Yearly Archives: 2010

Target Latino, a multicultural and Latino consumer specialist marketing firm, has introduced a Multicultural Social Media Monitoring tool, SMX Echo, in the United States.

SMX Echo is a Multicultural Market Intelligence Solution that scans for relevant results and automatically analyzes sentiment in English, Spanish and Portuguese and has been named “a tool of choice — especially when it comes to multicultural marketing and public relations campaigns” by the Huffington Post.

“I have evaluated many well-known social media monitoring tools available and what impressed me the most about SMX Echo was its ability to sort through results and bring in the relevant ones without my team’s constant intervention,” said Claudia Goffan, CEO of Target Latino. “One of the finest examples of these incredible results was the use of SMX Echo by the PAN, a political party in Mexico, whose acronym means bread in Spanish and could have brought in an unbelievable amount of non-relevant results with any other tool. Not with SMX Echo.”

SMX Echo has premium setup and support, a multitude of outstanding reports and features and it is highly cost effective. Monitoring social networks and online traditional media for key conversations can be overwhelming, but SMX Echo simplifies the task. The service provides a complete list of relevant results, including a permalink for each entry to the original post, a short snippet of the entry found and source, supporters and detractor’s popularity score. SMX Echo enables clients to perform full current and historical analysis of the buzz about key figures, political parties, companies, brands and competitors.

To see all these features and more, email the Target Latino team at [email protected] or visit our page on the web at http://www.targetlatino.com/onlinemonitoring

LinkedIn®, the world’s largest professional network with more than 60 million members globally, today announced the launch of the LinkedIn application for BlackBerry® smartphones at www.linkedin.com/blackberry and on BlackBerry App World™. This application complements LinkedIn’s other mobile offerings for the iPhone® and Palm Pre™ to give members more choices on how to use LinkedIn away from their offices and computers.

“With the addition of the application for BlackBerry to our broader suite of mobile applications, LinkedIn is available to more business people than any other professional network in the world,” said Adam Nash, vice president of search and platform products, LinkedIn. “This is an important step in our strategy to deliver business productivity tools to our members wherever their work takes them.”

Key Features and Functionality of LinkedIn App for BlackBerry

The new LinkedIn application features native integration with the BlackBerry – which allows professionals to use LinkedIn within their BlackBerry’s existing email, calendar and contacts applications.

Key functionality includes:

Search: Prepare for any meeting by quickly accessing LinkedIn profiles.
Messages: Enables users to manage their LinkedIn inboxes on the go.
Network Updates: Stay connected to the professional conversation.
Connections: Make new connections away from the computer.
Invitations: Send invites to new connections to build professional networks.
Reconnections: Users receive recommendations of who they may want to add to their professional networks.
“The LinkedIn application leverages the always-on capabilities of the BlackBerry platform to enable easy and timely access to information for mobile users. Deep integration between the LinkedIn app and core communications apps on the BlackBerry smartphone also allows for a very productive and intuitive user experience,” said Tyler Lessard, vice president, global alliances and developer relations, Research In Motion.

Availability of LinkedIn Application for BlackBerry

The LinkedIn application for BlackBerry smartphones is free and available immediately for members to download on their BlackBerry® Tour™, BlackBerry® CurveTM and BlackBerry® BoldTM series of smartphones. The application operates on devices running BlackBerry OS 4.3 or later. Full integration of the LinkedIn application with native BlackBerry applications requires BlackBerry OS 4.6 or later.

The application is available globally in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese languages.

For more information on the applications visit the LinkedIn blog.

About LinkedIn

LinkedIn Corporation is an Internet company focused on connecting the world’s professionals. The company is privately held and has a diversified business model with revenues driven from user subscriptions, advertising sales and software licensing. The LinkedIn web site was launched in 2003 and is the largest professional networking site in the world with more than 60 million members representing 200 countries and executives from every Fortune 500 company. The company’s worldwide corporate headquarters is based in Mountain View, Calif.

The BlackBerry and RIM families of related marks, images and symbols are the exclusive properties and trademarks of Research In Motion Limited. RIM assumes no obligations or liability and makes no representation, warranty, endorsement or guarantee in relation to any aspect of any third party products or services.

LinkedIn and the LinkedIn logos, including the “in” logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of LinkedIn Corporation. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has launched StrengthofUs.org, a new online community.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has launched StrengthofUs.org, a new online community where young adults living with mental health concerns can provide mutual support in navigating unique challenges and opportunities during the critical transition years from ages 18 to 25.

Developed by young adults, StrengthofUs.org is a user-driven social networking community where members can connect with peers, share personal stories, creativity and helpful resources by writing and responding to blog entries, engaging in discussion groups and sharing videos, photos and other news.

The site offers resources on issues important to young adults, including:

• Healthy relationships
• Family and friends
• Campus life
• Independent living
• Finances
• Employment
• Housing
• Mental health issues

“Young adulthood is an exciting challenge, but also a confusing and stressful time for anyone,” said Michael Fitzpatrick, NAMI executive director. “Life can throw things at you fast.”

“Mental illness affects everyone. StrengthofUs.org is intended not just for young adults who have a mental illness, but for anyone entering adulthood that has a friend, parent or other family member facing a mental health problem.”

“Most of all, StrengthofUs.org is an interactive, fun space where young adults can share experiences and other information to empower each other, build relationships and offer peer support.”

“StrengthofUs.org is about helping and inspiring each other,” said Alex M. White, age 23, a member of the advisory group of young adults who helped develop the Web site. “I would not be alive today if it had not been for the love, care and support I received from family, friends and loved ones.”

White was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 13. He dropped out of school and attempted suicide before gaining control of the illness.

A Montana State University graduate, White now leads a happy, productive life in New York City. He has made an award-winning short film, Une Vignette de Melancolie, about depression and suicidal ideation that has played internationally.

NAMI created the StrengthofUs community through the support of the Rodwell Dart Memorial Foundation, established by Hailey Dart, in loving memory of her son,
Roddy, who lost his life at age 22.

Special Note
On April 20, the Web site will host a “launch party” featuring a remix of the song “Goodmorning” from the upcoming Derivatives album by William Fitzsimmons, who worked helping people with mental illness before turning a passion for music into his profession. He was named an iTunes Best Singer-Songwriter for his album The Sparrow and the Crow and his music has been featured on the television show Grey’s Anatomy.

About NAMI
NAMI is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by mental illness. NAMI has over 1100 state and local affiliates that engage in research, education, support and advocacy.

www.nami.org
www.strengthofus.org
twitter.com/namicommunicate
facebook.com/officialNAMI

The Chubb Group of Insurance Companies will host an interactive, worldwide discussion on social media risk management during this year’s Risk & Insurance Management Society annual conference April 26-29. Using online collective intelligence software developed by Imaginatik, individuals and business professionals around the world, along with registrants to the Boston conference, are invited to join a dialogue that aims to identify and reduce the emerging risks businesses face as a result of Web 2.0 platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and corporate blogs.

“When musician Dave Carroll posted his video on YouTube chastising an airline he accused of breaking his guitar, the power of social media resonated loud and clear for many business people,” said Jon Bidwell, chief innovation officer of Chubb. “Businesses are tapping that power to enhance their brand awareness and deepen their engagement with customers and other constituents. This continuous dialogue also creates substantial risks, which companies are wrestling with throughout their organizations, from HR to IT to legal and marketing.”

“Businesses today are facing a complex problem: how to leverage the benefits of social media without jeopardizing established rules and regulations,” said Mark Turrell, CEO of Imaginatik. “With today’s Web tools already affecting the way in which businesses interact with customers, employees and partners, there’s no better time than now for an event aimed at addressing the potential risks and rewards in social media engagement.”

Participants will be able to share and collaborate on ideas about social media risks, their impact on business and risk mitigation strategies via personal computers, BlackBerrys, iPhones and other smartphones. They will be joined by Chubb underwriting, loss control and claims staff with knowledge of social media risks, as well as special guest thought leaders from the legal, marketing, information technology, security and other fields.

Although the event will begin on April 26, risk managers and other business people are encouraged to register online now at https://chubbsocialmedia.imaginatik.com. The first 500 people to register will receive a free download of “Perfect Blue,” Dave Carroll’s new album. Chubb also will award prizes to participants who submit the most ideas and whose ideas generate the greatest amount of collaboration. The prizes include cash donations to charities, ranging from $500 to $2,000, in the names of the top three scoring participants.

“We’ve had a great deal of success using social networking technology to help develop ideas and drive innovation within our own company and with our agents and brokers,” said Bidwell. “With this event, we hope to engage business leaders and risk managers in a bigger discussion that can help us all navigate the rapidly-evolving, exciting global environment created by social media.”

To view our social media release visit http://bit.ly/b8XvyL.

About Chubb

The member insurers of the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies (NYSE: CB) form a multi-billion dollar organization providing property and casualty insurance for personal and commercial customers worldwide through 8,500 independent agents and brokers. Chubb’s global network includes branches and affiliates in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Australia. More information on Chubb is available at www.chubb.com.

About Imaginatik

Imaginatik provides innovation management and collective intelligence solutions. The best companies in the world use Imaginatik’s Idea Central software platform to identify and develop the important ideas and strategies that will drive the future of their businesses. For more than 10 years, Imaginatik has helped customers, including CSC, Pfizer, Boeing, Chubb and Cargill, achieve outstanding results with the know-how of its experienced consulting team and highly configurable Web-based software.

Imaginatik is a public company traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: IMTK.L) and a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer with offices in Boston and London. Imaginatik is committed to ongoing research into the nature of human networks, innovation and collective intelligence. The company collaborates with several academic institutions, including the IXL Center at Hult International Business School. For more information on Imaginatik, visit www.imaginatik.com.

Humanity Calls invites nonprofits to participate in the eBay Earth Day Fundraising Tournament at www.humanitycalls.org. The tournament’s cash pool has been seeded with $50,000 generously donated by eBay and will grow significantly during the tournament as individual donations magnify the amount available to all winning nonprofits. At the end of the tournament, the top voted nonprofits will share proportionally in the tournament cash pool.

The eBay Earth Day Tournament is open to all nonprofits focused on the environment, including issues such as climate change, conservation, recycling, renewable energy, pollution and more. The tournament will start on April 22 and end on June 22, 2010. Future Humanity Calls fundraising tournaments will be focused on global challenges such as health, education, poverty and human rights. There is no cost for nonprofits to join Humanity Calls.

“Humanity Calls unlocks the power of social media to bring together an online global community and businesses that share a commitment to making a difference,” said Ron Bouganim, Director, Humanity Calls. “We encourage all nonprofits to tap into a vast new pool of donors and advocates by participating in our tournaments.”

How the Tournament Works

Nonprofits sign up at Humanity Calls to participate in the tournament.

Once the tournament begins, nonprofits reach out to their supporters asking for their vote. Humanity Calls provides nonprofits with tools to help, including email copy, embeddable widgets, Twitter copy, etc.

Individuals, responding to nonprofits’ request for their vote, arrive at Humanity Calls and simply login to cast their first free vote. They can then earn additional votes by donating and referring friends via Twitter and Facebook.

Donating to the tournament cash pool earns individuals the most number of votes, which they can in turn “spend” on the most deserving nonprofits. As such, the total cash pool available to all nonprofit winners exponentially grows!

Even nonprofits that don’t end up in the top winners’ list will benefit directly by Humanity Calls providing incentives for direct donations to nonprofits as another important way for individuals to earn votes.

At the end of the tournament, the top voted nonprofits share in the tournament cash pool.

Supporting Humanity Calls as part of a corporate philanthropic program enables companies to engage and empower a global community that includes customers, employees and shareholders. For more information about Humanity Calls or information on becoming a corporate sponsor, visit www.humanitycalls.org.

About Humanity Calls:

Humanity Calls is the world’s first fundraising tournament website designed to bring together nonprofits, companies, and individuals focused on addressing global challenges such as the environment, health, education, poverty and human rights. Crowd sourcing, social networking tools and game mechanics all drive fundraising momentum to increase the ultimate amount awarded to multiple nonprofits over the course of each Humanity Calls tournament. 100% of all donations collected by Humanity Calls during a tournament (less third party payment processing fees) are passed along to the intended nonprofits. Humanity Calls is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that supports itself through a combination of direct individual donations and corporate sponsorship fees. Humanity Calls is the collective effort of a volunteer team that spans the globe. It was brought to life by their desire to make a positive impact on the world by creating a new way to engage many in making a difference.

nDreams announced the launch of ‘Spirit of Adventure’, the first ever soap opera on Facebook. Spirit of Adventure features a rich, twisting story that will be revealed week-by-week, written by Christian Wheeler (writer of Bramwell, a period drama for ITV, and PlayStation Home’s cult cross-media game, Xi). It combines a compelling tale and strong characters with a variety of puzzles to create a unique narrative-driven Facebook experience.

“This is the first time social storytelling in this form has been delivered on Facebook,” said Patrick O’Luanaigh, CEO of nDreams. “It allows people to actively follow and interact with a fascinating story as a community, as opposed to passively watching on television. I’m extremely excited about the launch of Spirit of Adventure, which is one of the first Facebook games/apps that’s narrative-lead.”

Spirit of Adventure follows the extraordinary tale of Helen Hobbes, a housewife who lives a happy life until she makes a discovery that leads her to abandon everything; her family, her home and her loving husband to go on a quest for a mysterious man who she doesn’t even know yet.

“One of the things I love about Spirit of Adventure is that we’ve taken the traditional concept of story-telling and said, ‘Let’s see what we can do if…’ So it’s not just text – there are drawings, photos, letters that you can open and read; you can follow and help Helen via Twitter…” said Christian Wheeler, writer. “What we are talking about is interactive and participatory storytelling, even the puzzles are a part of the story, Helen might meet a waitress in a café and we’ll suddenly have a puzzle based on the waitress’s life, a tiny vignette into somebody else’s life. This is storytelling for the Facebook generation.”

Spirit of Adventure also opens up a host of other content such as puzzles, with new challenges linked into the story every week and a fan page with an active discussion forum where players can chat about what is going on and interact with the development team. There are also 70 unique keepsakes that players collect by completing puzzles, interacting with the game, and sharing with each other on Facebook. Users can join at any time and there are lots of surprises that will be revealed.

A new episode will be released every Thursday. Spirit of Adventure is free to experience, and you can play it now by searching for ‘Spirit of Adventure’ on Facebook or going to apps.facebook.com/spiritofadventure.

To see writer Christian Wheeler talk about the project in more depth, visit ‘Unlimited’ now (search for ‘Unlimited’ on Facebook) or go to the nDreamers YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/ndreamers.

More information on the game can be found at http://www.ndreams.com/, and you can follow the development of this and other unique projects on Twitter by following @patrickol

Mobile social network provider Gypsii announced in March 2010 that is would launch a new application that integrates location and social networking technology with Twitter.
Known as Tweetsii, the app provides users with the ability to geo-tag tweets, add pictures and video to tweets and search tweets based on location. Tweetsii will also integrate any updates posted by Gypsii users as well as other mobile social networks such as Gowalla and FourSquare.

Tweetsii will be firstly rolled out to iPhone users, followed by Android and BlackBerry.

Twitter announced Monday that the company plans to introduce a new service called “@anywhere.” The new service will allow Twitter users to connect to their own Twitter accounts through Websites such as The New York Times and eBay, “Users will be about to follow their favorite columnist or writer directly from the publishers’ site. Facebook Connect already allows Facebook users to sign into third party website.

Twitter says “rather than implementing APIs, site owners need only to drop in a few lines of javascript” to implement the new @anywhere service.

Initial participating sites will include Amazon, AdAge, Bing, Citysearch, Digg, eBay, The Huffington Post, Meebo, MSNBC.com, The New York Times, Salesforce.com, Yahoo!, and YouTube

The March 2010 rankings of the best social media marketing strategies services in the United Kingdom were released by the independent authority on search vendors, uk.topseos.com. An experienced team of evaluators reviewed the thousands of applications received in order to find the best social media professional. Online social networks have been an excellent place for people to connect with one another. Since the development of these sites, businesses have been searching how to capitalize on them. The companies on this list specialize at creating quality social marketing campaigns while maintaining a consistent message with the client’s website.

The March 2010 rankings of the best social media marketing strategies services in the United Kingdom were released by the independent authority on search vendors, uk.topseos.com. An experienced team of evaluators reviewed the thousands of applications received in order to find the best social media professional.

Online social networks have been an excellent place for people to connect with one another. Since the development of these sites, businesses have been searching how to capitalize on them. The companies on this list specialize at creating quality social marketing campaigns while maintaining a consistent message with the client’s website.

The UK’s best social media optimization companies for March 2010 are:

1. Click Trick Media Ltd
2. Dynamix Factory
3. Site Visibility Ltd
4. Atlas SEO UK
5. Rankability
6. Atelier Studios
7. Social SEO
8. Best SEO Guru
9. SwamiSEO
10. SEO Junkies

The evaluation team with uk.topseos.com analyzes the work that has been completed by each vendor in order to find the best social media optimization firm. They also contact at least three clients of each firm in order to get their perspective of working with the vendor. They ask questions such as, “What analysis went into your website before the decision to implement social media optimization (SMO) techniques to your website was determined?”, “How were your SMO tactics chosen? “, and ” What has been the impact to your conversion rates from the implementation of SMO techniques? ”

Want your agency to be considered for rankings with uk.topseos.com? Apply at:

http://uk.topseos.com/rankings/search-engine-marketing-agencies/apply-for-ranking

To view the latest rankings of the best social media optimization firms visit:

http://uk.topseos.com/rankings-of-best-social-media-optimization-companies

FinRoad, the international business and social network reserved for Financial Markets professionals, today announced that it is now open for direct registration.

After a successful initial period of registration by invitation only, FinRoad has now opened its platform fully so that Financial Markets professional can register themselves directly and free of charge via: http://www.finroad.com.

Arnould Moyne, CEO of FinRoad, said ‘This is a major step in FinRoad’s business development. The positive feedback that we receive every day from our 15,000 early- adopters is very encouraging. We have now decided to accelerate FinRoad’s growth by opening the platform to the whole Financial Markets community, while still maintaining our VIP registration service. Our team will continue to complete online profiles on behalf of members without any effort on the members’ part.”

FinRoad – The Company

FinRoad was founded in 2009 to meet the requirements of Financial Markets Professionals for

– a private and vertical sector-based networking approach
– intelligent tools to identify real business opportunities as
quickly and accurately as possible
– higher collaborative-added-value services specific to their
sectors
– specific marketing tools for financial services companies.

FinRoad for Financial Markets professionals

FinRoad is a fast-growing networking platform for Financial Markets professionals, with free and exclusive smart matching tools to detect and develop business, career and networking opportunities based on a sophisticated classification of financial markets by sub-sectors, functions and asset class expertise.

In order to deliver the most relevant content and suggest the most useful connections, FinRoad uses a sophisticated matching engine based on a unique matrix created by its experienced management and their deep understanding of the industry and the goals and challenges of each line of work.

Opened on an invitation-only basis in 2009, FinRoad quickly became a leading Online Community for professionals in Financial Markets, with members in more than 100 countries across the sector including trading, investment banking, asset management, hedge funds, brokerage, etc.

FinRoad for Financial Markets companies

FinRoad (http://www.finroad.com) also offers companies from the industry (brokers, asset management firms, exchanges, data/software vendors, etc) highly targeted marketing tools based on its new B2B marketing and social media platform that helps these organisations to:

– know their customer better and manage customer loyalty in the
long term through dedicated services for client communities
– develop their business and find new clients in the Financial
Markets sector through the power of very targeted marketing activities
using social media.