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What do you do with a blog service full of cat GIFs and memes? If you’re Yahoo, you buy it for $1.1 billion. If you’re a media outlet, you use Tumblr as an extension of your brand.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Tumblr Chief Executive David Karp. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

The platform, founded by David Karp in 2007, is home to more than 108 million blogs and more than 50 billion individual posts. Tumblr pages take seconds to set up, and users range from individuals likeJohn Green to companies like IBM. Even the White House has a Tumblr.

Tumblr makes it easy for users to post quickly, and those posts can be just about anything, like a long text post, a photo with a link or a video. Because of Tumblr’s versatility — and because it lets users interact with one another — many news organizations have joined and made Tumblr blogs to share their coverage or communicate with their audiences. There’s room for blogs with just about any purpose, so here’s a look at how several outlets use the site.

Answering readers’ practical questions

The San Francisco Chronicle uses its Tumblr not as a platform to share content but as a means to address subscriber service concerns. Now that the site has a paywall for SFChron, it helps both paying subscribers, as well as those who follow the Chronicle on its main website, SFGate.

Matt Dickon, who runs the Chronicle’s service Tumblr and Twitter accounts, said he prefers to respond to subscriber and reader concerns on Tumblr rather than through an email service, because of the immediacy of sending and receiving messages on Tumblr.

“Sometimes within a minute of a question coming in, I’m writing an answer,” he said by phone. Anyone with a Tumblr account can send a message or question, under their handle, to the account; those without an account can submit a question anonymously.

Dickow said using Tumblr for troubleshooting is more direct than an email submission and reporting process because the questions come straight to him rather than being sent to a general email address and then sorted by a software program.

He can also answer questions and post them publicly on the Tumblr; as long as the questions are general concerns, the information is be applicable to others with similar problems.

“So long as [subscribers] bookmark the page, they have access to the information,” he said.

Engaging audiences and creating new content

Audience engagement is key to the success of an outlet’s Tumblr. Two Tumblrs in particular exemplify good audience engagement: NPR’s family of Tumblrs, and I Love Charts.

NPR has built a group of Tumblr blogs, from a general NPR Tumblr to Tumblrs for programs like Fresh Air and Wait Wait.. Don’t Tell Me. Each blog is run by different teams, but they follow a similar layout and design style so the group looks unified.

“If you look at each one of the Tumblrs, they’re each run differently,” Wright Bryan, an editor on NPR’s social media desk, said by phone. Bryan was part of the team that made the first, general NPR Tumblr.

I spoke with Bryan and Kate Myers, NPR’s product manager for social media, about NPR’s all-purpose Tumblr and several user submission projects the station has run.

“We are using Tumblr as an editorial engine,” Myers said by phone. She explained that several NPR campaigns run through Tumblr – like the “Dear Mr. President” campaign – were made possible because NPR is used to this sort of user engagement, and because its existing audience is invested in the station.

For example, I explained to Bryan and Myers that I had grown up listening to NPR with my family, but once I went to college, I no longer had a car and didn’t listen to the radio in my spare time. However, I still feel a connection to NPR and follow it on Tumblr and my other social media accounts.

“I’ve heard that story so many times,” said Bryan. “Now the only way that this group of people [younger people] is getting our content is on the Web, on a podcast, through social platforms…It’s critical that we be there, I think, to meet those people where they are.”

Myers agreed, and said that engagement on social media platforms fits with NPR’s overall strategy to engage listeners. Developing a relationship with listeners on the radio is a one-way conversation; interaction between the station and listeners on Tumblr is a “natural outgrowth” of that relationship, she said.

“You feel like it’s a one-on-one conversation,” she said of NPR’s programming.“[It] sends the message that we’re invested in what they bring to the table.”

Evidence of the listener-station relationship is evident in several NPR projects run through Tumblr. Morning Edition’s “Cook Your Cupboard” Tumblr helps listeners figure out what they can rustle up with leftover or odd foodstuffs. She-Works, another NPR Tumblr, is a congruent effort with the “Changing Lives of Women” series that airs on several NPR programs. They also use the general Tumblr to hype NPR apps and special projects.

Another Tumblr, I Love Charts, leverages the same kind of content submission, and also allows for guest curation. The blog is full of niche content: if it’s data, emotion or some other quantifiable information expressed in a chart or graph, it’s relevant to the blog.

“We’re just lucky to have a very identifiable angle,” Jason Oberholtzer, who runs the Tumblr, said by phone.

Oberholtzer finds and reblogs content on his own, but he also uses submissions for a significant portion of the blog’s content. “We have a fairly large community of submitters,” he said.

Oberholtzer also explained that he lets some bloggers curate the blog for a day as a “chartist-in-residence,” which means they’re in charge of all the content published on the blog. They can reblog content or upload original work. Chartists have included Dante Shepherd of Surviving the World, Kelly and Zach Weinersmith of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and The Weekly Weinersmith and artist Wendy MacNaughton.

“I give them the day,” Oberholtzer said. “The general guidelines are, we try to get out 10-12 posts a day… [and] they have access to our entire inbox of submitted charts.”

The success of I Love Charts has helped Oberholtzer in other ventures; he was offered a column by Forbes after running I Love Charts for about a year and a half, and there’s now an “I Love Charts” book, based on the blog.

Sharing content, regardless of source

The nature of Tumblr comes down to sharing content with followers. Most, if not all, news Tumblrs share others’ content in addition to their own coverage.

“We can’t cover everything, and we don’t report on everything… [that] doesn’t mean that another story isn’t worth attention,” Colleen Shalby, social media editor for PBS NewsHour, said in a phone interview. Shalby said the NewsHour Tumblr doesn’t just share its own content; it reblogs (shares a post from another Tumblr) or posts links to other outlets’ coverage.

One of the most popular posts from their Tumblr, a Roger Ebert quote posted after he died, “wasn’t even our piece of content.” Sharing others’ content isn’t just about getting notes, however.

“Using Tumblr is a bit about showing your organization’s personality, and that’s not just feeding the beast to get people back to the website,” she said.

Another outlet, native to Tumblr, uses the website to share media news. The Future Journalism Project, run by Michael Cervieri, shares news from other outlets by virtue of its positioning and angle.

“I had played with Tumblr beforehand, just kind of personal stuff, so I kind of knew what the community was like on there,” said Cervieri in a phone interview. “The decision was, let’s go to where the community is and see if we can build an audience.”

Cervieri writes posts about media news to share on the Tumblr, and will frequently reblog posts and add news to them. The Tumblr also aggregates news from other outlets, much like Poynter’s MediaWire blog on our homepage. News organizations have to be sure to share source information about what they’re posting; as Oberholtzer explained to me about I Love Charts, it’s important to be diligent about giving sources proper credit.

In fact, I’ve also tried to strike a balance between sharing our own content, and sharing others’ content, while running the Poynter Institute Tumblr. While I want to share the content we produce, it’s important that our Tumblr isn’t just a feed of the content we’ve published on our website. If it were, it wouldn’t interest people who already read our website, and if we published all of Poynter’s content on Tumblr, those who follow us on Tumblr would have no reason to visit our homepage. That’s why it’s important to have unique content on both.

Sharing one’s own content

While sharing third party content helps to develop voice, publications would have less of an incentive to create Tumblrs if it didn’t present an opportunity to share their own content. For some publications, Tumblr’s quirky and eclectic tone is a reflection of the publication.

“We do view [Tumblr] as a place where we talk about what we love and are interested in, a little bit separate from what we’re covering on a day to day and month to month basis,” Mark McClusky, editor of Wired.com, said about the magazine’s Tumblr in an email interview. “That tone probably is closer to the magazine and website’s tone than some other brands Tumblrs are. We’re a brand that marries the intellectual and the obscure, and that reflects on the Tumblr.”

However, Tumblr also resonates with the voices of other publications that focus on straight news.

“We generally reflect the tone of the Guardian on Tumblr – so sometimes we can be very tongue-in-cheek,” Hannah Waldram, community coordinator for news at the Guardian, said in an email interview. For the Guardian, Tumblr is also a place to publish content that might not make it onto the front page.

“We sometimes do ‘behind the scenes’ posts or extra bits of reporting or insider knowledge on a news story,” Waldram said. Waldram also said the Guardian has covered specific news in greater depth on Tumblr based on the community’s interests. For example, when opposition to SOPA and PIPA was popular on Tumblr, the Guardian’s Tumblr highlighted the publication’s existing coverage.

The Guardian has also launched a special Tumblr project, called English to English, that points out incongruities in English as it’s spoken in the U.K. versus American English. The project takes advantage of Tumblr’s lighter tone as well as user interactivity; it publishes Guardian-produced posts, as well as reader submissions.

Tumblr-specific content is important to other publications’ social media strategy, too.

“One part of our strategy … is creating custom content specifically for social platforms, instead of just re-purposing content,” Anjali Mullany, digital news director for Fast Company, said of the publication’s social media strategy, in an email interview. “We may cover one story different ways for different platforms, or we may cover news on one of our social platforms that we did not cover on our website,” she said in a follow-up email.

Tumblr-specific content isn’t just about providing additional coverage; it also lets users get a behind-the-scenes look at their favorite publications.

“In some ways, Tumblr feels a bit like ‘MinnPost after dark.’ We approach things with more humor or snark — within reason — and try to show the personality of the organization,” Kaeti Hinck, director of news technology at MinnPost, an online-only Minnesota publication, said by email.

For example, during MinnRoast (a roast of the state), the team publishedphotos of speakers to  MinnPost’s Tumblr that weren’t published on the website. And the Tumblr doesn’t just reflect MinnPost’s Minnesota-centric coverage; it also commiserates with its audience.  Hinck said the tone on the Tumblr reflected how MinnPost can relate to users on the platform.

“Minnesota has a strong local Tumblr contingent, so when I took over the MinnPost account a few years back I tried to connect with that community as much as possible. You can’t jump into an ecosystem completely blind to what’s going on around you and expect to be effective,” she said.

Overall, MinnPost’s attitude toward Tumblr reflects what the other publications know, too. Using the platform to promote the exact same content that’s published in print or on their own websites won’t work; instead, the platform is most successful as a tool for audience engagement. In fact, when I asked several of the people in this article what kind of traffic they get from their Tumblrs, they all said that that wasn’t the point of their publication’s Tumblr. Instead, it’s about developing a relationship with the Tumblr audience and sharing new content with their existing audiences.

“It’s so important to pay attention to what your peers and readers are doing on Tumblr, and to support that work,” Hinck said. “It’s a pay-it-forward sort of mentality: The more generous you are with sharing the work and content that other people create, the more your own presence will grow.”

How some news orgs use Tumblr | Poynter..

Categor�as: medios

Influencers reside in every knick and cranny on the web. They share stories about brands. The more influential they are, the more impact their stories have on the success of a business. Active web users create about 500 million impressions or data points on products and services per year, yet 80 percent of these user impressions were made by a mere 6 percent of users on social media.

Certainly this begs the question: how much of our time, effort and money is spent targeting those that aren’t influential with our branding messages hoping to spread the word about our product our service? Is this an effective way to spend our time?

There are key platforms that are known for measuring online influence, the most popular being Klout. It’s primary goal is to build a deeper understanding of personal influence and gauge online the influence of others on the web.

Klout has recently taken their platform and kicked it up notch with a new service being rolled out called Klout for Business. Business will receive complimentary analytics that reflect how and where influencers are engaging with your brand.

Business can access a dashboard that lets you know if you’re engaging key fluencers on social networks where they are most active. Of particular interest, Klout tells you which topics your audience influences others on. This feature helps target your marketing efforts about your brand.

Okay, very illuminating, excellent!

One nagging question remains. Are all influencers that have the same amount of online influence built the same? Do we reach out to these inflencers in the same way? Traackr believes that have an answer and a service that addresses these questions and offer a solution.

Traackr identifies influencer types and suggests engagement strategies targeted to each type of influencer. Check out their infographic the Many Faces of Influence to discover 10 key influencer archetypes and how to get them sharing stories about your brand.

vía How to Find Key Online Influencers | Social Media Today.

Categor�as: twitter

Detailed by the Houston Chronicle, 55-year-old Deborah Tagle of Santa Fe thought it would be a brilliant idea to search for information on how to treat a gunshot wound on WebMD and other Internet sites after her 14-year-old son was shot in their home. At approximately 6:30 p.m. last Tuesday, the teen was shot in the thigh after a friend also staying at the home, 24-year-old Pete Jesse Rodriguez, was “playing” with the firearm and discharged the weapon while pointing it at the teenager. Rather than immediately calling 911 to get an ambulance to the home, the mother spent hours researching gunshot wounds on the Internet and didn’t end up taking her son to the hospital until 2 a.m. Wednesday morning.
After arriving at Mainland Medical Center in Texas City, the boy was immediately stabilized and transported by ambulance to Hermann Hospital in Houston approximately 40 miles away. According to police, the teen was struck by a high-caliber bullet and his condition was stabilized by late Wednesday.

When investigating the home, police discovered that Tagle had security cameras installed on the outside and inside of the residence. These video cameras captured the entire incident. According to the video evidence, Rodriguez was tracking the 14-year-old around the room with the gun before pulling the trigger. Rodriguez was immediately arrested and charged with one count of felony injury to a child. He’s currently in jail on a $151,500 bond.

In addition, Tagle was arrested at the hospital and charged with one count of injury to a child with intent to commit bodily injury. This third degree felony charge came with a $40,000 bond, but Tagle was able to come up with enough money to get released from jail last Friday. Police did not mention if the teenager would be returned to the home after the incident.

Texas woman turns to WebMD instead of 911 after son is shot | Digital Trends.

Categor�as: tonto

In 2005 a Greek American woman started a political blog. As the traffic grew more funding was required. This meant that in August 2006 the venture fund SoftBank Capital was called upon to invest $5 million into the site to hire more staff and to provide the resources needed to make the updates to feed the news cycle 24/7 as the site grew in popularity.

Two years later in November 2008, another $15 million was raised to maintain the momentum as the blog added more journalism resources and local reporting was ramped up across the USA.

The power of celebrity was embraced with politicians, academics and famous power brokers in all areas of business and industry contributing articles to the blog.

It was in June 2011 that the blog’s website traffic passed the doyen of traditional media, the “New York Times” for the first time.

“In just six years new media had disrupted 100 years of traditional media”

Seven years after the first post was published, it was sold to AOL for $315 million to add to its other online blog assets including Engadget, TechCrunch and MovieFone.

Today it’s website traffic is measured at over 77 million visitors per month.

That  blog is Huffington Post.

Tipping point

In the blogging world this was a watershed moment. Never before had so much money been paid for a blog.

New media is replacing and disrupting old media.

The old business model that made many media moguls billionaires and king makers was based upon the rivers of gold which were generated from classified ads. Today it is the website traffic that is creating the cash and the influence is moving online.

Huffington Post was purchased by AOL because of three key elements.

1. Its online and global influence
2. Advertising revenue
3.  Traffic

In one sense this new media is just a variation of old media except that it is online. It is still traffic, eyeballs and advertising.

It just happens to be digital.

The new media models

The new models are not so simple but multifaceted and convoluted. Making money from new media is not a singular approach but often a matrix of multiple opportunities and tactics.

Blogging has evolved rapidly because of the social web and in the past was driven by building email lists which took a lot of time. With the advent of social media their marketing and growth have been supercharged.

Global reach and influence at the speed of a tweet, a Facebook share or a viral video.

To make money from a blog in 2013 you do not have to be a Huffington Post. There are many ways to make a living out of blogging that can enhance your current business and lifestyle that are within everyone’s reach.

Let’s have a look at some of them.

1. Advertising

Just to show that the Huffington Post is not a one off, there are many blogs that generate significant revenue in then millions. One of those is Mashable.

Mashable’s model is based almost exclusively on building huge amounts of traffic that makes it an attractive platform for advertising. Current page views per month total approximately 50 million.  This also means producing a lot of content. To put that in perspective Mashable publishes dozens of articles a day to feed the content beast.

They work hard at optimizing their advertising and  have developed technology for:

• Infinite ad scrolling
• Story telling ads unit
• Content velocity algorithm

This blogging business model is becoming harder as advertising rates fall. But the rewards can be great with some reports that Peter Cashmore is worth nearly $100 Million US and the blog has been valued at $over $200 million.

2. Sponsorship

Suzi Dafnis is the clever business brain behind a very successful blog that targets business women in Australia. It is called the Australian Business Women’s Network.  She must be doing something right! It has just won “Best Australian Blogs Competition” in the business Category.

Sponsorship is the main revenue source with sponsors including American Express, Optus and GoToWebinar.

3. Webinars and Seminars

Social Media Examiner was only started 4 years ago by Mike Stelzner and made its first million dollars within 12 months through paid online webinars. Mike (who by the way is one of the true gentlemen of the blogging world) has used his attention to detail, process and savvy business acumen to create a blog that is now ranked in the top 60 blogs in the world in just 48 months.

Mike knows how to shine the spotlight on others and hence they have returned the favour.

Prior to starting the Social Media Examiner blog Mike had run other blogs and businesses including one on how to “Write White Papers”. Mike has moved into producing conferences, with the recent success of the inaugural “Social Media Marketing World” in  San Diego.

If you want an insight into how he made his blog such a success I would recommend you read his book “Launch – How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition”

4. Speaking

Blogs can be the platform that makes you visible. This includes being invited to speak at conferences, workshops and seminars. Guy Kawasaki uses his blog as an online platform to promote his speaking and his books. 

Guy understands the importance of an online platform for building credibility and marketing his personal brand. He also understands the power of social media and has nearly 1.3 million Twitter followers

5. Books

Tim Ferriss is the author of  the New York Times best seller “The Four Hour Work Week”, which was about creating a success lifestyle in a web world. He has used his blog to launch not just one but three books after the huge success of his first book.

Tim uses his blog as his promotion platform for his books and for engaging and sharing his inspiration for experiments in lifestyle design.

6. Affiliate

Affiliate marketing  is the art of either selling other people’s products on your blog or getting affiliates to sell your products.  Brendon Burchard is one of many who have perfected this art and science.

One of the the key secrets to succeeding in this is building promotional partnerships with powerful online influencers and other bloggers who have significant followings online. Some of the pioneers in this space include Frank Kerns and Jeff Walker.

It can supercharge your revenue. For a further insight into how Brendon achieved success his book “Millionaire Messenger” is worth a read.

Another blogger and podcaster that understands how to use affiliate marketing to create revenue and is worth checking out is Pat Flynn, who is the force behind the blog “Smart Passive Income”

7. Consulting

Mark Schaefer is the force behind the awesome blog “Grow“. He uses his blog as his front door and shingle to his consulting, educating and training business that helps businesses grow by tapping into the marketing power of social media.

He is also the author of  several books including  ”Return on Influence” and “The Tao of Twitter”

8. Online Courses

Amy Porterfield is a blogger and a professional Facebook expert who has created and developed online training which is her main revenue stream. Her flagship course is Facebook  Training 101 – FB Influence. 

She understood the importance of her blog as the online portal to her online courses.

9. eBooks

Darren Rowse is the genius behind Problogger. Not only has he made that blog a business success but also started a Photography Blog called “Digital Photography School” with over 1 million subscribers . His eBooks on “blogging” and “photography” have become his main source of income

Darren makes money from his blog in 12 different ways. So making money from your blog is not just limited to one revenue stream. The challenge is working out how you can monetize with multiple channel sources.

10. Premium content – Paid Membership

Timothy Sykes blog is about how to make money on the stock market and his main source of revenue is by selling premium content which is accessed through paying to be a member on his site.

Premium content that is only accessible via monthly membership is a proven model and another one worth checking out is Psd.Tutsplus.com which is a resource and learning site for those who want to learn photoshop.

11. Sell Products

Tucker Max is a blog and brand that is memorable but maybe for all the wrong reasons. If hedonism is your thing then Tucker Max is is your man. He makes money from the blog in a variety of ways. The main source of income is selling his products on Amazon.

It highlights that even a bad image can be monetised. The creativity is up to you!

What about you?

As we have seen, blogging can  be both a business and an online portal to to express yourself. The challenge is deciding what you want it to be and how can you make it into a business and lifestyle that works for you.

So how do you make money from your blog? What types of revenue models attract you?

Look forward to hearing your stories in the comments below.

Want to learn how to create and market a successful global blog?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

How to Make Money from Your Blog: 11 Powerful Case Studies | Jeffbullas’s Blog.

Categor�as: dinero

The Onion, the satirical news site that that saw its Twitter accounthijacked by a Syrian hacker groupearlier this week, has just performed a pretty significant bit of public service.

In a detailed post, the site’s tech team has published a fairly thorough tick-tock on how the attack was carried out.

This is the opposite of what companies usually do when they experience a security breach. The Syrian Electronic Army, the pro-Assad group that has been attacking the Twitter accounts of many Western media organizations in recent weeks, including CBS News, the BBC, Associated Press, and others). None of those organizations have followed up with any significant disclosure about what happened.

When companies and organizations suffer a computer breach of any kind, the impulse is to keep the details of how it was carried out close to the vest. There are many legitimate reasons for this, not the least of which is that it’s embarrassing. And the details can shed light on internal processes and procedures that might be of value to competitors.

In addition, there’s a public relations consideration. Stories about hacking attacks are negative. If there’s any media coverage, there’s an understandable desire for the coverage to stop. Disclosures about how it happened yield another round of coverage that would otherwise be unwanted. In cases like this, the desire for no coverage wins out.

As one media organization after another has fallen for the Syrian Electronic Army’s tricks, there seemed to be a common thread that ran through the circumstances of each incident. All appear to have fallen prey to some kind of “phishing” attack. These are spoofed emails that look legitimate but which contain attachments or links that are used to gather information like usernames and passwords to carry out the attack.

What The Onion has disclosed is that the attackers in this case used a sophisticated multilayered attack, using information gleaned in the first round to then launch a second that gathers more information, and so on, until at last they had penetrated the target: The Onion’s Twitter account, with a healthy five million followers.

I may have missed something along the way, but this is by far the most detailed account of any of these attacks that I’ve read. And the more people who read it, the better, because eventually the methods used will stop working.

I’ve long thought that there ought to be more transparency from private companies in these matters, especially from media organizations who have a certain amount of accountability to the public that they serve. When hackers thought to be based in China attacked several media organizations, including The Wall Street Journal (which, like this website, is owned by News Corp.) and the New York Times, the apparent intent was to monitor communications about reporting those organizations were doing about Chinese officials and companies.

In the case of the Syrian Electronic Army, the intent was to take advantage of the Twitter followers these organizations have attracted and hijack their accounts to spread political propaganda. The attacks do some short-term damage to reputations, and result in some embarrassing press coverage for a day or so. Usually, no one ever learns anything useful, because the details remain obscured. Yesterday, The Onion changed that. It’s an example we can all learn from.

Why The Onion Is Awesome for Publishing Details of Its Twitter Hack – Arik Hesseldahl – News – AllThingsD.

Categor�as: piratas

If you still have not heard of the Harlem Shake you must be living in a cave. Much has been written about the rapid and global spread of this catchy internet meme, yet little is understood about how it spread. In the following post, we look at the meme’s emergence through the lens of Twitter data. A series of remixed videos along with a number of key communities around the world triggered a rapid escalation, giving the meme widespread global visibility. What can we learn from data? Who were the initial communities behind this mega-trend? Who were some of the trend-setters, and what did the Jamaica techno-DJ scene have to do with this?

The Harlem Shake is a dance style born in New York City more than 30 years ago: “During halftime at street ball games held in Rucker Park, a skinny man known in the neighborhood as Al. B. would entertain the crowd with his own brand of moves, a dance that around Harlem became known as ‘The Al. B.’” Though it started in 1981, the Harlem shake became mainstream in 2001 when G. Dep featured the dance in his music video “Let’s Get It”.

While mining Twitter data, references to Harlem Shake (the original dance) were seen quite often prior to it becoming a popular meme. For example, users would write Tweets referencing the dance in the following manner:

There are numerous examples of Tweets with this phrase in this context (here are a few examples), many of them using the * character as an emphasis. Kimberly Ellis, a Scholar of American and Africana Studies, claims that this type of language is simply being referenced via cultural memory. And users are very dramatic, hence they place “action items” in tweets:

When someone tweets, “I just passed my final exams! *harlem shakes*,” it’s the equivalent of saying “I just passed my final exams! Look at me dancing!” As you can see, the Harlem Shake of cultural memory is SO energetic, recalling the visual in a tweet makes it all the more hysterical and another shared, cultural moment for African Americans on Twitter.

While Bauuer’s now infamous track was released on Diplo’s Mad Decent label back in August 2012 (posted to YouTube on August 23 2012), it only accrued minor visibility for the first few months. Then February hit, and something changed.

The timeline below highlights the very first days as the meme was taking off. In blue, we see references to the 1980′s dance *harlem shakes*. Note the diurnal pattern, rising and falling steadily on a daily basis. In contrast, the green curve represents Tweets that use the phrase ‘The Harlem Shake’, many of them linking to one of the first three versions of the meme on YouTube.

On February 2, The Sunny Coast Skate (TSCS) group establish the form of the meme in a YouTube video they upload. On the 5, PHL_On_NAN posts a remix (v2), gaining 300,000 views within 24 hours, and prompting further parodies shortly after. On Feb. 7, YouTuber hiimrawn uploaded a version titled “Harlem Shake v3 (office edition)” featuring the staff of online video production company Maker Studios. The video becomes is a hit, amassing more than 7.4 million views over the following week, and inspiring a number of contributions from well-known Internet companies, including BuzzFeed, CollegeHumor, Vimeo and Facebook.

In a video interview, Vernon Shaw, Channel Development Coordinator at Maker Studios (produced v3), claims that he spotted the first two versions on Reddit. It was evident that a form was emerging, and after v2 accrued 100k views, it was clear to him that this was the “pre-viral” stage. Vernon attributes Reddit for being first to highlight the remixes, claiming that “you can tell when a trend is about to start by catching it on Reddit first… a day or two ahead of Facebook”.

Here’s a graph that shows retweets during the first week, as the meme was being established. We can identify dominant profiles who helped make the videos visible on Twitter, key information brokers. Each node represents a Twitter user, and the larger a node, the more Retweets that user generated when posting to the meme. The lighter colored participated earlier, hence we see @baauer, @dipio and @maddecent very early on, posting to Twitter and accruing Retweets. On the bottom right region, we identify influential YouTubers who were key to passing on the meme, such as @kingsleyyy, @KSIOlajidebt, @ConnorFranta, and @Jenna_Marbles. Note the general size of these profiles versus @StephenAtHome (Colbert) or even @YouTube. These influential YouTubers clearly played a prominent role in generating buzz across Twitter, much more than significantly larger accounts such as Stephen Colbert’s or YouTube itself.

Next, instead of mapping out Retweets, we look at the social connections amongst users who were posting to the meme. This gives us the ability to identify the underlying communities engaging with the meme at a very early stage. In the following graph each node represents a user that was actively posting and referencing the Harlem Shake meme on Feb 7 or 8 to Twitter. Connections between users reflect follow/friendship relationships. The graph is organized using a force directed algorithm, and colored based on modularity, highlighting dominant clusters – regions in the graph which are much more interconnected. These clusters represent groups of users who tend to have some attribute in common.

One of the most dense clusters includes @baauer, @diplo, @maddecent and other DJs and musicians. They are clearly a core community who were posting the meme early on. We identified this clearly in the previous Retweet graph. In red and green (top, right) we see regions of the graph highlighting various YouTube communities. These are users whose dominant web identity is their YouTube page. While many of them have Twitter handles, they all link to their YouTube page as a primary identity, while many describe themselves as ‘YouTubers.’ We see a dense Brazillian user community (right), Jamaican rappers (top center-left), cape town (bottom) and users from Paris, France (bottom center-left). In the center, there are accounts such as BroBible and theBERRY/theCHIVE who were one of the first new-media outlets to identify the meme as interesting.

The purple region in the graph (left side) represents African American Twitter users who are referencing Harlem Shake in its original context. There’s very little density there as it is not really a tight-knit community, but rather a segment of users who are culturally aligned, and are clearly much more interconnected amongst themselves than with other groups. 

If we run a similar analysis on the following two days (Feb 9 and 10) we see different communities emerge, and a much more tightly knit graph structure:

While the same dense cluster of musicians and DJs (in turquoise) still exists, there are substantially more self-identified YouTubers both across the US and the UK. At the same time there’s a significant gamer / machinima cluster that’s also participating, as well as a growing Jamaican contingent, and quite a few dutch profiles (purple — left). Additionally, we see various celebrity and media accounts who caught on to the meme — @jimmyfallon, @mashable and @huffingtonpost.

By capturing the two snapshots, we can also make sense of the evolution of the meme as it becomes more and more visible. At first, loosely connected communities separately humored by the videos. Within days, we see major media outlets jump on board, and a much more intertwined landscape. We see different regions in the world light up, and identify communities of important YouTube enthusiasts who effectively get this content to spread.

In this case we see a clear network of influential YouTubers across the U.S. and the U.K. combined with a dense cluster of musicians and DJs who helped make this meme incredibly visible. We also see how it very quickly spread around the world, with dense contingents in Jamaica, South Africa, Brazil, France and the Netherlands. By comparing two snapshots in time, we literally see the difference between an emergent trend amongst loosely connected interest-based communities, to a dense more-connected cluster where digital-media outlets do significant amplification.

Memes have become a sort of distributed mass spectacle. Culture is being created, remixed and reinforced within social networks, and memes are becoming a mechanism that both capture people’s attention, and define what is “cool” or “trendy.” We see more and more companies and brands try to associate themselves with certain memes, as a way to maintain a connection with their audience, gain the cool factor. Pepsi did this with the Harlem Shake and saw an incredibly positive response. As we get better at identifying these trends and trend-setting communities early on, the pressure to participate will rise.

As social networks become globally-intertwined, we’re witnessing a growing number of memes conquer the world at large. These moments are critical points in time, where there are significant levels of attention given towards a specific entity – be it a joke, funny video or a political topic. Piecing together data from social networks can help us identify critical points in time, as well as the underlying communities and trendsetters for the humor-based memes, or the agenda setters for politically-slanted ones.

The analysis is based on 1.9 million Tweets collected between February 1 and 16, all referencing variations of the phrase ‘harlem shake’.

Gilad Lotan: The Harlem Shake: Anatomy of a Viral Meme.

Categor�as: cultura, moda

Por GEOFFREY A. FOWLER

Empleados, tengan cuidado. No caigan en las garras de un gato llamado Dr. Zaius.

Un correo electrónico con el encabezado “¡Mire estos gatitos! ” y con una foto de un gato angora turco con pelo violeta ha sido enviado a casi dos millones de empleados hasta ahora. Incluye un archivo adjunto o enlace que promete más fotos de felinos. Los que hacen clic se encuentran con una sorpresa: una advertencia severa del departamento de soporte técnico de su respectiva compañía.

El e-mail de Dr. Zaius es un simulacro de ciberataque y forma parte de las estrategias que las empresas están usando para entrenar a sus empleados a no caer tan fácilmente en trampas electrónicas. La idea es que al persuadirlos para que realicen acciones no seguras aprendan a ser más cautelosos.

Muchas violaciones importantes a las redes no comienzan con un sofisticado código de hacker sino con empleados que son engañados por la llamada ingeniería social, la cual manipula a la gente para que revele información confidencial. Por lo tanto, que las compañías están intentando lograr que los trabajadores se porten mal antes que los criminales entren en acción.

“Es un servicio para atrapar a alguien con las manos en la masa”, dice Tom DeSot, vicepresidente ejecutivo de Digital Defense Inc. de San Antonio, cuyos 10 mercenarios de confianza —”hackers éticos” como se los conoce en la jerga del rubro— idean ataques para explotar las debilidades humanas. Su objetivo, sostiene, no es que nadie sea despedido o se meta en problemas, sino ayudar a todos los empleados a aprender las técnicas que también usan loshackers maliciosos.

En 2005, el estado de Nueva York envió un e-mail de phishing o engañoso a 10.000 empleados y contratistas. El mensaje instaba a divulgar contraseñas en un sitio web al que los redirigía. La primera vez, 15% cayó en la trampa, pero la segunda vez, sólo 8%, explica Will Pelgrin, quien realizó la prueba en su rol de jefe de seguridad de información en ese momento y ahora es presidente ejecutivo del Centro de Seguridad en Internet en East Greenbush, estado de Nueva York.

PhishMe Inc., la empresa con sede en Chantilly, Virginia, que creó los e-mails del Dr. Zaius y otros simulacros de ataques cibernéticos que las empresas pueden usar para hacer pruebas, afirma que los clientes han usado sus servicios para enseñarles una lección a 3,8 millones de empleados.

A Ryan Jones, quien dirige media decena de hackers éticos en Trustwave Holdings Inc., una compañía de seguridad digital en Chicago, le gusta dejar memorias portátiles y CD en los baños, estacionamientos y cafés cercanos a empresas que lo contratan. A menudo, le agrega el logo de la compañía cliente o el de un competidor o una etiqueta que diga “confidencial”.

Casi siempre, un empleado encuentra uno de los señuelos y lo conecta a una computadora. “Comienza por la curiosidad”, dice. “Es parecido al motivo por el cual la gente mira reality TV: quieren ver qué pasa en las vidas de las personas”.

Los dispositivos de Jones contienen software que se apodera de la computadora y toma control de las cámaras incorporadas para sacar fotos de los empleados.

Para identificar las debilidades de seguridad, su arsenal incluye simulacros de ataques en persona, en los que engaña a otros para ingresar a oficinas y tener acceso a sistemas sensitivos. Jones tiene una variedad de disfraces, incluyendo uniformes de mensajero y bombero. Varias veces ha usado exitosamente muletas para lograr entrar por puertas bajo llave con al ayuda de alguien demasiado atento.

Los hackers éticos sacan ventaja de los pecados virtuales de la vida en la oficina.

La envidia y la curiosidad, por ejemplo, son los factores en el corazón del atractivo de uno de los engaños por e-mail más potentes del cofundador de PshishMe, Aaron Higbee, este año. Primero, un empleado recibe un e-mail supuestamente de un alto gerente, con un archivo adjunto sobre potenciales bonificaciones para una cantidad de personas. Luego llega otro e-mail que intenta “retirar” el primero.

“Eso genera curiosidad”, afirma Higbee sobre los mensajes. Abrir un archivo adjunto o enlace en el correo activa el software de PhishMe. Lo correcto ante esta situación, como en otras, es consultar con quien lo envió o con el departamento de soporte técnico de la empresa.

No creerá lo adorable que es este gato, haga clic para ver más – WSJ.com.

Categor�as: primicia

Netflix reported 29.17 million domestic subscribers in the first quarter of 2013, surpassing HBO for the first time.

Netflix, which ended 2012 with 27.15 million domestic subs, added just over 2 million subs, according to first quarter results issued Monday.

HBO ended 2012 with 28.7 million subscribers, according to data from SNL Kagan.

The new figures will likely escalate the rivalry simmering between the two companies, given the barbs Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Jeff Bewkes, chairman of HBO parent company Time Warner, have traded over the years

That said, Netflix has a ways to go before catching up worldwide. HBO has 114 million subscribers across the globe, a far cry from the 7.14 million Netflix has outside the U.S.  Netflix also added just over 1 million subs internationally in US., bringing its global total to over 36 million subs–more than 3 million than  last quarter.

SNL Kagan will offer first-quarter update next month on the premium channels, which could put HBO back on top again.

More Netflix Q1 News: Viacom and Netflix to Scale Down SVOD Deal
More Netflix Q1 News: ‘House of Cards’ Had Only ‘Gentle’ Impact on Sub Growth

Netflix Surpasses HBO in U.S. Subscribers | Variety.

Categor�as: General

 Preparados, listos… ¡ya! Emma Snawder, de 9 años, corre a través de su casa en Oregon (Estados Unidos) con un dispositivo Zamzee que le permite sumar puntos al realizar actividad física. 

En su libro Homo Ludens, de 1938, el historiador holandés Johan Huizinga ya hablaba de la “teoría de juegos”, donde sostenía que el juego es el principal elemento formativo en la cultura humana: “Uno de los aspectos más significativos del juego es que es divertido. Es una de las funciones humanas más fundamentales y ha permeado todas las culturas desde el principio”, sostenía el filósofo hace 75 años. Hoy su teoría ha tomado nuevo vigor, impulsada por tendencias de un mercado que busca cada vez más ganar clientes, involucrar personas en una causa o cambiar comportamientos haciendo que las obligaciones diarias no se perciban como tales. De eso se trata el concepto de gamificación (gamification, en inglés). “Es el empleo de mecánicas de juego en entornos y aplicaciones no lúdicas, con el fin de potenciar la motivación, la concentración, el esfuerzo, la fidelización y otros valores positivos”, describe Carolina Dolan Chandler, directora de Tecnología de la empresa Globant. 

Sin darnos cuenta, día a día participamos de acciones que tienen el concepto de gamificación en su ADN: cuando juntamos millas en una aerolínea o recibimos una medalla virtual como comentaristas en un foro online, estamos “jugando” sin, muchas veces, ser conscientes del juego. Según la consultora Gartner, se estima que para 2015 más del 50 por ciento de las compañías incluirá gamificación en sus estrategias de retención de clientes. Pero también que en 2014 el 80 por ciento de las aplicaciones existentes no tendrá éxito, por no usar un diseño sostenible en el tiempo. “Muchas aplicaciones móviles se centran en darles medallas y diplomas virtuales a sus usuarios, como ocurre con la aplicación de geolocalización Foursquare, pero no se logra un involucramiento a largo plazo que reporte beneficios reales a quienes participan. Ése es el desafío”, agrega Dolan Chandler.

ÚTILES Y DIVERTIDOS

Una de las pioneras en demostrar cómo la gamificación puede cambiar las conductas humanas es la automotriz Volkswagen, que creó un sitio llamado Thefuntheory.com, donde comparte ideas para motivar y premiar a quienes gamifiquen su vida diaria. Allí se puede ver un sistema de entretenimiento en el automóvil que sólo arranca si los niños tienen colocado el cinturón, un container donde los transeúntes pueden ir tirando botellas y competir por puntos que se muestran en un cartel luminoso como si fuera un videojuego callejero, o una escalera pintada como un piano que emite notas musicales al ser pisada y que logra que los usuarios del subte no elijan la escalera mecánica.

 

Donde la gamificación se percibe fuerte es en el terreno de la salud: proliferan aplicaciones y hasta dispositivos que alientan comportamientos saludables, como el ejercicio regular, una dieta mejorada o el seguimiento de un tratamiento médico. “Estamos desarrollando una aplicación para chicos donde se busca mayor empatía en la toma de medicamentos. Una vez que se baja la aplicación al celular, se apunta el teléfono hacia el envase (por ejemplo, un frasco de jarabe para la tos) y el niño puede ver mediante tecnología de realidad aumentada (AR) cómo un avioncito gira alrededor del envase o un robot le muestra lo sano y fuerte que estará luego de tomar el remedio”, describe Leonardo Di Paola, CEO de Innovar Group, una consultora de IT Argentina que trabaja con soluciones móviles gamificadas y realidad aumentada. “La AR completa la visión de los entornos del mundo real mediante la adición de elementos de ficción. El próximo gran paso será aprovecharla en el sector educativo”, cierra el ejecutivo.También existen dispositivos desarrollados para que las personas midan su grado de actividad física. Son aparatos con la forma de un reproductor de mp3 o iPod, que se enganchan en la ropa o en una pulsera especial. Así ocurre con Fitbit, Zamzee o la pulsera Nike +. El dispositivo Fitbit muestra una flor que va creciendo o se va deshojando de acuerdo con cuánto se mueve la persona. Con Zamzee, pensado para los niños y los adolescentes, se van sumando puntos que luego pueden canjearse por regalos o descuentos. Finalmente, Nike + es como tener a un entrenador personal en la muñeca, que va alentando, sugiriendo dietas y recorridos, además de impulsar la actividad grupal.

El juego se mete cada vez más en nuestra vida como compradores, deportistas o, simplemente, ciudadanos. América latina tendrá muchas iniciativas gamificadas, con el Mundial 2014 y los Juegos Olímpicos de 2016 por delante. Será cuestión de divertirse y animarse a jugar.

¡PIEDRA LIBRE!

• Experto se busca. Aunque todavía de manera tímida, en la Argentina los desarrolladores de videojuegos ya comenzaron a recibir consultas de marcas sobre alternativas para “poner a jugar a sus consumidores”. Es el caso de la empresa de juegos online Vostu, que en Brasil desarrolló para Walmart un juego en el que los usuarios pueden divertirse haciendo compras reales en la tienda virtual del supermercado, desde dentro del juego. “Hasta comprar una tostadora puede ser un juego, y además el comprador tiene beneficios extras por comprar divirtiéndose”, describe Matías Recchia, CEO de la desarrolladora de juegos online.

• Acción social. Sobre cómo evolucionará el uso de este concepto, se espera que haya cada vez más proyectos que crucen acciones colectivas (Crowdsourcing) con propuestas gamificadas que sirvan para contribuir a la investigación científica o a mejorar una necesidad o problema específico. Ése es el caso de Fold.it, un juego tipo puzzle, desarrollado por investigadores de la Universidad de Washington, donde cualquiera puede jugar para ayudar a los científicos a develar los misterios de la estructura de la proteína. Fold.it busca que usuarios de todo el mundo “jueguen a plegar proteínas”, en un ambiente competitivo con rankings mundiales, para ver quién puede encontrar el mejor plegamiento para una proteína dada. Fue diseñado por desarrolladores de juegos profesionales, la manipulación de la proteína es bastante intuitiva y divertida, y ya hay más de 9000 usuarios jugando. “Fold.it es un ejemplo concreto aplicado al bien humanitario. Con él ya lograron resolver cómo se comportan las enzimas del VIH en tres semanas, siendo que con computadoras hubieran tardado años, si es que podían llegar a descifrarlo”, opina Dolan Chandler, de Globant.

Gamification: jugar para vivir – 21.04.2013 – lanacion.com  .

Categor�as: moda

12 Predictions People Made About The Internet In The ’90s.

Categor�as: General