Yelp-ing You Find Deals

Despite being relatively young, Foursquare has quickly surpassed competing location-based networks like Gowalla and Yelp.

Neither one seems content to go down without a fight, however. Yelp especially has tried to evolve, including the introduction of badges and a ruling system similiar to Foursquare mayorships. And yesterday, Yelp announced they are testing a deal-a-day coupon feature similiar to Groupon.

I really like this move, seeing as how Yelp is already well-established as a location-based network. That means that branching out into a deal-a-day service seems like a smart fit, because they can offer more localized deals without running into as many of the logistical problems that a startup company would.

Innovation is key in this type of social media market, and Yelp is the first of the three big location-based networks to adopt this sort of hybrid location/coupon method.

More importantly, this not only provides competition for Groupon, but could do wonders to help it compete with Gowalla and Foursquare for the location-based crown.

The Queen of Anti-Social Media

Last week Axiom took big strides to expand its online presence, including an Axiom Flickr account. Apparently we're not the only ones who want to expand, with the British Family creating a Flickr account of their own.

Now to be honest, the Flickr account itself isn't anything special, with picture sets for different Royal Family members and events. However, what is special (and not in a good way) is that comments are disabled on the account.

Actually that isn't too surprising, considering comments are also disabled on the British Monarchy's YouTube account. Also, their @BritishMonarchy Twitter account isn't used conversationally, only being used to publish stories and news links.

I applaud the effort by the Royal Family to branch out into more social media channels, but they are completely missing the point. Social media success or failure depends on the level of engagement you can generate, and eliminating the ability for others to comment eliminates the potential for that engagement.

I understand that the British Monarchy is probably worried about negative feedback or mean comments. But silencing everybody is not the answer, and will most likely only create the negative backlash that they were trying to avoid in the first place.

It's hard to categorize most social media decisions as "right" or "wrong." However, this kind of one-way social media contradicts the transparency and interaction that social media is all about.

Only Half of the Story

Facebook recently launched a campaign to celebrate reaching 500 million users. Called Facebook Stories, the point is to let users share quick blurbs about how Facebook has affected their lives.

Browsing through a few of the stories, they seem to be overwhelmingly positive...

Almost surprisingly positive, especially considering how damaged Facebook's image has been in the wake of changes and a heated privacy debate over the past couple of months.

And yes, I understand why there's so much positivity. People who hate Facebook have probably stopped using it, and anyone who's indifferent is not going to care enough either way to write a story. That leaves only those who are loyal to Facebook to share their stories.

But we all know Facebook isn't all rainbows and puppies like Facebook Stories makes it out to be. It's been a tool for online harassment and bullying, it's destroyed relationships, and led us as a society to completely redefine the nature of privacy and communication.

I'm not saying Facebook is evil, just that it's not the beacon of peace, love and hope that it's portrayed as. Facebook Stories could have been a platform to hear a balance of good and bad aspects of the social network, instead of the polarized love-hate view that we see around the blogosphere.

The "World" in "World Wide Web"

To a generation that came of age during the extinction of landlines and rise of smartphones, millennials know life is practically not worth living unless you can share it (digitally) with your friends, acquaintances and people you met a long time ago and can't remember where/when. A recent article in Harvard Business Review suggests that cultural differences can determine what kinds of information social media users share and who they share it with. These conclusions were drawn from Trendstream Global Web Index, a survey of more than 50,000 users of social platforms in 18 markets.

So how did North American countries measure up to others? Well, much the same as our comrades across the pond and down under (Europe and Australia) - of the users who have internet access, most maintain social networks and upload photos/ video, but only a small percentage maintain a microblog, such as Twitter. And although it seems the United States is socially obsessed, Brazil, Russia, India and China show the highest overall level of engagement with online networking tools.

North American users also seem to adhere to the good ol' American mantra "bigger is better," and tend to use social media platforms as a way to mass communicate to hundreds of online friends. Apparently Asian nations believe "less is more" and tend to treat blogging and social networking as a tool to connect with a select group of friends and family. For example, while users in North American countries are likely to have hundreds of friends on Facebook, Japanese users often have an average of 25 friends on mixi, a social networking site that never caught on in The States.

Surprisingly, users in other nations do not find themselves online for hours when they intended to log on just to tweet about the weather. The data revealed the prevalence of social networking does not correlate to any other online behavior. For example,although France and The Netherlands show similar levels of social media use, only 25 percent of French users report using internet banking while 87 percent of Dutch users do.

What does this really tell us? We're all going online to get and share information, just in different ways. Not a big surprise there. Do you fit into the category of the typical U.S. mass communicator?

The Next Best Thing To A Sarcasm Hashtag

There's been more than a few times that a seemingly-benign text or email I sent was taken the wrong way, leaving me to wonder why the person I sent that "too busy to meet now" email to is glaring at me from across the office because they thought I was blowing them off.

Miscommunications like this have been an issue for many people, as more and more conversations take place through email and texts rather than face-to-face. The problem is that nonverbal communication, which is such a vital part of face-to-face conversations, is lost with email.

This means sarcasm rarely makes sense, jokes tend to be taken the wrong way, and quick responses often come off as terse or rude.

Well, there's a new download called ToneCheck that reviews your emails before you send them, checking specifically for phrases that may be perceived as angry or passive-aggressive.

The free download is still in beta testing, and is currently only available for Microsoft Outlook. I don't know how well it works or if it would be embraced by users, but it does illustrate the growing trend for social media (and yes, I'm including email in this category) management tools.

Think about the rise in programs like Your Twitter Karma, ReFollow, HootSuite, and now ToneCheck. Many of the new products and services we're seeing aren't necessarily new social networks, but new ways of working with and monitoring existing social media outlets.

Obviously, double-checking that email (especially to the coworker you're already on thin ice with) is equally effective. But if ToneCheck takes off, we could see plenty more social management tools hit the market, and ones that are geared towards the more popular text-based social networks like Twitter or Facebook.

Until then, if you have a clever pun or sarcastic comment you just have to get out, it's probably a good idea to make sure that sarcasm is made clear.