Google Buzz: welcome to the air-conditioned WOM cell?

If you’re not yet familiar with Google’s next next-big-thing, Google Buzz, then have a quick look at the official vid below to get up to speed - or click through to one of the news, mobile and business sites which have been buzzing about Buzz for a while.

It all looks pretty exciting, but this new [...]


Molly Flatt, February 10th, 2010
Posted in 1000thoughts, News
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Are we genuine online? Does it matter?

So much for the old on/offline behaviour divide. Social media is frequently positioned as the home of disinhibition and idealisation, a place where we abandon our real selves for posturing and role-playing; but new research from the University of Texas suggests that our online personalities match who we really are.
“The scientists, led by a psychology [...]


Molly Flatt, December 7th, 2009
Posted in 1000thoughts, Measurement
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The General Motors Facebook fiasco: let’s inject some common sense

Jalopnik.com was the first to spot it and post it before it was pulled.

That eloquent paragraph is the apparent reaction of the daughter of ex-General Motors chief exec Fritz Henderson to his forced resignation, posted on the company’s own Facebook page (there’s still some doubt that it was actually her). Unsurprisingly, old and new media [...]


Molly Flatt, December 3rd, 2009
Posted in Case Studies, News
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Spies in Speedos and pikey Primark

You’ve no doubt read about the new head of MI6, who started his tenure in spectacularly silly style when his wife failed to check her Facebook security settings and released a raft of personal details into the social sphere, including some fetching snaps of Sir John in his stripy Speedos. Now this morning Primark have [...]


Molly Flatt, July 6th, 2009
Posted in Uncategorized
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Free speech at Facebook allows holocaust denial, but not breastfeeding

Love it or hate it, the internet has been long been a venue for those with outspoken views to gather, meet and spread their message to other like-minded individuals – with sites as popular as Twitter, MySpace and Facebook as open as any to the public airing of these fundamentalist views.

This has come [...]


Sam Chimes, May 12th, 2009
Posted in Uncategorized
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Chasing social media tools part 2

Following on from my rant about brands jumping on every new popular social media tool as the ‘key’ to their word of mouth strategy, our lovely and scarily switched-on researcher Rich reminded me of this post from last year, in which business guru Tim Walker compares our new technologies with the forms of communication that [...]


Molly Flatt, April 17th, 2009
Posted in Uncategorized
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Chasing social media tools

What’s our Twitter strategy? What’s the next Facebook? How do we make inroads on the latest mega-platform before anyone else? For some brands, social media marketing has become a tools and technology chasing exercise. Once the mainstream media latch onto a platform, companies feel that if they’re not instantly on-board with a host of apps, [...]


Molly Flatt, April 14th, 2009
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Stunning social stats

‘Member communities’ (social networking and blog sites) have become the fourth most popular internet activity, overtaking personal email for the first time. They have a growth rate more than twice that of the other four top sectors, accounting for one in every 11 minutes spent online. They reach over 5 percentage points more of the [...]


Molly Flatt, March 10th, 2009
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