Mediaboss Marketing

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Apartment Guide, a leading resource for apartments for rent nationwide, today earned victory in the Atlanta market Social Madness competition, a matchup of Atlanta-based companies vying to show leadership in social networking influence. By beating 10 large company category competitors in the Atlanta market, Apartment Guide now moves on to national bracket competition, potentially facing companies such as FedEx Corp., Target and Southwest Airlines for the honor of being named the organization with the most social influence.

Were pleased to have come out on top in the Atlanta competition and hope to further validate our emphasis on social media as a key business driver when we compete in the upcoming national phase, said Arlene Mayfield, Senior Vice President, PRIMEDIA and President, Apartment Guide, Rentals and Homes divisions. Social media tools are highly effective for extending our advertisers reach, driving more qualified leads and facilitating faster filling of vacancies, and this is why weve embraced the technology so wholeheartedly.

During the local market phase lasting from June 1 July 16, Apartment Guide garnered 6,507 votes earned through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn activity and direct votes during competition. In total, 127 companies competed in the Atlanta market. In moving on to the national phase, the company will be one of 64 entrants, seeded according to total points earned during the local rounds. The national competition consists of seven weeks, from July 24 Sept. 10. Head-to-head matchups based on seeding (#1 seed vs. #64 seed, #2 seed vs. #63 seed, etc.) will take place each week for the first five weeks, as the 64-company field is narrowed to two finalists. The two finalist competitors will participate in a two-week final round, with the company receiving the highest vote total from the start of local competition through the end of the final round being named the victor.

We encourage all individuals connected to us through social channels including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to cast their votes and show their support, said Mayfield. Well face intense competition from well-known organizations, but we know our social presence is strong enough to help Apartment Guide prove worthy of inclusion among industry leaders.

The Social Madness competition is presented by Capital One Spark Business. The 43-city local and national promotion, designed to measure the growth of companies social presence,involved thousands of companies in three categories based on organization size large (500-plus employees), medium (100-500 employees) and small (fewer than 100 employees).

About Apartment Guide

A 36-year apartment industry expert, Apartment Guide helps millions of consumers nationwide find an apartment through innovative Internet, mobile and social media solutions. A trusted brand, it is a primary apartment search resource, offering potential renters content-rich apartment listings and information. For more information visit http://www.apartmentguide.com or http://www.listonapartmentguide.com.

About PRIMEDIA

PRIMEDIA helps millions of consumers nationwide find apartments, houses for rent or new homes for sale through its category-leading web sites and mobile applications, including ApartmentGuide.com, Rentals.com, RentalHouses.com and NewHomeGuide.com. PRIMEDIA continues to simplify the consumer home search and drive leads that result in occupancies for property management companies, landlords, new home builders and real estate professionals. PRIMEDIA was acquired by TPG July 13, 2011. For more information, visit http://www.primedia.com .

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Apartment Guide Wins Large-Company Category of Atlanta Social Media Competition

Is New Mexico a swing state again? Well, probably not.

Public Policy Polling released the presidential results of its poll in New Mexico. It showed that Barack Obama's lead over Mitt Romney is just five percent. This is closer to the razor-thin margins of Bush/Gore and Bush/Kerry than the blowout of Obama/McCain.

As with any poll in any race, you have to caution that it is just one poll. Looking at the average of all polls in a race will always be more accurate than relying on any one poll. If other polls start to show Romney closing the gap, then maybe New Mexico will move towards swing state status. But also expect it to mean those devastating ads tying Romney to Bain capital that have been helping Obama in other states will start showing up on news broadcasts in New Mexico.

One interesting thing to note about the poll -- it was of all New Mexico voters, not likely voters as other recent polls have been.

However, the fake document was dated Dec. 10, 2011, five days before the state auditors Dec. 15 deadline for the document.

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Morning Word, 07-19-12

UK version of The Inbetweeners.

A NEW trailer for the US version of hit British comedy show The Inbetweeners - the pilot for which was directed by Taika Waititi - has been slammed by viewers.

As reported by NME.com, since being posted on YouTube three days ago, the trailer has had just 465 'likes' - and more than 26,000 'dislikes'.

The original version of the show - which follows the increasingly awkward antics of four teenage school friends - ran for three successful seasons in the UK and sparked a hit spin-off movie in 2011.

The creators of The Inbetweeners, Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, are executive producers on the US version, which begins screening on August 20. Taika Waititi directed the pilot, which was picked up by MTV for one season of 12 episodes.

But viewers of the show's first trailer have reacted angrily, venting their frustration online.

"This looks so stupid and unreal. The thing about the original was that it seemed real and natural as that's what school is actually like," said one commentator. "Totally ruined it. Fact."

"Same plots and even the same jokes yet it has gone from hilarious (UK) to absolute garbage (US).

"If people in the US want to watch The Inbetweeners, just broadcast the UK version not this crap," said another.

Digital Spy reported Morris took to Twitter to defend the show, and pointed out Waititi's successful track record.

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US version of The Inbetweeners 'stupid'

For large companies that can afford to hire Web technicians, social marketing can be a breeze. But for small businesses, just learning the lingo can be daunting, said entrepreneur Geoff Cramer.

We were getting beaten over the head with social media, Cramer recalls of his years managing a Brookline real estate company. That was when a light bulb went on.

In late 2009, he teamed up with David Black, who owns a mortgage company, and boot-strapped SocialMadeSimple, a Newton-based Web company that offers small businesses willing to pay a fee analytics-based guidance to simplify social marketing.

That year, only 24 percent of small businesses had a profile on a social network, Cramer said. Today, the percentage has more than doubled, he said, but fewer than 10 percent of them post daily.

Instead, most treat their Facebook and other social network accounts as Web pages, listing their address and phone number and little else, Cramer said.

But the reality is, if youre not regularly sharing information, he said, you will be invisible.

For a fee ranging from $19 a month to $500 a month, SocialMadeSimple helps its 6,000 users optimize their presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs, with plans to add Pinterest and Google Plus.

The lowest fee gets businesses access to an online tool that allows them to manage all of those from one place, with guidance and industry-specific Web articles they can share, Cramer said. The highest fee gets them someone who manages their online reputation and both posts daily on all of their accounts and responds to others posts.

Its word-of-mouth marketing online, he said. Well make sure theyre staying on the cutting edge.

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Company's social-ly challenged? They'll make it Simple

A Social Network Free of Ads

The dominant social networks cater too much to advertisers, says the man behind a Twitter-style network that users would pay for.

Social networking is too important to the future of the Web to be reliant on the advertising industry. That's the argument put forward by the founder of an effort to create an open, ad-free social network closely modeled on Twitter but supported by fees from users.

Dalton Caldwell, who founded one of the Web's earliest successful social networks, Imeem (see "IM-based Social Networking"), and sold it to MySpace in 2009, announced the project, App.net, last week to widespread interest from Web startups and developers. Caldwell has decided to divert the efforts of his current startup, Mixed Media Labs, to begin work on the project, and wants to raise $500,000 in donations to fund the rest. The project has already secured over $65,000 towards that goal. Donations have come from people paying the $50 annual member fee the service will charge, or larger amounts for the access that software developers need to build apps on the service. Mixed Media Labs received $5 million in investment funding in 2010 and originally worked on tools to help creators of mobile apps market them online.

Caldwell thinks the ad-supported business models adopted by Twitter and Facebook have encouraged those companies to create closed arenas that not only do a disservice to users but also choke online innovation. "Twitter created as fundamental a technical innovation as e-mail and HTML itself, and they totally blew it," says Caldwell. He draws an analogy with the early days of the Web, when Netscape got the medium started by releasing the first mass-market Web browser. "If Netscape had decided to build a proprietary ecosystem and become a media company supported by advertising, we wouldn't have the Web we do today," Caldwell says.

Caldwell's move was inspired by the positive response to a blog post he published this month lamenting recent moves by Twitter to restrict access by third-party apps and companies to its members' data. Many of Twitter's features and early traction came when the company adopted ideassuch as hashtags and retweetsthat originated with its users, and when it let outside software developers tap into the network, which yielded the first desktop and mobile clients for Twitter. But in 2011 the company announced that it intended to provide the main, if not only, ways of accessing the service, and has increasingly restricted what outside developers can do ever since.

That appears to be motivated by Twitter's need to establish its ad business, which relies on inserting paid-for messages into a user's update stream. That creates an incentive to build a closed network that keeps users locked in to the main Twitter site, and puts their needs second, says Caldwell. He says the dynamic also afflicts Facebook. "They're doing exactly the right thing for advertisers. If you're not an advertiser, they're not building it for you." Caldwell says that offering a service paid for by users creates a clear, uncompromised incentive to do what's best for them. He says the success of companies such as Dropbox and Evernote shows that people are willing to pay for online services. He also points out that more established communication networks such as the phone system have long gotten their revenue directly from their users.

The exact design and features of App.net will be shaped by feedback from supporters, but the basic form is intended to be similar to Twitter. Users can publish updates and subscribe to those of others to build a personalized real-time feed of content.

He acknowledges that he and many of those most excited by his project are "nerds," but he contends that many people outside the tech community are leery of the increasing efforts of Twitter and Facebook to position ads around their socializing.

However, some who agree with his analysis question Caldwell's solution.

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A Social Network Free of Ads