January 2010

Social Media Raises $20+ Million For Haiti

Last week’s earthquake in Haiti is still a major shock to the world.  Last week, I shared with you, how the social media world has stepped up to help the victims in Haiti. 

The Red Cross, used their Twitter account to try to help raise money, by announcing that whoever texted “HAITI” to 90999 would be charged $10 on their next phone bill which would go to the relief in Haiti.  The Red Cross’s original goal was to raise $200,000 and then soon decided to go for the one million dollar mark.  In last Friday’s Social Media News Brief, we had announced they had raised over $8 million, just in text messages alone.  (more…)

iePlexus Social Media News Brief: Jan. 15, 2010

A war between Google & China this week, while the social media world helped raise money for victim’s of Haiti’s earthquake. Find out all the details in today’s social media news brief. (more…)

Facebook The Most Engaging Social Network

This report actually surprises me a bit.  Pingdom, a web monitoring site, has announced that Facebook is the “most engaging social network.”

“Figuring out how engaging a site is can be tricky,” said Pindgom’s blog post.  “We could look at the number of page views per visit, but that number alone doesn’t really tell us much. We also need to take into consideration how often visitors come back to a site. After all, if we return frequently to a site and also view many pages when we do, it’s likely that find the site engaging.” (more…)

China Bites Back At Google

The Chinese government is fighting back against Google’s comments yesterday, saying they would no longer filter out information on their website. 

“The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what content can be spread on the Internet,” said Jiang Yu, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.  (more…)

Google Gains Lead, Bing & Yahoo Fall Behind

The most recent report from Nielsen, shows that Google continues to dominate the search engines, but the most surprising news, is that they are gaining more users. The report documents the top 10 search engines for the month of December.  Google took 67.3% of those searches.  That’s nearly 6.7 billion people searching Google, compare that to only 1.4 billion on Yahoo!, which followed Google with only 14.4%.   That’s a drop from November, when Yahoo took roughly 15.3% of searches.  That’s close to an entire percent, which is drastic in terms of search.  Bing dropped to 9.9% of all searches, which is down from 10.7% in November.  It looks like those users went over to Google, since in November Google only had 65% of searches in November but jumped 2.3%.  (more…)

Social Media Helps Victims In Haiti

When there seems to be some type of major catastrophe anywhere in the world, it seems like everything else just stops and everyone wants to help.  Yesterday’s 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti is just the latest example.

And many people are finding that social media sites are the best way to get involved.  With the use of social media, the citizens of Haiti can tell the story, if they are actually able to get an internet connection.  Many have however.  Jonathan A. Lusma, a victim of the Haiti earthquake, posted the picture to the left on CNN’s citizen journalism site, iReport.  Katie Hawkins-Gaar, a CNN iReport producer, talked to Lusma and said that he, “shot these photos on the morning of January 13, the day after the earthquake struck. Because of the multiple aftershocks, he said many people spent the night outside of their homes.”  Lusma’s photo’s are just one of many that are being used in CNN’s continuing coverage of the Haiti earthquake.  (more…)

Facebook Users Get Free Security

In today’s economy, there is nothing like the word ‘free’.  And when it comes to your own security, you can’t pass it up.  Facebook has teamed up with McAfee security, one of the world leaders in computer safety, to offer a free six month subscription to McAfee’s security software to all of Facebook’s 350+ million users.  And if users decide they want to continue their software after their subscription ends, they’ll be offered a special discount.

It’s a big move on both Facebooks & McAfee’s part.  McAfee’s say’s they are giving software that costs about $35 on the site.  If you take that and multiply it by 350 million, that’s just less than $12.25 billion dollars before tax. (more…)

Google May Leave China

It seems like the world’s most used search engine, maybe leaving the country with the most people.  Google announced late Tuesday afternoon, that after much thought the company is working closely with the Chinese government but may close down it’s website in the country very soon.

“The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard,” said Google’s David Drummond, “and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today.” (more…)

Polish Pottery Distributor Enhances Web Sales in Partnership with iePlexus

It grows naturally. Deposits of white clay, waiting to be unearthed, are scattered throughout the lands of Boleslawiec, Poland, a tiny town just outside the German border. And from this malleable substance, a magnificent array of stoneware is crafted by the locals.

More commonly referred to as pottery, it was the brilliant vibrancy and intricate design of these handmade kitchen creations that attracted Kiki Nohmer – along with a handful of other military wives – to cross into Poland. While stationed in Germany for five years (then two more in Belgium) with her husband, who was an active solider in the United States Army, she made frequent expeditions to Boleslawiec.

(more…)

Rumor Billboard Ad’s To Go Digital On Google

Google will not confirm but if the rumors are true this could be a new way for online advertisers.  Reports from both RedWriteWeb & CNet say that ads could soon cover billboards on Google Maps. 

The concept is interesting, just think about it.  Right now, if we were go onto Google Maps, we would pass millions of billboards, without dated opening movie dates, telling us what channel to watch for our local news, and which car dealership is nearby.  Now those billboards can be replaced with real time advertisements.  This would allow advertisers to be able to select any location on Google Maps for Google Ad’s. (more…)