Category Archives: Social Media

I’m sure you’ve seen it on Facebook. I’ve seen it at least 30 times in my feed this morning.

“Oh no! Instagram changed their terms of service and they can now sell my photos!”

First off, I’m actually impressed that people are reading their Terms of Service. (Hey, you guys know Facebook pretty much owns all your stuff anyway, right?)

Here’s the new line in the TOS:

You agree that a business may pay Instagram to display your photos in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions without any compensation to you.

Here’s the thing – Facebook is already doing this to you. I can’t tell you how many times I look over in my right column and see that one of my friends has Liked a page or Purchased something, and it even shows their photo. The first time it happened it was jarring – did my friend give that company the right to use their profile photo? Well no. But we did give that right to Facebook to use in their sponsored posts.

That folks, is what Instagram can do. You’re not going to be seeing your cool photo on the side of a bus or denigrated at a bus stop beside a weeks-old movie poster. Instagram can’t change your photo, modify your photos, or drop their logo on it. In fact, as the Verge puts it:

Well, an advertiser can pay Instagram to display your photos in a way that doesn’t create anything new — so Budweiser can put up a box in the timeline that says “our favorite Instagram photos of this bar!” and put user photos in there.

Again, Facebook has already been doing this to you for months. Yet, we tend to eventually accept all that Facebook does to us because our worlds are often on Facebook.

Thanks to The Verge for clearing that up. Guess their news feed was overrun as well.

UPDATE: Instagram says “Thank you and we’re listening.” They’ll be re-wording their policy soon, so that the legalese is less confusing.

According to reports in today’s WSJ, social networks are beginning to show important return on investments. For example:

Hospital network Texas Health Resources has reduced the incidence of hospital-acquired urinary tract infections by 30% thanks to the use of collaboration software.

Tyco was able to win a huge contract thanks to information gleaned through its social network that had previously taken an employee six months to search for without any luck.

The Red Robin restaurant chain was able to share customer feedback on a new product vital to the success of its new strategy among managers and assistant managers at its 465 locations.

Companies continue to find creative and innovative ways to connect their employees and customers using social technology. The days of CEOs and CIOs being wary of social utilities in the workplace are quickly fading in light of metrics that show real business results.

Popchips  the top selling line of popped chips and one of the fastest growing snack brands in the u.s., today announced a month long mobile fashion truck tour, giving snack fanatics the opportunity to dress like a popstar, and snack like one too.

Following the lead from the gourmet food trucks that brought high-end eats to the masses, PopChips teams up with the Bay Area’s first fashion truck, topshelf boutique, to add some flavor to fall for fashionistas of all ages. just in time for the holidays, PopChips presents an exclusive pop-up mobile fashion truck shopping and snacking experience. snackers are invited to pop over to one of the 34 local stops and check out nor cal’s premiere fashion truck, get the popstar look with hand selected affordable styles, get poppin’ with music and prizes all while snacking on complimentary popchips, of course.

The PopChips pop-up fashion truck will make 34 stops throughout northern california including a launch event at BloodHound in San Francisco on Thursday, November 1 from 5-8:00 p.m. During the month of November the truck will pop up at local retailers like whole foods and nugget markets, college and corporate campuses and local neighborhood hotspots from San Francisco to San Jose to Sacramento and beyond. The last two days of the tour are reserved for a “people’s choice pop-up” where fans can suggest the final three locations. for an up to date schedule of where the pop-up fashion truck will be, visit popchips.com/fashiontruck; to view popstar inspired looks by topshelf, visit flickr.com/photos/topshelf_boutique.

what: popchips northern ca pop-up fashion truck tour

when: kicking off on thursday, november 1 from 5 – 8:00 p.m.; additional events extend throughout the month of november

where: kick-off party at bloodhound
1145 folsom st at 7th
san francisco, ca
www.bloodhoundsf.com

who: www.popchips.com/fashiontruck and www.topshelfboutique.com

cost: free

With Halloween less than a week away, this weekend will likely be a big hit amongst costume, candy and party lovers. When you’re out and about celebrating, don’t forget to check-in to your favorite location based application.

Foursquare launched a series of badges, pictured below, that encourage users to check-in to the Halloween festivities they participate in. In order to receive a badge you need to wish friends “Happy Halloween” when checking-in and are welcome to share a picture while rocking out Gangnam Style, showing off your Katniss inspired look or any other costume you choose to wear this year. The company is also offering an extra treat if more than 10 friends check-in together at one location.

Although not all users are incentivized purely by pretty badges, those that are will enjoy the latest additions to their badge collection over the next few days. Have a safe and happy Halloween!

This last weekend, the San Francisco Giants played their hardest and entered into the World Series running.

Monster Products loves the Giants so much, they created limited edition Inspiration Orange headphones and gave them to the players.

As you can see (left) Gregor Blanco, Angel Pagan and Joaquin Aris couldn’t leave the locker room without tweeting a picture of them in the locker room!