Please email marissa@modernmedia.co if you have additional updates, or a social network that you feel should be on the lis

Twitter Is The Fastest Growing Social Network Worldwide

A new report from Global Web Index found a rise in active engagement across social platforms worldwide, with Twitter experiencing the fastest growth.

The top social networks all saw impressive growth between Q2 2012 and Q1 2013:

• Facebook’s total number of active users increased by 35%
• Twitter’s growth was even faster in the same period, at 44%
• Google+ saw active user base growth of 33%

What’s driving this growth?  A combination of mobile and increased numbers of older internet users.  Mobile is playing a huge role, with a 60% increase in the number of people accessing the internet via a mobile phone since Q1 2011.  The report found that iOS and Android users are significantly more likely to use Facebook, Twitter and Google+ compared to the average internet user around the world.

Growth driven by older internet users is less dramatic, but still impressive.  Between Q2 2012 and Q1 2013, Twitter saw a 79% increase in active users among the 55 to 64 year old demographic. The 45 to 54 year old demographic saw the fastest growth on both Facebook and Google+, growing by 46% and 56% respectively.

Ranked by number of users, Facebook remains #1 and Google+ remains #2, with 359 million monthly active users.  YouTube comes in right behind Google+, followed by Twitter and then China’s Sina Weibo.

As the big platforms continue to grow, local social platforms worldwide are seeing decline, with the notable exceptions of China and Russia.

See a preview of the study here:

Younger Brits are also much more likely to read posts from organizations, brands or events on social networking sites via mobile: over 56% of 18-24 year olds have done so, vs. just 35.5% of all smartphone users.

Over 33 million Brits own a smartphone, and smartphone penetration in the UK has reached 67%.  The data from comScore shows that marketers have a significant opportunity – especially with the 18-24 year old demographic – to reach their target audience on mobile.

Here are the highlights, using data from over 10 million Vines during a one-month period:

• 5 Vine videos are shared on Twitter every second
• branded Vines are 4X more likely to be shared than branded online videos
• more Vine tweets occur during the weekend than all of the weekdays combined
• most Vine activity occurs between 10-11am EDT
• the largest number of Vine tweets (19,667) was sent on Monday, April 15 at 3-4pm EDT – just after the Boston Marathon explosions

What kind of engagement are Vines seeing?  The #1 tracked Vine over the month-long period had 47,000 tweets; the 100th most-shared Vine in this period had 1,400 tweets (click here to see the top 100). Out of the 10 million Vines sampled, just 51 garnered over 2,000 tweets; 176 Vines earned over 1,000 tweets, and 433 Vines had over 500 tweets.

“This data can really help brands determine a strategy for using Vine in their marketing efforts. We have already seen brands like General Electric, adidas, AT&T, Volvo, Pepsi-Co and GAP adapt to the platform,” said Matt Cooke, CTO and co-founder at Unruly. ”There is a massive opportunity here for brands to get really creative with this 6-second sensation, either to grab people’s attention quickly or as part of a much larger content marketing strategy.”

Check out this fun Valentine’s Day Vine from Tropicana:

What are some of the best branded Vines you’ve seen?  Has your brand tried Vine as a marketing platform?

Klout introduced this new perk last week — and it is available to high Klout scorers regardless of whether they’re booked on an American Airlines flight. Admission includes benefits like free Wi-Fi and beer.

According to AdAge, the American Airlines promotion is broadly targeted, not aimed at users who live in a particular area or who have any specific expertise.

Brands that partner with Klout in this way hope that social media influencers will take advantage of the perks, and then share their experience – via social media – with a large social network.  Some brands, like Chevrolet, have even used Klout for product launches.

Klout recently delivered its one millionth “perk,” and partnerships have included major brands like Sony, Nike, Microsoft, Disney, Audi, Gilt and many others.  What do you think?  Has your brand tried influence marketing?

A team of researchers led by Humboldt State University Dr. Monica Stephens of Humboldt State University (HSU) have released the results of a year-long study identifying the geographic origins of hate speech on Twitter in the U.S. Using the Google Maps API, the team has overlaid the data with a county-level analysis to show the distribution of hate speech on Twitter across the country via an interactive map.

The results? Hate speech tends to be more prevalent in the eastern part of the country than in the west. Concentrations of hate speech show interesting variations by individual terms; playing with the interactive map is both interesting and depressing.

The team analyzed a total of 150,000 geo-coded tweets (i.e. the user had opted into Twitter’s location-sharing service) sent between June 2012 and April 2013, each of which contained one of the homophobic or racist hate words. Rather than using algorithmic sentiment analysis, the project relied upon Humboldt State undergraduate students to read the entirety of tweet and classify it as positive, neutral or negative. Only those tweets that were identified by human readers as negative were used in this analysis.

To produce the map, all 150,000 negative tweets containing each hate word were aggregated to the county level and normalized by the total twitter traffic in each county. This is important because it eliminates population density as a factor that might lead to higher concentrations of hate speech.

More details about the methodology can be found on the group’s Floating Sheep blog (which also features some of the team’s other cool geo-visualizations); there is also an FAQ that addresses some of the controversies this project has stirred up.

Are you surprised at the results?

Facebook

• Facebook rolling out video ads to News Feeds – video ads will be coming to users’ NewsFeeds as early as July; brands will be able to target one of four demographics (AdWeek)
• Facebook is buying social mapping/traffic app Waze for up to $1B to court mobile users – Facebook is acquiring social mapping and traffic app maker Waze; Waze has over 47 million active users (TechCrunch)

Twitter

• Twitter buys scalable computing outfit Ubalo – Twitter has acquired the technology and team behind Ubalo, a startup specializing in making technical computing more accessible for engineers and scientists (AllThingsD)

Google+

• Google+ adds instant replay, rewind to Hangouts On Air – Google added new features to Hangouts On Air, including rewinding during live broadcasts, playback recordings, higher quality during live video, and the ability to start live broadcasts without refreshing the page (CNET)

YouTube

• YouTube launches its paid subscription channels with select partners – each channel will have a 14-day free trial, and many offer discounted yearly rates; partners include The Young Turks, UFC, Jim Henson Company, Mark Cuban’s HDNet and the Sesame Workshop (PaidContent)

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn adds Channels with curated content on LinkedIn Today – LinkedIn Today users can now subscribe to or follow news categories, or ‘channels,’ as well as individual authors (TechCrunch)

Foursquare

• Foursquare updates Windows Phone 8 app, now optimized for Lumia – Foursquare released the latest version of its app for Windows Phone 8, optimized especially for Nokia’s Lumia smartphones (Mashable)

Any updates to social networks that we missed?

Please email marissa@modernmedia.co if you have additional updates, or a social network that you feel should be on the list.

Facebook Growth Coming From Emerging Markets; Mature Markets Not In Decline

The latest estimates from eMarketer show that Facebook’s worldwide user base is seeing the biggest expansion in India, Brazil and Russia, as well as the Middle East and Africa.  Facebook will top one billion users worldwide in 2013, and reach 1.26 billion in 2014.

The highlights:

• Facebook users will grow from 42.6% of internet users worldwide in 2013 to 54.7% in 2017
• 63% of social network users worldwide will access Facebook at least once per month in 2013; by 2014, that number will be 69.5%
• 46.6% of people in North America and over 30% of people in Latin America and Western Europe will use Facebook at least once a month in 2013
• the Middle East and Africa and Asia-Pacific have much lower penetration rates

Facebook’s growth is driven by the following regions, each of which will see a rise of 30% or more in 2013: Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and Latin America.  Asia-Pacific leads in Facebook user growth and in total number of Facebook users, with 616 million (nearly half of that number comes from India alone.)  Growth in the region is led by India, Japan and Indonesia.

Penetration rates are highest in the developed markets of North America and Western Europe, although eMarketer predicts that Facebook has still not reached saturation in these areas.  And while growth will be much slower in the US, UK and Western Europe, eMarketer’s research did not find a decline in Facebook use within these mature markets.  This finding is in contrast to several recent reports, many of which (according to eMarketer) examine desktop usage but don’t necessarily account for mobile Facebook use. However, eMarketer does note that some users are spending less time on Facebook and more on Instagram (which is owned by Facebook).

The data from eMarketer represents ”individual monthly active users who access Facebook via any device at least once per month.” Facebook’s reported figures, in comparison, include all monthly active users (ex pets, brands and other types of accounts) in addition to individual users.

Marketed as “a whole new spin on saving,” Cartwheel is expected to eventually include around 1,000 deals; for now, the deals (available only in the U.S.) give consumers a percentage off and can only be redeemed in store.

Target began working with Facebook over a year ago, seeking a way “to integrate and have a savings program with a social element,” said Eddie Baeb, spokesman for Target. Baeb told AdAge that ”We’re focused on combining digital technology with the in-store experience to bridge those worlds.”

While the campaign doesn’t target any specific demographic, the goal is to increase foot traffic to stores.

How does Cartwheel work?  Consumers must have a Facebook account to access the deals site, and can begin by adding 10 deals from several different ‘Collections’ (groupings of offers around a specific theme) or by searching different categories.  Deals generally last for a month, and can be used 4X per transaction and multiple times throughout the month; they can also be used in addition to other offers/coupons.

All of a user’s deals are stored in a single unique barcode, which can be updated in realtime (and, of course, while shopping).  Barcodes are scanned at checkout; Cartwheel apps for Android and iOS are expected this summer.  According to AdAge, the Cartwheel site “is Target’s first responsive site and works seamlessly on mobile devices.”

Users can see deals their friends add or redeem, and can earn badges for building lists, redeeming offers, or having friends join. Multiple activities are grouped together, so redeeming ten deals will show up as one Facebook post on a user’s Newsfeed, featuring the brands purchased. The sharing function on Cartwheel can also be turned off for those who don’t want friends to know what deals they’ve redeemed; certain items are automatically kept private, including personal care products and underwear.

Brands can sponsor lists of offers in Cartwheel’s ‘Collections,’ and Target already has “several dozen” vendor partners, AdAge reports.

So far, Cartwheel is being promoted through paid Facebook ads and Target’s media channels.  The retail brand will be “watching closely” to see how consumers engage with the deals site, and how often they come back.

SmartStream is part of the oneQube SocialRM platform, which is currently in private beta.  In light of the TweetChat announcement, the company has decided to make SmartStream immediately available as a free platform to support the Twitter chat community. ”As active chat participants ourselves, we felt compelled as a company to help support the thousands of thriving chat communities that rely on TweetChat to power their Twitter chats,” said Peter Bordes, CEO and Founder of Internet Media Labs.

The SmartStream application is similar to TweetChat, but offers some additional features that create an even more robust chat experience. After authenticating your Twitter account and creating a oneQube account with a short registration, you can then focus the timeline to a Twitter chat hashtag. A dedicated, moveable Tweet box lets you send tweets with the hashtag automatically added. You can retweet, and highlight or block specific users.  Unique features allow you to reply to all, include a shortened link in your tweet, and hover over chat participants or links to see information about them.

SmartChat also includes a feature designed to help users navigate extremely active chats. The default user setting is Queue mode, which displays tweets in a manner similar to how they appear in native Twitter or Hootsuite.  A blue counter bar at the top indicates how many tweets are waiting for you to view, you can click on the blue bar to release the tweets pending in the queue.  A line separator shows where you last released tweets into the stream, making it easy for you to keep track of your place in an active chat with a high volume of tweets per minute. In Stream mode, tweets will load as they are presented, and in very fast chats this will mode will be hard to follow.

You can also highlight tweets from a particular participant: selecting “highlight” from the “Qubit” menu for a particular user will highlight that user’s tweets for the duration of the chat. And when you are @mentioned in a chat, those tweets will be highlighted as well.

Realtime Chat Analytics, Built-In Transcripts

There is also a proprietary Social Analytics, Real Time (#SART) panel that lets chat participants see who is tweeting the most in the chat, what other hashtags are trending in the chat, and what links are being shared, all without leaving the stream — something that chat moderators are sure to love.  And — super exciting if you are a chat geek — SmartStream includes a transcript on demand functionality that lets you save a full transcript of the chat you just participated in, which will be permanently archived in your transcripts for future reference. SmartStream lets you save as many chat transcripts as you want.

Link Previews, User Profiles

The company has incorporated some of oneQube’s more advanced features into SmartStream that make it easy to find relevant content and build relationships with other chat participants.  Hover over any link in a SmartStream, and a window displays a mini-preview box of the content on the other side of the link.

You can also hover over any Twitter handle to get a mini-preview of that persons Twitter bio:

From this box, clicking the “Profile Plus” icon on lower left brings up a box for that includes recent Tweets, that users trends (who they are talking to, who is talking at them, and what hashtags they participate in), as well as a website summary if they happen to have a link in their bio. A blue corner in the box means you are following that person already, a red corner means you are not — click on the corner to start following that person.

SmartStream is part of the multi-functional Social Relationship Management platform, oneQube, which is currently in private beta. oneQube will be a paid platform, and SmartStream users will be able to get a peek at oneQube’s features by clicking on the left navigation bar.  The company says its goal is to have oneQube fully available for use, with a generous free trial period, by the end of June.  SmartStream users may also ask to become part of the private beta, with those requests being honored on a first-come, first-served basis.

I’m sure many people will be trying SmartStream out in the coming week — let us know what you think!

How do the cups link up with your Facebook profile? Users scan a QR code on the bottom of the glasses with their smartphone, and link the cup’s chip to their social networking account.  Each time a user toasts another Buddy Cup, a message pops up on their Facebook wall, notifying friends about the exchange and the resulting new Facebook friendship.

Business Insider calls it “the ultimate social media drinking receptacle.”

Check out the commercial here:

The Drum reports that “The aim of the “Buddy Cup” is to enhance brand activation and increase the interaction between Budweiser consumers attending the brand’s sponsored parties, concerts and festivals.”

While it does seem like fun, you have to wonder how much time people have spent un-friending ‘random’ people after a long night of drinking (and toasting with the Buddy Cup)…