My first TV appearance, you can see my views on the new Facebook and Google+ here.

King of search vs King of social
– who will win the community insight arms race?

Google; the site that gives us what we want when we want it.

Search for pizza, you get pizza. 545 million lots of pizza to be almost exact. Starting from what Google thinks is relevant moving to the not so hot.
Search for a plumber in London, hey presto, you got plumbers.

And now Facebook wants to do exactly that – give us what we want, or at least what it thinks we want- but, its an educated guess, taught by you.

The difference is- Facebook is doing it socially, with your friends and the apps you interact with.

But is ‘educated guessing’ what Google has actually been doing for years? The answer is yes. Today Facebook announced that it is implementing a ‘content algorithm’ to deliver us content based on the people and things* we interact with, like and want to see. We can refine this by staring and hiding stuff we do and don’t want.

Google has gotten good at doing this by analysing data by the masses, who clicked what; did you come back for more search results, or was it content you found what you wanted? And they’re getting publically more personal – +1 etc.

Facebook is doing this for your friends.

It’s now tuning into our exact needs through the same data mining and clever insight that Google has used to deliver its search results, except it just got a whole load more personal.

Now as you’d expect, everything today is social.

- We arrange events (on Facebook)
- We post photos to Flickr, Instagram (and Facebook)
- We download voucher codes on VoucherCloud (and Facebook)
- We connect with brands (on Facebook)

So of course Google wants a bit of the action, and so it should, it’s simply where the world is going. Hello Google+.

Is Facebook rushing to react to Google+ by releasing lots of ideas?

My answer is probably not. Zuckerberg has had that look on his face that tells me this has been his vision from day dot- think back to the beacon days- data mining of your online habbits to deliver you ads and content.

You’ve seen the chaos Facebook has faced when they release tiny amendments, so in essence it looks like they’ve been drip feeding their massive user base (half a billion active daily users) where as Google has the joy of just simply dropping in and saying ‘hey’ look at us.

Who will win the community insight race? It’s too early to tell.

It’s the king of search (what you want when you want it) vs the king of social– and the boundaries are bluring.

Hiring a new employee is a risk and releasing a press release is a risk. We know that right? Social media isn’t any different. Brands and organisations that are looking to make their mark within the world of social media need to be aware of the potential pitfalls and problems which may be encountered through attempted outreach to fans through such a medium.

So how can you reduce the risk of social media?

Policy – Don’t shut your employees up, inspire them to speak and teach them when not to.

Manage your online reputation – use our software or anyone elses for that fact, but just make sure you’re keeping an eye on what people are saying, and where they say it.

Don’t dilute your message – grow your social media presence using your existing customers. Don’t forget your values when you begin to market your product to a wider audience. Remember your core fans/customers.

If you’d like to read more about my thoughts on social media and risk, you can check out a guest blog I wrote here for SmallBusiness.co.uk.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on social media and risk, please tweet me @calumbrannan or comment below

As the news flies around that a Premiership star has been named on social media site Twitter after a court ordered that their identity should be protected, the debate turns to our privacy laws and how they should be enforced on social media.

The game (media and news) has now changed it and it’s important (no matter who you are) to understand what people are saying and where they’re going to say it.

A comparison here in this case could be that the laws on CDs and DVDs are now changing, to reflect today’s digital world.

At the moment if you own content as a DVD or Cd the fact is you can’t legally rip a DVD to digital media- most argue this is just outdated, you could argue that there is a comparison to be made for this situation.

Super injunctions simply don’t work in today’s digital information stream. The stream and exchange of information is anonymous, free, fast and global.

This morning, news surfaced that a Scottish newspaper had identified the premiership star, a country within the Uk that they argue is not covered by the English court ordered super-injunctions.

With Twitter effectively now being sued and asked to handover details of the authors of the Tweets, should it be Twitters job to moderate a communication service, a service that has had such massive effects, good and bad? Such as freeing political activists from arrest and breaking news to the world during events like the Hudson plane crash.

It actually puts this situation right into context, people will talk, not for commercial gain or to sell papers, just because they can. And this is exactly what has happened in this case. With the identity of CTB (the way the court are referring to the individual) being mentioned every 1 second this morning.

It’s important that people understand this, the game has changed, and those that play in it (or even those that don’t), have to understand the rules and the risks.

With some Facebook users liking hundreds of pages and having quite literally 1,000+ friends, how does Facebook cut through the noise and deliver relevant content to its hungry and hyperactive userbase?

The answer is using the special EdgeRank algorithm – a formula which decides whose content is engaging and deserves to be seen by the Facebook masses.

Lucky for you (and for me) Reputation Online published my article “The science behind Facebook’s EdgeRank” – you can read it here.

Enjoy!

I’ve always been very involved in the world of mobile as far back as I can remember when I ran social network PPLparty and then as online product manager for Doug Richard’s company – Trutap. So I thought it was about time to start reviewing iPhone applications starting with cooking app Whisk, created by James McIntosh.

First of all let’s start with a simple price comparison of competing apps. Jamie Oliver’s first app is £4.99 for 20 recipes, Gordon, Nigella and Rachel Allen are the same price. Whisk comes in at £2.99 for 600 recipes. So a quick comparison shows you that Whisk is ahead there.

Now you might say who is James McIntosh? Well you’ll be pleasantly surprised as I was that James is a world award winning cookery writer, home economist and demonstrator. This is a real expert who is trusted to represent brands like AGA and was a consumer researcher for the Good Housekeeping Institute.

The app is very intuitive, it’s usability is at par with any well thought out app on the iTunes app store.

There are some nifty features such as:

• you can save recipes as favorites
• upload your own photo as the recipe photo once you’ve made it yourself
• And my favorite- you can shake or ‘whisk’ your iPhone to be presented with a random recipe that is relevant to the time of day!

The app itself contains a variety of recipes including “basic everyday meals to dinner party menus, vegetables as main courses or
accompaniments, and scrumptious cakes”.

If you’ve tried Whisk or any other app you think I should review, be it a recipe app or something else, let me know.

You can download Whisk from iTunes here.

I seen this post on Mashable about Facebook and just had to share it:

Amazing stats.

From SocialHype and OnlineSchools.org.