Stars Quit Twitter and Facebook for Charity

Could you quit Twitter and Facebook cold turkey? It’s a terrifying thought to many people who are on social media sites continuously. However, that’s exactly what the Los Angeles Times says that many top celebrities are doing for a good cause. Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Hudson and Ryan Seacrest are just some of the stars who have pledged to abstain from using social media as part of a charity campaign.

The idea is the brainchild of singer and actress Alicia Keys as a way to raise money and awareness for her “Keep a Child Alive” campaign to provide medicine, food, shelter and other basic necessities to children impacted by HIV and AIDS in Africa. The celebrities have agreed to stay off of social media sites until $1 million has been raised by the campaign.

“It’s so important to shock you to the point of waking up,” Keys said. “It’s not that people don’t care or it’s not that people don’t want to do something, it’s that they never thought of it quite like that.”

Facebook Receives Initial Approval to Trademark Word Face

Facebook has gone to great lengths in the past to attempt to protect its copyright. However, InformationWeek reports that a seemingly bold tactic might pay dividends, as the social media site has received an initial approval to trademark the word “face.”

According to the report, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office sent a Notice of Allowance to Facebook on November 23, which essentially states that Facebook has the right to claim a trademark on the term “face” based on the department’s examination of its initial request. Facebook must still file a Statement of Use explaining how it plans to use the trademark on the word in commercial applications before the trademark will be issued.

If approved, the trademark would be a major weapon for the company in fighting companies in the social media space with the word “Face” or “Book” in their names. Facebook has claimed that sites which do this are attempting to profit from Facebook’s success and are deliberately confusing users.

Facebook Wants You to Make Them Your Home Page

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook is gearing up for a major marketing push designed to get users to make their Facebook wall their default home page. The article says that the move is a shot across the bow at Google, which is recognized as one of the most popular home pages for individual users.

ComScore data shows that Facebook currently is the home page for roughly six percent of all Internet users. Data isn’t available for Google home pages, but the number is considered to be considerably higher. One industry expert said that the move by Google is being done with advertisers in mind.

“This is part of the larger battle for online digital supremacy,” said eMarketer analyst Noah Elkin. “Both Google and Facebook want to make their services the gateway for all their users communications needs.”

Facebook is also rolling out a new messaging service, with the hopes that it will eventually compete with integrated email and messaging systems from Google, Yahoo! and other major providers.

Twitter Unveils Information on Reputation Scores

If you’ve ever wondered how Twitter decides which users are suggested to you in the “Who to Follow” feature, you aren’t alone. Federated Media editor John Battelle had the same question, and he recently posed it to Twitter co-founder Evan Williams at the Web 2.0 summit. Williams’ answer sheds light on Twitter’s process and proves that not all Twitter accounts are treated equally.

According to USA Today, Williams said that Twitter places a “reputation score” on each user’s account; feeds with higher reputation scores are more likely to be recommended through the “Who to Follow” section. A reputation score is typically comprised of many factors, but generally is considered a measure of a person’s overall power of online influence.

So what is your Twitter reputation score? As of right now, that information is private, although Williams said that Twitter is considering making it public as part of future forward-facing services and initiatives. Knowing a person’s reputation score would certainly allow companies to target Twitter marketing and advertising to users with the greatest potential to influence other users.

Yahoo! Announces Local Search, Social Media Enhancements

Yahoo! is getting more heavily involved in local search, as PC World reports that the search giant has launched a program called Local Offers which will offer Yahoo! users special deals targeted to their demographic market. According to a Yahoo! press release, initial partners for Local Offers include Groupon, LivingSocial and Coupons.com.

Yahoo! also announced new local search enhancements, including new “Quick Apps” features designed to allow people to hone in on local areas of interest during searches. A new Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search feature will let people visually narrow down search results for popular destinations like restaurants. Other local search enhancements will let people compare local restaurants and let people make reservations through OpenTable right on the Yahoo! Search results page.

In addition to expanding local search, Yahoo! also announced new social media products and services. A new global rollout of Yahoo! Messenger allows users to play social games from publishers like Zynga, ELEX and OMGPOP, share their status across networks, and view, comment on, and “like” updates from Yahoo! Pulse, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter.

“Our job is to connect you with the people, places and things that matter most to you — whether that’s making a restaurant reservation, finding a discounted tee time, or playing popular online games with friends,” said Blake Irving, executive vice president and chief product officer, Yahoo!. “By enhancing Yahoo!’s most popular sites and services with social experiences like Zynga and Twitter, great local content, and a new platform for sharing your voice with the world, we’re making Yahoo! an even better place for everyone to stay entertained, productive, and informed.”

iTunes Ping and Twitter Announce Integration Deal

The iTunes Ping social music service is coming to Twitter, as CNET reports that Apple has inked a deal with Twitter to let users link their Twitter and Ping accounts. Users who post reviews, purchases and other opinions on songs and albums through Ping can now also share that information with their Twitter friends, according to a post on the official Twitter blog announcing the partnership.

“Once you’ve linked the accounts, whenever you post, like, review, or tell your friends why you purchased a song or album on Ping, this activity will also be tweeted to your Twitter followers — complete with playable song previews and links to purchase and download music from iTunes,” wrote Twitter Vice President for Business and Corporate Development Kevin Thau.

Ping was a disappointment at launch, largely because it was a social networking tool that lacked integration with either Twitter or Facebook, so this deal helps to close that gap. Apple had originally said that Ping users would eventually be able to sync their accounts with Facebook, but talks surrounding this integration eventually broke down.

Retailers Taking Advantage of Facebook Deals

PROMO Magazine reports that many leading retailers are taking advantage of the new Facebook Deals app to market directly to customers who are already near their stores. Taking advantage of the Facebook Places app for many smartphones, retailers such as Gap, McDonald’s and Macy’s are delivering personalized deals to customers when they “check in” that they are at or near a certain location.

Facebook Places lets users share their locations with friends. Facebook Deals gives them the ability to view deals at nearby businesses through their smartphone and instantly take advantage of the deals without printing out a coupon. For example, Gap stores gave away blue jeans to the first 10,000 customers to take advantage of a Facebook Deals offer, leading to lines forming outside of a New York store by 8 a.m.

Other retailers are tying their charitable causes to Facebook Deals. McDonald’s is donating one dollar to the Ronald McDonald House Charities for each person who uses Facebook Deals at their restaurant. Starbucks is going a similar route, donating one dollar for every Facebook Deals customer to Conservation International.

Twitter Hires First D.C. Consultant

Twitter has hired the company’s first-ever Washington, D.C.-based employee, CNET reported on Tuesday. The social media site has hired Adam Sharp, currently an executive producer for digital services at C-SPAN and former Democratic Senate staffer to Mary Landrieu, as its new manager of government and political partnerships. He’s expected to start with the company on November 29.

On his Twitter account, Sharp posted that he looks forward “to working w/learning from #gov20 community & others committed to enhancing civic debate by bringing govt, people closer together.” Because of the nature of the microblogging site, Twitter has not dealt with the privacy and copyright issues that companies like Google, YouTube and Facebook have in the past. Google has an office in Washington, D.C. partially dedicated to public policy, while Facebook hired former journalist Andrew Noyes as a D.C.-based spokesperson last year.

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Does Facebook Hold Clues to Break-Up Patterns

Does Facebook hold the clues about when couples are going to break up? That what CNN reports that journalist and Facebook analyst David McCandless says he can do by looking at the Facebook status updates of couples. In a presentation he recently made at the TED Conference, McCandless said that an analysis of status updates showed two major spikes in Facebook updates featuring phrases like “broken up” as taken from 10,000 different user profiles.

The first spike in breakups occurred in the period between Valentine’s Day and spring break. The second came in the weeks leading up to Christmas — McCandless speculated that people were making decisions to split as they were doing mental inventory of gifts to give. However, the day that was least likely to involve a break-up was Christmas, as McCandless said that this seemed just “too cruel” for most people.

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