Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom (20:11) The head of the immensely popular photo sharing service shares some of the company's secrets to success.

http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/07/01/france-stunned-by-apparent-turnabout-in?videoId=204338311&view=204338311&sp=3400&refresh=true

Google Executive Chairman Schmidt Says He ‘Screwed Up’ in Social Media

Google Inc. (GOOG) Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said he “screwed up” in the area of social networking when he was chief executive officer of the world’s largest Web- search provider.

“I clearly knew I had to do something and I failed to do it,” Schmidt said yesterday of his efforts to help the company excel in social media. “The CEO should take responsibility. I screwed up.” He was speaking at AllThingsD’s D9 Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-01/schmidt-singles-out-google-apple-facebook-amazon-as-leaders.html

Social Media in the work place

So here is a great article about social media policy in the work place. It features advice on how to get employees to adhere to social media guidelines at a company and how to use social media to enhance conversations in the work place. In class we discussed the positive and negative implications of using social media in the work place. I think that as we move into the future and social media becomes an integral part of our lives, guidelines must be set in order to avoid potential problems. While it might curve creative processes, it is a way for business to actually use social media without running into trouble.

http://mashable.com/2011/05/02/social-media-policy-tips/

The Power Of Social Media.Book becomes bestseller before it's published; still doesn't even have a publication date. "With out social media 'something like this would have been impossible even a few years ago'”

A Whim, A Book, And, Wow!

By REYHAN HARMANCI

Published: April 28, 2011

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When Adam Mansbach, author of “Angry Black White Boy” and “The End of the Jews,” posted on Facebook last June to “Look out for my forthcoming children’s book, ‘Go the — to Sleep,’ ” he was not serious. He was just tired: his then-2-year-old daughter, Vivien, refused to acknowledge bedtime.

Public Diplomacy Shifts to Social Media

Recently, I found this interesting article that America.gov, a major global public diplomacy website is shutting down. States Department that organized the portal decided that the portal is not as effective anymore. It decided to switch its efforts and information to social media. From now to distribute the information they will use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Is that a good decision? In my opinion some organization are blinded by today’s technological progress and development. Social media interaction can be very effective. However, not until it is used appropriate way. The State Department cannot forget that the aspects of social media is not anymore for sending information but also to engage the public and create relationship with the target audience. Without this concept in mind it is sure that its attempt could be a big failure. Many companies and organizations found out about it very fast by spending most of their promotion budget on social media while not forming a good SM strategy, which in consequence brought to a huge losses.(example: Pepsi Refresh Project) But let’s see what the future will bring for the State Department and its public diplomacy shift.

What do you think about this?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0411/Public_diplomacy_shifts_to_social_media.html#

The Royal Wedding Will (Also) Not Be Tweeted

While the internet has been a buzz about the upcoming Royal Wedding, the actual ceremony will not be tweeted by those attending. Thanks to a signal blocking technology that will be installed at Westminster Abbey that will disable cell phone use, no one attending the Royal Wedding will be able to send out Tweets, etc during the ceremonies. I guess we will just have to rely on the other millions of channels that will be...

(like the title reference to Malcom Gladwell's article? haha)

Twitter Hedge Funds?

As we all know, the power of social media is endless. However, its potential is being tapped into by many different institutions including the financial industry now. Recently, an investment firm set aside 100 million in capital towards a Twitter hedge fund, which would be solely used to monitor Twitter in order to collect data on where to invest.

They outline 3 main reasons for why the relationship between social media and trade is starting to take off, which all contain really interesting information.

• Today, computers make most trading decisions. Some estimate that between 46 and 73% of equity trading volumes in the U.S. are made by these high-frequency systems, which are designed to use computer speed and processing power to crunch massive amounts of data and seek small profits on enormous trading volume. A system that can reliably make a few cents per trade on hundreds of thousands of trades per day is quite valuable to a firm.
• Social networks have unique qualities that make them particularly well-suited for the machines that now dominate Wall Street. The sheer amount of content produced on social networks is enormous and continues to grow. The content production itself is a voluntary act. Even the ways with which social networks interact with one another –- the so-called semantic web -– make content production across multiple networks extremely quick. And of course most social media content is public at some level, especially when a carefully programmed algorithm is doing the searching.
• Other competitive advantages are going away. This growing enthusiasm for social content isn’t so much borne from newness as it is from necessity. As the BBC recently reported, the speed at which high-frequency trading can function is approaching its physical limitation. Speed is a competitive advantage for these platforms but it’s quickly becoming ubiquitous. If and when speed –- called “low-latency connectivity” -– is further commoditized, firms will require a new way to get a leg up on the competition.

Check out more here: http://mashable.com/2011/04/27/wall-street-social-media/