Togetherville is a new online social network aimed at kids aged 6 to 10. The basic premise is that kids, with their parents’ help, can set up their own online neighborhood with friends and relatives and develop “a whole new set of skills to become responsible digital citizens.” Kids can post their own status from a pre-approved list created by the makers of Togetherville, buy digital gifts for their friends at the kid-friendly price of 25-50 cents, and use various online apps to create art, play games, watch videos, and send messages to their friends. Mom and dad can see everything that happens, and as members of their child’s community even have the dubious pleasure of tapping into the Hanna Montana and Justin Beiber videos, movie clips and other sponsored video content found throughout the site.
It was the buzz in the agency last week, as various people weighed in on its value to parents, kids and marketers (eek!).
The big question was this: Do kids really need a training ground for social networking?
Back in January, I wrote my first App Spotlight blog post here on Logical Juice, about Foursquare. Since then it has become one of the most popular apps available across all mobile platforms, and is now only days away from hitting the 1 million registered users mark.
The popularity of the app gave rise to last week’s first annual Foursquare Day, the first globally recognized grass-roots celebration of the power of social media…
And I was lucky enough to have received an invitation to join in the festivities.
In our increasingly smartphone-entrenched world, the mobile application extensions of our social networking-entangled lives can make or break a user experience. Twitter as a network depends on the user development of mobile and desktop applications to keep participation thriving. In some cases, app developers attempt to provide a seamless brand experience between the desktop and mobile world, while often the very best apps focus primarily on the screen for which they are developed. For mobile Twitter users, custom design for ease of use is paramount. Beyond the individual, an organization’s conversation managers need to be properly equipped, connected and ready to go.
No matter the platform, there are literally dozens of apps to choose from, making it a painful finger stroll through any given app store. To make things a bit easier for you, we’ve compiled some of our thoughts on a few of the Twitter apps currently available.
Advertisers everywhere are prognosticating the future of mobile advertising in modern integrated marketing. In this edition of Conversatiated, Media Logic Account Supervisors Josh Martin and Fred Ulrich share their perspectives on the evolution of mobile advertising in a conversation-centric world.
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard all the “buzz” about Google’s latest announcement. Buzz is Google’s (late) entry into the oversaturated social networking game, predominately ruled by Twitter and Facebook. Buzz is built into Gmail, so once you’re logged into your account, you’re automatically connected to all of your contacts that you email/chat with. You’re then able to post and share your status updates either publicly or privately, check in to a location, and share photos and videos. Basically, Google wants you to think it’s streamlined what all the other social networks (you’re already using) do into one simple and familiar interface.
However, I’m still not convinced.
Restaurateurs get ready, your menus are mobile and there’s an app for that, seize the opportunity!
