Life360: Adds 1 million users in 10 weeks!

Life 360 is a geolocation tool that first came up after the hurricane Katrina to help people find their relatives after the disaster.

I did not know about this geolocation tool because it is not as big as Foursquare but their purpose was really good when they created it.

Today, they needed to come up with an innovative idea to make new users join their network. So they decided to focus on the relationship between parents and children.

With this tool the children just have to check-in their position on the map so that their parents know that they got to their destination safely and also what is their destination!!

After explaining their new concept they gained 1 million users more in just 10 weeks!! So we believe that worked pretty well, don’t you think!

In my opinion, I would think that very few parents use this tool but just young people who heard about Life 360 and so they wanted to try it. When I go somewhere and my parents want to be reassured they ask me to send them a text message to tell them where I am and that I am safe. A text message is the easiest way to let them know. Not everybody has 3G in their phone especially our parents!

What do you think about that? Even if their idea is innovative and very good, do you think that they are mostly parents/children using it? Or just young people communicating with their friends? Would your parents ask you to check-in when you get to a place?

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/check-ins_are_dead_location_app_life360_adds_1_mil.php

Terror Alerts Through Facebook and Twitter

Last Thursday news came up on the Internet about the government.

I guess everybody already saw that Terrorist alert in the airports or important governmental places. They use code colors like this one on the picture.

First, they decided that they were going to change it with an easiest one including just two levels of warnings: elevated and imminent. This should start on the April 27^th.

But the other part of the article is most important for us. They decided to post those alerts on Facebook and Twitter.

This news is another example showing that social media networks are everywhere. It is obvious that publishing the alerts on these websites will be much more efficient. I was usually aware of those terrorist alerts when I was going into airports, but I really did not know until then that we were under an alert.

Homeland security also said that they will publish not only the alert and its level but also an expiration date. For example it will say: “elevated terror alert until the April 18^th”. So that people know exactly what is going on and how to be prepared for that. For people like me, traveling as much as I do, those alerts are important because the checking point in the airports always take so much time when we are under an alert. So knowing in advance that there is a terrorist alert going on, will allow me to leave earlier and avoid missing my flight.

What a better way to communicate information as fast and towards a very important number of people than social media websites like the famous Facebook and Twitter!

Geolocation Tools and Real Estate

This morning I read the interview of Matthew Shadbolt, Corcoran’s director of interactive marketing. Corcoran is a real estate group based in New York City.

I found it very interesting that they use social media tools for their business. They use geolocation tools like Foursquare and Gowalla to offer to their clients tips about the neighborhood. Corcoran differentiates itself from its competitors with those kinds of tools by seeing an apartment not just with 4 walls but with the neighborhood where it is located.

They provide detailed information with the “what’s nearby” concept. They give recommendations for nightlife, shopping, restaurants and more content about the neighborhood.

They created that on an Iphone App so that clients can have access to their tips wherever they want and whenever they need them. Corcoran focuses on sharing local expertise rather than on the traditional way of meeting customers in their own offices, that is why tools like Foursquare work perfectly. As it is new, it is more fun and attractive for them; they want to try this innovation.

Besides, today people are in a hurry all the time and setting up a meeting for hours describing what do they want it is not so convenient. This application allows them to get information whenever they want and as soon as they find a minute to check it.

Matthew Shadbolt said “Our almost 1,000 tips around New York have proven very popular with our over 5,000 followers, and it’s been a very powerful and fun way to grow our brand presence”.

I think this new way to use social media tools for real estate industry is brilliant and successful. As I said, people don’t really want to waste their time to meet real estate agents for hours; so that this application can help them to find everything they want thanks to the tips on the neighborhood and local expert recommendations.

This is new for now, but it is going to become a necessary and very helpful tool in the future.

When I was looking for an apartment in Lyon, which is a pretty big city for France, this tool would have helped me so much in my research, and I would have found one probably quickly than in the traditional way… What do you think about this app?

Interview: http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2011/03/29/can-geolocation-tools-put-real-estate-professionals-on-the-map/

Recruitment via Twitter

You need a summer internship?! Cover letters and résumés are not your thing?

This agency called Campbell Mithun got that and used a pretty new way to recruit its interns for the summer 2011.

This article shows us how social media websites can be very useful if you are seeking for an internship.

Campbell Mithun used Twitter to hire 6 interns. Their campaign got famous quickly. The applicants had to submit 13 comments in 13 days on their Twitter account explaining why they wanted to be hired by the company. They also had to write a code in their comments so that everybody could see what the applicants had written. That brought more competition between all the potential interns because they could see what the others wrote about themselves and tried to do better.

The company selected 32 finalists and then invited them for an interview face-to-face or by Skype to hire the 6 summer interns.

I was impressed by this new way of seeking interns. This company is actually up to date and could start a new trend. I knew that companies could hire people by looking at their professional websites like LinkedIn and taking information from them on their other websites like Facebook. I also knew that a lot of companies become more successful by creating social media campaigns. But I did not know that some companies could create campaigns on social media websites to hire interns.

It is like an online competition to get a position, kind of like the campaign the Queensland tourism office did to hire for the “best job in the world”, but it did it on its own website not on a social media network like Twitter.

I think this is an amazing idea that this company has had. They wanted to hire interns so they chose to make a campaign on the newest and trendiest social media network at that time, so they could reach a bigger target. And they also understood that younger people do not really like sending cover letters and résumés but this new way is much more attractive and fun, and got peoples attention more quickly.

What do you think about this kind of recruitment? Would you apply for such a job campaign? 

Facebook: not any more transparent

I have just read this article and I am still in a state of shock!

This article tells us about a new web site that allows you to post comments on Facebook anonymously. It is easy to use, you just have to paste a URL before your comment and voila! your comment is anonymous!

At the beginning of the social media, or at least when I started to get on social media I had a blog where I could post all of my pictures and I could write down beside it what they were about and my friends could leave me comments. I was in middle school/high school and I remember that everybody could see my blog and left me comments. They just had to enter the name they wanted me to see. So my friends put their name or nickname but also some people wrote false names and left me negative comments. Usually at this time you have your friends but also enemies! And I could totally know who the senders were.

I think some bad stories were told to the creators of this website because one or two years later, you could not write any comments without your real name and only if you were a member of the website.

I think letting people be able to write comments with transparency is a bad thing because that can be used much more in a negative way than in a positive way.

Why would you hide positive and nice things you want to say to somebody, unless you are a hidden lover on Valentine’s Day!

However, there are numerous bad reasons that you would hide your name to write a mean comment… This website already gives us examples like insulting somebody. That can be very hurtful and can be dangerous. I mean if somebody is trying to make you lose your job or your friends or your boyfriend/girlfriend, writing comments anonymously would be a very useful weapon to use.

I am completely against that and I think Facebook should find a way to erase this new tool before a lot of people get hurt. If you want to be nice to someone, tell him/her and if you have a problem with somebody that is the same you should tell him/her.

What do you think about this website? Would you like receiving comments from someone that you do not know? 

Facebook Fans

Have you ever clicked on “I like” on a Facebook page for a sport team or for your favorite store? And then, do you often follow this page writing comments?

I have just read an article that deals with that. In fact, thanks to this “I like” application we could see which pages are the most famous and enjoyed by the internet users.

For example, a lot of Facebook pages are created on soccer teams.

When you look at two of them for a comparison you could think “FC Barcelona has more fans then Manchester United” (10,337,494 VS 9,915,504)… But actually that is not true.

The most important number you have to be aware of is the number of active fans. For those soccer teams FC Barcelona has 142,137 active members and Manchester United has 256,206 active fans. So we realize that in reality Manchester United has more than twice the number of fans of FC Barcelona.

The companies thought the number of “I like” was an important point to consider when you go online but in reality it is not the most important. That is why a New York start-up, FanGager, is uploading each month a ranking of the top 100 most ACTIVE fan pages. 

This ranking shows us all kind of pages, not just for the sport ones.

You can for example check the most famous artist. Justin Beiber has 20 million fans VS Lady Gaga has 29 million. But once again the tendency is reversed when you look at the number of active fans:  360,000 for Justin Beiber and 148,000 for Lady Gaga!

So, if you create your own page to go online with your company, check not only the number of fans but also the number of ACTIVE fans, because those ones are the most important for your business.

Kids on Social Media Websites

Since the web exists, we all heard that some problems relating to kids appeared.

Unfortunately, these perverts do not exist just in real life… They are also present on the web. Until now, parents could install an internet parental control blocking the websites considered dangerous. But that is not enough…

When internet appeared I remember my parents telling me to never communicate my name and address and other important data of my life through internet. At the beginning, it was pretty easy because there were not as many social media websites as now.

The more the world is getting at the cutting edge of technology, the more kids are in danger. Today, kids are so used to this tool that they do not even think something could be bad on it. Besides, through social media websites like Facebook or blogs, people (not just the kids) are likely to tell their life story and all their personal data and this tendency is becoming a norm…

I have just read this article and a number took me back : “CyberTipline, the nation's hotline for reporting sexual exploitation of children, received 223,374 reports in 2010, nearly double the number from 2009.”

The journalist also explains that with the increasing technology it allows those online pedophiles to reach the kids from everywhere and at any time they want. They can have access to the internet from their home, laptops, iPad, smartphones like IPhone…

That brings me to the strongest point of this article. Those kinds of persons are, today, able to find where the kids they are talking with live or are at the current moment. In fact, I think everybody saw on Facebook for example something like “whoever was at wherever with whoever”. This new social media tool is accessible through a smartphone GPS locator. With this tool the perverts can very easily and quickly find their prey.

To fight against that, there is not a lot of option. You cannot control the internet because it is too vast, but organizations are monitoring the most famous websites to seek out the pedophiles. So as a parent, the best solution is to keep an eye on what your child is doing online.

To conclude, once again we can see that there is not just good aspects of social media websites. Actually, in everything you can find the pros and cons. The internet is just like the real life: a jungle where the parents have to protect their progeny.