I am on Digg frequently, and recently, ads have been inserted to the main page.
This allows companies to post what they want on the front page, while letting Digg users still vote on if the ad should be Dugg or Buried. It is an interesting concept that provides marketers with feedback of what users want to see because they can still vote for it or against it.

http://chasnote.com/2009/10/01/digg-ads-it%E2%80%99s-just-the-beginning/

BNO news have breaking and developing stories on iphone app. I think it's good to have one on the iphone so you'll know what happening in the world and you won't be fall behind the news. However, I don't know if people are willing to buy 99 cents per month to have BNO application on the iphone to read the breaking news, with one month included as part of the application’s initial $1.99 purchase price. I mean people can read the news over internet for free and they can find out what going on in the world. So we'll see how it goes for the next couple months.

what you guys think of having BNO application on the iPhone? Click on the link bottom if you interesting to read more about it.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/01/bno-news-updates-its-great-iphone-app-lets-you-harness-stream-of-push-notifications/

For those of you who think the stuff we are learning about it pretty cool and are potentially interested in it for a future career, there are sites like Mashable's that have information on how to get a job in social media. I found an article by them that is basically a guide to getting a job in social media and what jobs may be available. As a marketing major, I never really thought of this as a possible career choice, but it sounds really unique and fun!

Click for Mashable's Guide to Jobs in Social Media

Also interesting, made me laugh actually. Over the summer, aUK theme park banned the use of PDA's in the park because they want to have an environment that solely promotes family fun time.

I thought this was interesting because I can not count on my fingers alone how many parents of my friends I have seen bicker at them for using their cell phones too much and "ignoring them".

Do you guys think this is true-- that we are ignoring the outside world? Are we just evolving into better multitaskers?

Here is the article:

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2008/05/theme-park-pda-ban-says-time-and-a-place-for-everything.ars

When I saw Justin's post about banning basketball players and those involved with the game from using their social media devices before, during, and after games, I was interested to see what else I could find. I found an article about how Walt Disney has banned all PDA's except for Mickey Mouse's Blackberry and Donald Duck's Ipaq. It appears they will not be supporting any other type of PDA (Palm Pilot, etc).

I think that is interesting as I am not really sure if this is due to a social media problem or Walt Disney having problems with other companies in general. It's a mystery!

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1009933/walt-disney-bans-every-pda-but-two

This is an interesting research article talks about targeted advertising. Turns out that most U.S. residents do not want to receive Web advertising tailored to their interests. Statistics is a funny thing, and as the often cited example goes, it can correlate ice cream sales and crime rates. Yet another time to remember that correlation is not equal to causation.

Read more at
http://www.itworld.com/government/79438/survey-us-residents-dont-want-targeted

Compare this with the results of another survey.
http://www.truste.com/about_TRUSTe/press-room/news_truste_behavioral_targeting_survey.html

No Tweeting during basketball? Evidently tweeting is becoming a problem in the NBA. New current restrictions ban social media before, during, and after games.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4520907

In an article titled "Google's YouTube Finds Money In Analytics" Laurie Sullivan of MediaPost.com writes about how Google can give copyright holders a tool to "track viewer sentiment to determine the best distribution and marketing strategy for music, video and other content clips that are generated and uploaded by the community." Think Google Analytics for YouTube...

YouTube accounts for 99% of all videos watched on Google sites, representing over 40% of all videos that are viewed online. Combining their content management feature with YouTube Insights, a free analytics tool that lets media companies mine information, could help copyright holders generate revenue from the data and in return boost profits for YouTube.

"It allows content owners -- such as music labels, movie studios and advertisers -- to compare audience demographics between "claimed videos" and "official versions." It also provides data and insight into Web sites or search terms that drive the most traffic to versions of the content uploaded by YouTube members. "

- If you want to read more, follow this link to the article on MediaPost.com

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=114409

We had discussed in class the alternative Web Browsers that most people have been using to activate the site. It included a few varieties, but what about the people that are not really up to date? This site talks about the security of web browsers, and how some are automatically updating themselves without your knowledge anymore, and whether that could be detrimental to your internet experience.

http://mashable.com/2009/05/06/browser-innocence/

 We talked about the Naked Pizza billboard as an example of using Social Media along with traditional marketing methods and here are several more interesting examples. I anticipate that this practice will become more and more common and even end up on product packaging soon.

Read more at
http://www.urlesque.com/2009/09/29/social-media-ads-go-offline-whats-old-is-new-again/