By Gilbert Falso :: 2:15 PM
Twitter and television ratings company Nielsen today announced the establishment of the “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating” metric for the U.S. market. Under this arrangement, Nielsen and Twitter will deliver a syndicated-standard metric showing the reach conversations about television shows on Twitter. The product will debut in time for the fall 2013 television season.
Steve Hasker, president of the global media products and advertiser solutions department at Nielsen explained, “the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating is a significant step forward for the industry, particularly as programmers develop increasingly captivating live TV and new second-screen experiences, and advertisers create integrated ad campaigns that combine paid and earned media.â€
TV viewers discussing shows on Twitter have been creating a new dynamic between audiences and television programming. Twitter’s 140+ million active users send about one billion Tweets every two and a half days, the vast majority of which are public-viewable and conversational in nature, making Twitter data a necessity in producing standardized metrics representing online conversations around television.
Nielsen hopes that the new metric will complement their existing TV ratings product, and will provide TV networks and their advertisers with the real-time metrics required to understand audience social activity. These ratings will build on top of the SocialGuide audience engagement analytics platform. SocialGuide is a joint project between Nielsen and McKinsey & Co., and the current center of Nielsen’s social media analytics efforts.
In a blog post earlier today, Twitter’s head of media, Chloe Sladden, commented that, “as the experience of TV viewing continues to evolve, our TV partners have consistently asked for one common benchmark from which to measure the engagement of their programming. This new metric is intended to answer that request, and to act as a complement and companion to the Nielsen TV rating.”
By Cynthia Herbert :: 2:35 AM
This past summer, it wasn’t just Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook who were courting photo sharing service Instagram – Twitter was in the fray as well, and Instagram CEOÂ Kevin Systrom may have lied about that fact under oath.
In August 2012, Systrom testified at a hearing of the California Corporations Department, under oath, which was investigating if Facebook’s plans to acquire the company was in the best interest of Instagram’s investors. Facebook asked for the hearing in the hopes that it could quicken approval of the acquisition deal.
Nick Bilton at the NY Times found, by reviewing transcripts of the testimony given on that summer day, that when Systrom was asked if Instagram had received offers besides the one made by Facebook at the time of the negotiations, Systrom said, “No, we never received any offers.†Systrom explained that he had “talked to other parties, but never received any formal offers from anybody else.†That may not be true.
Bilton goes on to explain in his article, that Systrom and his Instagram co-founder, Mike Krieger, had actually held a few meetings, in March 2012 with Twitter’s executive team. Anonymous sources say that both sides had verbally agreed on a price for Instagram of $525 million, to take the form of cash and Twitter shares.
On March 20, both Systrom and Krieger turned down Twitter’s offer, and told the company that they wanted Instagram to remain independent. Three weeks later Instagram made headlines when news broke that it had agreed to be acquired by Facebook in a deal valued at $1 billion ($300 million in cash and the rest in Facebook stock).
Sources say Twitter was shocked at the news, and had been prepared to make higher offers to Instagram.
Bilton covers the rest of the story, as well as the potential fallout for Systrom and Instagram here.
By Gilbert Falso :: 11:18 PM
As the nation watches the reports on recent school shooting in the Connecticut suburb of Newtown, many people may find themselves feeling anxious, worried, or saddened. While adults may know how to express these feelings, often they do not know how to talk with children about the way the children are feeling. Adults also may not be as adept at handling questions regarding information children see on social media.
Doctor David Schonfeld, director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital  provides the following tips to help adults talk with children about the shooting, and what they read or see on the web and social media:
Minimize your child’s exposure to media (television, radio, print, internet, social media) and if they do watch, consider recording, screening and watching with them. Remember children often overhear or see what you are watching on TV or listening to on the radio and may be exposed directly as the news evolves through the Internet or social media. While children may seek and benefit from basic information about what happened so that they can understand what is happening in their world, they (and adults) don’t benefit from graphic details or exposure to disturbing images or sounds. In the aftermath of a crisis is a good time to disconnect from all media and sit down together and talk as a family.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 11:04 AM
Yelp Inc. recently announced the availability of Yelp Turkey. Beginning earlier this week, Yelp users in Turkey are able to create accounts on Yelp.com.tr to share their opinions about local businesses and services. Yelp’s free iOS and Android applications will be available as well as its suite of business owner tools.
As a newly industrialized country with the youngest population in Western Europe by median age, Turkey provides a rapidly expanding population and an entrepreneurial spirit, and is ideally suited to develop its own Yelp community for the benefit of both consumers and small businesses and merchants.
Initially, Yelp’s community building efforts will be concentrated in the city of Istanbul, an expansive metro area that spans two separate continents. However, the full-featured site will be available country-wide to all Turks, and will support English, Danish, Dutch, French, Finnish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, Polish and Turkish, providing users access to local insights in any one of those twelve languages.
“Bridging the European and Asian continents, Turkey has always been a place for different cultures and communities to meet, exchange and develop,” Miriam Warren, Yelp’s Vice President New Markets said in a press release. “We look forward to watching the Yelp community experience that same treatment as we hand over the reins to the local population and ask them to make Yelp their very own local guide to what’s good and great wherever they are in Turkey.”
By Gilbert Falso :: 8:19 AM
TripIt, a mobile travel organizer from Concur, announced yesterday that travelers can now share their trips on LinkedIn in the main network update stream, making it even easier to coordinate plans among coworkers, or solicit suggestions from business connections.
“Sharing trip plans on LinkedIn is an easy way to make the most of your time visiting a particular city,” explained Nancy Ramamurthi, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for TripIt. “Whether it’s a meeting invitation or restaurant recommendation, TripIt and LinkedIn can uncover opportunities you may not have otherwise thought of.”
LinkedIn has remained one of the most popular ways for TripIt users to share trip plans, since TripIt’s original MyTravel LinkedIn app launched in 2008. A recent TripIt survey found that more frequent travelers regularly visit LinkedIn than Twitter or Google+. Of the travelers surveyed, 53% visit LinkedIn at least weekly, 37% visit Twitter at least weekly, and 24% visit Google+ at least weekly.
TripIt also makes it easy for users to automatically share trip plans on Facebook, Salesforce’s Chatter, Yammer, and privately via email with the click of a button. For privacy reasons, sharing must be initiated by the individual traveler, and can be turned off anytime.