The week in big brand social media marketing started off with a lot of buzz.  On Monday, the verified Twitter account for Burger King was taken over and rebranded for McDonalds.  It took a few hours for Twitter to suspend the account and restore control to the flame-broiled burger chain.  Despite what was certain to …

Over the weekend news developed around a Facebook blog post on protecting people on the social site.  In the post, the Facebook Security team notified users that several employee laptops had been attacked last month.  They assured users that the issue was spotted quickly and addressed, protecting private user data. According to the Facebook article: …

This week American Express and Twitter announced a partnership to purchase via hashtag.  For American Express customers that want to tweet to buy, they must first sync their American Express card with Twitter. The service will only work with compatible American Express cards (no prepaid or corporate cards) and a public Twitter account. Here’s how it …

The revolution in American political discourse continues tonight with President Barack Obama’s 4th State of the Union Address.  Thanks to Twitter, Google Hangouts, and live streaming video events average American citizens can engage in the political discussion just as actively as any political pundit on a major broadcast news network. First a little history of …

Thanks to Facebook’s faltering stock prices since its IPO, many in the business world wonder if social media companies like Twitter and Pinterest will ever become business models worth investing in.  It would seem that monetizing social activity is the current holy grail of business.  After the posting of last quarter’s earnings, LinkedIn is proving it possesses …

What a difference a little more than 18 months can make.  In May of 2012 Pinterest was valued at $1.5 billion, enabling them to raise over $100 million in capital.  Since then the company and its user base have grown by leaps and bounds.  In December of 2011, prior to the first valuation, Pinterest had …

Sneak peeks into the soon to be released book, “The New Digital Age”, by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, confirm what many industry writers have been passionately clattering away about for months now.  Google+ is an identity verification network.  As the network continues to grow, content associated with a verified identity will rise to the top …

The battle of the brands became as unpredictable as the game of football itself last Sunday night during the Super Bowl.  Just as great victors rise above and capitalize on the unforeseen circumstances of the game, so too did one of America’s oldest brands. 100 year-old Oreo proved that successful old dogs are constantly learning new tricks. …

Late Friday afternoon, Twitter began notifying account holders that their account security had been compromised and their passwords had been changed.  In an article posted to the official Twitter blog, Bob Lord, Director of Information Security, said that unusual access patterns led to a discovery of a live attack in progress.  That attack was shut down immediately, …