Posted by Ian McKee on May 21, 2013
I’m inclined to think that the timing of Yahoo!’s announcement of the all new Flickr (with one terabyte of free space!) on the same day as the announcement of the Tumblr $1.1 billion acquisition is no coincidence.
A quick disclosure: I used to work on the UK PR for Yahoo! and continue to have a positive, although I’d like to think well informed and rounded, opinion towards the company and brand. And with that experience, I can say timing these two announcements together was a better PR move than I ever saw come from the company first hand.
A second disclosure: I love Tumblr. It’s not about over-sharing your personal life, one-upmanship, internet point scoring, or flooded with geeky tech talk. A genuine community, driven by creativity, humour and way more than the one joke repeated blogs that get picked up on twitter.
So as you would expect, I have a predisposition to hoping that all Yahoo!’s promises will be kept.…
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Posted by Debby Penton on May 09, 2013
If you’re reading this blog it’s a safe bet that you belong to a social network or two – probably more these days. Facebook paved the way for a whole host of online communities that followed. But many of us are looking for something more from our online networking and, if reports are to be believed, people are abandoning Facebook in droves (although we don’t think Facebook will be disappearing any time soon). So as we mature in the way we use social networks and what we demand of them, what’s the future likely to bring to social networking?
These days just because someone launches a social network, doesn’t mean they have designs on being the next Facebook (well, maybe in their deepest desires). What they are increasingly tapping into is the trend towards niche social networks. These could be online communities that focus on a particular feature, as Instagram does with photo sharing and slide.ly does with sharing music and photos, or social networks that cater for a specific group of people, united by common interests, beliefs or demographics.…
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Posted by Joe McNamara on May 08, 2013
Back in 1986, when Sir Alex Ferguson became manager of Manchester United FC, he would certainly never have dreamt that news of his retirement would be circulated with such speed 27 years later. Nor would he have imagined that the news would be broken online by a single, sub-140 character message on Twitter.
At 9.17am this morning – ironically just as we in the office were all leafing through the morning papers, reading rumours of his impending retirement – the club’s @MUFCOfficial Twitter feed sent out a simple tweet: “Sir Alex Ferguson retires. #ThankYouSirAlex”.
According to Pocket-Lint, the story was mentioned 1.4 million times and the #ThankYouSirAlex hashtag used over 100,000 times. What struck me, though, was not the speed with which it spread, but rather how this breaks from the traditions of sports media coverage.
English Premier League football loves to hold press conferences at any opportunity they can, holding them before and after every single game they play, when they make a new signing, when they have big news or if they just have something to say.…
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Posted by Juliet Philip on Apr 25, 2013
Whilst I admit I was late to the Twitter game, I now fully embrace it as a part of my every day life. Last weekend it provided me with all the info that I could have wanted from the GB Rowing squad trials – a closed event with only selected media present, opened up thanks to the power of the crowd.
Instant details of winners and times – and a healthy amount of YouTube links – meant those of us with an interest in rowing could see the minute-by-minute performances of each individual, something that used to only be reported as an official roundup at the end of the weekend’s racing.
We all know by now that Twitter has the potential for good, but the past few days have again shown how the power of Twitter can get out of hand and re-sparked the debate over whether Twitter is a tool for evil, rather than good.…
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Posted by Ian McKee on Mar 08, 2013
There was a fair amount of pondering ahead of Facebook’s press conference yesterday. We knew it would focus around news feed, and TechCrunch’s speculation was fairly close to the mark, predicting content specific feeds and ‘bigger’ photos.
Zuckerberg kicked off by comparing the news feed to the personalised newspaper, and there were some pretty big implications for publishers in the announcements, but what about for PRs and marketers?
Mobile first
This is Facebook’s attempt at a ‘mobile first’ design, with a much greater emphasis on uniformity of user experience across all platforms. Mobile traffic has been soaring for Facebook anyway, so really this is just going to emphasise the importance of considering your user’s location and device.
Content front and centre
We saw those ‘bigger’ photos introduced, though Facebook clearly prefers descriptors like ‘immersive’. Images and video are going to be much more in your face, albums will be given full context and will allow brands to tell whole stories right there in the news feed.…
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I’m inclined to think that the timing of Yahoo!’s announcement of the all new Flickr (with one terabyte of free space!) on the same day as the announcement of the Tumblr $1.1 billion acquisition is no coincidence.
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