Trendspotting: Short but Sweet
The Twitterverse is sucking us in: While 15 percent of U.S. adults report having used Twitter—a figure that remains relatively unchanged from 2011—the number of people who use it daily increased from 4 percent last year to 8 percent this year. But still, a recent U.S. poll revealed that Google is the most popular tech [...]
Aug 28, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Brands, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: 140 characters, Americans Twitter, Google, Japanese Twitter, Jennifer Egan, poll of Americans, Pulitzer Prize, Social Media, social media marketing, social media trends, SoMe, Sweden, Twitter, Twitter popularity, Twitter serialized story, Twitter traffic | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Public Face
Maybe you’ve heard? Facebook went public in mid-May. And it’s hardly been painless—28-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg reportedly lost more than $4 billion within two weeks of going public, effectively dashing him from the list of the world’s top 40 billionaires. The press dubbed the IPO “a disaster,” and though Facebook’s stock debuted at $42.05, it [...]
Aug 24, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Trends, Youth | Tags: digital divide, digital literacy, Facebook, Facebook public, Facebook trends, Federal Communications Commission, going public, Internet, IPO, Mark Zuckerberg, Social Media, social media trends, social media users, SoMe, technology trends | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Waste Not
In 2010, Americans alone used 38.6 billion glass bottles and 71.9 billion plastic bottles, recycling just 33 percent of the glass and 27 percent of the plastic. PepsiCo wants to increase the recycling rate to 50 percent by 2018 and is creating an incentive for its recycling push with bonus points rewarded to customers who [...]
Aug 13, 2012 | Categories:Advertising, Brainsnacks, CSR, Marketing, Social Media, Trends | Tags: advertising trends, Americans, Coca-Cola, CSR trends, Dream Machine Pepsi, Facebook, green trends, Honest Tea, marketing trends, Pepsi, PepsiCo, recycling, recycling trends, social media trends, The Great Recycle, Times Square | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: TMI
Turns out, people are more likely to share information that makes them feel awe, anger or anxiety—the very sort of information the sharer’s partner might not want them to disclose. And with online oversharing on the rise, TMI is inspiring sparring matches between more than a few couples. There are apparently even more people horrified [...]
Aug 09, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Marketing, Social Media, Trends | Tags: breast cancer, Consumer Reports, Facebook, Facebook privacy controls, HR, human resources, Hurricane Katrina, Instagram, online oversharing, oversharing, social media trends, Spotify, Susannah Breslin, TMI, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Tell All
Calling all gossip girls—and boys! While it’s true that both genders gossip, a recent study found that we gab about very different things—women about physical appearance and social information, and men about achievement-related topics. Most notably, the study revealed that the effects of gossip on female friendships and male friendships are very different; gossip helped [...]
Jul 30, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Technology, Trends | Tags: female friendship, friendship, friendship trends, gender differences, gossip, gossip trends, male friendship, psychology, small talk, social media trends, social mores, sociology, texting | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Our Wiki World
In the 11 years since it launched, Wikipedia has changed the world as we know it. Not only has the free, collaboratively edited encyclopedia redefined the meaning of “expert,” but it’s been blamed for everything from diminishing traditional journalism to killing Encyclopaedia Britannica. In any case, it’s being taken more seriously than ever: U.S. political [...]
Jul 12, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: Amazon, British government, British government Wikipedia, Congress, content, Google, information architecture, Jimmy Wales, Netflix, newscrafting, online reputation, Politics, Reddit, search engines, smartphones, social media trends, White House, Wikipedia, Wikipedia blacked out, Wikipedia blackout, writing Wikipedia pages | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Eternally Online
Nineteen thousand Facebookers die every day, and now that Facebook has launched Timeline, which begins at birth, there’s really only one logical way for it to end, in the words of Ross Andersen in The Atlantic, isn’t there? Modern-day philosophers say that our ritual of communicating with late loved ones, or even celebrities, by posting [...]
Jun 14, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Trends | Tags: Dead Soci.al, death, Facebook, Facebook death, Facebook timeline, Gmail, Google, identity, If I Die, philosophy, social media trends, social media will, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Parental Controls
In most countries, approximately half of parents say they have hacked into their teenager’s Facebook account; in the U.S., 60 percent of parents fess up to it, while in New Zealand, 44 percent say they’ve done it. In most cases, American parents go to greater lengths to keep tabs on a teen: 75 percent stay [...]
Jun 07, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Technology, Trends, Youth | Tags: adolescents, America, apps, digital footprint, digital music downloading, energy monitor, France, GPS tracker, Japan, New Zealand, parental snooping, parenting trends, pornography, privacy, privacy apps, Safely Phone Controls, safety apps, sexting, social media trends, social networking trends, TeddyCam, teenage trends, teenagers, United Kingdom | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Splitting Pairs
There seems to be an ever-growing number of us suddenly jonesing to have the ink dried on our divorce papers. In the U.S., the divorce rate of those over 50 is double what it was 20 years ago, while military couples are also splitting up in spades, with a 42 percent increase in divorces. Researchers [...]
Jun 06, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Trends | Tags: America, American economy, divorce, divorce gene, divorce trends, gray divorce, marriage trends, military couples, oxytocin, relationship trends, seniors divorcing, Social Media, social media trends, Sweden | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Code Read
QR (quick response) codes aren’t new (they’ve been used for years to track car parts in the auto industry), but they’re relatively new to most of us and their use is evolving quickly. After engineers realized that smartphones can serve as barcode readers, they encouraged marketers to rethink the phone as a means of instant [...]
May 30, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: America, automobile industry, England, funeral industry trends, Indiana, marketing trends, QR codes, real estate trends, scan to win, Social Media, social media trends, technology trends, tombstone company | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Better, Faster, Longer
Just when we think our criminally short attention spans have altered the advertising ecosystem forever, this happens: During the Super Bowl, Chrysler screened a much-buzzed-about two-minute ad starring Clint Eastwood; during the Grammys, Chipotle aired a two-minute-and-20-second animated commercial. Then, on one ordinary Sunday night, Cartier takes to three networks to unleash a three-and-a-half-minute ad [...]
Apr 19, 2012 | Categories:Advertising, Brainsnacks, Fashion, Marketing, Politics, Social Media, Trends | Tags: advertising trends, Barack Obama, Cartier, Chanel, Chipotle, Chrysler, documentaries, fashion trends, Grammys, H&M, long-form advertisement, marketing study, Miu Miu, online trends, political ads, Shalom Harlow, social media trends, Super Bowl, television advertising, Topshop, Vimeo, viral videos, YouTube, YouTube video | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Buzz Words
Yes, it’s true—one of the earliest entries into social media has quietly been building in presence and influence: In the past five years, the number of existing blogs has more than quadrupled. Most bloggers are women, parents, college-educated, between the ages of 18-34 and active in social media. And a large majority of blog readers [...]
Apr 16, 2012 | Categories:Advertising, Brainsnacks, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: blog buzz, blog traffic, bloggers, blogging, blogging trends, blogs, building blog buzz, Pinterest, Posterous, social media trends, social networking, Tumblr, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Something Borrowed, Lots of New
As the global economy picks up, couples galore are setting wedding dates for 2012, following long betrothals. But with money worries still on our minds, the consensus says “saving money” is the biggest wedding trend this year. That’s not necessarily bad news, as this year’s wedding may be less stuffy, with brides favoring easygoing affairs [...]
Feb 29, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Fashion, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: breast lift, bridalplasty, bride and groom, Facebook, Kate Middleton, liposuction, love, marriage, marryoke, plastic surgery, Prince William, relationships, royal wedding, social media trends, Twitter, wedding dresses, wedding trends | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Over Divulging
As Facebook prepares to go public, one journalist suggested that, in homage to its transparent nature, “TMI” be adopted as its stock ticker symbol. Works for us, especially considering there has been so much wince-worthy social media activity of late. Some doozies in particular: A woman used Twitter to hash out the good, the bad [...]
Feb 21, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: 50 Cent, Advertising, Facebook, hashtag, oversharing, Sinead O’Connor, Social Media, social media trends, Technology, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Waking Stream
With 89 million Americans tuning in to online radio each month, you’ve likely not had a Spotify-free Facebook feed since … well, September 2011, which is when Mark Zuckerberg officially integrated the streaming music service with Facebook. (Spotify, too, is run by a young entrepreneur: “The most important man in music,” 28-year-old Daniel Ek.) Hot [...]
Feb 15, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks | Tags: Adele, Coldplay, Daniel Ek, Facebook, Forbes, Mark Zuckerberg, MOG, music industry, music trends, Pandora, pop culture trends, Rdio, record labels, social media trends, Spotify, The Black Keys | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Heavy on the Spam
Newly single Ashton Kutcher tweeted about sleeping over with a girlfriend, the Huffington Post tweeted its affection for the New York Post, “Modern Family”’s Eric Stonestreet tweeted about miracle diet pills, and singer Nicole Scherzinger tweeted her support of Ron Paul, as did bands No Doubt and Rise Against. If any of these tweets left [...]
Feb 01, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: Ashton Kutcher, Nicole Scherzinger, No Doubt, Social Media, social media trends, social spam, spam, Technology, the Huffington Post, Twitter, Twitter hacking, Twitter hijacking | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Web Fix
Ever experienced a peculiar surge of elation when you watch the “likes” pile up on one of your Facebook statuses? This particular joy—triggered by, say, a small video-game victory, clever tweet or kind text message—is probably derived from the neurotransmitter dopamine, which sets our brains’ pleasure circuits ablaze. More scientists today are comparing this biological [...]
Jan 24, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM, email, Facebook, Internet, Internet addiction, Internet Compulsion Disorder, pathological Internet misuse, psychology, smartphone, Social Media, social media trends, sociology, Technology, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Attention, Abbreviated
In just a decade’s time, the average attention span has plummeted from 12 minutes to five minutes; considering that the average office worker checks his email inbox 30 to 40 times an hour, we can see why. Social media looks to be “drastically changing” the way our brains work, resulting in folks who are more [...]
Jan 11, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Trends | Tags: attention span, bad credit, brain, change, credit, Facebook, Facebook brand pages, infographic, psychology, Social Media, social media trends, technology trends, Year of the Brain, YouTube | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: For Your Eyes Only
Mark Zuckerberg would have you believe that we’re sharing more personal information online today than ever because we’re now in “complete control” over who gets access to it. The Facebook founder recently took to Facebook’s blog to address the site’s settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which determined that Facebook deceived consumers over the years [...]
Jan 05, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Trends | Tags: ACLU, Amazon, Congress, corporate responsibility, Facebook, Federal Trade Commission, FTC, individual responsibility, Kindle Fire, Mark Zuckerberg, privacy, social media trends, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
Trendspotting: Payback Time
Being obnoxious online now comes with a price. This year, two English football players were fined for posting homophobic tweets; a Swansea University student was sentenced to 56 days in jail for posting racist tweets about an ailing British footballer; an Indiana high school student was expelled after tweeting an F-bomb; and a U.S. Marine [...]
Jul 06, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Social Media, Trends | Tags: ACLU, anonymous commenting, Australia Facebook, California, cyberbullying, Daytona 500, Fabrice Muamba, Facebook, Liam Stacey, Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Marine Twitter, Occupy Wall Street, online commenting, Social Media, social media accountability, social media punishment, social media trends, SoMe, Suneel Mehta, Swansea University, Trayvon Martin, Twitter | Leave A Comment »