Neoco’s blog

Persuasion psychologist Professor B J Fogg has created a course called The Psychology of Facebook. Students at Stanford University in Silicon Valley can take the course, which ‘blends popular culture with the more time-worn principles of psychology’.

In terms of his reasoning behind starting the course, he says: “When Facebook came along I was one of the developers at the launch and what struck me was how there was this new form of persuasion. This mass interpersonal persuasion.” He said that a pivotal moment for him came when watching an application on the site go from “literally zero to more than a million users in a week”.

The class dissects a certain aspect of Facebook each lesson, from status updates, to news feeds, poking and writing comments. They study the way the feature works, the psychology behind it and what impression users are trying to convey.

It sounds like an interesting course, but surely by taking this course you are limiting your options a bit?!   Apparently though, the course isn’t just relevant to Facebook, as “the psychology that drives Facebook relates to other online success stories, including those blockbusters yet to be invented.”

Read more about the course at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7357934.stm

Microsoft have developed a new technology that can rapidly extract forensic data from laptops, phones, cameras and other electronical devices. Great for helping border control agents in identifying incriminating material - and hopefully preventing the need for them and other law enforcement agencies to seize innocent computers!

The technology is called COFEE (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor), and is software built into a USB drive.  Although it’s only just coming to light, it has been in use since last June, having been distributed to 350 different law enforcement agencies. Microsoft have said that they developed the device after an attack of conscience, and not as a way of making even more money.

For more details on how it works, visit http://mashable.com/2008/04/29/microsoft-cofe/

According to the BBC, sales of smart phones are predicted to overtake those of laptops within the next 18 months, “as the mobile phone completes its transition from voice communications device to multimedia computer”.

And I can’t see any reason why not, as companies like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola have finally began to convince us that the idea of having a multimedia computer in your pocket, is possible.

“Converged devices are always with you and always connected,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia chief executive at last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  Nokia predict that they will sell 35 million GPS-enabled phones this year, as personal navigation becomes the latest feature to be assimilated into the mobile phone.

Nigel Clifford, chief executive of Symbian, said: “All of those single use devices - MP3 players, digital camera, GPS - are collapsing onto the phone. We are going past the point where this was a phone with a few other things”.

For the full BBC article, visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7250465.stm

The details of 200,000 Old Bailey trials have been published online, naming and shaming many of history’s black sheep…So now you can easily search for your ancestors and see what trouble they got up to!

Records covering trials between 1674 and 1913 have been published and the site claims to provide access to “the largest single source of searchable information about ordinary British lives and behaviour ever published”.

Read a full article on this at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7361701.stm

eBay are suing community ad site Craigslist to “safeguard its four year financial investment”. eBay believe that Craigslist’s executives Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster have adopted unspecified measures that have disadvantaged eBay and unfairly diluted their “economic interest by more than 10%”.  EBay’s general counsel Mike Jacobson has said “since negotiating our investment with Craigslist’s board in 2004, we have acted openly and in good faith as a minority shareholder, so we were surprised by these recent unilateral actions”.

In response, Craigslist have said in their company blog that they are surprised and disappointed by eBay’s “unfounded allegations”, and that eBay’s legal action “came to us out of the blue”. It said “we have always treated eBay fairly as a minority shareholder, and plan to continue doing so, despite this unfortunate development. EBay has absolutely no reason to feel threatened - unless a hostile takeover of Craigslist, or the sale of eBay’s stake in Craigslist to an unfriendly party, is their ultimate goal.”

Read the full article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7362221.stm

A new press release from Gartner has advised retailers not to ignore the increased consumer traffic that social networks are generating.

“Until recently, retailers considered social networks relevant only for the youth market, meaning that many have largely ignored them,” said Hung LeHong, research vice president at Gartner. “However, as social networks expand to embrace ever-wider demographic groups, retailers need to ensure that they have a position on them.”

Gartner has created a list of the top 10 things retailers should know about social networks and what action to take. Key points that I think are particularly important for retailers are:

• Social networks can be a huge source of consumer data - as with store loyalty cards, consumers are often willing to give up a little privacy in exchange for a valued service or discount.
• Retailers should focus their social network activity on content produced by members - if a social network provides corporations too many capabilities in interacting with members, there is a risk that members will leave the network. The aim should be to create a forum or application that will create value for other members while promoting the organisation’s brand.
• Social networks are coming to mobile - the ability to access social networks from mobile phones is being promoted by the wireless carriers. This could be used in really innovative ways, and the article gives the example of  offering a limited time, in-store-only promotion that could be broadcast to friends to drive more traffic to the physical store.

The article, ‘Gartner Says Social Networks Are Attracting Too Much Traffic for Retailers to Ignore: Analysts Highlight 10 Things Retailers Should Know About Social Networks, and What to Do’ can be viewed at http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=660409

Ahead of the upcoming Social Media Influence conference (to be held on 4th June in London) the following YouTube Corporate Top 10 list has been compiled - comprising of videos which appear within the first 10 results in a search of the company name. Each one has been viewed over 1 million times and generated hundreds of comments.

Over 80 million YouTube videos are watched every day, making YouTube one of the most influential forms of media today. We can’t understand why some brands don’t value YouTube’s power and recognise the potential threat that it could have to their reputation - take the Disney porn for example.

Visit Social Media Influence if you want to view the videos. They suggest that while you’re watching, “ask yourself this question - do you know how your company looks on YouTube?”

Here’s their top 10 (in descending order):

Lycos Europe, one of the dominating search giants of the 90s, is now up for auction. Unable to compete with Google’s power, the search engine ran into net losses of EUR 5.9 million for the first quarter this year, according to PaidContent.

Dresdner Kleinwort is now Lycos’ advisor in its bid to find a new strategy - which should clearly start with trimming their fat. They don’t need to be so big to be competitive. Small and flexible teams are really successful today, because they can react quickly to the frequent changes in the Internet world - something that Lycos has not done.

However, this may be difficult for Lycos. There have already been a number of cost-cutting measures undertaken at Lycos Europe recently, eliminating around EUR 6.2 million. But there were still losses.

Good luck to whoever takes Lycos on…

This week has seen hi5 become a victim of their own success, as their runaway growth has come with some some growing pains.

Over the last month, third-party developers have launched over 400 OpenSocial apps on hi5’s network. These apps have has faster adoption rates than those on any other social network. The hi5 platform has averaged at around a million application installs every day and around half of hi5’s 80 million members have engaged with three or more installed apps.

Mashable spoke to hi5 developers to find out the secrets to their success - the short version being that they just put together a really solid service and happened to quickly tap into a broad cross-section of countries. Their really impressive application statistics are continually attributed to their uniquely international userbase.

However, their success has come with some growing pains and Justin Smith at Inside Facebook has told Mashable: “Hi5 for a brief period turned off all platform notifications. However, Hi5 has since restored platform notification service to developers by making some changes to the way notifications work. Specifically, notifications are now processed asynchronously.  Hi5 will be continuing conversations with developers that are using notifications the most.”

See the full Mashable blog and hear their conversation at: http://mashable.com/2008/04/29/hi5-growth/

Converse have 6 brand new free downloads at Converse Music for us all to enjoy! The downloads feature the upcoming artists from their most recent Artrocker New Blood pages, so should definitely be worth a listen.

Go to www.conversemusic.co.uk to download the tracks, listen, find out more about the artists and vote for your favourite.