Newsvine | Social News Watch

The Godfather and Social Media

Friday, September 5, 2008 by JD Rucker 10 Comments

In many ways, the top level websites of social media can be compared to the fictional world of The Godfather. Sounds weird? Hear me out.

The Godfather showed us a world of beauty and corruption. Alliances were made and broken. Those who were good to the family were rewarded, while anyone who stepped in the way was hit.

Social media works in much the same way. It can be beautiful, offering the best of the web compiled into loosely organized areas where masses of people can flood a worthy website and enjoy its offerings. It can be corrupt, as spammers use the power of social media to drive traffic to unworthy websites. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Social Internet, Social Networking Sites, Social News Sites Tagged With: Digg, Newsvine, Propeller, Reddit, Social Media, Social News Sites, stumble, Stumbleupon

Impeachment Coverage – Who got it fastest?

Monday, June 9, 2008 by JD Rucker 1 Comment

When the news wires started buzzing, burning, and smoking about Dennis Kucinich introducing 35 letters of impeachment against President George W. Bush, we started watching the three top social media sites to see who would get the news the quickest to their front page.

As of the time of this post, it was broken 3 hours, 33 minutes ago. We started watching the front pages of Digg, Reddit, Propeller, Newsvine, and Mixx just over 3 hours ago. Here are the results: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg, Mixx, Newsvine, Propeller, Reddit, Social Media, Social News Sites Tagged With: bush, Digg, impeachment, kucinich, Mixx, Newsvine, Propeller, Reddit, Social Media, Social News Sites, socialmedia, socialnews

Social Media Nosedive – Alexa Shows Recent Drops Across the Board

Sunday, March 30, 2008 by JD Rucker 6 Comments

Every time I bring up Alexa, I get a ton of people who tell me how unreliable and worthless it is. Let’s assume for the sake of this piece that I know this. Let’s also assume that my budget for gathering data is zip and Alexa and Compete are the only real options.

With that out of the way, Alexa is showing major drops in reach for Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Mixx and other social bookmarking sites. They are all happening around the same time. Concerning? Not at this point, since the data is all very young. Worth monitoring? Absolutely. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg, Mixx, Newsvine, Reddit, Social Media, Social News Sites, Stumbleupon Tagged With: alexa, del.icio.us, Digg, magnolia, Mixx, Newsvine, Reddit, Social Media, Social News Sites, Stumbleupon

Going Social for Marketing, Business, and Fun

Tuesday, January 1, 2008 by JD Rucker 10 Comments

Social Media Marketing isn’t new. 2008 is simply the year that it emerges as THE thing to do if you want your business, charity, or blog to be “in” instead of “out”.

With companies that aren’t traditionally forward thinking in their marketing techniques, such as Ford Motor Company and Starbucks, making a push to enter social media marketing, it is clear that both big and small business are starting to take notice. Even local businesses are approaching anyone knowledgeable they can find on the subject to help them.

Below are some of the social media initiatives and trends from 2007 that tell of things to come in 2008. First, there are ways to create a web presence that goes beyond building a website or a blog. Then there are ways to drive traffic through social media to these websites. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Digg, Mixx, Newsvine, Niche Social Networks, Propeller, Reddit, Social Internet, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking Sites, Social News Sites, Social Videos-Images-Music, StartUps, Stumbleupon Tagged With: Digg, facebook, flickr, marketing, Mixx, myspace, Newsvine, Propeller, Reddit, social bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social networks, Social News Sites, socialmedia, socialnews, Stumbleupon, twitter, youtube

Winds of Change in Social Media Promise Improvements

Friday, December 28, 2007 by JD Rucker 3 Comments

On the internet, change is part of the definition. In social media, changes are happening literally by the minute. 2008 promises to show humungous growth and an incredible amount of change for major and minor social media websites.

Certain things will be universal as the websites below grow. Some were acquired, some will be acquired in the future, but one thing that we have seen and that we will continue to see is a lack of a shake-up based upon the acquisitions. When a larger company buys a smaller company in the “real world”, there are normally big changes made right from the start. These changes rarely result in mass exodus of employees (unless done by design) nor does it yield a major drop in consumers.

SEO Spammers: Leave Social Media Sites Alone!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007 by JD Rucker 48 Comments

You’ve seen them before. They create accounts that have either a gibberish name or “SEOSuperstud”. No avatar, or one that is their company logo. They might have lots of people befriended. They may have none.

They always submit. They never vote/Digg/upmod anyone else’s submissions. Their submissions get 1 or fewer votes (unless they are a MASS – a Multi-Account-SEO-Spammer, in which case they will have more than one, but it will always be the same amount and always voted by the same “people”).

They submit stories or websites that nobody from social media visits or votes for, and they don’t care. They are the social media SEO Spammers. If nobody clicks on their link, no worries. The only visit they care about is from Googlebots, and sadly (in some cases) Google will visit and take note of the website.

We wanted to make a video spoof on the “Leave Britney Alone” theme, but neither Chris Crocker nor Seth Green were available. Instead, we’ll just put together a nice little rant about why Reddit, Propeller, Newsvine, Mixx, StumbleUpon, Sphinn, Digg, and the others are not communities tolerant of spammers. More importantly, we’ll offer ways to combat the issue. Read on. [Read more...]