Facebook switches “Fans” for “Likes”

An Associated Press story tells us that Facebook will no longer use the term “become a fan of” in favour of the more colloquial and direct “like”. The terminiology change erases one of the few remaining distinctions between personal and brand interactions on the leading social network. It will be interesting to see if something as simple as more friendly language will increase consumer’s engagement with Facebook’s Fan pages.

Report issued on Social Media Ads that work best

Mashable summarizes a report from Psychster Inc. and AllRecipes that pitted various types of online ads against each other. Not surprisingly, there is a bit a gap between ad types that are good at selling (banner ads, emails) versus ads that are good at engagement (Corporate profiles with fan options and widgets). Read the executive summary here

YouTube Facelift

If YouTube seems a little bit different than the last few days, don’t worry it isn’t an April Fools joke (see below). Overall the video watching experience is a little less cluttered, but still has access to the same information as before via pulldowns. Most notably, we can say goodbye (and good riddance IMHO) to the 5 star rating system in favour of the simpler Like/Don’t Like model. According to MediaPost the re-design has increased time on site by 7% and increased video playback by 6%.

The Ten Plagues of Social Media

Social Media Insider writer David Berkowitz pushes a seasonal analogy a bit far with this one, when comparing the Plagues of Egypt to the top ten mistakes in social media. Personally, I can’t make the connection of how a plague of lice can be compared to campaign-based thinking, but most of the points are valid.

Location Tweets Coming Home to Roost

It isn’t only the robbers that you need to worry about when telling your Facebook friends about your vacation or checking in on Foursquare from Hawaii, but your insurance company as well. According to MediaPost, home insurance premiums in the U.K. may go up by 10% as a direct result of the approximately 40% of British social network users who update with holiday plans.

Pillow Talk – Social Networking Style

Apparently finding out if someone liked your Facebook status is more important for many social network users than sleep. According to the Gadgetology study done by Retrevo a whopping 48% of US social network users check in every time they wake up during the night. Stay tuned next month for social network’s role in the US divorce rate.

If the Grateful Dead Were Alive Today…

It would appear that Deadheads got the whole social media thing before there was an Internet. Shannon Paul’s Very Official Blog has an interesting read on the 4 Things the Grateful Dead Can Teach You About Social Business. The Dead were masters at keeping their most loyal fans on the inside while combining free and paid models to the benefit of both business and their fans.

Memewatch: ChatRoulette Musical Improv

It all started with a guy named Merton (who looks a lot like Ben Folds Five) improvising songs (video featured above) to lonely ChatRoulette participants. Sadly, the video was pulled down by YouTube for some violation or other and then subsequently edited and re-posted. Then Ben Folds Five takes up the gauntlet and records a live Ode to Merton. Now Mashable has a great video interview with a talented and funny guy who is making ChatRoulette “exhibitionist”, but in a good way this time.

Handy Tool: Packrati.us follows your twitter feed and updates your delicious account with the links you tweet. It also offers some basic rules allowing you to include or exclude specific types of links.

Rung added to Social Technographics Ladder

Remember Forrester’s Social Technographics ladder from back in 2007? Well things have changed since then and surprise, surprise all, the active categories are growing, showing that we are all doing more with social media. Most notably though, the ladder has received a much needed new rung for those of us considered “conversationalists”.

Bill Gates joins Twitter

The world’s wealthiest man now has a twitter account and likely has the highest ratio of followers to tweets (currently approaching 300k followers with only 9 tweets). It appears that he is using Twitter to help launch his new web site thegatesnotes.com which features an inside look at his work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Kids and Media consumption

USAToday summarizes  a Kaiser Family Foundation study which has kids spending an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes consuming media, much of which is taking place on mobile devices (perhaps it would be even higher with improved battery life 😉 A friend told me an interesting story that her son was spending so much time organizing social plans via text on a weekend night that in some cases it was too late to go out by the time they had finished the discussion.

Apple’s Tablet

The masters of Anti-social media are at it again, with no official details released of the expected Apple tablet, the rumor mills are churning away before the expected announcement on January 27. One note-worthy point from the WSJ (according to AppleInsider) is that the device is intended to be shared by multiple family members, which if the device is successful could again shift how we consume electronic media. Until the facts are revealed we can enjoy a favourite parody of Apple’s publicity machine from MadTV.