performer when it comes to interaction and expansion rates.

Video ads present users with further options to engage with your content. These interactions may not lead to a click-through but will typically yield a higher interaction rate. In-Page Video had an interaction rate of 2.45% compared to In-Page Non-Video’s 1.79% according to the report. Measuring CTRs and Interaction rates against different creative sizes and formatswill help you identify top performers so you can come back and refine your approach when planning the goals of your next interactive marketing campaign.

While bigger is better, their performance may not always measure up.

AIG is Cannon Fodder for Bloggers

Trending data from Nielsen BuzzMetrics shows blog posts about AIG making a huge rally over the last several days and peaking on March 18th at 0.803% of all blog posts or 4,289 posts related to AIG  when Edward Liddy was on Capitol Hill to give testimony in front of Congress. Catch the latest Big Buzz on AIG from around the web.

The Twitscape and The Tweetstorm

Twitter has become the ultimate echo chamber where ideas, latest happenings, and frustrations are shared for everyone to reply (@), retweet (RT), and short link too. Bonuses, outrage, and the bailout hearings seemed to be on everyone’s mind on Wednesday. Here’s a visualization courtesy of StreamGraph showing the terms most associated with AIG on March 18th.

The American people now effectively control 80% of AIG. The company will have to balance running a business while answering to many angry de facto shareholders and increasing governmental pressure. This arranged marriage may not have been the greatest deal considering the dowry put down by taxpayers and the sign of infidelity AIG is showing. Dubbed to stand for arrogance, incompetence, and greed by one senator, AIG has become the face of Wall Street’s creation of two financial trading worlds. One, where regular investors plan for the long-term using their 401(k) and another, where Wall Street traders bet the future of regular investors for short-term gains. For many onlookers, the bonuses are outrageous and represent everything that is wrong with the industry. After all, as Stephen Colbert says, “It is [the money] supposed to be used responsibly. In ways we never see to prop up businesses we don’t understand.” Chew on this explanation from the Business Insider.

All the hoopla surrounding the feud made for great ratings and a showdown between Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer was set for March 12th, 2009. For Stewart, this was not his first encounter with a Cable News Network host. Back in 2004, CNN Crossfire co-host Tucker Carlson was on the receiving end of Stewart’s verbal punches which pretty much ended the segment on CNN and delivered a knockout blow to Tucker’s.

This exchange sealed it:

STEWART: How old are you?
CARLSON: Thirty-five.
STEWART: And you wear a bow tie.

Tucker has given up wearing a bow tie judging by his recent interviews. Although, he hasn’t let go of Jon Stewart getting the better of him. Would sparring with Jon Stewart have the same result on Jim Cramer’s career or would he be calm in the face of the shenanigans Stewart is known to pull.

Cramer vs. Not Cramer: Basic Cable Personality Clash Skirmish ‘09!

The exchanges between the two were good-natured and I think Stewart was gracious in calling attention to some of Cramer’s past comments without laying the blame solely at his feet. For Jim Cramer’s part, he seemed to wave the white flag in accepting his responsibility in perpetuating some of the problems with how financial news is reported and disseminated. Watch the interview and see for yourself. At best, it reveals a lack of due diligence on the part of Cramer and at worst a deliberate attempt to maintain direct access to CEOs lining up to mislead viewers while not blowing the whistle. Either way, he seemed to be genuine and humbled by the experience. Not fighting back too much was probably a smart career move. Let’s hope it changes how Mad Money is presented to the public for the better by showcasing his obvious financial expertise.

The news media by its very nature needs headlines for its news cycle and teases out storylines for the sake of generating ratings, sometimes at the expense of its viewers. Jon Stewart made the case against financial reporters cozying up to Wall Street managers and passing on stock trading tips without doing their homework. Jim Cramer and CNBC were the face of this attack but the entire industry is culpable in creating an environment in which the lines between opinion and fact; entertainment and news has been blurred.

The week long feud spread at a torrid pace as media coverage intensified and The Daily Show clip of Stewart hammering away at Cramer went viral capturing 1.3 million online views. According to Comedy Central site traffic was up 65% last week. Ratings for The Daily Show soared on the news of Jim Cramer’s appearance, with the episode netting 2.3 million viewers, 2nd highest of the year and put it in the top 10 shows since the show first aired over 12 years ago.
It’s a BUY!*

* All advice herein is solely the opinion of this author and in no way represents the views of financial experts with years of experience as snake oil salesmen. Proceed at own risk in ensuring your financial security.

Books in their current form are far from dead as people still crave their caffeine whilst being engrossed with the latest best-seller but the medium is evolving. Consider, the digitization project Google has undertaken with its Library Project or the proliferation of audiobooks; nothing like Tony Robbins to get you pumped up to take action. The Kindle 2 is far less clunky then lugging around a book, weighing in at 10.2 ounces and is only a 1/3 of an inch thick. You can download over 240,000 titles for $9.99 each in seconds. It`s a step up from your regular e-reader with the ability to search, make notes, surf the web, and let`s not forget its text-to-speech feature.

Get up close with Engadget’s Kindle 2 review or get excited watching Jon Rettinger unbox it here.

The announcement of Kindle 2 has not come without controversy. Paul Aiken , executive director of the Authors Guild says, “Everyone is worried that Amazon will end up becoming to books what Apple is to music.” Just as the popularity of the iPod gave Apple domination over the music industry the Kindle has the potential to have the same effect on books by locking readers into using the Kindle and the ability to impose price reductions on publishers of eBooks. Eventhough listening to a computerized voice reading the prose of Harry Potter cannot compete with the Grammy Award winning voice of Jim Dale, advances in voice simulation continue to make great strides. And although it’s much harder to rip a 300 page textbook than it is a 3:00 song from Kanye West, the book industry would do well by learning from some of the mistakes the music industry made early on by not embracing new technology and learning how to capitalize on it.

Personally, I’m still nostalgic for an old-fashioned book with its crisp pages, serifed fonts, and distinct smell. Now, if only I could find a comfortable position to read! But the Kindle and other eBook readers need not be the end of books as we know them.

In Amazon’s Q4 2008 earnings call Q&A session, Jeff Bezos said the following regarding the impact of Kindle on book sales:

“With Kindle sales, we see that when people buy a Kindle, they actually continue to buy the same number of physical books going forward as they did before they owned a Kindle…And then incrementally, they buy about 1.6 to 1.7 electronic books—Kindle books—for every physical book that they buy. So, so far what we’re seeing is very strong incremental book unit sales, which of course we’re very pleased to see. The biggest surprises so far for Kindle have just been the unusually strong demand that we saw in the fourth quarter. We had anticipated strong demand, and what we saw was stronger than that. So we are extremely grateful for that, and we will keep marching forward here.”

For the moment, it seems Amazon`s latest gadget has rekindled our love for reading.

The Ad Blitz channel on YouTube allowed viewers to vote until February 4, 2009. Ad Blitz has received over 3.4 million channel views to date.
Top Ads:
1. Free Doritos

2. E*Trade Singing Baby

3. CareerBuilder.com

4. Pepsi Max – I’m Good

5. Power of the Crunch – Doritos
Fanhouse, a property of AOL, broke down Super Bowl ads by quarter and allowed users to comment on the ads. Seems the audience favours Budweiser with all three of its ads, The Fetch, Horse Love, and Clydesdale taking the top three spots.

Thummit gave viewers the opportunity to express their opinions by assigning positive, neutral, and negative thumb signs to comments from users. What’s interesting here is that they were able to integrate real-time opinions gathered from Twitter by analyzing tweets. The Bridgetone “Hot Item” and Doritos Simple Jack took home the rights for best AdRate 2009 Super Bowl XLIII commercial while both Go Daddy commercials received the worst rating from voters.

My personal favourites from this year’s Super Bowl:

Doritos – “Free Doritos”
This method beats getting your hand caught in the vending machine slot.

Careerbuilder – “Tips”
Phew, I’m glad I don’t sit next to that guy!

Budweiser – “Clydesdale Stick”
I wish my dog could fetch but he’s too smart for that.