Chris Brown, Facebook, and Marketing Online – Monday August 3rd Roundup

Today is BC day! BC’s Civic Holiday. That means we’re not in the office, folks, but here’s a roundup anyhow:

This week we have more Twitter statistics, the role of marketing on the internet, Slate on Facebook design, and Chris Brown viral videos.

• We start the week off with a fairly cool set of statistics: Why People Use Twitter. Pretty much tells us what we already knew: that 22% of twitter use is business related, and only 10% of users interact with brands.
• Next up, Twisted image on why digital marketing needs to collect information on people. I am unsure if his argument holds, given that it seems to be “this is the business model we have NOTHING ELSE WILL WORK!” I’m also detecting a touch of the same “we are the web” narcissism that the media lobbies have been putting out recently. Still, if you give him that advertising is the only way that a web project can exist, then hes right. But wait, that’s circular…
• Finally the New York Times on internet advertising and the scary amounts of information that advertisers have about us, and how they want more. Moral of the story? Plus Ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

• Nettuts has a neat piece on decoding the flickr API.

• Grokdotcom has some kind words about segmentation. They seem to suggest that there are people who don’t use segments. Really?
• Speaking of segmentation, our friends over at Get Elastic have a segment to track conversion rate over time.

• Wait, a Slate article in the roundup? More so, in the usability section? Slate has a great article on the usability faults of Facebook and the ways in which it can be fixed.
• Smashing takes a more direct approach to usability and looks at a number of ways to improve “read more” links.

• Google is excited about the monetization of Chris Browns “Forever” through a fan made video of a wedding. The song has seen massive sales since this went viral. Pretty neat, and it really demonstrates the power of a dedicated fan base.
• Finally Grokdotcom again, with a copywriters guide to framing. Good stuff to know, but even more so to understand when getting confronted with this kind of marketing.