Remember all that hype around the iPhone 4? Biggest product launch ever, Apple and AT&T websites being crushed by demand, long lines at the store? Well, in the world of social media, a similar thing happened last week- the launch of FlipBoard, the “world’s first social magazine”.

The hype has died down a bit, and I’ve had a chance to download this application and play with it. Here is a review, followed by a quick video.

The Basics
Flipboard is a new, free app available exclusively on the iPad (for now). The Flipboard app essentially turns your time on facebook or twitter  into a dynamic and visually stunning experience. The application turns all of those tweets, updates, photos and links from your social circle into an intuitive, easy-to-read format. Flipboard also has “channels” for lots of other content, like technology, tech influencers, food, sports, etc. These channels, like the Facebook and Twitter channels are vetted and shared by chosen “experts” and influencers in the space. If you’re confused, don’t worry, that’s what the video is for. Take a look.

(Before we evaluate Flipboard, it should be noted that Flipboard doesn’t seem like a one hit wonder. Take a quick look at their investors, and they are a legitimate offering. The co-founders of Facebook, Twitter, Ashton Kutcher and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Pretty impressive bunch.)

The Pros
- Intuitive and very easy to use. It is the perfect app for consuming media. It fits right into the Ipad’s goal of being the “couch technology”. Something to do in your leisure time (if you have any left). On the couch, waiting to board a plane, at doctor’s office, before you go to bed, etc. I think it’s ideal for those 15-30 minute stretches of time between activities.
- Personalized for you. As mentioned before, it’s an experience for YOU. Its’ your social sphere and all of it’s related content delivered directly to you- when and where you want it.
- Advertising opportunities for “visual” brands.  If you are Hermes, the Gap, a luxury safari company, or  a gourmet food company, it’s hard to tell your story in 140 characters, blog posts or status updates. You need a visually stunning way to present your brand, and here is a perfect opportunity to do that. With the format of Flipboard, it allows big space for imagery (advertisements!) to tell a company story.

The Cons
I’ll call this “opportunities for improvement” :-)

- Content needs to be fresher. It seems as if Flipboard only refreshes your Facebook/Twitter feed once or twice a day. According to their Twitter stream- they’re working on this
- Why isn’t Linkedin involved? They should be. Maybe because of the investors? ;-)
- Is this legal? For the other “sections” Flipboard essentially scrapes the web for good content. If you are reading a NYTimes article on Flipboard and click on an a Flipboard-sponsored ad, why should Flipboard get the money? Its not their content to begin with, right?. For more on this read Joel Johnson’s excellent article.
- Other Sections need some work. When you first set up Flipboard, you can add 7 other “sections” of content. Food, NYT, TED, sports. etc. For now, avoid the Flipboard-branded channels.
For example, the sports channel I chose kept feeding me stories about tennis. Not that I don’t like tennis, but 7 tennis stories in a row, and I was immediately turned off.
- Limited interaction possibilities. It must be pointed out again that this application is for consumption, not interaction. If you want to add a new tweet, make a status update on facebook, you can’t.

What’s Next?
I think this is a watershed moment for publishers, and they should take note. Flipboard makes consuming media personal and tailored to you, which is the holy grail of publishing. If you could wake up every morning and go to ONE place for all of your personal and professional content, wouldn’t you?  This is like what iGoogle and MyYahoo was ten years ago, only much much better. It’s new content delivered to you that’s always fresh, delivered in a refreshing, “consumable” way, and now, it’s mobile.

What do you think? Is this Flipboard thing here to stay?

Twitter is cracking down on spam. (Check out the awesome graph in this ReadWriteWeb article!) Twitter reported a week ago that the percentage of spam tweets per day is currently 1% or less. That’s great news for anyone trying to search Twitter for information or marketing leads.

Facebook also announced stricter rules for its two-year-old advertising service. The company is now using a “part human, part automated” system of assessing its engagement ads. Viewers can now approve or disapprove of the ad and say why. The system will reject ads that use “arbitrary profile-based copy” or false incentives to attract clicks.

This has two effects:

For the business- Click through rates are going to drop. CPM’s for mid-sized companies trying to get some headway are going to obviously suffer- at least in the short term.
For the consumer- Good news. You’ll get less of those spammy “try viagra”,  ”flatten those abs” ads targeted  towards you because of age or gender.

Remember in the early days of SEO when companies gamed the Google search algorithims by stuff their site full of keywords, tags, and metatags? Google smartened up and changed their search algorithims. Facebook is now smartening up too after seeing their ad platform get abused by spammers. This time they’re letting technology and the users help redefine appropriate advertisements.

So, this makes me want to throw out three statements for general consumption:

• What will spammers target next- will it be FourSquare or Flickr?
• Since Facebook’s 400 million plus members have the ability to rate/assess advertisements, will Google try to do the same thing with Buzz or something similar?
• Will the newly empowered users of the social media universe be able to eradicate spam all together?!!

It’s still a great time to talk about healthcare and social media.

Just like every other industry, healthcare has changed dramatically in the last 15 years with the abundance of information available to patients beyond their physician. Docs might not like it, but patients are going to continue to come in with questions about something they read online. More importantly, they might be reluctant to ask doctors at all, instead relying on “experts” on the Web.

Doctors need to accept the fact that patients are going to the Web first for information on their health just like information on big purchases, entertainment, and so much else. They’ll start with Google and their network of friends and families.  Then they’ll sift through the most effectively search-engine optimized sites for those they trust the most. The best way to combat misinformation from these resource is first to have an online presence and second to embrace in two-way conversation with patients.

The conversation is going to take place with or without you.  A physician should adopt social media to communicate with patients more effectively and publish reliable information their patients can use in their independent online research. Right now in healthcare, the  most widely used tool is email -A doctor or nurse can  answer questions and dispense advice by replying to emails to give patients immediate, actionable information. But the future can be so much more efficient. Hospitals could have a team online, acting like customer service representatives and chatting with patients to determine when a child’s fever warrants more concern than a cool wash cloth and Tylenol. Imagine if 10 hours spent online with patients can avoid 20 hours in the doctor’s office?

There are lots of tips and tricks out there, but Dr. Bryan Vartadedian from the Better Health blog network has it right when he says “90% of social media is just showing up”:

“I took a lot of heat when I posted this quote on Twitter a few months back,” he said in a post last week. “But I think there’s something to it.  Everyone wants to believe that social success comes from deep, ‘meaningful’ relationships.  These descriptors are relative in the virtual world.  Social media isn’t rocket science and simple visibility has real value when you’re starting out.  Find socially active doctors.  Be present. Be real. See how things evolve.”

Well, maybe.  But I hope this title caught your attention…Yesterday,  just hours after the passage of the new healthcare bill, my Facebook update said “wish there was a dislike button”.  Minutes later, the first comment was added, the healthcare topic was brought up, and the fireworks began….

For the record, I’m not for the healthcare bill, but most of my friends were. Over the course of the day, each of them made their argument- and good ones- in favor of the this monumental piece of legislation. And you know what? It was a terrific discussion. Since, I don’t know enough about the healthcare bill, each of them explained it to me in their own, well thought out language. I got more out of this discussion with my friends, than I ever would reading the NYT, WSJ or any other news source.

So what does this tell us?

• Facebook is still a terrific platform for a lively discussion with friends. There’s no way we would have had this same discussion on a blog. Facebook brought us together, and will keep us together. Bottom line, we’re more comfortable on Facebook because it’s our own network of vetted friends and acquaintances.
• More and more of us are getting our news, and forming our own opinions, through social networks. According to a well publicized statistic, 80% of original news content is consumed away from its original source. If it’s shared on Facebook (and we’re really comfortable on Facebook) we’re more likely to chime in and voice our opinion.
• The “Obama-Effect” is still in play here. We all know how Obama used Social Media to win the hearts and minds of America. It’s spilling over into every nook and cranny of social media. People feel more empowered to voice their opinion, speak their mind, and (hopefully) engage in a useful dialogue.

Engagement is on Fire..
Around the internet, user-engagement is increasing at a break-neck pace. We’re not just consuming content. We’re talking about it- a lot.  We’ve all become experts/critics and more.A recent blog post from Brian Solis reflects some startling new changes in human behavior online, based on some fresh new research from Josh Bernoff and Forrester.

Simply compare the top chart (2007) with the bottom chart (2010).  We’re creating more content, commenting on more content, and being conversationists (updating our status) on a regular basis.

Does this mean that we’re going to change the face of Healthcare? Well, at the very least, we’ll be talking about it online every single day. And with open discussion comes a more educated and enlightened audience. An audience that will help move and shape healthcare,  in whatever direction we go in…

Let’s talk more about Google Buzz.   I mentioned this a few weeks ago giving you my general impressions of the new platform, and it seems the general consensus on the web bounces between “I HATE IT!” (which tends to be the gut reaction whenever a major player releases a new feature) and “let’s give it more time.”

I attribute the two reactions to two things: First, Buzz was automatically integrated with everyone’s Gmail. You had to click “accept” on a pop up menu – before you even got a chance to see what it was like! Second, it’s value is not immediately apparent.

Although Google automatically linked you to all your Gmail accounts, the learning curve to get the most out of it is pretty steep.

 I ‘m still trying to figure out how to integrate Buzz with of my other social media tools because the services it provides are already filled by Twitter and Facebook. In fact, Mashable readers ranked it third behind these two older platforms.

I

t’s not an intuitive program. If you’re looking for some basic guides to using Buzz, check here and here and here , and of course, Google itself. Just the presence of so many “how-to” guides is telling; there are lots of guides for Twitter, but those talk about the nuances of tweeting, not how to adjust settings, or worse, disable it. This is a big challenge for Google.

 Couple that with the multiple concerns about privacy, and no wonder people are upset.

However, Buzz is gaining some traction.

• A significant number of businesses are developing Buzz profiles and getting active. Here are some big businesses I was able to find  using Buzz: Samsung USA, Vizio, Verizon, CNN, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and more. (It took me a while to find where to search for profiles, just use the search bar at the bottom of this page.)
• Wordpress has already implemented a “Buzz This” feature for the blogs it hosts and HuffPost and TechCrunch have added “Buzz This” icons alongside Facebook and Twitter sharing icons
• The Washington Post reported last week that, according to AddThis, sharing via Google Reader has increased by 35% since Buzz launched. Still small potatoes compared to sharing on Facebook and retweeting, but presumably there will be more to come.

The bottom line is that these major organizations are paying attention. So as annoying as it may seem right now, you  probably should too.

Some data hit the interwebs last week breaking down recent trends in corporate social media use. With the amount of time we spend working with and talking about social media, it’s easy to forget not everyone thinks these tehcniques are valuable and is willing to integrate them into a larger corporate strategy. The good news is, that according to Burson-Marsteller,  most Fortune Global 100 companies are using social media platforms.

It reported Twitter as the most popular, with 65% of the largest 100 international companies having active accounts, compared with 54% on Facebook, 50% on YouTube, and just 33% with corporate blogs. That pattern was reversed in Asia. More businesses there were likely to rely on corporate blogs than Facebook pages or Twitter. The study also showed that only 20% of these companies use a combination of these platforms together.

So, progress has been made: businesses have tried these tools and sticking with them long term. The remaining challenge, then, is for companies to find a comprehensive and definitive way of defining and measuring success. That’s where Paul Gillin comes in.

Since December, Paul Gillin has been conducting his own study on multi-channel social media strategies. His quick findings are that:

• The metrics companies are using are all over the map
• Few organizations are taking a disciplined approach to measuring ROI
• There is a consensus emerging on what’s important and that companies are starting to focus on the metrics

What the Burson-Marsteller study doesn’t show(as an article on ReadWriteWeb pointed out) is if social media marketing techniques are gaining “significant corporate acceptance”. There are people at these companies using these platforms, but we’re just not sure how integrated their tactics are with the company’s overall strategy.

What interests me is the gap between the industry interest in Twitter and the low number of young users, teens and college students. According to the New York Times, and my own experience with teenagers, they prefer texting to tweeting. Will they see the light when they get older, or will we have forgotten about Twitter 10 years from now? That’s something for another day….

Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few days, Google just entered the Social Media World- here are some quick initial thoughts. (and if you haven’t heard about Google Buzz, it’s ok, because being under a rock isn’t always a bad thing)

What is Google Buzz?
Combine Gmail and the status updates you find in Facebook. Throw in a photo and link sharing, and you have a real-time update of what your friends (who need gmail accounts of course) are doing.  There is obviously much more functionality here, but those are the basics for now, we’ll cover the nitty gritty in a later post.

The Pros
- Relatively easy customer interface that sits alongside your gmail inbox. For heavy users of gmail.com, this is a good thing. If you push your gmail to your phone or Outlook/Mac’s Mail, well you might not use it that much.
- No limits. Unlike Twitter, you aren’t limited to 140 characters. Who knows, people may begin to start blogging via Google Buzz?
- Mobile. Seamless integration with your mobile device with geo-location as well. So you can see what people are saying and where they are saying it.  Fairly similar to FourSquare and those who use Twitter with geo-location turned on.
-Content aggregation. Not surprisingly, Buzz allows you to integrate with other products, so when you add photos to Picasa, share something on Google Reader, watch something on YouTube or blog about something, your friends on Buzz, will get “buzzed”. Note that you can’t sync with Facebook…

The Cons
- The Buzz “stream” isn’t chronological. For those of us used to Twitter and Facebook, updates are chronological, but not exactly in Buzz. Google adds the latest comment on anything to the top of the Buzz stream. So, if one of your friends posted some great pictures on Buzz 10 minutes ago, But  if you have 13 people (and complete strangers mind you) commenting on someone else’s buzz, then your friend’s post gets slowly moved to the bottom. Google- pay attention here!
- Giving people so much room to say something and share  something may really clutter things up. That’s what makes Twitter so good….
- What makes a Google Buzz “friend”?  You may now get followed by other people using gmail/buzz. Does that mean you should follow them back? Twitter users probably will, but facebook-only users (vast majority of people) probably won’t. They’re comfortable with their Facebook friends because they share a common friendship around something. The only thing that connects fellow buzz users is a gmail account..

General Thoughts

-Nice early entry by Google. I think Google is still in the “test and learn” phase.
- Don’t jump on the bandwagon quite yet- Google will (should) probably tweak things in the next few months to make the user interface better. The lack of a chronological stream is quite confusing
-I think success of buzz will be directly related to not how many people use it, but simply how people use it. If people start adding all of their content to buzz, it will be a lot of content for the everyday user to digest- like drinking from a firehose.
-Don’t expect integration with Facebook- ever. I can’t imagine Facebook every letting them “in”. Remember that Facebook has 400 million users, and Google only has 176 million gmail users.

Video Description of Buzz
Still want to learn more? Here’s a quick video for you.

Ok, Interview #5 of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” series. Tim Walker is obviously a social media guy, but when he’s not engaging with others online, he’s a frequent contributor to Big Papelbon, a blog about Boston sports teams and some passionate sports fans.

About Tim
Tim helps Hoover’s, which has been doing business online since 1994, develop its use of social media tools and its presence on popular social media platforms.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I’ll list two: First, I’ve been a writer my whole life. I edited my high school newspaper, I’ve freelanced hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, and I wrote my own blog for years before I started blogging or tweeting for Hoover’s. The short of it: I already had a ton of experience in communicating in print before I started doing it on behalf of the company.

Second, I genuinely like people, and by extension I love talking with people. My dad was a pastor, and I grew up with a mindset that any stranger is potentially a friend you just haven’t met yet. I think that mindset helps me as I constantly meet new people (online via Twitter, in person at events, etc.) who might find value in what Hoover’s does.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
Check my communication channels — especially e-mail and Twitter — to see what’s come in overnight.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
A confession: I’m not nearly as effective as I’d like to be. (Note that I try to follow Peter Drucker’s wisdom about pursuing *effectiveness* ahead of *efficiency*.) That said, I’ve developed some good habits to prevent cognitive overload in my day. Two worth mentioning in particular:
A. I keep my inboxes light.
B. When I’m at my best, I do a good job of tackling just one thing at a time (no multitasking!), and I do them in an order that makes sense based on my top priorities.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
“Management” by Peter Drucker.

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
A. The stat spreadsheet on my laptop — by which I track blog posts, inbox load, and other key drivers that affect my mindset and performance.
B. Healthy snacks and a bag of workout clothes. (Okay, the bag is on the floor *under* the desk.)
C. A robust suite of Twitter tools, including Tweetdeck, CoTweet, Seesmic, TwitterBerry, and TweepSearch.

6. Habit you want to kick in 2009
At long last I will shed the stack of papers and files that I carry around like Linus’s blanket.

7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010
More writing. For as much as I write, it’s still not enough. Throughout my career, it’s always been true: the more I write, the more success I have. (To that end, if anybody needs a byline written . . . )

NOTE- for those who want to follow along in the Twitter conversation, and be updated when we post new entries use the #sm7habits hashtag

Here in Boston, a television station just went social- real social. They already had a good fan base on Facebook, some followers on Twitter and were actively promoting their “socialness” online.  But where it really shines through is in their newly redesigned website.

WHDH, whether you like it or not, is going to make you understand social by simply visiting their website. Check out the quick (2 minute video) below.

What I really like is that the entire team has bought into the concept. Their weather team hops online and blogs on a regular basis and really brings their news to life. Weather can be boring- for them it’s not. WHDH brings a bit of personality and context to the news they deliver and share online, which in this day and age, is a good thing…

Yesterday, Facebook announced the creation of a Social Media Advisory Board.

As a father and social media evangelist and practitioner, reading that post this morning made me think of the following things.

- It’s about time! Friend and fellow social media evangelist Betsy McKinnon Dupre and I have been talking about this for months. Is there a trusted resource out there for both parents and children to turn to when you have questions? Well, sort of. Facebook looks like it will lead us down this path, but how objective can it be? Thoughts?

- Another friend (and savvy social media gal herself) Libby Delana had similar ideas. What if this was approached from two angles? Teach the parents and caregivers one curriculum, and the kids another one. The kids program would teach the following:

• How social media can empower, give you a voice to talk, speak, get your emotions out
• How social media can help build your personal brand- heck, used effectively and creatively, it might get you into the college of your choice
• How authoring a blog can teach you how to write and communicate effectively. (Social Media isn’t just about tweets and updates- it’s about relationships and content)
• And, of course, Social Media Safety…..

- This topic literally has no end. As technology evolves, internet safety may be called social media safety, or mobile safety or something else. Imagine what your 13 year-old daughter will be able to do with her mobile phone just 10 years from now.

- Could/Would this be a new curriculum in schools five years from now?

- Maybe my wife was right, I should add this to Dialogue’s list of services?….  :-)