Mediaboss Marketing

September 18, 2012

Penn State has received another award to add to its collection.

The university was recently ranked No. 1 for its usage of social networking by Unigo, a company that provides university data and information to US News & World Report and USA Today for college guides and rankings, according to Bill Mahon.

Mahon is the current Vice President of University Relations, but will begin a new role as a journalism and public relations professor in January.

Described on Unigos website as the Top 10 schools where the faculty is on Facebook more than you are, the list put Penn State above Yale, Harvard and MIT, which were ranked No. 2, 3 and 4, respectively.

Unigo cited our Facebook page in particular, which now has almost 280,000 followers, Mahon wrote in an email.

Geoff Rushton, manager of the Office of Social Media in University Relations, said the social media department works hard finding ways to use social media to engage a wide audience, which includes prospective students, alumni, potential research partners and the public in general that might be interested in Penn State.

Were using various social platforms to tell the story of Penn State, and to the best of our ability to engage a really wide variety of people who would be interested, Rushton said.

He said the social media office, which now has a staff of four, examines the demographics of social media websites before they start using them to make their presence more successful.

In examining the demographics on Tumblr, Rushton said they found a lot of phrases like geek chic, which he described as young people wearing big thick glasses and embracing an intellectual scientific image as being cool.

Original post:
Penn State named No. 1 in social networking

Almost 20 per cent of job applicants say they will turn down a job if they do not have reasonable access to social networking sites.

A survey of 870 employers and employees from recruitment company Hays found 19.7 per cent would reject a job offer if they did not have reasonable access to social media sites such as Facebook.

Hays NSW regional manager Shane Little said the survey suggested that many employees, particularly Generation Y, expected access to social media at work for personal use.

She said the percentage of staff with this expectation would increase over time.

"What we are seeing (is) this more projected feeling among employers and the younger workforce that it is going to become a bigger matter as time progresses, as far as attraction of staff and also the retention of staff," he said.

Mr Little said long ago personal phone calls were frowned upon in the office.

About half of those surveyed already accessed social media at work, with 13.3 per cent accessing it daily and 36.4 per cent checking occasionally.

Employers expectations also seemed in line with their staff over social media access.

Almost half (44.3 per cent) believed that allowing employees access to social media at work will improve retention levels, and a third already gave their staff access to it.

Only 23.7 per cent of employers allowed no access to social media sites.

Continue reading here:
Social media access at work a drawcard

With Facebook behind them, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss invest in a social network for professional investors.

The Winklevii

The notorious Winklevoss twins just gave SumZero, a social networking site for professional investors, a financial boost,according toThe Wall Street Journal.

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the purported "masterminds" of Facebook, have pumped a $1 million investment into the four-year old platform, which happens to be run by fellow Harvard alumni Divya Narendra.

Yes, Narendra is the guy who--with the Winklevoss twins--asked Mark Zuckerberg to work on ConnectU in 2002."The band is back together," Tyler told the outlet.

As for the start-up,SumZeroworks much like Facebook. It requires that its users run hedge funds, mutual funds or private equity firms. Narendra told the Journal that he reviews every application for the site, rejecting about 75% of them. The idea, he said, is to have a platform for investors to exchange ideas and chat about their current investments.

So far, the network reportedly has 7,500 users.

The Winkelvii, who reportedly have $65 million in Facebook settlement money to spend, told the Journal that they plan to be part of the websites daily operations. SumZeros New York office will open next month.

"We want to get involved and really roll up our sleeves," Tyler Winklevoss told the Journal.

See more here:
The Winklevoss Twins Try Social Networking One More Time

The brothers who claimed Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for Facebook have invested $1 million in a social network aimed at investors, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Winklevoss in a recent TV commercial for pistachios.

The Winklevoss twins, best known for their courtroom battles with Mark Zuckerberg over Facebook, are taking another stab at the social-networking sector.

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have made a $1 million investment SumZero, a social network aimed at professional investors, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company was founded in 2008 by former Harvard classmates Aalap Mahadevia and Divya Narendra, the latter of which was a party to the Winklevoss twins' lawsuit that claimed they were misled about Facebook's value.

The case stemmed from a settlement the Winklevosses and Narendra signed with Facebook in 2008 after claiming Zuckerberg stole their idea for a social-networking site they called ConnectU, the basis for the 2010 movie "The Social Network." The trio accepted a $65 million settlement from Facebook and Zuckerberg in exchange for dropping all further litigation against the site but later said the settlement was based on an inaccurate valuation of the company.

They filed suit to undo the pact after it was revealed Microsoft paid $240 million in 2007 to acquire a 1.6 percent share of Facebook, giving social network a $15 billion valuation. The Winklevoss twins and Narendra claimed they were led to believe that Facebook's valuation was about a quarter of that.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Facebook and Zuckerberg last year, upholding the 2008 settlement. The trio threatened to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court but later retreated and dropped their claim.

In February, the twins formed Winklevoss Capital, and their first investment in June was SumZero. The site, which claims about 7,500 members, accepts only investors who work on the "buy side" -- hedge funds, mutual funds, and private-equity firms. Wall Street bank analysts are not allowed.

The site, which says it rejects 75 percent of those who apply, allows users to follow each other's activity and requires members to regularly submit trading ideas to the network. Those who don't lose access to the database, the Journal reported.

Read more from the original source:
Winklevoss twins get back to social networking with investment

Jonathan Abrams kicked off the social networking revolution with Friendster, the site that introduced many of us to the concept of connecting with friends on the Web. Now, Abrams is getting into the social news aggregation market with his latest online venture, Nuzzel.

Currently in private beta, Nuzzel shows you news stories that your friends have shared on Facebook and Twitter, ranked in order of popularity. There isn't much clutter on the site--beyond the ranked news stories in your personal feed, you can see the feeds of friends who are using the site and a feed capturing stories shared by friends of friends. You can share stories on Nuzzel through Facebook or Twitter, and the site also suggests people you may want to friend or follow on these sites.

I've been trying it out, and I'm liking it so far. It's easy to set up and use, and the amount of content isn't overwhelming. It also includes a handful of useful features like the ability to receive an e-mail alert if more than a certain number of your friends share a particular story.

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Friendster Founder's New Social Startup