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HOW TO: Help Employees Talk About Your Brand Online
Jolie O'Dell | 2010-07-28T11:21:47-04:00 | 2/1

style="float:right;margin-bottom:10px;">target="_blank" href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/internal-brand-management-online/&service=bit.ly">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/internal-brand-management-online/" align="right"/>target="_blank" class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/internal-brand-management-online/&title=HOW TO: Help Employees Talk About Your Brand Online&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/gbuzz-feed.png" align="right" />target="_blank" share_url="http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/internal-brand-management-online/" type="box_count" name="fb_share" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/internal-brand-management-online/&src=sp" style="text-decoration: none;">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/fb.jpg" align="right" />href="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis/login?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/internal-brand-management-online/&title=HOW TO: Help Employees Talk About Your Brand Online&related=true&style=true">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/diggme.png" align="right" />
style="float:left;margin-bottom:10px;">src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/igloo-100x501.png" alt="" title="igloo 100x50" width="100" height="50" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-318038" />
style="clear:both;">

This href="http://mashable.com/tag/brand-management-series">series is supported by rel="nofollow" href="http://bit.ly/cZpDvo" target="_blank">IGLOO, a leader in helping organizations improve business processes, increase employee productivity and enhance stakeholder engagement inside and outside the organization using social technologies.

src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/internal-brand-management.jpg" alt="" title="internal-brand-management" width="260" height="190" class="alignright size-full wp-image-338072" />For many brand managers, employees’ actions online remain a daunting, untamed frontier. The brand’s consistent, controlled message to consumers melds with internal messaging and individuals’ stories when employees take to the social web.

The cautionary tales of the social web’s early days — stories of indiscretion, mixed signals and poor communication — have led to an increase in strict policies and careful monitoring of employee social media activities in many cases. But lately, a few savvy brands have changed their internal position about employees’ activities on the social web.

At many organizations, we’ve moved beyond firings over href="http://mashable.com/category/facebook">Facebook faux pas and are actively looking for even more ways for employees to use social media both personally and professionally. What was once a top-down litany of thou-shalt-nots has become an increasingly proactive encouragement to opine, express and evangelize on behalf of the brand. Here are a few pointers from managers and employees using the modern-day Internet in brand-friendly ways.

/>

Don’t Issue Too Many Orders

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src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/internal-brand-management-1.jpg" alt="" title="internal-brand-management-1" width="640" height="380" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-338062" />

One trend we’ve noted over the past couple years is a shift away from prohibitive internal codes of conduct and toward more encouraging, educational practices. In other words, managers are seeing less need to specifically tell employees to refrain from discussing client business and confidential internal decisions online. More now than ever before, they’re telling employees to be open and communicative about the brand when using social media.

But more than being told what not to do online, employees don’t want to be told they have to post or tweet about the company unless it’s a specific part of the job they perform. “That would be very strange and awkward and not nice at all,” said one typical employee.

We also received a few responses suggesting that modern employees have a pretty good idea of how to handle themselves online. One said he probably knew more about appropriate online behavior than his bosses did. Another noted that he knew the boundary between acceptable and unhinged.

Ultimately, letting employees know that tweeting about the company is encouraged and letting them make their own decisions is the best policy, say our respondents. “At [company name], we’re encouraged to tweet if we want to,” said one employee. “We dont have a formal policy; people tend to have decent judgement.”

/>

Give Employees Resources

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src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/internal-brand-management-2.jpg" alt="" title="internal-brand-management-2" width="640" height="380" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-338064" />

While rules and guidelines for employee social media use can be helpful and appreciated, and the employees we surveyed expressed a desire to have permission rather than ask forgiveness for their social media activities, it’s sometimes best to go the extra mile and give your internal community more resources for spreading the word about company activities, promotions and culture.

One user said, “My employer… doesn’t tell me what to tweet but does provide all managers with great Twitter resources (i.e. guidebooks) to educate people on how to benefit from tweeting, show that the company supports it and provide clarity on what is appropriate.

“The company prefers to give people a roadmap with helpful pointers rather than be heavy-handed. Works out for the best that way.”

Another social media director showed us a social media policy that went so far as to show employees the best way to be interesting, add value and build their own networks online. These internal documents give great advice for how to use href="http://mashable.com/category/twitter">Twitter, Facebook and other networks for everything from business development to thought leadership.

A good way to think about providing good tools for your employees is to ensure that you have as many proactive statements as prohibitive ones in any documents or guidelines you issue; the DOs and DON’Ts columns should be equal, with the DOs holding the advantage whenever possible.

/>

Give Your Internal “Fans” a Voice Online

/>

src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/internal-brand-management-3.jpg" alt="" title="internal-brand-management-3" width="640" height="380" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-338066" />

Every organization will have a certain number of employees who truly embody the brand and the company culture. When you find those individuals, recognize them by inviting them to be part of your company’s social media activity.

For these employees, contributing to the company’s blog or Twitter account or maintaining a separate but related social media presence can be beneficial for all parties involved. The employee builds a greater external network and strengthens his contribution internally; the company benefits by having a relatable, responsive, on-brand face as another facet of its social media presence.

One such employee told us, “I’m a Kool-Aid drinker at work, so it’s easy… We’re a very conservative organization. We’re never told what to tweet, but we’re always conscious of what our culture and voice is. When I tweet [for one of the company's Twitter accounts], I use [a] voice that is my take on embodying our culture.”

/>

Extra Credit: Let Your Employees Shape the Brand, Too

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src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/internal-brand-management-4.jpg" alt="" title="internal-brand-management-4" width="640" height="380" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-338068" />

For some organizations, a proactive take on employee social media use is a given. What else can you do to improve your internal brand management?

It’s not enough to simply issue guidelines on social media use or communicate “on-brand” behavior expectations. Your employees are people “who see themselves as individuals and who are living a brand of their own making,” href="http://www.interbrand.com/paper.aspx?paperid=68&langid=1000" target="_blank">writes Interbrand’s Alexander Rauch.

“The question boils down to this: If a brand is supposed to give customers something to identify with and add meaning to their lives, shouldn’t helping employees express themselves as individuals help the brand as well?”

In allowing the brand-employee relationship to flow in both directions, you accomplish that most important objective: true engagement. And in doing so, you create advocates who understand and promote the brand in ways that you could never acheive through top-down directives alone. Moreover, the brand itself is invigorated by fresh perspectives in a trickle-up model. If your company is already experienced in social media matters, this approach can work particularly well.

If you have other pointers for how employees can use social media self-expression to bolster the brand, let us know your best practices in the comments below.

/>Series supported by IGLOO/>

src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/igloo.png" alt="" title="igloo" width="200" height="100" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-318032" />

This href="http://mashable.com/tag/brand-management-series">series is supported by rel="nofollow" href="http://bit.ly/cZpDvo" target="_blank">IGLOO, a leader in helping organizations improve business processes, increase employee productivity and enhance stakeholder engagement inside and outside the organization using social technologies.

rel="nofollow" href="http://bit.ly/cZpDvo" target="_blank">IGLOO is a social software company that builds online communities for business. Uniting content management, collaboration and knowledge sharing tools, within one secure social networking platform, IGLOO enables organizations to overcome the barriers to communication and collaboration that emerge because of size. Whether the obstacles are organizational or geographic, a more open and connected business improves employee productivity (Workplace Communities) and helps to foster better relationships with customers, partners and suppliers (Marketplace Communities). Learn more about how IGLOO is socializing the workplace and helping organizations build successful online communities through the rel="nofollow" href="http://bit.ly/c0pfzQ" target="_blank">IGLOO Social Media Playbook.

/>

More Business Resources From Mashable:

/>

- href="http://mashable.com/2010/07/16/online-tools-small-business-questions/">5 Online Tools for Answering Your Small Business Questions/> - href="http://mashable.com/2010/07/21/business-growth-tips-bliptv/">Growing Your Business: 5 Tips From the Founder of Blip.tv/> - href="http://mashable.com/2010/07/16/customer-feedback/">Why Complaining Customers Can Be Good For Your Business/> - href="http://mashable.com/2010/07/15/social-media-business-leads-fail/">Is Social Media Failing to Produce Business Leads?/> - href="http://mashable.com/2010/06/30/brands-social-web/">6 Challenges to Managing a Brand on the Social Web

[img credit: href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rishibando" target="_blank">rishibando]

More about : href="http://mashable.com/tag/brand-management-series/">brand management series, href="http://mashable.com/tag/business/">business, href="http://mashable.com/tag/employee/">employee, href="http://mashable.com/tag/facebook/">facebook, href="http://mashable.com/tag/internal-brand-management/">internal brand management, href="http://mashable.com/tag/internal-branding/">internal branding, href="http://mashable.com/tag/linkedin/">linkedin, href="http://mashable.com/tag/small-business/">small business, href="http://mashable.com/tag/social-media/">social media, href="http://mashable.com/tag/social-media-policy/">social media policy, href="http://mashable.com/tag/twitter/">twitter

style="margin-top:10px;">For more href="http://mashable.com/business/">Business coverage:style="margin-top:0;">
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  • ALERT: Profile Spy Steps Up Attack On Facebook Users
    Nick O'Neill | 2010-07-28T10:28:32-04:00 | 4/1

    Error IconOver the weekend we alerted users to the return of profile spy, a tool that promises to let users see who’s viewing their profile. As we said last week, the tool is fake, however it isn’t preventing thousands of users from participating in the scam once again. Rather than using a different strategy than last time, the only thing that the scammers have changed is the URLs. Do not complete this scam, instead share this article and let your friends know of the scam.



    As before, here is the message that’s being posted when users complete the scam:



    OMG OMG OMG… I can’t believe this actually works! Now you really can see who views your profile!!! WOAH –>


    The scammers have dramatically increased the number of URLs that are part of this widespread attack. These are the latest URLs that we have compiled that are part of the attack:



    What still continues to surprise us is that Facebook doesn’t have a system that catches people posting status updates that match a certain pattern, and alert the user that they may be part of a scam. While I’d expect Facebook to eventually release such a system, there is nothing in place right now and the Profile Spy scam continues to spread, as first pointed out by AVG.



    -Profile Spy Screenshot-








    Windows Live Messenger Tops This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by DAU
    Chris Morrison | 2010-07-28T09:30:36-04:00

    Windows Live Messenger leads off this week’s list of fastest-gaining Facebook games by daily active users with a healthy half-million new DAU. The messaging app is doing a great job of supplanting Facebook’s in-house chat functionality for international audiences; some 68 percent of its total monthly active userbase of 3.4 million come back on a daily basis, one of the higher retention rates we’ve seen.


    Here’s the full AppData top 20:









    Top Gainers This Week
























































































































































    Name DAU Gain Gain,%
    1.Original Windows Live Messenger2,429,143+522,225+27%
    2.Original Pirates Ahoy286,094+261,556+1,066%
    3.Original QuizBone330,811+223,833+209%
    4.Original Baking Life1,051,448+193,187+23%
    5.Original 守衛家園195,915+189,191+2,814%
    6.Original Fashion World734,642+187,424+34%
    7.Original Ninja Saga916,979+185,225+25%
    8.App_2_125301840827866_9721 Market Street129,857+129,825+405,703%
    9.Original Fanglies197,438+122,483+163%
    10.Original Give Hearts576,921+120,163+26%
    11.Original Games808,522+94,727+13%
    12.App_2_347486061825_9369 Cafe Life188,537+91,853+95%
    13.Original 德州撲克762,225+58,130+8%
    14.Original Tarjetitas130,869+56,652+76%
    15.Original Be Naughty!120,614+53,737+80%
    16.Original Nightclub City845,726+52,701+7%
    17.Original Ameba Pico119,254+50,917+75%
    18.Original Zoosk348,296+45,584+15%
    19.Original Mall World712,237+45,438+7%
    20.Original Millionaire City710,038+44,084+7%

    Electronic Arts is doing well with its latest game, Pirates Ahoy, which has docked at number two with an apparent 286,094 new DAU. Of course, Pirates is brand new, so some of those players will disappear; but at its current rate of growth, they’ll quickly be replaced. We’ll cover the rest of the games over at Inside Social Games.


    QuizBone comes in third. This is actually one of the smaller quiz creator applications, but as we recently saw with Pencake, it’s possible for quiz apps to grow faster than almost any other type of app, and the roster of the largest quizzes can shift significantly over a short period of time.


    There are only a couple more non-game apps on this week’s list. One is Give Hearts, a fairly standard gifting app that’s actually losing MAU as it picks up a few new DAU. The other is Be Naughty!, a dating app that has been around since last October and has grown fairly steadily since, except for a plateau between February and May.



    Shocking Video Scams Spread Virally on Facebook [WARNING]
    Stan Schroeder | 2010-07-28T06:28:21-04:00

    style="float:right;margin-bottom:10px;">target="_blank" href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/shocking-video-scam-facebook/&service=bit.ly">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/shocking-video-scam-facebook/" align="right"/>target="_blank" class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/shocking-video-scam-facebook/&title=Shocking Video Scams Spread Virally on Facebook [WARNING]&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/gbuzz-feed.png" align="right" />target="_blank" share_url="http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/shocking-video-scam-facebook/" type="box_count" name="fb_share" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/shocking-video-scam-facebook/&src=sp" style="text-decoration: none;">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/fb.jpg" align="right" />href="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis/login?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/shocking-video-scam-facebook/&title=Shocking Video Scams Spread Virally on Facebook [WARNING]&related=true&style=true">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/diggme.png" align="right" />
    style="float:left;margin-bottom:10px;">original="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/facebook-bug.jpg" class="alignright" style="margin: 10px;" src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/facebook-bug.jpg" alt="" height="190" width="260">
    style="clear:both;">
    Several new Facebook scams are making the rounds today, and although they follow the same pattern as many of the href="http://mashable.com/2010/07/15/coca-cola-scam-hits-facebook-warning/">recent scams we’ve seen, some users are still falling for them.

    The scams work as follows: first, you’ll see an interesting link in other users’ status updates, but when you follow the link, you’ll be asked to fill up a number of surveys which are nothing more than ploys to extract your personal data.

    Today, we’ve seen two very similar scams, both promising a “shocking video” to unsuspecting users. One message that appears in status updates reads “I am shocked!!! I’m NEVER texting AGAIN since I found this out. Video here: http://bit.ly/c4SDyh – Worldwide scandal!

    If you click on the link in the message, it’ll lead you to a rogue Facebook application, which will ask you to fill in a couple of surveys before you can actually see the promised content.

    src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/shocking_video.jpg" alt="" title="shocking_video" width="640" height="158" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-340460" />

    Another message promises a shocking video of a teacher that nearly killed a boy; clicking on the link in the status update will, once again, only force you to jump through hoops and hand over your personal data in the process. href="http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2010/07/28/shocking-video-link-worms-facebook/" target="_blank">Graham Cluley from Sophos does a great job explaining the attack in the video below.

    width="640" height="385">name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_uFa3P0sLA4&hl=en_US&fs=1">name="allowFullScreen" value="true">name="allowscriptaccess" value="always">wmode="opaque" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_uFa3P0sLA4&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385">

    Our advice, as always, is not to click on suspicious links if you’re not absolutely sure they’re safe. Do not give away your personal info. If you’ve fallen for these (or similar) scams, remove the offending app(s) from your Facebook apps, and remove the related status message from your newsfeed.

    More about : href="http://mashable.com/tag/facebook/">facebook, href="http://mashable.com/tag/scam/">scam, href="http://mashable.com/tag/social-networking/">social networking, href="http://mashable.com/tag/video/">video

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  • Facebook Announces New Sources Of Credits
    Caitlin Fitzsimmons | 2010-07-27T20:38:42-04:00

    Facebook Credits logoFacebook is pushing further into the credits business, promoting other ways that users can earn them through real-world and virtual transactions.



    The Facebook Credits page yesterday posted this update: “Besides getting Facebook Credits in your favorite apps, do you know that there are also other ways to get them? Thanks to Plastic Jungle, Rixty, Inc., Booyah, and Games.com, get Credits by exchanging gift cards, turning in spare change, checking into locations, and entering a sweepstake. This week, be on the lookout as we feature these other ways.”


    Although the social networking site has announced it would kill off the gift shop in August, where users can buy virtual goods to put on their friends’ walls, Facebook Credits are still big business within games such as Zynga’s Farmville where they can be used as a virtual currency to buy game cash.


    Facebook has recently been giving away free Facebook credits to users to encourage people to use them - since the virtual currency has no value in the real world. Recently the company also announced a partnership with MOL in Asia to allow people to buy Facebook Credits in 7-11 stores and cybercafes.








    Disney Buys Playdom For Up To $763.2 Million
    Caitlin Fitzsimmons | 2010-07-27T19:30:04-04:00

    Disney is making a major foray into social gaming with the purchase of Playdom for up to $763.2 million. The games company, which has titles such as Mobsters, Social City, Sorority Life, Market Street and Bola on Facebook and other social networking sites, claims 42 million active players a month.



    The deal is worth $563.2 million in “total consideration” and a possible further $200 million in earn-outs. It marks a considerable jump in the valuations of social gaming companies since last year when games publisher Electronic Arts bought Playfish for $275 million in cash and up to $100 million in earn-outs. Playfish had 60 million monthly active users at the time. The Disney-Playdom numbers imply that Zynga, the biggest social game company on Facebook, would be worth over $3.5 billion based purely on user numbers. AllFacebook.com’s internal numbers show Playdom has 39 million active players a month on Facebook compared with 207 million for Zynga.


    Disney has hinted it would lend its brands and characters to future Playdom releases. Robert A. Iger, president and chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, said there was opportunity in bringing together Playdom’s team and capabilities with Disney’s “great creative properties”. “This acquisition furthers our strategy of allocating capital to high-growth businesses that can benefit from our many characters, stories and brands, delivering them in a creatively compelling way to a new generation of fans on the platforms they prefer,” he said.


    Disney, through its investment fund Steamboat Ventures, was one of a number of investors in Playdom’s last round of venture capital financing, which raised $33 million in June. Other new backers included Bessemer Venture Partners and New World Ventures. The company has raised a total of $76 million. Disney told PaidContent it had not planned to buy the company when it took part in the June capital raising but the deal brought the two companies a lot closer.


    Playdom is to remain in Mountain View in California and has committed to keep working on the 12 titles it currently has in production, as well as any new ones as a result of the Disney deal. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval but should be complete by the end of Disney’s financial year.








    Amazon + Facebook = A Perfect Storm of Recommendations
    Jolie O'Dell | 2010-07-27T19:04:53-04:00

    style="float:right;margin-bottom:10px;">target="_blank" href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/27/amazon-facebook-recommendations/&service=bit.ly">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/27/amazon-facebook-recommendations/" align="right"/>target="_blank" class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/27/amazon-facebook-recommendations/&title=Amazon + Facebook = A Perfect Storm of Recommendations&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/gbuzz-feed.png" align="right" />target="_blank" share_url="http://mashable.com/2010/07/27/amazon-facebook-recommendations/" type="box_count" name="fb_share" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://mashable.com/2010/07/27/amazon-facebook-recommendations/&src=sp" style="text-decoration: none;">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/fb.jpg" align="right" />href="http://digg.com/tools/diggthis/login?url=http://mashable.com/2010/07/27/amazon-facebook-recommendations/&title=Amazon + Facebook = A Perfect Storm of Recommendations&related=true&style=true">style="border:none;margin-right:5px;" src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/diggme.png" align="right" />
    style="float:left;margin-bottom:10px;">src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/facebook-amazon-recommendations.jpg" alt="" title="facebook-amazon-recommendations" width="260" height="190" class="alignright size-full wp-image-340244" />
    style="clear:both;">
    Amazon and Facebook are doing some technological partnering to bring you a new layer in product recommendations.

    Now Amazon users will be able to link their Facebook account to their Amazon account. At the outset, this will allow Amazon to show you recommendations based on your Facebook interests and activity.

    This integration will also help you figure out what kinds of gifts your friends might like by letting you better search for your Facebook friends’ Amazon Wish Lists and by pulling in information from your friends’ profiles. Of course, it will remind you of Facebook friends’ birthdays, too. It will show you interests you have in common with your friends, and it will show you which items are popular with all the people in your social graph.

    When it comes to protecting your purchase information and privacy, Amazon says it will not share your Amazon account information with Facebook. It won’t reveal what items you’re buying, and it won’t contact your Facebook friends. And if you don’t share information publicly on Facebook, Amazon won’t be able to grab that information and broadcast it to others; this includes scraping your friends’ profiles for non-public information.

    Since we tech writers are more on the exhibitionist side of online privacy concerns, we decided to test drive this feature and report back to you.

    What we saw was both fascinating and useful.


    Amazon and Facebook: Our Test Drive


    To get started, I logged in to my Amazon account. On the right side of my account’s home screen, I saw a Facebook integration “beta” ad, which I clicked to turn the recommendations on.

    src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/facebook-amazon-2.jpg" alt="" title="facebook-amazon-recommendations" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-340248" />

    As expected, Amazon’s knowledge of my social graph was in line with my friends’ stated privacy settings. For example, I wasn’t able to see gift recommendations for Steven Walling, my former coworker, or my friend David Armano, because their profile and interests aren’t too public on Facebook. But my friend and Kissmetrics CEO Hiten Shah’s interests were available to Amazon, and I was able to get some great gift ideas from them:

    src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/facebook-amazon-3.jpg" alt="" title="facebook-amazon-recommendations" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-340248" />

    I also got to see what the rest of my Facebook friends thought was cool (Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was the most-liked record from my social graph), and I got some cool recommendations based on music, movies and books I “liked” on Facebook or talked about in my profile.

    src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/facebook-amazon-4.png" alt="" title="facebook-amazon-4" width="640" height="644" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-340252" />

    You can change your Facebook/Amazon settings or disable the integration at any time.

    For some people, we can see how one website’s knowledge of your activity on another site — and, because of Facebook’s reach, across the entire web — might come across as slightly creepy. However, when you boil it all down to ones and zeroes, it’s a great way for commercial entities to take advantage of this huge silo of information that Facebook has about you, your personality, your friends and much more. And because it helps you, the user, discover and interact more with the things you like, it’s one of those rare win-win scenarios wherein the consumer gets as much benefit as the corporation.

    That’s our experience so far, at least. If you feel up to it, give the Amazon/Facebook integration a try, and let us know what you think about it in the comments.

    />Reviews: href="http://www.blippr.com/apps/336650-Facebook" target="_blank">Facebook

    More about : href="http://mashable.com/tag/amazon/">amazon, href="http://mashable.com/tag/facebook/">facebook, href="http://mashable.com/tag/marketing/">MARKETING, href="http://mashable.com/tag/recommendations/">Recommendations

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  • Disney Acquires Social Gaming Company Playdom for up to $763.2 Million
    Ben Parr | 2010-07-27T16:33:00-04:00 | 4/3

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    Disney has officially acquired href="http://playdom.com" target="_blank">Playdom, the makers of popular social games like Social City and Sorority Life, for $563.2 million, with an additional $200 million that could be paid out based on performance.

    The company is one of the remaining big players in the social gaming space, competing against the likes of href="http://mashable.com/tag/zynga">Zynga and its wildly popular href="http://mashable.com/tag/farmville">FarmVille Facebook game. Playdom href="http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/06/22/playdom-raises-33m-in-funding-to-fuel-social-gaming-acquisition-spree/" target="_blank">raised $33 million in funding just last month to help it acquire smaller social gaming companies.

    Playdom will keep its headquarters in Mountain View, California. Playdom CEO John Pleasants will become an Executive Vice President of Disney’s Interactive Media Group.

    Clearly Disney is serious about the social gaming space; the acquisition comes less than a month after href="http://mashable.com/2010/07/01/tapulous-acquired-by-disney/">the media giant acquired iPhone app development firm Tapulous. The company sees a lot of synergies between its new social gaming properties and its highly visible brands. “We see strong growth potential in bringing together Playdom’s talented team and capabilities with our great creative properties, people and world-renowned brands like Disney, ABC, ESPN and Marvel,” said Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger in a statement.

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  • Amazon Recommends Products Based On The Interests Of You And Your Facebook Friends
    Josh Constine | 2010-07-27T16:17:23-04:00 | 3/1

    Amazon launched a new integration with Facebook today allowing users who link their accounts to receive purchase suggestions based on their Facebook interests, see gift recommendations for friends with upcoming birthdays, and browse items popular amongst one’s social network.


    The integration pulls data about movie, music, and book preferences from you and your friends’ profiles and uses Amazon’s recommendation to suggest similar products. Curiously, there are no additional sharing elements to communicate the social shopping experience back to Facebook.



    Once a user signs into their Amazon account, or creates a new one, and allows Amazon access to basic, profile, lists, contact and friends’ information at any time, they are brought to “Your Amazon Facebook Page.” Their own profile interests are listed down the left side of the screen, including a direct link back to Facebook’s profile editor, making it easy to update one’s likes. In the center of the screen, three types of social content are available: Birthday and Gift Suggestions for Your Facebook Friends, Recommendations Based on Your Favorite [interest type] on Facebook, and Popular Among Your Friends.



    Birthday and Gift Suggestions shows icons for your friends, default ordered by nearest birthday. It might be too late to send today’s birthday boys and girls gifts, but Amazon still shows them first. Clicking “See gift suggestions” brings up that person’s Amazon Facebook profile and lists items Amazon’s recommendation engine says are similar to items listed in their interests. For instance, if someone likes T.I. on their Facebook profile, Amazon will suggest you give them the latest Lil Wayne CD as a birthday gift. Clicking “Why is this suggested” brings up the stated preferences that generated the suggestion.



    Recommendations Based on Your Favorite [interest type] on Facebook shows separate lists for favorite music, books, and movies. It feeds your own likes into the recommendation engine to give you Amazon’s quality suggestions without ever having used the site. Utilizing existing stated preferences instead of making you list and rate products you own on each shopping site you use is a huge step forward for e-commerce.



    Popular Among Your Friends lists the items liked by the most of your friends. Each item has the number of likes in your network below it, along with mini-thumbnails of these people’s profile pictures. This feature makes it easy to determine what products are trending in your network and ensure you aren’t missing out.



    These lists are reminiscent of Facebook Pulse, a early and now deactivated feature of Facebook which showed you the most popular items in different interest categories within your network. Even if one isn’t interested in purchasing anything, this data is entertaining and could use a way to be shared back to Facebook.


    Overall, the social shopping experience still has a long way to go. The ability to aggregate interest data not just from one’s own profile, but from across all the social spheres represented in your friends creates recommendations that are hard to ignore. The fact that these preference summaries aren’t readily available on Facebook also indicates a gap. Yet, never before has it been so easy to ask all of your friends to suggest an album to buy and purchase it, without directly interacting with anyone.



    Facebook And Amazon Join Forces For Social Shopping
    Caitlin Fitzsimmons | 2010-07-27T16:07:18-04:00 | 3/2

    Facebook and Amazon have staked out a partnership that will offer their users social recommendations for online shopping.



    The two online giants have hatched a plan that will use Facebook profile data to make product recommendations on Amazon. If a Facebook user opts into the service, they will find gift suggestions for their Facebook friends on the recommendations page of Amazon. The suggestions would be based on the information on their friends’ Facebook profiles - such as music or movie preferences - and also their Amazon wish lists.


    For Amazon, knowing which of their customers know each other would be an extremely powerful marketing tool and Facebook’s global user base of 500 million means the  could scale very quickly. This Facebook Platform page update suggests the service is entirely opt-in, using Facebook Connect, and would no doubt be subject to Facebook users’ privacy settings. For added peace of mind, TechCrunch reports that Amazon will not reveal your account or purchase history or contact any of your Facebook friends.


    The deal with Amazon follows Facebook’s announcement that it would allow publishers to contact users who ‘like’ a particular story - another development with significant implications for marketers.


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