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Like This: Google Acquires Like.com (InformationWeek)
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Posted: 09/30/2010
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In an effort to fortify Google’s search and e-commerce capabilities, the mega-search company recently purchased visual search company Like.com. Like.com’s computer vision and machine learning technology allows users to search and conduct visual comparisons for goods as they shop, making it particularly user friendly for mobile devices. Like.com CEO Munjal Shah confirmed the deal, stating, "We were the first to bring visual search to shopping, the first to build an automated cross-matching system for clothing, and more. We see joining Google as a way to supersize our vision and supercharge our passion." Google’s likely goal in the purchase is to beef up it core search products and image recognition services (Google Goggles), as well as intensify its social capabilities (Jambool and Slide.com) to make search more “social and more deeply integrated with e-commerce.”
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Industry:
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer
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Shazam! How One Company Plans To Change The Advertising Industry (.net)
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Posted: 09/30/2010
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Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher recently sat down with Oliver Lindberg to discuss why the company chose to charge for the popular mobile music discovery app and how the company plans to change the face of advertising as we know it. While Facebook may be the most downloaded iPhone app in the US, Shazam is Europe’s frontrunner. The app, which identifies a piece of recorded music via a mobile’s mic, tallied 50 million users across all platforms in October with the goal to double that number by the end of the year and reach 300 million users by 2015. Users are apparently willing to pay the price: the London-based start-up introduced a paid-for version of its iPhone app – Shazam Encore – with a limited free version offering five tags per month for new users. The service offers unlimited tagging, faster performance and a range of extra features such as music search and geo-location ticketing.
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Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services,
Telecommunications
Topic:
Business Intelligence,
Content Strategy,
E-Commerce,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer
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Video Girl Barbie Goes Viral (Promo Magazine)
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Posted: 09/30/2010
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In true Barbie fashion, the social girl charged the virtual social world this July to build the buzz for her latest professional stint: videographer. Mattel tapped into social networks Foursquare and Twitter to launch a campaign that criss-crossed the boundaries of traditional marketing. The campaign celebrated the new Video Girl Barbie with a scavenger hunt that had fans scouring San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York to locate Barbie’s real whereabouts. The first follower to find the fashion-forward doll in each city won a Barbie Video Girl doll. “We really embraced social media as a marketing platform a year ago as part of a major campaign in support of Barbie’s 50th anniversary,” says Lauren Dougherty, director of Barbie marketing at Mattel. Barbie currently has 17,600 Twitter followers and about 440,000 likes on Facebook—more than 200,000 of those added since January. Future plans include a promotion that puts the camera in the consumers’ hands with user-generated video, as well as introducing other members of Barbie’s entourage, including Ken, onto the social platforms.
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Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Retail & Products
Topic:
Content Strategy,
Creative & Design,
Experience & Interaction,
Marketing Communications,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global,
North America
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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New Tweet Button Simplifies Sharing (Digital Arts)
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Posted: 09/16/2010
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In an effort to simplify sharing and make retweeting one of its core functions, Twitter recently launched a new Tweet Button, which prompts a pop-up box allowing visitors to share a Twitter feed without leaving the site they are visiting. The feature also allows publishers to incorporate custom text into their Tweet Button box, as well as suggest other Twitter accounts to follow. "The Tweet Button will help publishers grow traffic and increase their Twitter following," reads Twitter's announcement. While TweetMeme will be phasing out its popular “retweet” service, the company plans to launch other Twitter-related services. "We have grown to more than 750 million daily retweet button impressions.... That said, the market requires an official solution that can accelerate this growth. So today Twitter is launching its own Tweet Button and we are very pleased to be partnering with them to continue to grow the overall Twitter ecosystem," reads a TweetMeme statement. CNN.com, YouTube, Time.com, Hulu and USA Today have already incorporated the function into their websites.
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Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic:
Content Strategy,
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Consumer,
Peer Groups & Communities
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Social Media Becomes Key Tactic For Strategy Execution (Forbes)
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Posted: 09/02/2010
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Scores of consumers are using social media to connect, express and impact the world around them, and savvy marketers are tapping its power, too, with nearly 80% implementing the medium to bring their customers to the table rather than talk at them from the proverbial soapbox. While much of the literature highlights how companies can implement social media outside of their organizations, there is significant room to use social media as an inside strategy tool, too. Bad communication can freeze any organizational idea, especially if employees feel ostracized from the process. What better way to get the entire organization on board with a branding initiative or new program than using social media as a strategy to help organizations better talk with, rather than talk at their employees. The tool will not only help companies build and execute better strategies but build stronger employee cultures in the process.
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Industry:
Marketing, Design, & Interactive Communications,
Technology, Consulting, & Professional Services
Topic:
Content Strategy,
Experience & Interaction,
Technology Implementation
Region:
Global
Audience:
Business to Business
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