Two-thirds of adults have never heard of twitter

Despite the growth of the microblogging service two thirds of adults know virtually nothing about it according to new research.

In a new LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll of 2,025 adults, 69% of adults say they don't know enough about Twitter to comment on it.

And of the people who do know about it only 12% think it will grow, while the same proportion think it is only for young people (note to self - must stop twittering I am too old), while 8% think twitter is passé and are waiting for the “next big thing”.

The survey also questioned 1,015 advertisers, 50% of whom expect Twitter to experience “significant growth” in the coming years, while 20% believe it is just for the young and not “mass market” and 17% don’t know much about it.

Despite the cynicism it is reported that Twitter has generated almost $50m of free publicity in just 30 days with TV, newspaper and magazine coverage estimated at £48m (£29m) -which may not make it mass market but does make it a major player.

How LinkedIn's New Custom Company Profiles could aid charity recruitment

LinkedIn's new Custom Company Profiles allows companies to set up a profile page giving an overview of the business, primarily for recruitment purposes. But there is no reason why charities and NGO’s can’t use the service for promotion and recruitment.

The Profiles can link to news stories, annual reports, company information and a list current staff, promotions, recent recruitments and vacancies.

The new service also allows companies to upload custom video into a Careers tab, to “showcase” the culture and values of the organisation and polls can be embedded into the page.

A unique URL is created for a Careers page with content for candidates and space for messaging. Candidates can also be targeted by geography, function, level and industry, so that prospective marketing candidates would see a different message to IT staff.

Prasad Gune, director of corporate solutions products at LinkedIn, said: "Custom Company Profiles enable companies and other organizations to enhance their recruiting branding and create a targeted experience for prospective candidates on LinkedIn."

Using Custom Company Profiles, a company can provide a rich, multimedia overview of careers offered, through a variety of modules including recruitment messaging, employee/recruiter spotlights, jobs, polls and videos."

Find out more at http://talent.linkedin.com/profiles/

VAT waived for text donors

A campaign group led by Joe Saxton, head of nfpSynergy, and Hannah Terrey, head of policy and public affairs at CAF, has convinced the mobile phone industry to stop charging donors VAT on text donations. Their fight was supported by the Treasury which confirmed charities should not be paying VAT on text donations.

The value of a donation to charity by text message will therefore rise by 15 per cent as a result of a decision by the Mobile Data Association to stop deducting VAT from part of the donation.

Starting this week, a new system will allow registered charities to be allocated a five-digit short code beginning with ‘70'. When a donor uses it, the operators will be able to recognize the donation as charitable. They will still deduct their own charges and levy VAT on the charges, but VAT on the remaining amount will not be applied.

The system has been approved by mobile network operators Orange, 3, T-Mobile, Telefonica, 02 and Vodafone who will be responsible for ensuring charity users are legitimate by checking HM Revenue & Customs' charity search facility.

Former chair of the Institute of Fundraising, Joe Saxton, said: “This is a giant step forward. Currently VAT and other charges are putting charities and donors off donating by text. We estimate donations from this type of giving could reach £100 million in five years’ time if charges come down to around 5p-10p per text in total.”

“WIN, one of the companies that processes texts for mobile phone operators has agreed to process text donations for free. What we need now is for one of the socially aware mobile phone companies like Virgin or Vodafone to take the lead in lowering their charges. Richard Branson – we need you!”

Offer Maestro payments? Have you Implemented SecureCode yet? If not you could be fined $25k pcm

Several of my clients have hit a problem with their web developers or payment providers over the new Maestro SecureCode system.

The problem? That the payment providers have not yet implemented the new SecureCode system which went live on July 1st. Failure to use SecureCode by the end of July when MasterCard are auditing could result in a fine of $25k per month.


So what is SecureCode?

To quote from the MasterCard website:

“MasterCard SecureCode is initiated on a retailer’s website and interacts with both the cardholder and their card issuer. When your customer comes to pay, a pop-up window appears asking them to enter a unique, personal code that has been registered with their bank. The bank then authenticates the cardholder performing the transaction and provides the electronic retailer explicit evidence of the online purchase.”
http://www.mastercard.com/uk/merchant/en/security/what_can_do/SecureCode/faq.html


And what's the problem?

When a client emailed their bank to find out then this had happened and whether they needed to comply they received the following reply:

“As of 30 June all merchants should be compliant with MasterCard's mandate that all Maestro transactions are required to be passed through MasterCard SecureCode authentication. And that MasterCard will be doing a full audit in July to identify any Merchants that are not compliant. Please see below extract from a recent memo.

Any non-compliant merchant identified as a result of the July audit will now be subject to scheme fines of up to $25,000 per month until compliance is reached. These fines will be backdated until the 1st July 2009. The forthcoming audit results will be shared with your Cards Processor as soon as possible and merchants who have not achieved compliance will either be fined or asked to remove Maestro from their websites.

MasterCard have assured us that their will be no exceptions to this process and that no further extensions are negotiable.”


So what should you do?

If you offer MasterCard/Maestro payment options I would strongly recommend that you find out from finance and /or your payment provider if they have implemented MasterCard SecureCode.

If not, get it implemented ASAP, and consider removing the MasterCard/Maestro option from your website until it is sorted out.

Twitter clears house as thousands of accounts deleted overnight

by Dan Leahul, revolutionmagazine.com

Twitter users are crying foul after the website's security forces stepped in today to cull thousands of spammer accounts, causing near across-the-board drops in follower counts.

The words 'Spammers Perish' and 'Twitter Correcting' - referencing blog posts about the security event - have remained high in trending topics list throughout the day, as users lament that upwards of half their followers have vanished instantly.

Twitter said: For some time, the follower and following counts we display have been incorrect for some folks. We're soon to push a change that will address this issue. This means that the count you see in your sidebar should match what you see on your follower and following pages.

"However, a consequence of this change is that follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected-we're just cleaning up artefacts in the system. "

Twitter's largest accounts, those of celebrities with millions of followers, seem to be the hardest hit.

US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres lost about 20,000 followers over the course of the day. However, she still has the second highest number of followers overall at 2.58 million, behind Ashton Kutcher, at 2.89 million.

The sheer amount of accounts deleted show how popular the platform has become for spammers.~

Earlier this month, it was revealed that spam instances on URL shortening websites, used by many Twitter users, spiked in June, by providing an easy way for spammers to infiltrate computers by masking malware infested websites through blind links.

PR on Twitter: the one line press release

by Dan Leahul, revolutionmagazine.com

Muck Rack, a sort of aggregation service for journalists using Twitter, has revealed its 'One Line Press Release Service', which promises to deliver public relations messages to top journalists in a concise, tidy package.

The one line press releases will be displayed on Muck Rack Twitter's feed, and throughout its website MuckRack.com, including links to multimedia, press kits and a more detailed press release.

The cost is $1 per character, with a minimum $50 charge and will be delivered to Muck Rack's followers through the standard Twitter method - a tweet.

The company has about 3,500 followers, so companies or brands with a wider remit could profit from doing the dirty work themselves.

However, a number of companies have taken up the service, including its own PR partner PepsiCo, plus Twitter toolbox HootSuite and the American Freestyle Motocross Association.
Muck Rack also promises some click metrics, using URL shorteners Bit.ly and Ow.ly.

Another website, pr140.com, has taken Twitter PR down a different path.

The company uses its own URL shortener, where public relations professionals can use with the long URL of their press release, turning it into a short URL with the pr140.com main domain prefix.

Journalists looking for leads have been known to search the #pr140 hashtag, the company said.

Video ads maximise dwell time: study

Dan Leahul, revolutionmagazine.com

Consumers watch video display ads nearly twice as long as non-video ads, according to a massive study by digital advertising firm Eyeblaster, focused on a new metric - dwell time.

Eyeblaster used isolated data from a sample size of 42 billion rich media impressions spanning across all formats and global regions for the study.

The company analysed 'dwell time', a metric that measures engagement as the average time consumers intentionally spend with online ads - 'intentional' being the key word.

The study found that video nearly doubles the average dwell time, showing consumers spend 71.51 seconds watching video ads compared to 37.7 seconds with non-video.

Dwell time, or intentional active engagement, was recorded on nine per cent on the rich media ads covered, trumping 0.35 per cent click through rates for the same ads.

The study also found that dwell rate is at its highest in the morning, peaking at 9am, when people are prepared to interact, and saying strong until about noon.

Data showed that click through rates pick up early in the evening, and both CTR and dwell time declines as the evening progresses, with a drop at about 8pm.

Messenger ads were revealed to be the top performing format, reaching an average 82.98 seconds, compared to rich media rectangles (73.45s), banners (58.71s) and skyscrapers (37.57s).

Gal Trifon, Eyeblaster CEO, said lack of suitable metrics is a common complaint among marketers, who must use new technology to produce campaigns that employ measurable touch-points beyond a click.

Trifon said: "Advertisers want to know 'are users seeing my ads?' and unlike off-line channels like television, dwell time can answer a definitive, 'yes they are,' providing key engagement measurement irrespective of click-through."

The dwell time metric measured key interactions, including time the mouse was over an ad, user-initiated video duration, user-initiated expansion duration and any other custom interaction duration.

Google not responsible for defamatory comments, rules High Court

Maisie McCabe, mediaweek.co.uk

Online publishers, and not search engines such as Google who aggregate their content, are responsible for defamatory comments made on the web, according to a landmark ruling in the High Court last week.

The lawyer who acted for Google, Jaron Lewis, a media partner at the City firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP (RPC), said the High Court's decision was a "groundbreaking first ruling" by the UK courts.

Mr Justice Eady found that Google "cannot be characterised as a publisher" for comments made on the bulletin boards of Designtechnica Corporation, which trades as Digital Trends, which appeared on Google search results.

Lewis said the Court made it clear that "individuals who are unhappy with web content need to take action against the people responsible for the material, not search engine operators".

Eady said when search results are generated, Google "has not authorised or caused the snippet to appear on the user's screen in any meaningful sense and it has merely played the role of a facilitator".

Lewis added that Google's team demonstrated to the Court that blocking search terms would have resulted in a "significant amount of lawful, unrelated material on the web being blocked" and would have been "unworkable" and a "significant interference with freedom of speech".The case against Designtechnica Corporation continues.

Greenpeace attempts to broaden its appeal through Twitter and celebrities

Kate Magee, prweek.com

Greenpeace is combining the use of Twitter and celebrities in a new drive to broaden its appeal and spark a mass movement against climate change.

The NGO wants the general public to identify more closely with its activists, by showing that they are ‘normal people’. It hopes this will encourage more people to take part in its campaigns.
Press officer James Turner said: ‘Although our activists are brave, they see themselves as normal members of the public. We want to break down barriers between what we are doing and what people at home are doing.’

Greenpeace has turned to Twitter in a bid to make its direct actions and campaigns more interactive. It is also using it to send news to its 10,000 online followers that mainstream media might not otherwise report.

The organisation is also stepping up the use of celebrities in its campaigns, with Alistair McGowan, Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry all getting involved. Turner said celebrities enabled the NGO to reach different audiences, but stressed it was selective about the celebrities with whom it worked.

For more information see the print version of PRWeek.

Facebook in trouble with Canada's privacy commissioner

by Dan Leahul, Brand Republic

The Canadian government has slammed Facebook's privacy policy, saying the social networking website breaches Canadian laws by holding users' personal information indefinitely, and has issued a 30-day ultimatum for the site to amend its data guidelines.

A report issued by Jennifer Stoddart, Canada's privacy commissioner, found "serious gaps" in Facebook's privacy policy, specifically when the website holds on to its users' personal information even after their accounts had been deleted.

According to Canadian law, companies are only allowed to retain such information as long as is deemed necessary.

Facebook's privacy practices were also "confusing or incomplete" for users, said Stoddart, who demanded the site make its policies more transparent.

The website was also criticised for allowing third parties to access sensitive user information through Facebook applications, a popular platform for advertisers.

Stoddart said: "Facebook has to be more transparent about telling people what they do with their personal information, how long they keep it, and who is able to use it."

Facebook has 30 days to respond to the report before the privacy commission turns to Canada's federal courts to enforce the changes.

The company, though headquartered in California, has offices in Canada, giving the country's courts jurisdiction.

The company said in a statement: "Facebook and the Canadian privacy commissioner's office share the common goal of making the internet more privacy friendly for Canadians and users across the world."

About 12m Canadians are Facebook users, accounting for more than a third of the country's 33.6m citizens. Facebook has more than 250m users around the world.

Earlier this year the website faced a user revolt after making amendments to its privacy policy, which decreed that Facebook, not the users, owned the content shared on its website.

In the end, the company relented, and worked together with Facebook users to draw up new guidelines after more than 25,000 threatened a boycott.

It's official: your mum's on Facebook (and probably Twitter too)

Gareth Jones, revolutionmagazine.com

People aged 55 and over are more likely to visit a social networking site than a business, technology or travel site, finds a new study.

Research from comScore shows that older internet users are quickly catching on to the social networking phenomenon, with two thirds of over 55s having visited sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter during May.

Despite the significant increase in older users, social networking remains popular amongst youth consumers with 89 per cent of 25 to 34 year-olds and 86 per cent of 15 to 24 year-olds visiting social networks.

The study shows that younger internet users spend significantly more time on sites such as Facebook, with those aged between 15 and 34 averaging 5.4 hours per month, compared with 3.7 hours for consumers aged 55 and over.

Overall, social networking remains one of the most popular online activities, with 80 per cent of the total UK online population visiting at least one social networking site during May, averaging 4.6 hours per visitor during the month.

"There continues to be a misconception that social networking is the preserve of the young.

While those under 35 years old are certainly the more prevalent users, there is both a sizeable and heavily engaged audience of those 35 and older as well," says Mike Read, SVP and managing director, comScore Europe.

In fact, advertising on social networking sites has a better chance of reaching these older demographics than site categories such as business and finance, which is a critical insight that might be lost for those trying to optimise their campaign against target audience segments."

Revealed: How Twitter plans to make $140m by 2010

by Gareth Jones, revolutionmagazine.com

Twitter is planning to roll out a five-pronged commercial strategy aimed at helping it generate $140 million in revenue by 2010 and $1.5 billion in sales by 2013.

According to stolen documents published by TechCrunch, Twitter's long-awaited money-making strategy focuses on verified accounts, search ads, sponsored tweets, AdSense widgets and payments.

Verified accounts, described by Twitter as ‘the fastest way to make money without putting the whole organisation behind it', would see corporate and celebrity users charged for their Twitter accounts. Facebook currently operates a similar model, requiring advertisers to pay to create Fan Pages, as opposed to setting up a profile.

Search ads would see heavy users of Twitter's search API required to run ads on the service. According to the leaked documents, Twitter will invest in engineering to make the offering ‘flawless' and ‘timely'.

The thirds prong of the strategy focuses on generating revenue via sponsored tweets that could see advertisers charged for targeting consumers with direct messages offering coupons and discount vouchers.

Twitter's commercial strategy also includes AdSense widgets. The microblog's founders have said little of this in the past, but they could take the form of Twitter ads that run on third-party sites and in other apps like Google's AdSense.

There is little information in the stolen documents about payments, the final prong of Twitter's ambitious money-making plan.

Twitter has seen the internet flooded with 310 of its most confidential documents including partner agreements, financial projections and security passcodes after it fell foul of hackers. Click here for six of the juiciest snippets from the company's secret files.

Social networking application raises $10m

Celina Ribeiro, Professional Fundraising

A social networking application has raised US$10m for charity in two years, half of which was raised in the first six months of this year.

Causes, which runs on both MySpace and Facebook, was launched in May 2007 to a slow start, raising just $2.5m in the first year of its existence.

In the first half of 2009 alone, however, the application has raised more than $5m.

Nearly 200,000 donors have given via Causes. The 'Birthday Wish' facility, whereby a user asks friends to donate to a specific charity on their birthday, has raised $1.4m.

The Facebook user audience has grown significantly in the time since the application launched – currently standing at over 200 million active users, compared to 50 million in October 2007. The fastest-growing demographic on the social network is users aged over 35 years.

MySpace meanwhile has had a more steady growth, standing at around 125 million users as of the end of 2008.

UK businesses still 'struggling to embrace social media'

Matt Williams, campaignlive.co.uk

UK businesses are failing to manage their online reputations because they are struggling to use social media effectively, a new report has found.

In a survey conducted by the digital marketing agency Quba, only 20 per cent of businesses questioned have a regularly updated blog, and just 37 per cent actively manage their online reputation.

However, despite this fact, 91 per cent of companies said they believed the perception of their brand online was important to their business, with 66 per cent agreeing that social media tools such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook are a good way to engage with their audience and monitor their reputation online.

The survey, which questioned marketing and online professionals from nearly 100 different businesses, also found that 55 per cent of companies proactively monitor the internet to find out what is being said about them online, but only 36 per cent actively respond to comments and posts.

Controversial mobile database crashes ahead of launch

Rachael Gallagher, Brand Republic

The website for a controversial mobile phone directory crashed yesterday as members of the public logged on to remove their details.

The directory, 118 800, is from start-up firm Connectivity, and contains 15m mobile numbers.

The site -- set to launch this week -- has been highly criticised by the media, with concerns that advertisers will use the service for spam and marketing calls.

Viral emails and Twitter messages have been spread encouraging people to log on to the site and remove their phone number but yesterday, as thousands logged on to remove their mobile number ahead of the launch, the website crashed and is yet to be back up and running.

Connectivity claims the site is down for major developments, but frustrated Twitterers are accusing the site of crashing due to the high volume of people logging on to opt out of the directory.

With the website still out of action at the time of publication, those listed are currently unable to remove their details.

The message on the website states that all ex-directory requests are being processed and it will take further ex-directory requests when the service resumes, though it does not state if this will be before the site launches.

The website has been approved by the Information Commissioners Office, which states that the service complies with the Data Protection Act (DPA) and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) because people are connected only when the recipient agrees to take the call following a text message, and without divulging their number.

The directory was compiled using mobile lists sold by online businesses collecting opted-in phone numbers and market research firms.

The service will cost £1 for anyone searching for a number by typing the name and location of the person into the 118 800 website.

Social media spend to top £1.9bn in 2014

by Dan Leahul, revolutionmagazine.com

Forrester Research has thrown some figures behind what everybody already knows, that social media marketing budgets are set to explode over the next five years, predicting average spend to grow at an annual rate of 34 per cent, faster than any other form of online marketing.

The company's newest Interactive Marketing Forecast estimates US social media spend to blow past the $3 billion (£1.9bn) mark by 2014, eclipsing both email and mobile, but remain a fraction of what is spent on search and display campaigns.

The phenomenal growth rate of social media spend (34 per cent) can be attributed to the channel's relatively low start base, currently about $700 million in the US.

On the other hand, search and display advertising, with 2009 spend hovering around $15 billion and $7 billion respectively, will grow substantially over the next five years.

In 2014, the US display ad market will have grown 17 per cent, to $16 billion, while search spend will surge 15 per cent to $31 billion.

Mobile (27 per cent growth) and email (11 per cent) spend will remain meagre 2014, at $1.2 billion and $2 billion each.

Overall, the online ad market will be worth $54 billion in the US, of course, at the expense of dramatic cuts to offline budgets.

Forrester predicts online spend to encompass 21 per cent marketing budgets in five years, up from 12 per cent in 2009, meaning offline spend will have no choice but to fall.

In fact, Forrester expects that "overall advertising budgets will decline" due to efficiencies gained in online spending.

Charity fundraisers 'must prepare for Generation C'

Tristan Donovan, Third Sector Online, 9 July 2009

Those that invest in digital media will reap rewards, expert tells delegates at Institute of Fundraising National Convention

Young people's focus on social networking offers charities new opportunities to raise money, but only if they embrace new forms of media, the Institute of Fundraising National Convention heard yesterday.

John Baguley, director of the International Fundraising Consultancy, said Generation C - people born between 1978 and 1994 and sometimes called Generation Y - were more in touch with their peers than previous generations.

He told delegates at a workshop on generational fundraising that Generation C had a willingness to collaborate and share content via new media platforms, in particular mobile phones, in a way that could be useful to charities."

Unlike Generation X – people born between 1965 and 1977 – they do not use new media as a tool to an end. For them it is where they live," he said.

He said charities should start experimenting with new fundraising techniques designed to reach this new generation of adults so they could reap the benefits when members of Generation C begin to earn more money as they get older.

Jo Swinhoe, director of fundraising and marketing at the Alzheimer's Society, challenged the institute during the closing plenary session to set up a mentoring scheme for fundraisers.

Swinhoe said she would "be angry" if the scheme was not in place in time for the conference next year.

It's not what you know, it's who you know that's important

by Elizabeth Clifford-Marsh, revolutionmagazine.com

Brands need to understand it's not about what you know, but who you know when it comes to winning over consumers online, finds new research.

Recommendations by personal acquaintances and opinions posted online are the most trusted form of advertising worldwide, according to the latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey.

In the UK 68 per cent of internet users were founfd to trust online consumer opinions, while only 58 per cent said they trust brand websites.

Text ads are the least trusted ad format worldwide, gaining the trust of only 24 per cent of recipients, while banner ads and online video do not fare much better, trusted by 33 per cent and 37 per cent respectively.

Earlier this week, research from Harris Interactive found 46 per cent of US internet users say they ignore banner ads, with just one per cent finding banner ads helpful in making a purchase decision.

The findings emphasise the importance of encouraging engagement and conversation via social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, as posts about a product will reach both friends and the wider public interested in the product. However, moderation is key, a lesson Skittle recently learned the hard way after placing a live Twitter feed on its homepage, which was subsequently hijacked by users intent on offending other users.

The experiment was the first time a large consumer brand has put a live Twitter feed on its homepage and could be the last unless brands are prepared to invest in moderation or delaying the feed and only publishing edited posts.

Despite the importance of online reputation management just over half of brands employ someone to monitor online conversations and just over a third actively participate in exchanges, research from Quba found.

Silver surfers force out younger Facebook users

by Dan Leahul, revolutionmagazine.com

Facebook has witnessed a staggering increase in the number of users aged 55 and over signing up for the service, with total growth of 518 per cent in the last six month alone, as younger social networkers stage a mass exodus of the site, at a rate of 20 per cent.

Analytics company iStrategyLabs studied Facebook's Social Ads platform to discover that the website's general demographic has shifted dramatically since January, with 18 to 24 year olds no longer representing the majority.

In fact, more than half of Facebook's 72 million US users are either between the ages of 25 and 34 (25 per cent) or 35 and 54 (28 per cent) - with figures continuing to grow, and fast.

In the past six months, 18 to 24 year olds showed the slowest rate of growth, a lowly 5 per cent - compared to 25 to 34 (61 per cent) and 35 to 54 (190 per cent) and accounted for a just quarter of US users.

If the numbers can be trusted, Facebook simply isn't the young online portal it use to be. Merely five years old itself, the website, now invaded by web surfers verging on old age pensioner rights will have marketers thinking twice about their social networking budgets.

As Facebook continues to grow, an image of gender inequality begins to emerge, as females outnumber their male counterparts at a rate of 55/45.

Interestingly the study also found that the number of users classifying themselves as in 'High School' or 'College' has dropped dramatically, at a rate of 20 per cent. Which could come as a shock to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who initially launched the website to keep in touch with his college buddies.

However, the study does not classify whether these members are indeed leaving the site, or just failing to attribute their level of education on their profiles, or have simply graduated.

iStrategyLabs suggests a more ominous overture: "There have been rumours that these younger user groups are being alienated by their parents joining the service, and this data seems to prove it."

Fairtrade's Pants to Poverty rolls out viral campaign

by Lawrence Charles-Kay, marketingmagazine.co.uk

Pants to Poverty, the Fairtrade underwear brand, is running a viral campaign to raise awareness of how the misuse of pesticides in injuring farmers who supply cotton to make underwear.

The campaign, created by Leo Burnett, warns the public of the dangers of unethical, 'bad pants', through the tales of a mythical creature known as ‘The Panteater'. The viral campaign is supported by digital activity on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

At the heart of the campaign is a documentary exposing the plight of Jessie Welk, the victim of a panteater attack because he was wearing ‘bad' pants, and is now a committed recluse. The film focuses on the darkly humorous lengths that he goes to in order to protect himself.

There are more than 12 million ‘bad pants' in the UK containing traces of the banned pesticide Endosulfan. The campaign carries a message informing the public that Endosulfan is responsible for poisoning and killing 20,000 farmers in the developing world every year.

On 7 July there will be a global Pants Amnesty hosted by Pants to Poverty. This will unite 16 countries and tens of thousands of people to make a stand against the unethical cotton trade, participants will be invited to swap their bad pants for a pair of fairtrade, pesticide free, ethically garments.

App developers invade Twitter

by Dan Leahul, revolutionmagazine.com

LONDON - Twitter chief executive Evan Williams has revealed that there has been over 11,000 third-party apps registered with the microblogging website, with a large majority of these in development and production.

Williams confirmed the amount, fittingly through a tweet, and said that as of a few weeks ago, Twitter passed the 11,000 app threshold.

If assumed that the majority of app developers are businesses promoting their brands, Twitter could see a windfall of cash if it decided to flip the switch to a moneymaking enterprise.

By comparison, Facebook, which is seemingly bent on remodelling its website after Twitter, boasts more than 50,000 apps, created by nearly one million different developers in 180 countries.

Facebook also trumps Twitter in online membership, more than 200 million to Twitter's 35 million.

Apple houses twice as many apps as Twitter in its App Store, about 25,000, which have been downloaded more than one billion times.

Yet this week it was revealed that its App Store may not be a wildly lucrative as first presumed. Analysts have found that Apple makes a relatively low amount of revenue from all its apps, only a few hundred million dollars, at best.

Twitter recently made moves to trademark the word 'tweet' to protect the brand from 'potentially damaging' apps. Luckily, some of Twitter's most popular applications, such as TweetDeck and Tweetie, will not be forced to change their names.

Flickr loves Twitter as photogs embrace the iPhone

by Dan Leahul,revolutionmagazine.com

Photo sharing site Flickr has announced its service is now fully integrated with Twitter, while Apple's iPhone is close to overtaking Canon as the most widely used camera device on the Flickr website.

The new Flickr2Twitter service lets users upload existing Flickr content directly into their Twitter stream, using a short Flic.kr url.

Users can also use email to upload Flickr photos to Twitter by email a special '2Twitter' web address, which sends out an automatic tweet.

The partnership will put a dent TwitPic's erstwhile reign as the most popular Twitter photo client.

Also, according to Flickr stats, the iPhone is close to overtaking Canon's Digital Rebel SLR camera as the most preferred device used by Flickr users.

The website shows that on average about 6,000 users upload their pictures from the Canon Digital Rebel XTi, the most popular camera on the site, while about 4,000 users are uploading pictures from their iPhone's.

Use of the Canon has been on a slow decline since the website's launch, while the iPhone is steadily gaining users.

The iPhone is presently the second most popular device on the site, beating out the smaller Digital Rebel XSi, the Nikon D80 and the Canon 40D.

Twitter and Facebook help deaf blind charity Sense target 18-30 audience

by Noelle McElhatton, marketingdirectmag.co.uk

Sense, the UK's largest deaf blind charity, has launched a social media campaign to raise its profile amongst younger consumers.

The campaign by RMG Connect involves populating various social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter with content from Sense.The campaign creative revolves around people’s senses, asking people to identify how they use their senses in their everyday lives.

A Facebook page called Sensebook allows users to become fans, sense-tag their friends in photos which highlight different senses, provide status updates about their senses and participate in discussion forums.

Sensori is a Twitter feed that showcases all twitter updates or tweets that reference any of the five senses in real-time.

The agency has also created a dedicated microsite for Sense where the target audience can view and navigate between all the sites quickly and easily.

There will also be a Flickr and Youtube feed showing videos and images relating to senses, and a sense.org link which drives viewers to the Sense website.

Dave Woods, executive creative director at RMG Connect, said the challenge was to make people in the 18-30 year old age group aware of deafblindness."#

By using the social media sites where our target consumers connect with friends, we can set out on a fun mission to raise the profile of all senses on the web, which is traditionally all about sight and sound," Woods said. "

By instigating a light-hearted, interactive discussion, it's a shorter step to raising the more serious issue of having to live without two of your senses."

Alessandra Moscadelli, new media coordinator for Sense, comments: "Deafblindness affects 250,000 people in the UK, so it’s a hugely important issue. We want to raise awareness amongst people of all ages and backgrounds."