#occupywallstreet: where it all started
Last week SMG provided National Post with insights behind the Occupy Wall Street movement using English language Twitter data. We know that the whole thing started with a single tweet from Adbusters (Vancouver-based, not-for-profit magazine) on July 4th.
I don’t know that anyone could have predicted that a simple Twitter hashtag #occupywallstreet could spread across Twitter and ignite a global movement. This week Mashable did a Q&A session with the Co-Founder of Adbusters, Kalle Lasn – providing insights from the architect behind this huge trending topic. Like the rest of us, when Lasn first created the hashtag, he didn’t expect that it would cause this much attention, at least not globally. Below are some of the quotes from Lasn:
“I think that social media played a critical part, but I think it was triggered, it was catalyzed, sparked by creativity, but also people coming up with magical hashtags and posters and above all, having the geopolitical savvy to realize that the moment was right on September 17.”
“It started off with a poster in the middle of Adbusters magazine and #occupywallstreet with the hashtag on our cover and then it started off when the Twitter feed started going crazy with that hashtag. Then of course after that it began to have a life of its own.”
“I wasn’t surprised that it created a big havoc in New York because we knew this [was an] invitation to occupy the iconic center of global capitalism, Wall Street. I knew that was a very provocative move and if we could get a few thousand people out there that this would be an incredible moment. But when it started to spread to Chicago and Los Angeles and San Francisco and now it’s creeping across the border to Canada, then I just sat there in front of my TV set in wonder.”
Steve Jobs Biography finally hits the shelf
Everything about Steve Jobs hits the front page, even after his death. Steve Jobs’s biography by Walter Isaacson finally hit the shelves (physically and virtually) on Monday, Octobar 24th. Like most of his products, the book immediately climbed to the top of the charts and is believed to be this year’s top seller. Some highlights from the book that got a lot of buzz this week include: Jobs’s take on Android as a “stolen product”, and Apple’s secret development of a TV-Set with the “the simplest user interface you could imagine.”
On our reading list, this book is not only about Steve Jobs as a individual, but also the history and future about Silicon Valley and personal computing.
Topguest’s upcoming white label service
Topguest is a loyalty program which rewards users for engaging with brands on social networks. Customers collect airline, hotel and other travel reward points for their social networking activities. The company just revealed that it has five million Facebook users in its database. The company has announced this week that they will release a new white-label service this fall which will allow brands to to integrate with their services and to offer rewards to engaged customers.
In a study released by Bain & Company this week, we again see the direct correlation between consumers engaged with brands via social networks and sales:
People who engage with brands via social media demonstrate a deeper emotional commitment to those brands, and they spend between 20% and 40% more than other customers on the products and services offered by the brands, according to a report by Bain & Company.
Using the Net Promoter Score* (NPS) method to measure customer loyalty, the study found that on average, customers who engage with companies via social media (e.g., following a brand on Twitter, liking a brand on Facebook, or joining a branded community) spend more buying products and services than other customers.
Facebook’s new way to recover a lost password
I keep a spare key at a close friend’s place in case I get locked out of my home. Have you ever imagined that we could (or should) do the same in digital world? I wouldn’t think it was necessary to do so before Facebook became pervasive. But for the past six years, Facebook has been brought our real life and digital life together, now it is going to move a little step further.
Facebook is testing a new method for users to recover their password. Instead of going through the ‘forget your password’ process, you retrieve a code from your Trusted Friends (Users first have to designate three to five friends they trust) to access their Facebook account.