| Scott Briscoe Digital Marketing Blog

Parenting Fills Faceboo...

Articles about natural disasters and parenting advice from CNN, Yahoo! News, the New York Times, and Huffington Post topped Facebook’s new list of the most shared articles of 2011 . Facebook measured which articles were Liked, Shared, or copy and pasted into the social network and found that subjects such as “Parents, don’t dress your girls like tramps” and “What teachers really want to tell parents” were the most popular, along with news about the Japan tsunami and rumored changes to zodiac sign arrangements. The list provides insight into Facebook’s user base, which skews more towards middle-aged parents than most expect. Unfortunately, it also illuminates our attraction to tragedy and aversion to real issues — only one article in the top 20 dealt with the financial crisis. With 800 million users, studying Facebook has become the best way to take the pulse of the world. It does exclude much of the world’s truly impoverished, but these people are difficult to poll at scale with any method. Outside of a bias towards those of higher socioeconomic class, and China’s absence, Facebook represents a relatively accurate cross section of the world’s demographics, making this study of most shared articles quite telling about both what the world is interested in, and what journalistic forms are most viral. Parenting was likely such a popular topic because the articles are relevant to both youngsters and middle-aged parents, two of Facebook’s biggest demographics. Surprisingly absent were articles aimed squarely at college students, indicating that Facebook has significantly diversified its user base from where it first started. Just one on how to attain a dream job cracked the list. Many of the top articles featured videos, including Parents, don’t dress your girls like tramps from CNN, and Father Daughter Dance Medley and At funeral, dog mourns the death of Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan from Yahoo. These types of posts are lucrative for news outlets, as the can charge advertisers high sums to run pre-rolls before the videos. 3 of the top 40 posts related to Steve Jobs, yet only one other entry discussed the passing of a celebrity, so maybe we’re not completely obsessed with death. And of course, posts focusing on animals faired well, as they represent a relaxing distraction that many browse the web in search for. This year’s list of most shared articles did not count automatic shares through Open Graph apps and websites. If included next year, we may get a more accurate look at what were in fact the most read articles, not just the most frequently shared. In a separate Developers Blog post , Facebook described the success of Open Graph news reader apps. Yahoo News’s site has increased Facebook referral traffic by 500% thanks to an Open Graph integration, and the The Independent now has 1 million monthly active users on its Open Graph Site. Some dedicated reader apps that live on Facebook are also finding success, as the Guardian now has nearly 4 million MAU with half under age 24, and the Washington Post has 3.5 million MAU, 83% of which are under age 35. Facebook may want to tout its ability to help news outlets reach younger readers. However, it may have actually revealed that younger users are more negligent, or at least less concerned, with their privacy controls. Older users may be shying away from Open Graph apps and sites that by default share each article they read.

Glam Media Launches Ric...

Glam Media , one of the largest publishing and advertising networks on the Web, is launching a new rich media ad creation platform for advertisers, called GlamSplash. According to Glam, the new canvas allows brand advertisers to deliver the effectiveness of the ’30-second’ TV spot across Glam’s properties. For background, Glam’s various publishing verticals have a reach of 200 million unique monthly visitors globally, and is particularly popular amongst female audiences. Glam Media has more than 2,500 publishers organized across multiple vertical categories online including Glam.com for Women, Glam Entertainment for Adults, Brash.com for Men and Bliss.com for health and wellness. Glam also announced the acquisition of Ning in September. Glam operates a web-based ad serving platform, Glam Adapt, as well as a recently launched mobile ad platform , GlamMobile. Previously, the company served rich media ads through these ad-serving platforms, but with GlamSplash, agencies can now both build and deliver rich media ads throughout Glam properties. GlamSplash’s ad campaigns run across many platforms, including desktop, mobile, and tablets. The canvas allows advertisers to include featured videos, moving images, and quality editorial created by brands. Advertisers can include GlamVideo, an in-stream, in-display and in-mobile video ad platform; optimize with HTML5; and integrate social sharing features within the ad unit. A number of brands are already using GlamSplash as the holiday shopping season approaches, including Timberland and BestBuy. It’s no secret that Glam is gearing up for an IPO in 2012 (the company has also hit $100 million in annual revenue). However, until the Ning acquisition closes, which is expected to close in the next few weeks, the IPO process is at a standstill.

YouTube Rolls Out Its N...

YouTube started experimenting with a new homepage last month, amping up its recommendation features so it would suggest new content you’re interested in. Today it has rolled out that experiemental homepage to all users. YouTube product manager Brian Glick tells us that the decision was made primarily because of positive user feedback, “Over 100,000 people filled out a survey, and most thought that the homepage is better now. Millions of people opted in, now we’re just putting it out to all the rest.” The whole thrust here seems to be increasing the recommendation aspect of the site for users who are logged in Their solution is bringing more of the videos you interact with to the fore. Says Glick, “What we’re trying to turn the homepage into a destination to go to when you don’t know what you want to watch. Now you personalized list of content that’s waiting for you.” YouTube includes a list of the new features on the previous experiment page, I’ve broken them down below. Combined list Don’t miss a video Delete anything and “grey out” Help me re-find stuff I just watched Easy inbox YouTube has removed some of the less popular impersonal features like “Videos Being Watched Now” and moved the “Spotlight” and “Featured Videos” sections over to the right side. This is part of an effort to make the left side of the homepage more personal to the users. Glick says that the new features are meant to hit three different dimensions of personalization: “Things you’ve told YouTube you like,”"Videos your friends have shared,” and “Videos YouTube thinks you like.” The new homepage focuses on serving up videos your friends have liked, channels you’re subscribed to and other things YouTube recommends based on your taste. The operative term here is YOU. “It’s part of our broader focus on how we can bridge the gap of going from 15 minutes a day to five hours a day” Glick explains, referring to how people usually spend 5 hours on television versus 15 minutes on YouTube. “We want to make this personalized experience follow you anywhere where there is a screen.”