Mediaboss Marketing

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado Strawberry Days, meet the 21st century.

Colorado's oldest civic celebration, dating back to 1898, is now incorporating modern-day influences such as social networking and American Idol to celebrate Glenwood Springs' biggest event this weekend.

Our Strawberry Days social networking site is a great way for us to reach a wide network of people, said Dylan Lewis, pubic relations director for the event. Social media marketing is all about word of mouth, and this form of media helps us develop relationships.

Lewis worked with the Glenwood Springs Chamber of Commerce to create the new strawberrydaysfestival.com social networking site that invites members to join, comment, add content and view photo slide shows. The site is dedicated to all that is Strawberry Days in Glenwood Springs.

We've had about 100 members join. I've seen people comment, I remember going to Strawberry Days back in 1979.' But at the same time we're showing Strawberry Days to a whole new group of people, he said.

Facebook users can also follow event postings and updates on the Strawberry Days Festival page, which has already surpassed 1,000 likes in less than four months since its creation.

People just have a natural, genuine interest in Strawberry Days, from all over the state, especially on Facebook, Lewis said.

The Strawberry Days social networking sites help event organizers post such information as the Miss Strawberry Days candidates and information about the Glenwood Idol auditions that took place Monday, as part of events leading up to the festive weekend.

Glenwood Idol contest

Glenwood Idol is a local take on Fox's uber-popular reality TV singing competition, American Idol.

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Strawberry Days social networking brings talent to more than one stage

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/bv92fn/social_networking) has announced the addition of the "Social Networking & Social Media: 2012 to 2016" report to their offering.

Social media is a once-in-a-generation, global phenomenon that is changing the world, unquestionably for the better. Whether it is Caracas or Boston, Auckland or Budapest, anywhere where there is an internet connection, in fact, social media is deeply and irrevocably embedded in the online world.

In spite of having first emerged just ten years ago, by the end of 2012 1.9 billion people around the globe will be actively using social media services, which represents over 85 percent of the entire online population. By 2016, these figures will have increased to 2.5 billion and nearly 90 percent respectively.

While social media unquestionably delivers huge value to users right around the globe, the business aspects of this new industry display some strange characteristics, such as:

- In spite of its global reach, utility and pervasive nature, the actual value of the social media market is rather modest, at just USD 10.4 billion in 2012 and USD 19.4 billion in 2016. By way of comparison, the size of the worldwide online advertising market in 2012 will be USD 114 billion while the worldwide Pay-TV market will be worth USD 275 billion;

- When a like-for-like comparison is made with traditional media forms, like newspapers, television, books and radio, fundamental reasons mean that the social media industry is only able to harvest a small percentage of the value delivered to users: newspaper industry ARPUs are more than 12x larger than social media;

- The market value of creating the content that was added to Facebook in 2011 was USD 6.4 billion, compared with company revenues of USD 3.71 billion. Facebook effectively outsourced these costs to users, but has no plan to remunerate those users for their efforts, other than providing a free service;

- We project that Facebook's share of the worldwide social media market in 2012 will be in excess of 50 percent. With a total market size of just USD 19.4 billion in 2016, the social media market is not large enough to sustain the growth of Facebook for more than a few more years. and so the company must enter major, new markets.

This report explains these and many other aspects of the social media market in detail against a background of detailed company profiles (21 leading social media companies are profiles) and worldwide analysis (24 leading countries are profiled).

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Research and Markets: Social Networking & Social Media: 2012 to 2016

We all know about the great benefits social networking brings to our lives like reconnecting with old friends and acquaintances, staying in touch long-distance, and meeting new people with similar interests online. Also, did you know that for some people it can also bolster their self-confidence?

But with all these benefits there are sure to be some drawbacks. This next infographic from Schools.com offers a different take on social networking and asks the question, Is social media making us socially awkward?.

Since we spend so much time networking online, you really have to ask yourself if its filling a need or just merely occupying our time. A Hong Kong study found that face to face friendships offer more interdependence, more depth of understanding, more breadth of understanding, and something else which can seldom be replaced by an online relationship. Its commitment.

Thats right, if you get rubbed the wrong way by something someone says or does on Facebook, its real easy to just unfriend them and forget about it. Real life is a little different. Its something to consider.

Take a look at what they came up with:

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Is Social Media Making Us Socially Awkward? [Infographic]

If I said "Ping" to you, would you immediately think of a social-networking service that's tied to iTunes? The answer appears to be "no", as Apple is reportedly getting ready to close the doors on Ping from lack of interest.

This service debuted back infall of 2010, and since then it has pretty much gone nowhere. Its intent was to give music lovers who were also iTunes users a place to discuss their favorite songs online, but instead these people have gravitated to other social-networking options, like Facebook.

Since Apple announced its foray into social networking two years ago, the company has obviously realized that it should leave this to the experts --recent versions of the iOShave had built-in support for Twitter, and earlier this week Apple's CEO Tim Cook revealed that Facebook is going to be integrated into iOS 6, the upcoming version of his company's mobile operating system.

The death knell for Ping is not yet official, but an unconfirmed report says that it won't be a part of iOS 6,which Cook unveiled on Monday. As evidence in support of this, those who have been testing the just-released beta of the next version of iOS report that Ping does not work in it.

Source

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Ping, Apple's Social-Networking Service, Is On Its Way Out

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A San Francisco social networking company has suspended one of its apps because of three recent sexual assaults of children. The company operates a popular flirting app called Skout, which has millions of users.

A 12-year-old girl from Escondido, Calif. told police she was raped by Christopher Nut, an adult stranger she met on the social networking app Skout. Police say Nut, 24, posed as a teenager.

"He's very crafty in how he got her to come out and was able to pick her up at her house and take her back to his house," Escondido Police Lt. Craig Carter said.

Two men in other cities have also been accused of sexually assaulting children they met on Skout.

The flirting app started out as a service for adults, but last year Skout launched a separate forum for 13-17 year olds. It was supposed to be more protected, with safeguards like parental controls and a program called "the Creepinator" which monitors nude photos and inappropriate sexual messages.

San Francisco Police Inspector Kenneth Esposto is an expert on internet sexual assault against children.

"You put all the safeguards you can to try to install all them so you may be able to protect children but the predators will always get around the safeguards," Esposto said.

Investigators say the three men accused of the sexual attacks went on the app for teenagers.

Tuesday, the company suspended access to it. Skout founder Christian Wiklund issued a statement which says in part, "Nothing is more important to Skout than the safety of our community. While the vast majority of our community uses Skout appropriately, a few have not and that is simply unacceptable."

Esposto maintains the best safeguard of all is when parents take charge..

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Social app shuts down after recent sexual assaults