The above video was released this week as “a quick update on Google+ and our plans to support brands, businesses, and beyond,” says Christian Oestlien, a product manager on the closely-watched Google+ launch. 

"The business experience we are creating should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses. We just ask for your patience while we build it," Oestlien added, referring to companies who thought they had a head start, but now find only a select test group is in, including some of Google's biggest advertisers (and — ahem! — rivals).

The decision to shut down "business" profiles came 24 hours after Search Engine Watch reported on a fake profile posturing as the Google+ team, and publishing rumors such as Google+ going public before July 31st, and Google's planned rebranding of Picasa and Blogger.Continue reading...

How leading industry brands are performing in social media customer service comes under the microscope in a new study released by market researcher Alterian — specifically, how effectively 12 brands are using social media to resolve customers' issues and the impact on their marketing efforts.

Microsoft was the top performer in the report — titled "Social Media Report Cards: Measuring Brand Engagement" — across all industries, achieving the highest overall score for social media customer service. 

Alterian's researchers examined brand leaders in six industries: travel, banking, cable, mobile, gaming and consumer electronics, and concluded that higher scores went to brands showing “a correlation between rapid customer service response times and positive consumer sentiment on social media.”Continue reading...

There's no shortage of Facebook songs on the web. The latest (mildly NSFW) tune making the rounds comes from 16-year-old Australian singer-songwriter Madelaine Zammit, who details what irritates her about Facebook — the poking, the friend requests by 40-year-old men, boastful status updates and gym pics, the over-sharing. The description on her YouTube clip: "Become a fan of me! i need all the support I can get..." — with a link to her Facebook page.

Google+ is now open for business — and sharing.

An expansion of Google Profiles and Buzz — and even the recent introduction of the +1 button — Google Plus puts the search giant in social competition with Facebook, as it brings "the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions" to “awkward” and “rigid” online communications and sharing.Continue reading...

Monster today launches a social network — on the world's biggest social network. Monster's estimated 700 million users can now import their information to Facebook and join BeKnown to connect professionally "without mixing business and friends."Continue reading...

The Corporate Social Media Summit 2011 has wrapped up its two-day conference in New York, today featuring a whirlwind of expert speakers from companies such as Coca-Cola, American Express OPEN, Kodak, Marriott, AT&T, WWE, Aflac, and Cisco.

Discussion was consistent with the major talking points about brands and social media: ROI, customer engagement, strategy, and case studies galore from various campaigns. However, the big question remained, what’s next?

Andrew Warden, head of Strategy & Communications for Emerging Markets Services at Cisco Systems, has an idea of what the next wave of social media will be — internal brand engagement by getting more social within company ranks.Continue reading...

The latest "World Map of Social Networks," confirms Facebook’s global dominance in social media, with nearly 700 million users; but, while gaining users abroad, Facebook is losing U.S. fans. Or is it?Continue reading...

Ever wonder what your digital life would be like in the real world? Would you meet people the same way? Are the dangers the same? In a trending video on YouTube with over half a million views is a sneak peak of what that would look like. Pretty ridiculous, right? Wrong.

This is actually a promo for Two Boys, an upcoming production of the English National Opera (ENO) that opens on June 23rd, which may be the first opera that deals with the dangers of living our lives online.Continue reading...