Guy Kawasaki gave a rare, totally live presentation of his personal techniques on using social networking for business marketing. The presentation was made to a “standing room only” crowd of over 600 attendees during the June meeting of the San Diego Venture Capital Group.

The world famous author of “The Art of the Start” and “How to Drive Your Competition Crazy” gave a type of presentation that he admitted he rarely did… a totally live demo of his carefully honed “twitter techniques” and other social networking practices. The humorous, thought provoking, and detail laden overview of bleeding edge marketing techniques had the crowd both laughing out loud, and taking notes at a furious pace.

The presentation was professionally recorded and is now available on this page, and for a limited time at the Youreeeka Content Network – http://www.youreeeka.com/content-network – for only $19.99. You can access a preview of the video before purchasing to get a feel for the quality of the production and the timeliness of the presentation. Youreeeka is a pay-per-view online distribution platform available to anyone who has video content they want to sell via the Internet.

The presentation covered all the major players in social networking including: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Jigsaw, Spokeo, and more. Guy covered Tweeting, Re-Tweeting, and advanced techniques such as using social network mash-ups to get marketing messages out to multiple outlets as well as targeted audience groups.

Upon learning that the presentation was going to be taped for worldwide distribution, the gregarious, and generous, Mr. Kawasaki took advantage of the built in affiliate capabilities of the Patent Pending Youreeeka Media Player. He immediately offered to donate half of his revenue to the San Diego Venture Group – http://www.sdvg.org – whose mission is to provide an informal atmosphere to foster new ideas on how to form, fund, and build new ventures.

Rachel Barley, the executive director of the SDVG, was most appreciative of the generous gesture, stating simply, “Our Not-For-Profit thanks you, Guy!”

This presentation offers a truly unique opportunity for cutting edge computer aficionados. They get the opportunity to learn vital marketing skills from world-renowned Guy Kawasaki. And they get to access that information from a truly unique, cutting edge online content delivery system, the Youreeeka Network.

For more information on the Guy Kawasaki video, or on the Youreeeka content delivery system, visit http://www.youreeeka.com

Social networks are the perfect environment for keeping families connected, if done right, and FamilyLink.com, Inc. seems to be doing just that. The Company announced today We’re Related, their popular application for Facebook users, has amassed more than 50 million users. The application, currently ranked as the fourth most popular application on Facebook, has remained in the top 10 applications for more than a year (based on number of active users).

This announcement comes at a time when Facebook is seeing a record number of new members joining from the 35+ crowd. Facebook reported earlier this month that the number of US Facebook users over 35 grew significantly in the last 30 days, up by nearly 1.5 million in each of the 35-44, 45-54, and 55-65 categories. In fact, the number of US Facebook users 45-54 has more than tripled in the last six months with parents and grandparents logging on in record numbers. These statistics coincide with growth patterns FamilyLink has experienced with the We’re Related application growing from 15 million users to 50 million users in the last six months.

According to Quantcast, a leading Internet audience tracking service that ranks websites based on the number of unique people who visit each domain, the FamilyLink.com network of web properties attracted more than 15 million unique people in the U.S. and more than 24 million worldwide in the past 30 days, equivalent to one of the 50 most popular online destinations in the U.S.

“We had expected to reach the 50 million mark by the end of the year. Reaching that goal in 6 months is very exciting,” said Jason McGowan, Chief Social Officer for FamilyLink.com, Inc. “We are excited about the growing user base and especially about the activity of the users. As the number of We’re Related users grows, so does the number of connections people are making to their families, now surpassing 300 million.”

Connecting Families

The ease of keeping in touch with family is driving the growth of social networking, and people of all ages find it fun and rewarding to make family connections on Facebook. The We’re Related application makes it easy for Facebook users to identify family members within their social network. With features like photo sharing along with ability to communicate, organize communication, and keep everything private to a desired list of family members, We’re Related makes perfect sense for keeping family together and learning about loved ones.

A survey conducted by FamilyLink in June 2009 revealed that more than 40% of We’re Related users said access to the We’re Related application was important in their decision to join Facebook because it provides the ability to communicate directly with family members through a private news feed.

“Facebook has always been a personal tool for managing relationships,” said McGowan. “We’re Related fits that context perfectly. We are looking forward to future growth, continual innovation, and offering new functionality to our loyal users.”

About FamilyLink.com, Inc.

The leader in social networking for families, FamilyLink has developed a suite of web properties, applications and tools to connect families with each other and their heritage. The FamilyLink network of web properties includes FamilyLink.com, GenealogyWise.com, WorldHistory.com, and WorldVitalRecords.com. FamilyLink is the developer of the fourth most popular networking application on Facebook, We’re Related, with a user base of more than 50 million. FamilyLink.com, Inc. also operates the AdMazing ad network that helps high traffic social applications and sites related to family history and heritage monetize their audiences.

w2meet.com offers a new approach to business social networking sites. Instead of being a mere space where users can convene and interact, the vision of the team behind it is to pair users based on key criteria. It can be said then, that it brings a more dynamic twist to the whole process as w2meet.com actively pushes members together based on common business interests rather than just leaving members to find each other. It also helps members who are active promote their businesses, and perform further activities to make themselves known.

Registration is quick, simple and free. Once registered, members can specify the products/services that they offer and other business areas they are interested in. This effortless operation will ensure that the content on the site is tailored to their specific interests. Discerning business operators don’t want to be bombarded with content that is not relevant to them, and w2meet.com eliminates this filtering step to ensure that members get content that is relevant and interesting to them. The net result of which is that members can focus their time on the actual building of bridges, finding leads and (hopefully) doing more business.

All w2meet.com members have access to their own blog as standard, as well as access to a comprehensive list of discussion forums. Messaging between members is also available to all members, something which is often restricted for premium members. In the interests of promoting the network and all of its members the vision behind the site is that communication between members and the ability to generate content on the site should be as accessible as possible.

Credits are rewarded to members for bringing others to the network and for generating content within the network. These credits can be redeemed against advertising on w2meet.com giving smaller companies and entrepreneurs an opportunity to gain further exposure simply for networking! This dynamic approach sets w2meet.com apart from other business networking sites by taking a more communal approach to helping each other in business. For those companies who wish to accelerate their exposure, additional credits can be purchased at very competitive rates, making w2meet.com more cost effective than other PPM advertising options.

It is also possible to exchange credits for premium membership to w2meet.com. Premium members will have access to more advanced tools and statistics to help them further in their search for new business prospects, for example, the ability to share their blog entries with the most popular social media sites. More details can be found at www.w2meet.com.

MaYoMo (Map Your Moments, www.mayomo.com), a powerful new social network for mobile citizen journalists and the most inspired alternative source for global, multimedia news content, today announced it has launched a new, improved beta version of its site. Unlike other sources of world news, MaYoMo delivers independent, global news content with Web 2.0 convenience and flexibility. It is designed for both journalists and independent-minded, socially and globally aware readers around the world who need a new, socially-connected, real-time platform for global news reporting — and conversation about that news.
“It’s a new concept,” said Hristo Alexiev, CEO and cofounder of MaYoMo, “a video-centric ‘social news network’ for journalists and their readers, empowering a new era of Internet news creation and distribution. A key difference with our site is that we’ll be providing an income source and career path for our contributors — both young, aspiring journalists and experienced, professional, independent journalists and bloggers.”
Access to all content on the MaYoMo web site is free. Anyone can quickly create an account and start contributing content and uploading photos, video, and other media assets — from a variety of devices, including video-enabled phones. Contributors who have met certain criteria can create their own “channels” and generate income from them. When a contributor has a channel, he or she will have options to help create better and more viewed content.
“MaYoMo allows contributors to develop networks of colleagues and audiences for collaboration and sharing,” continued Alexiev. “We really believe it will help erase borders between countries for professional and aspiring or student journalists alike.”
Contributors to the MaYoMo site in its “alpha” form (it was first available in Q4 2008) have already posted more than 50,000 news entries from 214 countries. “We’re confident MaYoMo will have unprecedented geographic coverage,” said Alexiev. “And we provide the familiarity and comfort of local language and customs.” The MaYoMo platform is available in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, and Dutch.
“Once fully operational, MaYoMo’s shared-revenue advertising model will reward members with 70% of associated advertising revenue, creating an entrepreneurial business opportunity for professional and student journalists around the world,” said Pavel Ezekiev, Managing Partner, New Europe Venture Equity (NEVEQ) and a board member of MaYoMo.
About MaYoMo
MaYoMo is a video-centric “social news network” empowering a new era of Internet news creation and distribution. With an ever-expanding corps of mobile citizen journalists reporting from every corner of the globe, MaYoMo is shaping the evolution of journalism and delivering the world’s most inspired multimedia news content. Now, thanks to MaYoMo’s highly unique and entrepreneurial “news channel approach,” professional and student journalists can create and manage their own custom news channels, unleashing new career and income opportunities via the company’s shared advertising revenue model. To experience the power of news like never before, and participate in the future of journalism and news content distribution, please visit www.mayomo.com.

ClickZ Events, along with YouTube and Google, will sponsor a forum entitled Social Media and Video Strategies on August 11 at the San Jose Marriott, to run concurrently with the Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009 conference.

This ClickZ forum consists of six sessions and an opening keynote speech. It will focus on a series of individual online marketing successes and failures as experienced by a number of companies, celebrities, and politicians, allowing attendees to learn from the decisions and mistakes showcased in each session.

The opening keynote will be given by Clay Shirky, a New Media expert, adjunct professor at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, and author of the critically acclaimed book “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.” Shirky has been referred to as one of the most knowledgeable and respected speakers in the industry.

“I’m thrilled to be speaking at the Social Media and Video Strategies forum,” said Clay Shirky in a recent interview. “This forum is a great idea on the part of ClickZ and the event organizers because we’re going to address some key issues and look at interesting case studies that attendees might not find in the main SES sessions.”

The Social Media and Video Strategies forum will take place alongside the SES San Jose conference, which runs from August 10-14, 2009. Sessions include:

Marketing in a Social Media World introduces the forum by asking the questions that will be addressed over the course of the day.

Going Social: Effective Advertising via Social Networks discusses the latest trends and tricks for engaging potential customers in the world of social media.

In the Now: Conversational & Real Time Marketing explains how the publishing model has been revolutionized by the advent of microblogging tools like Twitter, and how marketers can take advantage of this revolution.

What Works: Online Video Advertising Made Easy with Google & YouTube introduces three platforms for incorporating sight, sound, and motion into marketing campaigns, along with real-life case studies that drove results.

What Works: Best Practices / Case Studies for Online Video lets attendees hear from three marketers who have used video marketing to achieve great success across platforms and how to incorporate these tips into marketing campaigns.

How Coldwell Banker Has Leveraged Social Media & Video to Connect with their Customers: a Chat with Michael Fischer provides a forum for attendees to hear from Michael Fischer, Coldwell Banker’s senior Vice President of Marketing, who is known for his multi-industry marketing expertise.

Tickets to ClickZ’s Social Media and Video Strategies forum can be purchased at a discount through August 7 and include admission to the SES San Jose keynote presentations and sponsored sessions, as well as entrance to the Expo Hall.

Vocus, Inc. (NASDAQ: VOCS) the market leader in online software for corporate communications, today announced it will host a free Webinar on “Monitoring the Social Media Conversation: From Twitter to Facebook.” The event will feature Jenni Lloyd, Social Media Strategist at the social media agency Nixon McInnes and Neil Stinchcombe, Managing Director, Eskenzi PR.

The one-hour Webinar, aimed at a European audience, will be held on Tuesday, 21 July, 2009 beginning at 2:00 p.m. BST and the featured speakers will discuss strategies for effective social media monitoring. Specifically they will cover the following topics:

Monitoring your online reputation – and that of your competitors
How to positively impact your company’s online reputation
Uncovering potential sales opportunities

“Social media and the conversations that take place within social media are dynamic and ever changing,” said David Parker, Commercial Director at Vocus. “Whether you are an expert in social media or just beginning to learn about it — this Webinar will offer you some of the best tips for effectively monitoring online conversations in order to protect or advance your brand’s reputation.”
In addition to the Webinar, Vocus also offers a whitepaper on the same topic that is available for a free download by clicking here. Additional information and registration information for this Webinar can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/lsc24j

About Vocus, Inc.
VOCUS, Vocus, Inc. (NASDAQ: VOCS) is a leading provider of on-demand software for public relations management, helping organisations of all sizes fundamentally change the way they communicate with the media and the public, optimise their public relations efforts and measure their impact. The web-based software addresses the critical functions of public relations including media relations, news distribution and news monitoring, and provides the critical capability to monitor and analyse social media conversations from virtually any source and track results compared to key competitors. Vocus is used by more than 3,500 organisations worldwide and is available in seven languages. Vocus is based in London, UK with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.vocus.co.uk

A new study released today from Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group confirms that deep engagement with consumers through social media channels correlates to better financial performance. The ENGAGEMENTdb study (www.engagementdb.com) showed significant positive financial results for the companies who measured as having the greatest breadth and depth of social media engagement. These “Social Media Mavens” on average grew company revenues by 18 percent over the last 12 months, while the least engaged companies saw revenues sink 6 percent on average over the same time period.

The ENGAGEMENTdb study reviewed more than 10 discrete social media channels, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, wikis, and discussion forums for each of the 100 most valuable brands as identified by the 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands ranking. Activity in each channel was ranked for depth of interaction on measures that corresponded to that specific channel. Scores for overall brand engagement ranged from a high of 127 to a low of 1. The top 10 ENGAGEMENTdb brands with their scores are:

Starbucks (127)
Dell (123)
eBay (115)
Google (105)
Microsoft (103)
Thomson Reuters (101)
Nike (100)
Amazon (88)
SAP (86)
Tie – Yahoo!/Intel (85)
Qualities of Success

Companies that scored well in the study generally have dedicated teams, however small, active in the social media channels they utilize. The study found that the most successful teams evangelize social media across the entire organization to pull in a broad range of stakeholders. These companies view social media as an indispensable tool to help them achieve results, and their approach is conversational. This mode of operation differs from the approach of traditional communications and early corporate blog experimentation, which emphasizes messaging and talking points.

“This is the first study of this depth on the top global brands and we think the results provide a good guide for corporations and brand marketers in every industry,” said Charlene Li, Founder, Altimeter Group. “The success stories we have uncovered provide a blueprint for companies making decisions about how to best apply their marketing and consumer relations resources.”

“The ENGAGEMENTdb study goes a long way towards validating the importance of social media for business,” said Ben Elowitz, CEO of Wetpaint. “The closer any company is to its customers, the better, and it’s hard to argue with the ability for social media to create such proximity. In this day and age, companies should feel much more comfortable investing in social media — the correlation to results is so clear.”

Four Quadrants of Engagement

While each company in the study received a quantitative score, the ENGAGEMENTdb study revealed that companies fell into four specific categories in terms of their breadth and depth of investment in social media channels — Mavens, Butterflies, Selectives, and Wallflowers.

Mavens — brands that have made social media a core part of their go-to-market strategies and are very active in many channels; usually driven by dedicated teams assisted by company-wide awareness and participation.
Butterflies — brands that recognize the need to be in many channels but have only met with real success in a subset of their activities; these companies are usually spread a bit too thin.
Selectives — brands that focus on just a few channels and excel in those; these efforts are usually initiated by an internal evangelist.
Wallflowers — brands present in only a few channels and very lightly in those; these brands are sitting on the sidelines and are wary of the risks. They are still trying to figure out the best next steps and investments in social media.
Rank Your Company Against the ENGAGEMENTdb Top 100

Launching today, the ENGAGEMENTdb website (www.engagementdb.com) makes it possible for companies and brand managers to quickly find out how their social media efforts rank as compared to those of the world’s most valuable brands. After taking a quick survey, respondents will receive an email evaluation of their social media efforts compared to the companies in the ENGAGEMENTdb report. Additionally, companies can detail their social media efforts for inclusion in the ENGAGEMENTdb through the website. This data will be used in future research and study of the benefits of social media.

The Wetpaint/Altimeter ENGAGEMENTdb Report can be found at www.ENGAGEMENTdb.com

About Wetpaint

Wetpaint provides the leading platform for fans and brands to easily create and participate in online communities around the topics they care about most. Wetpaint offers businesses a turnkey solution for creating and fostering passionate communities that drive traffic and increase loyalty. Consumers flock to http://www.wetpaint.com to create sites around topics they love. For more company information, visit http://press.wetpaint.com

About Altimeter Group

Altimeter Group provides advice and consulting on digital strategies, with a focus on how organizations can leverage social and emerging technologies to achieve results. It is led by Charlene Li, the co-author of the best selling book, “Groundswell”. For more information, please visit http://www.altimetergroup.com.

GeoSentric Oyj (NASDAQ OMX: GEO1V), developers of the award-winning GyPSii mobile social networking application (www.gypsii.com), today announced its partnership with China Unicom’s Shanghai Unicom, to become the premier mobile social network solution for its new consumer 3G SNS Service, UniSpace.

From today, more than 5 million Shanghai Unicom customers are able to download the GyPSii client directly on to their mobile device from the UniSpace website, http://space.uni-play.net. This roll out will expand to 130 + million subscribers in China. As part of the GyPSii community, UniSpace members can immediately start to create “geotagged” content for sharing in “real-time” with friends, family and the growing global community of GyPSii members.

The content that UniSpace members create becomes true Internet-searchable destinations and experiences, available for all GyPSii friends and communities across the globe to immediately find, share and comment on.

“GyPSii’s ability to deliver an all-in-one, location-aware mobile social networking experience is proving extremely popular in China, with people using the application to create and share content, as well as connect with each other across a range of networks and devices,” said Mr. Lu Dongliang, Deputy General Manager of Shanghai Unicom. “With its fast-growing community and unique, intuitive user experience, GyPSii was the natural choice as a mobile social networking partner. We expect the new UniSpace offering to play an important role in driving the success of our 3G Value Added Service.”

GyPSii uses various handset location technologies – including GPS, A-GPS and cell ID – to allow Shanghai Unicom customers to automatically tag their location with photos, video, status updates and other information, for sharing their experiences in real-time.
GyPSii is available for UniSpace customers to use on a wide range of mobile devices, including Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile phones. Further mobile platforms will follow shortly.

“After GyPSii and Shanghai Unicom’s success working together during the Olympics in 2008, we are delighted to deepen this important relationship and open up GyPSii to the wider community of Unicom’s millions of subscribers,” said Dan Harple, Executive Chairman of GyPSii. “Our goal is to have GyPSii on the world’s most popular networks and devices, for mobile consumers worldwide to use and enjoy in all the world’s most popular regions. Shanghai Unicom is an important and valued partner. Their 3G leadership in China, coupled with GyPSii’s seamless “create, share, connect” model, provides a valuable new mode of communicating for Shanghai Unicom users. Our partnership truly enables Shanghai Unicom customers to create a new “people powered index” using GyPSii on their powerful 3G network. We look forward to welcoming UniSpace customers as new GyPSii users, who will use the application to connect and share their mobile lives with others. This, in turn, will help Shanghai Unicom to acquire new 3G customers, retain existing subscribers and importantly boost revenues.”

The GyPSii application is already available worldwide on a wide range of devices, including the Apple iPhone, Samsung, Nokia, LG and BlackBerry Smartphones. New users can download the application directly at www.gypsii.com/m and http://www.gypsii.com.cn/m

Cooliris, Inc. (www.cooliris.com) today announced the Cooliris Publisher Network, a brand new way of online advertising that launched in conjunction with the Infiniti G Convertible ad campaign. The campaign is being run across multiple sites including Yahoo! News, Golf.com, the New York Magazine, and Style.com.

Teaming up with OMD, media giant and agency of record for Infiniti, Cooliris has created an innovative solution that allows publishers to present rich media advertising on a streaming, infinite 3D Wall of content. Compared to traditional HTML interfaces, the Cooliris solution boasts a 4-fold increase in content selection and up to 12.5 times increase in overall content consumption.

“The partnership between Infiniti and Cooliris has helped bring about a new media paradigm, in which creative and media teams partner with publisher and technology teams to bring about a new, better user experience for the digital space using the most advanced display technology currently available,” said Ben Poore, Vice President, Infiniti. “We are excited that this collaboration creates targeted and engaging solutions for delivering Infiniti’s brand messaging to consumers.”

The Publisher Network leverages the Cooliris Embed Wall, an embeddable Adobe Flash-based version the popular Cooliris browser plugin that provides a faster way to browse photos and videos by displaying content on an infinitely scrollable 3D Wall. Premium publishers can now post the Cooliris experience directly into their websites, drive more views and engagement of their content, while also gaining supplemental revenue opportunities with well-known brands.

OMD accelerates the adoption of this cutting-edge technology among key publishers with its Infiniti advertising campaign, where their ads are displayed unobtrusively across a block of up to nine stunning image tiles within the Cooliris 3D Wall embedded across multiple publisher sites and the Cooliris browser application.

Publishers such as the Wall Street Journal website have used the Embed Wall to showcase large galleries of photos. The Regis & Kelly website has also leveraged this technology to run contests and programs. Now, through participation in the Cooliris Publisher Network, publishers are combining the interactivity of a 3D Wall of their media content with brand advertising.

Over 8000 websites now embed the Cooliris 3D Wall http://developer.cooliris.com). Only those brands and agencies participating in the Cooliris Publisher Network are able to place ads in the Embed Wall.

Cooliris, Inc. (www.cooliris.com) advances visual navigation for Web on desktop and mobile platforms. The company’s flagship product is the Cooliris 3D Wall, which allows for faster and more intuitive navigation across photos, videos, and media. Cooliris is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

PopSoc is the creation of Alan Sherin, a digital marketer since 1995 who has witnessed the online explosion of social networks and realized there may be an audience out there who wants to take advantage of getting the exposure out in the social web, but either were leery, did not understand how to do it, or did not have the time to join and manage an online profile, yet still wanted to reach the millions of eyeballs participating in these networks daily.

Enter PopSoc Social Media Classified Ads. “We realized that there was an untapped need to utilize the social networks by building the first Social Media Classified Ads platform. By design, these ads would not be listed on the Craigslists, and free classified ad sites, but to seed the web with ads designed as posts on blogs, and status updates that all lead back to the posters ad on PopSoc.” said Alan Sherin, PopSoc CEO and Principle.

But what does PopSoc mean? Sherin says “It is a hybrid word derived from two words “popular” and “social” it was important to convey what it is we do in a single word.”

Anyone familiar with Social Media and Social Networks knows that while extremely powerful, it may take several hours to join, log-in, fill out a user profile and update your social media memberships. Who has that kind of time? Well apparently PopSoc.com does.

While in beta, PopSoc is currently free. In the future as the service grows to include more than 100 social networks, a fee structure will be devised for premium services. PopSoc says that they aubmit each listing to all the major search engines and within seconds of the post it can be found there. PopSoc also syndicates the listings via RSS feed and ofcourse Twitter, Facebook, and the usual suspects.

To join the public beta, visit http://popsoc.com and create your free account.

For more information on PopSoc Social Media Classified Ads, please visit http://popsoc.com.

About PopSoc
Launched in July 2009, PopSoc POPSOC.com is the first viral social media classified advertising site. The company was started by Alan Sherin in an effort to make social media marketing available to the masses without the hassle of managing multiple online profiles. The companies expertise in digital marketing spans 15 years and includes the creation of 100s of websites, digital marketing services, and social media marketing consultations.

WIN plc, a leading provider of interactive mobile entertainment and information services, today announced that its Enterprise Platform is the first to offer text message to ‘Tweet’ conversion.

Organisations using the WIN platform will now be able to offer customers the choice of texting a ‘Tweet’. This ‘Tweet’ which will be automatically posted to one or more Twitter feeds in addition to other mediums of choice. The Twitter feed will therefore provide a point of interaction for all customers presenting the organisation with a single customer view.

The service has been used extremely successfully at a number of recent mashup* events where a ‘video wall’ displays questions and observations received directly from the audience (both inside the room and those following on the web) live to the debate and discussion. Questions posed by event attendees and the online audience, by text are sent to a specific number which converts the text to a ‘Tweet’ which is then posted to the event Twitter feed and the video wall. Twitter users can post to the same video wall using a designated # tag.

Announcing the service, WIN CEO Graham Rivers said: “Twitter is a global phenomenon. With an estimated 10 million users world wide it is the fastest growing social network and one of the best ways for organisations to interact with specific audiences. The service, which integrates seamlessly with existing systems, provides a new and exciting channel for organisations to interact with its customers.”

Rivers continues: “This latest addition to our Enterprise Platform is part of our ongoing efforts to help organisations to effortlessly communicate and ultimately interact with customers across a variety of different mediums.”

Tony Fish Co-founder of mashup* says “WIN have been a long term supporter of mashup* with the provision of their enterprise SMS service. Incorporating Twitter is a fantastic addition to the overall WIN offering for enterprise customers.

Businesses now have a uniquely powerful marketing platform available to them thanks to today’s announcement that Alterian (LSE: ALN) a leading international integrated marketing platform provider, has acquired Techrigy Inc., a global leader in social media monitoring and analytics software. This acquisition follows another successful year for Alterian, with a 73% increase in revenue reported for the financial year to 31 March 2009.

Alterian’s acquisition of Techrigy enables a fundamental shift from mass marketing to marketing based on engagement and conversation with the individual. The augmentation of Alterian’s existing technology portfolio with the robust Techrigy social media monitoring and analytics solution means marketers can now, for the first time, get a full view of their marketing landscape by listening to their consumers online. From understanding consumers’ reactions to all marketing campaigns irrespective of channel, through to monitoring brand reputation, influencer identification, competitive analysis, and market research, marketers now have an unprecedented ability to understand and measure the mood of their market. Marketers are empowered to fully utilize social media dialogue with the consumer to make informed, intelligent and insightful decisions around their entire marketing programmes, whether online or offline, and therefore create a more in depth profile of their existing and potential customers.

Social media, the creation of online content, and the voice of the consumer are now integral parts of how a brand is perceived by customers and partners. Jeremiah K. Owyang, author of “Social Media Playtime is Over”, an independent report by Forrester Research, Inc., (March 2009), notes that marketers must now make, “…social applications a permanent part of marketing, measuring and demonstrating their value, and integrating them into marketing efforts.” This makes social media monitoring and analytics an imperative area that marketers need to use as a standard part of their marketing programmes – not just for online monitoring or experimentation. By integrating Techrigy’s leading products with the Alterian Integrated Marketing Platform, Alterian is leading the way in bringing social media into mainstream marketing.

To bring marketers up to speed in this space, Alterian is making available a free evaluation version of the Techrigy SM2 system, ‘Freemium’, to its 1,100+ existing customers and 150 business partners, as well as any new organisations that are planning to explore the powerful insights available to them through social media monitoring. This version can be upgraded to the full version which is a subscription-based product.

“Social media monitoring and analytics are a complex challenge. Social media and Web 2.0 applications are developing and changing so rapidly that only those companies that can combine an understanding of social media with a solid history in marketing analytics will succeed in this fast emerging space,” said David Eldridge, Chief Executive Officer of Alterian. “By combining Alterian’s platform with Techrigy’s SM2 technology, marketers now have a complete, easy and practical solution to understand the complete view of their customers and take action to use this to build brand equity and generate opportunity.”
Eldridge continues, “Marketing is currently going through a revolution. The days of mass marketing, untargeted mailings, email blasts and generic brochure-ware websites are numbered. Marketers now need to appeal to the individual and engage with customers on a one-to-one basis. The addition of Techrigy to the Alterian platform further strengthens our ability to give marketers an holistic view of social media which can be applied to their entire marketing mix, and a set of tools to help strengthen the relationship their company has with its customers.”

Aaron Newman, Founder and President of Techrigy Inc., adds, “Today’s announcement marks a great step in the SM2 story and for social media monitoring. We don’t see this as the end of the Techrigy story but the start of something bigger. Through the backing of the Alterian brand and integration with the Alterian Integrated Marketing Platform, SM2 now becomes an integral part of the marketer’s arsenal and social media monitoring and analytics takes a giant leap forward in becoming a key driver of marketing activity. We are excited to be part of the online marketing revolution and delighted to be joining the Alterian team.”