Mediaboss Marketing

Facebook still holds big potential for small business marketers.

A study by the Pew Research Center's Internet Project shows that Facebook remains the most dominant social networking platform and is a place small businesses should still be devoting their online marketing efforts toward. Specifically, 71 percent percent of online adults are now Facebook users, a slight increase from the 67 percent who used Facebook as of late 2012.

Besides being the most commonly used social network, Facebook also has high levels of engagement among its users. More than 60 percent of Facebook users visit the site at least once a day, with 40 percent doing so multiple times throughout the day.

Despite Facebook's continued popularity, adults are branching out when it comes to their social media use, with more than 40 percent regularly using multiple social networking sites. The research discovered that other sites have developed their own unique demographic user profiles and should be drawing attention from businesses looking to attract new customers.

Pinterest holds particular appeal to females, with women being four times as likely as men to be users of the virtual pin board site. LinkedIn is especially popular among college graduates and Internet users in higher income households, while Twitter and Instagram have particular appeal to younger adults, urban dwellers and non-whites.

Among those who use only one major social networking platform, 84 percent of those surveyed say that Facebook is the site that they frequent. Additionally, 8 percent use only LinkedIn, 4 percent stick to Pinterest, and 2 percent each say Instagram or Twitter is their sole social networking site.

Even though Instagram and Twitter have a significantly smaller number of users than Facebook does, their users are nearly as active as those on Facebook. The study shows that 57 percent of Instagram users visit the site at least once a day, with 35 percent doing so multiple times per day. In addition, nearly half of Twitter users are daily visitors, while 29 percent frequent the site multiple times a day.

The study was based on surveys of more than 1,800 adults over age 18.

Originally published on BusinessNewsDaily.

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Facebook Still Ripe for Small Business Marketers

Oxford (PRWEB UK) 7 January 2014

Although social communication is now easier than ever, it seems that our capacity for maintaining emotionally close relationships is finite, said Felix Reed-Tsochas, James Martin Lecturer in Complex Systems at Sad Business School, University of Oxford. While this number varies from person to person, what holds true in all cases is that at any point individuals are able to keep up close relationships with only a small number of people, so that new friendships come at the expense of relegating existing friends.

The research, The persistence of social signatures in human communication was conducted by an international team that included Felix Reed-Tsochas and Robin Dunbar from the University of Oxford, Dr Sam Roberts from the University of Chester in the UK, and Dr Jari Saramki from Aalto University, Finland and is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) today. It combined survey data and detailed data from mobile phone call records that were used to track changes in the communication networks of 24 students in the UK over 18 months as they made the transition from school to university or work.

At the beginning of the study, researchers ranked members of each participants social network (friends and family) according to emotional closeness. They discovered that, in all cases, a small number of top-ranked, emotionally close people received a disproportionately large fraction of calls.

Within this general pattern, however, there was clear individual-level variation. Each participant had a characteristic social signature that depicted their particular way of allocating communication across the members of their social network.

The researchers discovered that, even though participants relationships changed and they made new friends during the intense transition period between school and university or work, individual social signatures remained stable. Participants continued to make the same number of calls to people according to how they ranked for emotional closeness, although the actual people in their social networks and/or their rankings changed over time. As new network members are added, some old network members are either replaced or receive fewer calls, confirmed Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford. This is probably due to a combination of limited time available for communication and the great cognitive and emotional effort required to sustain close relationships. It seems that individuals patterns of communication are so prescribed that even the efficiencies provided by some forms of digital communication (in this case, mobile phones) are insufficient to alter them.

Dr Roberts, from the University of Chesters Psychology Department explained: This study used a novel combination of questionnaires and mobile phone data to show that people have a distinctive pattern of communicating with their family and friends, and that this pattern persists even people make new friends as they go to university or work. Our results are likely to reflect limitations in the ability of humans to maintain many emotionally close relationships, both because of limited time and because the emotional capital that individuals can allocate between family members and friends is finite.

Notes to editors

About the paper

The persistence of social signatures in human communication is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). Available at: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1308540110

Original post:
One in, one out: Oxford and International academics show how people put a limit on their social networks

FEWER dengue fever cases and deaths were reported in Cebu City in 2013, but last year saw a significant increase in the number of pneumonia cases that resulted in deaths.

Records of the Cebu City Health Department showed that the number of pneumonia cases last year increased by 165 percent, from only 1,378 in 2012 to 3,658 in 2013.

The number of deaths caused by pneumonia also rose from 16 in 2012 to 64 deaths last year, or an increase of 300 percent.

In Cebu City, pneumonia topped the list of communicable diseases with the most number of deaths, followed by diarrhea, meningitis and dengue.

Assistant City Epidemiologist Durinda Macasocol said pneumonia is common among the elderly who have other illnesses and are too weak.

Although there are free pneumonia vaccines provided, perhaps some elderly did not have access to it thats why they succumbed to pneumonia. Hopefully this year we can get more vaccines from the Department of Health, she told Sun.Star Cebu.

Other fatal diseases

The World Health Organization lists pneumonia as the leading cause of death among children worldwide. It is a form of acute respiratory infection that affects the lungs, making breathing difficult.

Macasocol said pneumonia can be prevented by getting vaccinated and having adequate nutrition.

Among the communicable diseases monitored by the City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (Cesu), diarrhea had the second highest number of deaths in 2013 with 23, followed by meningitis with six deaths and dengue fever with five deaths.

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Pneumonia no. 1 killer last year

Jan 06, 2014

Mexico is considered one of the leading countries in papaya productions, but its crops are usually affected by the virus of the ringed spot, which leaves ring marks in the skin of the fruit and causes softening of the papaya, where fungi start to digest it. This is why the Center of Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (Cinvestav) designed a method capable of identifying the pathogens in just a day, stopping the propagation inside the crop.

The system developed by Laura Silva Rosales and her team, part of the Laboratory of Virus-Plant Interactions, is comprised of plastic tubes filled with reactive, called detection cartridges. It's only necessary to deposit one of them in a sample of a leaf to determine, in one day, if it's infected by one or two of the viruses that usually attack papaya.

One of the main pathogens is the PRSV, or virus of the ringed spot of the papaya, although the crop is also affected by the PapMV or mosaic virus, which produces deformations or lesions in the leaves.

Silva Rosales says that the viral problem not only affects Mexico, but all the countries where papaya is cultivated. "Some infections are not dangerous, but if the temperature rises and, at the same time, there exists a precise combination of viral strains with plant genes, the infection goes into necrosis."

She adds that the developed cartridge is for laboratory use only, which implies shipping a sampling of leaves to the lab, which is not always practical for producers. Hence, Silva Rosales and her team are working in a field device that would give test results in just an hour.

"It is still in an experimental phase, and although the first tests have been effective, currently it gives results in two hours."

With this kit, the producer would only have to macerate a leaf of the plant, place it in the cartridge, add the reactive substance and wait for the results. The resulting color indicates negative or positive presence of one or both viruses.

Although the Mexican papaya producers have experts that can identify the presence of the viruses visually, they require a scientific backup and lab test that would allow them to know which plants are infected. "The visual detection can have a margin of error up to 20 percent," the researcher says.

Papaya crop is considered of great importance to Mexico, given that more than 80 per cent of the production is exported to the United States and, according to the Mexican Association Industry of Plant Sanitation (AMIFAC), Europe and Asia are possible markets for 2014.

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Mexican technology saves papaya production by detecting virus

Sunny Isles, FL (PRWEB) January 07, 2014

Innovative. Groundbreaking technology. New business model. All are words to describe Livecharity, yet ones that do not paint the whole picture. But, how about a billion dollar promise? A promise not to the company, but a promise to the world. Livecharitys CEO, Johnny Saffar, has made this promise: Over half of the companys net profits earned through its users will be donated to non-profit organizations that Livecharity software users select.

The beta version of Livecharitys free software is available today at http://www.livecharity.com for Chrome users first (it integrates within the browser based upon user settings) and is verified by Norton antivirus. Livecharity is an online ad networking company, one with a revolutionary new ad model that puts control into the hands of the users. Ads are displayed every day when one surfs the Internet; those ads generate money because advertisers pay for the ads to be seen. Livecharity now offers a new online surfing experience.

Johnny Saffar noted, What we have to offer is simple: We are giving you the ability to help. Fifteen million children across the world die of hunger each year. One hundred million people are homeless, and 780 million people don't have clean water to drink. Overwhelming numbers, but how about this number? Three billion. Thats the number that some corporations have made in one month from online advertising revenue.

That is money made from individuals browsing the web. Livecharity has created a way to change things, a way to turn the conventional advertising model around so that better targeted ads are displayed and proceeds help NPOs with their causes to make a real, positive difference. Now its not an issue of wanting to help, but rather doing it. That is what Livecharity is truly about empowering people with the ability to effect change.

With the free software, Livecharity users can make a powerful difference at no cost to them simply by downloading the software and doing what they do every day online. The user has control and is able to set ad preferences for a personalized experienced. Its time to #surf4change.

About Livecharity Corporation: Livecharity Corporation is a start-up business out of South Florida with intentions to grow worldwide. The software will be available for additional browser types in the weeks ahead. Visit http://www.livecharity.com to learn more.

Contact: Please email press(at)livecharity(dot)com or call 855-200-0455.

The rest is here:
The Start-Up That Promises a Billion Dollar Donation and Offers the Truth About Online Advertising