The Bees Awards is the first international social media marketing awards for marketing professionals. The jury is composed by 20 of the most renowned experts from 15 different countries. The event will take place at The Legion of Honor in San Francisco on May 3, 2011 at 6:30PM and will be live-streamed. You will find more information at http://www.beesawards.com.

With over 23 categories, to be presented to some of the top social media marketing professionals.

Join Timothy Jordan (host), Developer Advocate at Google for a night of excellence.

Tickets can be purchased at http://beesawards2011.eventbrite.com

SoundCloud, the Berlin-based open platform for audio sharing on the web and mobile devices keeps making noise. During the past six months it’s grown from 1 Million to 2 Million users, having attracted both Snoop Dog and Justin Bieber as customers. To keep up with its fast growth in order to become the leader in audio hosting and sharing, as to establish its US presence and the San Francisco office, it needs more fuel to execute. The rumors of raising new funding ($10 Million) were confirmed today, and we can congratulate Union Square Ventures with Fred Wilson and Index Ventures with Mike Volpi for joining the SoundCloud journey together with its prior investor Doughty Hanson Ventures.

I’ve been a fangirl of Soundcloud since its private beta, and long before Spotify Social came along, SoundCloud had been my home for music discovery. Citysounds.fm is still one of my favourite apps, perfect to discover new music from different cities. And now, with the new updated iPhone app, I finally get access to my SoundCloud favourite tracks list streaming nicely on the background. What. A. Relief.

Something tells me that my perfect world scenario, where I can check-in and discover the best food, music and places recommendations all in one isn’t that far away in the future…

Record Your Tunes, Sounds, Talks And Thoughts On The Fly

While doubling its user base, SoundCloud has also been busy developing its latest feature, The Record Button. With the new updated iPhone app with recording and instant upload and sharing features, SoundCloud makes sure you can easily capture and share any audio where ever you are. Like YouTube is for video. Alexander Ljung, Founder and CEO of SoundCloud, cleverly demoed the app in action at LeWeb’10. (Reminder: Just make sure you always have the latest update not to lose any precious sounds coming your way.)

Not an Apple fangirl or boy? There’s an Android app for you. When the new Mac App Store launched for two day ago, so did the SoundCloud Desktop app for Mac, placing itself as steady number 8 on the top 12 list.

With the Record button on both the desktop and mobile devices, SoundCloud now takes the leap into the space of audio sharing platforms such as Audioboo and Cinch, a service frequently used by Robert Scoble when interviewing people.

API Is The New Marketing and Product Development Model

Besides from being one of my favourite startup entrepreneurs, Eric Wahlforss, Co-founder and CTO of SoundCloud, is also a person I enjoy to listen on stage. I had the pleasure of moderating Eric’s session “SoundCloud’s API Learnings“ at Disruptive Code developer conference back in September. With over 100 third party developer apps, Eric and his team have a deep understanding on how to empower, as the value of being empowered by, third party developers. It’s no co-incidence that Music Hack Day unconferences were started by SoundCloud. If you’re running or building service online, this is the presentation you can NOT afford to pass in order to understand why open API is the future model of marketing, product development and should be part of your core business.

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She is also a mentor for startups at Seedcamp. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Connect with her on Twitter, LinkedIn,
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

By Julie Blaustein

Don’t miss the Social Email Marketing Event to be held in San Francisco that will bring together marketing experts, email companies and brands to discuss integrated email and social media campaigns. It will be held one day on September 17, 2010 from 9 am to 5:30 pm at Hotel Nikko.

Join our very own Brian Solis and friends for a day of insights into how to integrate social media and email.

• Dan Martell – Flowtown
• Mani Iyer – Kwanzoo
• Chris McCann – The StartUp Digest
• Mark Schmulen – Constant Contact
• Kristin Hersant – Strongmail
• Kath Pay – The Email Academy
• Murray Newlands – Influencer People
• Chase McMichael – InfiniGraph.com
• Jennifer Neeley Lindsay – The “A” List on BlogTalk Radio
• Marissa Louie – HeroEx

This one day conference offers expert-led guidance on how to engage with customers via email and social media, including tips on how to maximize the impact of your campaigns, insights into new tools and services, how to monitor and measure the results, and trends to watch out for. This is the ultimate event for anyone interested in combining email with social media marketing.

Book Tickets here and HURRY as the Early Bird is only available until September 3rd!

I make no secret that I’m a fan of Verizon’s Android phone line – and I appreciate that they let me test out a lot of the gadgets. However, I get a lot of questions about the NAME. I spent 30 minutes once explaining to someone the difference between their HTC Hero Android phone and a Verizon Droid Eris – all due to naming. So Verizon, I may really like your stuff – but I question the naming convention you’ve gotten yourself into.

So here goes …

Droid is a product line of Android (Google) operating system phones from Verizon. If it’s not from Verizon, it may indeed be an Android OS, but it’s not a Droid. For instance, the Sprint EVO and Hero are both running Android OS. However, they are not Droids. A Droid phone has to be Verizon and run Android OS, but can be made by anyone. Right now, Verizon has good relationships with Motorola and HTC.

To make things slightly more confusing, the first phone released in the Verizon Droid line of phones was … the Motorola Droid. Yeah, I know. It’s basically the Droid Droid.

Verizon also has the HTC Droid Eris, the HTC Droid Incredible, the Motorola Droid X, and the Motorola Droid 2. I think the Motorola Droid Devour is still available as well. Where does it get really confusing? Well, I’m not exactly sure where the Android-based LG Ally falls. Is it a Droid or just an LG?

So, is your T-Mobile MyTouch a Droid? Nope, it’s an Android phone. Is your original Motorola Droid a Droid? Yep, because it’s from Verizon.

I know this seems a bit simplistic, but the amount of times I’m asked this question is a bit out of control. So when you see those Droid Does commercials from Verizon, just remember that even if your Android phone isn’t a Droid, it still probably does a lot of what the ad mentions. In my opinion, apps really help make a phone, and those are available to all Androids.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by one of her day jobs.

I’ve been thinking about the Demand Media IPO story in the context of how it affects the publishing industry and I’ve come to this conclusion. While SEO plays get search traffic, it’s unlikely readers really trust the source.

Think about it. If you’re looking for an answer, would you rather get a penny-per-word article with all the right keywords, or do you want info from the people who offer you useful solutions?

When an article gives me the answers I want, I’m happy.  When I’m happy I not only bookmark it, share it and add it to my feeds, but I also return to it again and again. These are the trusted web experiences that leave me open to recommendations.

So for me, content mills get the clicks, and well-curated stories and editorial teams get my advocacy and referral dollars. That being said, there’s stiff competition amongst trusted web properties — and speed and quantity sadly still play a role in who’ll earn the most ad revenue.

I just wrote a post on ways good publishers can increase their output while maintaining their quality. I’d like to continue collecting these sorts of resources and adding to this one. If you’re interested in seeing the superior signals rise above the noise, and you’ve got articles or topics to suggest, ping me (@suzyperplexus) or let us all know about them in the comments below.

How does the advertising industry get more involved with social media? By making a deal. Omniture has strengthened its partnership with Facebook to allow for the retrieval and study of more consumer data surrounding the behavior of Facebook users. The idea is to extend more optimized solutions for marketers looking to tap into Facebook’s large and still-growing user base.

The deal will first focus on the automation of Facebook media-buying, as well as providing access to analytics measuring customer engagement. The idea, however, is for the two companies to expand their relationship even further down the line. According to TechCrunch, that could very well mean some enhancements to Onmiture’s SearchCenter Plus, which is a client search engine tool for marketing management. It aids in purchasing Facebook Ads that will offer the best return for advertisers on the vast social network.

Acquired by Adobe for $1.8 billion last year, Omniture will also be able to offer side-by-side metrics for Facebook and its other media channels, giving greater recommendations on how to best spread a given marketing campaign within the social media realm. This is a powerful tool for marketers, as the ability to dig into the data surrounding consumer behavior is a major obstacle towards the development of social media-integrated advertising.

As the very nature of advertising changes with the growing adoption of social media, consumer data and behavior is key to segmenting the necessary demographics. With advertising having to take on new methods of accessing users effectively, there will need to be more cooperation from the soical networks themselves. Of course, this really just boils down to Facebook being able to better monetize its users and their activity. All that free social networking going on, something’s gotta give.

More and more advertisers and brands are seeking ways in which to creatively integrate their message with user activity, which can sometimes be quite convenient on the users’ end. Other times, as with Facebook Beacon, the users fight back with a vengance. As Facebook continuously seeks the medium between its own initatives and the concerns of its consumers, there’s always room for improvement and backlash.

Yet deeper analytics for Facebook activity is increasingly important as Facebook looks to centralize even more of your behavior on the site. Facebook has already launched a hefty virtual goods marketplace, and it’s now looking to implement a site-wide currency that would simplify and aggregate a lot of what’s already taking place on its platform. In many ways this is a good development, particularly as such centralization makes it easier for users to interact with Facebook apps, as well as each other.

From my various mobile-oriented posts, you know that I’ve been playing with a lot of Verizon phones. In the beginning, I was pretty convinced that I was going to end up with a Pre no matter what. But Verizon has very smartly kept me testing out phones until the one they knew I’d want was released. I’m amazingly excited about the the new Motorola Android phone coming out at the end of the month. It’s been called the Sholes and the Tao, and they finally settled on Droid.

Verizon has really taken square aim at AT&T and the iPhone with their most recent ad campaigns. “There’s a map for that” makes me laugh routinely, considering how lousy my own AT&T service is. It’s worth noting that I have perfectly fine AT&T service – unless I’m in California, Ohio, and Kentucky. It was fine in Florida over the weekend.

But the ad campaign I’m really enamored by is the iDon’t/Droid Does campaign. They take on the iPhone and manage to cover everything I don’t like about my own iPhone (which are things that are perfect for other folks).

An Ad Age article wonders at whom the ads are aimed.

If the product and its message are crafted for a geeky and tech-savvy audience, though, the media buy is so far suggesting otherwise. Given how deep the commercial drills into the ways the iPhone falls short, experts said the messaging would mainly resonate with those in the deep know about the handset’s capabilities, which excludes the vast majority of people, iPhone owners included. These folks aren’t reading blogs about the latest and greatest smartphones, they said. Yet Verizon’s broadcasting of the message to viewers of a baseball playoff suggests the No. 1 wireless carrier wants to stir anticipation among a mainstream audience.

My gut feeling is that the ads are aimed at me: early adopters/geeks who are dissatisfied with their iPhones. There are enough of us. In fact, I think Verizon is banking on the fact that they have such a good network and that geeks everywhere will be interested in combining that network with an Open Source mobile phone. We’ll see how that pans out for Verizon.

What do you think about the new Droid ads? Interested in the new Motorola device? I have my fingers crossed I’ll be using one of these at the Social Media World Forum in November.

We all know that the right, easy to remember (and easy to type) domain name can be integral for marketing. One of my favorite tools for file/document storing and sharing is Dropbox. However, you could only access the Dropbox site through GetDropbox.com. You have no idea how many times I just typed Dropbox.com and got a 404 error.

TechCrunch is reporting, happily, that Dropbox now owns and operates Dropbox.com. So when you want your files from a PC that’s not your own, you now have an easy domain name to remember. Congrats Dropbox!

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.