Undercover Twitter Campaign Launches Wendy's W Burger

Are Google+ Brand Pages Worth Your Company's Time?

Much has been written about Google+ brand pages in the last couple of weeks, but all you want to know is whether you should bother signing up or not. Below is an overview of Google+ Pages and why it might be worth your time.

Google+, the search engine giant’s answer to Facebook, has amassed more than 40 million users since it launched in June of this year. While it is still nowhere near close to the 800 million users that Facebook has, the social network is continuing to grow and returning users have increased since the launch of Google+ Brand Pages last week.

What is Google+?

Like Facebook, Google+ is a social network that allows users to create profiles. The distinguishing feature of the site is that users can place their friends in different social groups called “Circles.”

Circles is just one of the social products that make up Google+. Other features include Sparks (the recommendation engine), Stream (the newsfeed), Hangouts, Games and Photos.

Google+ is designed to be an extension of Google and is integrated into the entire Google universe, including the toolbar, which has been updated to include links to users profile and updates.

Click here for Mashable's Complete Guide to Google+.

Walmart Launches Holiday Apps

Walmart seems to be investing a great deal of time and money in mobile and digital media these days.

Last month they launched Facebook pages for their local stores through a social media app.

Now, just in time for holiday shopping, Walmart is launching new iPhone and iPad apps that link online and in-store shopping. They store is only one in a number of retailers that have realized the important role that mobile devices play in shopping and are trying to capitalize on it for the holiday season.

McDonald's Sweden Adjusts Prices for Student Budgets

If McDonald’s latest ad campaign in Sweden tells us anything, it is that student loan worries are not only plaguing the minds of Americans.

American students are borrowing twice what they did a decade ago, after adjusting for inflation, according to the College Board. In 2009-10, 56% of full-time undergrads at public colleges had student loans and 65% of undergrads at private universities had student loans, according to The Huffington Post. And for the first time, student loan debt exceeded credit card debt.

Retailer May Be the Next Big Winners with Tablets

Courtesy of eConsultancy

Tablet owners love their news apps, but as it turns out they also love to do something else on their tablets: shop.

63% of tablet owners have made an online purchase with their device, according to the study Understanding Mobile Audience from Jumptamp, a mobile ad network. In comparison, only 31% of mobile phone owners have used their device to make a purchase and 83% of PC owners who have spent some dough online.

“Why I Made Myself Radioactive,” by Andrew C. Gottlieb, Salon.com

Author’s Note: This is one of a series of blog posts that are related to assignments from my business reporting class.

Courtesy of Salon.com

I was cruising the internet and reading the day’s news one morning a couple of weeks ago, when I happened across a headline on Salon.com that made me stop my mouse in its tracks. “Why I Made Myself Radioactive,” it read. It reminded me of Spiderman and while I am really more of a Batman fan the title had sparked my curiosity. Click.

Start-ups Look to Jump Start Elections

Keeping along with yesterday’s political campaign theme, I came across this great article in techPresident discussing two San Francisco start-ups who are attempting to make voting more social.

Votizen and DemDash (short for Democracy Dashboard) use the power of social networking to make the process of supporting and endorsing a candidate or bill more transparent and sharable.

What Facebook Changes Mean for Brands

When Facebook announced changes to the site at the F8 Developers Conference in September, brands were unsure what the new revamp would mean for them.

Now, six weeks later, analytics firm PageLever has released the results of a study finding that the changes made to the Newsfeed boosted brands’ visibility among more of their fans and increased fan engagement, but decreased the frequency with which those fans see brand messages.

Study Finds Most Social Media Users are Registered Voters

Courtesy of AdAge

Here is an interesting fact:

88% of social media users are registered voters, according to a new study by Digitas, a digital agency based out of New York, and as reported by AdAge.

This again underscores the important role that social media will play in the 2012 presidential election, as Obama tries to recreate the success he had in the medium during his 2008 election and the Republicans try to reach the same level of success.

FCC Plans to Put Political Ad Info Online

With election season looming in the distance, The Federal Communications Commission has proposed requiring television broadcasters to post information about political advertisers online.

Such information would include the names of candidates or groups running a spot, the time, placement and cost of the air-time, as well as the reason for the broadcast.

Currently, ad information is kept at individual stations as hard copies, but this plan would require all broadcasters to upload the information to a public website.

Is Facebook More Effective Than a Super Bowl Ad?

When it comes to movies, volume and sentiment can predict box office revenues and a social media campaign is more powerful than a Super Bowl ad, said Eric Kuhn at yessterday’s Business Insider’s Social Media Analytics Conference.

Using a measurement tool developed at Harvard, Kuhn, an agent with United Artists Agency, is hoping to show that social buzz is a powerful force in Hollywood where even a single Tweet can change ticket sales.

Traditionally, the film industry uses a measure of both public interest and awareness of a film 4-weeks before release to predict the opening weekend box office.