Blog
December 2008Social Media’s Popularity Too Much For Montenegro Gov’t
Workday usage restrictions put in place
Yet another reason that mobile social networks will rule - you can't block them at the office!Yesterday, a new report from Nielsen Online claimed that a lot more online video viewing takes place during business hours on weekdays than just about any time on weekends. Officials in the tiny country of Montenegro were probably pleased to hear this, as the stats help justify new social media restrictions.
Starting today, computers within Montenegro’s government facilities will sometimes be cut off from sites like YouTube and Facebook. Dusko Mihailovic writes, “The office in charge of maintaining the government’s network explained that they sought to avoid a meltdown of its system from excess traffic.“
The move might reduce the threat posed by malware, too, and keep employees on task. It looks like full access will be restored when the workday ends, making the whole thing sound rather reasonable.
Looked at the right way, the development even acts as something of a compliment to social media; its popularity is enough to threaten a nation’s tech infrastructure.
That’s not to say the ban won’t serve as something of a roadblock and rude surprise, though. Here’s an interesting factoid for you: while the official language of Montenegro is called Montenegrin, it’s highly similar to Serbian, and Bosnian and Croatian are spoken as well. Tidbit number two: Facebook launched Serbian and Croation versions of its site last week.
Source
Web Pro News
Posted by Kelly on 12.26.08 | Permalink |
Announcing CityWatch our latest innovation for iPhone and the social media community
At Zannel, we’ve never been one to give up on creating innovative technologies which benefit, not only Zannel users but the overarching social media community. Today we’re proud to announce the availability of CityWatch by Zannel. CityWatch is a location-based iPhone application which enables users to see what’s going on in a specific city via video, photo and text updates. Now, whether you’re in your hometown or visiting a new city, you can find hotspots of activity and even instantly ask other users about their update and have a conversation via real-time threaded text messaging. Video and download button after the jump ...
CityWatch is about enabling users to find, see and discuss the things around them.
While Zannel users are able to follow individuals and brands, CityWatch users are able to follow locations. You can preview what you can do with City watch by watching the video hereFor example, I used a beta version of CityWatch this past Thanksgiving to see what family and friends all around the country were doing for Turkey Day – whether it was having smoked salmon in Seattle, or enjoying a cup of hot chocolate in New York. For this upcoming holiday travel, CityWatch users can find out hotspots of activity in the city they’re visiting.
CityWatch has been a long time in the making. We wanted to provide the iPhone community an application that took advantage of iPhone’s LBS, data, screen size and media capabilities. As one of the fastest-selling mobile devices, we also knew that we wanted to provide iPhone’s community with something new and fresh. We also wanted to provide those in the Zannel community who use an iPhone with a unique experience.
The result is an application we’re hoping you’ll think is cool as much as we do.
Download CityWatch and start seeing what’s going on around you!
Posted by Braxton on 12.17.08 | Permalink |
Texting - it’s the new way to communicate with Gen Y ... email is so old school
More than six out of 10 US high school and college students surveyed “never” or “hardly ever” read marketing e-mails, according to an October 2008 survey by eROI. The majority of respondents said companies were not effectively speaking to them personally through e-mail.
But e-mailing is hardly dead among students. Although texting was named as the favorite way to communicate by the largest percentage of respondents, e-mail was second, cited by 26% of students.
Two-thirds of students surveyed by eROI said they rarely or never took action after reading marketing e-mails.
An August 2008 study got to a different result. It was conducted by Harris Interactive for Alloy Media + Marketing confirms that the vast majority of college students still use e-mail. More than eight out of 10 respondents used it every day, unchanged from 2007.
Together, the studies point out that students have no problem with e-mail per se, but have no interest at all in irrelevant marketing message
Source
eMarketer: Have Students Graduated from Email?
Posted by Kelly on 12.15.08 | Permalink |
Holiday Celebration at Angel and Kings in the East Village
Zannel sponsored a fun scavenger contest at this bar in conjunction with Trainwreck Tuesday’s ... a night with live music and open bar at this hip and happening place in the East Village. Reviewers say:
“The sweet door man to the small dark atmosphere really make the night an intimate yet relaxed evening. There is no pretentious New Yorkers lurking around this bar, just your average mix of hipsters and pretty young girls. Everyone is very friendly and the bartenders are charming and accommodating, not to mention easy on the eyes. All in all i would recommend A&K for just a low key night out or even for a private party!“
Based on the pictures, I’d say the evening was a lot of fun!
Source
Wonderful World of Trainwreck
Posted by Kelly on 12.10.08 | Permalink |
Friend and Following feature improvements are live
Zannelers! In order to tidy up the Zannel interface and prepare for some really cool things we have in the pipeline, we’ve made some improvements to the friend and following features.
Firstly, you can now change the alert and feed settings for each friend or person you are following. You can choose if you want their posts displayed in your feed, or if you want to get alerts and if so, what kind.
These detailed alert settings are a great way to control what shows up in your feed. For example, if you are following the user “FlowerPower” and they go on a crazy posting spree with hundreds of daisies, you now have a tool to dial them down. Go to their following settings and turn off the alert and feed options so their flower pictures no longer bury you.
Another big change you’ll notice is that your friends tab in the top navigation bar has been absorbed by the following tab. Fear not Zannelers, your friends are still there! Just click the following tab and you’ll see all your friends listed with their own special friend icons to separate them from the users you are following. You can even sort the list just to show your friends. Since the posts of your friends and people you are following all appear in your feed, we thought it made sense to manage them all from one place.
It might also behoove us (we love the word behoove!) to revisit the difference between what it means to follow someone vs. being a friend. Here are a few important distinctions:
- Following: When you find someone whose posts you think are cool, you can follow him or her. Their new posts will appear in your feed. It’s an easy way to keep track of what you are interested in.
- Friends: Many people want to keep their posts private, or only allow messaging and comments from people they trust. If you’re somebody’s friend, you’re saying you trust each other enough to be sharing posts and communication.
We’re really excited about these enhancements, and have a lot more in store in the coming months, including improving how you find things on Zannel. But we want to hear from you! Let us know what you think and send us a note with your thoughts:
Posted by George on 11.19.08 | Permalink |
Memphis BarCamp Contest Winners
Zannel has been always about empowering you — the community of vibrant users, bloggers, photographers, technology enthusiasts, musicians and artists — to be able to show what’s going on in your life.
Case in point, we recently teamed up with the folks at BarCamp Memphis to help their campers capture, record and display updates of their day at BarCamp by using their mobile devices and personalized Zannel channels.
We increased the fun by adding a little friendly competition between the campers and we’re happy to announce the winners of the “This One Day, At BarCamp” Contest.
First Place goes to Carolyn Bahn
Carolyn will receive a Flip Camera - Thanks to Carolyn for providing the widest variety of posts, from text to media!
Second Place goes to Beth Sanders and Mitch Canter!
This one was a hard one, and with two great Zannelers, why choose just one! Beth gave great updates as well as media (the photo above was from her Zannel channel!) Mitch’s mix of both text and video updates really gave life to watching BarCamp Memphis evolve thought the day. Both Beth and Mitch are receiving cool Mimiobot USB Flash Drives.
Third Place goes to Michael Rowe!
After a whopping 142 text updates to his Zannel channel, Michael provided blow-by-blow coverage of the day as well as commentary and questions for the BarCamp Memphis crowd. Michael gets his hands on a Zannel t-shirt and loads of Zannel stickers!
Posted by Kelly on 11.18.08 | Permalink |
Improvements with friends & following coming soon
Zannelers, in a few days we’re going to be releasing some improvements to the friend and following features. You’ll notice some interface changes, as well as a bunch of cool new features including the ability to control who shows up in your feed and what kinds of alerts you get for individual users. The biggest interface change you’ll notice is that your friends and followers will all be consolidated in one “following” tab in the top navigation bar.
When the changes go live, we’ll post another notice in the heads up bar, and here in the blog, so be sure to click through to read more details about the new features.
Posted by George on 11.12.08 | Permalink |
Social Media: A Window into the Connected Class
The research is by Razorfish, the digital agency, and basically can be summarized by 5 main trends:
(1) The proliferation of the profile. While Facebook and MySpace seem to dominate, “this connected class surprisingly willing to maintain a presence on multiple social networking platforms—so long as a critical mass of people remains. More importantly, we found users actively expressing different sides of themselves on different communities and even managing multiple profiles on a single platform.“
(2) The proliferation of the specialized platform. While super phones like the iPhone and Google’s Android are all about convergence, the Connected Class is “ increasingly willing to embrace multiple devices—even when those devices possess overlapping capabilities and purposes. For instance, they might own a Nintendo Wii for the whimsical side of their gaming lives and an XBOX 360 for competition, or a laptop for managing the business of life, and another littered with stickers for fun.“
(3) The profileration of communications. Users actively seeking to communicate with people they know and people they don’t - but who share a similar life view and/or passions. How they communicate is changing. Phone calls are declining in favor of text messaging and IM. “From a marketing perspective, it is important to note that forms of communication like SMS and mobile e-mail remain incredibly personal, but could be relevant for a select set of direct-response-oriented brands able to integrate into the upper rungs of the user’s social hierarchy.“
(4) The proliferation of self-promotion and social hierarchy. Users are acutely aware of how to use the tools within social networks to enhance their social standing. “For marketers, it is not enough to simply put up a profile and see who comes. Instead they need to consider that users are consciously aware of their interaction with brands that help elevate their social status, or activities that define who they are as a person-whether that is critic or evangelist. The online social activity they choose must offer real social value.“
(5) The proliferation of active brand participation. Increased use of the social web - from the desktop and mobile - means that the connected class has less time to spend consuming traditional media like television and radio. Connected users’ will “soon expect all relevant brands to be where they are and will question those that are not.“
Source
Chief Marketer, October 28, 2008, reporting on a study completed by Razorfish
Posted by Kelly on 10.29.08 | Permalink |
Marketers Should Focus on Mobile Social Networking
EMarketer forecasts that over 800 million users worldwide will access and participate in social networks via their mobile device in 2012, up from 82 million in 2007. Although the total mobile social network user base in 2012 will be under 20% of the worldwide mobile user population, it is likely these users will have a disproportionate impact on marketing, media and mobile communications because creating and sharing digital content represents much of the social networking experience.
Source
eMarketer
Posted by Kelly on 10.09.08 | Permalink |
Mobile marketing budgets expected to grow by 150%
Mobile marketing budgets are poised to increase by more than 150 percent over the next five years even in the face of economic turmoil, according to a new study commissioned by operator O2. The study notes that 60 percent of marketing and IT directors from across the financial services, manufacturing and retail sectors favor mobile marketing channels due to the mobile platform’s capacity to target consumers—85 percent of respondents said their mobile marketing efforts generate a higher response than traditional methods. While 88 percent of marketing directors anticipate behavioral targeting will emerge as a critical tool by 2010, 46 percent said embracing mobile marketing hinges on their ability to specifically target their campaign. Another 43 percent expressed concern that consumers will view mobile marketing messages as spam.
Source
http://tinyurl.com/3htwd7
Posted by Kelly on 10.09.08 | Permalink |
