Anytime there’s a lull in our outrage over the public nature of social media, a new site shows up to again demonstrate its dangers. Like clockwork, the latest to play on users’ fears is FireMe!, a website that tracks when people are saying inappropriate things about their jobs on Twitter, including their hatred for their boss, their desire to murder said bosses or co-workers, and even those making comments about “sexual intercourse,” in relation to their jobs.

Like some previous attempts at scaring the pants off social media users, the FireMe! site offers a tool that allows you to “check yourself” to see what your firing potential is, based on your own inappropriate tweets. (Apparently, I love my job – my FireMeter score is zero.)

And of course, like any good, creepy social media exposure tool should, the FireMeter allows you to enter in anyone’s Twitter username, so you can check on what Rita in Accounting really thinks, for instance.

The website creators explain that the goal of FireMe! is to raise awareness. Project participant Dr. Eelco Herder even told the WSJ (yes, the WS-effin-J thinks this is news) in an interview that “privacy is a serious issue on the social web.”

“We all know the stories about people getting divorced because of a Facebook status message or getting fired,” Herder told the paper, “and we wanted to investigate what kind of people actually post that kind of message.”

The site’s mastermind, Ricardo Kawase, a Brazilian Ph.D student at the LS3 Research Center, worked with Herder, Bernardo Pereira Nunes, Prof. Marco Antonio Casanova, and institute head Prof. Wolfgang Nejdl, to develop FireMe! into the site it is today. He says he was inspired by a seminar he attended last year, where a lawyer spoke to the crowd about the “dangers and consequences of people being reckless online,” and how “the web is influencing the work environment,” as he explains it to me.

Since yesterday, when the first major news article about FireMe! appeared, Kawase says that some 50,000 visitors have checked out the website.

That’s a lot of attention for a little, research project-y effort.

Kawase even admits he’s a little worried that someone will be fired because of his web application. “I truly hope no one gets fired because of FireMe! I hope people get responsible,” he says. “I am particularly concerned that at some point, someone will blame us.”

Well, I wouldn’t worry.

Though the FireMe! site lists a good number of news articles where people have been fired for posts on social media, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it’s never been because of some online “gotcha” tool like FireMe.

Instead, employees whose errant posts have led to dismissal are usually too inflammatory to fly under the radar, a breach of contract is involved, are cases where the victim is a high-profile individual like a politician or celeb, someone whose job title involves actually managing social media accounts for other brands, and so on.

It’s rare that a person actually posts, “I wish I could get fired,” and then get their wish. When that happens, it’s news. In the real world, these “job hating” posts tend to just lead to office gossip, awkward situations among co-workers, or a stern talking-to from someone in charge.

Apologies for being human tend to follow.

And even when someone’s post is exposed, there’s still that question of how did the boss see it in the first place, if they’re not friends with the poster online? Like in pre-Internet times, there’s usually a tipster involved – a co-worker, perhaps, who’s been sick of that person’s attitude already and was just waiting for a reason to strike.

The various websites’ efforts to expose users’ bad or misguided social media behavior – like FireMe! – are shocking when they launch, but then seem to fizzle and die.

Nobody Got Robbed, Either

For example, we never heard a story where someone’s home was robbed because of Please Rob Me, a site which exposes people’s location-based check-ins. Explains one of the site’s creators Boy van Amstel, that site got so much media attention that the original message they wanted to express was eventually lost.

“Some people actually thought the site itself was evil, and that we had cars driving around neighborhoods to spy on people, I kid you not,” he says. “So we removed the tweets.” The site today continues to offer a way to see if your Twitter account publicly shows check-ins, but that will die when Twitter deprecates its v. 1.0 API later this spring.

Please Rob Me still gets around 10,000 hits per month, and has seen 2.5 million visitors to date. It’s one of the larger awareness raising efforts out there, in the grand scheme of things.

But while it may have gotten tons of attention via media reports, it never seemed to have caused harm itself.

“We haven’t heard of any people who were impacted directly related to the exposure of the website,” says van Amstel.

Similarly, we never heard of people being followed, harassed or harmed because of I Can Stalk U (now defunct), which revealed people’s locations from geo-tagged photos. And nothing seems to become of Openbook, which showed how much public information Facebook exposed, after the social network “adjusted” users’ complex and confusing privacy controls years ago.

That’s not to say that there are valid concerns about the monitoring of social media and other communications technology - government censorship and spying come to mind.

But if you have a moment of poor judgement or, god forbid, humanity, on Twitter or Facebook, and it then blows up in your face, it’s more likely there’s a person or persons involved in your outing, too. (Or you’re just really, really stupid.)

Either way, you can’t blame some creepy website on the Internet for the exposure.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

HOT 107.9 is this week’s top gainer for the People Talking About This metric among Media/News/Publishing pages. The Indiana radio station has gained more new engagements than established brands such as National Geographic and WWE.

The top 10 pages gaining PTAT saw increases between 82,782 and 307,545 engagements. We compile this list with our PageData tool, which tracks page growth across Facebook.

#	Name	People Talking About	Weekly Growth
1	HOT 107.9	309,359	+307,545
2	i98.3	416,076	+298,851
3	Yuk Vakvey	245,500	+227,059
4	National Geographic	479,538	+213,430
5	Impeach Nancy Pelosi	274,814	+184,730
6	WWE	455,731	+181,020
7	Diario Olé	346,697	+170,828
8	The Times of India	268,567	+149,303
9	Globo Esporte	343,253	+122,332
10	Hay House	97,430	+82,782

HOT 107.9′s incredible increase in engagement is due to a single post that saw 248,190 likes, 14,290 shares and 2,883 Likes. This picture, which can be seen below, went viral far past their audience immediate audience. This post did help in obtaining more fans as the page likes saw a strong increase in that metric as well.

It can be assumed that these engagements were obtained organically as the rest of their page posts has seen such large engagement. It is likely that a high influencer shared the post. The post is receiving engagements past its original publishing date and many of the comments seem to be from other countries despite being a local radio station.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Ok, so I know this is cheesy, but I spent my childhood watching wrestling with my grandfather. He was obsessed! One of those dudes who would watch every pay-per-view special, on the edge of his seat all the while. I watched Hulk Hogan go from being a good guy to a bad guy and back again so many times I’m still not sure if he was actually a real American or just a commie traitor. Then things got weird with stuff like The Undertaker and I stopped paying attention, because even in my adolescent state, I kind of realized it was a little campy and fake.

Well, the WWE is still going strong, and it’s been taking advantage of social media and online video to keep its audience engaged. Its latest tech effort is the release of new iOS and Android apps, which will give fans on-the-go access to videos and other content they might have missed, while also providing second-screen companion experiences.

While WWE has played around with different apps in the past, including its Summerslam and WWE Supserstar Slingshot apps (think John Cena meets Angry Birds), it’s never really had a flagship app — one which gives fans a one-stop-shop and encompasses all the entertainment WWE has to offer. But now that’s all changing, with an app that’s available for the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, and the Samsung Galaxy SIII.

Fans will get access to exclusive videos and other multimedia content, and the app will also offer access to social media streams of all their favorite stars. Users will also be able to buy merch and tickets to local events through the app, while also connecting with other local fans. The app also has a live component, letting fans take part in live polls and other content while Monday Night Raw and other live events are going on.

For the WWE, the launch of the new apps are just an extension of its existing social media strategy, as it seeks to engage with fans on multiple platforms. Between its official Facebook and Twitter accounts and those of its talent, it has more than 100 million followers on the social networks. It’s also pushing original content to YouTube, as part of the company’s original programming initiative. The result has been more of a one-to-one relationship between its stars and their fans.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Tout, the service that lets you post real-time status updates, and another spin-out from SRI, the research institute that birthed Apple’s Siri, is announcing today that it has closed $13.4 million in Series B funding. The investor line-up in this one is interesting, as it includes WWE – yes, that’s “World Wrestling Entertainment!” Others in the round included 819 Capital and individual investors Gordon Crawford, Stan Shuman and Jack Schneider from Allen & Co. The round follows Tout’s $2 million Series A in December 2010, which saw investment from Stanford Research Institute (SRI), Horizons Ventures, and Seavest Ventures.

The company has seen its fair share of high-profile users, including Shaquille O’Neal (who announced his retirement on Tout) and Survivor host Jeff Probst, for example, as well as Ryan Seacrest, Erin Andrews, Dr. Oz, and a number of news stations and major media networks including CBS, National Geographic Channel, CNBC’s “Fast Money,” C-SPAN, ESPN and even presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Tout, for those unfamiliar, allows you to post video messages of up to 15 seconds. People who follow you and see the message can then reply with their own 15-second videos. Twitter-for-video and other video messaging startups (e.g. Seesmic, Vlix) haven’t really caught on (unless you count YouTube, and perhaps you should), but Tout believes that its inroads with the celeb/media crowd will be to its advantage. Apparently, WWE agrees.

The company says it now has 23 million users. In March, the company said it had 12 million users visiting its website, so it’s unclear if Tout is counting unique visitors or those with registered accounts here. (We’ll update when we hear back). That’s kind of a big deal – after all, celebs can easily get fans to click through, but how many users then stick around to participate themselves?

But even if they don’t, maybe that’s OK with Tout, it seems. In an earlier interview, CEO Michael Downing told TechCrunch that the company’s vision was not to be “a destination social network,” but wants to enable video messaging for everyone else. The company was then testing an API and teasing “some major partners” in the works. I guess we have some insight into WWE’s interest, then. By the way, if you’re interested in sending your messages to WWE’s “superstars and divas” – and c’mon, you know you are, right? – the company is prompting Tout on its homepage here. Hold my calls.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

On the Twitter blog today, the company announced a new way that users will be able to get access to an expanded array of content from partners. The latest new innovation, Expanded Tweets, will let users check out content directly from certain partners, without having to leave its web site.

News partners like the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC’s Breaking News, San Francisco Chronicle, Der Speigel, and TIME will now let users see more content directly within their Tweets, without having to click through to their websites. When you expand a news-based Tweet, for example, Twitter’s Expanded Tweets will provide a preview of the headline and introduction, as well as the Twitter accounts of the publisher and writer. They can then click through to read the article, follow news accounts, reply or retweet within the Twitter page itself.

It’s not just online news publishers or text that Twitter is targeting with Expanded Tweets. Users will also be able to view images and video directly within the Tweet. Partners that Twitter named for that capability include WWE, BuzzFeed, and TMZ on the image side, and BET, Lifetime, and Dailymotion for video.

For now the capability is only available through the Twitter website and mobile web. But Twitter product manager Michael Sippey wrote on the Twitter blog that users will soon have the same inline viewing capabilities available through native apps for iPhone and Android.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Bleacher Report, the popular site for sports fans now boasting 22 million uniques per month, just released its Team Stream app for the iPad. Similar to Team Stream for iPhone and Android smartphones, the new Team Stream HD app features news and analysis and supports push notifications for breaking news.

This is the first tablet-optimized experience from the company, but it’s not the only one: the company is also pushing out an iPad-optimized HTML5 browsing experience, too.

Now when iPad users visit www.BleacherReport.com, they’ll be directed to a tablet-friendly version of the website with enhanced navigation, full-screen photo viewing and special transition effects in between stories. The site will also support sharing and commenting on its editorial pieces.

Meanwhile, the Team Stream HD app offers a personalized dashboard on the homescreen, with the headlines, top stories and tweets from the teams and topics you’ve deemed your favorites. As on mobile, you’re able to select which teams, athletes and sportswriters you want to follow, including athletes from the NFL, College Football, MLB, NBA, NHL, College Basketball, Soccer, Tennis, Golf, MMA, Boxing, WWE and NASCAR. The new app is nicely laid out, too, with a bit of extra space in between the stories and an easy-to-use UI (user interface).

BleacherReport, which just raised another $22 million this past summer, now includes an editorial team of more than 1,000 featured columnists and 6,000 contributors. Over 1.5 million users subscribe to its personalized email newsletters. And its content is now syndicated to national and regional publishers including USA Today, L.A. Times, Philly.com, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, and Seattle PI.

To grab the new BleacherReport iPad app, head to iTunes here.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Guest contributor Joseph Puopolo is an entrepreneur and start-up enthusiast, who blogs on a variety of topics including green initiatives, technology and marketing.

In 2011, social media had its share of growing pains. Large brands and corporations took to social media in force to try to find footing in this expanding medium. Some brands found success, while others found peril and new PR nightmares. One person who has helped brands navigate the proverbial social media minefield is Amy Jo Martin. She is the founder of Digital Royalty, a social media firm that has set itself apart by helping A-listers find their social media voice.

Amy works with people like Dana White of the UFC, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson of acting/WWE fame and brands like Nike and Fox Sports (and now Joel Stein). Her specialty is working with organizations or individuals and making them look good online. Since the online world is in perpetual flux, I wanted to get Amy’s take on the social media landscape for 2012.

Here were a few key trends Amy said we should look out for in 2012:

1. Social TV Integration

Many shows have already begun to integrate social TV, either through polling or integrating social elements within the show. See my example of how both the UFC and WWE are integrating social media into their programming. Social media played a pivotal role in the last presidential election, and it will likely be more integrated into political broadcasts.

As each news channel fights hard to keep their viewers engaged, networks like CNN and Fox have made significant strides to engage their audience, although some would argue that this social media integration has come at the expense of hard-hitting journalism and analysis.

2. TV Is Going Online in a Big Way

2012 will be the first time that the Super Bowl will be streamed live to the world. Since the Super Bowl is generally viewed as the mother of all advertising spectacles, it will add a new dynamic into the digital component to advertising and social media integration.

3. Facebook Credits Take Center stage

Facebook in 2012 has the potential to project its power and truly take Facebook credits into a viable currency. Amy puts it quite well when she says “they’re building an online destination we’ll never need to leave, and my guess is they’re only about 8% of the way through their product roadmap.”

4. Big Business Has Woken Up

The way corporate entities approach social media is shifting. Many companies realize that setting up Twitter, YouTube and Facebook accounts is not going to cut it as their social media strategy. Brands will need to seriously shift their perspective by treating social channels more like communication channels and less like an advertising channels in order to make a difference. From my perspective this transition has already occurred, judging by the extent to which brands’ Twitter accounts are now used as channels for CRM and customer support, managing pissed off or happy customers in near realtime.

5. ROI Is Still Huge

ROI will remain a key metric to any social media strategy. The concept of engagement is now becoming more and more an excepted metric. CEO adoption of social media is improving, and more CEOs are recognizing the benefits of humanizing their brand by taking to Twitter.

Customer service, research and image branding could all be considered social media intangibles, yet all three are obviously important in business. Social channels impact every single aspect of business from human relations to finance, sales, operations and legal. It’s important for everyone to understand how social media affects their role and responsibilities. Opposite of television, social media is a dialogue vs. a monologue and if a brand is able to collect opinions real-time in high volume via social channels like Facebook polls, they can save a great deal of money on formal research studies.

There have been a lot of discussions about social media fatigue and whether brands refuse to play for that reason. With over a billion people on social media it’s irresponsible for any brand not to have some sort of presence. 2012 will be the year for brands to go beyond cookie cutter campaigns and really determine how it not only adds value to their company, but how it adds value for their customers. 2012 will be crucial for companies and social media. For those who don’t see a direct correlation between social media and sales consider:

“Social media is an ideal tool for moving people up the fan ladder, from being a casual fan of a brand to a loyalist, because the communication channels allow people to build stronger emotional connections with brands.”

So in 2012, the question is, how will your brand use effective strategy to move people up the fan ladder from interested to foaming at the mouth brand zealots?

Excerpt image from 4socialmediaconsulting

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Guest contributor Joseph Puopolo is an entrepreneur and start-up enthusiast, who blogs on a variety of topics including green initiatives, technology and marketing.

Over the past year the WWE has continued to push the social media envelope by integrating Twitter and Facebook further into its regular broadcasts. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, now a cross-over star in both the WWE and Hollywood, cut a promo on WWE Raw to hype the upcoming pay-per-view “Survivor Series”. During that promo, the Rock quickly coined a new catchphrase “Boots to Asses” and said it was now trending worldwide. Before he mentioned it there was no mention of it on Twitter. Shortly after he said it, not only did it start a new chant throughout the arena, but it proved that Mr. Johnson was prophetic as minutes later the term “Boots to Asses” was trending worldwide. One might say this is a one off, but for anyone observing what the WWE has been up to this can be seen as only a small part of a much larger social media strategy.

In the last year, the WWE has bolstered it’s already strong web presence with a very savvy social media offensive. Now every performer who appears on WWE TV has their own Twitter handle which they use to build a fan following and actually continue storylines started from the show. During the broadcast, whenever a wrestler heads to the ring, their Twitter handle is prominently featured next to their name on the screen graphics. Their strategy is obvious and effective, providing a method to allow their show to be more interactive and leverage casual fans to tune in more regularly especially when something eventful is on the screen. Throughout the show, it is quite common to hear announcers talking about whether something is trending worldwide.

Some wrestlers who are trying to increase their standing in the company have actually taken to social media to build an audience. Zack Ryder and his self-styled ”Jersey Shore” persona created a series of YouTube videos to drive interest. To his credit, not only has he been successful driving nearly 100,000 people to become subscribers on Youtube, but he also has 300,000 followers on Twitter. He essentially went out and built a new fanbase for himself and received more airtime and interest as a result.

Wrestlemania is by far the biggest event held by the WWE. To hype the main event, they have already launched a separate site to highlight their main fight, John Cena vs. Dwanye “The Rock” Johnson, and to encourage fans to choose whose side they’re on. The site is integrated with both Twitter and Facebook pages. On each side they have attracted huge audiences. Here is the tale of the tape so far, and it is pretty impressive.

It begs the question why aren’t other sporting or entertainment broadcasts integrating social media as aggressively into their broadcasts or event marketing. WWE uses social media to increase controversy and drive further interest while others shy away from it. It’s obvious that WWE is Sports Entertainment with more of a scripted product, but why can’t other entertainment channels adopt some of these social media strategies to drive interest and live involvement in their product. Why isn’t Monday Night Football doing the same when a big game is coming up?  They could use this strategy to hype, drive interest and attract new viewership or followers. I would offer two rationales, either they are afraid of the spontaneity of social media or don’t feel like they need to adopt it.

Aaron Rodgers, who is having the season of his life for the Green Bay Packers, only has 385,000 Twitter followers and the defending Superbowl champions only have 160,000 followers. Surely there is a bit of a disconnect here if someone in the NFL in charge of marketing hasn’t been able to better connect and market this budding superstar and his team with fans in realtime. It seems like a missed opportunity, and while Aaron Rodgers is a huge WWE fan and loves to sport his “World Title” belt he does not have the social media presence of a World Champion.

On the other side of the spectrum, the NHL has banned players from using Facebook and Twitter on game days. Several traditional entertainment channels including the major 4 professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL) have all instituted stiff penalties . Chad Ochocinco in 2010 was fined $25,000 for Tweeting during a NFL gam. Not only do the Big 4 lag behind, but they haven’t understood yet how to really leverage social media effectively for their product or audience, which is a bit of a shame when you think about it.

The UFC, like the WWE, on the other hand, is another example of a sport with real personalities that is leveraging Twitter to drive interest. They have adopted some savvy social media strategies including showing the Twitter handle of a fighter as they approach the octagon. UFC events often drive trending topics throughout their events. The UFC president Dana White is out in front tweeting his live reaction to the fights like other fans out there. And it’s a two-way conversation. He actually takes feedback from the fans directly and learns how to make his product better. By letting fans interact closely with the fighters, the UFC has been able to humanize, grow interest and significantly increase buy-rates for their pay-per-view shows.

Any entertainment brand that fails to interact with its fans is missing a huge opportunity. Especially in sports, it is really up to the brand or league to provide a proper outlet to hype and get their fans excited about upcoming events or games. The WWE, while an unconventional example, is easily leading the pack of this strategy to drive interest in their product and interact with their fan base. If you take a look at what the WWE is doing on social media compared to their counterparts in other sports, they are truly putting Boots to Asses.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Channel Advisor’s latest Facebook Commerce Index is out, a free listing and analysis of the top 25 retailers on Facebook by fan count.

Well, maybe not “save” WrestleMania, but help ensure it does better than last year’s edition, WrestleMania 26, which, at well under one million pay-per-view buys worldwide, was considered a bit of a disappointment. What’s different this year is WWE’s use of social media—that is to say they’re actually using it this time around. But even if this year’s edition, WrestleMania 27, which airs from Atlanta tomorrow on pay-per-view, does better than last year’s, how much of that can be attributed to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, and how much of that can be attributed to the return of The Rock? Serious business, etc.

Read more…

Article courtesy of TechCrunch