This week represents a coming out party of sorts for the gorilla of social networks, Facebook. Any day now, the Facebook IPO means that people will be able to own a piece of the company rather than just “Like” it. So how will Facebook fare once it is traded on the open market? Will the merciless scrutiny of Wall Street and public investors alter the trajectory of a channel with a (projected) larger market cap than Disney, News Corp or CBS? I wonder, particularly when one reads the 16 words from a letter Mark Zuckerberg wrote, included in Facebook’s IPO filing:

“Simply put: we don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”

Perhaps Zuck is looking to mimic Google’s famous  ”informal” corporate mantra “Don’t be evil” in choosing such an altruistic social mission statement. But Facebook consistently gets in trouble with privacy watchdogs, intent on protecting consumer data. So much so, that one might easily believe that money making trumps services at Facebook. Or perhaps those services relate to the needs of advertisers, instead of ordinary members?

Regardless, I find it interesting that a business the size of Facebook downplays the significance of making money, almost as if it’s a dirty practice.  Businesses are built to make money, and I am sure that investors will see this as the priority. Investing in the business to improve the service offering makes sense in the early stages, but my guess is that Wall Street will want Facebook to grow up. As the old saying goes, “if you want to run with the big dogs…”

What do you think Facebook’s real priorities are?

It’s Sunday afternoon and the weather is absolutely beautiful. I might add that it’s not just any Sunday — it’s Mother’s Day. Needless to say, I should be spending time with my mom, not writing this blog post.

But, to all of the mom’s out there, please don’t fret. I will see my mom today. To help me write this post faster, I’m using speech recognition, specifically voice dictation. In fact, not only am I using voice dictation, it’s also the topic of this post.

I’m using the built-in voice dictation on my iPad, since Siri, along with its voice dictation capability, is not available on the iPad (unless, of course, you jailbreak it but that’s a whole other story).

Voice dictation has been around for many years. When I was in university, I can remember trying, getting frustrated with, and giving up on using a primitive version of Dragon Naturally Speaking to write a paper. The technology just wasn’t where it needed to be at that time. (In defense of Dragon by Nuance, it gets great reviews, like this one, nowadays.)

Since then, I’ve merely experimented with voice dictation on a few brief occasions. But, recently, a couple of colleagues and I contemplated how much time we could save getting words on to the screen using the technology. I came away from the conversation inspired to make a serious effort to put it to work for me. Hence, this blog post.

Dragon claims that voice dictation is “up to five times faster than typing on the keyboard”.

I agree that it has the potential to be that fast. But, to be realistic, as I dictate this post, it’s obvious that it will need to be tidied up using a keyboard. That said, I’m still convinced that I’m saving time using voice dictation. I suspect that, as I become more comfortable with the technology, my copy will require fewer and fewer keyboard edits.

Although I plan to make voice dictation a bigger part of my life, I don’t think I’ll move into a keyboard-free existence any time soon. It’s simply not practical. Case in point, at Social Media Group, we work in an open-concept environment, meaning that privacy and noise pollution become important considerations for using the technology. (My colleague, Karly Gaffney, also pointed out that talking to yourself all of the time makes you look like a weirdo.)

At this point, I think the real value of voice dictation lies in how it enables you to quickly and efficiently brain dump your thoughts into digital notes. You can then take those notes and sculpt your prose by conventional methods (i.e., keyboard and mouse).

Aside from drafting blog posts, I plan to use voice dictation to write emails, notes and work documents, to name a few. I also installed the Flex T9 app (by Nuance) on my Android phone, which is coming in very handy for text messaging.

Anyway, it’s time to wrap up this post so that I can be on my merry way to spend time with my mom. To all moms, Happy Mother’s Day (albeit belated at the time that you read this).

What are your thoughts on voice dictation? Are you using it?
Leave your comments below.

This week foursquare announced API changes to eliminate privacy concerns and creepy stalker apps like Girls Around Me. So, what are they changing? Foursquare is removing the ability for users to see people (even those not on their friends list) who are checked in to a venue without being checked in to the same venue themselves. Akshay Patil (foursquare API evangelist) explains it further: “much like how the users could see each other by looking around in real life.” Users will still be able to see friend check-ins regardless of whether they’re checked in to the same venue or not.

Creepy apps like Girls Around Me (which got a lot of buzz in March) leverage foursquare data to display a list of people (strangers) who are checked in nearby filtered by gender. The API change will essentially render these apps worthless because users will only be able to see their friends.

On the flipside, eliminating this data also affects the less-creepy apps like Sonar or Banjo that connect strangers based on location, particular interests or mutual friends. Sonar leverages data from multiple networks including foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to suggest people nearby you should connect with, based on interests and/or mutual friends.

Banjo uses data from Twitter, foursquare, Instagram and others to display where people are and what they’re saying or doing based on check-ins or tweets, not interests.

The foursquare API change will be implemented in June to allow time for the less-creepy app developers to make some changes. The negative impact will be low for these developers, considering many of them use multiple platforms and are not 100% reliant on foursquare for data.

I am a big fan of foursquare and consider it a safe service when used properly. This change will make it easier for the cautious non-users to convert and give the application a try.

What do you think? Does this make you feel more secure about sharing your location? Does this make you want to give foursquare a try if you haven’t already?

Have you ever created a song or digital art that you thought might be worth something, but were so discouraged with complex e-commerce sites to even think about selling it? Well you can rejoice because a new startup has come to save you from that fate! Gumroad, a social-centric site makes selling your stuff online super simple, much cheaper than competitive sites and lets you share links of your goods through your social platforms.

Sahil Lavingia, the 19-year-old brain child behind Gumroad and former Pinterest employee, dropped out of college to pursue his dreams of running his own company and creating a service that allows people to sell anything they can share. Gumroad even has a cool feature that allows the buyer to pay what they think the product is worth, love that idea!

I think Gumroad will be extremely successful. They have taken away the complication and created a space where in a matter of minutes an item can be uploaded, shared and bought. I’m not the only one who believes it will take off. Monday it was announced that Gumroad received 7 million in funding. For a company who only takes a 5% cut of sales plus $0.25 per transaction, it is just a matter of time before they are making a profit and possibly forcing the competition to lower their rates.

Check out the video below and if you’re not the creative type pass along Gumroad to those who are. You never know, you could end up buying something from one of them.

I was perusing through my husband’s copy of the Harvard Business Review on the week-end. The old fashioned way… sitting in the sun in my backyard, reading a magazine in print (just to point out, there’s still a place for that…), and I was particularly interested in an article “To Keep Your Customers, Keep It Simple” by Patrick Spenner and Karen Freeman. You can preview the article online, but you’ll have to purchase the whole thing in order to get the full scoop.

It’s about one of those obvious, really interesting premises that we talk a lot about here at SMG, particularly in the context of content online.  How do we develop content, or a customer experience that is relevant, adds value and spurs activity?  We know that when you digest a great piece of value add content, it’s very satisfying to do something with it afterwards- share it (social sharing or email for older folks), save it, or better yet, use the information to actually help make a decision. People want content that is in a way, actionable.

This article shines some light on this phenomena, and cites a study from the IBM Institute for Business Value, which says that, if asked,  61% of consumers say they will  interact with companies via social sites in order to get a discount. That’s it. A full 55% want to purchase something, and 53% want to access product reviews.

The study goes on to say that 61% of businesses think that their customers want to be part of a community. But simply being part of community is an insufficient value exchange for most consumers. Most people just want a deal.  Despite the altruistic visions of some brands, simply starting a community isn’t enough. Only 22% of consumers cite “wanting to be part of a community” as a compelling reason to interact with a company via social media. Crazy.

The chart below is pretty interesting one to examine.

Check out the article. For all of us doing content in this field, it’s food for thought.

Last July, I reviewed a new iOS app called Loopcam. Loopcam made it easy for users to capture GIF images and publish them to a variety of social networks including Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. Since then, the animated image space has seemingly exploded with a handful of new apps like GifBoom and Gifture, format spin-offs called Cinemagrams and a couple kick-butt examples of how the animated GIF format can be a valuable addition to a brand’s content toolbox.

Not surprisingly, fashion brands have been some of the first to adopt the alternative image format. Movement within images allow shoppers to get a more realistic sense of how wearable items are. Traditionally, this sense of realism is communicated using video which while becoming increasingly commonplace, still suffers from some accessibility, portability and sharability challenges.

The small footprint of the GIF format allows it to circumvent some of the challenges encountered with video. GIF files are typically small in size and like standard images, theyß can be saved to the desktop with a simple right click save as.

The popularity of GIF blogs have already shown a strong demand for the cheeky format on sites like Tumblr. Taking the audience demographics of Tumblr into consideration, it only makes sense that brands should showcase products using a content format that’s already popular with the target audience.

Animated GIFs are also proving to be valuable content assets for industries far removed from the fashion world. The iconic General Electric recently showed off the epic scale of their manufacturing and design process with GIFs, doing so also cast a light on the company’s ingenuity and dedication to push the boundaries of technology.

The 25-year-old image format is now in the midst of a renaissance. Its endearing qualities are catching the eye of a totally new generation of web user and exploration of it’s applications as a branded content asset are just beginning.

• Opening Ceremony – Pixel Geometry http://www.openingceremony.us
• Burberry, London Fashion Week 2012 http://www.fastcocreate.com
• General Electric Innovation http://generalelectric.tumblr.com/

Follow @brandonXoliver

Patrick Gladney is Director, Research & Insights at Social Media Group. Follow @pgladney.

In Canada, we take pride in companies that that challenge our traditional description of “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”   Over the past decade, we’ve been particularly fascinated by Research In Motion.  Unfortunately of late, our fascination with RIM has been more like watching a car crash.

Domestic market share is being dramatically eroded by Apple and Android.  The Playbook has yet to get a foothold in the tablet market. The Blackberry App World languishes in relative obscurity. Co-founders and CEO’s Mike Lazardis and Jim Balsillie are pushed out as the company seeks to alter its trajectory.  Tough times indeed.

But sometimes, desperate times call for dramatic measures.  As proof, witness the marketing stunt pulled by RIM in Sydney last week.  The company simulated a protest outside an Apple store imploring customers inside to “Wake Up.”    There just so happened to be a popular tech-blogger onsite there to record the protest:

It wasn’t abundantly clear at the time who was doing the waking, or what people were being instructed to wake up to.  But the mystery was successful in generating interest and awareness of the event as people speculated who might be responsible for staging such an event. The first suspect was Apple’s most formidable competitor Samsung, who not too long ago created a commercial of their own where characters were lured out of a line up outside of an Apple store in favour of one of their Galaxy phones.

Unwilling to cede credit, RIM finally owned up to the rally.  And then the claws came out.  Bloggers, followed by the traditional media roundly criticized RIM for orchestrating a stunt that “smacks of desperation” and suggested that “insulting the customer base that you’re trying to woo might not be the best marketing strategy.”

In my view, as shared with the Toronto Star, the RIM rally was a success.  The goal for this tactic was nothing more than to create awareness by leveraging  a market leader’s brand equity.  With half a million YouTube views in a week, I’d say not bad.  While the style of execution may seem inelegant to some, RIM clearly needs to disrupt the market inertia that currently plagues Blackberry.  The weakness to this execution is that there was nothing new that RIM could hold up as tangible evidence for consumers to reconsider their products.  It would have been better if this event could have been supported by substantive news like the release of the new operating system (BB10) that’s been in development since the acquisition of QNX in 2010.

What do you think of RIM’s latest gambit?

Our topic is B2B social media (“What are the Best B2B Social Media Practices?“), and the plan is to do something a little differently. We’re going to start the webinar with a 1:1 interview with Jonathan Becher, the CMO of SAP. Mr. Becher has some very interesting perspective on the changing nature of B2B marketing generally and how SAP, a market leader in enterprise application software, is shifting its focus from more outbound to inbound marketing (what role social can and will play in that).

The second half of the session, we’ll move back to our more traditional panel discussion format. Jonathan will leave us and we’ll be joined by author, noted speaker and just generally great guy Paul Gillen, as well as Jason Breed, an extremely senior digital and social marketer, and the Global Lead for Social Media at Accenture. Three of us will have a more hands-on discussion about social in the enterprise, the disruption and opportunity that brings, as well as examples of B2B firms who are really hitting the ball out of the park in delivering business value via social.

I hope you can join us Tuesday May 1st at 12EDT – sign up here!

How Social Media Helped Cisco Shave $100,000+ off a Product Launch
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/cisco-social-media-product-launch/

B2B Case Study: How Kinaxis Uses Social Media
http://tellallmarketing.com/blog/?p=159

A different kind of ROI  - How IBM uses social media to spur employee innovation
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-ibm-uses-social-media-to-spur-employee-innovation/

A few B2B case studies from a social media think tank – Thinque and SR7
http://goo.gl/z9wSP

Marketing Sherpa: CMO perspectives on Social Marketing ROI
http://goo.gl/gbpJn

B2B Social Media: Lead Generation & ROI for brands
http://goo.gl/NQ6rI

The goal of the group is to facilitate networking for entrepreneurs and businesswomen from across Canada, who share challenges in doing business abroad. The group is attracting a great mix of Canadian business professionals, Trade Commissioners, government partners, trade associations, academics and researchers — all interested in international commerce.

The group provides today’s professional women with information on leadership development opportunities, new ways of thinking and vital connections to help them advance. Both men and women are encouraged to join the group to:

We welcome your participation in this new LinkedIn community and encourage you to refer a colleague. Join the pulse of discussions.

As a Canadian business, SMG has actively worked in the US market from its inception in 2006, and CEO Maggie Fox is a familiar face at Social Media conferences and events around the world. We are thrilled to be involved in this initiative, and encourage members of the Canadian Business Community to join the group!