A few weeks back I was trying to work out how to analyze a Tumblr’s performance – a long-standing issue for everyone, particularly within the fashion industry. Short of cataloging every note and post by hand, there isn’t any tool out there that solves for this problem and so a few days ago I, along with my colleague Vladimir Pick, set out to build our own. It’s called Numblr. It was conceived, launched, and in use by others in four days. What follows is a reflection on our process. Read more

“This new report says our social brand health and Facebook IQ are at a two out of ten. We need to do something – now!” This is obviously an exaggeration. But doesn’t it sound a little familiar?

Americans spend as much time online as they do watching TV, and 23% of that time is on social networks, according to Forrester and Nielsen. Brands feel an urgency to capitalize on this behavior and the copious amounts of data generated by it. Many companies view analyzing data about social behavior as a key growth area; as a result, a variety of services, social metrics, and indexes of social business are popping up. Read more

The increase in the number of cars on the road over the past few decades has created headaches for everyone, from drivers to transportation planners and law enforcement. Advances in digital technology over the past several years, however, have made driving in some places less of a pain. For instance, digital signage on busy roads can alert drivers of alternate routes if there is an accident up ahead. Automakers have been working on Adaptive Cruise Control technology to help regulate your car’s speed in relation to the ones around you. GPS systems now plan your routes based on real time traffic data pulled from sensors, news stations, and other drivers over time.

But a well connected network is only part of the solution to chronic traffic issues. For the past few years, drivers have been using tools that largely focus on making each individual user’s life easier, when we really need to be moving toward innovation designed to make the system as a whole more efficient. And for this to fully work, people must then learn to use new technologies in less self-interested (and more responsible) ways. Read more

Hiding content behind a “Like-wall” is killing the value of a Facebook Like. In pursuit of accumulating as many Likes as possible, many brands (including big names like Oreo, Red Bull, and Angry Birds) are making it compulsory to click the blue thumbs-up in order to access content. In doing so, these brands are eroding the value of the Like and damaging their own social presence.

Likes are valuable as a measurable demonstration of consumer interest – no matter how superficial, imperfect, or imprecise that measure might be. Proposed as campaign goals and reported by social media monitors, many see Likes as a form of brand equity, created by the connections between brands and their fans. Likes are public proclamations of affinity that, in volume, boost the public reputation of brands, so it makes sense that a higher number might correlate to greater brand value. Read more

The Facebook S-1 filing provided the first detailed look into the finances and workings of the social networking giant. Estimates about the forthcoming IPO suggest the company will be valued somewhere in the vicinity of $75 Billion dollars. Undercurrent Strategist Joanna Beltowska took a look at what that sort of money could buy you, and put together the neat chart below.

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