Market analysts K2 Advisory has published their findings from research conducted earlier this year concerning businesses and the way they use social media to market and engage customers and its relationship to human resources. The results, provided in a report entitled, ?the Digital Workplace: Preparing for the 2020 Workplace?, give insight into how actively and successfully businesses are using social media.</p> <p>Key findings include:</p> <p>More than two-thirds of the marketing professionals surveyed during the study consider their social media campaigns to be successful. This is in contrast to continuing media reports that social media is being poorly managed by most sectors.</p> <p>Over the next 12 months, 82% of those surveyed plan to increase their use of social media. However, of that 82%, only 50% believe their IT departments are capable of providing the support necessary to fully take advantage of social media marketing opportunities. They go on to say that both the IT departments and human resources take a closed door approach to social media ? creating a no-cross barrier between intent and capability.</p> <p>This anti-social media mind set is confirmed by the findings, with 37% of organisations stating that they actively block access to external social media sites.</p> <p>The report goes on to suggest that use of work-from-home staff and mobile marketing strategies makes practical and financial sense. Recommendations include collaborating with IT and HR departments to improve social media policies, training in proper use of social media, and revised technology requirements for staff members.

Yesterday, StatCounter, a service which publishes statistics based on aggregate data, announced that for the first time in history, Microsoft?s Internet Explorer browser fell below 50% of the world market share in September.</p> <p>"This is certainly a milestone in the Internet browser wars," said Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter?s CEO. "Just two years ago IE dominated the worldwide market with 67%."</p> <p>He went on to say that it may be the European Commission Competition Authorities? mandate that Microsoft start giving EU users a selection of browsers to choose from when installing Windows that is causing the decline.</p> <p>Globally, the stats were as follows: 49.87% for IE, followed by 31.5% for Firefox and 11.54% for Google Chrome. In Europe, IE fell from last year?s 46.44% of market share to 40.26%, putting Firefox at 27.21% and Google Chrome at 9.87% in the European market. In North America, IE is still above 50%, with 52.3% of the market share, followed by 27.21% for Firefox and 9.87% for Google Chrome.</p> <p>The rise of Google Chrome in North America is quite impressive; outdoing Safari for the first time in June this year. According to The Next Web, it is the geek crowd that seems to be driving the rise, with one reader revealing that out of the 55,000 visitors to his site from Hacker News, only 1.13 percent used Internet Explorer.</p> <p>StatCounter Global Stats are based on data collected in sample of an excess of 15 billion page views per month across three million plus websites.

According to a new report by Econsultancy, for many who have invested in social media marketing strategies, they results remain unclear; with 47% of the 800 plus industry professionals surveyed saying they do not have a solid means of measuring results.</p> <p>People taking part in the survey included marketers and public relations professionals from both client and supplier industries. Within the group, 76% said that they did not have return on investment figures for the money they?ve invested in social media marketing.</p> <p>Here are some of the other results:</p> <p> 83% have used Twitter for social media activity; with 80% having used Facebook<br /> 83% said they planned to invest more in social media over the next year<br /> 28% said they have invested nothing, while 33% replied they invest less than </p>

Since its launch in 2007, Google Street View has had its share of controversy. Yet, despite a few setbacks, Street View has continued to grow and thrive ? with imagery now available on all seven continents, including Antarctica, Brazil, and Ireland.</p> <p>Launched in the US, in its beginnings, Street View covered only five cities. Today, some three years later, Street View offers close-up, 360 degree panoramic views of places across the globe. Some are charmed by it; some are exasperated by it; and yes, some are quite angry about it.</p> <p>Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering for Google Earth and Maps has this to say about Street View?s latest accomplishments:</p> <p>?We often consider Street View to be the last zoom layer on the map, and a way to show you what a place looks like as if you were there in person?whether you?re checking out a coffee shop across town or planning a vacation across the globe. We hope this new imagery will help people in Ireland, Brazil, and even the penguins of Antarctica to navigate nearby, as well as enable people around the world to learn more about these areas.?</p> <p>Google obtains its Street View imagery through the use of a fleet of specially adapted cars. Where areas aren?t accessible by car are covered by ?Google Trikes? or snowmobiles. For the user, using Street View makes it appear as if you are being zoomed in beyond the highest levels of the map or satellite image, placing you in the heart of the area.

After two months of nominations and voting, the South African Blog Awards have come to an end. While there were many winners, the Blog of the Year Award could go to only one ? Watkykjy.</p> <p>CEO of the South African Blog Awards JP Naude declared the awards highly successful. ?This year we saw a record number of public votes entered, in fact an increase of more than 300 percent, which is partly due to the fact that we allowed more votes. This system allowed for the recognition of dedicated bloggers who blog more frequently. In addition the new system has raised the level of awareness for blogging substantially.?</p> <p>Naude goes on to talk about some of the initial challenges during the judging phase; however, he assures us that the public vote ensured that the best of South Africa?s blogs were recognised. ?This year we?ve had more than 60 judges from various industries oversee the process. With their wealth of experience and knowledge of the blogosphere, I have no doubt that this year?s winners are well deserving of their titles.?</p> <p>Robin Oliver, judge of the Science and Technology category, says that he is proud of South Africa and its ability to hold its own in the blogosphere.</p>

Yesterday, many Tweeters were aghast to find themselves redirected to strange websites when rolling over links and sending tweets they never twitted. It was all the act of malicious users who were taking advantage of a hole in Twitter?s website security. Fortunately, it that hole has now been closed.</p> <p>This particular attack was quite wicked in the fact that all it took was hovering over a link ? no need to even click ? and within seconds a series of auto-tweets began in the user?s name. The attacks only affected those using Twitter.com; mobile sites and third-party Twitter applications were unaffected.</p> <p>The security hole the attackers came through was not a new one. Twitter says it actually discovered that hole last month and patched it. However, unbeknownst to the Twitter staff, a recently applied update (not related to the new Twitter) reopened the hole; and thus the malicious group got in.</p> <p>Twitter has now re-patched the hole and the site is once again secure. Fortunately, most of the hijacking, redirecting and auto-tweeting was for prank and/or promotional purposes, making the stunt more annoyance than threat. There is no knowledge of any user accounts compromised or computers harmed during the event.</p> <p>Although Twitter and its users are suffering no repercussions from yesterday?s attacks, the incident serves as a reminder of how easy and quickly a large social networking website can be exploited; and next time it might not be a simple prank/promotional stunt. Hopefully, Twitter (and others) will take note and more diligence will be applied to their code auditing procedures.

In a recent survey released by the Pew Research Center, it has been confirmed that older Internet users are discovering ? and getting hooked on ? social networking.</p> <p>It has always been a given that marketers using social networking primarily target a younger audience, and rightly so ? with 86 percent of online young adults aged 18 ? 29 using social media regularly. But what may come as a surprise to those marketers is the number of older users who are also regularly checking in through social networking.</p> <p>Beginning in April 2009, for 12 months the Internet and American Life Project Survey monitored the use of social media by 2,252 adults from ages 18 upward. Over that period of time, the number of participants aged 50 to 64 who used social media increased by 88 percent. For the 65 and older group, the increase was 100 percent. This is in startling contrast to the 18 to 29 group, which only increased 13 percent.</p> <p>Of those who indicated that they used a form of social media, in the 50 to 64 age group, 20 percent said that they used it daily, while in the over 65 category, daily users comprised 13 percent.</p> <p>Although email still remains the primary way the older set communicates, social media should not be dismissed as something they aren?t grasping on to. For those who use social media as a marketing venue, this sends a big message: if you?re not using social media to market to your older customers, now is the time to start.

Recently, Digg underwent an overhaul; people known as ?Power Diggers? had come to hold so much power over how stories were ranked that new visitors and casual users found their submissions lost underneath a pile of promoted materials. Digg had become more a ?members only? clique than a crowd sourcing tool. So Digg redesigned; however, life after revamp has been all but good.</p> <p>In an interview with the Times, Christopher Mascari, a marketing manager at Gawker Media said, ?Personally, I think with the rise of all these other new sites, Digg is getting crowded out.?</p> <p>Of course Digg begs to differ. According to them, Digg is very much still in the running; trying to regain its status by creating more of a social networking feel. This includes making the ?My News? the default opening page, to highlight the stories your friends are promoting rather than just the top-ranked news.</p> <p>Other changes to the site include the elimination of the ?bury? button, which prevents power groups from burying stories they don?t want seen and automatic RSS feeds for publishers. But is it enough?</p> <p>?It feels like a lot of these changes were designed to blunt the power of these power users,? notices Matthew Ingram, a senior writer at GigaOM. ?My sense is that if people have even heard of Digg now, they know it?s no longer the hot new thing. If it?s just a place to post funny links that people can share, there are lots of places to do that.?

It?s being announced all over the Twitterverse even as I type; Facebook Places has gone live in the UK.</p> <p>According to media sources, a press conference announcing the event took place this morning at 8 AM BST, with Facebook Places Product Manager Michael Sharon walking the press through service features. This is the first launch of the product in a European country.</p> <p>Facebook Places is a new service which allows Facebook users to update their status and ?check-in? when they are out and about. Launched in the US last month and in Japan last week, now UK users will also be able to add their locations to their updates ? be they at a pub, a nightclub, or a grocery store.</p> <p>Of the new service, Mr Sharon had this to say:</p> <p>?Our products are modelled on how people are already using the site [?] We realised people were already posting where they were and who they were with every day.?</p> <p>In addition to allowing users to post their location, Facebook Places also allows users to tag any of their Facebook friends who happen to be with them. The friend?s location is then also published, once that friend ?accepts? the tag.</p> <p>This rollout of Places is not customised to the UK, but the same version as was launched in the USA last month. Facebook also plans to launch applications which will work on the various mobile phone platforms in the near future; however, as of this writing no dates have been specified.

In preparation for a push into the UK market, Twitter?s Product Manager Shiva Rajaraman and team are coming to England to participate in the ad:tech advertising conference being held in London next week.</p> <p>As part of the conference agenda, on 21 September Mr Rajaraman will speak to the ad:tech community about how and why UK brands should leverage Twitter as part of their marketing strategy. During the session, Mr Rajaraman will also field questions from the audience and ad:tech advisory board, hopefully clarifying for everyone Twitter?s visions concerning UK-branded advertising for now and in the future.</p> <p>Currently, Twitter offers several opportunities for businesses, including Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends, and Early Bird promotional offers. However, so far, the service?s advertising partners have been US-based only. With the ad:tech conference, Twitter hopes to extend itself to include the UK.</p>