Google Wave is Dead

Perhaps it was the crushing review that Lidia, David, Liz and I gave Google Wave after attempting to use it for our final project: Google announced that they are stopping development on Google Wave.

Wave will remain live, for now, but may be taken down in the future. Article here.

Mad Men & Twitter

Since you all know what a fan of Mad Men I am, it shouldn't surprise you that I post my thoughts on the Mad Men hashtag (I am trying to get my nickname for Pete Campbell (The Peasel) to catch on.  Well, after a few postings this week, I got an email telling me that Peggy Olsen was following me and then the next day, Don Draper was following me.  Their posts are pretty funny, and I have to say as a fan of the show, I found this to be somewhat flattering.  It definitely engages me as a user, and I also want to continue the conversation.  I'm wondering if this is just me that finds this clever or is this a smart strategy.

Five Emerging Internet Companies To Know About - CNBC

Five Emerging Internet Companies To Know About - CNBC

We talked about many of these in class but I hadn't heard of Modcloth (though I am a fan of its competitor Etsy). I like the social component to shopping but it seems like a lot of work to vote on a design and then see if it will be produced. But with 19.8 million in VC funding, I'm sure they can make it a success!

Why Companies Suck at Social Media

I thought this article wrapped up some of the major themes of our class -- why companies find social media so hard to take on, and what are the important things to keep in mind -- like listening, staying nimble, and being willing to fail.

http://tinyurl.com/28ptcxu

That guy who plays video games is taking over the world

On Twitter this a.m. I found out that online gaming has passed e-mail as the second-most popular activity online. The Washington Post article mentions that social networking is still the #1 online activity but is this only scary to me??

The article does pay homage to the type of guy I referenced in the title. And since this class is mostly women I'm hoping to slide by with a brief jab in the side of those guys who spend endless hours playing video games long into their 30's...no, it's not hot. But now THAT guy, and your friends (and likely my friends) are spending more time playing online games than most anything else? And since everyone is connected to online activities 24/7 these days, that means some people may spend more time playing online games than most other activities!

I can see it now: You spend XX hours sleeping, XX hours watching TV and XXXXX hours playing online games in your lifetime.

Weird. Are the games really that interesting? Are people getting smarter through Farmville? Help!

Tumblr: "a space in between Twitter and Facebook.”

Interesting article yesterday in the NYT on Tumblr:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/technology/02tumblr.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=technology

Where does social media fit in?

Mayo Clinic announced earlier this week the opening of their new Center for Social Media - overriding the PR and Marketing department efforts within recent years. The medical center has many great accomplishments within the realm of social media. According to their website, they have the most popular medical provider channel on YouTube, over 60,000 Twitter followers, and 20,000+ Facebook connections. They also maintain multiple blogs (all with different audiences and voices), were revolutionary in podcasting (started their journey into social media in 2005), and maintain support forums for diet, disease, and more. Furthermore, the hospital utilizes internal employee newsletters and blogs to communicate with staff and faculty – tools that undoubtedly influenced Fortune Magazine’s decision when rating Mayo Clinic among “Best Places to Work.”

But where does social media fit in? Of course, Mayo Clinic was lucky to have the resources to create a whole new center for the cause. But most nonprofits, hospitals, and corporations aren't able to do something so costly and time consuming and end up grouping it with another department. But where should it go? Is it marketing? PR? Or even IT? I know most of us would be likely to say PR, but I've definitely worked places where they would disagree. In fact, my last internship had IT managing their Facebook and Twitter accounts!

Managing social media is managing a reputation – it can quickly turn into a crisis scenario and they have to be ready to deal with it. Take the Nestlé case that we discussed in class as an example. Their Facebook page was overtaken by Greenpeace advocates, but instead of responding in a calm and composed manner or listening to the conversation, they attacked their fans & critics and alienated their supporters. This ultimately resulted in negative press - and a lot of it! Had they been properly trained in social media, this crisis scenario would have played out in a much different manner.

Mayo Clinic is in an even tougher spot, as they are a health service provider dealing with sensitive information that could potentially lead to life/death scenarios. It's extremely important that they monitor and respond to social media and maintain control – even though they are, essentially, giving it up. The Social Media Center is a great stride for Mayo Clinic, hopefully other health care providers will take notice and jump on the social media bandwagon.

Below is a video of the manager of syndicated & social media for Mayo Clinic discussing the new Social Media Center: