Facebook SNL Campaign for Betty White Pays Off

Facebook is continuing to influence entertainment, as proven by the latest news from the New York Daily News. A campaign launched on Facebook to convince “Saturday Night Live” producers to have Betty White on the show has apparently been successful, as the 88-year-old actress confirmed that she will be appearing as a guest this season.

The Facebook group “Betty White to Host SNL (Please?)” has gained half a million supporters in a short period of time - it appeared after White starred in a popular Snickers commercial during the Super Bowl. The comedy show’s producers apparently paid heed to the attention, although it’s not clear in what capacity White will be on the show. Still, White said at Elton John’s post-Oscar party that she was thrilled to be on the show and with her newfound popularity.

“I don’t know why or how,” she says, “but it’s been wonderful.”

Social Media Access via Mobile Browser Sees Triple-Digits

Access to social media sites via smartphones has increased 8.3 points in the past year, from 22.5 percent in January 2009 to 30.8 percent in January 2010, according to recent data from comScore. Access to Facebook via mobile browser increased 112 percent in the same time frame, while Twitter experienced a 347-percent increase.

The study also found that 11.1 percent of all mobile phone users accessed a social networking site via mobile browser, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from last year. According to comScore, much of this growth has been attributed to smartphone owners, 30.8 percent of whom accessed social networking sites on their mobile browsers.

ComScore also revealed that a whopping 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook via their mobile browser in January 2010, a 112 percent increase from the previous year. MySpace attracted 11.4 million users in January, while Twitter attracted 4.7 million users.

“American Idol” pulls plug on Twitter, Facebook pages

“American Idol” producers have pulled the plug on individual contestant Twitter and Facebook pages. According to the Los Angeles Times, they have all been consolidated into one shared social media page used by all of the contestants.

Followers of individual contestants on Twitter received the following message on Wednesday night as the switch happened: “Thanks so much for following me! All my updates from now on will be on our Official Ai9 Twitter Page, please follow me there @AI9Contestants” A similar message directed Facebook fans of contestants to the AI9 Contestants fan page on that site.

The report speculated that producers made the switch because the discrepancy between the number of friends and fans on social media sites was giving an obvious clue as to the popularity of certain contestants and might have been an influence in voting.

LinkedIn Partners with Calendar Application

If you have ever been invited to a company meeting and wondered the title, role and background of the other attendees, now you can find out. LinkedIn announced yesterday that it has integrated its services with Tungle.me, a calendaring application company, making it easy for meeting attendees to view the LinkedIn profiles of other professionals from across the globe who are invited to the same meeting.

“Now, when you access a meeting invitation that you’ve organized or been invited to through Tungle.me, you’ll see LinkedIn icons next to each attendee with a LinkedIn profile,” said Marc Gingras, CEO and Founder of Tungle Corporation.

LinkedIn currently offers a network of over 60 million business professionals in over 200 countries around the world.

Email Marketing Company Exact Target Acquires CoTweet

GigaOm.com reports that CoTweet, a Twitter management tool used by major companies like McDonald’s, Microsoft, Ford, Dell and Pepsi, has been purchased by email marketer Exact Target for an undisclosed sum. This move could create an interesting intersection of social media and traditional email-based marketing and might give some clues as to the future of monetizing social media.

Exact Target creates “permission based” Web campaigns for companies like Expedia, Home Depot, Gannett Co. and Wellpoint Inc. The majority of the company’s outreach for clients is done through email; its acquisition of a Twitter tool signals that it is interested in having a stronger social media presence.

The deal was important enough to warrant comment from Twitter COO Dick Costolo, who said “this acquisition is strong validation that valuable, sustainable businesses are emerging from the Twitter ecosystem. An ExactTarget and CoTweet combination should lead to even further digital marketing innovation through use of the Twitter platform.”

CoTweet offers a Twitter management tool that allows marketing executives from large companies to control Twitter feeds from a single page, making collaboration easier — particularly with larger projects.

U.S. Military Can Now Use Social Media

CNN reports that U.S. military personnel are now allowed tweet. According to the article, the Pentagon announced Friday that military personnel can use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube “from non-classified government computers as long as the activity does not compromise operational security or involve prohibited activities or Web sites.”

“The world of Web 2.0 and the Internet provides these amazing opportunities to collaborate,” David M. Wennergren, deputy assistant secretary of defense for information management and technology told CNN. “It not only promotes information sharing across organizational boundaries and with mission partners, but also enables deployed troops to maintain contact with their loved ones at home.”

White Sox Manager Guillen Joins Twitterverse

Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, whose reputation for speaking his mind has gotten him into trouble before, now has a new platform to share his thoughts with the world. The Chicago Tribune reports that Guillen has started to use Twitter, a move that has already drawn concern from team General Manager Kenny Williams, who spoke publicly about his concerns that it would take Guillen’s attention from baseball.

However, in typical fashion, Guillen told reporters after the team’s workout during spring training in Glendale, Ariz. that the situation was much ado about nothing.

“I guess I can’t have fun,” Guillen said. “I flunked in school five times, and I never had as much trouble as I’m having right now. Why do I have to explain to people why I’m doing this? Like I said, I talked to Kenny about it, it’s not anything that involves the ballclub. There are a lot of people in baseball that have Twitter. Why me? Why do I have to explain why I have Twitter? Obviously, I know I’m the manager of the team and the face of the ballclub, but there are a couple guys out there — I won’t say any names — that have Twitter.

“I guess they’re not famous, or people don’t care about it. The one thing I promise people — well I don’t have to promise — but (chairman) Jerry and Kenny. It’s nothing to do with the White Sox. I hope I don’t have to say I got in a fight with my wife last night.”

Yahoo! Announces Twitter Deal

Yahoo! today announced a partnership with Twitter to integrate the micro-blogging service’s real-time tweets in Yahoo!’s global network. The partnership will allow people to access their personal Twitter feeds across various Yahoo! properties including the homepage and Yahoo! Mail; update their Twitter status and share content from Yahoo! in their Twitter stream; and access Twitter updates across Yahoo! media properties such as News, Finance and Sports.

Co-founder of Twitter Biz Stone wrote in a blog post, “From our perspective, this partnership represents a big opportunity. Tweets may be short, but they have proven over and over again to contain valuable information. As the Twitter information network grows and expands, it becomes more valuable for everyone who participates.”

Yahoo! announced a similar partnership with Facebook in December. Both deals make it possible for anyone with a Yahoo! ID to update both social networking sites simultaneously. And Yahoo! isn’t the only one signing agreements. The Los Angeles Times reports that Twitter is making search deals right and left with nearly everyone including Microsoft, Google, AOL and MySpace, amounting to about $25 million in revenue.

Farmville Monthly Subscription a Hoax

An email claiming that Facebook users will soon have to pay to play the popular game Farmville is a hoax, according to Caroline McCarthy at CNET. A fan site had posted an email that a reader said had come from Farmville parent company Zynga, claiming that the game was moving out of “beta” mode ending March 31, with a new subscription model costing $5.95 month and offering advanced features.

Of course, that also means that the first day of the “new” Farmville would be on April 1, leading McCarthy to speculate that it was an early April Fool’s Day joke. For their part, spokespeople from Zynga have denied that they will be moving out of their current model, which sees the company make money from 75 million monthly users who use real-world money to purchase virtual goods to use in the game.

50 Million Tweets Per Day

Twitter announced today that its micro-blogging service experiences 50 million tweets per day (TPD), an increase of 1,400 percent from 35 million TPD in 2009. In an effort to track the company’s growth over the past few years, the Twitter analytics team has posted a TPD report on the company blog, revealing that people were tweeting only 5,000 TPD back in 2007. According the blog post, the 50 million Tweets per day milestone does not include tweets from accounts identified as spam.

Next Page »