Monthly Archives: September 2009

SmartWired today announced a new version of Dweeber (www.dweeber.com), the first social networking site for student homework collaboration. Based on positive response from teachers and the need for education technology in the classroom, Dweeber enables students to solve problems together, participate in virtual study sessions, and work with friends in a number of ways. The collaborative whiteboard can be used to solve math problems or to create joint drawings and diagrams. Most importantly, Dweeber allows students to create a SMART profile and discover how they learn best to improve their schoolwork and self esteem. Dweeber is targeted towards students aged 13 and up and is free-of-charge.
“We initially launched Dweeber this past April as a way for students to connect with their friends as a trusted learning resource. The recent updates we have made to the site allow our users to take advantage of the tools Dweeber provides to engage with their classmates and pool their knowledge while doing homework,” said David Peck, Dweeber founder and CEO. “Our ultimate goal is to help make doing homework fun, because we all remember how painful it can be.”

Dweeber’s SMART Profile is one of the key features on the site. Based on years of learning research, the system reveals each student’s natural talents and abilities by discovering what his or her brain needs to excel, and unearthing the things that drive them to do so. Students can also compare their SMART Profile with their friends, to understand each other’s learning style and motivations. Dweeber also allows students to share and rate the best web sites available, and earn guru points for helping friends, sharing successes, and posting learning resources.

High school students on the Youth Advisory Board, as well as teachers trained in the SmartWired methodology, gave important input on the site’s interface and content.

About Dweeber

Dweeber (www.dweeber.com) is a social networking site designed to help teens do homework done faster, easier, and more enjoyably. Students can connect with friends and complete homework assignments at the same time. Dweeber enables students to create a SMART profile and discover how they learn best. It was developed with the feedback of a youth and teacher advisory board and is free-of-charge.

The popular Latin American social networking platform www.sonico.com offers its over 40 million registered users a safe and fun environment to connect and stay in touch with real-life friends, colleagues, and family. The partnership with GlobalCollect enables Sonico to process international online credit card payments via Visa, MasterCard, and American Express for its premium subscription services. Future plans entail expanding the range of payment methods to include local and alternative options.
Both companies had already established a fruitful business relationship indirectly in 2006, when GlobalCollect started processing online payments for Clon Communications –

Sonico’s sister company – an online retailer of various prepaid cards. Based on Clon’s positive history with GlobalCollect – Clon’s international online transactions have quadrupled since then – Sonico decided to partner with GlobalCollect as well for its online payment needs.

Gustavo Victorica, CFO of Sonico, said: “We chose GlobalCollect on the basis of its comprehensive portfolio of payment methods. This, plus its single-interface payment platform supporting multi-currency online payment transactions will help us boost conversion rates.”

Jan Manten, CEO of GlobalCollect, continued: “We welcome the opportunity to service Sonico.com, a popular and rapidly growing social network in Latin America. We believe that this region holds tremendous growth opportunities for all sorts of e-commerce activities in general, which is why we have decided to open a local office in Buenos Aires in the very near future.”

About Sonico.com Inc.

Founded in July 2007, Sonico is the social network of Latin America that organizes people’s life online. Developed with a strong emphasis in user legitimacy, privacy and personalization, it has been widely adopted across Latin America. This social communication platform has over 40 million registered users and allows individuals, organizations and brands to interact in a useful and entertaining way. Located in Buenos Aires and with a team of over 80 people, Sonico was elected by Business Week as the 5th tech startup with the highest global growth potential. Sonico closed its first round of capitalization of USD 4.3 million in May 2008.

About GlobalCollect

GlobalCollect is the world’s premier Payment Service Provider of local e-payment solutions for international Customer Not-Present (CNP) channels such as internet, mail and telephone orders, and specialized in a wide range of industries such as travel, ticketing, telecommunications, retail, publishing, portals, online gaming, and digital content. While most providers limit their services to a technical link with payment acquirers, GlobalCollect is a full service partner consulting clients on how to increase transaction volumes, expand distribution channels, and reduce costs by streamlining back office processes. Through a single-interface online payment platform, we offer access to an unrivalled portfolio of local and international payment methods in over 200 countries, including all major credit and debit cards, direct debits, bank transfers, real-time bank transfers, eWallets, cash at outlets, prepaid methods, checks, and invoices. www.globalcollect.com

WorldFriends, one of the world’s leading international social networking services, today announced that it has launched the WorldFriends Facebook application. The WorldFriends application enables any Facebook user to find new friends with common interests from WorldFriends’ more than 2 million registered members from 200+ different countries including 140,000 language teachers, browse more than 1 million photos uploaded by members, and share travel advice and tips. With the recent launch of its Trips and Cities feature, WorldFriends is one of the easiest ways to find new friends in any city in the world. To try the WorldFriends application in Facebook visit: http://apps.facebook.com/worldpenpals/
“This new WorldFriends application represents ‘pen pals 2.0’ for the Facebook generation. Although I’m old enough to have actually had a pen-and-paper-based pen pal when I was young, I think this WorldFriends application is a hundred times better, faster and more gratifying than what we used to do with stamps and envelopes. In addition, one of the unique characteristics of the WorldFriends community is its cross-culture and cross-border nature and we are delighted to open it to Facebook users so that they can meet new friends from foreign cultures and thus help to increase world harmony,” said Dominic Penaloza, founder and CEO of WorldFriends.

About WorldFriends
WorldFriends is the world’s leading multi-lingual travel and language exchange community. WorldFriends offers people a high quality environment in which to enjoy ‘internationally minded’ socializing, and to meet new friends with common interests, especially in the areas of travel, culture and language learning. WorldFriends Networks aims to promote global harmony by easing language barriers and culture barriers, resulting in greater cross-culture communication. Over 2 million people from 237 countries, including more than 140,000 language teachers, have registered as WorldFriends members, and use WorldFriends to meet new friends in cities they travel to, to find language exchange partners, penpals and teachers, and to meet other internationally-minded people. WorldFriends already offers service in five languages: Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean.
For more information please visit http://www.worldfriends.tv/

MeterNet today announced it is launching the upgraded WebPage VoiceMail Inbox Gadget v2.0 on Ning, the social platform for interests and passions online. By joining forces with Ning, the WebPage VoiceMail service is now available to more than 1.5 million Ning Networks and 33 million Ning Network members. Ning Network Creators now have even greater choice over the features and applications they can add to Ning Networks to create the perfect social experience for a given topic, interest or passion. Today, Ning Apps are available for e-commerce, information, education, causes and entertainment. To see WebPage VoiceMail, please visit the Ning Apps Directory: http://about.ning.com/ningapps and select the communication category. There is also a dedicated network for the WebPage VoiceMail Inbox Gadet v2.0 located at http://voicemail.ning.com

With the upgraded Inbox Gadget v2.0, WebPage VoiceMail subscribers on Ning can easily receive voice messages while protecting their privacy. This is because Webpage VoiceMail is a secure online voicemail system that allows subscribers to receive free message calls from anyone, anywhere, through any computer Internet browser, without revealing their personal email or contact numbers.

Ning Apps extend the Ning Platform by providing more than 90 new diverse and rich applications like WebPage VoiceMail for Ning Network Creators. With Ning Apps, a Ning Network Creator can now add WebPage VoiceMail to expand the functionality of their Ning Network and increase engagement by their members.

WebPage VoiceMail subscribers also enjoy automated 24×7 email notification and online retrieval of their voicemail messages anytime thru their Inbox Gadget on their Ning network(s). With low flat-rate pricing plans for the WebPage VoiceMail service, subscribers also enjoy freedom from any per-minute charges.

The Ning Platform provides a new way for Webpage VoiceMail to reach more people, faster. Rather than being added by individual members, when a Ning Network Creator adds Webpage VoiceMail to their Ning Network, by default it’s available to all members automatically, regardless of whether a Ning Network has 100, 1,000 or 1 million members.

“Ning is committed to being the social platform for the world’s interests and passions,” said Jay Parikh, senior vice president of product engineering. “WebPage VoiceMail is a great example of the innovative and creative set of diverse features Ning Apps offer the more than 33 million members of Ning Networks today.”

About Ning http://ning.com

Adventures in Social Media released their second video and audio this week with some great news, and fun stories.

Hosts Bob Liddle and Gary Davis reviewed the news items in an entertaining format that is fun, fast and easy to watch and listen.

Burglars use Facebook and Twitter. Interesting that thieves are using Social Media to see what you have, and how to get it. So the deal is, you post on Facebook, you are going out of town, you have also posted pictures of your Plasma TV. Burlars put 2 and 2 together and concoct a heist.

The Republican Party is playing catch up with Social Media, using Twitter and Facebook, they are learning how to connect. Listen to the podcast for commentary.

Arrested for eating Iguana? Yep. a couple of folks were “smart” enough to cook up Iguana “read Illegal” and post it on their Facebook pages. Bad idea.

Fun and inspiring people to follow on Twitter? How about Demi Moore, Punky Brewster, Pete Carroll and Tony Robbins. We discuss them all. Don’t forget the beautiful Kathy Ireland, now a motivator.

Adventures in Social Media has named Leo Laporte of Leoville and This Week in Tech, and the Tech Guy as their Social Guru of the week, learn more about Leo.

Bob and Gary are not scared of anything as witnessed by their “meme of the week” Chuck Norris and the phenomenon that is Chuck Norris. “there is no “ctrl” button on Chuck Norris’s computer. Chuck Norris is always in control.”

The show wraps up with a hilarious video from College Humor and a number of memorable Facebook updates that you can use on your own pages.

Adventures in Social Media is an entertaining half hour of learning and laughs all about the wacky and interesting in Social Media. A little bizarre, truly witty, and fun, and you may accidentally learn something.

Find Bob and Gary at www.adventuresinsocialmedia.com or on Facebook or on Twitter. New show is released every Wednesday.

The first global Twestival on February 12th 2009, involved events in 202 cities, including Calgary, and raised over $250,000 for charity: water. Twestival is back. This time with a local twist. Events continue to be volunteer-run, charity fundraising events for people who know each other through the micro-blogging service twitter.com. But each city voted, via twitter, for their charity of choice and chose a date between September 10 and 13.
The Calgary event will take place on 12 September at The Auburn Saloon raising funds for Calgary-based Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids who have provided 540,600 lunches for Calgary’s school kids – and counting. Their motto: Healthy Kids. Healthy Minds.

Saturday September 12

The Auburn Saloon

163-115 9 Avenue SE,

doors open at 6:00 pm

further info at http://calgary.twestival.com/

tickets are 2 for $20. ’til September 10 at midnight, $30. each at the door

6:30 – 7:30 pm free Twitter workshop, presented by social media consultant Roger Kondrat

7:30 pm DJ Melissa Kuchner starts. Join Calgary’s Twitterati for drinks and conversation. Silent auction will feature lunch bags filled with donations from local businesses. (even if you can’t make it, please donate a bag of goodies for the auction).

The first 24 hour “‘tweet-up’ with a social conscience” inspired thousands and raised $250,000 for clean water charity, charity: water, and this next event Twestival Local, looks to be even bigger. Twestival Local again gives every city in the world the chance to hold their own Twestival, but this time they can run their events anytime between the 10-13th September 2009, and chose their own local charity. Twitter users in Calgary chose Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids. Since the first Twestival this past February, twitter use has grown hugely and Calgary has pulled ahead of Edmonton in pure numbers of tweeters. See MasterMaq’s stats at http://blog.mastermaq.ca/2009/08/24/state-of-the-calgary-twittersphere-july-2009

Calgary Twestival organiser Roger Kondrat said “We are so excited about Calgary’s Twestival and raising funds for Brown Bagging it for Calgary’s Kids. We are hoping to see lots of Calgary Twitter users coming along to have an amazing time with us and generate lots of cash and awareness! Especially since Twestival was started by former Calgarian Amanda Rose who I met in London, UK a few years ago.” Join our Facebook group, follow us on Twitter @yycfestivals, and come out on September 12.

ABOUT TWESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL

Global partners across all countries for Twestival are Amiando, Citrix Online, Blurb and Causecast. For the for the full and changing list of cities, or to get involved yourself, go to www.twestival.com.

ABOUT BROWN BAGGING FOR CALGARY’S KIDS

Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids (BB4CK) was established as a lunch program in 1990. Lunches were provided to homeless children and youth in Calgary who did not have access to food and were disinclined to visit centres that focused on adult homelessness.

In 2002 Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids became a registered charity. In 2005, following findings released by the Feeding Calgary’s Children Initiative – that almost 30,000 children and youth in Calgary go hungry while in school – the mandate changed to include all children and youth, whether on the streets or in school. BB4CK also began working on the second part of our mission: To act as a catalyst in the development of community based solutions to break down barriers caused by malnutrition. BB4CK began to seek capacity within communities and supported the creation of community programs. These programs are in churches, schools and homes and engage local volunteers to make lunches and take them to schools within their own community.

By the end of the 2008/2009 school year BB4CK was providing lunches to over 70 schools and supported 5 partner agencies. BB4CK was also the catalyst for 12 additional community based lunch programs.

Research undeniably supports a link between nutrition and healthy growth and development in children and youth. Children who eat regular, healthy meals do better in school, are sick less often and form healthier relationships with their peers. At Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids, we want to provide youth not just with a meal, but also with essential nutrients to allow them to learn and be active. In doing so, we help to eliminate hunger in Calgary’s schools and provide a chance for at-risk youth to successfully complete their education. Healthy Kids. Healthy Minds.

Allviant, Inc. today announced the launch of its Social Media Philanthropy initiative to assist local and national non-profits and communities to best leverage the power of social media in their outreach to individuals, communities, donors and partners.
“One of Allviant’s core values is a commitment to improving people’s quality of life and we have a special place in our hearts for children and teens,” said Lilian Myers, Allviant’s chief executive. “We understand that by leveraging technology to ease communications, especially through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, we can engage the greater community in a whole new way. This concept aligns with the vision for our CarePass™ technology as well, which allows consumers to quickly and easily manage the complexities of healthcare through mobile and other popular communication mediums.”

The first non-profit organization selected to participate in this innovative social media program is the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale (BGCGS). Allviant’s social media mentorship of the organization has already resulted in an established Twitter presence and Facebook fan page for the local Club. BGCGS will leverage their new social media knowledge to extend their marketing communications to popular social networking platforms, driving increased response rates, volunteer participation and donations in a cost-effective manner.

“We are grateful to community leaders like Allviant that freely share their resources and expertise, enabling us to further expand the developmental programs for our youth in the community,” said Steve Davidson, president/CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale. “Social media has become a vital communication tool for businesses and individuals, and we want to be able to connect to people on a local and global level.”

Allviant complements their online philanthropy with brick and mortar events such as the recent clothing and housewares drive held at Scottsdale-based ASU SkySong. All donations from the charity drive were delivered to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale Thrift Shop, whose sales proceeds support youth programs at the Club.

Added Myers, “Convenience in communication mediums and tools is critical to eliciting participation in any program – whether it’s under a profit or non-profit organization. Individuals are busier than ever, so you need to make it easy for them to stay informed and get involved. We are honored to contribute our time and efforts to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale and we look forward to expanding their social media impact throughout the year.”

About the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale

Since 1954, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale has provided more than 100,000 Northeast Valley youth with a positive, supervised environment to explore the power of their potential. Today we serve 16,000 children and teens through the organization’s nine branches and 12 outreach sites located in Scottsdale, Fountain Hills, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Hualapai Indian Community and other Northeast Valley neighborhoods. The Club offers more than 100 youth development programs emphasizing five core areas: the arts; character & leadership development; education & career development; health & life skills; and sports, fitness & recreation. For more information, please visit www.bgcs.org.

About Allviant

Allviant is the developer of the first-ever, consumer-centric tools and network for healthcare called CarePass™. CarePass is a technology-enabled service that gives consumers a new method of access, convenience and control by connecting existing healthcare information systems and administrative data though a personally defined set of communication mediums and methods — from phone to text to email or fax. The opposite of customer relationship management (CRM), this Service Relationship Management technology empowers the customer to determine when and how they want to interact with service providers across their unique array of relationships, making a disconnected healthcare world painless and saving time, money and frustration for everyone. For more information, please visit http://www.allviant.com or follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/allviant.

A few years back, a new online art matchmaker site called BoundlessGallery.com popped onto the cultural scene allowing artists and art seekers a worldwide a place to connect. Now, the company has spun off an innovative online “social platform” for artists worldwide that is designed to help connect artists and their works with the ideal consumers who want them. It is called TheArtistFinder.com and it is free to join and just being launched to the market this month.

“We see the online marketplace changing from the old guard of big one-stop shops like eBay and Amazon, to a new order where the actual site you buy from matters less than finding the perfect product,” says BoundlessGallery.com/TheArtistFinder.com President Luke Terpstra. “We exist to support original artists online.”

The truth is most artists use multiple online venues to promote their work and a site like TheArtistFinder.com helps support artists’ success wherever they can find it. Instead of trying to fight against all the options artists have and use, TheArtistFinder.com helps embrace all of them and provides very useful hub where artists can send potential customers to all of their sites.

It is a simple and easy site to bridge the gap between all of an artist’s web locations and can be used to synchronize ALL of that together for free. On TheArtistFinder.com, members are allowed to list all their online stores where their works are listed, as well as their social network profiles. This allows artists to take all their links from all the art sites they may have their works posted; Boundless, Esty, Yessy, etc. AND all their social network profiles like MySpace and Facebook, and now replace them with just ONE link to a new hub: www.TheArtistFinder.com

Art lovers looking to find that perfect art piece are able to browse the sites for free as well linking to multiple art sales venues. Artists are able to list their works for sale and simply pay a percentage commission when works are sold through either the BoundlessGallery.com or TheArtistFinder.com sites.

Created by Mr. Todd Brabender, who is 41 years old and a former media person himself, is the kind of PR guy journalists hate to love — but love nevertheless. An old-fashioned press agent with newfangled powers, he blasts emails far and wide from the basement of his flagstoned mid-American home. First sucessful product campaigns … now art and artists seeking commercial exposure, on what Brabender calls a “Social Platform”.

Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today unveiled new Social Network Accelerators to help its clients effectively leverage social networks in their social commerce strategies. Bazaarvoice, which pioneered the social commerce market, launched ShoutIt! in 2007 to help marketers amplify the voices of their most influential customers on social networks. The company continues to lead the industry in defining new ways to maximize measurable ROI from social initiatives.

With the new Social Network Accelerators, Bazaarvoice ensures that companies achieve more from social commerce by using social networks like Facebook and Twitter as a distribution channel for user-generated content created on brand sites. The new capabilities also help companies strategically plug into social networks to drive participation and gain valuable customer data that can be used to optimize the user experience on eCommerce and brand sites.

“Twitter is posting 1,928% year-over-year growth. Facebook has more than 87 million unique monthly visitors and is the fourth most visited website in the world. Clearly there is a tremendous marketing opportunity in these numbers, but most efforts to date have fallen flat,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “Our new Social Network Accelerators give brands a blueprint for plugging into social networks in the right way to drive sales. It all starts with engaging users through social commerce applications such as Ratings & Reviews, Ask & Answer, and Stories – and gives brands an integrated strategy to tap into social networks for better distribution, participation, and profile information.”

“Bazaarvoice has been a consistently forward-thinking partner in terms of social media,” said Dmitri Siegel, Managing Director of Urban Outfitters. “We’re very excited to continue to work together to engage our community through social networks and get measurable results from our social commerce implementation. We are very happy to have Bazaarvoice as a key strategic partner in our integrated social strategy.”

Like all Bazaarvoice offerings, the Social Network Accelerators are designed to meet the needs of large brands with the industry’s best technology, client services, community moderation, analytics, and partner integrations.

New Capabilities:

In conjunction with the announcement of its new Social Network Accelerators, Bazaarvoice is coupling new best practices through Community Managers who are dedicated to helping clients gather more user-generated content to further sales and recommend how to do it in a measurable way. Additionally, through its Radius partner program, Bazaarvoice integrates with a broad ecosystem of more than 30 partners in order to help its clients accelerate social commerce adoption and maximize measurable ROI.

“We’re hearing directly from clients that the social networks are important, but it’s been difficult to extract any value historically,” said Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice. “Advertisers are rushing in with the same broadcast medium strategy, and it fails to work in these intimate environments. We’re connecting the reach and visibility of social networks with the relevance and structure of our Social Commerce platform. This will help our clients turn this complex new medium into measurable results.”

About Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice’s Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions have served more than 60 billion pieces of customer-generated content on more than 575 brand web sites like Best Buy, Costco, Dell, Macy’s, Overstock, P&G, Panasonic, QVC, and USAA in 36 countries. The company connects organizations to their influencers through a unique network that reaches hundreds of millions of consumers around the globe, enabling authentic customer-powered marketing. Through syndication, analytics, partnerships, and consulting, Bazaarvoice brings the voice of the customer to the center of their clients’ business strategy, proving “social” can drive measured revenue growth and cost savings for manufacturing, retail, travel, and financial services companies. Headquartered in Austin, the company has offices in London, Paris, and Singapore. For more information and access to client success stories, visit www.bazaarvoice.com, read the blog at www.bazaarblog.com, and follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bazaarvoice.

To prevent 2009 from becoming the “Year of the Phish” in Asia Pacific (as opposed to the Year of the Ox), SAS, the leader in business analytics, has launched innovative new software to fight fraud, but also to better understand customer sentiment. SAS® Social Network Analysis and SAS’ social media analysis solution help organizations uncover hidden relationships between individuals and data; detect patterns and trends; and mine text and other unstructured data.

From phishing and skimming to claims fraud and money laundering, increasingly sophisticated fraud techniques are causing huge losses and harming customer relationships. So too are negative online comments that quickly spread through Web sites, blogs, Twitter and other channels, resulting in lost business and damaged brands.

The rapid adoption of social media has given the public a platform for expression and generated huge amounts of data on customer likes and dislikes. Financial transactions also generate vast quantities of data, with potential fraud buried deep. In this era of relationships, the same business analytics that sift through data volumes to detect hidden fraud patterns can also strengthen brands by revealing insights in customer interactions.

“Today’s interconnected world generates mind-boggling data volumes,” said David Hughes, SAS’ Vice President of Asia Pacific. “In 2008, data from Web sites, emails, RFID chips, networks, YouTube videos, industrial processors, and other sources soared to 487 exabytes1 — nearly 500 billion gigabytes. With data growth predicted to accelerate, organizations need an intelligence strategy to uncover its value. This data is a treasure trove of information about how customers interact and influence one another, and about operations, finances, compliance, product quality and more. Organizations that use it intelligently will survive and thrive. Those that do not will fail.”

Mining social networks

SAS Social Network Analysis applies link analysis to fraud detection and prevention, marketing, customer segmentation and more. Released recently in the USA, it is now available in Asia Pacific. Using it within the SAS® Fraud Framework, insurers and government agencies can pinpoint suspicious individuals and transactions and stop additional fraud. Telecommunications and bank marketers can measure and predict the influence of different customer segments on acquisition, retention and up-sells. With this intelligence, companies can boost new offerings by initially targeting the highest-influence segments.

“Social network analysis software can help companies delve deeper into their customer and transactional data to discover patterns, linkages and connections,” said Avivah Litan, Vice President and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner. “Effective social network analysis is based on very strong analytics such as data mining, and sophisticated visualization technology. In making the invisible visible, social network analysis is an effective and emerging tool for fighting fraud but also for better understanding customers.”

To fight fraud, SAS Social Network Analysis helps investigators go beyond transaction and customer views to analyze all related activities and relationships within a network: shared addresses, phone numbers, employment information, account ownership and other transactional data. The software’s visualization capabilities speed access to full customer details and all related parties and networks, resulting in quicker case assessments and better dossiers. Analyzing networks graphically makes it easier to identify key opinion leaders and associated communities of interest, and uncover previously unknown relationships.

SAS Social Network Analysis includes patent-pending technology, Net-CHAID, which helps fraud investigators and brand and marketing managers examine and manipulate very large clusters for easier analysis. SAS CEO Jim Goodnight helped write code for this technology.

“Once they identify a suspicious individual, investigators need a quick and accurate way to discover that person’s networks. SAS Social Network Analysis provides this important ability,” said John Brocklebank, Vice President of SAS Solutions OnDemand and head of the SAS Advanced Analytics Laboratory. “Are they linked to other risky individuals? Is the institution exposed monetarily as a result? It’s critical to know if it’s an isolated individual or part of a criminal conspiracy.”

Analyzing social media

SAS’ social media analysis solution — coming in the fourth quarter — is powered by Sentiment Analysis Manager from SAS’ Teragram division. Through natural language processing and text mining, the software captures consumer product reviews and brand comments from mainstream sites such as Amazon and Overstock, message boards, and social media outlets like blogs and Twitter.

Sentiment Analysis Manager automatically locates and analyzes digital content in real time to determine the writer’s emotion, spot changing trends, and uncover potential product defects at an early stage. The software searches and evaluates positive, mixed and negative phrases in text, including tricky phrasing like, “this is not the best camera available.”

“Leaving online comments and posting reviews on computers, books, and many other products is becoming more and more common. So too is the use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. This trend has caught the eye of marketers who are wrestling with how to include social media as part of their overall marketing outreach,” said IDC analyst Sue Feldman. “Using text mining, natural language processing and other emerging technologies like those found in Sentiment Analysis Manager from SAS’ Teragram division, marketers can glean intelligence from these sites, gain a more complete view of their brands’ reputation, and better understand the sentiments of their customers.”

R&D Innovation

Development of SAS Social Network Analysis was led by the SAS Advanced Analytics Lab, a premier analytical consulting group formed in 2007. “Working closely with customers and SAS R&D, the Advanced Analytics Lab is one of SAS’ many centers of innovation. It leverages SAS’ core analytical expertise to apply the latest statistical and mathematical techniques to solve important customer problems,” said Brocklebank.

Today’s announcement was made at The Premier Business Leadership Series event in Singapore. Presented by SAS, The Series event brings together more than 650 public and private sector attendees from across the Asia-Pacific region and around the world to share ideas and knowledge on critical business management issues. (See event press kit at http://www.sas.com/singapore09.)

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions delivered within an integrated framework, SAS helps customers at more than 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW®.

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.

After extensive planning, strategizing, and consulting, Capsule, the leading provider of medical device connectivity, has announced that they are expanding their marketing program to include social media. From Twitter, to Capsule’s very own Facebook fan page, Capsule is ready to engage and gain new insights in order to better serve the clinical and HIT community. Capsule’s main goal is to be a trusted source in the industry and to provide useful content and meaningful commentary and feedback. They plan to do so by engaging in meaningful conversations on topics related to connectivity, patient association, clinical workflow requirements, HIT and patient safety and providing their own contributions as well.
“The marketing team is really excited and eager to engage in social media,” says Heather Hitchcock, Director of Marketing at Capsule. “We want to let the medical and IT communities know that we are here to answer questions, to share ideas and get feedback, and to be supportive of their choices involving device connectivity solutions.”

Research has shown that many healthcare vendors are not actively involved in social media yet. This is likely due to the strict regulations and policies that public companies have. As a privately held organization, Capsule has the advantage of being able to engage with the community and to respond to their suggestions more quickly. “We plan to take a more personalized approach to the community and hope to serve as a trusted source for providing information related to our technology, to the market, and to the health care industry as a whole,” adds Hitchcock.

The market for healthcare information technology now represents a $36.7 billion per year industry. It therefore seems more important than ever before to find alternative ways to gather and share information with the community. Social media could be an ideal vehicle for such sharing. In fact, research shows that the health care community agrees. According to Edison Media Research, over 250 hospitals currently use some form of social media. Facebook, for example, is a growing phenomenon, with over 175 million active users, including 80 hospitals with their own Facebook pages. Twitter™ is another trend that is rapidly growing; currently, over 160 U.S. hospitals have Twitter accounts. Additionally, 131 hospitals in the U.S. publish videos to their individual YouTube channel. So it would appear that the social media trend in healthcare is only growing and that Capsule is poised to be in the right place to take advantage of this trend.

“Capsule believes it is important to become an active participant in all that the social media community has to offer, especially since the trends in health care are rapidly changing. Technology continues to evolve; unfortunately, often technological changes don’t take into account how they are going to affect the clinicians who are asked to adopt these technologies. We therefore believe it is essential to hear from the community on what they need, hear what their opinions are related to technological advancements, and to respond appropriately to those suggestions. Social media is just one more way for us to reach the community we serve and we are excited to embark on this journey,” Hitchcock concluded. “Social media could be the wave of the future. Only time will tell for sure but it will be fun to watch.”

How to Join Capsule’s online community

Capsule is hopeful that members of the clinical and HIT community will join our efforts to share ideas, gain feedback, answer questions and simply learn from one another. To follow Capsule please visit us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. You can also visit our website at www.capsuletech.com for direct links to our social media pages and for the latest articles, blog posts, and news that we have found on the web related to device connectivity. We look forward to sharing with you.

About Capsule

For more than 12 years, Capsule has been the world’s leading, award-winning provider of solutions for medical device connectivity. The company has established market leadership through its 510(k) cleared software and medical grade hardware products, its unique expertise in device protocols and firmware, and its strong partnerships with major medical device manufacturers and HIS companies. Capsule’s solutions are proven, with over 415 installations at leading healthcare institutions worldwide, and its technology is secure, with the largest device driver library available in the industry — over 400 and growing and proven connectivity to over 30,000 devices and over 187 billion bits of clinical data transmitted.

As the leading provider in the industry, Capsule received the Frost & Sullivan Global Technology Leadership Award in 2008 and Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and Fast 500 EMEA Awards 2 years in a row. And Capsule’s recent launch of the new Capsule Neuron(TM) provides even further proof of their continued leadership and dedication to improving device connectivity around the world. This innovative platform adapts to leverage existing technologies and clinical workflows and features Enterprise Device Connectivity solutions for integration across the enterprise. For more information, please visit the company’s Web site at http://www.capsuletech.com/ or contact the Company’s U.S. Marketing & Public Relations at 978-482-2337.

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