Mediaboss Marketing

By JONATHAN M. HICAP

2NE1 and Super Junior (Photos courtesy of http://www.newsen.com)

MANILA, Philippines - The power of social media, including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, is propelling Korean Wave, or hallyu, to new heights and helping the spread of its popularity to North America and other regions.

These social networking sites make it easier for K-pop bands to reach a wider audience in the West, and those fans are turning to the same social networking tools to proclaim their devotion, according to a New York Times article titled Bringing K-pop to the West published March 4.

The NY Times article said the internet is bringing K-pop singers closer to their fans outside Asia.

When bands like 2NE1, Super Junior and SHINee hold concerts in Europe and the United States, tickets sell out within minutes, and fans have used Facebook and Twitter to organize flash mobs demanding more shows, as they did in Paris in May, according to the article.

Indeed, K-pop singers nowadays have their own official Facebook pages, YouTube channels and Twitter accounts where they announce upcoming albums, concerts, appearances and TV shows.

On the other hand, loyal fans translate songs, Korean TV shows where their idols appear on, Korean news articles and posts by the singers on Twitter or me2day into different languages.

The NY Times article said, K-pop bands style is a fusion of synthesized music, video art, fashionable outfits and teasing sexuality mixed with doe-eyed innocence.

It said the Korean music industry focused in digital content and with the increasing influence of social networking sites, K-pop bands began to gain more traction in the West.

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New York Times: Social networking sites help popularize K-pop phenomenon

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter lit up this week and conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh is feeling the effects.

Soon after Limbaugh spent hours on his talk-radio show bashing a Georgetown University law student over her support of birth control, people from around the U.S. took to Facebook, Google+ and Twitter to vent their anger at Limbaugh. With no organized leadership, they en masse called for sponsors of Limbaugh's radio show to pull their advertising.

Today, in part because of this social pressure, Limbaugh's show has lost more than 20 advertisers, according to reports, including Allstate Insurance, AOL, Citrix, Quicken Loans and Sears.

Social networking sites are quickly being seen as the new medium for protesters of all types.

"Social media has entered into a new era, which is way past the point when it was used to find the best dry cleaner or see if a certain restaurant had fresh seafood," said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group. "Now it's become a real tool that is being used to topple governments and even saves lives."

The latest online brouhaha began Feb. 23 when law student Sandra Fluke testified before a congressional committee about the need for insurance companies to cover birth control costs. Limbaugh then called the woman a "slut" and "prostitute" and spent hours discussing her on his radio show.

Word of Limbaugh's actions quickly spread over traditional media and social networking sites, where people were quick to voice their own support or outrage.

For instance, Andy Borowitz tweeted, "Due to remarks of his we consider unacceptable, we have terminated our relationship with Rush Limbaugh. - Satan."

And Stop Rush Limbaugh tweeted, "Please urge Capital One (@AskCapitalOne) to cease advertising on Rush Limbaugh's radio program."

Sensa Products LLC, a weight-loss system company that had been a sponsor of Limbaugh's radio show tweeted Monday: "Rush Limbaugh's comments are not in line with SENSA values so we are pulling our ads indefinitely which shud be down in the next couple days."

Originally posted here:
Social media takes on Rush Limbaugh

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday visited Facebook's California headquarters, where he blasted the Iranian government and said the social networking site is a way for people to bypass failed efforts of governments to seek peace.

The 88-year-old leader was scheduled to meet with the company's chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg, and launch his official personal page on the site aimed at creating a dialogue with Arabs who live in countries that do not have diplomatic ties with Israel.

In an interview with Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg streamed live on the company's website, Peres repeatedly praised Facebook as a tool for positive social change by enabling citizens of different countries to connect.

"The matter of peace is no longer the business of governments but the business of people," Peres said. "Today the people are governing the governments. And when they begin to talk to each other, they are surprised: We should be friends."

In response to a question from Sandberg about Iran's nuclear program, Peres said he had nothing against the Iranian people. At the same time, he condemned the Iranian government as a seat of "moral corruption."

"They want to have nuclear weapon. The combination of viciousness and nuclear weapons is a real catastrophe, a real danger," he said.

Iran denies it is seeking a weapon and insists its nuclear program is for energy production and other peaceful purposes.

Peres' comments came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Barack Obama this week. The two remain at odds over the possibility of an Israeli military strike against Iran. Obama called for more time to let diplomacy work, while Netanyahu refused to rule out an attack in the near future.

In Israel, the presidency is an elected office but serves a mostly ceremonial role. The prime minister acts as the country's primary leader. Peres served as prime minister twice, once in the 1980s and once in the 1990s.

Peres' Facebook visit was part of a four-day swing through Silicon Valley to promote Israel's tech industry. Touring the region's marquee tech companies has become a rite of passage for politicians and celebrities passing through Northern California.

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Peres: Social media helps with peace process

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Social email provider harmon.ie today announced it is helping Microsoft Outlook users embrace social networking by making IBM Connections available through a social sidebar in the users email inbox. The resulting cross-platform product will aggregate IBM Connections social objects, Microsoft SharePoint documents, presence awareness and unified communications into a single email window to streamline user access to social business tools.

This project leverages harmon.ies social aggregation technology to enable users to access multiple social and collaborative activity streams without leaving the email interface where they spend a large portion of their workday. harmon.ies ability to enable typical business users to adopt new collaboration tools without changing their daily work habits has helped enterprises worldwide increase end user adoption of collaboration platforms from an average of 20 percent to as high as 80 percent in just a few months time.

Just because a company chooses to use another email platform does not mean they should miss out on becoming a social business, said Jeffrey Schick, Vice President of Social Software, IBM. Social-enabling email is the first step to connecting people with people, and people with information, in the context of a business users daily work habits.

A recent uSamp survey validates the choice of email as the hub for multiple computing activities. In the survey, 78% of respondents reported a greater willingness to use collaboration and social business tools if they are accessible in the familiar email work environment. Nearly nine out of 10 users indicated that they publish documents and/or emails on a collaboration platform when they can do so from within email, a 75% increase over those without an integrated email option.

Enterprises are eager to accelerate the adoption of social platforms. The most successful adoption strategy is an evolutionary one that exploits the ubiquitous use of email to incorporate collaboration and social tools into the business users current workflow rather than attempting to change the way people work , said Yaacov Cohen, co-founder and CEO at harmon.ie. This collaboration with IBM advances that strategy by providing a cross-platform solution that combines access to the Connections social experience and SharePoint document collaboration in the same email window.

The new cross-platform product will be available later this year.

About harmon.ie

harmon.ie (pronounced 'harmony') is a provider of software solutions that advance social business by aggregating document collaboration, enterprise social networking, unified communications and other social tools into the email client and other locations where users already spend their workday, saving time and eliminating point solutions that that complicate usability. Thousands of businesses already use harmon.ie to vastly increase user adoption of applications such as Microsoft SharePoint and Google Docs for social and collaboration functions. For more information, visit http://www.harmon.ie/.

All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

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harmon.ie to Make Outlook Social with IBM Connections

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Connected consumers in the U.S. are reporting a growing wave of distrust across major communications channels including mobile, fixed and social networking due to fears of security threats such as viruses, spam and phishing attacks, according to new research released by Cloudmark, Inc., the global leader in carrier-grade messaging security.

The survey, conducted in conjunction with online research provider Toluna, analyzed the mobile, fixed-line and social networking habits, security threat exposure and sentiment of 1,000 U.S. consumers.

Trust in the Security of Mobile Communications Platforms Declining

The survey results show that 19 percent of U.S. respondents have less trust in the security of mobile short message service than they did 12 months ago. While previously considered a very trusted communications channel, overall, SMS ranked a distant third (15 percent) among the platforms survey respondents consider to be the most secure, behind voice (43 percent) and email (34 percent). The SMS platform holds a higher level of trust among younger users, with nearly one quarter (24 percent) of 18-24 year olds and 21 percent of 25-34 year olds naming it as the platform they consider the most secure. However, trust in the SMS channel appears to decline with age, with just eight percent of the 55-plus demographic citing it as the most secure platform.

This trend of declining trust was mirrored across fixed and social networking channels, where 41 percent of respondents reported less trust in the security of social networks and 18 percent said they have less trust in the security of instant messaging services. Meanwhile, 44 percent reported that they have less trust in the security of email than they did a year ago.

Threat Penetration across Devices and Messaging Platforms

Mobile social networking appears to be gaining significant traction, with 19 percent of 18-24 year olds and 13 percent of 25-34 year olds naming it as the communications platform they access most regularly. However, in spite of its popularity, trust in the social networking platform is low and seemingly continuing to decline: just three percent named it as the platform they trusted the most, the least of all platforms. In addition, social networking websites are second only to email as the platform on which consumers have experienced viruses most frequently (21 percent).

Messaging abuse remains the number one security threat across all major platforms 61 percent of fixed line and 13 percent of mobile users claim to have suffered spam-related problems. Despite the high profile of email and desktop threats in recent years, 75 percent of Americans have experienced a security threat on their desktop or PC. Nearly half (49 percent) of these reported incidents were due to a malicious virus while almost a third (31 percent) were attributed to phishing attacks over email or instant messaging while online. Meanwhile, 18 percent of mobile users reported that they had experienced some type of security threat on their mobile device.

Security Distrust Could Hinder Mobile Commerce

Excerpt from:
Research Reveals Decline in Trust Across Major Communications Channels – Mobile, Social Networks and Email