LBi London

Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by Jamie Pither December 6th, 2011

Spotify Apps

Spotify have just announced at a news conference in New York that it will be opening up its platform so that customers can use various apps to enhance their listening experience. The Spotify Apps platform is open for developers and media partners to build apps that will run on Spotify’s desktop application.

The new apps will let you look up song lyrics, find out about gigs and share your musical experiences. At the moment you’ll find apps made by Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Last.fm, Songkick and TuneWiki.

For example the Guardian’s app is going to be all about bringing album reviews from the Guardian and the Observer into Spotify’s service. It will be exciting to see how these two companies’ will work together for a series of live gigs in London.

With Spotify’s launching in the United States this summer and its 2.5 million paying customers it can claim to be the most impressive new technology company to have come out of Europe in the last five years.

The apps will sit within Spotify’s desktop client, with possible extension to mobile in the future. The apps will be available to free and paying users of the service, although for now, developers will not be able to charge for them.

Just a bit of Spotify trivia for you, at the moment it has a catalogue of 15m songs, and  roughly 20,000 new tracks are added per day. Which apps will you be using?

Take Google Maps Indoors

Where would we be without Google maps? We all know that Google has spent the better part of the last decade mapping the great outdoors so is it such a surprise that they are going to now conquer the indoor domain?

With the launch of Google Maps 6.0 on Tuesday, users of mobile devices running Android OS 2.1 and up will be able to use Google Maps not just to get directions to an IKEA, Macy’s or one of several airports, but to use the mapping functionality to figure out how to find housewares, ATMs, and your flight gate once you are inside.

Google’s inside mapping will work similarly to how its outside mapping works. A little blue dot will move along with you to show you where you are, and the technology is even able to know what floor you are on.

At the moment the functionality  is currently only available for some buildings in America and Japan, and only works on Android mobile phones, Google has already mapped some indoor areas in the UK, for instance for its projects to take people inside art galleries via Google Earth. Keep posted for more indoor locations across the UK.

Burrito Record

On Wednesday 7 December Benito’s Hat is planning a stunt to create the UK’s biggest burrito, which its Facebook fans can then help eat in its restaurant free of charge.

Not only is this a tasty stunt, but it has a charity angle as well. The stunt will help raise money for homeless charities and is also aiming to increase the number of fans on Facebook and bring people into the restaurants.

Benito’s Hat ran a successful campaign last month on Twitter which resulted in a 25% sales boost. They are keen to harness the power of social to not only increase brand awareness, but to drive sales and it looks like it is bringing them results. Check out their Facebook page for details of the event.

Tags: Apps, burrito, charity, Facebook, Google, google maps, guardian, indoor, record, rollingstone, Spotify

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Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by Sinead Doyle November 28th, 2011

Holiday Travel Infographic

Foursquare has created an infographic showing holiday travel checkins in the US by plane, train, and car, covering a period from Halloween until just after Christmas in 2010. We would love to see how it compares to this year’s data!

Foursquare travel data

JCPenny Santa Tags

American retailer JCPenny’s is rolling out a holiday campaign that’s all about fun and bringing personalised gift tags to the next level with QR codes. The ‘Who’s Your Santa?’ campaign allows everyone who buys a Christmas gift to receive a unique QR code gift tag (or “Santa tag” as they are being called).

The QR code allows the person giving the gift to scan and record a personalised voice message for the recipient. Once recorded, the Santa gift tag can simply be attached to the present and the gift is ready to be delivered with a personal touch.

Stamped

If you like to make and receive recommendations from friends than this new app called Stamped is right up your street. The premise is that you give your stamp of approval on restaurants, books, movies, music and TV shows, and that you’re only recommending what you like best to people who care about your opinion.

Stamped integrates with Google Places and includes built-in functionality with OpenTable, Amazon, iTunes and Fandango. It works like most apps you’re already familiar with and the interface is intuitive with a stylish design.

There’s an impressive and interesting team behind this project and Stamped can also boast that it is the only NYC based consumer project funded by Google Ventures. The board of advisors includes Kevin Systrom, the CEO and founder of Instagram, and Mario Batali, renowned chef and founder of the Mario Batali Foundation.

At the moment Stamped is available on iPhone and iPod Touch. It will be released for other platforms later in the year.

Tags: app, foursquare, Google, JCPenney, QR code, santa tag, Social Media, stamped, thanksgiving, travel

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Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by rebcla August 12th, 2011

Riots and social media

After a week of violent riots across the country, initially sparked by the police shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham, north London,  the use of social media, especially Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry have come under attack. The use of these services to organise the riots, particularly in London have caused the government and the police to question whether social media can be ‘shut down’ when riots such as these strike. This confirms the government’s little of understanding of the ways in which these global platforms are used and how damaging ‘censoring’ social media could be. We have learnt from the anti-government demonstrations in Egypt earlier this year that shutting down networks such as Vodafone have only led to wide criticism. Let’s see how the debate unfolds.

DCR Music

Damon Alban recently travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, leading a group of producers aiming to produce an album in seven days to raise money for Oxfam’s work there. The DRC is home to one of the world’s most humanitarian crises. Oxfam and Damon have set up a cool blog on Tumblr so you can follow the project. They have been posting pictures of jam sessions, home-made instruments and some tracks. Follow the project here and get social for a good cause.

Google + introduces social gaming

Yesterday Google announced that it had begun rolling out a games button, with 16 social games to play, including Angry Birds, Zynya Poker and Sudoko. Users can invite contacts from their ‘circles’ to play games together online. Get addicted with Google +.

Tags: Damon Alban, DRC Music, Google, Oxfam, riots, Social Gaming, Social Media, Tumblr

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Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by rebcla July 5th, 2011

Google+ the new answer to Facebook?

Google+ launched last week with their usual limited number of invitations tactic to their new social networking platform, set to rival Facebook. Google then reported that ‘insane’ demand forced them to put a cap on the number of new users. It might be helpful if they released some numbers to define the ‘insane’ demand. Google wants to make sharing online more like sharing in real life. Here are the four key elements:

• Circles: Instead of friend lists, connections are organised in different circles allowing complete control of privacy settings to be applied to each circle
• Sparks: You can tell this feature your interests, and it provides you with targeted content
• Hangouts: It lets your friends know when you’re available to chat via video, enabling group chats
• Huddle: To help group plans. It turns lots of conversations into one big group chat to help you reach a decision

Privacy concerns have been an issue in one way or another with most social networks, especially Facebook. Google+ is trying to address this by allowing users to alter their visibility settings and choose whether their profile is indexed by search engines. The question we are all asking is, will users be willing to leave Facebook for Google+ when they already have a social network that works? A new Google Chrome extension Facebook Friend Exporter is making it much easier to import your Facebook contacts onto the platform, although it has been reported this morning that Facebook is actively trying to block the application by removing emails of your friends from your profile. More on the story here. Maybe Facebook really is getting concerned about Google stealing their crown.

Facebook and Skype to launch integrated video chat?

Facebook are set to make an ‘awesome’ announcement tomorrow. We have a feeling that it might end up being a new video chat feature built in partnership with Skype, which was bought by Microsoft in May. Currently users looking to video chat with their friends have to leave Facebook to do so. If Facebook and Skype do launch an integrated video chat product it’s perfectly timed with the launch of Google+ and the Google+ Hangouts feature which allows video chat. This move would make strategic sense for Facebook, fending off Google and strengthening its ties with Microsoft. Listen out tomorrow on Facebook Live.

The Crunch Band Mobile App

Pringles have just launched a new mobile app to help celebrate the season of summer music festivals. It has a mix of native iPhone and Android apps that are used to play one of 15 virtual instruments. It’s free and if you grab a pack of Pringles you can scan the barcode to unlock new features and badges. Check out the video.

Tags: Facebook, Facebook Live, Google, Pringles, Skype, Social Media

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